Kevin Hartz and Bennett Siegel are co-founders and GPs at A*, a five year old early-stage venture capital firm with $1B in AUM. A* has invested in companies like Notion, Cape, Whop, Paraform, Simile, Krea, Mercor, Watney Robotics, Andera and others.
Kevin is also the co-founder of Eventbrite (NYSE: EB) and co-founder and board member of Xoom, an online money transfer service that IPO’d in 2013 and later acquired by PayPal for $1.1B. Notable investments, primarily at the seed/early stages, include PayPal, Airbnb, Pinterest, Reddit, Anduril, and Palantir among others. Bennett was previously a partner at Coatue building out their venture capital business where he invested in earliest financing rounds for Ramp and Decagon, among other investments.
We discussed how AI is reshaping venture capital, software, and startup building – from the rise of younger founders and AI researcher-led companies to the growing pressure on traditional software businesses. We also covered the changing economics of seed investing, the influx of mega funds into early-stage venture, AI rollups, robotics, and why this may become the biggest technology boom yet.
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Timestamps:
(0:00) Intro
(0:25) The A* Capital story
(1:16) Why big funds went into seed
(7:50) The mother of all bubbles
(10:46) Why founders are getting younger
(13:00) Mapping talent, not markets
(16:31) The rise of AI researcher founders
(19:16) Why seed investing is so hard
(22:54) Concentration and venture returns
(27:34) The AI rollup craze
(31:15) AI vs traditional software
(33:15) Robotics and the future of AI
(35:39) What’s next for A* Capital
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Links:
https://x.com/kevinhartz
https://x.com/BennettSiegel
https://x.com/jaltma
https://www.a-star.co/
https://uncappedpod.com/
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