- 8 minutes ago
Three years ago, Menlo Ventures partner Matt Murphy helped lead one of the earliest investments in Anthropic. Menlo will be one of the biggest winners when the company goes public, with a stake estimated at around $14 billion. Before the IPO, Murphy sits down with Chief Correspondent Ben Bergman to discuss how the money pouring into these major AI companies is impacting the broader funding environment, and where he's looking for the next big opportunity.
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00:00Thanks.
00:02And, you know, Matt, I remember the first time we met at Blue Bottle two years ago,
00:07which is hard to believe it was only two years ago, because back then, OpenAI was very dominant,
00:13Anthropic worth a mere $15 billion, and my editor, Lina, said I should probably have
00:18coffee with you and talk about the investment.
00:20So, of course, it seems like a slam dunk now, but you invested the year before in 2023,
00:27and you actually passed on leading that round.
00:30And it was $4 billion at the time.
00:34Four and a half, yeah.
00:36And I take it you thought that was just a little too steep for a company that had no revenue.
00:41So take us back to that decision.
00:43Yeah.
00:43Well, it's hard to imagine if you roll the clocks back three years that $4.5 billion seems like
00:49a very high valuation, because today that's like, oh, that's kind of normal.
00:52Isn't that cheap?
00:53But back then, even three years ago, $4.5 would have been one of the most epic and amazing
00:57outcomes in terms of a venture return.
01:01And now that was kind of the ante to get into the company.
01:05So it also kind of fell between two funds.
01:07It's like, well, where does this really fit?
01:09We have a venture fund, and then we have an early growth fund.
01:12And well, how does a venture fund invest in a company of $4.5 billion?
01:16And it's not ready for growth, because there's no revenue.
01:19It's pre-launch.
01:20So it was kind of stuck in the middle.
01:22And Daria said, hey, it's great that you all want to invest.
01:24But would you like to lead?
01:25And I'm like, well, I don't really know where to put it.
01:27But I think the courageous decision by the firm was just to say, we have to be in this
01:31company and at least get a toehold, which then led to an amazing next round.
01:36And you guys led the next round, the Series D.
01:38Right.
01:38And you've invested in every round since.
01:40But you also said, I mean, between that time, the company showed a lot of traction that it
01:45didn't show for the C.
01:46Right.
01:46What did you see then that made you confident?
01:49Yeah.
01:49I mean, this is one of the things I've learned since that investment was, you know, I kind of
01:54grew up in the venture business where, you know, you have to own 20 percent, maybe that's
01:58changed now, 15, 12 percent or whatever.
02:00And it either has to be a big enough check or investment to move the needle or not.
02:04And I think we kind of broke the rules with that investment and just said, look, we had
02:09shifted the entire firm to AI and we wanted to be, we said, this is our way.
02:14We kind of set out crypto, set out VR, but this is the one that we all believe in.
02:18So if we're going to rush into it and be all in, how can we not be in one of
02:21the main
02:22foundation models?
02:23Now, there were alternatives at the time, but it was really just kind of looking at
02:27the, you know, kind of a number of the attributes of the company.
02:30And I think it's widely known, but Dario was the founder of ChatGPT at OpenAI.
02:34You kind of had that founder grit you like where you kind of storm out and be like, these
02:38guys are messing around, doing too much.
02:40And this is the big opportunity.
02:42If they're not going to do it, I'm going to go start a company to do that.
02:45An amazing technologist and researcher.
02:47You had this group of founders who all had chosen to kind of work together.
02:51They had built a model that was beating OpenAI on many benchmarks on like a hundredth of the cost.
02:58I can keep going on.
02:59So there was kind of those.
03:00But what stood out to you about Dario when you first met him?
03:03Because he's not necessarily someone who jumps off the page with the riz.
03:08Well, he jumps off the page in a lot of ways.
03:11Like the first time I was on the phone, I was on a Zoom, and all of a sudden, you
03:16know,
03:16talking to Tom Brown and another executive, and all of a sudden Dario pops in.
