Vinod Khosla
Founder, Khosla Ventures. On 5 shows, 7 appearances, plus 2 compilation re-airs not counted. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorfounderexecutive@vkhosla ↗LinkedIn ↗khoslaventures.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
He is the founder of Khosla Ventures and previously co-founded Sun Microsystems, serving as its founding CEO, and Daisy Systems. He spent nearly two decades as a general partner at Kleiner Perkins and has been an early investor in companies such as OpenAI, DoorDash, and Stripe.
5shows
7appearances
142statements
13resolved
8supported
1contradicted
62%fully supported
179said about them ↓ Everything Vinod Khosla said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Khosla: Open-source AI models will die due to massive training costs
“It is costing an order of magnitude more to train, and that's why I don't think open source models will be viable because of the training costs.”
Khosla: Most VC Board Members Are Unqualified to Advise Founders
“In fact, I would suggest that most board members, just because they went to business school and joined a venture firm, are not qualified to advise an entrepreneur. They're not qualified to challenge an entrepreneur. They're not even qualified to help them judg…”
Khosla: 90% of VCs add no value, 70% add negative value
“I think, 90% of investors add no value. In my assessment, 70% of investors add negative value to a company.”
Khosla: Public internet wouldn't use TCP/IP without Juniper Networks
“And I do believe if Pradeep Sindhu and I hadn't started Juniper, there would be no TCP IP in the public internet.”
Khosla: AI will do 80% of 80% of jobs in 3-5 years
“Almost certainly, with no doubt, there isn't a job where AI won't be able to do 80% of 80% of all jobs. So, 80% of all jobs, AI will be able to do most of it within the next three to five years.”
Khosla: A 10-person company will hit $1B in revenue within ten years
“And sometime in the next 10 years, we will see a company with a billion dollars of revenue that has only 10 employees.”
Khosla: BPO and software IT services will mostly disappear
“I think it's very, you know, BPO as a business will disappear. Software IT services will mostly disappear. Disappear means transform pretty radically.”
Khosla: Open source AI models will not be viable due to training costs
“It is costing an order of magnitude more to train, and that's why I don't think open source models will be viable because the training costs.”
Khosla: AI will eventually make almost all professional human expertise essentially free
“One of my big forecasts is almost all expertise will be free.”
Khosla: Preventing MAGA extremists from destroying democracy is our most important issue
“I would say there's a bunch of MAGA extremists in every part of society, and I hope we can prevent them from destroying democracy, which is probably the most important issue we face.”
Khosla: Nuclear fusion will demonstrate net positive energy by 2025 or 2026
“I believe demonstrating positive energy by 25, maybe 26, will be also 10 X faster.”
Khosla: OpenAI's AGI Could Eliminate the Need for Human Work
“OpenAI is going after a big, hairy, audacious goal of building an AGI. That, to me, is worth pursuing as an investment, but also for society. It may eliminate the need to work for society, Lots of issues there, but it could be really, really exciting if it wor…”
Khosla: California wouldn't have 25% EV adoption without Elon Musk
“I don't believe if we'd have electric cars dominant today, be 25% of our car, all car sales in California today if Elon hadn't made that world happen.”
Khosla: Listening to customers is terrible for revolutionary innovation
“Listening to their customers, which is a good habit if you're trying to be incremental, a really bad thing if you're trying to be revolutionary.”
Khosla: Most cars in most cities will be eliminated by 2050
“So one of my goals in my lifetime is to eliminate most cars in most cities. So if we put a 25 year metric on that, by twenty-fifty, we should be able to eliminate that. Now, there isn't another person in the world who told me that's reasonable. I'm pretty sure…”
Khosla: AI tutors will outperform the most expensive private human teachers
“The AI will do a better job than the most expensive tutor or teacher you can hire for your kids if you're rich and can afford anything.”
Khosla: AI will give Indian villages better cardiac care than Stanford
“A village in India, I will get better cardiac advice, cardiac care, than I can get at Stanford, because Stanford will still, in 15 years, have their cardiologists, and in the village, there'll be AI. Almost certainly true.”
Khosla: Global income redistribution will be essential by 2050
“I think some form of income redistribution by twenty-fifty will be absolutely essential everywhere in the world.”
Khosla: Most AI transformation won't be done by large companies
“And almost certainly, most of this won't be done by large companies.”
