[
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Are we in an AI bubble?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> AI literacy is like sex ed. You have to know about it."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> AI is devouring venture capital in 2026."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Over $240 billion was poured into AI startups in Q1, up 150% and AI is taking 80 cents of every venture dollar. Though the gold rush is here, most Americans are still playing catch-up. Claire Zao saw that gap and"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "started posting videos to educate the masses. This week, Lightspeed, managing more than $40 billion in assets, created a role that has never existed in venture capital, an investor who's also a"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "creator."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Maybe I've just been, you know, bought into the cult."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> And that investor is Claire."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Welcome to Term Sheet. I'm Ally Garfinkle."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Now, before we get to our interview with Claire, a little bit of news. This is a little bit of a back to the future moment in the private markets this week."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Cerebras is at long last going public."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Now, for the uninitiated, Cerebras is an AI chip startup that initially filed to go public back in 2024. And we're here, they filed again. They are now about to hit the public markets this week. Now,"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "if you're sitting here wondering, a chip startup? The answer is yes. And do they compete with Nvidia? The answer is actually yes. Now, Cerebras is looking to go out at about a $35 billion"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "valuation, which is very, very, very infinitesimal compared to Nvidia's 5 trillion. But for a long time, the company has billed itself as an Nvidia challenger. Now, which one are you? The"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "bull or the bear? If you're the bull, what you probably believe is that Cerebras over time is going to build on its existing partnerships with OpenAI and AWS and ride that inference wave to"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "a trillion dollar valuation or more."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Now, if you're the bear, what you probably believe is that this is ultimately hype-driven. The company has customer concentration problems and that eventually the public markets will not"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "be able to take so many chip companies."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Which one are you? Let me know in the comments or send me me email. And now for my interview with Claire."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "So if you are into tech and you are on social media, you have probably seen Claire Zao explaining SpaceX, explaining the AI bubble, explaining funding rounds. Claire, you have found a lot of"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "success as a creator. You have hundreds of thousands of followers. You were also for a time the youngest investor ever at GGV Ventures. And now you have a new title. You are going to be joining"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Lightspeed as what as a first of its kind >> Yeah."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> ever in venture. Um you are going to be a creator who's also an investor."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yep."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Can you tell us more about that?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> So I've been in the venture space for about 6 years. I became partner at GGV, joined as an an associate, grew through the ranks, and have been thinking deeply about space. And about a year ago"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "decided to start creating content."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> What was the first day? What was day one of creating content?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> March 2025. And I had actually been thinking about it for a long time. So it did take some courage to start putting my face out there on short-form media because I didn't think any other venture"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "folks were out there. So uh you know, I I always thought that short-form media, at least for me, I saw so many eyeballs there, but serious content never extended there. And and so yeah, March"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "2025, I was like, why don't I just challenge myself, post every single day, see what happens? And it just so happened >> been thinking about it and then you got to sort of critical mass in your head"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "and then it came out into the world."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "What was the first set of videos like?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> as of any creator, they will tell you that their first honestly first 50 is all throwing spaghetti at the wall and figuring out what sticks, figuring out how your audience is reacting to it. And"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "the great thing about content compared to something like your venture role where you need 5 to 10 years to have any sort of feedback loop is you can find out in literally the first 3 minutes. I"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "can tell when and how a video will perform."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> In the first 3 minutes?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> You you learn with different platforms, but how the algorithm spreads. I feel like I've taken the most like productized, techy approach to building content. You basically have all these"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "different variables like how shareable a piece of content is, watch time, whether it drives engagement and commenting. So you might have things that are quite interesting, but people don't save for"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "long enough, or you might have things that are people don't actually like the subject, but it's highly shareable like anytime I talk about what the future labor market looks like. Highly"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "shareable because people are concerned and they want to share it with their friends. Oh, this is what this person has said or this is what this report has shown. I think I've now built this feedback loop in my head and"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "kind of have gotten a very good sense of what will stick and what won't with with that leads some audience that I've built."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> What topics did you find resonated with your audience early? Like what was some spaghetti that stuck on the wall and you said, \"Oh, okay, that's it.\""
