TLDR from Z

Coming to you live from Park City, Utah at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference; about to speak on a panel as part of the conference all about Gen Z (literally in 30 minutes).

I’ve not been living up to the title of this newsletter as I’ve been surrounded by incredible GPs and partners the past few days while attending this conference:

• Roelof (Sequoia)

• Mark (Upfront)

• Kirsten (Forerunner)

• Jenny (Initialized)

• Guru (Lightspeed)

• Mary (Bessemer)

Maybe you’ll see some of these folks in 1 GP Allowed sometime soon.
Who knows!

Heads up! This week has felt a little ~lighter re: news I think because we’re in the thick of MIA vibes from VCs in the summer and political news over the weekend is taking up ~75% of all media coverage based on my research for this week’s edition.

VC Industry News

Because I’m at Fortune’s conference and because all of these events are completely on the record, I have some quotes to share with you from the panels throughout this section, mostly in the VC startup/theses section.

• The security company that Alphabet may buy for $23 billion launched at the perfect time

  • ZN’s POV: Fortune’s Brainstorm Tech summit had a panel with Wiz’s founder and investor from Thrive Capital literally within 24 hours of their acquisition announcement.

  • additional reading: The Biggest Winners From Wiz’s Potential $23 Billion Sale to Google

  • more additional reading: Nobody Beats Wiz: Meet The Hyper-Aggressive, $10 Billion Startup Shaking Up Cloud Security (Forbes, published in 2023)

• Nvidia’s market cap will soar to $50 trillion—yes, trillion—says early investor in Amazon and Tesla

• Major Stripe investor Sequoia confirms $70B valuation, offers its investors a payday

  • additional reading: The price would be $27.51 per share, which is Stripe's most recent 409A mark and represents a $70 billion valuation. For context, Stripe was valued at $95 billion back in 2021, but by last summer had slashed its worth to $50 billion. Selling LPs would not pay carried interest. Sequoia partners would not profit on the sales, unless they had personal investments in the relevant Sequoia funds and chose to liquidate their stakes. The $861 million represents only around 10% of Sequoia's total FMV of Stripe shares. LPs have until August 14 to make a decision.

• OpenAI announced a new scale to track AI progress. But wait—where is AGI?

• From Ethan Choi to Spencer Peterson, venture capitalists continue to play musical chairs

• Private credit is growing into a $3.5 trillion industry: Meet 9 execs leading the way

• Runway CEO says Hollywood should embrace AI, not fear it: ‘These are exceptional tools for great artists’

  • ZN’s POV: got to listen to this panel live! the video they played before the panel featured AI video creation’s development from 2020 to 2024 and it was mind-blowing how far we’ve come in even just a year.

• How VCs from Alphabet’s CapitalG to Norwest are coping with a dead IPO landscape: ‘We’re not here to time the market’

  • ZN’s POV: also got to listen to this panel live. The title of the panel was “who will revive the unicorpse?” along with this photo of two Fortune magazine covers from 2016 and 2024. In 2015, there were only 80 unicorn companies and now in 2024 there are over 1200 unicorn companies.

• How OpenAI’s secret project ‘Strawberry’ could power AI with superhuman-level intelligence

• AI startups raised $24 billion globally in Q2, but the question remains: Where will value in AI accrue? Here’s one VC’s (slightly) contrarian take.

• How Former Operators Are Redefining Consumer Growth-Stage Investing

• Presti is using GenAI to replace costly furniture industry photo shoots

• Alma co-founder had such a bad immigration experience she founded a legal AI startup to fix it

• Silicon Valley Moguls’ Favorite Fellowships by Julia from The Information

• The Startup Helping Creators Track and License Work Used by AI

• Women of color founders receive 0.89% of funding and yet make up 20% of the American population. Fearless Fund has been put through the wringer following a lawsuit that aimed to annihilate their ability to invest in WOC founders. I had a chance to listen to Arian Simone speak about it live earlier today. Check out the video here.

• HerculesAI was working with large language models long before it was cool

• “The Rise of Founders Fund’s Faithful Warrior” from Natasha at The Information

• Influencer marketing is soaring despite troubles in other areas of the creator economy. 11 insiders break down how the industry is scaling.

• This startup has a plan to put shipping containers in space: Outpost is taking a fundamentally different approach to getting things home from orbit.

• The Generalist launched Future 50, a database of extraordinary, high-potential startups. Nominated by investors, selected by The Generalist.

