TWiST ICYMI: Brad Gerstner & Jason in Abu Dhabi, viral fundraising strategies, AI demos & more!
Hello everybody!!
Here are the highlights from last week:
Monday (E1742) - Sunny and Vinny demo ChatPDF and debate who will win AI: open-source or “ClosedAI”?
Tuesday (E1743) - Jason and Rachel break down trending tech news: AI girlfriends, senate hearings, and more.
Wednesday (E1744) - Magic.dev CEO Eric Steinberger demos Magic’s code-generation tool and dives deep into what a fully-formed AI future might look like.
Thursday (E1745) - Rewind.ai CEO Dan Siroker demos Rewind’s product and breaks down his viral fundraising strategy.
Friday (E1746) - Jason and Brad Gerstner join Mubadala’s Ibrahim Ajami for a 90-minute chat in Abu Dhabi to discuss thriving in a downturn, AI’s future, and more.
Producer’s Picks:
Jon:
For me, last week’s standout episode was E1745 featuring Jason and Dan Siroker, the CEO of Rewind AI.
While Rewind is a really interesting tool (it creates a searchable index of nearly everything you consume from your work computer) what really captivated me were Dan’s fundraising insights for founders!
Specifically, Dan had interesting thoughts about NOT fixating solely on valuation.
Instead, he stressed the importance of finding the right firm that aligns with your startup’s long-term goals and values (11:27).
Definitely check out episode 1745!
Brian:
Just like Jon, my top episode from last week was ALSO E1745 with Rewind AI CEO Dan Siroker.
As Jon said, Dan gave a ton of great advice for founders. But I want to focus on his really innovative fundraising strategy!
Last month, Dan went viral on Twitter after publicly posting his pitch deck with a Typeform for VCs to submit offers!
Over the span of one month, Rewind.ai received:
1.9M views on Twitter
1000+ preliminary offers
170 committed offers
22 offers at a ~$1B valuation
Jason and Dan covered why he turned down almost two dozen offers that valued Rewind at $1B+ and instead settled on a $350M valuation (led by NEA!)
It's a great episode, check it out here!
Nick:
Two weeks ago, while visiting the UAE, Jason and Brad Gerstner sat down with Mubadala’s Head of Ventures Ibrahim Ajami for a fireside chat on E1746.
It was an amazing conversation spanning over 90 minutes.
I thought Brad had an interesting take on transitioning away from the “Age of Excess” and into the “Age of AI” and what that means for different software businesses.
Brad predicted that in the Age of AI, non-critical software would have nowhere to hide.
"What you're going to discover in the 'Age of AI' is what (software) is REALLY mission-critical, and what is not."
Specifically, he thinks that businesses enabling the modern data stack will fare really well.
Why? Because these products help AI run BETTER. He mentioned companies like Snowflake, Databricks, Confluence, and others.
He also talked about how workflow tools with little-to-no moat might be in trouble because ChatGPT (and tools like it) will do those tasks better, faster, and cheaper.
It was an incredible discussion, listen here!
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