Pod Insights The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch 20VC: Using Valuation As A Litmus Test, Why Valuation Does Not Matter At Seed Stage & How Seed Funds Can Serve Founders Better with Kent Goldman, Founder @ Upside Partnership About this episode Kent Goldman is the Founder of Upside Partnership, one of the leading seed-stage investment firms in SF with investments in the likes of Laurel and Wolf, Digit and Lily. In 2015, he was named to the Midas Brink List. Prior to forming Upside Partnership in 2014, Kent was a Partner at seed investment pioneer First Round Capital. While there he led investments in companies including Airware, Hotel Tonight, and MemSQL. He also served on the board of Mashery (acquired by Intel). Earlier in his career, Kent was a member of Yahoo!’s corporate development team and also led business strategy for Yahoo! products generating $1 billion in annual revenue. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Kent made his way into the world of early stage investing and came to found Upside? 2.) What were the big takeaways from First Round for Kent? How has he applied those learnings to his formation of Upside? 3.) What does Kent look for in the LPs that invest in his fund? Why should founders look to learn which LPs are invested in the fund investing in them? 4.) How has Kent seen his investment decision-making process alter with time? What have been the big changes? 5.) Why does Kent believe valuation does not matter so much at the seed stage? What does really matter to him at the seed stage? How does this progress with rounds? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Kent’s Fave Blog: Howards Marks: Oaktree Capital Kent’s Fave Book: A River Runs Through It And Other Stories Kent’s Most Recent Investment: Live Neighborly As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Kent on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Pearl believes the latest automotive technology should be available to every driver – whether it’s time for you to buy a new car or not. RearVision is our first step in driving this commitment forward. Pearl RearVision is the only wireless backup camera and alert system that installs in minutes and updates throughout its lifetime. Pearl literally takes less than 10minutes to install and is completely wireless because it’s solar powered. Since RearVision is software based, we’re able to push updates and new features over the Pearl App in the exact same way you receive updates for other apps on your phone. Pearl RearVision is perfect for anyone who wants to upgrade their car in minutes. Pearl RearVision is $499.99 and available at PearlAuto.com. It’s also available on Amazon and through Crutchfield.
Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Harry Stebbings? Welcome back to the 20 minute VC with your host Harry Stebbings at H Stebbings on Snapchat. Or for some hopefully more thoughtful and academic thoughts, you can find me on the appropriately named mojito vc.com. I hope you've had a fantastic Christmas with far too much food and booze. I know I have, but back to business today. And as I always say, venture capital sleeps for no man or woman. And I'm delighted to welcome today's guest to the show today. So joining us in the hot seat, we have Kent Goldman. Now Kent is the founder at Upside Partnership, one of the leading seed stage investment firms in San Francisco with investments in the likes of Laurel and Wolf, Digit and Lilly, just to name a few. And in 2015, he was named to the Midas Brink List. And prior to forming Upside Partnership in 2014, Kent was a partner at the prestigious
0:42 Harry Stebbings? seed stage investment pioneer, First Round Capital. While there, he led investments in companies including Airware, Hotel Tonight and Mem SQL. He also served on the board of Mashery, which was acquired by Intel. And earlier in his career, Kent was a member of Yahoo's corporate development team and also led business strategy for Yahoo products, generating $1 billion in annual revenue. However, before we meet the main man that is Kent, although Christmas is over, it does not mean you cannot treat yourself. And what better way to do that than with Pearl? Pearl believes the latest automotive technology should be available to every driver, whether it's time for you to buy a new car or not. And Pearl Rear Vision is their first step in driving this commitment forward. Pearl Rear Vision is the only wireless backup camera and alert system that installs in minutes and updates throughout its lifetime. Pearl literally takes
1:27 Harry Stebbings? less than 10 minutes to install and is completely wireless because it's solar powered. And since Rear Vision is software based, they're also able to push updates and new features over the Pearl app in the exact same way you receive updates for other apps on your phone now. Pearl Rear Vision is perfect for anyone who wants to upgrade their car in minutes and costs $499 and is available at pearlauto.com, or you can find it on Amazon or through Crutchfield. However, it's now time for me to shut up and to hand over to Kent Goldman, founder at Upside Partnership.
2:01 Speaker 01 You have now arrived at your destination.
