TBPN, Jack Altman, a16z, Now It’s Lightspeed's Media Move

Claire Zau is a pre-seed and seed investor at Lightspeed and co-host of Lightwork, Lightspeed's new weekly AI podcast with CMO Josh Machiz. She also runs Zauey Talks, where she reaches 350K+ people and 10M+ monthly impressions explaining AI and startups to an audience that mostly does not work in tech. Tech is racing to own direct distribution and auramax to save their lives. a16z acquired Erik Torenberg's Turpentine in 2025, OpenAI acquired TBPN in 2026, and Jack Altman's Uncapped joined Benchmark. Lightspeed's move was to bring in one of the strongest creators in the space and give her a dual mandate: keep building for the mainstream while investing at the earliest stages. Molly sits down with Claire to talk about that split role, why Lightspeed bet on it, and what Lightwork will cover. They get into the gap between tech Twitter optimism and mainstream skepticism, the AI bubble question, the jobs narrative, and which AI leaders tell the story best. Claire also breaks down the Lightspeed portfolio she's digging into, from agent infrastructure to an AI-native audit firm. About Lightspeed Lightspeed is a global, multi-stage, venture capital firm managing over $40B in assets. Since its founding in 2000, Lightspeed has been the first investor and an early backer of some of the most innovative companies in the world including Abridge, Anthropic, Anduril, Castelion, Databricks, Glean, Mistral, Navan, Neko Health, Netskope, Thinking Machines, Reflection AI, Rubrik, Snap, Skild AI, Vinted, Wiz, and more. Claire Zau: https://x.com/clairejyz Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊 YouTube: https://youtu.be/ht_DuxWLh8M 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 • Brex https://brex.com/sourcery—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Turing https://turing.com/sourcery—Turing delivers top-tier talent, data, and tools to help AI labs improve model performance—and enables enterprises to turn those models into powerful, production-ready systems. https://turing.com/sourcery • VCX https://fundrise.com/vcx—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com http://getvcx.com • Deel https://www.deel.com/sourcery—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery • Public http://public.com/sourcery–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets https://public.com/generated-asset, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery • Merge https://merge.dev—The leading provider of customer-facing integrations and agentic tools for frontier LLMs, Fortune 500 organizations, and B2B SaaS companies. Visit https://merge.dev Follow Sourcery for the latest updates! https://www.sourcery.vc https://www.sourcery.vc/ Disclosure Paid Endorsement. Brokerage services by Open to the Public Investing Inc, member FINRA & SIPC. Advisory services by Public Advisors LLC, SEC-registered adviser. Crypto trading provided by Zero Hash LLC, licensed by the NYSDFS. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool by Public Advisors. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. See disclosures at public.com/disclosures/ga. Matched funds must remain in your account for at least 5 years. Match rate and other terms are subject to change at any time.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Molly O'Shea?

  Claire Zau, an investor who's also a creator.

• 0:02Speaker 01

  I've taken the most productized, techy approach to building content. When I first started, I told myself, I can just build this to like 10,000, 20,000 people who care deeply about tech and innovation, I'll be happy. I think across all platforms, I reached 350,000 plus people across all platforms, getting 10 million impressions monthly. I had brands like Vanta, Perplexity, Meta, like all of them knocking on my door being like, please, can you share what we're building with our audiences and formal partnerships with them?

• 0:28Molly O'Shea?

  So are you going to keep doing Zowie Talks?

• 0:30Speaker 01

  It wasn't honestly even a point of discussion. They're like, oh, obviously you'll continue to have your own platform in the same way that I think Fred Millison at USV, he used to have a current blog, or Bill Gurley in BG2.

• 0:41Molly O'Shea?

  And the army of A6 and G.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that too. Yeah, yeah.

• 0:54Molly O'Shea?

  Well, that was a dramatic reveal.

• 0:56Speaker 01

  I know. I felt bad because I was like, what if it is underwhelming? I know. They were like, we want to capture what it's like when someone sees it for a first time and it's been fun, so.

• 1:06Molly O'Shea?

  It's so fun. I feel like I could look at everything for like an hour.

• 1:09Speaker 01

  I know. I feel like this could be Lightspeed's little museum of...

• 1:13Molly O'Shea?

  It's like a toy room.

• 1:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And everything, I mean, they have all, I actually think we have little bits and pieces that are nods to portfolio companies, so, yeah.

• 1:23Molly O'Shea?

  Does anybody call you Zowie Wowie?

• 1:26Speaker 01

  Okay, you're not the first person. The whole name actually started because in middle school, that's what people would call me.

• 1:32Molly O'Shea?

  Really?

• 1:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then I just kept it as Zowie. And like I would, you know, when you're in middle school, you have your jerseys and it would be Zowie. And so that was my handle on Instagram for my personal account. And then I started posting in spell. And I was like, I don't know what to do. I don't want to put like Claire Zau Talks or like Claire Zau Tech. So I used Zowie and yeah.

• 1:52Molly O'Shea?

  I just hear the song in my head, like Maui Wowie, Zowie Wowie.

• 1:56Speaker 01

  Maybe that should be my, my theme song.

• 1:58Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, make it your theme song.

• 2:01Molly O'Shea?

  Okay, so we have to talk about what we're doing in here. So what is going on right now?

