Newcomer Podcast

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.

We’re back with a couple episodes of the Cerebral Valley Podcast leading up to our summit on November 20.

I’m joined by my Cerebral Valley AI Summit co-hosts Max Child and James Wilsterman.

On this episode, we started by talking about the thing on everyone’s minds — the election of Donald Trump and what it means for artificial intelligence.

Then, at the 28 minute mark we debate whether Anthropic, Suno, Perplexity, Midjourney, and a bunch of other AI companies live up to the hype in a game of “overrated, underrated, or properly rated.”

Episode produced by Christopher Gates

Timestamps: 

* 00:00 — Initial reactions to the results

* 06:16 — Energy policy under Trump

* 09:25 — Will tariffs replace the CHIPS Act?

* 12:23 — Regulation and AI policy in a new era

* 21:52 — Black swans in AI and policy

* 27:54 — Overrated, underrated, or properly rated? AI’s hype meter

The Cerebral Valley AI Summit on November 20 in SF

We’ll be hosting an elite group of AI startup founders, investors, and other senior executives on November 20 in San Francisco.

Spots are extremely limited, but we always hold back a few spots for founders who are late to get the memo that they should join us.

We’re in the home stretch. Silicon Valley’s political nightmare could hopefully soon be over. In the latest episode of the Newcomer podcast, we dig into all of the tech industry’s burning political takes.

There was Josh Wolfe’s endorsement waffling. Jeff Bezos’ editorial intervention. And the general sense that everyone is losing their minds leading up to what should be Trump’s last run at the presidency.

Later in the episode, we break down General Catalyst’s massive fundraise haul and its transition into a “company.” We also discuss Stripe’s billion-dollar acquisition of Bridge.

Episode produced by Christopher Gates

Timestamps: 

00:00 — Intro

04:13 — The VC political divide

09:27 — The Washington Post’s editorial debacle

12:25 — General Catalyst raises $8B

15:38 — Stripe acquires Bridge

Note for our listeners: We’ll be back with a couple episodes of the Cerebral Valley Podcast starting next week, so stay tuned.

Newcomer turns four this week. On the podcast, Madeline talked with me about how it all began.

When I made the decision to start Newcomer, the venture capital industry was in the beginnings of a record-breaking bull run. A lot has changed since then, for both venture and the media industry, but I’m excited about our growth at Newcomer and wanted to share a bit more about what’s next.

Description

Eric and Madeline discuss Newcomer’s revenue milestones, the growth of Newcomer over the past four years, and what’s next for the publication. They also focus on the downturn in the venture industry and how this will affect first-time fund managers.

Produced by Christopher Gates

Chapters

00:00 — Introduction

02:08 — Newcomer’s 4 Year Anniversary

08:22 — Building out a media company in 2024 and what’s next

15:46 — The venture downturn vs. new emerging funds

22:02 — X-energy's $500 million raise

22:42 — $100 million for Path Robotics

Description

In this episode, Eric Newcomer is joined by guest host Jon McNeill, a seasoned executive with experience at Lyft and Tesla who is now leading DVx Ventures. They discuss the bear case for OpenAI. The OpenAI discussion then leads into a closer look at the contrast between founder and manager modes before concluding with a discussion on Tesla’s advancements, or lack thereof, in self-driving technology. 

Produced by Christopher Gates

Chapters: 

00:00 — Introduction

03:27 — Bear case for OpenAI

13:07 — Founder mode management

17:20 — Tesla promises, but SpaceX delivers

Description: 

In this episode of the Newcomer Podcast, Eric Newcomer and Madeline Renbarger discuss two major funding rounds, the ongoing downturn in VC funding, and the growing imbalance between public relations professionals and reporters. Eric and Madeline highlight Poolside’s $500M round and Impulse Space’s $150M raise, while pointing out that even the AI mega rounds cant hide the downturn in VC funding.

Produced by Christopher Gates

Audio Chapters: 

00:00:18 — Poolside’s $500M round 

00:02:24 — Impulse Space’s $150M raise

00:05:17 — Downturn in VC

00:11:03 — The imbalance between PR and journalism

In this episode of the Newcomer Podcast, hosts Eric Newcomer and Madeline Renbarger delve into the world of venture capital deals, starting with Ujet’s $76M Series D for its AI-powered call center software. Next up is the drama surrounding PearAI, whose growth-hacker tweet set the tech world buzzing. From there, they navigate through OpenAI’s own “Game of Thrones,” exploring internal power plays and high-stakes exits, before turning to California’s latest AI regulatory battles. To wrap things up, they call for some balance in Silicon Valley’s escalating discourse around drugs and psychedelics.

Chapters:

00:22 Ujet

01:40 PearAI

05:49 Open AI

11:45 AI Regulation

16:34 Drugs + SV

Episode 1: AI + Robots, YC Preview, and Why the Cool Kids Keep Picking on Tech

In this week’s episode of the Newcomer Podcast, hosts Eric Newcomer and Madeline Renbarger discuss three top venture capital deals, including World Labs and delivery startup Flink. They also wade into Y Combinator’s upcoming Demo Day, highlighting trends in defense tech and the implications of AI’s power consumption.

The conversation touches on Runway’s licensing deal with Lionsgate and concludes with an examination of John Mulaney’s performance at Dreamforce.

Chapters

* 00:00 World Labs: A New Era in AI Robotics

* 05:10 The Rise and Fall of Delivery Startups

* 09:19 Y Combinator’s Demo Day

* 11:46 Defense Tech

* 20:09 Powering AI: The Nuclear Debate

* 24:24 Runway’s Licensing Deal

* 28:02 John Mulaney’s Roast