20VC: Cohere Founder on How Cohere Compete with OpenAI and Anthropic $BNs | Why Counties Should Fund Their Own Models & the Need for Model Sovereignty | How Sam Altman Has Done a Disservice to AI with Nick Frosst
Nick Frosst is a Canadian AI researcher and entrepreneur, best known as co-founder of Cohere, the enterprise-focused LLM. Cohere has raised over $900 million, most recently a $500 million round, bringing its valuation to $6.8 billion. Under his leadership, Cohere hit $100M in ARR. Prior to founding Cohere, Nick was a researcher at Google Brain and a protégé of Geoffrey Hinton. AGENDA: 00:00 – Biggest lessons from Geoff Hinton at Google Brain? 02:10 – Did Google completely sleep at the wheel and miss ChatGPT? 05:45 – Is data or compute the real bottleneck in AI’s future? 07:20 – Does GPT5 Prove That Scaling Laws are BS? 13:30 – Are AI benchmarks just total BS? 17:00 – Would Cohere spend $5M on a single AI researcher? 19:40 – What is nonsense in AI that everyone is talking about? 25:30 – What is no one talking about in AI that everyone should be talking about? 33:00 – How do Cohere compete with OpenAI and Anthropic’s billions? 44:30 – Why does being American actually hurt tech companies today? 45:10 – Should countries fund their own models? Is model sovereignty the future? 52:00 – Why has Sam Altman actually done a disservice to AI?
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20Product: Why Most CPOs are Bad | Why You Do Not Need PMs in a World of AI | Why the Design Stage is Dead and How to Use Vibe Coding to Replace It | The Three Roles All Founders End Up Firing on Repeat with Jason James @ Tezi
Jason James is the Co-Founder of Tezi and one of the leading product minds in the valley. Prior to Tezi, Jason was the VP Product at Instacart and before that was Head of Product and Design at Thumbtack. AGENDA: 00:00 Product lessons scaling Instacart to $40B – what really moves the needle 02:15 Why “quick optimizations” won’t build billion-dollar products 04:30 MVPs are dead? How AI is reshaping product development 07:00 Do startups even need PMs anymore in the age of AI? 11:30 The biggest product mistake Jason made building Tezi 16:30 Why most hiring managers fail at recruiting 20:00 The resume trap: how to spot if someone was just “on the elevator up” 26:00 The three roles founders always end up firing 28:00 Are most CPOs actually terrible? 36:30 The myth of startup “culture” – why growth is the only thing that matters 43:00 Did DoorDash actually beat Instacart? The inside take 48:00 Fundraising secrets founders never realize until it’s too late
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20VC: Anthropic's $10BN Round | Klarna's IPO Broken Down | Inside a16z's 72 Deal Seed Investment Machine | Martin Casado: Is Consensus Investing the Only Game | Why Satya is Chatting S*** on SaaS Apps Disappearing featuring Marc Benioff
AGENDA: 00:00 – Marc Benioff vs Snowflake, Databricks & Palantir: Who Wins the Data Cloud War? 05:10 – Does Benioff Feel The Need to Buy AI Talent Like Zuck Is? 09:00 – What Salesforce has Learned From Palantir on Forward Deployed Engineers? 18:00 – Will SaaS apps disappear in an AI world? Why Satya is Chatting S*** 23:40 – Are SDRs really screwed by AI… or just evolving? 26:10 – Benioff on Who Wins: OpenAI or Anthropic? 30:00 – Nat Friedman reports to Alex Wang: Genius move or career downgrade? 34:00 – Anthropic’s $10B round: Have we hit peak AI hype? 47:00 – Klarna’s wild ride: From $45B to $6B to IPO at $15B 55:00 – Inside a16z’s seed machine: 72 bets vs Sequoia’s 27 57:45 – Martìn Casado: Is consensus investing dangerous—or the only game? 01:05:00 – The big lesson: consensus, contrarian, and why investing is harder than ever
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20VC: Do Margins Matter in AI? | Is Defensibility Gone For Good? | Is Vertical SaaS Dead in a World of AI | What SaaS Rules Are BS and No Longer Apply in a World of AI | The Future of Venture: Why Chanel vs Walmart is BS with Byron Deeter
Byron Deeter is a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, and one of the most renowned SaaS investors. Byron has led 19 unicorn investments, including IPO successes like ServiceTitan, Procore, Twilio, Box, Gainsight, Intercom, DocuSign, SendGrid. His portfolio includes eight companies that have gone public. Insane. Agenda: 00:00 – Why are the stakes in AI higher than ever before? 05:20 – Is defensibility in AI gone for good? 07:40 – Do margins even matter when backing the next Anthropic or Perplexity? 09:50 – How does Byron think about future dilution when investing in AI today? 12:10 – With 40% of venture money going to 10 deals, is there any point investing elsewhere? 13:40 – Is vertical SaaS dead? Is there any point when the large players can own it? 18:00 – Will AI shift from the tech budget to the human labor budget and unlock trillions? 21:10 – Are we entering the era of billion-dollar businesses built by 10 people? 25:20 – Is treble-treble-double-double now too slow for AI companies? 33:10 – In today’s AI gold rush, is it better to scream the loudest or just build the best product? 41:10 – What specific growth rates are best in class, good and not good enough today? 55:00 – Is venture now just a game of scale — Chanel vs. Walmart?
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20VC: Databricks at $100BN | Chamath’s SPAC Revival: Peak Mania? | OpenAI Staff Cash Out Billions & Sam Altman Will Spend Trillions | CoreWeave’s $11B Debt Bet & Nubank’s $2.5B Profit Shocker
Agenda: 00:00 – Databricks hits $100B: Bubble or just the beginning? 03:15 – Is Databricks actually undervalued at 25x revenue? 07:40 – Are we on the verge of the biggest IPO wave ever? 11:30 – Can Andreessen’s Databricks bet return $30B+? 18:10 – Who really gets rich when mega-unicorns IPO? 19:30 – Is the return of Chamath’s SPACs the ultimate bubble signal? 28:00 – Should OpenAI staff be cashing out billions in secondaries? 33:30 – Founder raises $130M… then walks away. Is this the new normal? 36:30 – Nubank’s $2.5B profit: The best FinTech in the world? 48:00 – On Running at $15B: Can consumer brands still be VC-backed rockets? 52:00 – CoreWeave takes on $11B in debt: smart bet or ticking time bomb? 1:11:00 – Will AI spend really hit trillions—or is it all hype?
About The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) interviews the world's greatest venture capitalists with prior guests including Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Once per week, 20VC Host, Harry Stebbings is also joined by one of the great founders of our time with prior founder episodes from Spotify's Daniel Ek, Linkedin's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman.
If you would like to see more of The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), head to www.20vc.com for more information on the podcast, show notes, resources and more.
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