# 50% of Funds Will Go Out of Business Why Growth Expectations Today are BS and Will Not Last · Why Oren Zeev Takes $0 Management Fees But 30% Carry · Why GPs Should Not Tell LPs Their Strategy 20VC · Feb 2, 2026 · 68 min · 13,650 words Speakers: Oren Zeev, Harry Stebbings Source: https://www.996.fm/episodes/20vc--ep-7f1b0de9/ ## Cold open **Oren Zeev** [0:00]: Think this notion that only growth matters is still a very dangerous one, and I've seen this movie many, many times. We humans are not truth seekers. We are self validation machines. In every one of my funds, I'm the biggest LP. Every single one. By the way, I pay myself zero. So I tell LPs I only have one rule, and that rule is that I have no rules. AI is the biggest change ever in the history of humanity. **Harry Stebbings** [0:23]: This is 20 VC ## Intro **Harry Stebbings** [0:24]: with me, Harry Stebbings. And today, we have one of the most prominent solo capitalists in venture, Oren Zeev, who now manages over $1,000,000,000 in AUM. My favorite thing about Oren, there's no show. There's no facade. He is so authentic. He has no rules when it comes to investing. He tells LPs exactly what he thinks. He has zero management fees. He takes 30% carry. He's just wonderfully authentic, and he's done incredible deals like Navan, Audible, Houzz, and he's a brilliant player in this ecosystem. He's a dear friend, and this show was so much fun to do. But before we dive into the show today, ## Sponsor read **Harry Stebbings** [1:03]: as an investor, I'm always on the lookout for tools that really transform how I work, tools that don't just save time but fundamentally change how I uncover insights. That's exactly what Alpha does. With the acquisition of Tegus, AlphaSense is now the ultimate research platform built for professionals who need insights they can trust fast. 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Again, I'm gonna use the next hour as an advice session for me as an investor because I think I have a lot to learn from you. Now is a weird time because a lot is uncertain. And so when we look at picking investments, that is our job, that's what we're paid to do in a lot of ways. Why do so many of the best outcomes look wrong or weird at the time when we when we invest? **Oren Zeev** [5:10]: Look, I think if they're long if they if they look weird and they look wrong, then probably there aren't gonna be 15 or 20 or a 100 other startups doing it. So you're probably gonna have two or three years without real competition, and you have a chance of really building something, no, a real moat. Now if you're wrong, it's not gonna help you. But if you happen to be right, then these are some of the the greatest outcomes. And and, again, this is not this is really some level of contrarian plus being right. That's the ingredients, typically, of great outcomes. **Harry Stebbings** [5:43]: The challenge that we have today is the level of competition has changed so much. When we first met ten years ago, there was always one or two competitors. Now for every company I meet, there's legitimately eight to 10 at a minimum. Yeah. What do we do when the level of competition has increased to the extent that it is? **Oren Zeev** [6:02]: I try to avoid it, to be honest. I'm I'm in the Peter Thiel camp, I guess. I don't like to go in where everyone else goes and have ten, twenty competitors from the get go because I think the chances of building a I I really want every investment to become a market leader, and the more competition there is early on, the the smaller chance. So I try to avoid. Every now and then, I find myself in such a sit situation. Okay? But I don't like it. So I try to avoid it, and I try to do things to me. If everyone is doing something, it's a reason not to do it, not a reason to do it. **Harry Stebbings** [6:36]: Has what you look for changed in the last twenty four months in the dawn, the wave of AI that we're looking at today? **Oren Zeev** [6:44]: Not so much, surprisingly, because I think the fundamentals are the the same fundamentals. Yeah. We have, of course, a tsunami wave that changes everything, which I think creates a lot of opportunities because, basically, every single industry business is going through change. And whenever there's change, there's opportunity. And there's a lot of value being created, and there's a lot of value being destroyed, and there's a lot of value being shifted. The one thing maybe you could argue that change, I don't know if it's twenty four months or thirty six months, is that every investment I have to ask myself, is this company a likely beneficiary of AI or not? The answer is that they're a victim of AI. Obviously, it's an easy answer. But even if the answer is neutral, still the answer is probably no. So I just have to ask this question, which is a question I wouldn't ask four years ago. Right? Four years ago, I would look at an opportunity. Wouldn't ask myself, is this a beneficiary of AI? But in the past three years, absolutely, I have to ask this question. **Harry Stebbings** [7:39]: If we were to reflect that back on one of your best investments and one of your most concentrated positions, which obviously went public in Navan, would you say that Navan is a beneficiary of AI? **Oren Zeev** [7:50]: 100%. I am not sure that the markets the public market yet sees it that way based on the valuation. This is my theory. The market feels or believes that some or many of the software companies, the incumbents, are going to get disrupted by AI. And I think the market is right about that. I think that the market is not yet at the point where they discern between the ones who are gonna be negatively impacted and the ones that are gonna be positively impacted. So I think that most software companies are getting somewhat of a discount because of that justified fear. As you know, SaaS multiples, for example, are lower than they've been in the past ten, twelve years. But I think over time, what's going to happen is that for some companies, the suspicion is gonna materialize. And in fact, even with a discount, they're gonna, in hindsight, look very expensive today. And for others, they're gonna be beneficiaries. Now specifically with Navan, which is a company I know well, I'm 100% convinced that there is zero chance that we get disrupted by AI, and there is 100% chance that we're huge beneficiaries of AI. I can go into details, but I feel I just feel very, very, very, very strongly about **Harry Stebbings** [9:06]: Can you? I'd I'd love to know more I **Oren Zeev** [9:08]: can't get into details in terms of numbers, obviously, but but just but from a qualitative perspective, I'll give two examples. One example is gross margins. You know, three years ago before AI, our gross margins were around 50%. It was all the cost of support. In the past three years, we've invested a lot and, you know, and we're doing more and more with AI. So and ultimately, I believe that almost all the support is going be done by AI. Already, I think that it's dramatically better already. I mean, this is public information. I just don't have it in front of me, and it continues to improve. So this is the easy part. The second part, which is even more exciting, is think what you can do with AI in terms of the customer experience. And, I don't I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say and what I'm not supposed to say, so I wanna leave it to the the the company because I don't wanna trip on some SEC role or something. But the even more exciting thing is how it dramatically improves the customer experience on multiple levels. And and back to the first thing, why am I not worried about being disrupted? Because if you have a piece of software that's fairly simple, then yeah, someone can write it quickly and maybe price it lower and maybe even have better functionality and have much faster velocity and those companies are at risk. But the more operationally complex the business is now I'm not talking about Navan. I'm talking generally, but I think Navan falls within this framework. The more operationally complex a business is, the more it's about distribution, the more it's about integration with source and with other pieces of software or content in the case of Navan or part of the ecosystem, the more it's in a regulated, this is not about Navan, but the more it's in a regulated environment where there's a lot of licenses and stuff, the harder it's gonna be. Because you know the technology, okay, so someone can develop the technology, but technology is 5% of it. Know, you have the you have all so many other things. Data. Data is so important, especially in the age of AI. And who has the most data? The