• 2:05Speaker 01

  You are one of our first external guests in the Lightwork Podcast Room. And we've actually been teaming this up for a while. Josh, who you met a couple of weeks ago, had joined Lightspeed and he kind of wanted to introduce this next generation of what Lightspeed would look like. And part of that was having, obviously, a new media presence. So a big part of that was this podcast. And in order to have a podcast that represented all the things Lightspeed was working on, the taste behind it all, we have this space now.

• 2:38Molly O'Shea?

  So why and how did he manage to bring you in?

• 2:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's funny because he found me through TikTok, I think, which is actually was one of my earliest platforms. I started posting in March of 2025 and then on Instagram in June of 2025.

• 2:58Molly O'Shea?

  That's it?

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:59Molly O'Shea?

  I feel like you've like completely just dominated this space for this.

• 3:04Speaker 01

  Really?

• 3:04Molly O'Shea?

  That's it?

• 3:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't know. I mean, part of me sometimes feels like it's just this like internet side quest that I have. And it's not real. Like, I'm like, oh, that's just my fake side job. But yeah, through it, in the fall, I got an email from Josh and he had just joined Lightspeed. And I, I think, seen him on TVP and I was like, oh, this is cool. Obviously, a lot of noise around new media. And I thought he just wanted to chat about the space, like, exchange notes. I thought he was thinking about building out TikTok and Instagram. And I was like, happy to yap about it. You know, there are not that many people who are thinking about short form, who are thinking as deeply about new media as Josh does. And so I had the conversation and that kickstarted our discussions of what this could look like.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  And yeah, that's how I got brought into all this.

• 3:52Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, Josh is a legend.

• 3:53Speaker 01

  Yes, yeah, yeah. And I'd obviously seen all of this stuff at Redpoint and had been entertained by a lot of the Redpoint content. And so when he came to me, there was this interesting opportunity to think a lot about what, how we could extend Lightspeed's brand beyond the tech and venture ecosystem. Because it does have a really strong brand, even for me, as someone who started in venture six years ago. Obviously, new Lightspeed, as I was just starting, have followed a lot of its journey over the years. But I think really recognizing that for the mainstream.

• 4:26Speaker 01

  Figuring out who is kind of the go to source for tech and startup content. I still feel like there's a lot of white space there.

• 4:34Molly O'Shea?

  This is why I'm so excited to talk to you. I was like really like fangirling over this because there are not many people in venture that join this like kind of like new media cult or whatever that aren't, you know, like as independent or build out a platform like that. And then you built it out on Instagram and TikTok, which is really rare. But also it's like, there is a huge difference in people with the expertise of the industries coming on and making stuff and explaining it out. And so I guess before I keep on trying to, you know, explain that further, but could you just share like how and like what Zowie Talks is and like why you bring this differentiated perspective and like, again, I'll stop.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, I've obviously been in the venture space for a while now. Started as an associate six years ago. I was at a firm called GSV. And so have been a consumer of a lot of venture content. I think I've swallowed sorcery since 2023. I've been, you know, just in awe of what you've been able to build, in awe of what people like Dora Keshe and Lex Freeman, the like high quality content that is being put out in the space, seeing TVPNs rise. I'd been observing all of this. But time and time again, every time I would have conversations with my friends and family or my younger brother who's in college, it just felt like a lot of what I was seeing

• 6:00Speaker 01

  in this, you know, this unique window into the future, which I feel very privileged to have access to through my day job, wasn't being translated elsewhere. And so I was thinking a lot about where I could meet people. I've always been big on writing. I have a Substack that I wrote and my previous firm grew that to about 15,000 readers. And that was great. I loved building community. I've always loved doing that, actually. Fun fact, before I started all of this, I was big on Tumblr. That was like my first foray into community building. I think I, as a middle schooler, built a Tumblr following of like 20,000 people.

• 6:36Molly O'Shea?

  What?

• 6:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. And that was like my other, I think, my other side job. So I've always been very digitally native, thinking a lot about how you build community, even in digital spheres. And so was taking all those lessons, was seeing all of this in venture. And I just felt like there wasn't a place for people who wanted to understand what was happening in venture and startups. I felt like having had conversations with people who are maybe more outside of the traditional tech sphere. They only hear headlines or they see the funding announcements. Um, or they see, you know, AI is going to take your job. Uh, or they see content that's like, here are 10 prompts to make you a million dollars overnight.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  And so I just felt like there was a massive discrepancy in all the high quality stuff that I was seeing from you, from Rakesh, from TBPM. And none of those insights being translated to people who are outside of tech. And I don't, I, I think people are genuinely curious and people are genuinely excited about innovation, about startups. They just don't have like an easy entry point to that. Uh, so yeah, about a year ago, decided to just try posting once a day. I honestly thought, uh, when I first started, I told myself, if I can just build this to like 10,000, 20,000 people who care deeply about tech and innovation, I'll be happy. And I can yap at them and share my thinking. And, uh, yeah, it's just now slowly grown to what it is.

• 8:01Speaker 01

  We now reach, I think, across all platforms, I reach 350,000 plus people. Uh, we do like north of across all platforms, again, 10 million impressions monthly, uh, which is just insane to think about because when I first started, I was really, the goal was like, I don't know, 20,000 people and maybe getting in front of a hundred thousand eyeballs a month.

• 8:22Molly O'Shea?

  So what are the top performing types of content that you have? Is there like a specific kind that like just always works?