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I've seen a lot of content try to for better or for worse dumb things down and I I didn't want to take all the things I was seeing in tech and dumb it down for audience because I think a lot of people"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "are able to actually understand that the stories just haven't been translated for them. Especially as a woman, I've seen a lot of finance content. It's like, \"For the girlies.\" And I'm like, \"No, I"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "think, you know, as women, we can understand this content.\""
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I I actually do get it."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> we can we can but I would just like to hear as, you know, in its regular form."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "And so, you know, I wanted to stay first authentic to the content that I was interested in, but biased to what the ecosystem didn't necessarily have, which was an investor's perspective or kind of"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "that macro 30,000-ft view perspective on where the world was heading and trying to play translator. I think there are a lot of headlines and I do think for your regular audience, they're being"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "flooded with all of these headlines, but they don't know what it means. Does it mean that you know, this space is going to be this space is being targeted by Anthropic and therefore I need to start developing my"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "own skill set in design now that they're developing cloud design. You know, I have spoken extensively about the AI supply chain. So what does that mean as someone who, you know, might not"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "necessarily have access into understanding the world of Nvidia and memory and chips."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> You know, you are the youngest partner at GSV. Did you always want to be in venture? Was that always the plan?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I knew I always wanted to do something in the intersection of tech, business, and education. I've always played translator. My mom doesn't speak great English. When we were moving, played"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "translator for her, navigated living in both Asia and US. While I was at grad school, had the opportunity to join GC where I could merge these three worlds."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "And so, took up the opportunity and it was one of the most amazing experiences just being able to dive deep into an industry as someone who's always been passionate about future technologies,"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "being able to translate all these future technologies into what that would look like in education workforce settings."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Is there any part of investing that is a translation task, especially in the AI era?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I've always thought of venture as a narrative job. Um some of the best investors that, you know, I can point to or look up to are storytellers. They're able to sell you on why >> Like who are you thinking of when you"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "think of that?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Brad Feld's blog, looking at the content that Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner have been able to put out in their BG2 pod. I've always looked at those as great models of investors who also navigate storytelling"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "very well. I've always seen those jobs as going hand-in-hand because when you are building yourself as an investor, you are selling why you should be a partner, right?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "You're selling why this vision makes sense. You're selling why your vision for the future of the world is supposed to align with this specific company. In venture specifically, because you are"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "existing in multiple spaces. You're existing in the same rooms as AI researchers who haven't been exposed to the financial metrics, right? And so, you have all these founders who might"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "currently exist in the AI research world. They're deep in founder mode, but then eventually, as they potentially IPO or they have an amazing exit, they have to learn how to navigate the finance"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "world, right? And then at the same time, through all of this, a company is also needing to tell its story to the masses."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Like, what do you represent? What is your brand? What are you doing to change the world? And so, I think a venture as existing in this interesting space where you are helping a founder navigate all"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "of these spaces. And in doing so, you have to play translator quite well because one, you have to master all these spaces, but also able to tell the story across all these spaces cuz those"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "stories look very different depending on whether you're talking to a general consumer, or if you're talking to a banker, or if you're talking to another founder."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Where is AI awareness for your audience right now?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I mean, definitely mixed. I operate by day in the space that is very techno-optimistic. And I think by default, I am pretty techno-optimistic."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "I grew up uh with a dad who would bring us to every single sci-fi movie. Uh he actually collects sci-fi movie props."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "So, >> What is the best sci-fi movie prop he has?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Maybe What is your favorite?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Well, I >> Shout out to Claire's dad, wherever you are."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Having the Terminator head in your basement is probably a good reminder of what happens when AI goes Skynet route."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I've always been a big believer in what AI and technology can unlock for society. I think, you know, humanity is always innately wanted to build and invent."