Author and tech evangelist Guy Kawasaki discusses the future of venture capital pitching and artificial intelligence with Jeff Berman on Masters of Scale.
Insight
Kawasaki: If Apple and Tim Cook cannot take moral stands, nobody can
“Your moral compass should exist at a higher level than, how can I make the most money? And so you may have to, you know, you may have to take stands. And to take an extreme example if Apple and Tim Cook cannot take a stand, who can? Who can? You're the most fr…”
Insight
Kawasaki: Sequoia's best investments are unproven teams in unproven markets
“If you talk to someone like Mike Moritz of Sequoia will tell you that the richest vein for Sequoia's investments, and there's no company, no VC that has, you know, created such value as Sequoia. It's two people creating the product that they want to use. They …”
Insight
Kawasaki: VCs demanding rigid return projections are usually giving soft rejections
“Many times when, if you face, like, rigid recommendations for, I need your internal rate of return, I need your return on capital, I need this kind of projection. In a sense, the investor is telling you no, and is trying to put these fences up in front of you,…”
Insight
Kawasaki: Truly interested VCs overlook flaws and reframe weaknesses as positives
“If an investor is truly interested in your business, they're not going to throw these fences up in front of you. What they're going to be thinking is they do not have a world-class team, but I at Kleiner Perkins or Sequoia, I can tap the greatest talent in the…”
Opinion
Kawasaki: AI is bigger than PCs, chips, social media, and internet combined
“To me, AI is, is a bigger deal than personal computers, chips, social media, internet, all combined.”
Opinion
Kawasaki: Leading AI models lack distinct brand positioning and differentiation
“Like today, if I had to explain to someone when to use ChatGPT, when to use Bard, when to use Perplexity, when to use Claude, when to use all this, you know, I don't know if I could, I can't. I mean, I use all fives kind of at random, and it's like, in the car…”