Khosla: The vast majority of crypto use cases are illegal
“So the vast majority of uses of crypto are illegal stuff. Gun trades, drug trades sex trafficking. Arms trades. It's the worst use of crypto.”
Khosla: Frontier AI compute costs will drop 80-90% within a year
“My bet is, a year from now, it'll cost one-fifth to one-tenth of what it does today, and my advice to all our startups is ignore the cost of compute, because any assumption you make, any dollar you spend on optimizing your software will be worthless within the…”
Khosla tells his portfolio startups to completely ignore AI compute costs
“My advice to all our startups is ignore the cost of compute, because any assumption you make, any dollar you spend on optimizing your software will be worthless within the year, and so forget about it.”
Khosla: Startups should ignore compute costs; AI software optimizations become worthless
“And my advice to all our startups is ignore the cost of compute. Because any assumption you make, any dollar you spend on optimizing your software will be worthless within the year.”
The other half of the tape: Vinod Khosla's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 162 times in 76 episodes across the shows. 17 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Harry Stebbings 54Keith Rabois 15Jason Lemkin 13Jason Calacanis 9Chamath Palihapitiya 8David Friedberg 7Delian Asparouhov 6Samir Kaul 4
Statements about Vinod Khosla, by other people (17)
Vinod Khosla: The majority of current AI venture investing will fail
“Bottom line, bargain hunting will be a poor bet in AI, but firms putting money to work who invest in all high valuations indiscriminately will do poorly, and that is the majority of the investing that is happening.”
Sacks confronts Khosla over his legal fight to block public beach access
“You are the one who is fighting a legal battle to kick some of those people, the public. Kick the public off of the public beach in front of your beach house.”
Friedberg: Most venture capitalists add negative value to startups
“There are most VCs, as Vinod has said publicly, add negative value. And I totally agree with him on this. Because they, many VCs, particularly the ones who aren't, you know, valuable and don't really have much to add, try to add stuff, try to say stuff, and th…”
Friedberg argues board-seat VCs more often than not add negative value
“The problem is VCs, they join a board, and they think that they have to quote add value. So they come in and they make a bunch of suggestions and recommendations and push you to do a bunch of things. And as Vinod has said correctly many times, they more often …”
Kamal Ravikant: 90% of VCs add no value and 70% are dangerous
“He's like, 90% of VCs are not helpful, and 70% of VCs are actually dangerous. You know, it's actually, I think he was exaggerating a bit, but there's a strong element of truth in it.”
Chamath chose Khosla's Series B offer over a16z and Founders Fund
“I had offers from I guess I'll say it, Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz for my Series B. Vinod gave me the lowest valuation, and I still took his offer.”
Vinod Khosla: Business building is like marriage, demands choosing one model
“Business and product building is very similar to your marriage. You have many opportunities before your marriage, but to be happy, you should choose one and really focus. And my advice to you, choose one business model and be really focused.”
Rabois: Passed on Robinhood seed after Khosla banned seed board seats
“I had already, like, locked in a turn sheet to lead the series seat for Robin Hood chilling at 20 post, which was pretty expensive, but they came back and Really wanted me to join the board in the seed round, and this was in maybe my second year at KB, so I as…”
Jessica Lessin: Vocal Democratic Tech Donors Have Gone Silent
“Last seven days, they have gone quiet. And many of these people, when I reach out to them, I get, like, a note back from their EA's being like, oh, they're on vacation. You know, like, they don't want to talk.”
Friedberg says Vinod Khosla hosted a fundraiser for Joe Biden recently
“Vinod went and did a fundraiser. It's public, but he did a fundraiser for Biden a few weeks ago”
Rabois: Khosla and Botha warned me 11 direct reports was excessive
“I used to get yelled at. I went pretty flat at square when I was running hot at like 11 and like Vinod and Roloff gave me feedback that that was too much.”
Rabois: Vinod Khosla sometimes works 8 AM to midnight on Sundays
“I've seen him work eight a.m. To midnight on Sundays sometimes, like taking meetings.”
Rabois: Vinod Khosla published papers on AI replacing doctors before 2013
“He was on the, you know, the AI crusade before I even joined KV in 2013. He published papers about, you know, how AI was going to replace doctors in medicine, and this is like before I joined KV, so way ahead of the curve.”
Chamath: Vinod Khosla's $3M investment in Juniper Networks returned $7B
“His largest return to date, maybe we'll talk about this today, was Juniper Networks, where the firm's three million dollar investment in the nineties earned seven billion dollar”
Sam Lessin: Vinod Khosla shares his personal email onstage and responds
“He literally gives everyone his email address on stage. He's like, if you want to email me, I respond to all the emails.”
