The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch 20VC: SpaceX Completes Acquisition of xAI | The 2026 SaaS Massacre: Public Market Collapse | Microsoft's $360 Billion Market Cap Loss | NVIDIA's $100BN Investment Dispute with OpenAI | Waymo Raises $16 Billion at a $110 Billion Valuation
659 snips
Feb 5, 2026 
Jason Lemkin, SaaS investor and founder of SaaStr, and Rory O'Driscoll, enterprise-focused VC, trade rapid takes on market-moving tech deals and AI-driven shifts. They cover SpaceX buying xAI and its implications, the 2026 SaaS market collapse and which software categories are at risk, Microsoft and Nvidia controversies, Waymo’s huge raise, and the rise of agent networks and next-gen CRM.
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IPOs Returning For Mega AI Players
- The SpaceX–xAI tie-up signals a rehabilitation of the IPO and an end to 'stay private forever'.
- When private capital tightens, top AI companies will need public markets to fund massive compute needs.
Compute Drives Revenue For Top Models
- Compute and revenue currently show a roughly one-to-one correlation for leading AI models.
- That makes raising and consuming every dollar of compute capital rational while the correlation holds.
Make Inference Your Go‑To Growth Engine
- Treat inference as your new sales and marketing channel and design products around it.
- Make the agent experience so ROI‑obvious that inference itself drives adoption.
