The Ledger
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Garrett: Defense tech is currently overrated in venture capital
“What's, what's overrated? And I would say it was overrated actually is defense tech.”
Government must subsidize mining prices before private capital will invest
“If the government can support kind of a critical problem here in subsidized pricing and help create a market, right? Like there's no price, there's no market that exists right now here because you don't have the ability to get to critical scale... Basically yo…”
Garrett: A wave of tech IPOs will begin in 2025 and continue through 2026
“And I think you'll see a wave companies going out starting this year and continuing through next year.”
Garrett: Defense tech value will accrue to a few winner-take-all companies
“It's not like enterprise software where there's going to be hundreds of great companies that go after a multi-trillion dollar TAM in defense tech, multi-trillion dollar TAM, but I think it's gonna be a much smaller number of companies where all the value accru…”
Garrett: US will win second Cold War by partnering with tech
“If you look, you know, backdrop, we're in a second cold war during the first court war, we won because of our technological industrial prowess and government was a huge partner to the tech industry and really was helped fund the beginnings of the tech industry…”
Garrett: European breakout startups face fewer venture-backed clones than US winners
“When you build a winner, you don't have what you have in the U S which is like, once there's a large, massive winner and outcome in the U S there's like 20 startups that get funded to go compete. Right. And Europe, it's not like that. The capital market is not…”
Applied Intuition software serves 18 of the top 20 auto OEMs
“They have cracked the code in selling to, you know, the top 20 auto OEMs. I think it's 18 out of 20 are customers.”
Garrett: Effective Tech Regulation Can Only Follow Real-World Technology Evolution
“You could not create stop signs and highway systems when the automotive car was first invented, right? You had to sort of see how the technology evolved And then you can figure out what regulations are needed. So that's definitely how this will play out.”
Garrett: SpaceX launch business operated with negative working capital for years
“SpaceX has been cashflow positive most of the life cycle of the business. The core business, the launch business for years had negative working capital”
Garrett: Databricks and Stripe converted RSUs to single-trigger to delay IPOs
“If you saw recently with Databricks and Stripe, those big massive rounds and tenders were actually to cover the tax bill for the employees after they hit their seven year cliff on the double trigger RSU. So they converted from double trigger to single trigger …”
Garrett: The Durbin Amendment was a core catalyst for modern fintech
“Underappreciated, but like Dodd-Frank post the GFC the Durbin amendment literally was like probably one of the core pieces of legislation that created the FinTech industry, right? Like you actually had interchange based business models that could compete enter…”
Garrett: Return to office has become a scapegoat for struggling tech companies
“Return to office has become like a scapegoat for businesses. Through a down cycle to basically blame everything that's going wrong. Like effectively, like if you're a bad business and things are going wrong, return offices scapegoat. If you're a good business …”
Garrett: European defense rearmament demand will attract talent and VC capital
“The biggest takeaway, just like we've seen in the U S is there's a market shift, which will attract talent and capital because there's an end customer. That's very, very serious about supporting new on trial and supporting the existing industrial base and spen…”
UK launched Defense Innovation Unit variant after pressure from Pete Hegseth
“The UK adopted a DIU variant and launched their own with I think about million pounds to start in a matter of months. The story apparently is that it was actually Secretary Hexeth who was pushing them that they should do this, and Minister of Defense Healy got…”
Garrett: AI is inextricably linked to energy, manufacturing, and mining
“It's now when everyone thinks about the future in AI, they're also thinking about manufacturing and energy, right? They're actually also thinking about mining and refining. That is going to be very powerful, and it's a key part of the re-industrialization tren…”
Garrett: US, Canada, and Australia possess every needed critical mineral element
“Just in the US and Canada and Australia, you have everything we need. We have every element that we need. So that is not the issue. We have the technology to go do these things.”
Rubio, Burgum, and tech CEOs to headline Hill and Valley Expo
“We're gonna have visions and demos of the future from Sean Sankar from Palantir, Chris Power from Hadrian Jake from Gecko Lisa from AMD. We'll have Secretary Burgum speaking Secretary Rubio and a bunch of other secretaries speaking as well, which will be reall…”
Garrett: Startups use tender offers to remark business valuations
“The companies have compounded past, cash flow positive, they're not burning any cash, they don't need cash in the balance sheet, ah, and so they've been using tenders and liquidity as not just a tool, From an employee retention or recruiting perspective, but a…”
Garrett: Companies now stay private for an average of 12+ years
“Companies used to go public in, you know, three, three to four years you know, back just in the 2000, and that has progressively trended towards seven, 10, I think now on average companies stay private, you know, 12 plus years.”
Garrett: SpaceX has only raised $10B over 23 years
“The company has only raised ten billion dollars in its life cycle as a 23 year old business.”
Garrett: SpaceX employees have single-trigger RSUs, requiring semi-annual tenders
“They run tenors every six months. They're it's interesting. So actually they're the company the company employees actually have single trigger RSUs, not double trigger RSUs.”
Garrett: Lack of secondary market demand forces some private companies to IPO
“Investor needs for liquidity sometimes will be a forcing function for companies to go public. Like I mentioned, not every company has the ability to run a liquid market effectively or a semi liquid market, like some of these companies we mentioned earlier.”
Garrett: Matt Grimm and Gwynne Shotwell are the industry's best operators
“Matt Grimm from Anderle is one of the best COOs. If not, I would say the best COO in our industry. Gwen Shotwell, one of the best operators, if not the best operator in industry, president of SpaceX.”
Garrett: Hill and Valley Forum attracts more elected officials than Davos
“We have, you know, more elected reps that go there than attend Davos.”
Garrett: SpaceX and Anduril are among 137 Ventures' largest positions
“Obviously I'm still going to be extremely bullish for just the opportunity within aerospace and defense for, you know some of our largest positions like SpaceX and Andrew.”
Garrett: China controls 90% of refining and 70% of critical mineral mining
“90% of all refining is done in China, right? And about 70% plus or minus of the mining of critical minerals and earth elements is done in China.”