03:19It was just like, whoa.
03:20And the energy went way up.
03:22And there's just this, there's a charm about him, maybe like a boyish charm, especially back
03:28then, he's just a very curious person, incredibly smart, mission-driven.
03:34You just feel the passion, and he energizes you around what he's building.
03:38So I think that kind of, you know, stood out.
03:40And, you know, one of the things that's really kind of, you know, been a consistent thing with
03:46Anthropic that's continued to help them maybe outperform is, you know, his commitment to kind
03:50of culture, and just great researchers really want to work for Dario.
03:54He's like them, and he's one of the best.
03:56So it's like, I want to work for somebody who's like me.
03:58But you asked me a different question, which is, what did we see kind of, you know, post
04:01that initial investment?
04:03So I think it was like, okay, so pre-launch, pre-revenue, this is kind of crazy, but, you
04:06know, this seems like the best company.
04:08Got to be in the kind of one of the foundation models, because that's the heart and soul of
04:12this whole AI ecosystem that's about to take off.
04:15So post-investment, you know, we got really close to the team, got involved on kind of, you
04:19know, the things you want to do, recruiting, talking to customers, understanding how they're
04:23thinking about growing the business.
04:24And then alongside that, they got the Amazon investment, the Google investment, so billions
04:29of dollars came in, strategic and distribution partnerships.
04:33And then you started to see this kind of early flywheel of revenue going.
04:36It felt different from what OpenAI was doing, because they were still very focused on, you
04:40know, ChatGPT, the consumer experience.
04:42So that starts to happen.
04:43So you go from a company that was zero in April to kind of like 70s in September, and
04:51the press has reported, probably you, that they ended the year around 100.
04:54So like, how often in our histories in Silicon Valley have you seen a company even go from
05:00like zero to 70, from April to September?
05:02So a lot of the things that, you know, that went on from there, we could see the kind of
05:08the early seeds of that.
05:09So that's when we kind of, you know, pounced is when we started to see those things.
05:12But we would never have had that lens on the company without that initial investment.
05:16Yeah.
05:17Well, fast forward two years, and Anthropic very much still the market leader.
05:21But another thing you said what it's known for, another thing it was known for was, or
05:25is known for is, you know, being responsible.
05:28And that's part of the reason it was started out of OpenAI.
05:31And also, I think that's become much more of an issue now.
05:35You had a researcher leave and very publicly say that it was dangerous.
05:41You also had Bill Gates saying last week that AI makes nuclear weapons look like child's play.
05:47But I'm just curious, as a VC, I mean, you're used to backing like enterprise SaaS companies,
05:52not companies that might kill us.
05:54So how do you even like think about that?
05:56Well, you know, I probably didn't think about that, you know, at the time.
06:00But how do you think about that now?
06:02Well, I think that what Dario, as you already said, you know, the whole company is very committed
06:06to trust and safety.
06:07And so that's what they really talked about.
06:09You kind of went down like, what's going to make you different?
06:11How are you going to compete?
06:13Trust and safety.
06:14And we definitely thought at the time, enterprises care about that.
06:16If that's kind of their brand, their mandate is to kind of stand out there, that's what
06:22enterprises always really appreciate.
06:23And that, you know, that came true.
06:25So how do I feel about it now?
06:26I think that, you know, the models have become more powerful than anyone expected, faster
06:32than expected.
06:33So maybe Dario expected it.
06:34And so it's just consistent with his culture and what he's trying to, you know, accomplish
06:41and how he wants the technology delivered to the world.
06:43I mean, I don't want to speak for him, but I just kind of know how he thinks about it.
06:46So I think, like, what he's doing now, trying to catalyze a way for the industry to get their
06:51arms around that risk is really healthy and positive.
06:54Obviously, status quo, where we were, wasn't going to work with the government pulling mythos
07:00down and things like that.
07:01That's not a scalable way for technology companies or for this whole ecosystem to take
07:05off.