incumbents. So the bottom line is, I think this notion that all the incumbents are gonna die, you know, this notion that is being promoted by some people who who I think whose main motivation is to make provocative statements and get attention as thought leaders. I don't buy it. I think that, yes, of course, there's the change of technology and some companies that are not gonna be able to adapt for both objective reasons, like the one that I mentioned, and also and also execution reasons. I mean, some CEOs are just gonna be faster and more crisp in adapting the companies. Of course, you continue to do nothing different, you're going to die. But that's always been true. I have, specifically when Navan has zero concern, and I think that in general, many companies are not easy to disrupt. As long as they don't fall asleep on the wheel and as long as they adapt, they're going to be huge beneficiaries of AI. **Harry Stebbings** [12:06]: So I have so many things to unpack there. The first that I just want to unpack is you mentioned Navan of investors obviously in support, blah blah blah. Support is a space where everyone is like, duh, AI is gonna replace a huge amount of labor. It's the most perfect solution for AI. That would be a consensus companymarket to invest in, with huge amounts of competition. Does that mean you don't like it? Because that's the opposite of what you said you like. **Oren Zeev** [12:35]: Yeah, a new company that they're solving the support problem. One, you know, one of them is gonna be successful, but there's there's a thou or two, but there's a thousands that are not. So I'm not at the very early stages, I don't trust my intuition enough to know which one of the thousand is gonna be successful. **Harry Stebbings** [12:51]: You know, it's something I'm really struggling with, which is like growth rates. And what I mean by that is I'm meeting companies today, and I'm looking at them, and they're going from 1 to 5,000,000 in revenue. And before, Oren, when we met, that was great. That was impressive. Now it's just not enough to get the great big funds interested at the b or the c, and I know that actually I'm not gonna get a good next round on the back of that growth. How do you think about the changing expectations on company growth rates, and does that impact your investing? **Oren Zeev** [13:21]: Yeah. So to be honest, I don't buy that either. Call me old school, but I don't buy that because the math doesn't change. If you have a company that can double every year for the next five years, it's gonna be 32 x what it is today because two to the power of five was 32 before AI and after AI. That has not changed. So the real question is, is it sustainable growth, and is it healthy growth? So maybe a company grew from one to five, but, you know, it's not necessarily healthy growth. You know, the economics are not very impressive. And, you know, I think that next year, they they're not gonna be growing much. So, yeah, so in that case, it's not gonna be enough to grow from one to five. But if the company grew from one to five and they look like next year is gonna be 20 or 15 and the economics are healthy, absolutely, it's a great company that I wanna be, you know, invested in. So and I think there is danger in these missing companies. Actually, I have right now a company that's raising and really and the company is is growing at a 100%. It's at 20,000,000 today growing to ARR, growing to 40,000,000 with very healthy economics, and I think this should also double the following year. And one investor said, oh, you know, we're gonna be have a challenge with the growth rate of a 100%. Right? And I, you know, and I have a lot of respect for this investor personally. I'm not gonna mention him. I have a lot of respect for him. I think he's dead wrong on this one. I think **Harry Stebbings** [14:37]: Why you think he's wrong? Because I think he's **Oren Zeev** [14:40]: right. I think he's wrong because I think this company again, it's not as if look. If this company had competitors at the same level growing at 3x and they're growing 2x, yes, then it would be right. But they have the market to themselves. They're leading the market. They're growing 2x. They're growing a very I prefer a company that's growing 2x with very healthy economics than a company that's going 3x with unhealthy economics. As long as I believe that the market is large enough to continue to sustain this kind of growth for the next few years, I'd bet this company all day long. So, I don't think that AI changes mathematics. Compounding compounding is the same compounding before AI and after AI. **Harry Stebbings** [15:17]: When you look at the opportunity costs that large great funds have today when they're investing large amounts of money into the follow on rounds of our companies, they can be in a cursor that goes to 1,000,000,000 faster than ever. They can be in a Harvey that hits 200,000,000 within two years. And I I I'm in businesses like you are, dude, so we're on the same side here. But I'm looking at it going, I get it. Opportunity cost adjusted. They wanna be in Harvey and Cursor, not ours. **Oren Zeev** [15:44]: But I I don't think so. I will tell you, even this day and age, there aren't many $20,000,000 companies that are doubling with, you know, with very healthy economics. You know? It's just not so many of them. The other thing, I think this notion that only growth matters is still a very dangerous one, and I've seen this movie many, many times, you know, because when you only look at growth, it drives companies to do things that are unsustainable and unhealthy. For example, these circular deals, you know, I'll buy your product for a million dollars and you buy my product for a million dollars. It's a win win. Right? Because we both now have another million dollars of revenues. Yes. We also have another million dollars of cost, but that doesn't matter because nobody looks at it. So you'll realize that no value was created in this theoretical transaction, but a perceived value was created. So you're starting seeing this, and this is not even before I get to fraud. This is really still like within gray area. And you see other manifestations of that. You see things that are clearly not not sustainable. Now in some cases, the companies will be able to somehow succeed, but in others, you know, it's gonna implode at some point. So **Harry Stebbings** [16:56]: So are you telling companies that you're on the board of, don't listen to the hype, don't believe the bullshit on podcasts about growth rates needing to be crazy, build healthy businesses today? **Oren Zeev** [17:06]: Look. I think growth is super important. But, yes, in general, yes. Grow healthy. Now there are some rare situations where you have no choice. Because if you have competitors that are also growing very fast, you don't have the luxury of, no. No. I'm gonna grow healthy. You know, you just have to play the game and and hope for the best. I know. I don't know. Uber versus Lyft would be a good example ten years ago or fifty whatever. Fifteen years ago. You know, you didn't have the choice of, oh, let's build it slow and make it, healthy. You have to go as crazy as possible, whatever the margins are, and ultimately, in the case of Uber, come out on top. But again, I look for businesses where this is not the dynamic. And when you have the choice between growing fast in a sustainable manner versus just going crazy and just optimize just for top line and ignore everything else, yeah, I think that the latter is a disaster waiting to happen. **Harry Stebbings** [17:58]: Do you worry, ever, that having a focus on margin and good economics too early hinders the upside opportunity for the companies that you're in. If you look at a DoorDash, shit margins for years. If you look at an OpenAI or an Anthropic, actually shit early margins. Do you worry that actually you focus too early on margin optimization? **Oren Zeev** [18:19]: As I said, in some spaces in the area, yes. It's more important to win the market share, and it's more important to win the market, and you don't have the luxury of focusing on margin too early, and you have to make the assumption that you'll take care of margins once you win. But most businesses are not like that necessarily. Certainly not all businesses are like that. And when in the business, when you have the option, then again, don't focus on too early. I still think that the growth is more important. So I agree with you that focusing too early, absolutely. But at some point, you do wanna focus on it again if you can afford it. And that point really depends on the business and the competitive and the competitive environment. It's