YouSaid · the spoken record

Eric Vishria

lines on the record: 67
first: 2024-09-25
most recent: 2024-09-25
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“That one for me would be when the founder of Confluent, Jay Nahon June, called me and said they were going to go with benchmark for their Series A. That was my first investment. It was three founders, and the company's gone on to wild success. That was a huge, huge moment for me and really memorable. I remember where I was and it was a big deal”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think the big thing in the first few years, and we went from zero to two, so it was particularly challenging, but not as challenging as people who went zero to three or zero to four. But I think the hardest thing is your time goes away to invert. It used to be, you know, on a typical like for you or for me now, my kids are a little bit older is like Friday is like the day you're the most tired and then you have Saturday and Sunday to recover. totally inverts, right? For me, like when we had kids at the end of the work week was that was the most rested I was going to be. And Monday morning was the most tired I was going to be. And like it just like completely inverted because the weekend was just so hard with little babies.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I haven't heard it. Oh, yeah, yeah. I have heard this one where it's just like, well, what would you do with all that money? Well, I'd retire in a small fishing village. Yeah.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And you have to have a lot of determination in order to do it. And you go on these ups and downs. And I certainly did. And ultimately, we didn't realize the potential of what we wanted. But did it work out or did it not? And in the fullness of time, I'm like, I couldn't be happier where I'm at. And thankfully, those team members, they're at great places and great companies. A whole bunch of them work inside of the portfolio that I work on, which I'm super grateful for. And so we'll see.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a really amazing story. So the summary of it is like ancient China and there's a draft. And the first part of it is there's a family in rural China and they get a horse. This kid finds a horse. The villagers are like, oh my God, you're so lucky. It's so lucky. It's so lucky. And the wise man is like, we'll see. And the kid's riding the horse and breaks his leg. And then the villagers are like, oh my God, it's so unlucky. It's so unlucky. It's so unlucky. And the wise man is like, we'll see. And then there's a draft, a military draft. And the draft people come to this rural village and they draft everyone except the kid with the broken leg because he has a broken leg. And the villagers are like, we're so lucky. He's so lucky. And the wise man's like, we'll see. And so I say that because, and it relates, it relates to my rock melt experience and kind of where we started, which is founding and building companies really, really hard.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know. I can think of several little things that I would have done, but I don't know. We had early acquisition interest in Rock Belt. That was probably something that I should have leaned into more in retrospect. That's an example. And that would have been a very different. But in the scheme of things, like looking back now, it's 2024 would have changed anything. Probably not. This is the whole, what's that children's story about the horse rider and the soldier and the conscription? Have you heard the story”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How'd it do? different time. I think, you know, Square, like a lot of firms, hires people quite early in their careers and grows their own.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Just like at that time, so in 08, when I talk to them, I really had it in my head that I wanted to be a founder. And I'm super glad I did. I had said conversations, but came up with the idea for rock melting. So Tim Howes and I, who's my co-founder, pursued rock melt. And then five years later, you know, rock melt went through our ups and downs. We were bought by Yahoo in 2013. And then a year later, I joined Benfrock.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I think you'd have to say Getz and Jim Getz. And the reason I would say Jim Getz, well, one, Jim is the one who first told me I should get into Ventor, and so I'm internally grateful to him for that. He said that to me in 08. It took me six years to figure out that he was right, but I'm super grateful for him for that. But two, you know, we talked about this, like there's almost nobody who's had wins in consumer land at the scale of like WhatsApp and wins in enterprise land. And he's done it over and over. So to have Palo Networks and WhatsApp is just insane. And obviously he's had many, many other wins. And so he's been a spectacular, spectacular investor and I'm eternally grateful to him.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Matt is the best at understanding the insight and the depth of an entrepreneur's insight. That is Matt's superpower, understanding the depth of the insight. Is the insight bullshit? Is it authentic? Is it really deep? He's six sigma on that. Matt says very little, and it is always insightful”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“He told me a version of that on one of the first investments I looked at at Benchmark in 2014, summer of 2014. The discussion was like, well, could you do it at 40 or 60 or whatever? some price. I was like, well, I'd do it at 40, not 60. And he's like, nope, that doesn't work. No, it can't do that. And I've said this now subsequently to new partners who've joined in my own way where like, yeah, that's not, you can't not allow to make that claim.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The insights around people and motivations that Peter has are unparalleled. And I've described this before, but like Peter and Bill, one of the things that's amazing about the two of them is they are very, very different style investors, like almost diametrically opposite in a bunch of ways. And obviously they have a lot of common ground, which is how their partnership was so effective for so long. Peter is very much like people first. Bill is very much, I would say like market first. It's a different mental model in looking at these things.