07:05So I think some of the things being proposed, you know, third parties kind of, you know,
07:11having kind of a panel of evals to kind of evaluate things like that.
07:15It's early days.
07:15There's a lot more that needs to be, you know, accomplished until we kind of get to a steady
07:19state of what works.
07:20But I think Dario kind of putting that forward and kind of rallying a number of people around
07:25that has been really constructive and on brand for him.
07:28And I think, you know, the other big issue about Anthropics as it prepares to go public,
07:33you mentioned how much money it's making or how much revenue it's bringing in, I should
07:39say.
07:39But it's also losing a lot, almost $8 billion in operating revenue last year.
07:45There's also concerns about the Chinese open weight models, which are looking better and
07:50better.
07:50I was talking to a big LP a couple weeks ago, Scott Wilson of Washington University, and he
07:56was saying he avoids investing in these companies because he just thinks the competition is
08:01too much and they're all going to turn into commodities.
08:04Yeah.
08:04But I take it you are not selling your Anthropics stock right now.
08:07Oh, no, no.
08:08If I could buy more, if I could buy more, I would.
08:11First of all, you know, the $8 billion, just wait until the S1 comes out whenever it does
08:15and that's going to provide...
08:16And when will that be?
08:17I don't know.
08:18Because we're trying to get ready.
08:19We have all these reporters here.
08:20That's going to provide a lot of clarity.
08:23And I think...
08:24Because that was last year's number before.
08:25And I think the press already leaked that...
08:27And I won't say whether it's true or not, but I think the press already leaked that they
08:30were operating cash flow positive and something about their gross margins and they were wildly
08:36gross margin negative.
08:37So the business fundamentals are very solid and that'll...
08:41You know, people can read that in the S1.
08:43You know, in terms of competition from open weight models, my view on that is that, you
08:48know, we...
08:49You know, the last couple of years, let's say from 2023 when we first invested to maybe like
08:55six months ago, it was just basically figuring people figuring out how to use AI.
08:59And let me just use AI in an application and see if it sticks, if it hits, if I've got
09:03customers
09:04who care about it, if I can scale.
09:05Now you had a ton of companies, a ton, many, you know, scaling, you know, the likes of Lagora
09:10and Lovable, et cetera, who are big cloud users.
09:14And they're saying like, look, that's great, but I need to focus more on my business model.
09:19So if there's something that can help me get my costs down by doing post-training, whatever,
09:23I'm going to do that because it's just going to help me build a better business model.
09:27So I think people have moved into optimization mode.
09:29And clearly that's even, you know, Anthropics even offering a family of cloud models that you
09:33can do that.
09:34I was an investor in Open Router, which is being acquired by Stripe.
09:38And so that company was always, was already doing well.
09:42But wow, as soon as like this open weight kind of wave came along, they just went like,
09:46they just went like that.
09:48So it's just, to me, it's just kind of a sign of the times the industry starts to mature
09:52a lot, that people care about a different form of optimization than one size fits all.
09:57Well, it's funny you mentioned Lagora and Lovable because those are two of the companies
10:00that you've invested in now.
10:02You guys have had a lot of love on Twitter lately.
10:04I feel like from other VCs praising Menlo because you guys also have Higgsfield, some
10:09of the hottest companies.
10:10But when you think about finding the next Anthropic, because it's always about the next fund and
10:15you guys just raised $3 billion of new capital, how do you think about that?
10:20Because if Anthropic was too expensive at 4.5 and you mentioned the crazy valuations we're
10:25seeing now at Seed, how do you find companies that you are comfortable at the valuation that
10:31they're asking for?
10:32Yeah, well, I don't think there's going to be another Anthropic.
10:35Like I said, that's kind of the heart, the soul, the brain.
10:37So it's more like, you know, where are the arms, the legs, the fingers?
10:40Hopefully not fingers, we do bigger things than that.
10:42But, you know, that's kind of where, you know, what's happening is innovation spawns across
10:47a variety of different industries.
