The Exchanges

Q The sun is out and shining. Um, so I also heard that you opened up a new New York City office. So what's going on there?

A Well, we've been in New York for, um, Almost 14 years now, and, uh, we were, we have been growing, and I think as you know, one of the teams now at General Catalyst is, uh, this company called Precepta that's focused on, uh, driving transformation of enterprises, and, uh, it was really important for us to co-locate all of our, uh, teams in the same place. So, so GC's now got a much bigger space in New York where one floor is actually engineers, and they're building a, Lots of cool stuff. I'm sure we'll talk about that, and then we have our investment team, and it's really designed to be, ah, welcoming for founders, and be sort of a builder environment in general.

AI assessment note: “co-locate all of our, uh, teams in the same place. So, so GC's now got a much bigger space”

Q One of the, like, very unique things about General Catalyst has been your global growth. There are other funds that like to tout American dynamism that kind of baskets this, like, national interest, but you have global resilience. So why did you choose global resilience as a strategy?

A Yeah, I guess a few things. I think global TAM, last I checked, was bigger than the American TAM. So it allows us to play, um, in a, um, bigger market. Uh, it comes down to our values. Uh, we believe in inclusive prosperity, so if, if we're gonna have AI diffuse, uh, you know, we wanna make sure it's captured all around the world. It's like a genuinely, genuinely something we care about. And the other thing is, um, if you think about our two trends, global resilience and artificial intelligence, the geopolitics is going to force supply chains to shift. Uh, does Europe really want to buy, uh, American defense products? Maybe some countries will, but the biggest ones won't. They want to create resilience. Does India really want to rely on Russia or America for their defense? Not really. They want to do it on their own. So our view was, well, defense primes are going to emerge everywhere in the world. Okay? And we want to help founders create those everywhere. So, you know, we were in the seed. We've been invested in, uh, Ann Wilson's seed. We are, Deeply invested in, uh, uh, Helsington Seed, uh, and that's a project that Jeanette and Daniel Ek and Paul Kwan, uh, have worked on. And, uh, and then we're invested in Rafi in India, that Neeraj has been, uh, working on as well. So, so our belief is that, uh, the opportunity is everywhere, and we want to help, uh, uh, founders, and we …

AI assessment note: “I think global TAM, last I checked, was bigger than the American TAM.”

Q Part of Glasswing 40 is Nikesh Arora, who you just brought on. So how does that work? And congratulations.

A So Nikesh has just joined as a lead independent director, and, uh, he's been, um, first of all, Nikesh is incredibly brilliant. He's, uh, he's an entrepreneurial soul running a fortune 500 company, and he's done an incredible job building that. Um, uh, he's also a great investor mind. So as I think about our, you know, GC ecosystem, which is a collection of investors and builders, I just think he, he'd be a great mentor for all of us. And, uh, I've had many conversations with about where this is going, and every one of those conversations is extremely provocative, and so it made sense to lean on him just like, uh, I and we lean on Ken. And I, I just believe in, uh, you know, great Uh, leaders that are deep thinkers, uh, and, uh, uh, have seen scale to just be guiding, you know, guiding the team here at GCN. So that's been, that's the purpose. So really excited that, uh, a lot of us are going to work closely with them.

AI assessment note: “Nikesh has just joined as a lead independent director... be a great mentor for all”

Q You hold a very uncommon title in the world of venture capital. You're the CEO and managing director. So how does that lead into decision making for these investments? Are you the last person? Do you have the check writing decision making power for all of these?

A Yeah. So, uh, there's a reason why there's two titles, uh, and internally we're not big on titles. We just want to make sure we back People with the greatest amount of conviction, and we follow their conviction in the way we do our investment work. Um, but the role as a CEO is to, again, orchestrate that ecosystem I described at the beginning of this conversation. But the way we make investment decisions is, ah, you know, the, the seed team, any two partners can do a seed. People push each other's conviction, and, and, and, uh, we have a very lightweight process. And later stage investments, We just want to see anybody, doesn't matter how, what their tenure is, tee up ideas with conviction, and my job is to make sure, ah, people are doing the right level of thinking and addressing questions that others have, so that the conviction, conviction passes muster. Ah, I think if, if we start making investments only where I believe success will be created, that would be hubris on my part, and there would be lots of missed opportunities. And so it really is, uh, you know, giving everybody who's got conviction the courage to leap forward and lean in, make an investment, and then own it, uh, is, uh, really what I think creates the best return. So it's like, you know, GC's a really interesting ecosystem because in, in that venture capital part of our business, we still continue to need to …

AI assessment note: “seed team, any two partners can do a seed... not a dictatorial partnership”

Q What are the messages that you want to see as headlines?

A Well, I think, um, what I want to see is understanding the capabilities of, uh, technology, and, uh, understanding how do we use them to drive resilience and abundance, and what progress are we making towards that? I want to see, uh, early, um, sort of, signs of where things could go wrong, so we can be intentional about Uh, you know, how do we shape the arc of adoption of technology? I, uh, you know, want to see us sort of sharing and learning, as opposed to either doomsday, uh, mindset of the world's gonna fall apart, or, uh, that, you know, everything's just gonna be, uh, tremendous. Uh, you know, Patrick, I mentioned this in the review. Patrick mentions beneficence and singularity. And, uh, um, you know, I, I, I do think AI brings a lot of Um, advantages and positivity. And, but if it, if it concentrates opportunity in the hands of very few, then it also brings instability in the end, because that's not what society is going to reject that. So I think we need to think about how to really diffuse, uh, technology and AI in this sort of next phase in a way that's good for everybody. So I want to see us seeing where that's breaking. I want to see where it's working so we can lean into it more. And essentially become a movement there. Every one of us is working towards driving that, uh, as opposed to just, I mean, I just think it's, it's, uh, um, it's chaotic, it's, uh, um, pett…

AI assessment note: “what I want to see is understanding the capabilities of, uh, technology”

Q And then how have you thought about fund management through these cycles? People are saying we're in a bubble again and at the last bubble, and even through Zerp, funds were selling off to secondaries or just trying to get some liquidity for DPI. But when you think about maybe hyperinflated assets or companies, how do you think about the fund management of that?

A It's a great question. It's a very hard question. I'll tell you the way this industry has traditionally operated is Let's hope a couple of our companies hit the power line. We return the fund a few times over and the rest will take care of itself. That's, that's been the model. Uh, the sophistication to actually learn how to exit companies. Most people in this investment business aren't very good at it. Many people in our team are also just learning, uh, to do that. But the problem is thinking that way is maybe there's a couple of founders that hit the power line, become profound companies, uh, You know, in a fun cycle. But what about the other tens? They also are doing important life's work. And so how do we get them to create enterprise value? How do we get them to endure? And how do we get them to, uh, create value? For our innovation, uh, philosophy is like figuring out how to do that. And then what I really do push our team is that every one of us has that responsibility. The, the writing a check into a company is a privilege. For everybody around the table at GC. Creating value, economic value on the other side, and societal value is the actual job. And that is, ah, that is a cultural transformation and a journey we are on to say we need to be able to help our founders do that. We've built a lot of effort around it. The last thing I'll say is what happens in bubbles is yo…

AI assessment note: “the sophistication to actually learn how to exit companies. Most people in this investment business”