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "It's it's kind of like core to who we are as a species. Um so, I exist in that space on a daily basis, and it's so fun being able to be at a place like Lightspeed or at GSV, having peers that"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "feel that excitement, or existing in Silicon Valley where so many people believe in this vision."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "At the same time, I think creating content has and building this audience with the general masses has actually been a humbling experience in many ways."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "It's pushed me to go beyond this kind of tech techno-optimistic bubble and recognize that a lot of people aren't necessarily anti-tech. They just feel like they've been left out of the journey. And"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "therefore, and because nobody's playing translator for them, their exposure to this story is only doom and gloom oriented. It's only about how tech is going to take their jobs. You look at"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "like the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, AI has done a pretty bad job of addressing every part of the stack. It's like literally your water need, right? Like data centers taking your water,"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "uh your purpose, your job. And so >> I've never heard that, but actually, yes."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah. And so like >> So of course there's panic. Of course there's anxiety."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> and I don't I don't fault people for having anxiety. I sit in my day job and I see how much excitement there is for AI, for humanity, for science, for um health care, for just scientific progress. The fact that"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "we might have orbital data centers, I don't know. And that was always like a movie concept for me. But I think for your regular audience, they're only hearing the negative headlines, the most extreme"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "headlines, and they're not necessarily seeing the incremental exciting change that we are seeing it that I feel I have privileged access to through my work adventure."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> What do you think is the most important thing any general audience needs to understand about AI?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> That really this is, I mean, everybody says an unprecedented time, but two, it really is kind of a jagged frontier, right? It's jagged intelligence. I think it's interesting because when I post"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "anything about AI, I will see either a reaction that is, \"Oh, no, this doesn't work. I've tried it and terrible output."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Like these investors and these founders must be lying.\" But then I'll also see reactions that are like, \"This thing's going to take my job. What do we do? We We shut it down.\" And so"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "it's almost this tension where we need to kind of center where AI is today."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "There's a lot of promising where AI will go, but I also think there's maybe a discrepancy between how people are using it today and what the technology is enabling at kind of the tech bro Silicon Valley level."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Uh I think for example, I'm seeing a lot of people only exposed to AI in the form of a better search engine. And I think that's therefore when you tell them that this, you know, something like an"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "AlphaFold is going to help us discover entirely new protein structures and therefore unlock personalized vaccines, like that is a There's just a massive gap between better search engine and"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "personalized medicine that could eventually extend lifespan."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Fighting cures to cancer, fighting autoimmune diseases."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah, and I think this blurred the story."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> already existed, and that's actually a harder story to tell than oh, it's going to take your job."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yes, I think there's enough messaging and and storytelling around the super intelligence and singularity story, but what about all the cool advances that we are making for humanity? And what about"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "logging the incremental step changes in both positive and negative directions?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "We've only heard the very broad headline. And so, there's not that nuance and therefore, it's just this ominous thing that you have to be afraid of. And so, hopefully, the work that"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "we're able to do is really play translator that this is exciting, it's a less scary than you might think, but there are also things that we as an industry want to invite the public to be involved in. What I've"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "been really surprised by is actually just seeing that these AI labs actually do really care about how people use these tools, how they're exposed to it."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um they're working to invite people to the table. Obviously, you know, we're not in a perfect world. No, we're not."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Yeah. But I I I I think there's >> But the effort matters."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah, as I think about maybe where the public sits um with broader AI sentiment and where the tech world is building, there is definitely silos, but at least I'm seeing in the public sector an"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "interest in tech. There's a an innate desire to learn and participate in the future. And I think for the big tech world, there's a desire for people to feel as excited as we are about about these technologies."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> You've talked before about how it's important for people to get educated about AI, particularly students. What would you compare that importance to?