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“Trial behavior is at an absolute high & engagement behavior is at an absolute low.” USV GP Rebecca Kaden (@rebeccakaden) says AI has created a misleading signal for how much consumer products actually get used: “We're getting thrown so many new things all the time in the market.. Everyone's like, ‘Are you up to speed? Have you tried Instinct? Have you tried Muse? Have you tried Robinhood?’” “We want to try them all. We're going to stick with very few.” “So the trial behavior's a little bit…
Molly O’Shea@MollySOShea12h ago
BREAKING: USV Raises $900M in New Funds $500M dedicated for early-stage, & a $400M opportunity fund The largest fund cycle in the firm's history. FULL INTERVIEW + HQ TOUR For more than 20 years, Union Square Ventures deliberately kept its funds small. I sat down with General Partners Fred Wilson (@fredwilson ), Rebecca Kaden (@rebeccakaden ) & Mike (@mignano), to break down why the firm is getting bigger now, what it's betting on, & where VC goes next. Nick Grossman (@nickgrossman ), also a General Partner, was out of town for the recording. @usv was early to Twitter, Etsy, Twilio, MongoDB, Coinbase, Duolingo & Abridge. Their new thesis is that AI could obliterate entire markets. "I was a little surprised how many of them said, 'Are you sure you shouldn't raise more?'" -- Rebecca Kaden We cover › Why USV raised $900M & why some LPs wanted it to raise more › Series A checks now running $10M to $30M › Supertake, USV's first incubation, & a seed strategy built around incubations + proprietary seeds › The "Rebel Alliance" & the case for open AI infrastructure › Why energy is 20% to 30% of the portfolio & one of the cleanest bets on AI 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Fred, Rebecca & Michael, GPs at USV (01:12) USV's biggest fund ever: $900M (02:13) TOUR: Inside USV's New York office (07:19) An AI agent that runs your portfolio (12:38) AI Agents won't watch Netflix for you (14:00) USV's new strategy for the AI era (16:54) The real cost of building in AI (21:03) The fight over monetizing Twitter (23:54) Why Amazon is shutting out agents (31:02) Why smaller funds pick better (33:40) What Series A looks like now (40:17) Is ARR a fake metric? (46:00) 20 years of USV's biggest wins (51:10) Why great founders still fail (57:46) Will Anthropic compete with its customers? (59:54) Why Coinbase moved off Claude (1:01:44) An AI doctor that writes prescriptions (1:04:09) Your AI lawyer is the worst it'll ever be (1:08:29) Who protects you from your own AI agent? (1:11:58) Fred Wilson's been hacked 4 times (1:13:31) Coinbase: a security company in disguise (1:16:28) Betting on markets that don't exist yet (1:21:16) From first-time founder to Suno
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