20VC: Why VC Today is Worse Than 2021 | Why Vertical SaaS is a Bad Investment Today | Why We Are Deluding Ourselves on Growth Expectations | Revolut Raises $3BN at a $75BN Valuation | Benchmark Adds Their Newest General Partner
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
The Twenty Minute VC
4.4 • 693 Ratings
🗓️ 23 October 2025
⏱️ 89 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
AGENDA:
04:50 Benchmark's New Partner: Everett Randall
10:19 Revolut Raises $3BN at a $75BN Valuation: Another Loss for Public Markets?
28:39 Why Today is as Bad as the Hype of COVID in 2021
32:10 Why Vertical SaaS is a Bad VC Investment Today
36:14 Why Everyone Investing in Legal SaaS Will Lose Money
44:16 Why King Making is More Real Than Ever
55:23 Why Your Smallest Customers Need to Pay $10K Minimum
01:01:37 Why VC is a S*** Asset Class
01:09:29 Why Today is Harder Than It Has Ever Been in VC
01:25:18 Closing Thoughts and Reflections
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It looks like the easiest way to make money in 2025 is to take the very biggest companies |
| 0:04.7 | and double down one more time. |
| 0:06.0 | My gut tells me we're over romanticizing verticals in the age of AI. |
| 0:10.8 | Like we're going to hit the same Tam exhaustion, and it's going to be worse because |
| 0:14.8 | expectations are so high. |
| 0:16.3 | If any kind of de-acceleration happens because of you, any kind of saturation or slow down. Everyone's estimates on what's going to happen here or wrong. Reminder, in a bull market, the most aggressive person will look the smartest just before the crash. Because the more risk you've taken, the more money you've made. Frankly, it feels tough today, as tough as it's ever been. This is 20 VC with me, Harry Harry Stebbings. It's my favourite show of the week. Jason Lemkin, Roryo Driscoll, and what a show we have in store for you today. Now, there's a record for this one, the longest time that it's ever taken for us to actually get to the schedule. In the schedule, we discussed Benchmark's newest partner, Open AI allowing erotica, revolutions round, |
| 0:56.5 | and much, much more. This was such a fun show to do. I want this to be the best podcast that you |
| 1:01.7 | listen to. So let me know your feedback. Harry at 20vc.com. I want to hear your thoughts. But before we |
| 1:07.7 | dive into the show today, now most people who get scammed never talk about it. |
| 1:12.7 | And if it can happen to tech savvy professionals, CEOs and investors, it can happen to anyone. |
| 1:18.0 | But the problem isn't just losing money, is that today's scams, they're built differently for a very new world, |
| 1:24.7 | one where AI can generate convincing messages in seconds, and fake |
| 1:29.0 | sites look more like real sites than the real thing. Traditional tools were not built for this future, |
| 1:35.3 | and that's why Guardio exists. Gardio is this incredible predictive and proactive engine. |
| 1:40.7 | It leverages advanced AI threat detection to block highly targeted socially engineered |
| 1:46.6 | scams before they ever reach you. From phishing emails and fake login pages to financial fraud, |
| 1:53.8 | Guardio protects you across the ways people actually live and work online. And security shouldn't |
| 1:59.8 | be complicated. |
| 2:06.4 | Guardio continuously monitors across all your accounts and devices, uncovering risks in real time and guiding you to close gaps before attackers exploit them. |
| 2:11.1 | Trusted by over a million users, Guardio is setting the new standard for personal cyber security. |
| 2:16.5 | Visit guard.io slash 20VC today to start |
| 2:22.3 | your seven day free trial because the threats of tomorrow, they're already here and Guardio is |
... |
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