Newcomer Pod

In this episode, Eric Newcomer and Madeline Renbarger break down DeepSeek’s impact on western AI companies. Is it really the “AI Sputnik Moment” that investors have called it, or just a CCP bluff?
They also delve into new AngelList data on venture returns — unsurprisingly, they’re not looking good post-2021. They also discuss voice AI startup ElevenLabs’ new funding round.

"In this episode of The Newcomer Podcast, Eric Newcomer and Madeline Renbarger unpack how tech elites are reacting to the early days of the Trump presidency. They discuss Sam Altman and Masayoshi Son’s new venture to build AI data centers dubbed “Project Stargate” and make the case for business leaders to abide by important ethical norms. They also break down fresh performance data from UTIMCO, calling out Thrive Capital’s standout returns and examining the broader struggles for many funds amid the post-2021 downturn. They close by discussing Brookfield’s billion-dollar acquisition of Divvy Homes—once valued at over $2 billion—and unpack the implications for proptech employees left empty-handed."

In this jam-packed episode, Eric and Madeline break down Biden’s surprise crackdown on the “Tech Industrial Complex,” explore Trump’s tight ties with Silicon Valley oligarchs, and unpack the behind-the-scenes drama of a Canadian startup that ousted its visionary founder. They also spotlight a mega funding deal in AI-powered coding tools, rounding out a sweeping look at how politics, big tech, and startup intrigue collide in today’s tech landscape.

Waymo’s milestone — surpassing Lyft’s ride numbers in San Francisco — takes center stage in our first podcast of the new year.

Still, it’s not obvious that this translates into guaranteed scale across the country. We consider the operational headaches that come with scaling driverless fleets. One way forward for Waymo could be further collaborations with legacy rideshare giants like Uber.

We also break down Whatnot’s latest round of funding and debate whether a potential TikTok ban could give the live shopping startup a competitive advantage.

Give it a listen.

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:35 Waymo's Progress and Challenges

10:21 Whatnot's big fundraise

Episode produced by Christopher Gates

The ServiceTitan IPO has been an unexpected bright spot as 2024 comes to a close.

On this year’s final episode of the Newcomer Podcast, we discuss what other startups might follow in ServiceTitan’s footsteps next year. Eric defends the controversial ratchet provision in its last funding round. And we dig into Alphabet’s big week.

We focus on startups on this show, but this week was a good reminder that the big tech firms like Alphabet and Meta can still turn out impressive moonshot technology from their research labs.

We’re bullish on a couple emerging venture capital firms — Laude Ventures and Dimension — who just closed big new funds. The megafunds may be sucking up the majority of LP dollars, but firms with a clear thesis and a standout team of high performers can still shine in this market.

Give it a listen.

Chapters:

00:00 — Reflections ahead of the new year

05:02 — ServiceTitan’s IPO and Market Sentiment

10:00 — Alphabet’s Wins and the AI landscape

15:08 — The State of Quantum Computing

19:58 — Emerging Venture Capital Trends and Final Thoughts

Episode produced by Christopher Gates

After a brief hiatus, the Newcomer podcast is back!

Madeline Renbarger has rejoined me as my co-host to help break down all of the news across venture capital and startups.

This week, we’re kicking off with a massive $693 million chip deal and Google’s huge quantum computing breakthroughs, in news that feels like flashes of Silicon Valley returning to its “silicon” roots. Still, some of this tech feels a bit too early to be exciting for a venture-backable model.

We also dig into the personnel shake-ups across the major multi-stage funds, including Brian Singerman’s step back from Founders Fund last week. Lightspeed also saw partners exit as part of a consumer investing reshuffle. And just this morning after recording, Lux Capital’s Bilal Zuberi announced on X that he was leaving to “embark on a new chapter.”

We’re excited for you to listen.

Episode produced by Christopher Gates

Brought to you by Brex

Brex knows runway is everything for venture-backed startups, so they built a banking solution that helps them take every dollar further. Unlike traditional banking solutions, Brex has no minimums and gives startups access to 20x the standard FDIC protection via program banks.

Plus, startups can earn industry-leading yield from their first dollar — while being able to access their funds anytime. If you want to make sure your portfolio companies have a place to save, spend, and grow their capital, check out Brex here.

Chapters

00:00 - Intro

01:06 - Tenstorrent’s $693 million Series D

04:44 - Google’s Quantum Computing Breakthrough

06:42 - Lightspeed’s Consumer Investing Re-org

09:24 - Brian Singerman Steps Back and Founders Fund’s Roster

14:08 - Mega-funds in Transition and Tech’s Trump Positioning

20:19 - Conclusion and Future Discussions

I’ve been spending some of the afternoon chatting with OpenAI’s now fully released o1. So far, I don’t know that it feels like the super intelligent ChatGPT 5 that we’ve all fantasized about — but it’s smart and sophisticated. The new model helped me to game out potential stories and talk through problems. And of course it wrote me a poem and told me a couple dad jokes.

It looks like the biggest improvement in the news model may be in math and coding, where OpenAI is highlighting meaningful improvements over o1-preview.

It will take some time to digest the new version of the model and see what it says about the pace of AI advancement.

Before the latest update, Max Child, James Wilsterman, and I got behind our microphones to reflect on the Cerebral Valley AI Summit and give you some of our takeaways.

(Max has already hooked up the advanced voice mode of ChatGPT to his iPhone action button. Good bye Siri, hello ChatGPT.)