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hopefully, everyone gets to a place where they're thinking about this fifth step. Not everyone does. And like in that place, you do have to kind of think about these fundamentals. And so occasionally you have an amazing company that you really believe in, but it can be overvalued too.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Even great companies can be overvalued. One of the things that Bill is really good at is thinking about fundamentals, right? He came from public marketing investing way, way, way back when at the beginning of his career, he has that mindset, that analytical mindset. And so he thinks through that and so I was like, hey, on the fundamentals basis, like you will trade sometime at under 30 times free cash flow. And so like that's a thing, right? Like we're all, you and I were talking about like what's the ARR number and the revenue and all this stuff. And so like, but like ultimately you talked about the four areas, which is sourcing, picking, winning, helping build, right? There's a really important fifth stage that nobody talks about and not every venture capitalist gets to, which is exiting. And ultimately, our job is to return money back to our investment partners, right? And so when you kind of like think through that, you do have to ultimately”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think this sponsor you're sponsoring partner, the kind of advocate probably needs to be that. But your other partners who are looking at it and trying to help you make a decision, I don't know that they have to be that way. They have less information necessarily. And so having their strength and conviction doesn't need to match yours.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think it is actually useful to quantify things. You get all this feedback, right? And anybody who votes a six on an investment does it apologetically. They have to be truly conflicting. There's nothing strategic. That's managing politics. That's not managing making the best investment decisions.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I'm just saying nobody knows what the votes are except the sponsoring partner. And if a partner wants to do something, I think they can do it. You're getting feedback from your partners who you trust and have confidence in.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know that you have to get three out of five. Like I said, I don't know what happens. It's a very, benchmarking is a very high trust, like high confidence in each other model and structure, right?”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't know if your next question is what happens if you don't have the vote and you still want to do it, I have no idea. I don't know what happens”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Our vote system, which is somewhat irrelevant, but it's a way to kind of quantify people's feedback. So a company comes in, we all talk about it. At this point in time, most of the time, like there's only five of us, right? So at this point in time, we would have chatted about the company in at least two or three partners would have met typically. And so there's a decent amount of institutional knowledge about the company. And then at the end, you kind of quantify your feedback. And so it's a way for partners to quantify their feedback to others. And so our voting system is you vote one to 10. You can't vote five. Six and above is yes. Four and below is no. And it's kind of strength of conviction, right? If you get a bunch of tens, amazing. I've never seen that happen. If you get a four, like partner's telling you they didn't really like it, but it's not whatever. If you get a two, your partner's telling you they're really discouraging you from doing it.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is a lot, but I think they're all at different stages. So it isn't as nuts as it kind of seems on the surface because four or five of them are really young companies, right, that are in their very early days. And like you said, I spend 80, 85% of my time on them. So it's not like I'm, you know, if I spent 60% of my time looking for new companies, then of course you wouldn't be able to spend that much time on your portfolio.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'm probably at this point, I'm probably 80 or 85% on working on the portfolio. I mean, it's a lot. And part of that's because whatever I'm on 12 or 13 boards, I can't remember. But a huge part of it is that is our model. Like, that is the benchmark model. And since the benchmark model is a concentrated portfolio of like very high conviction commitments. Like we're making commitments to entrepreneurs. It's like it's very high concentration and very high conviction. That is the nature of our model. And I think that”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Totally agree. I think this goes back to the spreadsheet conversation and why I think spreadsheet investors are going to get wiped out or have a really hard time in this era. And I think SaaS was such a boon and gift to the investor bankery spreadsheet investors. Plug your stuff in and you figure it out at scale, right? At the early stage, though, like I totally agree with you, like people come in and they have like a million and a half and they're like talking about their net dollar retention or whatever. It doesn't matter. And none of that stuff and not a single company, I think I've worked on five companies that have gone from zero to more than 200 in revenue. And like in not a single case did the economics at the very early stage extrapolate all the way. Like it's just not a thing. Not even the economics from when they were at 30 or 40 or 50 extrapolated to 200. Like it just isn't how it works. There's so much change.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“A ton of things that I loved about the entrepreneur, and it was really like a compelling individual. But I think her point on the nature of the business and the fit between the entrepreneur and the nature of that business specific was spot on. And so Sarah saved my bacon.