20VC: Reid Hoffman on Foundation Models: Who Wins & How Do Incumbents Respond | The Inflection AI Deal: How it Went Down | Why Trump is a Threat to Democracy | The Future of TikTok | Lessons from Sam Altman, Brian Chesky and the OpenAI Board
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 637 Ratings
🗓️ 10 June 2024
⏱️ 76 minutes
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Summary
Reid Hoffman has been one of the most impactful people in technology over the last two decades. He is the Co-Founder of Linkedin (acq by Microsoft for $26BN) and Co-Founder of Inflection.ai. As an investor, Reid has backed the likes of Facebook, Airbnb, Zynga and more. Reid is also a Board Member @ Microsoft and was on the board of OpenAI.
In Today's Show with Reid Hoffman We Discuss:
1. Foundation Models: Commoditisation, Business Models, Incumbents:
- Does Reid believe we are seeing the commoditization of foundation models?
- Is it too late for new foundation models to be born today? Are they VC backable?
- How will foundation models eventually make money? What will be the sustainable business model?
- Does Reid believe that foundation models will be acquired by large cloud providers? Who goes first?
2. Inflection & Microsoft: What Went Down:
- How did the Microsoft and Inflection deal go down? Did Satya call up one day and make it happen?
- With the decay rate of models, Microsoft did not do it for the models, so why did they do it?
- Was Inflection a sustainable business in it's own right?
- Does this not prove that to win at this game, you have to be an incumbent with incumbent cash?
3. OpenAI: Board, Lessons and Management:
- What are 1-2 of Reid's biggest lessons from being on the OpenAI board with Sam?
- Why did Sam ask Reid in front of the whole company if Reid would fire him if he did not perform?
- Scarlett Johannsen, super alignment team quitting, NDAs tied to equity, this is a lot in a short amount of time, how does Reid analyse this?
4. Trump is the Biggest Threat to Democracy: What Lies Ahead?
- Why does Reid believe that Trump is a threat to democracy and evil?
- What were Reid's biggest takeaways from a two hour lunch with Joe Biden?
- How does a Trump administration change the world of AI, technology and startups?
5. The Future of TikTok:
- Is TikTok a threat to US democracy? Should it be banned?
- What will be the outcome of the current judicial process? Will they sell to a US entity?
- How could Trump impact the future of TikTok in the US?
6. Reid Hoffman: AMA:
- What are Peter Thiel's biggest strengths and weaknesses?
- I believe Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most unappreciated public market CEOs, what are the core components that Reid believes makes Mark so special?
- How did Reid miss out on investing in SpaceX's first round? What did he not see that he should have seen?
- What do we think is crazy today but will be a no brainer and very normal in 10 years?
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The American electorate right now hasn't really fully remembered the corruption and incompetencies of Trump. |
| 0:06.5 | I've had a two-hour lunch with Biden. He was asking you questions about AI. He was explaining stuff that was going on in nuanced detail in Israel. |
| 0:13.5 | He's good. The real issue is AI is a human amplifier. I'm a lot less worried that the robots are coming than Putin is coming with his AI |
| 0:21.8 | enablement. Artificial intelligence in an economic sense is it's a steam engine of the mind. We'll have a |
| 0:27.4 | cognitive industrial revolution. This is 20VC with me, Harry Stebbings, and the show state is such a |
| 0:32.5 | special one. We hosted the one and only Reid Hoffman, live in the studio in London. Reid has been |
| 0:37.4 | one of the most impactful people in technology in the studio in London. Reid has been one of the most |
| 0:37.9 | impactful people in technology over the last two decades. He's the co-founder of LinkedIn and |
| 0:43.4 | inflection AI. As an investor, Reid has backed the lights of Facebook, Airbnb, Zinger and more. And |
| 0:49.7 | Reid's also a board member at Microsoft and was on the board of Open AI. But before we dive into the show |
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... |
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