A cornucopia of takes
Bull and bear case for capital, Trump is the decel pres, talent markets, and LLMs in supply chain
This was a busy busy week from now that I’m back from Vietnam (thanks all who gave us recs on where to go/what to do).
Lots of takes ranging from scalding to merely hot.
I Wrote
Startups need less money (because of AI and founder culture) but are getting more. What happens?
Bull Case: the aperture for venture backed startups is expanding rapidly because of AI. Even if the average company needs less capital itself, the aggregate opportunity set is so much bigger. that startups require more capital overall.
Bear Case: oversized funds lead to overfunded companies leads to bad returns and more importantly bad outcomes for founders/businesses. We’ll get Softbank 2.0 but even more widespread: every company could be super lean and profitable but instead will be pushed toward undisciplined and ruinous spending.
My prediction: it’s obviously both.
Trump is the anti-abundance, decel president
Banning port automation
Halting renewal energy projects
Endings the CHIPs program
Shutting science and research funding
Gridlocking vaccine approvals
Don’t let anyone fool you that Trump is good for progress, startups, competition, or dynamism.
America needs forward looking leadership that cares about innovation and state capacity. We have to go forward, not back.
The Age of Inbound is coming to talent markets
Just like with sales, AI-powered scale will make labor markets murkier and less efficient (more work for worse outcomes).
For both talent and companies, the optimal outcomes won’t be scaled, anonymous, and efficient but hand to hand and trusted.
I’m really keen on talent networks and “talent agents” as a way to build in that world.
Track, Manage, Measure: complex supply chain is a great emerging LLM use case
How do you find and manage lots of vendors for lots of products in lots of places well?
There’s a bunch of opportunities to build CRM + order process + formulation workflows and augment them with LLMs for categories with complex BOMs and high requirements.
Hiring
Megan and the creator team are hiring an associate to help them run the Slow Creator.
We launched the Slow Ventures Creator Fund: a $63 million fund to back ambitious creator-entrepreneurs building businesses for their audiences. Now we need more talent to help us deploy it. This is a unique chance to get in early on not just a new fund but a new asset class. Don’t sleep on it.
I Read
Who are the Zizians? What we know about 'cult' linked to six killings
Is McKinsey the key to our AI future? - Charles Rubenfeld
The basic case here, which I totally agree with, is that to actually make AI important and useful in the real world, it has to get brought to market and change needs to be managed around it. That is going to be a huge boon to management consultants but also system integrators and IT consultants. Read my system integrator mini thesis here.
Simple Advice for Junior Folks in Venture Capital - Hunter Walk
My two long standing pieces of career advice are 1) don’t be a generalist and 2) be a janitor or a star. Hunter and I are simpatico here.
Age Of Inbound
Join me and Nico Ferreya from Default.com for dinner with sales and marketing leaders to talk about how growth will work in a world without outbound.
SMB Thesis
Last week I shared my SMB thesis deck detailing why and how we’re backing companies building for long tail entrepreneurs in the real economy. The response has been great and so we’re planning a mini conference all about SMB startups in NY in April.
To join us and hear more about events from Slow, sign up here.