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> AI literacy is almost like sex ed. You don't have to love this technology, you don't have to promote it, but you have to know about it. And if you don't the ways that people interact with this"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "technology is going to be kind of the worst form of it. When we talk about diffusion of this technology to young people, the ways that they're going to learn about it is through Snapchat or"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Meta AI as opposed to learning about how it can be used to accelerate scientific discovery or how it might enable their own entrepreneurship. Having knowledge and awareness is critical. And if if you don't even give"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "them access to that awareness, you're doing a service to those people."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Education has actually been one of the most high-friction industries of introducing any sort of technology. And so, I've actually thought a lot about the diffusion of different technologies,"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "specifically the diffusion of like AI technology. I think what's interesting is you have all these different factors at play in the education space."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "You simultaneously have kids who are using this as a cheating tool, institutions were trying to ban it, but then also want to use it because if you don't use it, then you're not preparing people for the future, but"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "then simultaneously Gen Z actually having a new found angst against AI. I think uh we recently did um a survey with Gallup, and it found that for Gen Z, the of all the different emotions, anxiety and angst"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "grew the most around AI."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um So, I I think uh yeah, I've been thinking a lot about how technology spreads. In an education it you know, education and health care I think are two spaces where uh you often see"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "different velocities of adoption at the institutional level versus at the user level. And I think education is one of those interesting case studies where you know, you simultaneously have"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "your end user as a student adopting it faster than ever, but then having mixed feelings about it. And then institutions scrambling to figure out, you know, they're they're like, we need"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "to pilot all things.\" but then often isn't actually putting the work to implement it correctly. This technology is inevitable. It is exciting. It's the future and >> We can't pretend it's not there."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> and if >> So, we need to talk about it."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah, and if if you don't talk about it, is a disservice to people that these institutions are serving."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> I do think there is something really interesting. If you're in school, for example, it's probably easier to go to ChatGPT for certain things. So, I imagine there's a way to sort of triage"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "best practices and be like, \"Okay, this is a way that AI can help you learn."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "This is a way that it maybe would hinder you from learning.\""
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> When I have seen the concern very valid concerns around AI usage, I often ask like, \"How do you use AI?\""
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "and it is pretty telling that they again use it only as kind of a better search engine or they're using it as like a one-shot output and they're just taking it as a completely written essay and"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "they're like, \"Send it in.\" When people exhibit agency over this technology, it is a massive unlock for those people. Uh at least for me, I feel like the floor has risen on my ability to design things,"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "ability to code, ability to write. Do I think it's replacing me? And do I ever use it? You know, do I take the first output that I ever get from ChatGPT or Claude and submit it? That's"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "probably not good practice and I think in the same way >> So fair."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> that you probably wouldn't ideally take, you know, someone else doing your you know, the cheating problem has existed for a very long time. In the same way that you wouldn't >> Since the beginning of school."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yes. Yeah, if in the same way that you won't learn if you ask your friend to do your homework. It's the same thing with ChatGPT doing your homework. I think it ultimately comes down to how you use"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "this technology."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> I'm curious about your take on where the conversation around data centers is. In 2024, GPUs were selling faster than Taylor Swift tickets or something like that, which is crazy. What analogy would"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "you use for the conversation around AI hardware, the conversation around data centers, um and where we're at right now?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I don't think everybody who has entered tech has you know, a negative, villainous vision of the world."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um and they also want to improve it. Uh it's just that there's kind of a difference in how we get there. Among the tech industry, the prevailing mindset around things like data centers"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "or the harms that the AI industry is making right now is that these are problems that will be solved by AI improving itself. This idea that, yes, this massive upfront physical buildout"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "will have physical harms today. However, we're already seeing advances where, you know, closed-loop data centers or uh advances in chip efficiency uh or even orbital data centers, there is a genuine desire"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "to improve the world and the physical buildout issue is one where it's almost a a difference in how you approach the problem. It's like the vision is that we get to a place where the technology is able to help us solve"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "climate issues, is able to help us solve the data center buildout issue. Um obviously, I think if you're not a believer in the iterative intelligence that AI promises, it's hard to see and you just see a bunch of"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "reckless decision-making by uh a couple stakeholders. So, I understand where all sides are coming from. There's an interesting opportunity for, again, tech to tell that story uh because I think right now there is just"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "kind of almost a we're just going to do this. You you've seen the headlines where just we're going to build a Manhattan-size data center and not really explain the why or what this unlocks or where it"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "fits into the supply chain or uh how it enables other technologies. So, I think again, always comes down to a difference in how we get there and who has visibility into the entire kind"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "of roadmap, if you will. You've invested in AI startups, right? You've served as an advisor for Arizona State University's External AI Thought Leadership Group, which launched chat"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "GPTV Um but you've also warned about the dangers of AI. What is your personal relationship to that tension?