20VC: The AI Bubble Is Wrong | AI Margins Need to Improve | Revenue Concentration Should be a Concern | Why People Over-Estimate Open Models But Enterprises Still Fear Frontier Models with Aaron Katz, ClickHouse
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Release Date: 08/31/2026
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Venky Ganesan is a Partner at Menlo Ventures, whose portfolio includes Anthropic, Lovable, Legora and Higgsfield, alongside earlier hits Uber and Roku. Venky’s own investment track record includes Palo Alto Networks, Upwork, Poshmark and Rover. He is a three-time Forbes Midas List investor and former Chair of the National Venture Capital Association. AGENDA: 07:00 Can You Still Do Seed Without a $1 Billion Fund? 11:00 How Much of AI’s Revenue Growth Is Actually Real? 19:00 When Is “Overpaying” the Smartest Investment You Can Make? 25:00 Does Ownership Still Matter in a World of...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Chase Lochmiller is the Co-founder and CEO of Crusoe. Crusoe builds and powers the data centres that companies use to train and run AI. It has raised approximately $6.4 billion in equity, including its latest $3.9 billion Series F at a $30.9 billion valuation. Its backers include NVIDIA, Founders Fund, Gavin Baker’s Atreides Management, Mubadala Capital and Valor Equity Partners. AGENDA: 04:40 What Does Climbing Everest Teach You About Building a Company? 17:40 What’s Really Stopping Us From Building Enough AI Data Centres? 25:50 Are Data Centres Really Driving Up Your Energy...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 00:00 Highlights: Jack Altman Joins The Trio 05:00 Anthropic’s S-1 Leaks: $8B Operating Loss and $518B in Compute Commitments 10:00 Instinct Raises $1B at a $10B Valuation to Take On Meta 25:00 AMD Buys Fei-Fei Li’s World Labs for $8.2B 39:00 Meta Poaches MongoDB’s CEO as Shares Plunge 20% 43:00 AI Startup Seeks $10B Valuation Just One Week After Seed 47:00 Modal Hits $15B Valuation as Baseten Eyes $26B 54:00 OpenAI Reopens Its $200 Plan—and Halves What You Get 57:00 Oura Pulls IPO After Targeting a $16B Valuation 01:03:00 Nubank Eyes $8–12B Monzo Takeover 01:08:00...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Alex Mashrabov is the Founder and CEO of Higgsfield, the third fastest scaling company to $1BN in ARR behind OpenAI and Anthropic. Reports suggest their latest funding round could place an $8BN valuation on the company. Prior to Higgsfield, Alex sold his prior company to Snap Inc for $166M. Alex was a competitive programmer as a kid, reaching third best in the world. AGENDA: 00:00 The Programming Prodigy Who Sold to Snap for $166M 09:00 Burning $10M: The Pivot That Saved Higgsfield 12:00 A $1B Revenue Run Rate in 18 Months; How Real Is It? 16:00 Will OpenAI and Google Wipe Out $20 AI...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Parag Agrawal is the Co-Founder and CEO of Parallel, building web search infrastructure for AI agents. Parallel has announced $230M in funding from Sequoia, Khosla, and First Round Capital. Previously, he was CEO of Twitter, succeeding Jack Dorsey after serving as CTO and becoming the company’s first Distinguished Engineer. AGENDA: 03:00 What Breaks When Agents Search the Web 1,000x More? 07:00 Speed, Cost or Accuracy: What Do Agents Really Need? 13:00 Will Tiny Models Catch Today’s Most Powerful AI? 16:00 Is Model Routing a Commodity? 21:00 Is Amazon Making a Mistake by Blocking AI...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 04:35 Anthropic’s $2 Trillion IPO Delayed. Cracks in the AI Boom? 10:30 OpenAI Faces $278 Billion Cash Burn. Out of Money by 2028? 12:55 Meta’s Muse Hits No. 1. ChatGPT Finally Has a Rival? 17:05 Amazon Blocks AI Shopping Agents. Shopify Welcomes Them. 24:10 ChatGPT Inventor Launches Jev. Vercel’s Fastest Launch Ever. 34:15 A $40 Million Seed Round. Is Traditional Seed Investing Dead? 39:00 Menlo Sounds the AI Bubble Alarm. Harry Calls BS. 54:00 Factory Triples Its Valuation to $5 Billion. Coding Is the Mother Lode. 1:00:20 Legora Hits $200 Million ARR. Is $11 Billion Too Rich?...