20VC with Harry Stebbings
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Can $1BN Companies Fail?
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-06-14 05:00
Some companies that were once worth a billion dollars can go to zero. Easily done. Rich Wong Excel said 20% of unicorns this week will just fail.This is pretty rough and tough, but my gut would be it's roughly 20% will be good enough to get public in the end. 20% will totally maybe 25 in each site just for arbitrary sake. And then 50% in the middle are meaningful enough to be valuable but not so meaningful that they'll get public and they'll be merged.They'll combine with someone else that'll be PE. But it' ...
Duolingo’s Engineer Strategy
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-06-13 14:09
So you're the guy who puts ads in my Dualingo. But I did that. Yeah.Jeem Canu, CPO at Dualingo. Gem leads product strategy for over 90 million monthly active learners. Consumer products live and die in the pixels.Product managers are sometimes viewed as I'm the mini CEO. I decide strategy and then people execute. That is like the worst definition of a product manager that I've ever heard.So if someone is actually creating more output with AI, well, they'll probably get promoted faster. Why would you write s ...
“Circle’s Sellers Missed Out”
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-06-13 05:00
And in the case of Circle, over half of the IPO was sellers, which means you just opted to sell a security at 31 bucks a share and two days later it's trading at 80 bucks a share. That's a lot of money to leave on the table. So, I'm sure if you chose to sell in the IPO, you're sitting back and going, hm, I feel amazing about the outcome, but oh my god, that's a lot of money on the table.Like 20 million shares, I think, were secondary. And you know, at 50 60 bucks of extra dollars a share, that's a billion d ...
“Great Businesses Don’t Need You To Like Them”
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-06-12 14:00
how freaking awesome the US capital system is. I mean, the United States has 4% of the world's people. We have roughly 23% of the world's GDP. We have 67% of the world's market cap.We won. Not just our GDP, our income is higher than our population ratio, but our wealth, our corporate sector is even higher than our GDP. Some companies that were once worth a billion dollars can go to zero.The definition of a great business is when your customers can hate you and still do business with you. The truth is SpaceX ...
Three Competitive Advantages Of AI 🤖
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-06-12 05:00
Competitive Advantage - Data is the primary pillar for a durable competitive advantage among model providers [1] - Algorithms are IP that the industry will eventually learn [2] - Compute can be acquired by spending more money [2] - Data is an area where a long-term sustainable competitive advantage can be produced [2]
“AI Won’t Stay Privatized”
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-06-11 14:00
what AI companies is doing right now like the foundational companies it's like privatizing the Manhattan project. So imagine that they do build the atomic bomb and now they're sitting in saying h maybe we'll do it nonprofit or maybe they say oh we'll license the atomic bomb. Do you see a government allowing this.Think about that for a second. If you get to AI that cures the worst disease in the world, which actually is worth a lot of money, do you see government leaving this in private hands. No way. ...
“Building Fast Isn’t Enough Anymore”
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-06-11 05:00
Competitive Landscape - The time to clone a company has drastically reduced from approximately 1 year 25 years ago to 6-9 months 15 years ago [1] - Currently, the time to clone a company can be as short as 10 days [2] - Many new products lack significant differentiation or added value compared to existing solutions [2]
When To Quit Your Job 🤔
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-06-10 14:01
I have a rule. If I wake up 5 days in a row saying, "Ah, no." Then I'm done. And it never happened.You can have a day. Maybe you can have two. Like if you have them in a row, that's a bad. ...
“You Have To Upgrade Yourself”
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-06-09 17:02
Skill Development & Adaptation - Individuals must proactively enhance their skills to remain valuable in the evolving professional landscape [1] - Those who fail to adapt to reality and upgrade their capabilities risk becoming a burden [1] - The company emphasizes the importance of self-improvement and embracing change [1] Support & Commitment - The company will support individuals who are committed to self-improvement and professional development [2] - The company vows to assist those who actively seek to enhance their skills and understanding of the current environment [2] Future Demand - There will be a decline in demand for individuals who cannot adapt and upgrade their skills [2] - Coping with reality and understanding its implications are crucial for future success [1][2]
“We All Work For AI”
20VC with Harry Stebbings· 2025-06-09 14:01
Right now, what we're seeing is on steroids. You are working for AI and so do I because we're producing content and that content is going to be eaten by a machine and used to produce new stuff. You know that copyright is dead.It's a notion from 1710 and it's dead overnight. There is no copyright. It's done.My expectation of you is that each and every one of you and it doesn't matter what you do is going to replace 100% of what you do with automation. ...