Rosenberg: Messenger bots failed because LLMs were seven years away
Seth Rosenberg · The GREAT VC AI DEBATE between Slow Ventures and Greylock Partners. · Mar 17, 2025 · at 3:56
Greylock partner Seth Rosenberg reflects on leading Facebook's developer platform during the early Messenger bot hype cycle.
0:00 / 0:15exact quote · 15.6s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“So I was running the product for the developer platform at Facebook, which was like AI bots, messenger bots. It's like the hottest thing in Silicon Valley for like four months before everyone realized it didn't work because we were seven years away from LLMs actually, you know, being released.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Seth Rosenberg
Rosenberg: Massive AI-native businesses will emerge from content democratization marketplaces
“I think massive new businesses can be built that are, let's say, AI native. I think one is like, networks and marketplaces based on new democratization of being able to create new types of content.”
Rosenberg: Suno could build a closed ecosystem if content quality scales
“But I think if like the number and quality of things that are actually created on the Suno platform starts to exceed, or at least like take a meaningful, but separate piece of the market, then they could just create a more closed ecosystem. Where the only way …”
Rosenberg: Tome will succeed without needing to defeat Salesforce
“Look, I don't think you need to be beat Salesforce to be very successful and to find a segment of the market that wants a more modern product that, you know, understands your business has everything in one place and can actually make your sales team a lot more…”