• 8:30Speaker 01

  Uh, I have a series that I do called Hot Startup Rounds that has done really well. I think contrary to like what we know as our daily jobs and, you know, it feels like we live and breathe this stuff. Uh, a lot of people actually don't feel like they have visibility into startup fundraises and where money is going. Like they'll hear about the OpenAI's and the anthropics of the world, raising large rounds or, you know, pre-IPO stories, but actual visibility into the earliest stages of building. Um, I realize that a lot of people are actually very interested in that, right? I, I think in what's being seeded, early stage ideas. And oftentimes, it's actually interesting. I'll get comments like, where do you hear about startup fundraisers? I'm like, it's a no brainer, TechCrunch, like, TechBook, Crunchbase.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  It's all stuff that feels very intuitive to us. But I started externalizing a lot of that. And so, once a week, I would share two, three startups that I think were notable. They didn't necessarily have to be, you know, the largest fundraisers. It could be interesting tech, it could be interesting stories. Those videos have done really well because I think people care about genuinely what's being funded, what type of technologies are emerging. And then I do a lot of content around breaking down general tech news. I would say, usually with the angle of, what is this? Why does it matter? And, you know, where does the world move from here? I think oftentimes, people get the headlines, but they don't really have the venture or startup perspective.

• 9:56Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, the context.

• 9:57Speaker 01

  Yeah. And so, I try to bring that context. And I try to make it accessible in a way where I think oftentimes, in the VC world, there's a lot of VCs talking to VCs, or startups talking to startups. And recognizing that there's this opportunity to make sure that that narrative expands beyond the, you know, the circle that we access to.

• 10:19Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, going the route of Instagram, TikTok is totally different. And it is a completely, it's more mainstream audience. Meanwhile, like, there is a lot of people in tech that do watch TikToks all day, and maybe Instagram reels all day. But like, what, like, what part of that aspect of talking to that audience has also like, increased your perspective on like, where we are in tech? Like, what do you see? Because there's obviously lots of headlines saying, AI is horrible, blah, blah, blah. But like, what, what are you like, kind of seeing between the lines?

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. I feel like, when I, immediately when I started, it was actually pretty humbling because I was like, oh, this is very, the reactions to these things are very different than what I'm seeing on Twitter. And it just felt like I was navigating two different universes. I think good examples are, you know, when I talk about AI, or when I consume information about AI.

• 11:17Speaker 01

  On tech Twitter, it's obviously very techno-optimist. We're excited about it. With anything being blasted to mainstream, there's always a lot of skepticism around big tech, a lot of skepticism around whether or not these technologies actually work, a lot of anger around this, you know, big tech is just coming in and taking all of our jobs. And so it was interesting navigating both because I think for a while I was very insulated in this world. And, you know, by default, being in this job, you have to be optimistic about future. You have to be like, I think you have to be protective to be in venture, to believe in the promise of this technology leading to like a collective net benefit for humanity. And so I was sitting in this world.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  But then in the comments, I think recognizing that that excitement didn't necessarily translate or spread because every headline they were seeing was very doom and gloom or like the most extreme versions of it. And so I think there was an interesting opportunity to basically try bringing some of that nuance and that excitement and that techno-optimism into the mainstream. And also, I think recognizing that, you know, when I was in college, I felt like the general atmosphere around tech was this opportunity to improve society with technologies, idea that you can like go tinker and build stuff in your garage. And I felt like that was my view of tech and it still is.

• 12:45Speaker 01

  But I think some of that has been lost in the mainstream now. It's like a lot more about these, you know, AI overlords and jobs being taken and data centers. And so, um, yeah, I felt like there was an interesting opportunity to intermediate and hopefully translate some of those stories into the public sphere.

• 13:01Molly O'Shea?

  So are you going to keep doing Zowie Talks in this new role? Like, how is this being set up?

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Yeah. That was a really important point for me was that I think as even an investor generally, like you should always have an opportunity to.

• 13:19Speaker 01

  Hold your views independently and have editorial control of what you say and how you think about the world. And I think most venture funds, and even at a place like Lightspeed, having differing views is welcome. Like, it's what makes us all better. And so I think for me, it was really important having Zowie Talks as a space that I could continue to refine my ideas, continue to interface with the public sphere. And in the same way that I think when you have in the VC ecosystem, a lot of people have independent X accounts or they have independent blogs. Like, those are places where they can share their independent thinking. And that in turns, actually, I think enriches the overall firm's collective understanding of nuance

• 14:04Speaker 01

  and also understanding of different opportunities. And like, I think nurturing of healthy discussion. And so it wasn't, honestly, even a point of discussion. They're like, oh, obviously, you'll continue to have your own platform. In the same way that I think if you look at a Fred Wilson at USV can use a blog or the various X accounts of investors in the ecosystem or like Bill Gurley on BG2, or sorry, Brad Gershner and formerly Bill Gurley on BG2. This idea that you can still have an outlet where you share ideas and it doesn't have to be absorbed into the firm.

• 14:39Molly O'Shea?

  And the army of A16Z.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Yes, and that too. Yeah, yeah.

• 14:42Molly O'Shea?

  I am very envious of your role because you pulled off something no one thought could be achieved ever before.

• 14:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:50Molly O'Shea?

  You have a split role between investment team and media team.

• 14:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:55Molly O'Shea?

  How does that work?

• 14:56Speaker 01

  Yes. I think I'm so grateful that Lightspeed is a place where they kind of take that on new ideas like this. I think when I was having conversations with the Lightspeed team, actually, there wasn't that much convincing that needed to happen because It felt very intuitive when I had these conversations with the team that this idea that you have investors, like the role of an investor is very narrative oriented. You are often selling a startup, you are selling investors in your fund, you're selling partners on why they should pick you. And so I think this idea of storytelling, this idea of narrative driving is core to the job.