not I don't think there's one solution for all or one answer for all. **Harry Stebbings** [18:59]: My biggest mistakes have always been when I think that I'm smarter than the market. You know, I turned down Deal at the seed round because I was like, payroll? Really? Paychecks? ADP? Come on. This is ridiculous. With this kid, Alex, who's now a friend, he won't mind that. Do you give a shit about market, given the stage where we invest? How do you think about that? **Oren Zeev** [19:19]: I also made mistakes, think I'm smarter than the market, but but also my biggest ones were when I thought I was smarter than the market. And it's much more about the winners than about the losers. So, no, I actually this social proof and what other people think, I tried to actually suppress this signal, if not ignore it altogether, and and and really invest based on my own conviction. And, you know, sometimes I'm gonna be right, and sometimes I'm gonna be wrong. It's more important to be right about this since because in 50% of the time I'm right and 50% I'm wrong, that's actually a great result because a winner is so much more important than a loser. Because, you know, as you know, if if we lose something, we only lose one x our money. If we win, it could be a 100 x our money. **Harry Stebbings** [19:57]: It's absolutely true. What you don't wanna do is continuously put money into a loser, and you wanna reduce that time cost. When you have done, what did you get wrong, or what did you not see? **Oren Zeev** [20:08]: So first of all, I don't often get these double downs that I do, I don't often get them wrong because I really, I believe, have enough intellectual honesty to look at things, not be biased because I'm already in and not, you know, not and I I I Maybe because I'm originally an engineer or whatever. Even when I was in my previous life as an VC with the I saw compared to the other partners. You know, I had a partner who never saw a following he never he didn't like. You know? He always found a reason to justify his his his previous decisions. And I think one of the strengths of being a good decision maker is actually change your mind when there's new information and not get you know, there's a a quote I like from Annie Duke's book. It goes something like I'm gonna butcher it, but it says, you know, we humans are not truth seekers. We are self validation machines. Meaning that, you know, people most people, when they have an opinion, whatever information now arrives, in their mind, it's a proof that they were right. Right? And I don't think this is a good mindset, you know, for a good venture investor. So I think that you want to have enough intellectual honesty to change your mind based on the new information. But I will give you an example because I, you know, I'm not foolproof. And, of course, I make just like I make mistakes in in in new investments, I also make mistakes in in follow on. So I'll give you an example. A company that was in the prop tech space and seemed to be on fire. You know, it went from 2,000,000 run rate to 30,000,000 the a year after invested, and the projection was to go from 30 to 100. Everything looked great. You know, I doubled down, and I thought, I probably got a discount to what you the final would have got from the market. But the timing was just before the big rise in in interest rates in late twenty twenty one or '22. I forget exactly what it was. So what did they get wrong? So first of all, I understood that the business is dependent on interest rates to some degree, And I even stress tested it, and I actually did assume that interest rates will go up fast. And I had the worst case scenario, and I concluded and I ran the model, and I concluded that the business is gonna be resilient enough and was gonna survive it. In hindsight, I overestimated the resilience of the business, and I underestimated the speed. What I called the worst case scenario, what I modeled as the worst case scenario, was actually not as bad as the real scenario that happened. Know, the rise interest was was too fast, and the company just did not survive it, I lost. And by the way, this is yeah, so there's an example. So it happens. We're still in the risk business. What do you take away from that as a lesson? I actually don't not much. I'll tell you why because I think that I I think some of the bets are not gonna work. You know? I think it's a mistake to judge a decision by the outcome. Because when you play poker, you can make the right decision and the odds are in favor, but, you know, the cards that came out, you know, you lost the pot. Doesn't mean that your decisions were wrong. And over time, you make the right decisions, the overtime you're gonna win. And but in any individual case, luck has a huge role to play. So you can also learn the wrong lesson. So, yeah, I took a bet. In this case, it was wrong. In hindsight, I wasn't aggressive enough in my stress testing. But does that mean that I should be overly conservative next time? Not necessarily because I could have been right. In other cases, I was right. So I just have to be comfortable with losing money, including big pots every now and then. **Harry Stebbings** [23:42]: Can I be blunt, Oren? You have massive balls. I know. But when when you look at your concentration into Navan, okay, which now a public company, and it it's been incredible to see all that they've built. But at times, it looked hairy. COVID, for example, when travel stopped as a travel company. Do you feel the pressure in those moments? **Oren Zeev** [24:05]: Actually, in the case of Navan, I never felt pressure. I, you know, I COVID was a big one. By the way, even before COVID, 2018 or '19, we had an existential crisis when Delta Airlines decided that they hated us. And you cannot really succeed as a as a travel company when one of the three major airlines in The US is not willing to work with you and is swinging and and all that. And it wasn't it was not obvious that we'd be able to solve it, and luckily, we did. And then COVID happened. But, you know, with COVID, I had complete trust in the leadership of Ariel. Some people were saying, oh, after COVID, people are gonna just stop traveling for business and just do everything over Zoom. Never believed it. So I had no doubt that at some point, COVID will be behind us. And Ariel was such a CEO that as an investor, I could sleep well at night knowing that he's doing and the leadership is doing everything. And they did a lot, actually. Not just on the cost, you know, everything. They reacted so fast, and they adjusted the the cost. They were the first company to let people go, and they got so much shit for it because they fired people over Zoom as if there was any other way they could have, and they still got a lot of shit from the press. But who cares? You know? And changing product priorities, for example, changing pricing models, pricing messaging, prioritizing features that are more relevant in an environment like COVID. So they did so many things, very quick, bold actions. But in the end of the day, I think relative to other people, it's easy for me to also let go, I find. So if I have a company where maybe the founders are not doing the right things and I'm they're not reacting to a crisis in a way that I think they should, I don't get too worked up about it. And I you know, at the end of the day, I just I'm letting go emotionally. I mean, I'm I'm still gonna show up to board meetings and be you know, try to be helpful and and and and positive, but emotionally, I'm letting go. I'm not you know, I'm I'm gonna at least try not to manifest frustration and angst. **Harry Stebbings** [26:01]: LP is often like capital concentration limits for those obviously who don't know. That's like, you know, a set amount of capital percentage wise of a fund that can be in one company. What capital concentration limit do you find uncomfortable? I'd say 20% **Oren Zeev** [26:15]: is **Harry Stebbings** [26:15]: my **Oren Zeev** [26:15]: limit of a fund in one company. You know, I think the industry standard is probably 10%. I'm at 20. By the way, from the LP perspective, diversification at the level of the GP makes no sense because they have multiple GPs. So the the diversification gives nothing to LPs. Maybe maybe the GP feels better, maybe. But, of course, I think it's a mistake. I'd rather be concentrated than the best deals I can find because when when you have a winner, it really makes a difference. **Harry Stebbings** [26:43]: LPs have said to me before about you, forgive me for this, dude. He deploys too fast. We love him. He's smart. He's great. Too fast, like, months, sometimes less. I know. I know. Temporal