00:00:00 · Aydin Senkut, Eric Newcomer
[00:00:00] S0: We might have as many robots as people, maybe even more. There are a lot of things that humans are unwilling to or are incapable of doing and robots can do that. I'm super excited about the implications of that. One of the things that fascinates me, I don't think people are appreciating the potential of commercializing the agents because the agents don't know the world the way we do. Apple had to call its apps maps so that people confuse it. Do you know that? I asked my wife and I'm like, Do you realize you think you're using Google Maps but it's actually Apple Maps? Anyway, I probably shouldn't go there but I can't help myself. [00:00:34] S1: Aydin Senkut, welcome to the Newcomer Podcast. Thanks for joining me. [00:00:38] S0: Thanks, Eric. Thank you for having excited about this.
00:00:38 · Aydin Senkut, Eric Newcomer
[00:00:38] S0: Thanks, Eric. Thank you for having excited about this. [00:00:41] S1: We have a ton to talk about, excited to work together on this Emergent list. We have a set of roughly 30 seeder early startup founders who are recommended and endorsed by former speakers of the Cerebral Valley AI Summit. We love it, just the sense that have people at our summits that we think are on the cusp and then taking off and then to have the founder endorsement is so exciting. So excited to dig through that list. And then Felicis, the firm you founded, twenty years old, has such a legacy. So already young, I guess, for some venture firms, old for others. You've been on the Midas list consecutively for thirteen years, so have a great perspective on venture. So we'll talk about Felicis, maybe some advice for emerging managers, and then we'll talk some of the hot topics in venture today. I guess just to jump off on this Emergent list, like what excited you about it and what sort of is standing out in terms of the companies that are getting nominated? [00:01:45] S0: First of all, kudos to you. Anything that's unconventional and unorthodox always draws us. We're drawn to outliers. I feel like I'm an outsider myself. I love the idea and I think there is kind of like an analogy and adage in the restaurant industry that if you want to find a true hidden gem, ask a chef, not food guides. So I feel it's a great implementation and execution here. I also feel it's a great honor.
00:01:45 · Aydin Senkut, Eric Newcomer
[00:01:45] S0: First of all, kudos to you. Anything that's unconventional and unorthodox always draws us. We're drawn to outliers. I feel like I'm an outsider myself. I love the idea and I think there is kind of like an analogy and adage in the restaurant industry that if you want to find a true hidden gem, ask a chef, not food guides. So I feel it's a great implementation and execution here. I also feel it's a great honor. [00:02:15] S1: If you want a great restaurant, ask a chef. If you want a great founder, ask a founder, not the pundit class. [00:02:21] S0: I think it's true because look, at the end of the day, I think what people miss is you've got to be able to see a version of the future that is not yet obvious. And I feel like founders are the real heroes. So they have a way of seeing the future like nobody else can. And So they have a different lens. What I'm really excited about this is that they actually get a chance to show that lens to the world. [00:02:42] S1: And what are some of the themes that you're seeing emerging? I mean, it's like almost this post ChatGPT world where people are building a world, obviously agents, robotics, like what stood out to you from the companies that people are paying attention to so early?
00:02:56 · Aydin Senkut
[00:02:56] S0: Well, there are three areas that stood out to me. But before I tackle those areas, I feel like this business, we're always talking about like the valuations or what companies are worth. And people sometimes got to remember that the foundation of that is incredible business traction and growth and the precursor of that is hyper demand. And so the right way to find companies in our business, you have to be right and non consensus. And so I feel founders have this special lens. And not surprisingly, three of the areas that they chose really resonate with me and with my team, especially AI infrastructure. One thing that we talk about is kind of like the hot companies or the most valuable companies. But then the thing is like every kind of one of these tech cycles and hype cycles have leading companies. We have succeeded in finding the foundational layer of each one of those waves. Like in the mobile wave, was gaming and we were investors in Rovio and e commerce, it was Shopify, in payments it was Adyen. And now like in AI, we have a lot of interesting companies like Supabase and all of that. So one of the cool things is looking at these three areas and say, I'm excited about them particularly because I think for the next decade in the world, these are the areas that are going to face hyper demand and hyper demand would result in stellar business traction. Not surprisingly, AI infrastructure is one of them. So obviously there are some companies that are already positioning to go public or not. I'm more interested about the foundational companies that power this wave. Like what's the glue for AI agents? Who's going to keep the AI agents secure and keep them in check? There were so many aspects of AI infrastructure. The next thing, AI and biology. We sometimes are so focused on technology we forget that some of the biggest products in the world are in pharmaceuticals. I have this like running joke. One of my close friends was employee number eight of Google and we were dreaming about starting a company. We didn't know what we were going to do. And we're like, what do you think could be the most important company in the world? And we decided if we were to do it, we would call it You Don't Die. Because every human being cares What
00:05:04 · Eric Newcomer, Aydin Senkut
[00:05:04] S1: would you definitely buy? [00:05:05] S0: You Die is something that you would definitely buy. And joking aside, this is why biology is so important because even or despite all of the amazing changes we had, we're still like having people come to cancer even though we're about to like get close to curing and all of that. So this next wave much more so than this chat based interface and intelligence, I'm super excited because we can actually have an impact on our physical lives. And then the last thing is just physical world and robotics. First of all, if you're a sci fi nerd and fan like me, you know every sci fi movie has some aspect of robotics. But I think one of the things people do not realize or think about is that if you ever studied economics in college, Oh, what are the major inputs into wealth creation and economies like labor? And labor was limited by people. And now all of a sudden we can have unlimited labor because of robotics. Or I can imagine a world and it might take ten years, maybe a lot less, but we might have as many robots as people, maybe even more. And I don't think it's like a zero sum game. There are a lot of things that humans are unwilling to or are incapable of doing and robots can do that. So this kind of idea of abundance we have now real underpinnings of that with labor now being completely infinitely scalable and many other aspects with AI now like intelligence is super scalable. So I'm super excited about the implications of that.
00:06:35 · Eric Newcomer
[00:06:35] S1: I want to dig into each of the categories for a little bit. AI infrastructure in particular. There's clearly a wave right now of these inference companies, whether it's Base10, Fireworks, Modal, and then a lot of companies around the inference layer. I guess the argument against them is just lots of revenue growth, but then people wonder about the revenue quality. That's one piece of the infrastructure question. The other is sort of the, I don't know, heartburn from the crypto era where it's like there was a lot of inference investment in something that didn't really take off. And I guess do you worry with agents that if we build sort of the infrastructure layer for something that hasn't been built out yet, there's the risk that it never fully gets built or the world that you expect doesn't come exactly that way. So I'm curious for your perspective on both