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I think this technology is kind of like promethean fire right? There's it's hard to assign it this very binary good or bad good or evil status because it's really how the technology"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "is used. It's like you know, I think even electricity right? Like electricity can enable amazing things for society but it also did technically enable >> They put the lamplighters out of"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "business eventually over a long period of time but it is what happened."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Exactly and and so you can there's always an argument to be made about why a technology can be positive or negative. You know, this is the first time ever it is not necessarily just a tool. It is also able"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "to replicate certain functions that that humans have served. I think a lot about the ways that AI is being used in place of certain relationships right?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Or uh you know my fear that AI is reducing our meta cognition as as people our ability to learn how to learn because we just kind of take AI's answer as as final answer and and then you're"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "set with it. There's no inquiry. There's no critical thinking and I >> can seem so decisive and be so confidently wrong."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah and I think about like okay then AI psychosis and I think about the AI girlfriends and boyfriends and the you know, the loneliness pandemic again. So I there's a lot of things on my mind but I think ultimately"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "I believe in the strength the collective strength of humanity and our ability to steer it in the right way. I genuinely do believe that people in a lot of these companies have the right"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "motives that they want to build a better future and I do think you know, whether or not you agree with the ways that we get there, I think it's hard to just say that have this very kind of"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "one-dimensional view that like everyone is an AI villain and trying to build an AI supervillain superintelligence. I genuinely do believe that people there wouldn't be so many smart"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "intelligent people in this ecosystem thinking about what's possible with this technology uh if there wasn't a promise of a better future. And maybe or I don't know, who knows. I sometimes also kind of"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "challenge my own assumptions and I'm like maybe I've just been, you know, bought into the cult and therefore that's what they want us to believe. Um but for now I I think that's kind of"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "where it where I sit. I think anyone who says they know where the world is going is >> of it. You're full of it. They're messing with you."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> sometimes the best that you can do is actually just help explain what is happening to your best ability and make sure that people feel like they're part of it and feel informed and sometimes,"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "you know, there are days where I create content and, you know, I I really do say like I don't know, but here's what the tech is saying and here's how I might explain it and here's how I"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "might explain the storyline. And one thing I've I've always um tried to hold true with my content is that I never really want to tell people what to believe, but rather I will just"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "explain it for them and you can decide whether or not you love or hate the big AI labs. You can decide whether or not you love or hate the data centers. I've never wanted to you know, steer or sway anyone in one"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "very strong direction. Obviously, just my bias is that I am techno-optimistic and I'm wary of that and that generally generally I will cover probably things that lean more techno-optimist, but at"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "the same time I think I've tried at intentionally not to make extreme statements like I I I don't think there has ever been a video where I've said AI is going to take this specific job. I I've talked"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "about reports and research that has happened in this in that space."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um but I I feel like I've tried to be quite intentional about not, you know, being overly raw-raw tech, but also not being overly anti-tech, either. Um and really just trying to present the facts"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "in a digestible way."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> You've clearly developed a really nuanced view of the relationship between Silicon Valley and Main Street, should we say? Um how does it inform how you invest?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> To your point, sometimes in venture we tend to talk to each other and, you know, if another fund is doing a lot in this space, it must mean that it must matter and that's where the world is"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "going. And I think that leads to some of the level of behavior where it is just kind of this incestuous loop of orbital data centers must be the future. So, we must write a check into a startup in"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "this space. And I I think there's grounds for, you know, the investments that uh you know, Lightspeed as a firm is making, there's like clearly a lot of research and rigor behind it. In venture"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "in general, there's a lot of noise and it's hard to tell what's actually reaching audiences. I think one good example is as an investor, all I hear about is or at least I am a massive user of Claude. Um it feels"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "like there's been a lot of kind of Claude maxing, if you will, among the tech industry, like almost often a jump. Uh but then I think there's recent data that shows that um for most your general masses,"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "what they know is AI is is chat, right?