• 15:39Speaker 01

  But people, it's just never been, I think, formalized, I guess. And you see it with like previous generations where investors have always been writers, they've always been podcasters. There's a reason why so many investors put their ideas out into the world because it in turn brings them interesting opportunities, it builds their brand, founders know what they stand for. And so I think in this sense, when I had conversations with the Lightspeed team, there wasn't ever a tension or you have to pick one side. It actually felt quite intuitive to have this role where, especially if you are the person that is driving a lot of new media, thinking a lot about the brand and reaching

• 16:22Speaker 01

  people even as their pre-founders and converting them and activating them into this ecosystem, then it's sort of a no-brainer to actually be also investing in those people as well. And so I think of really my role as building that massive wide net, top of funnel into the Lightspeed community. How do we get people even when they're a college kid thinking about AI and tech? How do we get Stanford PhDs who might not have ever been exposed to like the VC commercial world but are still interested in tech and AI and can learn from the Lightspeed community? How do we get operators who similarly haven't been exposed to like how to be a founder? And so really targeting these pre-founder archetypes.

• 17:05Speaker 01

  And then my job is to build that out and then think deeply about how we can systematically make sure that we're converting that talent density into interesting opportunities, especially at the early stages of pre-seed and seed stage. Well.

• 17:20Molly O'Shea?

  We have to talk about the show.

• 17:22Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 17:22Molly O'Shea?

  So what does the show entail? Are you gonna do it every day? Are you gonna be live streaming? What is it gonna be?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  I mean, there's so much interesting stuff happening in the ecosystem with like MTS and TVP and I feel like that space has been filled with a lot of high-quality content. I think you have really in-depth interviews from folks like Dorkesh, you, the ability to see the behind the scenes of some of these startups and spaces. I think there's opportunities there. But I really think of this as, again, a space where we can recap what's happening in the ecosystem. I really felt like where I've had success in this space

• 18:07Speaker 01

  has been playing translator for people who are just starting to think about tech and AI and startups and make sure that all those stories that we're seeing in Silicon Valley get told to these audiences. And so I think of Lightwork as our opportunity to introduce all those people into Lightspeed Sphere. We're not only gonna cover Lightspeed stuff. I think there's an immense opportunity to just be this place where people can digest what's happening in startups, what's happening in deep tech, what's happening in AI. And what we'll do is cover a couple of stories every week. Try make sense of the world. Josh and I will probably riff on our takes on these things. We'll have guests from Lightspeed, we'll have guests from portfolio companies,

• 18:52Speaker 01

  we'll have guests even outside of our portfolio, experts who are building in this space. And hopefully that will allow some of the mainstream audiences to have this sort of entry point into the Lightspeed universe and what we're thinking about. And in turn, not only just the Lightspeed universe, but also the venture startup ecosystem.

• 19:12Molly O'Shea?

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• 19:56Molly O'Shea?

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• 20:38Molly O'Shea?

  Visit turing.com/sorcery. So what are the biggest things that people are watching right now other than the Elon Musk, Sam Altman trial?

• 20:50Speaker 01

  There's that. I think a lot of people are very curious about this idea of an AI bubble.

• 20:57Speaker 01

  I think there's... People have kind of seen the rise and fall of crypto as this life-changing technology and haven't really seen that tangibly reach their lives. And so I do think... There is this interesting moment where a lot of people have skepticism about whether or not AI is actually going to tangibly change our lives for the better. And I can go into that whole narrative issue there. I think people are curious about just the OpenAI, Anthropic, XAI, Google, who's going to come out of this, what happens to these big models.

• 21:39Speaker 01

  I think there's a lot of discussion around geopolitical tensions. I think a lot of discussions around the, even like DeepTuck, I think there's excitement about robotics, excitement about autonomous vehicles, about space. So those are probably the things that are kind of percolating in my mind right now.

• 22:00Molly O'Shea?

  Well, what are you most excited about?

• 22:02Speaker 01

  I am, I think for my role as plain translator, I've had to cover everything, but I am most excited about telling stories really about the startups in the ecosystem and honestly a lot of the innovation happening. I think a little less, I think there are a lot of people on the ground, for example, covering Elon versus OpenAI trial. I think there are a lot of people covering the politics of it all, but I think what I would like to inject in the space is what I frankly feel, which is this optimism around innovation and tech and startups. And this idea that we are in this unprecedented moment where all, we have never seen this

• 22:47Speaker 01

  sort of step change in technology and we're really just accelerating in ways that we've never seen before. And so how do we make sure that we're sharing those stories that, what does AI unlock in healthcare and medicine and climate? And it feels like in a world where all the headlines are centered around AI is going to take your job, Elon and Sam are fighting. AI data centers are gonna ruin everything. Hopefully, not ignoring those stories, I cover those often, but also recognizing that this is a very exciting time for humanity and for builders and for people who are curious about the future, like this is truly just a once in a lifetime moment.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  And so hopefully making sure we tell those stories so that people can feel like they they can be part of it too and not necessarily locked out in in the permanent underclass, if you will.

• 23:39Molly O'Shea?

  One of the things I find really interesting about the AI narrative is that Stanford study on Gen Z like hating AI, which I just think makes no sense because they actually don't know a world without AI. They would be going into investment banking, I don't know if they've changed, and be like, you know, doing ridiculous menial types of tasks over and over again, all this like repetitive work.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:02Molly O'Shea?

