Big AI Platforms vs. Specialized Tools

Is the AI arms race a distraction? Tom Chavez, Founding General Partner at super{set}, brings his experience building companies acquired by Salesforce and Microsoft to examine AI's real business impact. He explains why specialized AI tools may outperform monolithic platforms, challenges current AI valuations, and shares practical strategies for identifying AI applications that deliver measurable ROI rather than following hype cycles. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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  The Martech Podcast is a proud member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. Looking to launch or scale your podcast? I Hear Everything delivers podcast production, growth and monetization solutions that transform your words into profit. Ready to give your brand a voice? Then visit iHereEverything.com.

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  Welcome to the Martech Podcast, a member of the I Hear Everything Podcast Network. In this podcast, you'll hear the stories of world-class marketers that use technology to drive business results and achieve career success. Here's a host of the Martech Podcast, Benjamin Shapiro.

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  I'm Benjamin Shapiro and joining me today is Tom Chavez, a co-founding general partner at Superset. Tom has built and sold startups to some of the biggest tech companies in the world. And now he runs a venture studio that funds data-driven AI applications to deliver practical business results. And today, Tom and I are going to delve into what's real and what's not when it comes to AI's impact on marketing. Tom, I want to move on to our lightning round where I'm going to ask you a couple of marketing Martech questions related to the AI arms race. Are you ready?

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  I'm ready.

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  All right, here's a good one. I want you to pick one. Would you rather invest in OpenAI, a monolithic AI platform, or YellowPad, an early-stage AI contract review legal tech startup?

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  I am betting with my own money and my time and my own sweat on the early-stage startups. I think there's a lot of opportunity, particularly at the not-so-caffeinated valuations for those early-stage startups, where if you're doing it right and picking intelligently, there's a lot of wealth to be created in that sector. I think the larger platforms, like, let's look at this, OpenAI, the cost of compute, the cost of electricity are just staggering. It's unbelievable what they've achieved. But the question for me is, how does OpenAI get to $10 billion or $20 billion in free cash flow? Their current valuations, which continue to rise, are premised on something free cash flow generation, roughly along those lines. You look at it today, it's not clear how they get there.

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  It's a winner-take-all kind of game where they just have to keep betting that they can get enough money from the Saudis or whomever to keep it going, such that the other players get washed out. And that's happened before in tech, and maybe it'll happen here. But I'm not going to go and write a check at that valuation today, because it's hard to see a path. I wish I'd gotten in four or five years ago, absolutely yes, but at today's stratospheric evaluations, I just don't get it.

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  Who can blame you for not giving your money to a nonprofit? And that wraps up this episode of the Martech Podcast. Thanks to Tom Chavez, the co-founder and general partner at Superset for joining us. If you'd like to contact Tom, you could find a link to his LinkedIn profile, which is in our show notes, or on martechpod.com, or you could visit his company website, which is superset.com. You can also find Tom on his podcast, which is Closed Session. If you haven't subscribed yet and you want a daily stream of marketing and technology knowledge in your podcast feed, hit the subscribe button in your podcast app or on YouTube, and we'll be back in your feed next week. Okay, that's it for today, but until next time, my advice is to just focus on keeping your customers happy.

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  Thanks for listening to the Martech Podcast, an I Hear Everything production. Looking to launch or scale a podcast like this one for your brand? Then visit ihereverything.com.