20VC: In AI Who Wins? Startups or Incumbents? What Happens to Wealth Inequality? Why Will $10BN+ Companies Only Have 10 People | Why Defensibility in Startups is BS & Speed is Everything? Why Large Groups Worsen Decision-Making with Sarah Guo

**Sarah Guo** (0:00)
AI is the biggest value creation opportunity in our lifetimes. Like, I'm quite confident that we're gonna have 10 and 20 person teams building billion dollar businesses. The only real advantage startups have is speed. And speed actually might matter more than ever when the environment seems to be moving at warp speed.

**Harry Stebbings** (0:17)
This is 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings. And the last time we had this guest on the show, it was an incredible seven years ago. So much has changed since then. And given everything in AI, this episode could not come at a more important time. And so I'm thrilled to welcome back Sarah Guo, founding partner at Conviction Capital. $100 million first fund, purpose built to serve software 3 companies. Prior to founding Conviction, Sarah was a general partner at Greylock, where she made investments in the likes of Figma, Coda, Neeva and more. But before we move into the show today, you've heard me talk about Coda. Coda is the doc that brings it all together and it helps you and your team run smoother and be more efficient. I know this because Coda is Central's 20VC in our research. The amount of research we do before every show is insane and done by many different people on the team. They all use Coda and it allows them to work seamlessly all in one place. This makes them so much more efficient. By putting all these different data sources in one centralized location regardless of format, it eliminates so many roadblocks for your team, which really stops teams in their track. With Coda, you'll never ask, where are the latest project updates? Is there a report about licenses I can see? This is what slows down productivity and collaboration. With Coda, there is one place to get projects across the finish line faster, help your team run smoothly, more efficiently with Coda, get started today for free, head over to coda.io/20vc, that's coda.io, and get started for free, coda.io/20vc. And speaking of tools we cannot live without, AngelList is fast becoming the center of the venture ecosystem. So for startups, AngelList reduces the friction of cap table management, banking, and fundraising all in one place. Teams can focus on scaling and let AngelList handle the rest. Thousands of startups have moved their cap tables to AngelList in the past year. AngelList also supports large venture funds and their teams with an automated software-first approach and the best customer service in the industry. Fund managers can focus on making great deals, while AngelList handles reporting, taxes, compliance, and more. What's more, with the recent release of AngelList Network Banking for fund managers and investors, your deposits are secure with the most trusted banks for maximized FDIC coverage and mitigated single bank risk. If you're ready to scale your startup or fund with the platform at the center of it, visit angellist.com forward slash 20VC to get started. And finally, Brex. Since its founding, Brex has been committed to helping startups launch and scale faster at every stage of growth, from MVP to IPO. Today, Brex's all-in-one financial stack is used by one in four US startups and counting. I get to speak to founders all day, and I know how crucial it is for them to have the right financial stack. Brex gives you fast access to a high-yield business account where you can safely store and move your cash while getting up to $6 million in FDIC protection. Lately, it's been all too clear how important that is. Plus, you get high-limit corporate cards, easy expense tracking, and automated bill pay. To learn more about the all-in-one financial stack for startups, visit brex.com forward slash 20VC. That's brex.com/20vc.
You have now arrived at your destination.
Sarah, I am so excited for this. We just looked before one. It was the 25th of January 2017 when we did the first show. So thank you so much for joining me today after an incredible six years.

**Sarah Guo** (3:42)
Yeah, thanks for having me, Harry. You were 20, which is amazing.
And the episode was why conversational will be the next big thing, which is, I think, like a shade early.

**Harry Stebbings** (3:52)
It's slightly a shade early. The importance of market timing has never been more prescient. But the most exciting thing is you've started a new fund recently with conviction. And so I want to start on this. I obviously spoke to many friends and mutual friends before, and many of them said that I had to start on this. So why did you decide to leave Greylock first?

**Sarah Guo** (4:09)
Yeah, Greylock is like this. I mean, we have many mutual friends there, some of my dearest. It's a seven-year-old platform with extraordinary history and people. I played for the team for ten years. Amazing place, super grateful for the opportunity, like lots of mentors there. I love the people. I really wanted to focus on early stage investing. Zero to one is just magic, and I wanted to be an entrepreneur. Again, you can't rationalize that, right? It's a great job being a GP at a big VC firm. It's crazy to leave, but I wanted to operate differently. I had a few ideas for how a small team could do venture, how you could change the founder experience.