  Like it's, they're technically like, the most jobs that are being replaced or they're they're getting more efficient, like, or the ones that you wanted to bang your head against your desk.

• 24:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:16Molly O'Shea?

  It was funny because like we were, we were talking about this yesterday, even when I was doing my newsletter, like, I thought this was like beneficial to me, but I just can't keep up with it anymore because it's so manual. I would go in every week and I would take all of the top funding announcements and I would put them in a newsletter, I would organize them, I'd make sure the links work, like all this stuff, it would take me like three hours.

• 24:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:40Molly O'Shea?

  I still don't know how to do it. But like, there's jobs like that and jobs, especially in investing where it's like you would have to pull from so many different sources to find actual information and data, but now you just click these buttons, you type these things and it's like ready to go.

• 24:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:57Molly O'Shea?

  So I don't know, I just, I just think like, One, I think those narratives on Gen Z is they're just so lucky that even if they are saying that, I don't think it's true because they just don't know a world without it. And two, it's only getting better. It's getting a lot better.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:16Molly O'Shea?

  And the jobs that were once before, you don't want to be doing repetitive work.

• 25:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:23Molly O'Shea?

  That's what it's replacing.

• 25:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts on this because I also, having been at a firm where we covered a lot of workforce tech and labor changes. I mean, my thoughts on this are that it's very easy to overestimate the short-term impact of technologies and very difficult to actually remember the potential long-term. And I think if you really zoom out,

• 25:50Speaker 01

  to your point, if you look at like 100 years ago.

• 25:55Molly O'Shea?

  People had to go to libraries and read books.

• 25:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, which I still recommend.

• 26:00Molly O'Shea?

  No, but to get any sort of information, any sort of financial information, you'd have to like read physical things.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  But I'm just thinking even to your point around the menial tasks that have evolved, right? We had people who were literal door knockers, like alarm clocks, human alarm clocks. They would walk around, but this was before the invention of alarm clock. We had people, their jobs were to wake up in the morning and go to door to door to wake people up. And so, yes, that is a job, but that person now, 150 years later, is probably doing something a lot more fulfilling and interesting than being a human alarm clock. Or, I think when I think about computers, we literally had women plugging wires in and out to process, compute. And so, I think jobs will always evolve.

• 26:49Speaker 01

  I think it's easy to look at today and see this technology and think that there, I don't even think there's really a true, maybe for certain roles like coding, contact center work, where you do see one-to-one replacements, but most times you see that labor being abstracted to a higher, more useful level. I think, for example, the banking analogy, I did a video a couple of days ago on Claude Finance Agents. And obviously, a lot of fear around this is going to take monetary analysts, what happens to analysts? And I'm like...

• 27:24Speaker 01

  When analysts were staying up till 2 a.m. moving logos around and like manually typing notes, was that a fulfilling task for them? Probably a more fulfilling task is learning the judgment and storytelling around how to pitch or how to tell a story around an IPO. Like, that's a much more interesting task for an analyst to do than manually moving logos, which AI can do now at 2 a.m. And so, I always, I think there's a little bit of a tunnel vision when it comes to this labor story. And I also do 100% agree, there's just, and maybe this is where I feel like a strong

• 28:02Speaker 01

  passion about is just this whole idea that like tech is often misinterpreted. Like, AI itself is just this encompassing thing that people, they don't recognize like the ways that it's used already. It's, we've already had AI for Siri, facial recognition. And so, this idea that you can now suddenly be like, I'm anti-AI is just, to your point, so foreign to me. And I, hopefully, through the content that I can put out, people can build that nuance in understanding that like, yes, AI can be used for personalized cancer vaccines. It can be used to create really cool Disney animatronics. And, and it's not just like that, or a search engine, or, you know, AI girlfriend, AI boyfriend,

• 28:46Speaker 01

  which I feel like right now in people's heads, that's what AI represents.

• 28:50Molly O'Shea?

  Because you have such a strong, like, pulse on how people perceive things in the mainstream through these different social channels, given that you are an expert in this, it's your job. How do you think these big companies that are receiving like lots of backlash, how do they curb that, that image?

• 29:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:13Molly O'Shea?

  Whether it's OpenAI, Anthropic, you know, like?

• 29:15Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, I think generally, the AI world has

• 29:21Speaker 01

  An issue around like expectations versus delivery of the

• 29:27Speaker 01

  I think when we have these very dramatic statements about white collar go work going away or

• 29:36Speaker 01

  you know, we will see, we will have AGI by 2027 like I think you feed into this frenzy and people are confused. They're trying to make sense of the world. So they fall into this frenzy, but then time and time again, at least over the last few years, it hasn't, it hasn't turned out that way. So I think there's almost like a boy who cried wolf dynamics coming out of like the AI world sometimes. Where if you're deep in it and you're following the way that we do, like I'm excited because every single thing feels like a step change. And we're continually seeing the privacy like this technology is evolving faster than ever. I'm seeing the capabilities that get unlocked, but then I think if you're a person outside of tech, you're basically hearing like this thing's gonna

• 30:21Speaker 01

  become super intelligent and we're going to reach a singularity. And then every time you see a new release, it's like, oh, wait, there are still hallucinations. Oh, wait. This thing actually can't do a lot of things. What are these tech bros saying? And so I think that's a dynamic at play here is