2:04 Harry Stebbings? Kent, thank you so much for joining me on the 20 minute VC stay. Such a pleasure to have you. Having heard so much from Sean at Shasta. So thank you so much for joining me today.
2:13 Speaker 02 My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
2:14 Harry Stebbings? Now, talk to me, Kent. How did you make your way into the wonderful world of VC as I call it? And then how did you decide to go and found upside?
2:22 Speaker 02 Sean Flynn, who connected the two of us, he and I shared a cube wall at Yahoo for many, many years. And while I was there, early 2008, Microsoft launched hostile takeover attempt of the of the company. And this was also sort of right around the time that there's this thing called Facebook Beacon, where if you had liked a brand or a company, that meant they could use your profile picture in any ads they ran. The intent being if you liked Nike sneakers, Nike could show an ad to all of your friends. Kent likes Nike sneakers, maybe you should try them too. And given the work I was doing at Yahoo at the time, I had sort of gone around and sort of liked every venture capital fund that I knew that had a presence on Facebook. And one of those was First Round Capital. So early one morning, I get a call from some friends on the East Coast.
3:06 Speaker 02 Oh, my God, have you seen the news? Microsoft is trying to take over Yahoo. I sort of roll out of bed at four in the morning, five in the morning, you know, drive right to the office and sit there dazed and confused, just just as everyone, sort of many other people sort of at my level were. And throughout the day, I was just getting these messages from colleagues that said, I can't believe you. You're such an asshole. Fuck you. And I was sort of taken aback and I didn't understand where the vitriol was coming from.
3:33 Harry Stebbings? Don't worry, Kent. I've got used to it by now. Don't worry.
3:36 Speaker 02 And finally, you know, I got a message from one person I was pretty close to and I just said, I've been getting these messages all day. Like, what, you know, what did I do? I'm as confused as everyone else as to what, you know, what's going on here. And he sent me a screenshot of his Facebook feed. What I didn't know was that Josh Koppelman, who had just started First Round Capital, had decided when he when he saw the news of the takeover attempt, he wanted to see if there's anyone at Yahoo who's sort of loosening the saddle and maybe thinking about joining the startup or starting a company. So he had run an ad that said, thinking of leaving Yahoo to join a startup, contact First Round Capital and of course, right next to that ad was my smiling profile picture. So on the day when, you know, my friends and colleagues were all sort of nervous about their future,
4:20 Speaker 02 their futures and their jobs, they all thought I was there trying to convince everyone to abandon ship and run. So at that point, you know, when I saw it, I knew exactly what had happened and sent Josh a note saying, "Hey, don't know if you know, this is how the ads are playing, but they're making me a little bit uncomfortable. Would you mind pulling them down?" And before that, I only knew Josh at the most cursory level. And really, so that began a five-month conversation and dialogue and getting to know one another, where I wound up actually joining First Round as a principal back in 2008.
4:53 Harry Stebbings? And then I'm really intrigued, having spent that time as a principal in 2008. And then you were there for six years, I believe?
5:00 Speaker 02 Yep.
5:00 Harry Stebbings? So six years, what then was the transition point which made you want to transition to become a sole GP with upside? What was that catalyst for you?
5:08 Speaker 02 Well, there are a couple of things. One is from 08 to 2014, when I left, the seed world changed a lot and I had sort of like been there in the earliest sort of formational, formational days and sort of as groups like First Round and Baseline, Soft Tech, Floodgate had, you know, Harrison Metal had success, other firms sort of began coming in. And you know, I often sort of felt, you know, I would ask myself as I saw new firms start, okay, if I were starting a fund now, how would I disrupt the established players? And increasingly, I kind of felt that people were, they're sort of following the exact path that we had laid, where they would start with a small fund and then they would try to grow it to be a little bit larger and become a lead investor. Or sort of in the case of First Round, which is sort of, I think, sort of really better than anyone else
5:52 Speaker 02 in the venture universe, sort of pioneered this, you know, the idea of sort of building a platform for their founders. You would hear firms talking about, "Oh, we're going to have a platform too." And I sort of had this feeling that sort of like First Round was always going to have that side of the the business done better than anyone else. And I just started thinking that, again, where are the holes in the landscape? What are people missing here? And it just sort of struck me that there's this incredible opportunity to sort of build a smaller fund and keep it small. And so if you did that, there are a number of things that you could do. The one is that you could, you know, as seed funds were getting larger and larger, it's harder for them to sort of play more at the friends and family type stage. Where in two thousand eight, there's very little difference between a seed round and a friends and family round.
