Opinion
Only 40 people in the US can effectively sell to the government
“Ross Fubini, who I had on for hot take, he is the founder, the founding partner of XYZ Ventures. He said at Hill and Valley, there's probably 40 people in the U.S. That are capable of selling to the government. Like, it is extremely hard. That is a clear bottl…”
Assertion Partly supported
O'Shea: Elon Musk built a data center in 19 days
“I mean, he built a data center in 19 days.”
Assertion Contradicted
O'Shea: NYC Surpassed SF in New Founders Starting Companies Last Quarter
“Someone sent me a data report like a day or two ago that New York finally surpassed San Francisco in the number of new founders that have just started companies in the last quarter.”
Opinion
O'Shea: Tiger Global was a primary driver of the venture bubble
“Tiger, if you don't want to blame them, I will, but I do think that, you know, they were one of the largest pieces of this domino effect, like pumping excess money into a category.”
Opinion
O'Shea: The Defense Tech Boom Is Necessary to Rebuild Manufacturing Capacity
“People say we're in a defense bubble. Well, turns out it's kind of like a good thing because we're at a point where we're looking for automakers and People to be making missiles, to be helping supply the military complex.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
O'Shea: Anthropic Achieved a Full Year of Growth in One Quarter
“We were talking about Anthropic and their hypergrowth and how they pretty much reached a year of growth in one quarter.”
Assertion Supported
O'Shea: a16z raised 18% of all US venture dollars last year
“A-sixteen Z raised 18% of all US venture dollars last year.”
Assertion Supported
O'Shea: Carta data shows AI startups get a 30% Series A premium
“Carta just put out recent data in their fund performance report, and series A's are getting a 30% premium. What do they attribute that to? AI. So, AI companies get a 30% premium versus non-AI companies.”
Opinion
O'Shea: AI company valuations are betting on incrementalism, not moonshots
“We're betting on incrementalism for most of these valuations. We're betting on incrementalism with these companies and how they're going to compound.”
Assertion Contradicted
O'Shea: Carta data shows concentrated venture funds outperform broad portfolios
“Turns out highly concentrated funds, typically like 20 companies per portfolio. Outperforms spray and pray, but spray and pray looks pretty good.”
Assertion Contradicted
O'Shea: 50% of LPs have stopped allocating to venture capital
“Carta put out a report a couple months ago on different LP trends, and about 50% are not allocating into venture anymore, and so that, that's being cut away.”
Assertion Contradicted
O'Shea: Carta report shows 50% of LPs are exiting venture allocations
“Carta actually just put out a report, I covered it in Sorcery, that LPs are committing less to the category, about 50% are not going to be allocating to venture anymore.”
Opinion
O'Shea: AI models are a commodity product with zero customer loyalty
“They're using it, like, it's, like, it's commodity business, we all know that. Like, we've known that from the beginning, so I don't know why we go through these circular phases of, like, thinking it's gonna change the world, and it's, like, a power law thing,…”
Opinion
O'Shea: Software companies are homogenous compared to varied factory workplaces
“You can go into software companies and everyone kind of looks the same, but everybody at these manufacturing and factory jobs, they all have a role and they're all different.”
Assertion Supported
Palantir CEO Alex Karp spent roughly $17M on private flights in 2025
“Yeah, last year in 2025, I think it was publicly reported that Alex Karp spent around seventeen million dollars on flying, and it, if you kind of like do some of the math on the price and the per hour, it came out to around three months in the air.”
Assertion Supported
O'Shea: Over $240B in 2025 Venture Secondaries Represented 31% of Venture Volume
“The stat was last year, twenty-twenty-five, over two hundred and forty billion was via secondaries. 31% of venture volume was all secondaries.”
Assertion Partly supported
O'Shea: OpenAI's $110B round comprised roughly one-third of 2025 tech funding
“OpenAI just raised a hundred and ten billion dollar round. I think that amounted to about a third of all funding in the private markets for tech in 2025.”
Assertion Supported
O'Shea: PitchBook data shows 40% of unicorns haven't raised in three years
“40% of unicorns have not raised capital in three plus years.”
Prediction Held up
O'Shea predicts SpaceX will IPO before OpenAI
“I think SpaceX.”
Assertion Open · timeframe Jul 2025
Brex has surpassed $100 billion in total payment volume
“Most recently, you guys crossed over a hundred billion in total payment volume.”
Assertion Supported
O'Shea: AppLovin Vastly Outpaces Microsoft in Revenue Per Employee
“Applovin's revenue per employee is, like, huge delta between Microsoft. Microsoft is kind of, like, flatlined a little bit, but, like, that, that is, like, a true trend we're seeing.”
Assertion Supported
O'Shea: Coatue and Altimeter data show OpenAI outpacing viral social platforms
“KOTU and Altimeter did like a bunch of different surveys and data science around OpenAI's traction and daily active users against social platforms. So they're comparing it against like, okay, there's like a resource, like a learning tool for knowledge, and now…”
Assertion Supported
O'Shea: Plaid repriced its valuation down ahead of a potential IPO
“Plaid just did a big repricing. They repriced down a bunch to hopefully maybe go public.”
Assertion Supported
Molly O'Shea says seed-to-Series A graduation rates hit record 13% low
“I actually just read a Carta report today. I don't know if you saw it, but the graduation rate from seed to Series A is now at an all-time low, and before it was like in a normal year, they'd say like, 20 to 25% graduation rate. Now it's at 13.”