diversification is important. You need to bake different vintages in. Are they wrong, or do you just respectfully not give a shit because you don't need to? Probably the latter. **Oren Zeev** [27:05]: I'm gonna do my thing, and if it works for them, fine. And if not, they can opt themselves out, and some of them have. And it's fine. Good people opted out, and it's fine. I'm not gonna do things differently. And then by the way, I'm not investing fast because I wanna invest fast. I'm I'm just seeing opportunities I wanna do. And then by the way, sometimes looking back, you know, if I look at 2021, I would say I did I invested too fast. You know, I wish I didn't. Okay? But to answer your question, yeah, it makes their life a little bit more difficult because it's hard for them. And the thing is, it's not just the speed. It's also the fact that I'm not consistent. So I make it harder for them to plan, you know, because they're not sure when they put the money if it's gonna be good for one year or two years or nine months. So I, you know, so it makes their sizing decision more difficult. So, you know, I get it. I get it. But this is something that, you know, if you ask me of all the things that I do that LPs might like less, I would say this is it. But, honestly, I don't wanna I don't wanna not invest in the company when I, you know, when I think it's compelling just because I just made another you know? So **Harry Stebbings** [28:10]: What makes you say that in 2021, you invested too fast? And what are your lessons from that? **Oren Zeev** [28:16]: Well, I think in general, in 2021, pretty much every deal that I did most actually, I should have because these are quality companies, but every single deal, I probably paid three or four x what I should have because that was the market. And because of that I'm now in fund eleven, but there's one fund that's gonna be okay, by the way. It's not gonna lose money, but it's not gonna be great. You know, the one that really invested the peak of the market because, honestly, there was no other way to invest. Now luckily, I invested in good companies for the most part, and some of them, despite overpaying, they're still gonna be great winners. But if every single deal you pay three or four times what you should, then even if you have great winners, even if a fund otherwise would have been, I don't know, a five x, it's gonna be one and a half x, right, or or whatever. So, yeah, I too, like everyone else, by the way, I too got carried away because this is the market. And I really I the thing is I don't believe in my ability or anyone else's, to be honest, to time the market. In any given market, you wanna do the best deals that you can, and some vintages are gonna be better than others. Now I don't think that for LPs, it should matter because, again, the idea is not that they invest in one fund and that's it. The idea is that the LPs are for the long run. I'm not interested in LPs who just want it to come in into one fund. So they're going to get the vintage diversification, just not specifically in within one fund, but across the funds. **Harry Stebbings** [29:38]: You're saying because you do such quick successive funds, they're gonna get vintage diversification by Yeah. You know? **Oren Zeev** [29:43]: Yeah. Yeah. So maybe maybe one fund did not have vintage diversification, and everything was invested from that fund at the peak of the market. Okay? So probably that fund's not gonna be great. But my typical LP would have been in three or four funds before that and three and four funds after that. So they'll have a series of six, seven funds, and one of them is gonna be okay, you know, and not great. Okay. Not not the end of the world. The other thing is not just to invest as fast. You know, I think that, as you know, I each fund was larger than the previous one, and I think at some point, I overdid it. I think and and, again, I reacted to the market. There were a lot of rounds. They were frequent. They were big. And I think that I have two publicized funds. One of them is gonna be okay. The other one is actually gonna be good despite that, but I have two funds that were over 500,000,000 from 2021 and 2022. But my 2024 fund already cut it by about half, which I think is a more a better better size, more conducive to great returns. Yeah. So we're at, like, $2.50, say. That that might might might I have a fund that's $2.50, and I have a fund that's in the midst of so I had the first close, so I don't know yet what's gonna be so fund 10 is to about $2.50, and fund 11, I don't know. But I actually I want it to be less than $2.50. **Harry Stebbings** [30:57]: So when we look at that decision, I think managers are faced with the decision to say, you either need to be really freaking big, a la Andreessen, General Catalyst, Lightspeed, a wall of money, or you need to be a real craftsman and boutique. Do you agree that you have to be one or the other, and that is the future of venture, and the messy middle will be painfully suffering? **Oren Zeev** [31:18]: I do agree with it. $90.90 percent agree with it. I, know, I think you have to have something special. Being middle of the road, you know, you wanna be differentiated. So I think that naturally, there is a bifurcation. So either you are, you know, one of these platforms like Andreessen, like Sequoia, like maybe Lightspeed, who are bringing a lot to the table, can do things that smaller VCs cannot, including myself. Or you're going in the opposite direction of solo GPs, for example, that you have other advantages or I have other advantages. I'm trying not to be better than Andreessen in Andreessen's game. If it's gonna be Andreessen's game, they're gonna win you know, beat me every time. No. I offer something different. You know, I'm faster than anyone else, for example. I you know, there are other things. There's the personal connection. There's and and there's a lot of other things that founders find extremely compelling with solo GP, and I and I go for companies or founders that this is what they want, and that's differentiation. Or you have something else that differentiates you. But generally speaking, if you are a traditional five, six person partnership without anything very, very, very unique and special differentiate that you bring to the table, then yes, I think you are in trouble because it's almost like on one hand, you're not as agile. You're not it's not the personal connection. It still feels as as a corporate to the to the founder, and on the other hand, you're not Sequoia. You're not gonna get the very best deals. So, yes, I think yeah. You don't wanna be caught in the middle, and I think and and, again, unless you position us, like, an amazing brand or or you're just, like, an amazing expert in some area. **Harry Stebbings** [32:57]: Do you think a lot of funds will go out of business in the next few years, be unable to raise, and slowly die? **Oren Zeev** [33:03]: Yeah. We're seeing it already. I think it's much harder to raise in the last couple of years. Think, first of all, there's less money going to venture, but not only that, a larger percentage of it is going to the platform. So if you're not a platform, then it's much harder for you to raise. And I would say that at least 50% of the funds today, maybe more, either cannot raise or at least are not sure that they can raise, or they're trying to stall and, you know, not test the market. And I think many of them are not gonna be able to raise. Do **Harry Stebbings** [33:30]: you think LPs have an uncomfortable awakening coming with 90% of unicorns that they have marked as unicorns in their book not being unicorns? That is quite a difference. **Oren Zeev** [33:41]: First of it depends on how the GP reports things, because there's huge latitude in how we can report things. How do you report things? You know, I try to report things in the conservative, what they're actually worth and not to me, what I always tell LPs, whether or not you can believe numbers from a VC is less dependent on the methodology that they use because with any methodology, you can inflate or whatever. It's more a function of the personality or, you know, the character, but even more so the motivation. By that, what I mean, if you're a fund that's let's let's say Sequoia, for example. They know that they can raise any time. Right? So they have zero motivation to inflate numbers. They have all the motivation in the world to, show things as conservatively as possible. Right? Because they get no benefit from inflating numbers. However, if you you are a fund that is more middle of the road and you're not sure how easy it's gonna be raised or not, you're gonna find