• 30:37Speaker 01

  the tech industry, I think, can do a better job of inviting people in. I think there's a lot of to what we were discussing, this like permanent underclass discussion is probably not very conducive to people feeling excited about technology and innovation. I think there's opportunities where people, you know, especially when I've done videos, um, breaking down the technology, people have been like, wait, this is actually really cool. Or this is how AI should be. So I'm like, guys, this is how AI has been, you know, when I think about like Isomorphic Labs or what Demis and his team are doing with Allafold like

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Because these stories are not told, the mainstream's conception of tech and AI is limited to the very scary headlines, unless so the optimistic, exciting step changes that we're making in all of these important fields. So yeah, I think often the work to be done here is real, or the job to be done here is to really, hopefully, externalize some of the progress that's being made in tangible ways. Because I think if you go to an average person and you say, "Look, like,

• 31:48Speaker 01

  whatever new model has now achieved XYZ on what benchmark", like, that doesn't mean anything to a person on the street. And so how do we make sure that we tell those stories? And we make sure that it's known that, you know, people in the tech space, like, I think a lot of people in the tech space genuinely believe in a better future. Like, I don't think everyone is in this industry because everyone's trying to be a supervillain. And so how do we make sure that there is some sort of leveling between these two spaces?

• 32:16Molly O'Shea?

  Who do you think tells the story best?

• 32:18Speaker 01

  I think Dora Cash does a really good job of...

• 32:22Molly O'Shea?

  CEOs.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Oh, CEOs. I actually, I was having a discussion about this a few days ago. We had, Robbie had a book talk discussion with Sebastian Malaby. He recently wrote The Infinity Machine on Demis. And I think of the prominent AI leaders, I think Demis does a pretty good job of actually translating the technology into more quantifiable and tangible ways for, like, your everyday person. Because I think there's a lot of focus on, like, benchmarks and a lot of focus on unlocking. And you see the unlocking capabilities in certain deeply technical spaces like coding.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  But I think the work that Google and Demis has done around storytelling, around AlphaFold, around what they can unlock in, you know, games of AlphaGo and AlphaZero, like, I think that has been helpful because it's tangible for people to see the step change in gaming. Versus, I think, when you just put a benchmark in front of a person, they're not really, they don't know even how hallucinations work. So it's... It's hard to make them care about this technology when it doesn't really impact their daily life. So I don't know, that's probably my answer, but I think, um, I think Dario does a good job of

• 33:48Speaker 01

  really prioritizing the safety aspect of all of this. I think that's definitely on top of people's minds. Like that's when I think about comments from, from the mainstream, like one of the top concerns is that we're kind of moving fast breaking things. And so I think, uh, Dario does a pretty good job of really making sure that like safety is, is top of mind in, in anything that, that they're putting out there.

• 34:14Molly O'Shea?

  Joining the mega fund that is Lightspeed.

• 34:17Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 34:17Molly O'Shea?

  You have a whole new portfolio to learn off of. What portfolio companies are you excited to dig deeper into?

• 34:26Speaker 01

  There's a lot. Uh, it, it's so fun because you know, when I was covering startup rounds, there were so many Lightspeed portfolio companies and now I have, I'm like on the other side of that.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  I think there are a couple even just more recent, interesting ones.

• 34:43Speaker 01

  Like I think there's so much happening in this new layer of infrastructure for agents. That's completely new. And so you have companies like Sycamore Labs that, that Lightspeed just invested in. Raindrop, just really something new. Uh, this idea that around this ecosystem of agents, you have to build audit trails, like you have to build harnesses for them. And so there's all these different opportunities to base or build safety for, for, for agents. Like there's all these new, with this new paradigm, you have this new opportunity for all these, this tooling to support agents, which we've never had before. I think that's interesting, seeing what, what the team is doing.

• 35:25Speaker 01

  And investing in even like mainline services, places where AI or tech traditionally hasn't touched. Uh, so they recently, uh, invested in a company called Modus, uh, which is doing a lot in the audit, audit space. Which traditionally like dominated by small, medium businesses or like the KPMGs of the world. Now you have an opportunity to build like an AI native audit service. Um, and in that case, they actually bought an actual audit firm. So that's interesting to see. I think seeing kind of the, the AI role play, even play out internally. And then obviously companies like Anthropic, which are, you know, Lightspeed has

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Played such an important role in

• 36:06Speaker 01

  the anthropic journey and so being able to kind of see side by side the ways that Lightspeed is collaborating so closely with Anthropic as it kind of enters its next era.

• 36:18Speaker 01

  I don't know, it's just so fun. Like every day I go back and I'm just so energized by the conversations and the rooms I get to be in and the insights I even just get by by osmosis of being in the room with some of the investors on this team.

• 36:29Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, that's amazing. That's a lot.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  I love it. Yeah. No, it's like truly a dream, you know, dream role where this is the, if you want to talk about like the frontier and where things are happening, these are rooms to be in. And my passion of being able to translate all that into making it more inviting for people to be, feel like they're part of it. There's just like not a better place to be able to do that.

• 36:55Molly O'Shea?

  Today's episode is sponsored by V C X by Fundrise, the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. Learn more at getvcx.com. Some of you may not have heard this yet, but our sponsor Public just launched something called Generated Assets and it brings AI into investing in a way I've honestly never seen before. Here's how it works. You type in an idea like AI-powered supply chain companies with positive free cash flow or defense tech companies growing revenue over 25% year over year. Public's AI then dispatches a swarm of agents that scan every single US stock, evaluates them and instantly builds a custom index around your thesis. What really stands out is how clearly it explains why each stock is included.

