Vince Hankes
Partner, Thrive Capital. On 1 show, 1 appearance, plus 1 compilation re-air not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investor
Vince Hankes is a Partner at Thrive Capital, where he has led investments in companies including OpenAI, Melio, and Airplane.dev. Before joining Thrive Capital, he served as an investor at Tiger Global.
1shows
1appearances
29statements
1resolved
1supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
9said about them ↓ Everything Vince Hankes said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Hanks: Betting on startups directly competing with fast-moving incumbents is risky
“If you're going toe-to-toe right now with an incumbent on their home turf and their shipping, I think it's a hard bet to take the opposite side of, you know, in our business.”
Hankes: Many Venture Capital Firms Passed on Investing in OpenAI
“Well, you know, I think there's a lot of people that said no. So at the end of the day, I, you know, there, as much as I like to think we want a really competitive deal, I do think It was not obvious to everybody, and even now I don't think it's still obvious …”
Hankes: Disrupting Google Search Is a Trillion-Dollar Opportunity
“We're not talking about building the next unicorn or decacorn. We're talking about disrupting search or Google. I mean, that's a trillion dollar opportunity.”
Hankes: AI Moats Will Be Ecosystems, Not Model Outputs, Within Five Years
“I do think, again, the dimension by which people are going to think about this in five years from now, looking back, isn't going to be about The commoditization of the model and the raw output, it's going to be, oh, the ecosystem around the model has become mu…”
Hankes: AI Startups Will Struggle to Compete With Fast-Shipping Incumbents
“And so if you're a startup, I get that you have the advantage of speed, but you need a multi-year execution window to be able to take advantage of all that product you can ship quickly. If these big companies are able to ship this quickly, they've got so much …”
Hankes: Bet on Startups Creating Novel User Experiences Over Incumbents
“Yes, if you're going toe to toe right now with an incumbent on their home turf and their shipping, I think it's a hard bet to take the opposite side of, you know, in our business. But if you're creating something that's totally a different user experience that…”
Hankes: Most AI Value Will Accrue to Applications, Not Infrastructure
“I have to believe it's gonna accrue mostly to the application layer. I think if you think about infrastructure companies as platforms, you know, if you think about the software market as the relatives, the value of AWS and Microsoft and Google cloud versus the…”
Hankes: Thrive Separates From Quantitative Rigor for High-Upside Bets
“We're able to kind of separate ourselves from the kind of quantitative rigor that, you know, we rely on for a lot of investments we do and hold the tension of what could go right.”
Hankes: Waiting for Clear Proof in Tech Means Getting Priced Out
“The scalability properties of what they have built are so good that, you know, we'd rather bet on the compounding upside of that scalability Than sit on the sidelines because once it's clear, it'll get priced up very quickly.”
Hanks: Top AI talent remains heavily concentrated in big tech
“If you think about where the best talent in AI is right now, I think it's open AI. And then I think everyone would tell you it is Google and Facebook and Microsoft and Amazon. And maybe there are folks that have kind of dripped their way into the startup ecosy…”
Hanks: Startups creating entirely new user experiences will beat incumbents
“But if you're creating something that's totally a different user experience that no incumbent has today, I'd bet on a startup 10 times out of 10 in that case.”
Hankes: Early AI Startups Were Thin Wrappers Around Underlying Models
“Many of these companies and we spent a bunch of time with them and we kind of kept coming back to the fact that they were thin user experiences on top of this cool thing, which was this model”
Hankes: Sam Altman Pitched OpenAI Round With Closed GPT-4 Demos
“The way we kicked off the round was he did almost like a closed demo with lots of investors on a couple of calls of the technology they're working on and ultimately in GPT-IV.”
Hankes: AI's World-Transforming Impact Equals iPhone, AWS, and Google
“But the technology, if you really think about it and the zeitgeist it's captured, I mean, it is of that elk, in my opinion, of the transformation it can have of the world.”
Hankes: Resource-Constrained Startups Shouldn't Build Open-Source AI Infrastructure
“And some companies will choose that path, but by and large for the vast majority of companies, particularly ones that have scarce resources, which are many of the ones I work with, you know, I don't want you spending time building infrastructure and scaling op…”
Hankes: Best AI Talent Remains Heavily Clustered in Big Tech
“If you think about where the best talent in AI is right now, I think it's OpenAI, And then I think you'd, everyone would tell you it is Google and Facebook and Microsoft and Amazon. And maybe there are folks that have kind of dripped their way into the startup…”
Hankes: VCs Should Withhold Capital Until AI Product Value Becomes Clear
“If you're really answering that question, you're struggling because you think in two weeks from now, there's a chance that the customer doesn't care or the product won't have any value. Well, that's hard to build a company around. And so in any of those enviro…”
Hankes: OpenAI Delayed GPT-4 Release by Five Months for Safety Testing
“On GPT four, we saw the demo in the fall. They didn't just release the product then they took, I think four or five months To test and learn about safety in the edges of the model and then ultimately released it to the world.”
Hankes: Regulators Have Successfully Brought Themselves Up to Speed on Crypto
“Regulators, I've been impressed with how up to speed they've gotten on crypto, and they've really taken time to learn about it.”
Hankes: Iconic Companies Always Get Priced Ahead and Look Cheap Later
“No iconic company, you know, at least that we've been a part of, was it clear and obvious in the early days of that technology, they always get priced well ahead. And they look cheap in hindsight because they defy the gravity of the model.”
Hankes: Many VC Firms Lack Structure for Massive, High-Risk Investments
“And frankly, I think there are a lot of firms that Could not have done this because their organizations are not set up to make these kinds of big decisions.”
Hankes: Tiger Global Passed on Canva by Misapplying Enterprise Software Metrics
“When I was at Tiger, I flew out to Sydney and spent a bunch of time with the Canva team in person. And, you know, it's obviously now people know about it. It's a remarkable company at the time. It was much smaller than it is now. And At the same time, we were …”
Hankes: Only Customer and Product Questions Matter for Any Company
“There's only two questions that matter for a company. Who is the customer and what is the product? And you'd be shocked at how many folks can't really answer that question with clarity.”
Hankes: Asking Operator-Level Questions Fosters Deeper Founder Empathy
“The way we'd ask that same question is, if I'm a SDR on your sales team and I'm trying to qualify a prospect, you know, what am I looking for? At the end of the day, it's really the same question. You could even argue that the way we do it at Thrive is less ef…”
The other half of the tape: Vince Hankes's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 9 times in 4 episodes across the shows. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 9
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20VC 9
2025 7 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- BVP Partner, Byron Deeter: The Future of Venture - Why Chanel vs Walmart is BS · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Bucky Moore @ Lightspeed Venture Partners: Why You Cannot Do VC If You Do Not Do Pre-Seed · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Carvana CEO & Co-Founder, Ernest Garcia: Building a $50B Company, Losing 99% and Coming Back · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2025, scene by scene →
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Vince's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Partner, Thrive Capital | 1 +1 | 29 | 100% 1/1 | full record on 20VC → |