• Synapse’s collapse has frozen nearly $160M from fintech users — here’s how it happened

• After Tesla and OpenAI, Andrej Karpathy’s startup aims to apply AI assistants to education

• “Why Women Are Disappearing From Tech” from Jessica at The Information

Fundraising News

• Female-founded startups have raised $15.5 billion so far this year, but that’s not really good news

• PearX S20 alum Seven Starling raises $10.9M to expand access to specialized women’s healthcare

• AI-powered Regard nabs $61M to find missed illness, boost hospital revenue

• AI coding startup Anysphere is raising a new funding round with at least a $400 million valuation from A16z by Sri at Business Insider

• Jack Altman’s Firm Backs Startup for Trading AI Computing Power: A company called San Francisco Compute Co. is working on a platform to distribute resources for AI companies.

• Alpine Space Ventures closes first fund to grow the space economy on both sides of the pond

• Exa raises $17M from Lightspeed, Nvidia, Y Combinator to build a Google for AIs

• This Startup Raised $5.2 Million To Develop Blood Tests For Cancer: Predicta Biosciences is using precision medicine to diagnose and monitor multiple myeloma–and give doctors insights for better treatment plans.

• Lhoopa raises $80M to spur more affordable housing in the Philippines

• A company building Wordle for chess raises money from a16z Speedrun, Mark Pincus and Eric Wu

• Medal raises $13M as it builds out a contextual AI assistant for desktop

• Armada lands $40 million in funding round led by Microsoft’s M12

• With $277 Million In New Funding, This Startup Hopes To Unlock The Secrets Of Biology

• Here’s the full list of 28 US AI startups that have raised $100M or more in 2024

Consumer-Specific News - subscribe to my other newsletter Fan Behavior.

• “The ‘AI-in-everything’ era is here, and it’s giving us a lot of stuff we don’t need” from Fast Company

  • ZN’s POV: apparently we’re only 20 months into the AI revolution.

• In a recent survey of about 3,000 workers by cover letter and résumé builder Kickresume, 85% of respondents said they’ve had to put up with an aggravating colleague, and 58% say this negatively affected their productivity.

  • ZN’s POV: I would LOVE it if AI could fix this vs. another AI girlfriend….

• Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev touts crypto and tokenization as the natural transition for financial services: ‘An obvious technology advantage’

• Everlane’s founder is back with Magna, a new hydration brand: Michael Preysman is going after the electrolyte drinks market with a post-Nike ideology.

• The Epic Corporate Marathon of Strava, Cult-Favorite Fitness App

• Inside the high-tech farm in New Jersey where Instagram’s favorite strawberries grow: Oishii’s luxury strawberries can cost upwards of $15 a package. A new robotic indoor farm could make them more accessible.

• This beauty company just one-upped the drugstore travel aisle: 100mL curates packs of high-end beauty brands like Aesop in TSA-compliant sizes, so people can pack discerning taste to go (even in a carry-on).

  • ZN’s POV: after doing 4 flights in the span of 5 days to 3 different cities — I would pay a premium for a product like this.

• Taco Bell opens a retirement community, Etsy takes a stand against AI, and Paramount ditches its old logo

• Depop removes selling fees in the United States, evolves fee structure

• Disney has a kid crisis: Children used to grow up watching Mickey Mouse. Now they're all on YouTube.

• This startup makes rich, creamy butter out of CO2: Savor, a Bay Area-based startup backed by Bill Gates, makes ingredients without animals, farmland, or fertilizer.

• How Hinge CEO Justin McLeod plans to use AI to change how we date

• Urban Outfitters launches ‘Shift Happens,’ a 3-phase campaign promoting its dorm-room decor

• Astor’s ‘community’ approach to financial advice aims to help women feel more confident about investing

• Charli XCX finally released brat merch so fans can officially be bumpin’ that. Why’d it take so long? Brat is a prime example of branding done well in the TikTok age. Now, it’s catching up to all that UGC with its own merch.

Niche internet lore

If you haven’t heard about the Ice Spice, Central Cee, and Madeline Argy situation, I highly recommend reading about it.

We live in a day and age where every consumer automatically believes anything posted online is fake or PR. It is unclear whether this saga was or was not purposeful (cheating, fake dating allegations to promote a song, podcasts about said cheating allegations, etc.), but all I’ll say is that each of the three people involved has gained a significant amount of followers on Instagram, and their videos are averaging ~50M views.

Why does this matter for VCs? The way products are marketed to consumers is constantly transforming. Four years ago, Parade Underwear’s aggressive micro influencer strategy turned them into a cult brand in a matter of weeks post-launch. But now, a micro-influencer blast doesn’t always work. There’s more to unpack here. Subscribe to Fan Behavior!

