Airtable's 80% off value crash: VCs explain why it's still a win | E2321

**Jason Calacanis** (0:00)
Obviously, a lot of hand-wringing about the SaaSpocalypse over the last couple of years. The indigestion in our industry of what would happen to these companies that were DecaCorns, Unicorns, I guess we're gonna start getting that answer.

**Niko Bonatsos** (0:11)
Private cap tables are only engineered to go up and to the right. They're not engineered to go down.

**Aditya Agarwal** (0:17)
The only thing that matters in our industry for venture capital is growth rate. Nothing else matters. It's not profitability, it's not cash flow positive.

**Rick Heitzmann** (0:26)
A lot of these companies which have become zombies, even if they were dekakorns, they're just chewing up people's time and hoping against hope.

**Jason Calacanis** (0:34)
Interesting playbook which is to cut 80% of the staff, put young people in charge of these products or services from what I understand and run them AI first for profitability.

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**Jason Calacanis** (1:16)
All right, everybody, welcome back to This Week in Startups. It's our VC Roundtable, which we do every Wednesday here on the program. It's August 5th, 2026 We've got just tons of news to get through, and a great panel again with us, Niko Bonatsos, Founder, Managing Director, Verdict Capital. How are you doing? It's been a while.
No longer at General Catalyst. Yeah, that was the previous gig.

**Niko Bonatsos** (1:41)
Correct. Yeah. Excited to be on this panel with you, Rick and Aditya.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:45)
Yes. Also with us, Rick Heitzmann is here.
Co-founder, partner, FirstMark Capital, Pinterest, Airbnb, Discord, DraftKings, tons of great unicorns in the portfolio. How are you doing, Rick?

**Rick Heitzmann** (1:57)
I'm doing great. Great time to be a New Yorker.

**Jason Calacanis** (1:59)
Yeah. Lots of good stuff going in New York, Democratic Socialism.

**Rick Heitzmann** (2:04)
A side of the political side, lots of winning between the Knicks and the World Cup.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:08)
Did you get to see any of the Knicks games?

**Rick Heitzmann** (2:10)
I did. I saw one of the Knicks games.

**Aditya Agarwal** (2:12)
Oh, right. Yeah.

**Rick Heitzmann** (2:13)
It was pretty great. The energy in the city was awesome.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:17)
It's pretty great. I got to go to the closing games of every series. That was my goal. So I went to nine games with my brother and some other friends, sat courtside at a couple of them.
Can't get courtside at Madison Square Garden. It's just like, literally, no matter how much money you have, you just can't even get them because they're for the Knicks alumni now and celebrities. But I was able to, Ben Stiller and I chipped in and we got a pair of tickets for Philly for the closing game. I got Atlanta courtside.

**Rick Heitzmann** (2:48)
That's not bad.

**Jason Calacanis** (2:49)
Yeah, not bad. Not bad. I couldn't get Spurs courtside either. They blocked us at the Cavs and they blocked us at the Spurs from buying courtside, successfully, in fact.

**Rick Heitzmann** (2:59)
Still over next year. Run it back.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:01)
Oh, God. It's so great. It's so great to have the Knicks win. And Aditya Agarwal is here, co-founder, general partner at South Park Commons Gamma, sponsor of This Week in Startups, Luma Labs, Render, formerly CTO of Dropbox, early engineer at the Facebook Corporation. How are you doing?

**Aditya Agarwal** (3:21)
Great to be here. Excited to be part of the panel.

**Jason Calacanis** (3:24)
We are starting to see acquisitions, which is great. We're seeing IPOs. The wrath of Lena Khan has ended. The four years of no M&A is over. Now we're starting to see M&A. Unfortunately, some of it's a bit lower than maybe the last mark of some of these SaaS companies. And we had a major, major acquisition just this week, Bending Spoons, which is a firm that buys distressed assets or I would say maybe sideways assets, slow growth companies. They're an Italian conglomerate. And they like to pick up assets that have product market fit. But maybe aren't growing violently and maybe that the venture community has either given up on or lost interest in.
They bought AOL, meetup.com, tons of other brands. And they seem to have a pretty interesting playbook, which is to cut 80% of the staff, put young people in charge of these products or services, from what I understand, and run them AI first for profitability. They just bought Airtable for 2.7 times ARR.