Today on the Newcomer Podcast, we're joined by Yoni Rechtman, a partner at Slow Ventures and one of the most outspoken voices in venture capital right now. Rechtman doesn't hold back on Trump, the tech industry's political reckoning, or where the real opportunities in AI actually are.
We talk about why Slow Ventures deliberately avoided foundation models despite the massive returns, where the second-order effects of AI create better investment opportunities, and how the firm is using "growth by buyout" to build billion-dollar companies in unsexy industries like parking lots.
We also discuss Silicon Valley's response to the Trump administration, the Alex Pretti shooting, why Rechtman believes most venture capitalists are "amoral financiers" chasing momentum rather than principles, and what happens when the institutions that underpin entrepreneurial capitalism start to erode under authoritarian pressure.
Rechtman shares his contrarian investment philosophy of finding "weird takes on important stories," why he thinks Git is structurally broken in the age of AI-generated code, and how AI is inverting every system built on scarce production and abundant attention.
This conversation goes beyond typical VC talking points, addressing the uncomfortable questions about what the industry stands for when democracy itself is at stake.
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