Give it a listen.

Brought to you by Brex

Brex knows runway is everything for venture-backed startups, so they built a banking solution that helps them take every dollar further. Unlike traditional banking solutions, Brex has no minimums and gives startups access to 20x the standard FDIC protection via program banks.

Plus, startups can earn industry-leading yield from their first dollar — while being able to access their funds anytime. If you want to make sure your portfolio companies have a place to save, spend, and grow their capital, check out Brex here.

00:00 — Cerebral Valley AI Summit Overview

02:50 — Key Takeaways from Alexandr Wang's Talk

05:46 — The Wall in AI Foundation Models

08:57 — Dario Amodei’s Perspective on AI Progress

12:13 — Investing in AI: Insights from Martin Casado

15:06 — The Future of AI Agents and Voice Technology

17:56 — The Role of AI in Gaming and User Interaction

20:46 — AI in Enterprise: Trends and Predictions

24:03 — Challenges in Robotics and Home Automation

26:58 — Marissa Mayer on Google's Future in AI

29:51 — Final Thoughts and Future Outlook

If you get some downtime over the Thanksgiving holiday, catch up on everything that happened at the Cerebral Valley AI Summit last week.

We’ve got videos of all of the talks on stage on our YouTube channel and are sharing my conversation with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei over our podcast feeds.

Scale AI CEO Alexandr Wang

Andreessen Horowitz partner Martin Casado

Lessons from This Year's $14B in Generative AI Enterprise Spending

Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi

Biology Applications of AI

Train, Tune, or Turnkey

How to Train Your Robot

Speak Easy: Voice Applications of AI

Sunshine CEO Marissa Mayer

Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei

Emergent Behavior: Live Product Demos

Cerebral Valley is tomorrow! I’ve been listening to old interviews, brainstorming with Claude and ChatGPT, and talking to investors to prep for my conversations with Dario Amodei, Martin Casado, and Alexandr Wang.

We’ll be sharing those conversations here in the newsletter. Expect video highlights on our social media feeds, a detailed rundown of the biggest moments in the newsletter Thursday, and full-length conversations on our YouTube channel.

To satiate your AI appetites until then, give a listen to the latest edition of the Cerebral Valley Podcast with my friends and co-hosts Max Child and James Wilsterman. You’ve listened to us assess whether startups are underrated or overrated and make our draft picks. Now we’re looking to the future. We asked Claude and ChatGPT o1 to make some predictions about what will happen in artificial intelligence over the next year. And then we took the over or under on those predictions.

Brought to you by Brex

Brex knows runway is everything for venture-backed startups, so they built a banking solution that helps them take every dollar further. Unlike traditional banking solutions, Brex has no minimums and gives startups access to 20x the standard FDIC protection via program banks.

Plus, startups can earn industry-leading yield from their first dollar — while being able to access their funds anytime. If you want to make sure your portfolio companies have a place to save, spend, and grow their capital, check out Brex here.

Chapters

* 00:00 — Introduction to AI Predictions

* 02:48 — Exploring Predictions for AI in 2025

* 06:06 — AI Regulation in Healthcare

* 08:53 — Self-Driving Cars and Tesla's Future

* 12:04 — AI in News Media

* 14:55 — AI-Generated Films and Entertainment

* 17:53 — Anthropic’s Predictions and AI Co-Processors

* 20:59 — AI in Pharmaceutical Development

* 24:13 — International AI Treaties and Regulations

* 26:47 — Comparing AI Models: ChatGPT vs. Claude

* 30:06 — Future of AI and Human Systems

* 32:46 — Conclusion and Reflections on AI Predictions

This is probably my favorite episode of the year. We just updated our picks for our artificial intelligence startup fantasy draft. That means dropping startups whose star is fading and making new pickups.

Last year, Max Child, James Wilsterman, and I drafted the most promising generative AI startups that had raised $100 million or more. In this latest episode, we make some hard choices: cutting loose startups who have lost our favor, cashing in on early acquisitions, and pickup up some new startups. In the process, we weigh in on the buzziest AI startups.

Brought to you by Brex

Brex knows runway is everything for venture-backed startups, so they built a banking solution that helps them take every dollar further. Unlike traditional banking solutions, Brex has no minimums and gives startups access to 20x the standard FDIC protection via program banks.

Plus, startups can earn industry-leading yield from their first dollar — while being able to access their funds anytime. If you want to make sure your portfolio companies have a place to save, spend, and grow their capital, check out Brex here.

Catching You Up on Last Year’s Picks

To catch you up: here’s how last year’s draft went down. It started off with me taking on a $75 billion handicap for the right to pick first and draft OpenAI. We proceeded from there in a snake draft with Max picking second and James picking third. Here were the five companies we each drafted last year.

Last year’s picks

Eric

* OpenAI

* Inflection

* Character.AI

* Glean

* Mistral AI

Max

* Databricks

* Pinecone

* Cohere

* Modular

* Imbue

James

* Hugging Face

* Anthropic

* AI21 Labs

* Replit

* Adept

Altogether on this week’s episode we collectively dropped three companies, exited three, and picked up twelve new startups.

I don’t want to spoil our picks so you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out what happened. (As a reminder, the goal here is to accumulate the most total value by November 1, 2028. We aren’t worried about the return on our investment just the final end state valuation.)

We’d love for you to weigh in in the comments with your own seven startup picks and give us your feedback on what you think of our draft decisions.

Give it a listen.