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "So, I think there's helpful it's helpful to have this real-time sounding board where anytime I talk about a specific topic, I can get a sense of what the public um is feeling about that topic or if they actually if"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "it's resonating, if they've even heard of it. I felt like I was already seeing this difference in usage between the general public. There's a lot of Gemini usage, uh ChatGPT usage, and Claude was kind of"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "this this uh you know, archaic thing."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "They're like, \"What's Claude?\" And then, you know, when the Anthropic ad came out, they're like, \"Oh, it's Claude uh chat chat's enemy.\" And so, it's it's things that I >> chat's enemy? And it's things that are"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "anthropomorphizing."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah, exactly."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> They're beefing."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> isn't no."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah, they're not not beefing."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Yeah."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> Uh but, it's just interesting cuz you're like sitting in your you know, you're sitting in X where you're seeing all these investors talking about like there armies of agents. And then on the"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "flip side, you're interacting with the masses where they're still like, \"Claude is beefing with >> No, what's up with this?\""
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Yeah."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Speaking of something that is a big topic on X and be a big topic sort of venture land, the sort of one-person or the tiny-team billion-dollar startup. Do you think we'll see that over the next year or"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "two?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I have seen the ways that this technology provides tremendous leverage for an individual that is able to take advantage of it. Um I think as always with anything, there is any sort of technological change is"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "often times like two parts the tech and then eight parts the actual change management. And so, do I think that like we're going to see all of these organizations size down and only run off of"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "agents managing agents? I think it will take a long time to get there because there's still a lot of human context."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "That's like the missing layer."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Uh there's a lot of judgment. There's a lot of you know, figuring out which tasks are prioritized. Like I think we have the actual units of power. They're just not necessarily routed in the ways that make"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "sense in a human organization today."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> Do you believe it is possible to have a moat in AI at this point."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> I think so. I think there is always uh you know a a human moat. There's always a judgement moat. You know, I think if you think about all of these intelligent people, there's You also have to figure out who is"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "building in the right spaces and do they have the subject matter expertise or a skill set to build in that specific space. So, I think while the floor has risen in what you're able to do and that there's"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "never been more of an exciting time to build because you're now empowered by an army of agent coders and uh you can use cloud design to help mock up your your brand design and I think generally the the floor has been"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "lowered where anyone can start building in a much more accessible way."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "At the same time, there's still a need to figure out like do you build in this specific industries? Do you target this user? Like those business moats still matter uh because yes, an AI"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "can tell you and help you with making such founder decisions, but at the same time, there's every single founder in a single day goes through so many decisions that ultimately that's why I'm so"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "excited about betting on founders and investing pre-seed and seed stage is because really it does come down to to people and their ability to navigate this tech and the ability to compounding"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "over time make the right decisions."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> I want to bring back something that you've said before um that this is the first time we're able to produce intelligence. And there's going to be a job for people who can speak to intelligence. Well, how does"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "that affect the kinds of startups you'd be betting on for the next 10 years, 20 years?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> As with any technology time and time again, we've seen labor get abstracted to a higher level, right? I think for a long time we had humans as manual computers. They're just plugging wires in and out, human alarm"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "clocks. Human labor will always exist because you need that kind of judgment."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um at the same time I do think we are seeing AI get to a place where AI is able to produce a certain level of judgment to judge another set of AIs and that's kind of the the vision of HEI."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um as I think about the teams that were excited to back, it's really the types of founders and teams that know how to take advantage of this compounding value. Um it's founders who"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "are able to constantly adapt to this ever-evolving technology that's changing on a daily basis."