any excuse to keep the prices up to look good on paper. So I think just ask yourself as an LP, the more secure the GP that you speak with is, the less likely they are to inflate to inflate numbers, and and it's easy to inflate numbers. And now the the accountants are not good rail guards from that perspective because even if they challenge valuations, they always challenge the wrong things, and they always it's a complete lack of understanding. Why would they know what companies they can be? It's not in the numbers necessarily what companies they're worth. So I think there's a huge latitude, which means that there's a huge challenge for LPs to tell whether the paper values are real or not. And there are only two ways. One is impractical, which is to really study every single underlying position. It's impractical. And the other one is just rely on who do they believe and who they don't. And here, it's based on their experience, it's based on the personality, and it's also based on the motivation of the how motivated they should ask themselves how motivated is the GP to inflate numbers versus be conservative. **Harry Stebbings** [35:46]: You mentioned the first close in fundraising. Is the attitude mindset, what LPs want different today than what it was in prior years? **Oren Zeev** [35:56]: Yes. First of all, in general, they've had little liquidity. By the way, that might change in 2026 in a big way because there are a host of huge unprecedented sized IPOs in the works now, you know, companies like SpaceX and and Stripe and Databricks and, you know, and and others. So there could be there could be tsunami of liquidity in 2026, 2027, and that would would reshuffle the cards again, and who knows how it will affect. But right now, there's been a drought of liquidity for most LPs for a long time, five four, five years. Add to that the fact that I what I just said, that the TVPI, you cannot accept it at face value. You have to ask yourself because so it's it's challenging to judge based on that. And because of that, I think there is too much focus even, but understandably, on DPI, where people hardly talked about it three years ago. And now some LPs, oh, it's just DPI. It's just DPI. We don't believe anything. So that's, again, that's also an approach when you see something that's difficult to understand. One approach can be okay, I just discount it, I don't know and I treat everyone the same, I just don't believe anyone. That's an approach. I don't think it's the right approach, but it could be an approach. So, yes. So from that perspective, I do see a change of have number one, they have less liquidity, and they're very focused on DPI more than more than two, three years ago. But by the way, Harry, I do think it's a cycle. So I do think it will change again. But right now, there is there is there's this focus here. **Harry Stebbings** [37:21]: The lack of liquidity in large part is down to the extension of private markets, the platforms that are able to have the supply side of cash to to fund them for longer. That means that we either have to hold them for longer or we can sell secondaries. **Oren Zeev** [37:34]: Yeah. **Harry Stebbings** [37:34]: How do you think about proactively selling secondaries and managing the book pre going public? **Oren Zeev** [37:39]: I understand why others do it. I don't. Again, the reason is motivation. So first of all, in any given moment, anything that I wanna sell, I won't be able to, and everything that I can sell, I don't wanna sell. Okay. The things that I can sell are the best positions, and and I wanna keep if it were if it makes a you know, the assumption that I'm gonna sell something, you cannot assume that the buyers are stupid. So they're only gonna buy things that they think they can double or triple within the next two or three years. Now, you know, if it can double or triple in the next two, three years, I'd rather keep it. Right? So almost by definition to sell anything, it's possible to sell it, but you have to give a significant discount to the buyer. Otherwise, they're not gonna do it. They're not stupid either. So why do people do it? I think people do it again if they need it for the fundraising. **Harry Stebbings** [38:28]: Bit of sorry for interrupting you. We sold we sold something earlier this year, and it's like we knew it would be double or triple in a couple of years for sure. **Oren Zeev** [38:35]: Yeah. **Harry Stebbings** [38:35]: But, dude, there was inherent risk baked into that. There was a lot of execution risk that was dependent on that. Then there'd be a lockup on the IPO. If I'm thinking about IRR for our investor, fuck it. They'd rather have a three x back now than a four and a half x back in two to three years' time, dependent on a successful IPO and then a good hold. **Oren Zeev** [38:56]: Okay. But let let me go with the numbers because I do still remember my second grade math. You said 3x versus 4.5x. That means that you only believed 1.5x over the next three years with a lot of risk. Yeah. So on the know, if this is what you believe you should have sold, absolutely. But in general, of course, are some positions that I can justify yeah. That I can justify a sale. But in general, if I know that I need to raise, and if I know that in order to raise, I need to show more DPI, then I can understand why a manager would be willing to give up upside in order to show DPI today and help them raise the money. I never felt that I needed to do it. First of all, I'm the biggest LP in every one of my funds, I'm the biggest LP. Every single one. **Harry Stebbings** [39:43]: Can I be blunt? How much of a fund generally are you? Like, 10%? About thirteen **Oren Zeev** [39:47]: thirteen, 14%. And I don't have any LP who's more than 10% in in any given fund. So I'm always every single fund, I'm the biggest LP. And on top of it, I have 30% carry. So so really, I'm 40 something percent of the economics. So, of course, I think as LP, and and I'm trying to maximize the the the long term value, and I don't want to shortchange myself as an LP. So I I believe, by the way, in radical alignment with LPs, and this is why I set up by the way, I pay myself zero. I don't see anything, which is very unusual. I don't know any VC in the world, as far as I know, that has zero income from the management fees. Zero. **Harry Stebbings** [40:22]: So you don't take a management fee at all? **Oren Zeev** [40:25]: First of I take a low management fees, but I reinvest 100% of it in the fund. So I I don't have any expenses because, you know, I don't have enough. I don't have people. I don't have any expenses, and I don't pay myself anything. So I have I see zero. Before the investors see their money back, I don't see anything from LPs before they got 100% of the money back. By the way, even the way the management fee way reinvestment works is that the way it works technically is that I don't actually despite being an LP, I don't actually get paid until the LPs got 100% of the money back. That's how it's set up. So this is radical alignment. I don't see it a shekel or a dollar before they see the money back. And because of that, I'm really, really pretty incentivized to optimize for the for the LPs. But and but and not you know, remember what I said at the beginning of the call, substance versus appearance? So I'm 100% substance to 0% appearance. **Harry Stebbings** [41:18]: What do you think are the biggest misalignments between GP and LP today in venture? **Oren Zeev** [41:23]: Look, especially in the larger funds, the compensation that the GP gets from the management fee, especially if you account for time value of money, is typically greater than than the upside. So let's say you have 10,000,000,000 and you charge 2%. The minute you close the fund, you already made $2,000,000,000 because it's, you know, 2% over ten years, that's 20%. You only made $2,000,000,000 that are, by the way, are you're gonna see them over the next ten years, but starting today. Now the carry, you'll start seeing maybe in seven, eight years, maybe, you know, because it takes time to bet on these funds. So if you double the fund, you you get another let's say it's 20%. You get another 2,000,000,000. Okay? But you're only seeing this 2,000,000,000 in eight years. So if you, you know, you take into account with, you know, the applied discount rate, you're seeing more from the management fees. So I think that for many funds, they really wanna do well enough to be able to raise the next fund, and their whole thinking is what do we need to do to raise the next fund? And if it means selling something early to show DPI, then, yeah, of course, they'll do it. You know? And and