Newcomer Podcast

Eric Newcomer | newcomer.co
Newcomer Podcast

A podcast about Silicon Valley, hosted by newsletter writer and independent journalist Eric Newcomer. Listen in for interviews with the dealmakers and builders who matter. Subscribe to newcomer.co for summaries of the episodes plus tech industry news, scoops, and analysis. www.newcomer.co

  1. 11 DÉC.

    Shake-ups at Silicon Valley's Biggest VC Firms

    After a brief hiatus, the Newcomer podcast is back! Madeline Renbarger has rejoined me as my co-host to help break down all of the news across venture capital and startups. This week, we’re kicking off with a massive $693 million chip deal and Google’s huge quantum computing breakthroughs, in news that feels like flashes of Silicon Valley returning to its “silicon” roots. Still, some of this tech feels a bit too early to be exciting for a venture-backable model. We also dig into the personnel shake-ups across the major multi-stage funds, including Brian Singerman’s step back from Founders Fund last week. Lightspeed also saw partners exit as part of a consumer investing reshuffle. And just this morning after recording, Lux Capital’s Bilal Zuberi announced on X that he was leaving to “embark on a new chapter.” We’re excited for you to listen. Episode produced by Christopher Gates Brought to you by Brex Brex knows runway is everything for venture-backed startups, so they built a banking solution that helps them take every dollar further. Unlike traditional banking solutions, Brex has no minimums and gives startups access to 20x the standard FDIC protection via program banks. Plus, startups can earn industry-leading yield from their first dollar — while being able to access their funds anytime. If you want to make sure your portfolio companies have a place to save, spend, and grow their capital, check out Brex here. Chapters 00:00 - Intro 01:06 - Tenstorrent’s $693 million Series D 04:44 - Google’s Quantum Computing Breakthrough 06:42 - Lightspeed’s Consumer Investing Re-org 09:24 - Brian Singerman Steps Back and Founders Fund’s Roster 14:08 - Mega-funds in Transition and Tech’s Trump Positioning 20:19 - Conclusion and Future Discussions Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe

    21 min
  2. 5 DÉC.

    Has AI Hit a Wall? A Debate from the Cerebral Valley AI Summit

    I’ve been spending some of the afternoon chatting with OpenAI’s now fully released o1. So far, I don’t know that it feels like the super intelligent ChatGPT 5 that we’ve all fantasized about — but it’s smart and sophisticated. The new model helped me to game out potential stories and talk through problems. And of course it wrote me a poem and told me a couple dad jokes. It looks like the biggest improvement in the news model may be in math and coding, where OpenAI is highlighting meaningful improvements over o1-preview. It will take some time to digest the new version of the model and see what it says about the pace of AI advancement. Before the latest update, Max Child, James Wilsterman, and I got behind our microphones to reflect on the Cerebral Valley AI Summit and give you some of our takeaways. (Max has already hooked up the advanced voice mode of ChatGPT to his iPhone action button. Good bye Siri, hello ChatGPT.) Give it a listen. Brought to you by Brex Brex knows runway is everything for venture-backed startups, so they built a banking solution that helps them take every dollar further. Unlike traditional banking solutions, Brex has no minimums and gives startups access to 20x the standard FDIC protection via program banks. Plus, startups can earn industry-leading yield from their first dollar — while being able to access their funds anytime. If you want to make sure your portfolio companies have a place to save, spend, and grow their capital, check out Brex here. 00:00 — Cerebral Valley AI Summit Overview 02:50 — Key Takeaways from Alexandr Wang's Talk 05:46 — The Wall in AI Foundation Models 08:57 — Dario Amodei’s Perspective on AI Progress 12:13 — Investing in AI: Insights from Martin Casado 15:06 — The Future of AI Agents and Voice Technology 17:56 — The Role of AI in Gaming and User Interaction 20:46 — AI in Enterprise: Trends and Predictions 24:03 — Challenges in Robotics and Home Automation 26:58 — Marissa Mayer on Google's Future in AI 29:51 — Final Thoughts and Future Outlook Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe

    43 min
  3. 19 NOV.