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "And so I think in that world, the moat is not just, you know, whether or not you have uh an insane product. It's also whether a team can quickly adapt that product when uh a big lab or an existing incumbent"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "tries to enter your territory, right? I think um so much of the bet is not just on what you're seeing today. The bet is on that specific team and their ability to navigate what is arguably one of the"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "most exciting times to build, but also the most uncertain times to build."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> We see these really high valuations, right? We see companies that have billions in revenue sometimes after just being around for a couple of years. Yes, that is absolutely impressive, but it"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "doesn't mean it's a mature company. And we shouldn't necessarily talk about them that way. And how do you know if somebody can even manage that change?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Like when you're looking at somebody to invest in, how can you look at them and say, \"I think you could figure it out.\""
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> that's the hardest part about early-stage investing is it really is betting on people. And so there are ways I think to translate and and use proxies, right? Like I think you can look at how they've built"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "previous products, have they built companies before, how have they navigated those journeys."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Uh you can talk to people that they've worked with, better understand how do they approach change, are they you know, are are are they quick to adapt in the moment, are they kind of"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "more stubborn in in certain ways? And maybe being stubborn sometimes is good, right? Like I think uh in many ways still TBD, but uh question of whether it's stubborn or just inability to"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "implement the change, but like maybe the fact that Apple hasn't played at the foundation model layer might to be to their advantage later on when, you know, if the models do commoditize, they have"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "always had the distribution layer and they get to um benefit from all of that."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "So, I think there's all these examples where um it is really just pattern recognition and it's yes, gleaning data points through the proxies that you can get through knowing people, through seeing"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "how they've worked, uh what they've worked on, but it's also really betting on that specific person and their vision for the world. Um I think also recognizing that this is a partnership where uh for any venture"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "fund at least I've always been excited about taking a hands-on approach to partnering with people because um there is every founding journey is different."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Even if a founder has started a company previously and had a successful exit, um it is also really just who that founder is surrounded by as well. And so that includes not only their team, but"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "also the investors that are that are backing them."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> You've previously said that the future of the AI boom is hardware. What did you mean by that and why does it matter?"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": ">> We've actually come to a place where we're investing both bits and atoms again."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um I I think this idea that in order to usher this next technological change, there is a physical build out. There are energy and compute and data bottlenecks. Those are all very interesting problems to solve"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "for companies and for founders who want to change the world and who want to build solutions for the space. And there will always be the software layer that sits on top of that. And I think for"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "maybe the last two decades, at least the companies that I've seen you've probably index a little bit more towards the software side of things just because for the primitives around hardware never"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "really change, right? It was always uh it would those things pretty much stayed the same and so where you had opportunity to change the world was to build better software. And that's why the kind"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "of name defining or category defining companies of those era or or of the last two decades have been things like Airbnb or Stripe or uh or um Google even Zoom, all these companies that"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "exist at software layer. I think now there's an interesting opportunity where because AI is requiring both a physical build out and a software layer, there's interesting opportunities in both and"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "I'm excited to meet and continue to back founders that are thinking deeply about you know, the priors that we've had, updating those priors for this new world we're entering."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "Um I also think you know, there's a lot of interesting things that AI unlocks for hardware. Uh you know, I see those paradigms as kind of going hand in hand where this idea that we have AI that can now"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "unlock ambience, right? This AI that can now take in computer vision, it can take in audio data. What's the best way to capture all that data? You need some physical manifestation of that. So, um I"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "think there is yes, the physical part in the actual heavy infrastructure, but I also think in the ways that um whether that's robotics or ambient wearables, the ways that AI in turn unlocks a new"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 1",
    "text": "wave of even like consumer hardware as well."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": ">> And that was Claire."
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Knowledge really is the antidote to fear, and she is someone absolutely worth keeping an eye on as the public conversation around AI continues heating up. That's it for Term Sheet. I'm Ally"
  },
  {
    "speaker": "Speaker 2",
    "text": "Garfinkel. We'll see you soon."
  }
]