Sacks: Vinod Khosla was the first VC investor in OpenAI
“You've got sort of a node defending open AI. He was the first VC investor in it.”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 126
All-In 31
the Y Combinator Startup Podcast 4
WTF is with Nikhil Kamath 1
2026 25 mentions in 8 episodes 3 per episode
- SpaceX Launches Largest Ever IPO | OpenAI Files to Go Public | Uber Cuts 23% of HR · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Anthropic Inference Costs Skyrocket |TikTok Deal Closes |The IPO Market:Wealthfront & EquipmentShare · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- ClickHouse CEO: AI Margins Need to Improve | Revenue Concentration Should be a Concern
- The AI Bubble WILL Burst | Should we be fearful of Chinese Open-Source | Jerry Murdock
- Canva Slashes Growth | Talent Exodus at Google | Revolut's $50B CEO Package | Musk's $55B Terrafab
- SpaceX's Financials Leaked: Is it Worth $2TN | Meta Debuts Muse Spark: Are They Back in the AI Race? · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- OpenAI Buys TBPN & Their Management Team Reboot | Mercor Hack & Why Now is the Time for Cyber · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Gokul Rajaram: How to Analyse for Durability and Defensibility in a World of AI · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2026, scene by scene →
2025 12 mentions in 9 episodes 1 per episode
- Benchmark vs a16z: Why Stage Specific Firms Win · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Is a $4.5BN Exit Enough in VC? & Harvey Raises $150M & Why Google is a Buy and Amazon is a Sell · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Sequoia Partner, David Cahn on Who Wins in AI, Defence & The New $0–$100M Playbook · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Inside Silicon Valley’s VC Playbook | WTF is Venture Capital? - 2025 Edition | Ep. 24 · Nikhil Kamath
- a16z GP, Martin Casado: Anthropic vs OpenAI & Why Open Source is a National Security Risk with China · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Cognition CEO Scott Wu on Acquiring Windsurf: The Process, The Deal, The Rationale · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Sam Altman: The Future of OpenAI, ChatGPT's Origins, and Building AI Hardware · Y Combinator
- Duolingo Co-Founder, Severin Hacker: How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 1 more episode that year, every mention in 2025 →
2024 77 mentions in 24 episodes 3 per episode
- Keith Rabois on Rejoining Khosla Ventures | E1102 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Delian Asparouhov: Inside the Walls of Founders Fund: What the World Does Not See | E1183 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- OpenAI's $150B conversion, Meta's AR glasses, Blue-collar boom, Risk of nuclear war
- Trump's Cabinet, Google's Quantum Chip, Apple's Flop, TikTok, State of VC
- Dmitry Gurski: From Potato Farm to $200M in Revenue: The Never-Before-Told Story of Flo Health|E1205 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- David Clark: Lessons from 32 Years of Fund Investing - Why Exits Will Be Larger | E1131 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- The All-In Holiday Spectacular
- Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 16 more episodes that year, every mention in 2024 →
2023 14 mentions in 10 episodes 1 per episode
- Sam Corcos: Why Founders Should Take as Many VC Meetings as Possible | E1093 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- E147: TED goes woke, Canada's Nazi blunder, AI adds vision, plus: who owns OpenAI?