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Daniel Dines is one of the greatest European founders of the last decade. As the Co-Founder of UiPath, he has scaled the business to a market cap high of $ 44BN in 2021, with the company now generating $1.72BN in revenue, growing 15% year-on-year. The company raised $2BN before its IPO, backed by Sequoia, Accel, CapitalG, Coatue and Kleiner Perkins. AGENDA: 05:00 Why Dario is Wrong About Millions of AI Einsteins? 13:00 Is AI Safety Becoming an Excuse to Kill Open Source? 21:00 Does UiPath Really Need 4,000 Employees? 28:00 Would You Help Train the AI That Could Replace You?...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Thomas Sohmers is the co-founder and chairman of Positron AI, building chips to make running AI dramatically cheaper and more energy-efficient. The company recently announced an $875 million Series C at a $5 billion valuation, backed by investors including Gavin Baker’s Atreides Management, NEA, Valor Equity Partners and Netscape co-founder Jim Clark. AGENDA: 04:30 Why Does AI Inference Need Different Hardware from Training? 10:25 What Is Nobody Telling You About AI’s Token Economics? 13:10 Should We Really Slow Down the AI Frontier? 16:55 What Happens If America Slows Down—and China...
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
AGENDA: 03:40 Dario Calls to "Pace the Frontier" 11:30 Why the Fed Will Raid Anthropic if Needed 21:50 Meta Launches Muse to Take On Instinct 28:30 Instinct Raising $1BN at $10BN—Would You Invest? 39:55 Miro Sells for $1.35BN After a $17.5BN Valuation 47:45 Could Sam Bankman-Fried Win His Freedom? 51:25 WordPress Power Struggle: Matt Mullenweg Ousted, Then Returns 1:01:20 Mistral Raises €3BN in Europe’s Biggest-Ever Tech Round 1:05:00 Adobe’s New CEO & Canva’s Slowing Growth: SaaS Giants Under Pressure
info_outlineThe Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
David Morehead is one of the most respected CIOs in the endowment fund world as Chief Investment Officer at Baylor University, overseeing its $2.6BN endowment. Before joining Baylor in 2011, he was a senior portfolio manager at several Chicago hedge funds, investing across corporate securities, distressed debt and public and private energy. AGENDA: 04:00 The Portfolio Construction of a $2.6 Billion University Endowment? 09:00 Why We Spend More Time on Porfolio Construction Than Manager Selection? 14:00 Should LPs Back VC’s Biggest Names or Find the Next Breakout Manager? 21:00 How Baylor...
info_outlineAaron Katz is the Co-Founder and CEO of ClickHouse, the real-time analytics database powering companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Tesla and Microsoft. ClickHouse just surpassed $350M in ARR and raised over $1B from investors including Dragoneer, Khosla Ventures, Coatue, 20VC and Benchmark. Previously, Aaron was CRO at Elastic, where he helped scale revenue from approximately $5M to $500M and led the company through its IPO. Before Elastic, he spent 12 years at Salesforce, working alongside Marc Benioff and helping transform it from a 200-person startup into a global software giant.
AGENDA:
4:05 Are we in an AI bubble?
13:40 How does software change when agents—not humans—make buying decisions?
22:28 Will 90% of tokens flow through open models; can enterprises trust them?
31:09 Why did ClickHouse sponsor Fulham; and could sports teams become $20B assets?
35:49 When will ClickHouse hit $1B ARR?
38:31 Can startups still win elite talent from OpenAI? Biggest remote work mistake?
44:54 Is zero-to-$100M ARR now table stakes; or is durable growth what matters?
48:51 Is college still worth it; which jobs will survive AI?
57:58 When will ClickHouse go public; and why not next year?