20VC: Do Margins Matter in AI? | Is Defensibility Gone For Good? | Is Vertical SaaS Dead in a World of AI | What SaaS Rules Are BS and No Longer Apply in a World of AI | The Future of Venture: Why Chanel vs Walmart is BS with Byron Deeter

**Byron Deeter** (0:00)
The stakes are way higher than they've ever been. I thought we understood this next phase we're going into, how big this was going to be. And very sincerely, we've probably added a zero to everything. I think there's going to be a lot of trillion-dollar businesses that are created from this. The game is on. It's coming, definitely.

**Harry Stebbings** (0:17)
This is 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings. Now, to stay, we welcome an old friend of the show, Byron Deeter, one of the best SaaS and cloud investors of the last decade. Check this out. He's got 19 unicorn investments, 8 of his companies have gone public, Procore, ServiceTitan, Twilio, Box, SendGrid. The list goes on. Byron is this incredible sage of SaaS, cloud wisdom. This was so much fun to do, reflecting on how SaaS is both different and similar to the AI wave today, and how he and Bessemer think about really being a front runner in the next wave of AI investing. But before we dive into the show's day, I love seeing the team come together to make this show happen. What I don't love is trying to keep track of all the information, the data and the projects that we're working on across dozens of platforms, products and tools. That's why we use Coda, the all-in-one collaborative workspace that's helped 50,000 teams all over the world get on the same page. Offering the flexibility of docs with the structure of spreadsheets, Coda facilitates deeper teamwork and quicker creativity. And their turnkey AI solution, the intelligence of Coda Brain, is a game changer. Powered by Grammarly, Coda is entering a new phase of innovation and expansion, aiming to redefine productivity for the AI era. Whether you're a startup looking to organize the chaos, while staying nimble, or an enterprise organization looking for better alignment, Coda matches your working style. Its seamless workspace connects to hundreds of your favorite tools, including Salesforce, Jira, Asana and Figma, helping your teams transform their rituals and do more faster. Head over to coda.io/20vc right now and get six months off the team plan for startups for free. That's Coda, C-O-D-A dot I-O slash 20VC and get six months off the team plan for free. Coda dot I-O slash 20VC. And while Coda keeps our team sharp, AngelList keeps our fund sharper. If you're listening to 20VC, you know we have a really fricking high bar. Well, AngelList is the modern platform used by the best-in-class venture funds, where over 40% of top endowments and banks are LPs. Their customers include a top five venture firm, 20VC, and they now have, check this out, $171 billion of assets on the platform. They combine an all-in-one software platform with a dedicated service team that moves as fast as you do. One manager said this awesome quote, AngelList feels like an extension of my fund. Another said AngelList gives me total peace of mind, the attention to detail, lightning fast response time, and just real sense of ownership from the team are exactly what I need to stop worrying about back office ops. So if you're starting a new fund, don't be a moron, just use AngelList, they're incredible. Head over to angellist.com/20vc to learn more. And once you've set up your fund the right way, it's time to make sure your startup's brand looks just as sharp. This one's for all you tech founders out there. You finally come up with the perfect name for your startup, then you check the.com and damn, it's taken. Parked, unused or priced like rent in Palo Alto. So you settle with extra letters, weird spellings, whatever it takes. But hey, you don't have to compromise because now there's finally a domain for tech founders like you. Dot tech domains. Get the startup name you actually want on dot tech, no compromises. What's more, when you use dot tech, you signal to your customers and investors that you're building tech with just your domain name. Isn't that cool? So if you've got a name in mind, search for it now with dot tech on a trusted platform like GoDaddy or visit get.tech slash 20VC to grab it. You have now arrived at your destination.
Byron, you know what, dude? I appreciate people who gave time when they really shouldn't have done to like 19-year-olds who knew nothing and were so kind and supportive. And that was you. And so thank you for rejoining me when I am slightly older but much less intelligent than I was. It's great to have you, Batman.

**Byron Deeter** (4:30)
Harry, you big stud. It is great to be back. It is awesome to see you. It has been too long, but it is amazing to see what this thing is built into. So congrats and thrilled to be with you today, my man.