and, again, in some cases, it can lead to other things. So this is one set of maybe misalignment. The other set of misalignment is actually not between the GP as an entity and the LPs, but within the individual GPs because the larger the partnership is the investors, not even the GPs but also the younger partners, they're first and foremost managing their career. So, you know, if there's a conflict between what is good for the individual manager and the long term maybe value of the fund, guess what? I'll give an example. You know, if if a partner in a in a in a partnership, especially large partnership with some with politics and all that, they're much more interested in their investments succeeding than anything else because that's their career. If their fund is great, but they didn't get the credit, you know, remember the partner that I mentioned that never saw a follow on deal he didn't like? That's part of it because they have zero incentive to admit failure. Know, they have all the insomnia in the world to convince their partners to put more money into this company, roll the dice again, and who knows, maybe it's gonna succeed. And even if not, they bought some time personally, know. So I think the larger the partnership is, the more there is not 100% alignment between the individual partners. Just like in a company, the guy in sales can have different motivation than the guy in product or the guy in marketing. And in my case, it's just me, so there's 100%, there's no difference. And then I'm the biggest LP, so the LPs, and, you know, just there's zero conflict in my mind. **Harry Stebbings** [44:00]: One area that's very challenging as we look at the market today is also about pricing. I look at Series A's today, dude, and I think it's the worst place to be investing. And so I'd love your thoughts on this. We have 200 xAROs, 150 xAROs. There's very little company progression from the seed round, but there's a very steep price increase. It's a very competitive stage. How do you advise me, others to navigate this seemingly very bad insertion point today? **Oren Zeev** [44:29]: Okay. So first of I agree, but with a few comments. First of all, scratch the wood today. It's always been the case. Even thirty years ago that, you know, you have a seed round, basically founders and the idea, it's priced low, and then a year and a half later, basically, they have now 20 people, they have an office, maybe they have a few small customers, they really haven't proven anything but the perception is oh now it's a company and we made so much progress, now we have a product, now we have this, you really didn't prove anything and all of a sudden they jump in value and there's nothing new under the sun, this has been the case always. Okay? So this is something to be worried about always as an investor. That's the first comment. Observating. The second comment is I agree with you. Just watch it not to be confused by the name of the round because calling it A, that's just the name. You can call it anything. You can call it seed one. You can call it A. You know, it's just the name. And I think people, when they talk, it's kind of a shortcut. You say A, and it's, oh, I know what you mean. You know, actually, no. You know, because we can we can both call something round in. It would be very, very, very different thing. So I wouldn't be caught up. I don't care if it's called a or b or c or whatever. Generally speaking, when I look at the second round after the first round, I wanna make sure that the progress that I'm seeing is really substantial in terms of terms of risk reduction as opposed to the looks of it, the optics of it. So if the progress is, oh, yeah, now we have a product and as I said before, we have a few few logos, but really didn't really make a commitment, really they haven't renewed yet, The tough question is for an investor, whether it's me or you, are the indications that I'm seeing, is it the real signal of product market fit or is it just noise? Because if it's not real signals of product market fit yet, then nothing has really changed since the CD. If anything, maybe the opposite. The very fact that after a year or two, they don't have signs of product market fit, maybe it means that it should be worth less than what it was worth at the CD because at the CD, you had the option value of maybe within a year or two, you will have it. So so I think that's the thing. It's not about whether you call it a or not. It's about really exercising judgment if this really represent product market fit or not. **Harry Stebbings** [46:41]: What do you think of the rise of very proactive preemptive rounds where you have a company raise and then a month later, Iconic or any of the big platforms come in and shove another $50,000,000 in, and very little has changed again, it's still on 3,000,000 of ARR. Do preemptive rounds work more often or less often in your experience? **Oren Zeev** [47:02]: I think my advice to founders, and it's advice that's harder hard to follow, actually, because I cannot fault a founder for taking 50,000,000 at a higher valuation if they're being offered that. But I often tell them and they you know, it's it's hard, but some of them, the more mature ones are able, I believe. My advice is take the money, but continue to behave as if you didn't. Don't spend money just because you have it. You know, companies can be overfunded, and it can lead to loss of focus. So if the founder is mature enough and strong enough to take the money, put it in the bank, but spend it based on the signals that they get from the market as opposed to the pressure that they're getting in the boardroom, I think they should take the money because it would be stupid not to. **Harry Stebbings** [47:48]: But Jason Lamkin is a dear friend of mine, very famous SaaS ambassador on Twitter a lot. He says founders today, they don't wanna hear your thoughts. They don't wanna hear your opinions. They they, at best, will say thank you and they ignore you, and at worst, will say, god, what a dick, and say bad things about you for giving the advice. Do you agree with that perspective, that founder sentiment has changed towards investor advice? **Oren Zeev** [48:11]: I'm not feeling it personally. I feel that founders that I back, the only reason they speak to me and ask my advice is because they wanna hear my advice because and I'll tell you why. I never forced my advice. So for them, I'm in a safe environment. It's like going to a psychotherapist because and the other thing is they don't need to convince me because I'm gonna support them even if I think they're wrong. So when you feel that as a founder that you need to convince someone that then you're not so much in a receptive mode. You're, you know, trying to think, okay, what how do I overcome this objection and that objection? When when I have a conversation with the founder about something and the founders know before we even start the conversations that no matter what I think I'm gonna support what they wanna do, it disarms them. And then they're much more receptive more than because otherwise, why even talk to me unless they really wanna hear what I say now? So I'm not personally feeling it. I think it also depends on the way you deliver the advice. And there's a famous book about raising children, and I think the title is How to Talk to Children So That They Listen and How to Listen So That They Talk. And I think it's very it's very I love the the name of the title because if when you listen, you keep telling whether it's chill whether it's your children or founders, you're being judgmental. You're being you're you're you're accusing. You are you're not patient. You know? You think you know better. Then, of course, they're gonna be less receptive to listening to your advice. So I think it also and by the way, I don't know Lemkin at all, so it's not, you know, I don't wanna sound like I'm bad mouthing him, and I've only heard good things. So it's not it's not personal. Right? But in general, I do think that you wanna be as an investor, you wanna be mindful of how you give the advice. And if you come from a point of know it all, then I think that most founders would not react well to it. I wouldn't react well to an LP who would start telling me even if they're right, by the way. I remember I remember, by the way, an LP of mine who, two years ago, was very critical of the size of my fund and really pushed me to to take a smaller to to do a much smaller fund. And I didn't like the way they delivered it, and basically, and I wasn't, you know, willing to listen to them even though in hindsight, I think they were right. But at the time, I wasn't willing to listen to