10:49So, you know, I would say there's been a ton of very interesting stuff going on in the
10:53kind of infrastructure area, you know, where investors in modal and fireworks.
10:58So anything you can do to be in the, you know, token path where you're providing inference
11:02and compute is a super valuable area.
11:05I already mentioned Open Router, other companies that help you figure out how to optimize your
11:10use of AI.
11:10You know, like a company such as Gimlet that helps you figure out how to optimize which
11:16GPU you're using and how you kind of partition it.
11:19So it's just all kinds of innovation going on there.
11:21And I'd say that's probably where 60, 70% of our dollars have been going.
11:27Applications have been a little bit more of a, you know, a slow starter.
11:31You know, there's Lagora, there's Lovable, there's Rogo, you know, there's Decagon, Sierra,
11:36you know, but there's not like 30 really interesting ones at scale.
11:41But there's green shoots everywhere.
11:42So I feel like our venture fund is doing a really good job of finding those and even things
11:48like the next kind of model adjacent to Anthropic.
11:51When we invest in model companies like Chai for drug discovery, you know, it's kind of
11:54adjacent to where we think, you know, Anthropic's mostly focused or skilled in robotics and
11:59things like that.
12:00So that's...
12:00And you would actually have been math too.
12:01Yeah, actually on math.
12:02And now, you know, I still need to figure out like,
12:06Axiom relative to some of the stuff that OpenAI came out with the last couple days.
12:11But that model was purpose-built just to be amazing in math versus kind of, you know,
12:15the bigger foundation models bolting capabilities on.
12:18So I think pure plays will have their place and Axiom's a good example.
12:23So anyway, that's just kind of, you know, where we're kind of spending time now.
12:26I do expect applications to proliferate a lot more.
12:29And this whole open weight opportunity is just going to create a lot of software, you know,
12:35developer kind of opportunities around that.
12:37And what are you avoiding?
12:38What do you think is most frothy right now?
12:41Yeah.
12:41I think there are super interesting areas, but it's certainly not avoiding.
12:45But, you know, the Neolab area, the robotics area, the problem with some of those areas is
12:50they're getting $100 million or $1 billion financings, you know, before they're really showing
12:56traction.
12:57And I remember when I was, not a humble brag, but I remember when I was a board observer
13:01at Google, you know, Mike Moritz has this famous quote in the board meeting.
13:06It's like, you know, what this company, Google, had been so good about was lighting a bonfire
13:10with a single match.
13:12And the opposite thing you want to do is start a match with a bonfire.
13:15And, you know, that's kind of the risk of what's going on now, you know, with companies
13:19raising such large rounds.
13:21Like, do they really understand the constraints that it takes to build a great company?
13:27Or do you kind of get kind of sloppy?
13:29Or there's just a lot more opportunity to have a really big crater, which doesn't really
13:35help our business model too much.
13:37Yeah.
13:37Well, that was actually sort of my next question is, you guys, as I mentioned, $3 billion
13:41war chest.
13:42A lot of other firms have a lot bigger ones.
13:45But, you know, that's good for founders who you've written really big checks to.
13:50But, you know, is it good for your LPs?
13:52And is it good for the broader ecosystem?
13:56Well, I think $3 billion, you know, is good for our LPs.
14:00Because where we sit in the landscape right now, you know, Menlo started off kind of just
14:04a venture fund.
14:05We had an early growth fund.
14:07And as the markets evolved to some of these really, these companies that are growing 10x
14:12faster than we've seen before, growth requires capital, et cetera.
14:16Now we have a war chest to kind of grow with them.
14:19So I think that's good for LPs that we can continue to support them along the way.
14:23I mean, imagine, for example, if we had kind of tapped out on Anthropic at $4.5 billion
14:27because we said, well, our fund just doesn't support that.
14:30I mean, some of our, you know, best returns, especially in aggregate dollars, all come from,
14:35you know, the round we led, the next round after that where we were doing super pro rata.
14:39So I think it is healthy for our LPs.
14:41I think the other thing is, unless you have that capital, it's kind of hard to win a round
14:45right now.
14:46Our sweet spot used to be 30, 40, 50 million to lead a round.
14:51Now there are a lot of these rounds you need to lead at 150 million, and we have the capability
14:54to do that.
14:55So I already told you the example where Dario said, hey, do you want to lead this round?
14:59He just said, well, it doesn't really fit.
15:01We're not going to, like, write that big of a check to lead a round at that point.
15:03That happened again about a year ago with another well-known entrepreneur where we participated,
15:08but we're like, you know, fund velocity is too high, so we want to make sure we have
15:11enough capital to play offense when we want to.
15:14Well, I know we have founders here who are kind of saying, well, what about me?
15:18You know, I always write about, like, a very select few of companies, and I was talking
15:21to another VC yesterday who said it's very much a market of haves and have-nots.
15:26If you're one of these hottest companies, you have money thrown at you every couple months,
15:30but if you're not in that bucket, it's very, very difficult.
15:34So what is your advice to those founders?
15:37Yeah.
15:38I mean, I feel most badly or the highest empathy for, you know, founders that were kind
15:45of in that, you know, grew up in that 2018 pre-AI era because now they're all feeling
15:51like, well, I've got a great business, I've got scale, but I'm growing at 30%, 40%, 50%,
15:56but I'm surrounded by all these companies growing at 200%, 300%, 400%, so the market
16:02has kind of changed in terms of our perception of what great is.
16:06The numbers I mentioned before would seem great, and now it doesn't, so it's kind of
16:09like a lot of entrepreneurs had their rug pulled out from underneath them.
16:12So I think for those companies, I think, you know, don't get caught up in we're not
16:18growing 10x.
16:19If you have a great business, you know, you're telling your story about Lime and what a good
16:24business look like, and that's at the end of the day, you know, what people care about
16:27is, hey, do you have good business fundamentals?
16:29You don't have to be growing 10x, especially at scale.
16:32So I think for that set of entrepreneurs, keep at it.
16:34It is going to be harder than you like to raise capital, so, you know, grow responsibly
16:39and hopefully cash flow positive eventually.
16:43For other AI companies right now, you know, the beautiful thing about this market right
16:50now is just how quickly companies can break out, and so there is a lot of dollars concentrated
16:56at the AI outliers.
16:57I mean, we have a fund called the AI Leaders Fund because, you know, that's kind of the
17:01strategy that we're pursuing, but it's so dynamic that the hope and the optimism is that
17:08you can become that pretty quickly, and that even if there's a leader in the market, it's
17:13not really game over right now, right?
17:15Like, if you think about Legora and Harvey, or you think about all the different coding
17:20players from Factory, which we just invested and announced it earlier this week, to Cloud
17:26Code, to Cursor, to Cognition, like, some of these markets are so ginormous, and if you
17:31do something different, like, you know, the difference between some of the models that
17:35I described and Anthropic, like, there's just so much new white space to run into there,
17:41so don't be discouraged because somebody else is doing great.
17:44Figure out a way to find your moment.
17:46Well, you mentioned Factory, and this has brought a lot of drama to the otherwise sleepy world
17:50of AI software engineering, because Vinod Khosla tweeted last week that Factory AI is a struggling
17:56second-tier competitor to Cognition.
17:59A lot of people thought this was a little bizarre because Khosla Ventures is an investor in both
18:04Cognition and Factory, and then this week, you invested in Factory.
18:09So, I mean, did you decide to do that after Vinod's tweet?
18:12Yeah, basically, I wait to see what Vinod tweets, and then I kind of do the opposite.
18:17But, no, I have known Vinod for a long time.
18:20We worked together at Kleiner Perkins, so I won't, you know, comment too much on that.
18:24But, no, I mean, it's kind of what I went back to what I'm saying.
18:28Like, the coding market is so enormous, and there are different approaches, and I really
18:34like this notion of them kind of saying, I mean, I don't want to go into it too much,
18:39but they've got kind of agents called droids that basically assume many other personas in
18:45your software development cycle.