6:34 Speaker 02 And so I thought if you had a fund that allowed you to play at those early days, that could be really interesting. I also sort of felt that as all these funds are trying to grow up and everyone was trying to be a lead investor. They're putting themselves in deeper and deeper competition with one another. So why not play a different game and sort of say, look, I don't have a fund that forces me to write lead size checks. I can write smaller checks and instead focus on sort of punching above my weight in terms of the value of, you know, we can bring to an investor. And so that that idea started rattling around my head and I really just couldn't let go of it.
7:07 Harry Stebbings? Absolutely. It's the it's the typical kind of entrepreneurial founder itch. But I do want to discuss, you said there about being deliberately small. Obviously, the strength of being deliberately small is kind of, it's easier to return the fund if it's smaller in in many ways. But in terms of access to follow on, how do you think about that with regards to doubling down on your successful investments? So obviously, a larger fund, you can have a greater follow on ratio. How do you look at that?
7:32 Speaker 02 We actually have a large portion of the fund set aside for follow on investments. So we've raised two funds. We're still actually investing out of the first right now. That fund is thirty million dollars. We expect that about seventy percent of that will actually be deployed into follow on investments.
7:49 Harry Stebbings? Wow.
7:49 Speaker 02 And so, yeah, and a lot of that comes from some of what we learned at First Round, which is just seed stage investments. They're going to have a higher fail rate than a series A investment, which is going to have a higher fail rate than a series B investment. And so if you can sort of pace putting in your dollars as they sort of clear through those stages, you can help make sure that your dollars increasingly are put to work in a success adjusted manner. But the other thing that's sort of like you intuitively learn is sometimes actually working with a company is the best diligence that you can do on the company and getting to know people and getting to know a market over a couple of years. And so the approach that Upside has taken from the get go has very deliberately been to sort of be able
8:31 Speaker 02 to take on more risk at the seed stage and then sort of at each successive round of the companies going, well, put, you know, put more dollars to work. And we usually have been petering out our investments, series B, or maybe around a hundred million dollar valuation, where just for a fund of our size, the math begins to not make quite as much sense.
8:49 Harry Stebbings? Absolutely. And you mentioned about takeaways and learnings from First Round. I mean, from your six years there, what were the biggest takeaways that you learned? And how would you think you've applied them now to Upside?
9:00 Speaker 02 It very much sort of starts culturally sort of with First Round as a whole. If you look at sort of the people who built it, Josh, you know, Josh Koppelman, Howard Morgan, Rob Hayes, Chris Fralich, they all, along with people like Steve Anderson and Michael Deering and Jeff Clavie and Mike Maples, they really were pioneers into this whole seed movement. And a lot of that, when you talk to all of them, they were really driven by this idea to sort of, they wanted to serve founders better. You talk to any one of them, they will say, they felt that at the earliest stages of a company were oftentimes the most challenging stages of a company. And institutionally, that was where there's the least amount of support for a founder. And so that piece is something we took sort of very much, that sort of I still sort of live and breathe every day.
9:42 Speaker 02 But what I think First Round really focused in on is they kept saying, what can we do to innovate? Like, why should we accept that the established venture model is the only way to go forward? And so when I set out to build Upside, I asked that question myself too. I said, what are things that we can do to build a stronger or more cohesive group of founders than any fund out there? And I had this idea, you know, at that point, that if we could actually sort of make founders partners in the fund, they would be more supportive of one another. And that it would also sort of reflect the relationships that I wanted to build with founders, where I didn't view them as people I was just investing, but I was viewing them as sort of people that hopefully I would help them build their businesses and
10:24 Speaker 02 And they would help me build mine and, you know, over time, there'd be enough where they could help one another. So I think it's that way of sort of saying, how can we innovate in service of founders?
10:33 Harry Stebbings? With that radical new model of kind of creating a cohesive group of founders that are incentivized with kind of carrying the fund, how how do you look then to sell that to a traditional LP class? And how was the fundraising process for you in pitching this revolutionary new model to traditional LPs?