it. In fact, I told him, listen. There's a very easy way you can help me making it a smaller fund by just not being the next fund. And to to my surprise, I was sure that I lost that LP. To my surprise, they stayed with me. Today, we have a relationship. But, you know, even I was not listening to advice, which in hindsight was the correct advice. So I think it's also the delivery is also important. **Harry Stebbings** [50:53]: How have your thoughts on ownership changed over time? The reason I ask this is because, like, we could have invested in 11 Labs at the seed round, we would have got 1%. We could have invested in Granola at the seed round, would have got 1%. But we do what we tell LPs, Oren, which is we lead rounds and we take double digits ownership, and we are your concentrated investor. How have your thoughts around ownership changed, and where do they sit today? **Oren Zeev** [51:16]: So first of they haven't changed, and that's exactly why I don't I don't tell LPs anything in terms of what I'm gonna do, because I feel that if I tell LPs something, I would feel too committed to that specific strategy, which I may have thought it was the right strategy, but then there's a situation that requires being flexible. So I tell LPs I only have one rule, and that rule is that I have no rules. I think it all depends on the circumstance, and in some circumstances, I would in some cases I would do things that maybe an hour before the meeting I didn't think I would do. I'll give an example. By the way, which is still an ongoing company, don't know how where it's gonna end, but you know there's this AI company called Decart. Have you heard of it? Yeah. So I I met them a little bit over two years ago. I met them over Zoom, and when we met, they said they're gonna start. It was just the two founders. They didn't really have an idea, but they were exceptional. And they told me, yeah, we already have $3,000,000 committed. We're gonna close on it in the, you know, the next twenty four hours from a bunch of really good angels. I asked them if I wanted to invest, what can you do? And they said, what we can do is we can cut them back 50% and give you 1,500,000 of the 3,000,000. By the way, it was gonna be an uncapped safe. I I normally don't do safes at all. But in this case, I said, you know what? I'll do it, but I need it to be kept, and and and we capped it, luckily because otherwise, at least for the investors, was lucky because the next round was at much at a very high valuation already. So I end up with 5%, which is way less my normal ownership, of 1,500,000. I assumed that I'd be able to increase it later. It never happened. The reason it never happened is because they became profitable very, very, very quickly, so they didn't need more money. They only took Sequoia money because they wanted Sequoia, and they later took Benchmark money again because they wanted Benchmark, so I, you know, was able to maintain my ownership, but I I was never able to increase it. So I deviated from my rules. Again, I don't have rules. You know, I don't have minimum ownership. I don't have rules. At that point, it made sense to wanna do it, and I'm glad I did. And it helps not telling LPs, I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna do that, because then you don't have to later explain why you didn't do what you told me. **Harry Stebbings** [53:28]: Does having Sequoia on your cap table move the needle for a company, do you find? **Oren Zeev** [53:32]: I think it depends on the situation, the the partner, but they're a great firm, and they have a great you know, I've I've partnered with Alfred in one deal, and in in the case of the court, it's Sean, Maguire, and I I think they're great. And I I think there is a chance that it will make a difference. **Harry Stebbings** [53:48]: Can I ask a weird one? Like, Hunter and Satur at Home Brew have been incredibly successful as have you and decided not to raise more money from LPs, manage their own money, and they can be way more collaborative because they don't manage other people's money and they just invest their own. **Oren Zeev** [54:03]: Yeah. **Harry Stebbings** [54:03]: You could do the same. **Oren Zeev** [54:05]: I have done the same before. I you know, between Apax and doing, what I do now, I've done what they are doing now for eight years with my own money. Yeah. Yeah. I have done the same. **Harry Stebbings** [54:15]: Why do you not go back to it? You could be more collaborative. You don't have to have LP management. You don't have to fundraise. Why do what you do now? **Oren Zeev** [54:23]: Why would I wanna be more collaborative? **Harry Stebbings** [54:24]: Because you can get into more deals. I don't wanna do **Oren Zeev** [54:27]: that. You know, I wanna be the main player. I don't wanna get into more deals necessarily. I wanna the ones that I do, I wanna make it. I want them to matter, and I want, you know, to be as meaningful as possible to be the player, the main back, or one of at least that. So **Harry Stebbings** [54:39]: How many companies do you want in a fund? **Oren Zeev** [54:41]: In the early funds, it was less, but now it's more like 15. But there is a lot of crossover between the funds. So I'm now in fund 11, and I only have 40 companies. So if it was exclusive, it would be four companies per fund, but it's not because, you know, the same you see the same names in in in different funds. **Harry Stebbings** [54:58]: Can we do a quick fire run? I'm gonna give you a series of short That's **Oren Zeev** [55:01]: scary. Okay. **Harry Stebbings** [55:03]: No. No. It's not scary at all. What do people not know or see about having money that they should know and see? **Oren Zeev** [55:11]: I find that there is an increasing level of hating the successful, hating the rich. I see it on Twitter. I think in Europe it's even worse, it's come to America unfortunately. I think many people, unfortunately, generally believe that rich people are evil or that you cannot become rich without taking advantage of other people, etcetera. And the reality is that rich people are as evil and as good as anyone else. And most rich people that I know actually are looking for ways how they can use leverage their success to make the world a better place. But you have politicians who are trying to, you know, come up with all sorts of suggestion how to, you know, basically hurt successful people for being successful, of course, they're not gonna get cooperation from and and and because they feel that they it will make them more popular among people who, you know, assume that if someone is rich, it's because they did something bad. So I think this is, I don't know, this is this is more about politics than about business, but I think one of the strengths of America, they always, always believed in merit and success, and let's say that I'm not a fan of the movement or the woke movement that is dragging or trying to drag America in the other direction. I didn't mean to be political, actually. **Harry Stebbings** [56:33]: Are you concerned by the labor displacement theories of AI? I'm excited because I'm gonna make a lot of money, but I'm also nervous because I don't know what's gonna happen. Are you? **Oren Zeev** [56:43]: I feel exactly the same as you. Look. I think it's the most powerful transition or or force maybe in history. And just like any powerful force, there are very good reasons to be excited, and there are very good reasons to be worried. And I'm pretty sure that we're gonna be proven right on both sides. We're gonna our words are gonna be proven right, and our excitement is gonna be proven right also. **Harry Stebbings** [57:04]: Do you think a lot of people respectfully, and I mean this so respectfully, with your wisdom and years of experience, say, Oh, Harry, it always looks like this. It always takes longer than you think. It always takes longer. And part of me goes, I get that, and I respect your experience and wisdom. And part of me goes, this feels a bit different. Yeah. Which side are you on? **Oren Zeev** [57:25]: Yours. **Harry Stebbings** [57:25]: Good? **Oren Zeev** [57:26]: Yours, but but but I hope I'm I I very much hope to be proven wrong on the concern side. **Harry Stebbings** [57:32]: Which is the most memorable first founder meeting that you've had? **Oren Zeev** [57:36]: Okay. You don't. Okay. I'll give you one. A relatively recent investment from a year and a half ago called Sensia, which I think is on fire. It's gonna be great. I love the founder. She's a force of nature. And so I'm cheating a little bit because it's not first meeting, it's second meeting. So I met her a year earlier and it was the same company. It all it