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll give you a great example where Sarah saved me. We were looking at a company and she's like Eric. And this goes back to your sector thing. It's just like a perfect example that ties this thing together is like she's like Eric. I'm telling you you're used to looking at software companies at this company. Gross margin and like these unit economics really, really matter and they suck. There isn't a path to get better and the entrepreneur is not engaged on the topic. It was just like a great insight because like for us, you know, as your kind of traditional software investor and like doing things, it really doesn't matter. Like it's just like all of these things end up. You know, your SaaS companies are going to end up in between 75 and 83% gross market. Like they're just going to end up there. Like it's fine. It works itself out. And so like a company that starts there like, you know, way less than then. It's just like, whatever. And you'll fix that. I think it was like a great insight that kept me out of it because there were a lot.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And so I think that that encouragement of like, hey, you saw something there and then the rest of the group saw it and was like, yeah, there's something there. And so I go back and think about that a lot because each of us in a good partnership, each of us brings our own points of view and our own biases and baggage, but our own insights as well. And so you got to put all that together. And if you do that well, that's like that's these partnerships at its best. And I've seen that a whole bunch of times.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We were running, obviously, any pitches, and at the end of the pitch, we're like debriefing. And we have a system where we talk and then you can the sponsoring partner, basically you can call for a vote. And Peter said, call for the vote. He told me he was like, call for the vote. And he pushed me. So he pushed me to call for the vote and to like push her over the line. After spending like literally 16 hours before, you know, trying to talk me out of it. And so the answer is, so yes, my partners have kept me out of a lot of stuff, but what he was doing in that moment is he had updated his own evaluation of the opportunity and the idea and was like, yeah, it makes sense. Also, Eric clearly, really wants to do it and see something here. And so, you know, I'm 18 months into being a venture capitalist and I have one of the greats of all time, 16 hours before, telling me this goes against everything, like don't do it, like blah, blah, blah. And, you know.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Unique novel. And so I came out and I was like, this is interesting. We met again. So I called in a bunch of partners to meet on Thursday. And so a whole bunch of us, including some of the founders, including Bruce, if you mentioned earlier, like he came in because what do I know about semiconductors? Almost nothing. Well, really, probably nothing. Colin Bruce, who had actually done semiconductor investments and discussion. So that was on Thursday. I spent time one-on-one with Andrew on Friday. Bill and I had lunch with Andrew on Sunday. I'm talking to Peter about it on Sunday night. He's just totally discouraging me from doing the investment. He's like, this goes against everything I've learned in the industry. Totally discouraged. He has a nothing company yet, just based on my articulation of it. Monday, so I bring the company in. Peter was like, I was like, just have an open mind on it. Just have an open mind. And so comes in on Monday, Andrew pitches, and he had a term sheet already. And so we were.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Is it impacting your investment decision? Where, like most of these investments, there's really one or two questions that really matter. All energy should go to those and everything else is kind of like unknowable, non-deterministic or irrelevant. So what Peter did in the case of cerebrus was, I remember really distinctly, I met the company first on a Wednesday. And I was like, why am I meeting a semiconductor company? This is so stupid. Like, I shouldn't be doing this. We don't make semiconductor investments. This is maybe February, March 2016. And I came out in the meeting and was like, wow. And so the team was amazing. And then the insight was really keen and really sharp. And it's now totally accepted. But at the time, it was like so, it was so sharp and so contrarian or so not contrary contrarian is not the right word actually. What it was is unique and novel. Like that's what it was. It was.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think both are true. My partners have kept me out of countless companies. It's amazing. You asked this sector question earlier. We were talking about it, is like, I spend a lot of time trying to understand chemistry, my chemistry with an entrepreneur and try to figure out like, am I going to love working with this person? Do I believe this person is a learning machine or not? So I spend a lot of time on that. I spend a lot of time trying to believe like, do I think that insight is cogent or not cogent? Does it hold together? And I spend a lot less time on like the sector specifics because I just feel like if I'm an F on a sector with best effort I can get to a D plus, like that's not good enough. And so I just rather like not. And I actually think this is maybe contrarian and total aside. I think this is why the memo writing culture at a lot of firms gets you in trouble because you put a lot of information. It encourages putting a lot of information that is like third and fourth order stuff into document as if that”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“One of the beauties of this in our model, like I think about if I go back to 2010 and 2011 for a second, in that time timeline, that's when Snapchat, Uber, Twitter, Instagram, that's when we did the Series A's. And Instagram, Snapchat, Uber, whatever, a weird round in Twitter. The round that Peter led in Twitter at that time was like technically a series C or Series D at like 200 pre because the company had its history, right, with ODIO and everything else. And so it was a rule breaking round. It was a good example of exactly what we were talking about earlier. Yeah, you kind of have your norms and then every once in a while you just have to be like, throw it all out and just do it. And that was a good example. But you think about that body of work, which is obviously tremendous towards a returns perspective. And like fast forward to today, you're looking at the game on the field here. You know, we have to kind of ask ourselves like,”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I mean, to some extent, you always have to play the game on the field or you always have to maybe a different way to say it is like you always have to be aware and cognizant of a game on the field. So like that is the game is the game. You can always choose to play more or less. You can choose to play more or less. So I'll give you a really concrete example. 