10:50 Speaker 02 Whenever I talk about my fundraising or the fundraising upside went through, I think it's really important to be self-aware about it. And I think sort of what drove first fundraising for upside, I have to give a lot of credit frankly, just to the group of people that I was coming from. First round had been a largely oversubscribed fund for a long time. No expressed plans for it to sort of grow and make more room for new LPs. I'd invested a number of times alongside Steve Anderson and the same thing was true of, you know, baseline where he didn't want to add new LPs. So I, you know, before talking about sort of the how the innovative side of upside played into those LP conversations, I want to sort of make sure that I acknowledge the fact that I benefited from the standpoint of having come from a peer group
11:33 Speaker 02 that was hard for a lot of new new investors to the seed class to get it get involved with. And I think upside was probably viewed as a good proxy for some of the more established experienced funds in the in the category. Having said that, and I think what LPs have told me they took away from the conversation, I said, look, I want to try this innovative structure of making founders partners in the fund. It's a signal to them that you're willing to try different things and you're willing to innovate. It's really a sort of an expression of the the culture you want to build and sort of that you're willing to be innovative. It also shows that sort of you're willing to set aside effectively some economics. They they would have been mind-bending saying, look, I I'm willing to give them away because I think that will allow all of us to do better over the long term.
12:17 Speaker 02 And so I think they heard about the shared care and said, great, it's an expression of values. We'll see if the mechanics of it actually work out, but at least here's a GP who is willing to walk the walk.
12:29 Harry Stebbings? What what do you look for in your LPs? Often I hear GPs say all LP money is the same. Do you agree that all money is green and there's no kind of strategic value that LPs can provide?
12:39 Speaker 02 I disagree. I've been very fortunate to work with high-quality LPs throughout my career. And certainly, I think it's better to raise some money than being too snobbish and not raising a fund at all. But seed stage, these companies take an incredibly long time to grow and gestate and return capital. And so I actually think for founders of companies, it's important for them to understand sort of where the seed investors' dollars are coming from. If you're going to build a company that's going to take 10 years to do it, you want to make sure the capital behind you is patient and the investors behind you are patient and that they're not trying to force you into any unnatural acts of growth or to exit too soon in order to make less sophisticated investors happy.
13:21 Speaker 02 So I think having the backing of people who really sort of understand the asset class is incredibly important. And I've also found that sort of a number of my LPs, they work with funds that are at the seed stage, the A and the B. And the amount of feedback and insight into the market that I can get from them and that they provide me has been tremendous.
13:42 Harry Stebbings? Absolutely. And I do want to kind of revert back to your investment thesis itself. And earlier we discussed about kind of whether leading rounds and what size checks. And I do want, you've said before that you deliberately invest 300K a time. So I'm intrigued as to how much of a role valuation plays in your investment decision-making process with this size check.
14:04 Speaker 02 The way we get graded is the multiple var returns, right? And so that's a factor of the price coming in and the price coming out. And so very obviously, of course, I prefer lower prices. But having said that, at the seed stage, I don't think valuation matters quite as much. I always find myself chucking a little bit when I hear someone, when talking about a seed investment. Well, I liked it at 5 million, but when I heard they wanted a $7 million pre, I just thought it was too high. Because I scratch my head when I hear that. I say, well, if you think this is going to be a billion-dollar company, if you think you've found one of the rare companies which can truly be a billion-dollar company, is that really going to be the reason you let it get away? Because you only want to invest in a five pre, not a seven pre?
14:44 Speaker 02 So internally, when I think about valuation, I almost use it as a litmus test for my own enthusiasm, my own belief in whether or not a company can achieve its high aims. But I don't focus on it sort of that much at the seed stage. When we get to sort of the series A and the series B, I think about the valuations sort of more, but largely from the standpoint of how to invest from a smaller fund into higher valuations. Which is just, it's trickier because your dollars just aren't going to go as far. So before I mentioned, usually we peter, you know, upside has been petering out as companies hit a hundred million dollars in valuation.
15:19 Speaker 02 And that's because when, you know, when I think about putting another three hundred K to work at one hundred million dollars versus instead sort of allocating that three hundred K and saying, well, I'll put it to work in another five million dollar company. I find myself thinking about valuation in that.
15:33 Harry Stebbings? Do you find dilution a big problem for you in terms of the scaling of your portfolio upstream in the funding cycle?