already had revenues even then. I find it interest I found it interesting but not interesting enough. I had a lot of concerns. And a year later, I almost didn't take the meeting, but I she told me she's in town, and and then can we have coffee? And and I meet there, and within five minutes, I realized that number one, all my concerns from a year ago were addressed in flying colors. And number two, she's a different person. Like, she felt so confident. It felt she she she felt so confident because I met her a year earlier, and she didn't convey this confidence. I knew it was real. It wasn't like bullshit confidence. It was real because I also saw her less confident. So within five minutes, the whole conversation changed and, you know, within twenty four hours each. By way, she only had a couple of term sheets from big brand names, and I took the deal. **Harry Stebbings** [58:41]: What's your biggest miss, and how do you reflect on that? I mentioned deal for me. **Oren Zeev** [58:46]: Yeah. You know, I don't have too many, which means that I'm not seeing a lot of the great to be honest, it's not a good thing. I'm not proud of it because I didn't see by the way, love Alex. This time, Alex from deal. Now now I I do have misses from the Apax days where I saw something that I wanted to do, but I knew that there was no way I could get it approved, including Facebook, by the way, the very early days. You know, I saw it. I could have done it, brought it to the partnership. It was dead on arrival. The one that I know I could have done is I try to convince the partnership to buy I I made the investment in Audible. It was my first big home run, and then it went public, it was a great we sold not all the shares, but enough to make it a home run. And then the stock price dipped, and it was obvious to me that it's temporary. And I wanted to basically take it private, and I couldn't you know, and and I and I could have because the founder was totally on board because he didn't like being public, and I couldn't get it approved. But this is less of a miss of mine because I I tried. And and and then because the the founder already decided they don't wanna be public anymore, we we ended up selling it to Amazon. And now it's a huge humongous company and it would have been an amazing deal if we took it private but that's less of a in terms of I'm sure by the way, I'm sure I did. I do have things that I missed but not one of not one of the really great names, not an OpenAI or Anthropic one. Wizz is an interesting story because when I heard that I didn't know Asaf, but when I heard that he was leaving Microsoft, I didn't even know he was starting a company. I asked someone to make an introduction. I guess he checked with them and he connected us, but he used the Microsoft email address, which Asaf was not checking. So I tried two, three times, didn't get an answer, and I moved on. Now two years later, when I met him for the first time, I asked him why didn't you respond to me, and then we worked it out back and it turned out that he was on one hand, he still had this email, otherwise it would have bounced, and on the other hand, he wasn't checking it. But to be honest with myself, I don't think I would have got the deal anyway because I think he you know, he had an amazing cyber investor from his previous company who also led, you know, think you know him, Gilly, and you know, was his deal. Wouldn't, you know, and he's not much of a, just like me, he's not much of a collaborator either, I don't think he would have done me any you know, I I don't think I would have got into the deal anyways just because and and by the way, this is one thing that is consistent fallacy within VC is that they think that just because they saw a deal, they necessarily would have been able to do it. No. You know? With all due respect to anti portfolio, it doesn't make sense that the same deal appears in 20 different anti portfolio because it's not as if the 20 could have done it. You know? So **Harry Stebbings** [61:28]: No. Mine, I could have done, actually. I've got three $10,000,000,000 companies now **Oren Zeev** [61:32]: Yeah. **Harry Stebbings** [61:32]: Where I legitimately could have No. I'm I'm **Oren Zeev** [61:35]: by the way by the way, it's easier when you write a small check because and you have the value that you have, then why would people not let you in? Right? It's harder when you have to be the winner and exclude everyone else. So, yes, I agree. You could have done. By the way, Riverside two Riverside two, which is the it's not 10,000,000,000 yet, but it will be, I believe. And **Harry Stebbings** [61:53]: Dude, you sent it to me. Do you remember this? You sent me the thing. Yeah. That's I was like, dude, you're an idiot. Zoom is gonna continue. Like, I really what what are we on now? Oh, Riverside. Exactly. That's that's just keep sending things or next time I won't ask. Okay? You mentioned Mickey earlier, and we mentioned Mickey earlier. Which investor do you most respect and admire, and why them? **Oren Zeev** [62:18]: Mickey is definitely very, you know I don't wanna say the only one, but he's one that I super respect, not just as an investor, also as a human, as a as a person. **Harry Stebbings** [62:27]: What do you take from your relationship with him? Like, for me, he taught me, you've never won or lost. You're only ever ahead or behind. I always remember that. **Oren Zeev** [62:36]: Okay. I have to think about it. No. Look. I I've been in this business longer than he has. And, actually, when he started, he came, you know, also consult with me. And so it's not it's less of some mentorship but what I so respect about him is that he just, he's so authentic and he speaks his mind and he has his own way of doing things. I have mine different but actually I think it's harder the way he does it because it's one thing to do things your own way when you're one person, it's another to be a leader of a group which he is. So it's a much better leader than I ever will be or aspire even to be. And, no, think he's just a great just a great person. Tell me, **Harry Stebbings** [63:17]: final one. What are you most optimistic about? I always like to end on a theme of positivity. We mentioned, like, being concerned about labor displacement. What are you most excited for, happy about? **Oren Zeev** [63:27]: Listen, AI is the biggest change ever in the history of humanity, I believe. So certainly the history of technology, and it changes everything. Whenever there's change, there's the opportunity to make things better and to build huge amount of value. And we're, you know, and we happen to be placed at the very, very, very, you know, it's the best time in history to be an investor. It's the best, I'm in the Bay Area, you know, with the best ability to make these investments and be part of these things. I'm super bullish about it. I've never, never had so many companies that are crushing it and building market leaders, you know, in my portfolio that I'm super excited about. Almost every vertical, right, there's an opportunity to reinvent with, with AI. So I'm super bullish. Now the fact that I'm bullish about personally, about my investments or about the potential investments or even about the VC industry in general doesn't mean that I'm not worried about the political side of things with the political unrest because of people get disenfranchised and things like that. I think it's very, very, very risky to humanity. So it's and as I said, it goes together. If something is powerful, then it's gonna be very exciting and scary at the same time. And if something is weak and not powerful, it's not gonna be scary, and it's not gonna be exciting. So it it goes hand in hand. **Harry Stebbings** [64:43]: Oren, you've been a friend to me for many years. I so appreciate. I said it at the beginning, it's so funny, and I I don't know why. Ten years ago, I was 19, and I I really had nothing. And you were so kind to me then, you've been so kind to me since. I I really appreciate the friendship, so thank you for being so amazing, dude. **Oren Zeev** [65:00]: Thank you. **Harry Stebbings** [65:02]: But before we leave you today, ## Sponsor read **Harry Stebbings** [65:04]: as an investor, I'm always on the lookout for tools that really transform how I work. Tools that don't just save time, but fundamentally change how I uncover insights. That's exactly what Alphasense does. With the acquisition of Tegus, Alphasense is now the ultimate research platform built for professionals who need insights they can trust fast. I've used Tegus before for company deep dives right here on the podcast. 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