• 37:40Molly O'Shea?

  And before you invest, you can even backtest your idea against the S and P 500. So you're making decisions with real context, not just guessing. And beyond Generated Assets, Public lets you invest in stocks, bonds, options, crypto, all in one place. They'll even give you an uncapped 1% match when you transfer your investments over from another platform. If you want to build a portfolio that actually reflects your thesis, visit public.com/sorcery. Paid for by Public Investing. Full disclosures in the description. Enterprise AI runs on Merge, the AI infra platform. Form for integrations, agent tooling, and model orchestration. So your team's ship product, not plumbing. Mistral, Dropbox, and Drata already trust Merge in production. Start building at merge.dev.

• 38:24Molly O'Shea?

  Founders scale faster on Deal. Set up payroll for any country in minutes. Hire anyone, anywhere. Get visas handled fast and get back to building. Visit deal.com/sorcery. That's D E E L dot com slash sorcery. Is there anything we haven't covered yet that you want to talk about?

• 38:43Speaker 01

  Not really. I'm curious, like, your thoughts on all things new media. I mean, you're truly a pioneer in this space. I distinctly remember when you had been starting Sorcery. I'd been leveraging it. It was so useful for me. And then when you went full-time, I was like, I love that. I cannot wait to see it grow and, you know, grow it did.

• 39:04Molly O'Shea?

  I know. I mean, it's a lot of work.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Yes, content is, I think, that's one of my takeaways is, um, content is a lot of work.

• 39:14Molly O'Shea?

  Every time I think I've cracked it, I have not. And something changes and I gotta redo it. And like, it's really awesome because I've gotten to the point now where I have a team around me. I have like two people that I pay pretty much full-time.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:28Molly O'Shea?

  Very nice full-time salaries.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:30Molly O'Shea?

  Uh, thank you to Brex. And, um, and like, it's just, it unlocks so much more when you take... And, okay, so I think this was my biggest realization that would have benefited my investing experience early on. People always say, like, invest in someone who is not doing this part-time. Like, that is full-on, locked-in, no risk, like, all risk, like, no, like, hesitations. Once I went full-time on it and I saw the ROI, I was like, holy shit. This is insane. Like, it went boop. And then all of a sudden, I'm getting Alfred Lin and Alex Karp and Anduril and all these people. And I think, I think the fact of, like, building these arcs too is important.

• 40:14Molly O'Shea?

  Like, my arc, my story has been... Similar to yours, like I I've been in investing for like six, seven years, it's like my whole career. I started right after college and I started the newsletter like a year after.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:27Molly O'Shea?

  Just like starting work and so just like I've just like been building that for a while. So I had some people that knew about me maintaining relevancy like once a week through the newsletter, which is really cool. And then um I did become known for that and then I realized, oh wait, if you market something, it grows.

• 40:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:45Molly O'Shea?

  And so I tried more things, we did the podcast and um like it wasn't until um. Yeah, it wasn't until I got my Brex sponsorship that I was like, oh my God, like this is a real thing.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:58Molly O'Shea?

  And maybe I could do both.

• 40:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:00Molly O'Shea?

  Right now, like I'm really a hundred percent focused on sorcery. I can't handle like multi-brain on this because it's like it's me, it's all on me. Like if it fails, it's my fault. But like one day, I'll get back there. I know a lot of people are always asking me like when I'm gonna start a fund.

• 41:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:17Molly O'Shea?

  And so to be continued.

• 41:20Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 41:20Molly O'Shea?

  So, yeah, but it's it's just like so much fun and it gives you so much of a more, a greater perspective on things than being just so insular.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 41:28Molly O'Shea?

  So like having this like exposure to the outside world, um I'm building much better relationships with everyone. I'm having my own relationships with people. Um it's not just, you know, under the guise of being an employee like. I have like, I'm texting most of my guests, like we become friends afterwards. Like they're excited to come on, like it's a really cool unlock that I just was not expecting.

• 41:53Speaker 01

  For sure. Like I think there is, it's such a helpful way to build relation, like scale building relationship with people in a non-transactional way. Cause I do think in Metre it's like.

• 42:03Molly O'Shea?

  It's the most transactional place on earth, like especially in San Francisco.

• 42:07Speaker 01

  Exactly. And so like with media, I found it to be like, how do you, how do you reach people? How do you? Build trust and credibility even before you've actually like met them in person. And allow people to know what you stand for. And I think, you know, similar to you, I had this unlock when, you know, I thought I was only going to reach like 20,000 people. And now it's grown to what it is. And then I had brands like, like brands like Vanta, Perplexity, Meta, like all of them knocking on my door being like, please, can you, you know, share what we're building with our audiences and, you know, formal partnerships with them. And so that's when I was like, oh, wow, these are all these companies that I've been tracking in the space. And now like my little window is what you want to like, I'm real, that's kind of when I realized that

• 42:52Speaker 01

  tech has a good job of, does a good job of marketing to each other, but they really have a tough time, I think, spreading that narrative outside. So that was like kind of the moment for me. But yeah, I think there's, it's just been so fun building media platforms. I'm inspired by what you're doing. I'm excited for hopefully your fun. I'm sure you're seeing so many interesting opportunities out there. So like, you know, I view you as someone in many ways who's like also pioneering this kind of hybrid role of someone who can build a brand, who can build a community. And then translate that into very interesting opportunities and people that you come across.