15:40 Speaker 02 So far, we've been fortunate where we've always been able to get prorata when we've wanted it. And I think a lot of that comes from.
15:45 Harry Stebbings? Founder alignment.
15:46 Speaker 02 Yeah, well, founder alignment, the fact that we really focus on becoming sort of trust counsel to founders. So I, I don't worry about whether or not we have a board seat. In fact, I almost prefer to sort of not have a board seat and that way sort of I'm getting calls from founders when they're saying, look, I have a board meeting coming up. How do I message this or how, you know, how do I have this discussion with the board? So you begin to feel more like an advisor and I think so when it comes time to earning the right for prorata, like truly not the contractual right, but really earning it. We do that pretty well. And also in the majority of our investments, where we don't lead, we've been the first institutional investor to commit the majority of the time. And that bond that you create with the founder from doing that goes a long way. So I worry about dilution.
16:28 Speaker 02 I worry about valuations escalating sort of more quickly than I've been able to sort of gather new facts to sort of understand and see whether or not the company is sort of like appropriately mitigated risks along the way. But I haven't worried about dilution too, too much yet.
16:43 Harry Stebbings? Have you, have you seen your investment decision making change with regards to valuation, with regards to ownership? Since you made the move on your own, striking out with upside from first round. Does that kind of personal fiduciary responsibility that you have as the sole GP as opposed to a principal? Does that have an effect on your investment decision making mindset?
17:03 Speaker 02 Yeah, the trickiest thing is when I was at First One, I had my partners kept me out of trouble. And you had people who, if your process of sort of due diligence on a company fall apart, there are people to catch you and remind you and put it in place. So one of the things, one of the changes I made is actually, I now, and I keep this on my physical desktop, I keep it on the desktop of all of my computers, is a investment decision checklist. It's not about what the metrics company needs to show in order for me to sort of make an investment, but it's sort of like, have I followed the right process around making that decision? And so every investment, I go through that now, and I've broken it out into segments. It's, I'm looking at it now, it's market, product, team, risks, things which are sort of germane to sort of upside's view of the world.
17:46 Speaker 02 And then also, there's a separate section, just as I go back to think about whether or not to make a follow-on investment. So that's been a big change. I think the discipline of being on my own has been a big change.
17:57 Harry Stebbings? We had Nick Weaver from Eero on the show yesterday, and Nick said the thing he learnt from his time at Menno Ventures was the fact that even a great team and a great product don't win. You also need to have, A, a huge market, and B, a growing market. How do you prioritize the differing segments in terms of your thought process?
18:18 Speaker 02 I always start with the team. I mean, upside's not a thematic investor. I think it's very hard to be thematic at the seed stage. I think generally, by the time you can identify a theme at the seed stage, it's probably too late. So instead, I focus on trying to find people who are experts in their field or have thought about a problem long before most of us even knew that problem existed. I overweight on team, and then I try to get a sense for sort of what the market could be like, or what it might grow into. Product is probably the last thing I worry about. When I think about product, especially at the seed stage, or what the early vision of a product is, that helps you understand how the team thinks about the space, as opposed to sort of being, you know, the thing you're really investing in.
18:59 Harry Stebbings? And I'd love to dive into a quick fire round with you now. So I say a short statement, and you give me your immediate thoughts. How does that sound?
19:04 Speaker 02 Sounds good.
19:05 Harry Stebbings? So let's start with the biggest challenge in establishing upside.
19:09 Speaker 02 Just doing it. I think any founder will tell you, when they start companies, they go into Knowing full well the risks ahead and that was certainly the case with upside. I knew it was gonna be risky for me to do. But it's been enormously fulfilling. And so I think it's just the biggest challenge is making that first step. Once I took that first step and got going, everything else just began to fall into place from there.
19:28 Harry Stebbings? What was the first step? Was it leaving first round or was it getting the first LP money in?
19:32 Speaker 02 The first step was having the conversation with my partners at at first round.
19:36 Harry Stebbings? Okay.
19:37 Speaker 02 And I think this is what I'm gonna do.
19:39 Harry Stebbings? And then let's do favorite book.
19:40 Speaker 02 There there there are a lot of steps between that and the first money in.
19:45 Harry Stebbings? Too many, but let's do your favorite book and and why?