- Miles Grimshaw: The 5 Pillars of Venture Capital & Why Co-Pilot is an Incumbent Strategy | E1061 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- Tim Urban: How "Wait But Why" Grew to 600k Readers; AI's Revolutionary Impact on Media | E1048 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- All-In Summit: Alexandra Botez takes on the Besties in a 1v4 simultaneous chess match
- All-In Summit: Nuclear fusion and the potential for energy abundance
- All-In Summit: Ro Khanna on China, political reform, major challenges facing the US and more
- Jason Lemkin: Every VC has a FRAUD in their portfolio; The IPO market is about to EXPLODE | E1046 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- 2 more episodes that year, every mention in 2023 →
2022 9 mentions in 7 episodes 1 per episode
- E68: Trudeau invokes emergency powers, Bitcoin vs. government, Tiger Global's new strategy and more
- Emil Michael: How I Negotiated the $4B Uber-China Deal, Why DoorDash Caught Up to Uber | 20VC #941 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- #AIS: Bestie AMA with Valor's Antonio Gracias
- #AIS: Pear VC’s Mar Hershenson on making successful founders
- Keith Rabois: The End of Woke Capitalism; Time Allocation Tips; Silicon Valley vs Miami | 20VC #891 · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- E75: Fast shuts down, board culpability, Elon buys 9% of Twitter, deplatforming's evolution & more
- Chris Sacca's True Unfiltered Opinion on Facebook and Softbank | Full Interview · 20VC with Harry Stebbings
- every mention in 2022, scene by scene →
2021 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: Chris Sacca on Coming Out of Retirement To Unf**k The Planet with Lowercarbon, How Chris Evaluates His Relationship To Money Today, Why We Have Bred a Generation of Ass**** Kids, Do VCs Provide Any Real Value and The True Unfiltered Opinion on Faceb
- 20VC: Okta CEO Todd McKinnon on How To Approach Effective Decision-Making in Leadership, When Is The Right Time To Hire Recruiters and Heads of People, Balancing the Expectations of Wall St with Long Term Vision and What Truly Successful Board Management
- every mention in 2021, scene by scene →
2020 9 mentions in 5 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Khosla Ventures Founding Partner, Samir Kaul on Why Pro Rata Is A Cop Out, Why He Likes Technical Risk and Does Not Take Market Risk & How To Approach Time Allocation Across The Portfolio In Venture
- 20VC: The 4 Phases of Effective Decision-Making, The No 1 Quality of Good Decisions, How To Approach Effective OKR Setting, & How To Optimise and Improve Your Operating Cadence with Shishir Mehrotra, Founder & CEO @ Coda
- 20VC: 8VC's Joe Lonsdale on How To Foster Contrarian Thinking Within Venture Partnerships, Why The Best VCs Are Company Builders & Why It Is Not Possible To Build Multi-Billion Dollar Companies and Have Worklife Balance
- 20VC: Raising $105m in Just 13 Months Over 3 Separate Rounds, The 5 Core Ways VCs Can Add Value & How Founders Can and Should Fully Leverage Their Cap Table with Kurt Rathmann, Founder & CEO @ ScaleFactor
- 20VC: Why Now Is The Hardest Time To Raise an Institutional Pre-Seed in the Last Decade, What To Do When The Founder and VC Interests Do Not Align & The Rise of Pre-Emptive Rounds with Gaurav Jain, Founder & Managing Partner @ Afore Capital
- every mention in 2020, scene by scene →
2019 2 mentions in 1 episode
2018 5 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
- A Conversation with Elad Gil · Y Combinator
- Sam Altman - How to Succeed with a Startup · Y Combinator
- Uncut Interview with Sam Altman on Masters of Scale [Audio] · Y Combinator
- every mention in 2018, scene by scene →
2017 5 mentions in 4 episodes 1 per episode
- 20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Bing Gordon on Lessons From Serving On Amazon & Zynga's Board, Why The Best Investors Are Good Listeners and Sceptical Optimists & The Most Important Value Add A VC Can Provide
- 20VC: Elad Gil on Becoming One of Silicon Valleys Top Angels, Why Most People Get Market Sizing Wrong & Should VC Services Always Be Bundled Together?
- 20VC: Khosla's Keith Rabois on How To Create Sustainability Behind Growth, How To Assess The Potential Of Individuals & Teams & The Biggest Takeaways from LinkedIn, Paypal & Square
- 20VC: What Does It Take To Gain A Late Stage Cheque Today? The Fundamental Mistakes CEOs Make In The Scaling Process & The Importance Of Building The Next S Curve For Founders with Jules Maltz, General Partner @ IVP
- every mention in 2017, scene by scene →
2015 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Vinod's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20VCLEDGER | Founder, Khosla Ventures | 2 | 54 | 80% 4/5 | full record on 20VC → |
 MORE OR LESSLEDGER | Founder, Khosla Ventures | 2 | 30 | 67% 2/3 | full record on More or Less → |
| WTFLEDGER | Founder, Khosla Ventures | 1 | 24 | 25% 1/4 | full record on WTF is with Nikhil Kamath → |
| Y COMBINATORLEDGER | Founder, Khosla Ventures | 1 | 17 | 100% 1/1 | full record on the Y Combinator Startup Podcast → |
| ALL-INLEDGER | Founder, Khosla Ventures | 1 +2 | 17 | — | full record on All-In → |