• 43:26Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, my bank account can't really survive many more of these angel investments.

• 43:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:31Molly O'Shea?

  Do you get recognized on the street?

• 43:33Speaker 01

  I, so it's so weird because in my head, this is literally a side internet thing.

• 43:38Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  And then, yeah, I've been recognized in my building before in Soho. And SF and Palo Alto, I would say like where there are tech people.

• 43:47Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 43:48Speaker 01

  Sometimes I will weirdly, this is like when I'm like, oh, my God, I'm actually perceived as a human and I, you know, I walk around and exist in the world as a normal human and I don't think people recognize me. And so the other, just two days ago, I got a DM that was like, where are you in Shack 15, taking a conference call? I think that was you. If so, I'm a fan. But I was like, that's so nice. But also, oh, my gosh, I probably was like,

• 44:11Speaker 01

  so I think there are moments like that where I'm like, oh, wait, I probably can't walk around like, you know, I have to sometimes realize that.

• 44:21Molly O'Shea?

  People are watching you.

• 44:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But, you know, for the most part, I'm like, I'm such a small person in the, it's not like I have multi millions of people following me. And for the most part, it's just a lot of fun being able to connect with people who are. In tech, we're interested in tech. Like, everybody that I've met through this has been so kind, so cool. And yeah, it's just, for the most part, I'm still very much a regular person who is just excited about tech and excited that I get to tell these stories.

• 44:48Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, it's funny visiting San Francisco. I think that's when I get the most, "Oh, my God, you're famous."

• 44:53Speaker 01

  I know, and I'm like, "Wait, really?" I just feel like I'm just a person who's like, honestly, most days, I'm like, "Oh, this is just..." I think, like, I see the numbers grow, but I'm like, "Oh..."

• 45:03Molly O'Shea?

  You're just like posting stuff on the internet, so it's hard. It's so weird to me because I think similarly to you. It's like I'm constantly just like online. I don't think people actually... And I do see who's liking it and all this kind of stuff, but like, it doesn't feel real at all. It doesn't feel, yeah, it just feels like some weird thing. And then I go to events and people are like, "Oh, my God, you're Molly." I'm like, "Yeah, that is, that is me."

• 45:28Speaker 01

  I know. And then I'm like, "Oh, wait, so they actually watched something?" And I get a little embarrassed, but then...

• 45:32Molly O'Shea?

  Or hopefully now they watch something. Because sometimes I think people just say that, but they don't actually watch anything. Maybe they're just scrolling. So I'm hoping that converts some more listeners.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that.

• 45:43Molly O'Shea?

  Okay, well, cool. As we wrap up, what are you most looking forward to in the next 12 months? I'm not going to say this year because it's like kind of halfway over, but...

• 45:50Speaker 01

  So much. We have a lot of things in the works. The team here is amazing, like, just, again, so energized by being in the room of investors, by our marketing team, being able to work with Josh, with Ravi, Bejel. Everybody is just like, operating at such high clock speed. And so, from an investment standpoint, this is, you know, again, the most exciting time to partner with some emerging builders in these ecosystems. So I'm excited to continue to meet people. I, before, was mostly investing in ed tech and workforce tech, and now I get to really expand beyond to my interests in AI, in Frontier. So meeting people there, that, very excited for that. I think on the new media front, there's a lot of different initiatives we're hoping to drive.

• 46:35Speaker 01

  I think building more... Productizing and operationalizing a lot of that funnel from like, how do we make sure that every investment or company we're interested in goes through kind of this, the Lightspeed or Lightwork marketing machine? And how do we make sure that their stories are being told to mainstream, to the tech world? And yeah, I think there's just a lot of low hanging fruit. One of the things I've realized with Lightspeed is you have this cohort of very intelligent, so thoughtful, so intellectually rigorous people. And I think they're so non-promotional as humans.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  And I've had, I walk away from every discussion, I'm like, oh, my gosh, I wish you would just write, or I wish you would share what you have in that brain of yours. Because 18-year-old me in college would have loved and died to just like, have access to some of these insights. And so I think one of the exciting things I'm hoping to unlock is the fact that you have this density of just big thinkers on this team, in the portfolio, in the spheres around Lightspeed, who, because they think, you know, it's just normal for them to be doing the things that they're doing, hopefully externalize all of that and make it accessible and recognize that like, these are really, you know, category ecosystem shaping insights

• 48:04Speaker 01

  that hopefully will continue to nurture the ecosystem.

• 48:08Molly O'Shea?

  It's amazing.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:09Molly O'Shea?

  Well, welcome to your new home.

• 48:11Speaker 01

  Thank you. I hope to have you on for more conversations. Josh and I love you, so we're gonna hopefully have you on for more episodes in the future.

• 48:20Molly O'Shea?

  Cool. Well, thank you so much, Claire.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  And hopefully we'll get to collab more.

• 48:23Molly O'Shea?

  I know. And I can't wait for your new music ringtone.

• 48:28Speaker 01

  Zowie Wowee.

• 48:29Molly O'Shea?

  It's gonna be good.

• 48:31Speaker 01

  Thanks.

• 48:31Molly O'Shea?

  Thanks. Hey, it's Molly. If you enjoy our interviews, check out our newsletter, sorcery.vc, where we deliver a once a week top deals and tech headlines email, and also go deeper on our podcast interviews. Subscribe to Sorcery today. And don't forget to subscribe to the podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen. Link in description to sign up.