19:48 Speaker 02 A River Runs Through it by Norman McLean, only about a hundred pages. It's semi autobiographical novella about, you know, his brother who he just adored. He wanted every word to be perfect. So even though it's a hundred pages, it took him twenty five years to write. And it's the the language is beautiful, what he's written about, helping people who don't always want your help is beautiful. And then I also just love it because I I have a a physical copy of it that was my dad's. And when I was in college going abroad for the semester, I grabbed, you know, the copy off of his shelf and took it with me and I sort of read it many, many times while I was abroad. And somehow over the years, it just hung on to that actual physical copy. And my dad has since passed away, but it has some of his writing and his notes in it.
20:31 Speaker 02 So I not only do I cherish the words in the book, but I actually cherish, in this case, the the physical book that I have as well.
20:38 Harry Stebbings? And then what's the vision for upside? Think five years' time, ten years' time. Do you want upside to be a scaling fund like the ones we discussed earlier? Or do we want to retain the small, small size fund, one GP? What's the vision?
20:52 Speaker 02 The vision is for it to continue to be a small fund, somewhere where it is now. The second fund that we raised is forty four million, I think. Sort of if I get too far above that, the model we're seeking to work with begins to break down a little bit. There may be additional GPs. I've not focused on the idea that this has to be a single GP fund by any means. I just, I want to make sure we can stay small, we can stay in that place where we can give founders great advice and we can work well with other funds.
21:17 Harry Stebbings? Your favorite blog or newsletter? What are the must reads for you?
21:20 Speaker 02 Whenever Howard Marks from Oak Tree Capital. publishes a new quarterly letter, I race, I drop whatever I'm doing, I race off to read that. I love reading edge.org, which has some longer term think pieces about the future and technologies role in it as well.
21:37 Harry Stebbings? And then let's finish today with your most recent public investment and why you said yes.
21:41 Speaker 02 This one hasn't really been announced, but it's on our website. So I think it's fair to talk about it as being public, but it's a company called Live Neighborly, which is founded by a fellow named Jonathan Kabira, who was one of the foundational team members of Google, Google Shopping Express. And while he was working on that, he just be kind of became obsessed with solving the traveling salesman problem. And what I loved about Live Neighborly is this is such a natural extension and expression of sort of someone who had become obsessed with physical routing challenges.
22:10 Harry Stebbings? Well, it's been such a pleasure to have you on the show today, Kent. I can't thank you enough for giving up the time and been brilliant to hear the journey with Upside.
22:17 Speaker 02 Thank you. Appreciate you having me.
22:21 Harry Stebbings? What a fantastic show that was with Kent and so appreciate all he has done for me and the show, both since the recording and with his ongoing support. It really does mean a lot to me. I'd also like to say a huge thanks to Sean Flynn at Shasta for the intro, without which the show would not have been possible today. And if you love the show today and would like to see more from me, then do not hesitate to add me on Snapchat at H Stebbings with two Bs, or check me out on mojito vc.com. I'd absolutely love to hear your thoughts and feedback on that. And although Christmas is over, it does not mean you cannot treat yourself. And what better way to do that than with Pearl? Pearl believes the latest automotive technology should be available to every driver, whether it's time for you to buy a new car or not. And Pearl's rear vision is their first step in driving this commitment forward. Pearl rear vision is the only wireless backup camera and alert
23:05 Harry Stebbings? system that installs in minutes and updates throughout its lifetime. Pearl literally takes less than 10 minutes to install and is completely wireless because it's solar powered. And since rear vision is software based, they're able to push updates and new features over the Pearl app in the exact same way you receive updates for other apps on your phone now. Pearl rear vision is perfect for anyone who wants to upgrade their car in minutes and is available for $499 from pearlauto.com, amazon.com or through Crutchfield. As always, I so appreciate your ongoing support and I cannot wait to bring you Friday's episode with Nitesh at B12.
Previous 20VC: What VCs Really Mean They Say 'Stay In Touch', Why Incentivisation Through Perks Is Lazy & Why Founders Should Always Under-Promise & Over-Deliver with David Politis, Founder @ CEO @ Bettercloud Next 20VC: How AI Can Enhance Not Replace Humans? What Will Differentiate Between The Winners & The Losers In AI? Why AGI Is Further Away Than We Think with Nitesh Banta, Founder & CEO @ B12 Page updated September 29, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated