- Duration: 52 min
- Platform: zoom
- Source: Read.ai 01KPBGHSX9A74V3PB2GDH2KYV1 (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01KPBGHSX9A74V3PB2GDH2KYV1)
Transcript
[UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: So what’s top of mind for you? What’s going on? What’s the past couple of weeks been like, [Jeffrey Evans]: I’m in just fundraise mode. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Oh, yeah. [michael]: You guys are. I think Steve mentioned something about that. [Jeffrey Evans]: Yeah, we started the process. [michael]: What’s the appetite like out there from LPs? Is it good right now? [Jeffrey Evans]: It feels good, but, you know, we’ll see what people happen to to start putting pen to paper. Yeah, that’s true. [michael]: I feel good right now, which is good. [Jeffrey Evans]: Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: What’s that? [michael]: Yeah, sorry, go ahead. Anything from, I guess, that process that you think is worth like worth highlighting in a post, because I think, you know, anything you can talk about, about how you’re thinking about it, what you’re seeing from LPs, the kind of LPs you guys want to talk to right now, because if it’s active, you know, we should try to make some subtle Yeah, I don’t. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: It’s a little complicated, because you can’t talk about the process. [michael]: Well, you can’t solicit, right? You can’t say, hey, I’m raising a fund right now. Come check us out. But I mean, you can probably signal in, I don’t know, just in what you’re seeing. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: It’s all about how we phrase it at the end of the day. [Jeffrey Evans]: There’s an interesting about the amount of time it takes companies, the amount companies stay private. This is much more than it used to be. [michael]: It’s interesting because you have like Stripe, right? They’re still private. But then you have the AI companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, etc. They’re looking to make moves in like half the time, basically less than half the time, really. So, I mean, what does that say? Like, why are we seeing that from some and not others? I mean, it’s an interesting idea. [Jeffrey Evans]: I’m not mad at that. [michael]: What do you think the reason we’re seeing those two different mindsets is? [michael]: Well, because of the capital intensity. [Jeffrey Evans#+#michael]: capital more than anything else, right? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [michael]: I guess, like, maybe you can comment on, like, the… [michael]: Yeah, I mean, comment on, like, the appetite you’re seeing from LPs. Like, specifically about the fund you guys are raising, but just in general, like, what are LPs wary of What types of questions are they asking? What’s on their minds? Because I think a lot of people don’t have visibility into that. [michael]: Yeah, so what have you seen there? [Jeffrey Evans]: Give me one second real quick here. Sure, no problem. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Sorry, I have to decide right now on this deal [michael]: No worries. We could also do this in a little bit. I have 30 seconds. OK. [michael]: Okay, where were we? [michael]: I was asking about what you’re seeing, what’s questions are they asking. Not to comment on your guys’ specific raids, but just to give folks a little peek behind behind the curtain of what’s on these folks’ minds? [Jeffrey Evans]: I mean, the biggest thing is people are trying to figure out how they rebalance if growth in SaaS is, I’m gonna say where SaaS is dead, but growth in SaaS and the protection of SaaS and the revenue consistency of SaaS is completely changed in the last six months for what the future means for it. [michael]: So what are they thinking? How are they thinking about rebalancing? I don’t know. [Jeffrey Evans]: Nobody knows. It’s all happening. Happening like a lifetime. [michael]: So are they just in a holding pattern? [michael]: I think they’re just trying to figure out what to do. [Jeffrey Evans]: I think they have to get their heads wrapped around it too. It’s part of the problem, part of the challenge. We’re just dealing with this concept that LLMs may get rid of software. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [michael]: What do you think is going to happen with Where do you think folks will land? [Jeffrey Evans]: I might have to think about this one for a minute. I don’t know. Yeah, I don’t know either. [michael]: It’s a good question. It’s just a lot changing right now. [Jeffrey Evans]: And a lot of it’s theoretical. You can see it happening. So the question becomes, what’s right? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: So I think the move to privates is very interesting. How about that? [michael]: Sorry, you broke up a little bit there. The moves of private are very interesting? The move to privates. [Jeffrey Evans]: Oh, move to private. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [michael]: Where do you think that goes? Like, I feel like we have, like, I mean, you can even buy, you know, secondary, uh, shares through platforms like augment and others now at like, you know, decent amounts. Um, and like, you don’t need, it’s not some crazy opaque process of how to get access to them anymore. Like, what does that say for even retail investors? You know? [Jeffrey Evans]: That’s an interesting scenario that I don’t know the answer to, but that’s one of the things people are talking about. It still is hard because it’s still not liquid. That’s what people miss. You could create the idea of liquidity in it. [Jeffrey Evans]: But if I decide I want to sell it tomorrow, there has to be a buyer and there’s not a market maker. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [michael]: It’s not like just putting money onto something on Robinhood. [michael]: Interesting. OK, anything else top of mind on your side? If not, Austin, send over some questions we can go through. [Jeffrey Evans]: No, go through Austin’s questions. [michael]: It’s day for me, yeah. I mean, the big thing right now in AI is that at first, it was anthropic. And I think just yesterday, OpenAI kind of did the same thing, where they have these new next-gen models to find zero-day vulnerabilities across brown and OSs and everything. And so they’ve only given access to like select companies. Where do you think that goes? Like, will those ever be released to the public? If so, like what needs to change with browser? Like, what does that say about computing and sort of security and our access in general? [Jeffrey Evans]: Well, I mean, we’re just dealing with this too. I mean, it means that security is more paramount than ever. This goes back to the post of six months ago where we said AI makes everything. Everyone a threat. [Jeffrey Evans]: And this expounds on that. The challenge of what we’re seeing where the latest and greatest and most advanced models that are super complicated and expensive are only going to the people who can afford them, it’s also another issue to talk about. Because if it’s only the biggest companies who have access to the latest models, they’re going to have a distinct advantage. [michael]: It’s true. It’s interesting to think about what happens when like, you know, if Anthropic and OpenAI have built one of these, how far away are we from, you know, one of these Chinese open source, like DeepSeek type things coming out? And what does that change when it’s like just thrown to everybody basically? [Jeffrey Evans]: Yeah, you’ve got to Yeah, that’s true. [michael]: Do you think there are specific industries that have been more impacted by when these models are more freely available? And does this change your guys’ investing thesis at all? [Jeffrey Evans]: I don’t know. That’s a good question. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: I need to think about this one for a minute from a security standpoint. What is it? You know, what does it mean? Everybody’s is an issue for everybody right now. [Jeffrey Evans]: But there’s also an opportunity in that protection becomes. More important than ever. Right. Mean, the most vulnerable of the places where the most money is, but it’s also the places the flip is the most vulnerable to be the places that don’t realize they’re vulnerable. [Jeffrey Evans]: That’s a good point, because you could say, oh, the banking system is the most vulnerable, but the banking system is going to spend the money trying to make sure they’re not vulnerable. [michael]: Yeah, and they all, I mean, the Fed even called them all in for a big meeting already, right? So they’re very aware of those. [Jeffrey Evans]: Yeah, and the federal government’s working on protecting them as well, blah, blah, blah. So what are the industries that are super vulnerable that don’t realize they’re vulnerable? Interesting. I don’t know enough about how, you know, the details of how, it feels like, I don’t That’s the question. [Jeffrey Evans]: It’s a good question. Let’s see what else we got. [michael]: Oh, any other events coming up you’ll be speaking at or even just attending that you think are worth calling out and make a post about? [Jeffrey Evans]: Allocate the end of May. The Allocate Beyond Summit. [michael]: OK. We can tease something up maybe for it after that, or even before. If you want to give people a heads up, you’ll be there. OK, cool. [Jeffrey Evans]: OK, Austin, slide. [michael]: that you posted about Lemon Slice? [Jeffrey Evans]: Yeah. I guess, like, what resonated about that? [michael]: Why is it such a special project? Why does it resonate with you? I don’t know that it’s that special project. [Jeffrey Evans]: I just like the fact that she completely pivoted the business, and now it looks like she’s got something important going. But I wanted to, you know, amplify her latest launch. And they re-architected a stack for how these AI avatars were. [michael]: So she was showing me, you know, theoretically how it was working. [Jeffrey Evans]: Most people had built the avatar, you know, on this path to do technically to do this thing. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: I sort of get to this technical point where it’s at here and it kind of flattens out in its technical advancement. [Jeffrey Evans]: And they had built it much more complicated on the bottom, but so that it’s able to expand well past that. So right now I haven’t seen anybody else but like you drop a photo and pick a voice or use your own voice to be on your website. The avatar, as opposed to right now, most avatar systems, the avatar moves its lips, because they’re having to do. This system allows the avatar for very little compute to every pixel on the screen is adjusted every time. So the avatar has emotions, lips, face, hands, background, all moving that’s talking to you. It’s a completely different experience. [michael]: It’s a little bit groundbreaking. So they’re getting some good traction with it. [michael]: I like it. OK, we can put something together about that. [Jeffrey Evans]: Do to wait one minute? I have got to. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. [michael]: Just give me one second. [Jeffrey Evans]: No problem. [michael]: You got it. [Jeffrey Evans]: Okay, sorry. All good. [Jeffrey Evans]: What was the other, were there other questions? [michael]: Well, I guess we can, so the last thing Austin flagged was this interview that, I don’t know how to pronounce his name, so I’m gonna butcher it, Hemant, from General Catalyst did with the Wall Street Journal. [michael]: Probably best to take a quick pass, but I can send over the link and the sort of couple of questions that we had about it. Basically, the piece is about why he thinks that AI and robotics puts all jobs at risk, just sort of a new take on that. [michael]: And it sort of tends with this thing about why bubbles can actually be good because they mobilize talent and capital into like whatever the most important areas are right now, even if it over does it. So I think just take a pass through it when you have a sec and then I’ll send over a couple of questions we have and you can send Austin a voice note and go from there on that one. [Jeffrey Evans]: Okay. [michael]: But yeah, I think we’re good. Otherwise this should give us another so you’ll probably get that from Austin pretty soon. Okay, cool. [Jeffrey Evans]: Thank you. Of course, man. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Okay. [michael]: Well, I think Melissa said you’re traveling next week, so enjoy that and we’ll catch up soon. [Jeffrey Evans]: Sounds good. Yeah, I do. [Jeffrey Evans#+#michael]: Talk later. Yep. Bye. Bye. [Jeffrey Evans]: Hmm. [Jeffrey Evans]: Let me put them in the back. [Jeffrey Evans]: It’s what. [Jeffrey Evans]: Laura.