2021 was like SaaS craziness, everything craziness, right? Like everything was running and everything else in 2021, we made like three new investments as a firm three. That was the game on the field and just saying that's okay. I'm okay not playing that game. And that's great. And I have no regrets on that at all. I think that is fabulous. This year, 2024, the game on the field is we have a major, major shift in AI, which is like, could be bigger than any of these other shifts, maybe combined. It's really big. There's a lot of interesting work happening. There's a lot of uncertainty without a doubt. But we've been more active than we've been.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, we very, very openly and regularly talk about things that are just, hey, that's way off. Like that's a $50 million check for 10% ownership. It's not something that's not the core model, obviously. But the flip side is I look at, you know, you mentioned 11X. That's like an amazing company we're super lucky to be part of. I think about Brett Taylor, Sierra. I think about Lin's Fireworks. I go through and I like to look at these companies and I'm like, I like that AI portfolio. It's a bunch of infrastructure software companies. It's a semiconductor company in cerebrus. It's a few application companies as well. And like the foundational model rounds and some of those things have gotten like really, really large, but you kind of look at some of the things that are happening on the ground in the early stage in AI. And it's like, yeah, it's totally doable. Totally manageable.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“For is these exceptional opportunities led by these exceptional people that can turn into something extraordinary if things work. Like that combination is hard enough”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I think one of the things that we maybe think about almost not at all is we almost never think about like fun cycle or fun timing or anything else. And we almost never think about or talk about portfolio construction or anything else like we, it does not come up. It's really interesting because when I talk to other venture capitalists, they're like, well, how do you think about the portfolio construction and how do you think about check diversity and just like you never ever talk about it? And so it isn't a thing, genuinely isn't a thing. That's a bunch of inherited goodness and flexibility. I think there's this amazing munger quote. And he said, you know what? Finding good investment ideas is hard enough. Finding great companies is hard enough. Let's not overconstrain it, basically. Let's not overconstrain it. Let's not add a bunch of things to it. So what I say back is like, in the benchmark view and approach, what we're looking at.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I don't think so. I don't think so for two reasons. One is through 30 years of performance. I think we have unprecedented flexibility in what we do. And so if we want to write a $50 million check, we write a $50 million check and we have. And if we want to write a $150 million check, we can write $150 million check. If we deploy a fund in 18 months or a year, like, it's fine. We can do whatever we want. So the fun thing is almost irrelevant artifact of history and accounting. And so I don't worry about it there. So that's one part of it. The second part of it is.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, I mean, I think, well, I think there's two things, which is if $30 billion acquisitions are not unprecedented and maybe you could say like in this world, you know, therefore 100 also is not like that big of a stretch. Like that isn't that huge multiple. But it does feel like a big number to me.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think this is a question, right? And they're going to do it. But I think there's a set of people who certainly believe in the size of the prize. And so they continue to be able to raise really tremendous amounts of capital to train bigger and bigger models. Just to put it in perspective, like $100 billion, even for the oil state companies of technology, you know, doing $100 billion acquisition is unprecedented.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think that's a good question that is really interesting because if you think about OpenAI anthropic and meta and Google and then there's a whole bunch of others coming, XAI and Mistral and so forth, SSI now. I think the foundational model.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Search web search. And like it took a while to figure out monetization. And like we have a new technology alums that are really, really powerful. And like we got to figure out monetization on them. And like, it's not going to be a $20 a month subscription. That's not the right way. And it's not going to be just bundled API. There's going to be much, much more sophistication and interesting models on that.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Of search until like 01, I think. And so late 2000. And so we had like five or six years of these search engines, which anybody at that time was using them every day. There were crappy display ads all over them and like all kinds of stuff that was just totally like people I think sure there were like paid search engines like people tried to do all kinds of things to figure out the monetization model and so I don't know that we figured out the monetization model but I think what we can say very clearly customers perceive a lot of these products not all of them but a lot of these products as magic which they are basically magic and like they want them there's a bunch of monetization that needs to be figured out but I kind of don't worry about it like it's like we we will figure it out that's just the delay and so i feel like you know and the reason the parallel to search is is interesting is because it's like hey there was a new technology that was really powerful”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, I don't. Like I go back to my software engineer example. Like the prize, it's like, forget about AGI for a second. The prize is so big even without AGI. Like the prize is so big. And so, yeah, the revenue will materialize. There's a lot to figure out. I was talking, we had a dinner guest yesterday. We do these dinners as a partnership with a guest on Mondays. And one of the kind of conversations around it was we were kind of unpacking is like, if you think about search. So search, we started first seeing the search, the first search engines, call it 1995 is when you started to see the first search engines. And then Google Series A was 1998, I believe. And, you know, and like immediately was like a better search engine and a better trap and everything else. What I think is lost in time is like Google didn't figure out the monetization. Of course, they did it through an acquisition. They didn't actually figure it out themselves. Like they didn't figure out the monetization.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Think that's probably the biggest thing that we can take away with these early stage companies and their attraction, which is like, okay, there is demand. And then you have to kind of evaluate and figure out like, okay, do we think that whatever the product the company's building, the entrepreneur, let me go back to the same things, like how sustainable advantage over time? And that's a really difficult judgment right now. But I think it's one of these things that we have to do. But I totally agree with you. The quickness of the scale is unlike it's like three, four, five years of what SaaS company, like your traditional SaaS companies were doing, we're seeing it under a year. And we have a whole portfolio of companies that are like this. It's amazing.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it was like, oh my gosh, they How do you I was talking to a team that had gone like a four person team, zero to four million in four months. Amazing. Like just amazing kind of revenue trajectory. But I put like almost no value on that, like going zero to four million. And I think one of their things was like, well, why are you giving me credit for that? And I was like, well, the thing that I take away from that is that whatever you're selling, and this is true for a lot of these AI companies, customers want to buy. Customers want to buy it. And so, and I think part of it is just like the products to a lot of these customers, the products are magic. Like they feel like magic to the customer. So the customer and the ROI on those products is just tremendous. And they know that they have to experiment with it or they have to try it or they want to try it because they see so much potential value in it and they feel it. So the demand side is very clear and it's just pulling.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The answer is for sure both. I would maybe tweak your question, which is to say, I don't know that it's going to be like the price per seat model.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah. Today's incumbents are paranoid and on top of things and like is Microsoft and Nuance going to move slower and whatever than your average AI medical scrub company, of course. But they're not DOPs and they don't have their head in the sand. And so like, yeah, I mean, I think that is like you do have to factor that in for”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, am I going to be able to talk to them and tell them why this should be Like this should be an amazing, like this is an amazing person that I can tell somebody that this should be their life's work and help convince them to join a company, right? Like that's, which is a big part of what we do. And so when you look at that, I ask myself that question. And if my answer is like, you know what? I think it's a cool business. It'll probably work. But I just don't understand how I can make that pitch, then I don't do it. Like that's my that like I just don't do it. And so like there's this balance there, but like I think that's a big important part of it. And the more competitive the market, the higher the bar has to be.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I think this is where we go back to where we started. Do we have an extraordinary entrepreneur that you believe in? Do you think they have an insight that is cogent? And I would say this maybe this is a more useful way to say it. The more competitive the market is, the higher the bar you have to hold on those two things, I think. And so in a hyper competitive market, you have to really believe in the entrepreneur and really believe in the heart of the insight and their execution ability and in a less competitive market. It's just misery in life to work as a venture capitalist and serve on the board if you don't like really love the entrepreneur and really love the area. So that's a thing for me, which is I think about a lot when I'm kind of looking at a company is like, am I going to be able to authentically help this entrepreneur close great talent?”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like, it's not hard to imagine that exists. And we often say this when we're talking about companies, which is like, if you fast forward three years, is this a thing? Is it a thing? It's often a good sign when you're like, yeah, like that's a thing. Like it's going to be a thing. We believe that.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Part of their insight in terms of the investment thesis. And so when you kind of think about a situation like that, okay, that's market creation. That's a good example of market creation. And we have those all over. Like if you, like, I'll give you another one that's kind of like really interesting right now, which is AI medical scribes. And so you're like, you go to the doctor and you talk to your doctor and then they have to do a bunch of notes and everything else. And so there's a bunch of these AI medical scribes. You kind of like look at it and you look at the proposition. And I've looked at now, I've met several of these companies over the years and we haven't invested any. But going back, I don't know, five years when I met the first one. It's like, if this exists and works, like, yeah, that's a better way. Like, it's just, it is a better way. So there will be market created there. It's going to take away from the other, from the actual HumanScribe business, but it will market in a way. And like you can imagine.”
2024-09-25 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: Benchmark's Eric Vishria on Where is the Value in AI: Chips, Models or Apps | Why Nvidia Will Not Be The Only Game in Town | The Commoditisation of Foundation Models | Which AI Apps Have Sustaining Value vs Hype and Short Term Revenue · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source