All-In E117: Did Stripe miss its window? Plus: VC market update, AI comes for SaaS, Trump's savvy move
Episode 117 • 2/24/2023
Stripe's Valuation & IPO Timing
- Detailed analysis of Stripe's $4B tax bill due to expiring RSUs and their attempt to raise funds at $55B valuation (down from $95B peak)
- Chamath presented comparative analysis between Stripe and Adyen:
- Adyen maintains better profitability with fewer employees (primarily in Europe)
- Stripe grew from 2,000 to 8,000 employees in 24 months
- Different business models: Adyen focuses on large customers, Stripe serves both enterprise and long-tail customers
VC Market Analysis
- Discussion of 2021-2022 vintages likely performing poorly due to high valuations
- Historical venture returns average $1.60 for every dollar raised across cycles
- Debate about the impact of zero interest rates on VC investing strategies
AI's Impact on SaaS
- David Sacks identified three major enterprise AI use cases:
- Auto-summaries for meetings and documents
- In-app customer service/copilot functionality
- Autocomplete for all content types
- Discussion of AI commoditization and its impact on existing SaaS businesses
- Debate about whether AI features will lead to higher or lower SaaS pricing
Trump's East Palestine Visit
- Group discussed Trump's strategic move visiting East Palestine while Biden was in Ukraine
- Sacks praised Trump's anti-war stance and criticism of the military-industrial complex
- Discussion of Victoria Nuland and the origins of the Ukraine conflict
- Debate about the political implications of focusing on domestic vs. foreign issues
AI Companies & Platforms
- Discussion of Quora's AI chatbot "Poe" and its potential advantage due to its question-answer dataset
- Mentions of Reddit and YouTube as potential AI players due to their vast content corpus
- Commentary on OpenAI's response to bias concerns and their move toward citations in outputs
The episode covered key technological, financial, and political developments while highlighting the intersection of AI technology with business models and international relations.