The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Demis Hassabis is the Co-Founder & CEO of Google DeepMind - working on AGI, responsible for AI breakthroughs such as AlphaGo, the first program to beat the world champion at the game of Go; and AlphaFold, which cracked the 50-year grand challenge of protein structure prediction and was recognised with the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Demis is revolutionising drug discovery at Isomorphic Labs. Ultimately, trying to understand the fundamental nature of reality.
AGENDA:
00:04:00 — What Actually Counts as AGI; and Where Are We Today?
00:05:00 — What Are the Biggest Bottlenecks Holding AI Back Today?
00:06:00 — Have We Hit the Limits of Scaling Laws?
00:07:00 — Where Is AI Ahead of Expectations; and What's Still Missing?
00:07:30 — Why Can't AI Systems Learn Continuously Like Humans?
00:08:30 — How Did DeepMind Go from Behind to Leading the Pack?
00:11:00 — Are We Heading Toward Model Commoditization; or Winner-Takes-All?
00:12:00 — What Does the Future of Open Source Really Look Like?
00:13:00 — What Does a Post LLM World Look Like?
00:14:45 — Can AI Really Fix Drug Discovery—and Cut the 10-Year Timeline?
00:17:00 — What Does "Good" AI Regulation Actually Look Like?
00:18:00 — Who Should Be the Ultimate Arbiter of Truth in an AI World?
00:19:30 — If Demis Had One Shot to Fix AI Safety, What Would He Do?
00:21:00 — Is This Time Different for Jobs; or Will History Repeat Itself?
00:22:00 — Is AGI Bigger Than the Industrial Revolution; and Faster?
00:23:00 — Are We Underestimating AI Despite All the Hype?
00:23:30 — Does AI Lead to Massive Inequality; or Universal Prosperity?
00:24:30 — How Do We Solve the Energy Crisis Created by AI?
00:26:00 — Why Stay in the UK Instead of Moving to Silicon Valley?
00:28:00 — Will Europe Ever Build a Trillion-Dollar Tech Giant?
00:29:30 — Meeting Elon Musk for the First Time?
00:31:00 — What Big Questions About AI Is No One Talking About?
00:31:30 — What Does Demis Want His Legacy to Be?

Andrew Dudum is the Founder and CEO of Hims, the company reshaping consumers relationship to healthcare. It has been a rocky ride over the last 6 months, the company is down 66%, their market cap today is $4.3BN on $2.3BN of revenue. They just bought their largest international competitor, Eucalyptus for $1.5BN. 
AGENDA:
00:00 — Why Being Public Is Better Than Private 
02:50 — My Advice to The Collisons on Taking Stripe Public
07:15 — How to Hire for the Most Gritty People: The Test 
10:55 — How AI Will Reshape All of Customer Acquisition 
15:30 — What Did Hims Do That Andrew Wishes They Had Not Done 
20:15 — What is the Least Profitable but Most Important Hims Product
27:10 — The $1.5BN Acquisition: Why Hims Bought Their Biggest Global Competitor 
33:45 — Why Brand Marketing Beats Performance Marketing 
39:40 — The Future of Prevention: Why Your Next Blood Test Should Be Free 
46:50 — Disrupting the PBMs: How We Are Breaking the Corrupt US Healthcare System

AGENDA:
00:00 — Anthropic's Monster Month: 6 Billion in February Revenue
04:30 — The "Claude Mythos" Leak: 10 Trillion Parameters
11:50 — OpenAI Kills "Sora": A Massive Strategic Own Goal?
14:30 — OpenAI Hits $100M in Ads: Why OpenAI Must Make Ads Work
20:50 — Masa Son's $40BN Bridge Loan: Investing More Into OpenAI
21:50 — Cybersecurity Stocks Tank: Is the Anthropic Panic Justified?
27:10 — The Golden Age of Cyber: Why AI Agents are a "Golden Goose" for Security
31:30 — Gross vs. Net: The Truth Behind AI Revenue Accounting
34:50 — The "Vibe Coding" Era: Reselling Tokens and Triple-Counting ARR
41:00 — Oura Going Public & Whoop Raises $500M at $10BN Valuation
49:50 — Epic Games Layoffs: The Reality of the Attention Economy
52:40 — The Manus Scandal: Founders Trapped in China After Meta Deal
59:00 — The Billionaire Tax: Why the Golden Geese are Leaving California
01:03:20 — Do VCs Actually Add Value? The Ron Conway vs. Matthew Prince Spat

AGENDA:
00:00 — Anthropic's Monster Month: $6BN in February Revenue
04:30 — The "Claude Mythos" Leak: 10 Trillion Parameters
11:50 — OpenAI Kills "Sora": A Massive Strategic Own Goal?
14:30 — OpenAI Hits $100M in Ads: Why OpenAI Must Make Ads Work
20:50 — Masa Son's $40BN Bridge Loan: Investing More Into OpenAI
21:50 — Cybersecurity Stocks Tank: Is the Anthropic Panic Justified?
27:10 — The Golden Age of Cyber: Why AI Agents are a "Golden Goose" for Security
31:30 — Gross vs. Net: The Truth Behind AI Revenue Accounting
34:50 — The "Vibe Coding" Era: Reselling Tokens and Triple-Counting ARR
41:00 — Oura Going Public & Whoop Raises $500M at $10BN Valuation
49:50 — Epic Games Layoffs: The Reality of the Attention Economy
52:40 — The Manus Scandal: Founders Trapped in China After Meta Deal
59:00 — The Billionaire Tax: Why the Golden Geese are Leaving California
01:03:20 — Do VCs Actually Add Value? The Ron Conway vs. Matthew Prince Spat

Marc Andreessen is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. The firm now manages over $90BN and has invested in the likes of OpenAI, Airbnb, Coinbase, Anduril and many more. Marc is an innovator and creator, one of the few to pioneer a software category used by more than a billion people and one of the few to establish multiple billion-dollar companies. Marc co-created the Mosaic internet browser and co-founded Netscape (sold to AOL for $4.2 billion). He also co-founded Loudcloud, which as Opsware, sold to Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion. 
AGENDA:
05:00 — Why Introspection is Overrated: The Dangers of Learning from the Past
08:00 — The One Trait Marc Andreessen Looks For in Every Founder
14:30 — Are the Best Founders Broken? What Makes the Best Founders?
16:00 — "Extreme Ownership": Why Everything Being Your Fault Changes Everything
19:00 — "Do You Read the Comments?" Fame, Criticism & How to Deal with Haters
26:00 — Is Venture Now Go Big or Go Home? The Real Future of VC
30:00 — Does Price Matter Anymore? The Dangerous Truth About Valuations
33:00 — "Stop Chasing Diamonds in the Rough": Why Most VCs Get This Completely Wrong
36:00 — Do You Actually Need to Like Founders? The Uncomfortable Answer
40:00 — Are Companies 75% Overstaffed? The Most Controversial Take on Hiring
45:00 — When Will a16z Go Public? 
50:00 — Why Labour Displacement Theory Around AI is Totally Wrong
55:00 — Why Silicon Valley Is More Dominant Than Ever?
01:00:00 — Why a16z Invested $300M into Adam Neumann 
01:05:00 — What Still Drives Marc Andreesen?
01:10:00 — What is the Biggest Mistakes VCs Still Make Today?