Tweets to think about

Investor Features (so far)

This is my favorite section of No GPs Allowed and I’m so excited to have featured so many incredible investors on this newsletter thus far. I’d love to widen the scope of features beyond my immediate network: nominate yourself or someone else to be featured on No GPs Allowed below.

• Layla at Female Founders Fund

• Johnnie at Listen Ventures

• Marcello, CoS at Novo (previously at Notation Capital fka GGV)

• Lauren at FJ Labs

• Vaneezeh at Thomson Reuters Ventures

• Connor at Visible Ventures

• Georgie at Headline Ventures

• Nikunj at Khosla

• Sakib at Crossbeam

• Alex at Chai Capital

• Bryce at Primary

VC Theses & Startup Tips

1. Keeping Up with the Gen Zs: The Defining Characteristics of the New Generation by Rex Woodbury

2. New A16Z investment thesis: AI scribes.

   1. “Imagine if you had a superhuman assistant that listened to your conversations, took perfect notes, and flagged follow-ups. And, it could make you smarter by surfacing insights or trends you missed.”

3. M12’s 4 D’s when making an investment: Data, Dividends, Distribution, and Delight

   1. Heard this today directly from Michelle Gonzalez, Corporate Vice President and Global Head, M12, Microsoft

4. Mark Suster from Upfront Ventures’ predictions for the top VC trends in the next 5 years (beyond AI): deglobalization, aging populations tech, operational b2b AI for the healthcare industry.

   1. I also heard this today directly from Mark! He said that VC is no longer a decade-long game; he feels a 15-year cycle is more apt to assess the quality of a VC fund. And yes, he did call VCs lemmings (herd mentality).

Break into VC: Jobs

Full-time Investor

Joyance is hiring an Investment Partner. Apply here!

Geek Ventures is hiring an Investor. Apply here!

Ironspring Ventures is hiring an VC Principal. Apply here!

Stripes is hiring a Consumer Investor. Apply here!

Alumni Ventures is hiring for multiple investing roles. Apply here!

Cowboy Ventures is hiring an Investment Associate. Apply here!

Commerce Ventures is hiring a Senior Associate. Apply here!

Flourish Ventures is hiring an investment associate. Apply here!

Pear VC is hiring an Investment Associate - AI and Enterprise. Apply here!

Entrepreneur First is hiring multiple Analysts/Associates. Apply here!

Full-time Platform

A16Zis hiring a Deal Operations Partner. Apply here!

Eniac Ventures is hiring a Chief of Staff. Apply here!
ZN’s POV (I love Nihal & the Eniac team shout out Monica + Sofia)

Struck Studio is hiring a Venture Lead. Apply here!

Techstars is hiring a Program Associate. Apply here!

Cowboy Ventures is hiring a Chief of Staff. Apply here!

Internship/Part-time

How Women Invest is hiring a Senior VC Investment Fellow. Apply here!

Cerberus Capital Managementis hiring for a 6-month fellowship. Apply here!

Necessary Venturesis hiring an intern. Apply here!

Expanding Capitalis hiring an intern. Apply here!

VC $$$

You can drop your salary details here (anonymously) to be shared in future editions. VC compensation is an exceptionally opaque part of the “breaking into VC” process. This section aims to act as: a reference for you as you negotiate your salary and to showcase just how different compensation is across fund size, titles, and more.

• Title: Analyst

• Fund Size: $50-100M

• Base Salary: $120,000

• Cash Bonus: $40,000

• Carry: 1.25%

Events (for VCs)

post summer

• The Future of Consumer Social: Panel

  • for who: consumer social nerds

  • hosted by: Zehra

tuesday 8/13

• Female Founders, Funders & Friends

  • hosted by: Jaiya (Carry + Ankur)

Resources: Discounts + Tools

• Need an EA but can’t afford one? Howie is the fastest and most responsive scheduling assistant on earth. You can email him anytime to set up meetings and coordinate your calendar.

• Wanna start a newsletter?I use Beehiiv for all three of my newsletters. Cannot recommend enough.

• Wanna sell digital products that actually convert? I’ve been working with Michael and Faisal for a couple of months now. Pillar is an all-in-one creator store that actually converts. You can offer lead magnets, sell digital products + appointments w/ Apple Pay checkout, and even boost deal flow with their brand deal funnel. It’s like LinkTree, Calendly, Kajabi, and Clickfunnels in one. Click to get 1 month free + your 1st lead magnet made for you in Canva by their team!