    Fear-Mongering & Forecasting: Assessing AI's Predictions About AI

    Cerebral Valley is tomorrow! I’ve been listening to old interviews, brainstorming with Claude and ChatGPT, and talking to investors to prep for my conversations with Dario Amodei, Martin Casado, and Alexandr Wang. We’ll be sharing those conversations here in the newsletter. Expect video highlights on our social media feeds, a detailed rundown of the biggest moments in the newsletter Thursday, and full-length conversations on our YouTube channel. To satiate your AI appetites until then, give a listen to the latest edition of the Cerebral Valley Podcast with my friends and co-hosts Max Child and James Wilsterman. You’ve listened to us assess whether startups are underrated or overrated and make our draft picks. Now we’re looking to the future. We asked Claude and ChatGPT o1 to make some predictions about what will happen in artificial intelligence over the next year. And then we took the over or under on those predictions. Brought to you by Brex Brex knows runway is everything for venture-backed startups, so they built a banking solution that helps them take every dollar further. Unlike traditional banking solutions, Brex has no minimums and gives startups access to 20x the standard FDIC protection via program banks. Plus, startups can earn industry-leading yield from their first dollar — while being able to access their funds anytime. If you want to make sure your portfolio companies have a place to save, spend, and grow their capital, check out Brex here. Chapters * 00:00 — Introduction to AI Predictions * 02:48 — Exploring Predictions for AI in 2025 * 06:06 — AI Regulation in Healthcare * 08:53 — Self-Driving Cars and Tesla's Future * 12:04 — AI in News Media * 14:55 — AI-Generated Films and Entertainment * 17:53 — Anthropic’s Predictions and AI Co-Processors * 20:59 — AI in Pharmaceutical Development * 24:13 — International AI Treaties and Regulations * 26:47 — Comparing AI Models: ChatGPT vs. Claude * 30:06 — Future of AI and Human Systems * 32:46 — Conclusion and Reflections on AI Predictions Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe

    49 min
  4. 13 NOV.

    The AI Startup Fantasy Draft

    This is probably my favorite episode of the year. We just updated our picks for our artificial intelligence startup fantasy draft. That means dropping startups whose star is fading and making new pickups. Last year, Max Child, James Wilsterman, and I drafted the most promising generative AI startups that had raised $100 million or more. In this latest episode, we make some hard choices: cutting loose startups who have lost our favor, cashing in on early acquisitions, and pickup up some new startups. In the process, we weigh in on the buzziest AI startups. Brought to you by Brex Brex knows runway is everything for venture-backed startups, so they built a banking solution that helps them take every dollar further. Unlike traditional banking solutions, Brex has no minimums and gives startups access to 20x the standard FDIC protection via program banks. Plus, startups can earn industry-leading yield from their first dollar — while being able to access their funds anytime. If you want to make sure your portfolio companies have a place to save, spend, and grow their capital, check out Brex here. Catching You Up on Last Year’s Picks To catch you up: here’s how last year’s draft went down. It started off with me taking on a $75 billion handicap for the right to pick first and draft OpenAI. We proceeded from there in a snake draft with Max picking second and James picking third. Here were the five companies we each drafted last year. Last year’s picks Eric * OpenAI * Inflection * Character.AI * Glean * Mistral AI Max * Databricks * Pinecone * Cohere * Modular * Imbue James * Hugging Face * Anthropic * AI21 Labs * Replit * Adept Altogether on this week’s episode we collectively dropped three companies, exited three, and picked up twelve new startups. I don’t want to spoil our picks so you’ll have to listen to the episode to find out what happened. (As a reminder, the goal here is to accumulate the most total value by November 1, 2028. We aren’t worried about the return on our investment just the final end state valuation.) We’d love for you to weigh in in the comments with your own seven startup picks and give us your feedback on what you think of our draft decisions. Give it a listen. Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe

    49 min
4,4
sur 5
31 notes

À propos

A podcast about Silicon Valley, hosted by newsletter writer and independent journalist Eric Newcomer. Listen in for interviews with the dealmakers and builders who matter. Subscribe to newcomer.co for summaries of the episodes plus tech industry news, scoops, and analysis. www.newcomer.co

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