18:46So, instead of it being a coding solution, it's really a full software delivery solution,
18:51software building solution, product marketing, everything that goes into it.
18:54So, that was like, you know, a very different, you know, take on the market.
18:58And didn't you hear that on an airplane?
19:00Yeah, that was a funny story.
19:01I was sitting next to a partner from NEA who was on the phone talking to Scott Sandell,
19:08who runs NEA, saying that she was going to leave to join this company.
19:12And I was like, wow, if a person's going to join, you know, leave to join this company,
19:18and she's got a partner-track job, then there's some real signal in that.
19:22And, you know, I mean, there are a lot of signals in venture, but people voting with their feet,
19:27you know, tractions, one thing, et cetera, quality of the team, people saying,
19:30I have to work at this company.
19:32I love that.
19:33So, as soon as I heard that, I was like, I have to pay attention to this company.
19:37And, sure enough, it kind of, you know, finally led to an investment.
19:40But we can move off this topic, but I can guarantee you that Factory is a tier one AI company.
19:47Okay.
19:47But did Vinod just not realize he was invested in both companies?
19:50You'll have to ask him.
19:51I don't really know.
19:52All right.
19:53It was unusual.
19:54Will we invite him?
19:55Yes.
19:56Okay.
19:56Well, we have a lot of founders in the room, again, and I'm always curious, you know,
20:01what is the biggest mistake you see founders make when they are pitching you?
20:08And so, I mean, over my 25 years in the business or more recently in this area?
20:13More recently.
20:14Yeah.
20:14More recently, I think that there's so much going on, so many different considerations.
20:21I'll give you kind of one.
20:23Like, everyone is valuing growth right now, so yes, you want to lean into growth, but you
20:29better have a story on your gross margin and, like, have a gross margin bridge and be able
20:33to say, you know, not hand-wavy, but hey, look, here's why we're operating this way right
20:38now, because this is the way for us to get the market.
20:40But this, this, and this are going to happen at these time intervals, and our margin's going
20:44to get up to 60% or whatever, and I think a lot of companies are just kind of rushing
20:49in and growing without, you know, paying too much attention to that.
20:53And I know at scale they can fix it, but you just want entrepreneurs who are thinking holistically
20:58about how they're building a great business.
21:00That's one.
21:01One, you know, not understanding the competitive environment, because we as VCs see a lot.
21:08There's so much going on, so make sure you understand your competitive environment and
21:11why you're different.
21:13You know, I'm going after enterprise, they're SMB.
21:15You know, there's this different in the market in terms of how people use things, whatever
21:19it is.
21:19So be very crisp and concrete about that.
21:21You know, the reality is both of us entrepreneurs and as investors, we only have 45 minutes or
21:27an hour until we decide whether we want to take the next step.
21:29So oftentimes it's how good of a storyteller you are, like how compelling are you to get
21:34people like leaning forward and they, and they want to hear more.
21:37And, and, and a lot of that is not just, you know, your, the way you articulate and your
21:41energy, although that helps, but it's really more like how much do you signal a true command
21:47of the business and a unique thoughtfulness.
21:49Is there a pitch that you wish you were getting more from founders that you don't hear a lot
21:54these days, like a type of company you're interested in that's not coming to you?
22:00I mean, there's so much going on.
22:02I'm not, I'm not sure I'd say that.
22:03I mean, like I just give an example, like I've seen 15 physics models, companies, I'm like
22:0915, you know, and, and all the slide decks will make your eyes blur.
22:13So, you know, I, I'm almost inundated with like seeing, you know, too much right now.
22:17I guess maybe a little bit, it goes back to what I was saying before, more applications.
22:22I feel like there's so much cool stuff going on in models, infrastructure, optimization,
22:27how do you be the lowest cost token producer, all those kinds of things.
22:31I feel like applications is still pretty centered on the ones that we've been talking about for
22:35a while.
22:35So I'm really waiting for that area to pop.
22:37Well, we're going to end with a quick lightning round.
