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Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Sarah Guo - The Power of Conviction - [Invest Like the Best, EP.383]

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Colossus

Investing, Business, Technology

4.82.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2024

⏱️ 76 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My guest today is Sarah Guo. Sarah is the founder and CEO of Conviction, an early-stage venture capital firm built to serve AI companies. She started Conviction in 2022 after 9 years at Greylock because she believes AI is the most important technological advancement of our lifetime. In our conversation, Sarah discusses the challenges and rewards of leaving an established investing firm to start her own venture. She shares her unique perspective on the AI landscape and reveals her predictions for what we should expect on the AI frontier. Please enjoy this great conversation with the very impressive Sarah Guo. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Ridgeline. Ridgeline has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. I think this platform will become the standard for investment managers, and if you run an investing firm, I highly recommend you find time to speak with them. Head to ridgelineapps.com to learn more about the platform. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus, where we're changing the game in investment research. Step away from outdated, inefficient methods and into the future with our platform, proudly hosting over 100,000 transcripts – with over 25,000 transcripts added just this year alone. Our platform grows eight times faster and adds twice as much monthly content as our competitors, putting us at the forefront of the industry. Plus, with 75% of private market transcripts available exclusively on Tegus, we offer insights you simply can't find elsewhere. See the difference a vast, quality-driven transcript library makes. Unlock your free trial at tegus.com/patrick. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: (00:00:00) Our Partners: Ridgeline and Tegus (00:03:30) Welcome to Invest Like the Best (00:04:30) Introduction & Recruiting in Venture Capital (00:05:06) Key Traits for Early-Stage Venture Capitalists (00:06:57) Lessons from Early Investments (00:07:47) The Journey of Building a Company (00:09:01) The Decision to Start Conviction (00:11:36) Launching Conviction and Initial Steps (00:13:43) First Investment at Conviction (00:14:00) Evaluating AI Application Companies (00:16:29) Challenges and Opportunities in AI Applications (00:23:57) Minimum Viable Quality in AI Products (00:33:19) Future of AI and Frontier Models (00:38:56) The Unpredictable Future of AI (00:40:16) The Importance of Efficiency in AI Models (00:44:28) The Business of AI: Costs and Margins (00:45:47) Infrastructure and Hardware Challenges (00:48:54) The Competitive Landscape of AI Chips (00:54:24) The Future of AI and Society (00:56:34) Opportunities and Innovations in AI (01:02:09) Concerns and Ethical Considerations (01:03:36) Debates and Research in AI (01:09:01) Personal Reflections and Closing Thoughts

Transcript

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0:00.0

I first met today's sponsor, Ridgeline in 2019.

0:04.0

They now offer a cutting-edge cloud platform for investment managers,

0:07.5

years in the making, that handles back, middle, and front office

0:10.5

and turns your business from messy and static to integrated in real time.

0:14.0

My experience with them changed the way I think about business and their advice

0:18.0

changed the trajectory of my career.

0:20.0

I thought since this is our kickoff week with Ridgline as a new partner, I'd tell this brief story first and then tell you about what Ridgeline does for its customers.

0:28.0

Because it is all of you in this audience who run or help run investment management firms that stand to benefit from their work.

0:35.1

Ridgeline was founded by Dave Duffield, one of the legendary software entrepreneurs who prior to

0:39.9

Ridgeline started both Peoplesoft and Workday, which now sports a $60 billion public valuation.

0:45.9

When I met Dave and Ridgeline, I was building canvas, a new investing software platform,

0:50.4

and Dave gave me what was at the time counterintuitive advice.

0:54.0

He said we should pick a very small handful of design partners,

0:57.6

five or so customers who would be our partners in building out the functionality of the software

1:01.8

over a very long period of time, years in fact.

1:04.8

At the same time, my friend Chatham-Pudagunta from Benchmark Capital sat me down and gave me similar

1:09.6

valuable advice. My instinct would have been to start selling and scaling as soon as we had

1:13.9

something people liked but Dave knew that in order to build truly valuable

1:17.7

software that served as a total solution for customers and to be a true

1:21.5

long-term partner you had to build with them first for years to make

1:24.9

sure the system was just right.

1:26.9

We did what Dave and Chatham suggested and our team built something so much more special

...

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