22:41Okay.
22:41And I didn't show you these.
22:42So if you want, so here we go.
22:46Are you guys ready?
22:47Okay.
22:48What is the most overused word at SF Tech Week or just in SF in general?
22:55Oh, token.
22:58Who's the founder you most admire?
23:02Oh, I, I, I think it's the founder of J.O.T.
23:06Bonsol just because I've worked with him twice, once at AppDynamics and now at, at Harness.
23:11And I just love the way he kind of continues to evolve his thinking on how to build a company,
23:16how to be multi-product, how it all fits together.
23:19Just seems some new and more announcements from him soon, but he's just a joy to work with.
23:24Great culture, great, great thoughtful leader.
23:25Who's another VC that you most admire?
23:30I would say retired would be Jim Getz.
23:34He was just like a home run hitter across so many different areas of tech.
23:39You know, WhatsApp, Palo Alto Networks.
23:41I'd say current would be Eric Vicharia.
23:44Really impressive.
23:46What's a company that is the most overhyped right now?
23:53Definitely OpenAI.
23:54Way, way.
23:55Way over, way overhyped.
24:00I, only because of the valuations they've raised that it probably has to be a model company,
24:05something like SSI, even though they've been a little quiet or, you know, thinking machines.
24:09I'm just waiting to see what those companies come out with because at those valuations,
24:12they've got a lot to deliver on, but the teams are exceptional, so we'll see.
24:17And what is one company most under the radar but going to break out that we haven't heard about much?
24:23Hmm.
24:25I would say skilled.
24:28And why do I say that?
24:29Because I mentioned before that robotics is so insanely overfunded with people kind of doing various, you know, vertical robots,
24:36things like this.
24:37But I think they're really trying to be, like I said, that kind of heart and brain of the robotics
24:42industry, and I think they've got the best shot at doing it.
24:45And they're now finally, you know, getting into production.
24:48They announced they were at like a $100 million run rate, and no one had really heard of them in
24:52a couple years, despite having raised it $14 billion.
24:55And you don't get much attention these days, even at that.
24:57But I think there's something special going on there.
24:59What's one company you passed on that you most regret?
25:03Hmm.
25:03Yeah, I have selective memory, and I've tried to, like, I've tried to really, really block that out.
25:12Yeah.
25:13I don't have one, you know, recently that I can say, like, you know, in the AI way, if there's
25:19some that I have from a long time ago, you'd be like, oh, you're lucky you didn't pass on that.
25:22But there's nothing top of mind.
25:24I think we're doing a really nice job with coverage, ability to participate, win, whatever.
25:31So I'll have to think about that more.
25:33All right.
25:34In one word, what is anthropics' biggest threat?
25:40Everyone talking about doomerism and being too hard on them, you know?
25:44I think there's a...
25:44Oh, we're too mean.
25:45Yeah, too cruel.
25:47No, I think that the...
25:49I think kind of the court of public opinion and kind of people fearing data centers, things about fish, stuff
25:57that, like, you know, TikTok or whatever can put out there that people believe because they just read the headlines.
26:03I think that's kind of, you know, destructive to the ecosystem, not just Anthroc, but all companies in AI growing.
26:11We need kind of them people to embrace the upside and understand the risks and that, you know, people are
26:17constructively working on that.
26:18But we don't want the fear to overcome the innovation and all the amazing things that are going to come
26:24out of this.
26:24I mean, obviously, we're all going to live a lot longer if AI is successful as you can be.
26:30We're going to look better, all those kind of things.
26:32And where are you going to celebrate?
26:33Which tropical island are you going to...
26:36Oh, man.
26:37My partners did tell me they were going to take me somewhere, but I don't want to mention that in
26:41this forum.
26:42But it'll be somewhere fun.
26:44Okay, good.
26:44Well, I hope you at least have a good dinner to celebrate.
26:46Thank you so much.
26:47I'll send you a picture.
26:48Okay.
26:48All right.
26:49Thanks a lot.