Bezos in his transition letter today wrote, "If you get it right, a few years after a surprising invention, the new thing has become normal. People yawn. And that yawn is the greatest compliment an inventor can receive." Too true. Name one amazing thing we yawn. For me, GPS.
1/ This year's
@Forbes
AI 50 list reflects emerging trends in generative AI infrastructure, predictive infrastructure, generative AI applications, and predictive AI applications 👇
☀️🌲Sequoia Summer Internship Opportunity🌲☀️
We're looking for a determined, creative, independent thinker to join our Sequoia Early-Stage team this summer.
Technical background (CS/EE) is a plus, as we dig deep on technology when evaluating companies at the Seed and Series-A.
The sixth annual Forbes AI 50 list is now live.
There were many impressive companies that didn't make this year's top 50. We had over 1,900 applicants for just 50 slots.
The process from 1,900 to top 100 is fully algorithmic based on metrics like revenue scale, revenue growth,
Last week we hosted an AI segment called “What’s Next” with my former AI professor at
@Stanford
@AndrewYNg
. He pioneered the use of GPUs for deep learning and co-founded
@coursera
,
@Google
Brain, and
@AI_Fund
.
During his keynote, Andrew spoke about “What’s Next” for AI Agent
🧵 1) Today
@Sequoia
launched Seed Fund V to support the next generation of early-stage founders in the US & Europe, and opened applications for the 1st of 3 new Arc cohorts for 2023. 👇
1/ AI will deliver the biggest changes to the way we work since the PC and the internet. What does an enduring AI-native company look like? Will it follow the playbook of the PC era, or something quite different? Here's my take. 🧵👇
Don’t we all dream about getting more done—in less time? Sequoia is proud to partner with
@spolu
@gabhubert
and the team at
@dust4ai
on their mission to build smarter teams with generative AI.
Today in 1979
@DanB
and
@BobFrankston
gave the first public demonstration of VisiCalc, arguably the first "killer app" of the personal computer revolution. A big thank you to the inventors.
And take a listen to the
@planetmoney
VisiCalc episode, it is A+
How does someone with $1,000,000,000 of annual tech budget use AI? We got to ask CJ Desai, COO & President of
@ServiceNow
at our
@sequoia
2024 AI Ascent conference.
But first, some notable metrics:
▪ ServiceNow is the 3rd largest SaaS business in the world, with ARR of over
Before you jump on the AI bandwagon, read this. 👨🏻💻
We’ve been calling many different technologies AI for 50 years.
What we think of as AI is about to change again.⚡️
Some say privacy on the internet doesn't matter. We at Sequoia disagree. So does the team
@skiffprivacy
. People need to at least have the option of privacy. That's why we're excited to announce Skiff's $3.7M seed round today!
The team that created GitHub Copilot has spun out and created an AI hacker that performs as well as a 20-year veteran penetration tester — and at superhuman speeds. We backed them from day zero.
Why did Oege de Moor and his team at XBOW create an AI hacker? Because they knew
XBOW is the world’s first fully automated web pentester.
It previously scored an unprecedented 75% on renowned web pentesting benchmarks from
@PentesterLab
and
@PortSwigger
.
So we decided to give it a harder challenge: competing against humans.
Companies spend billions storing data, but few have the resources to extract valuable insights. Now
@Jure
,
@VanjaJosifovski
,
@raghavan_hema
& the Kumo team are giving companies a ‘20-person AI team in a box’ and making graph-based AI accessible to all
The creative spirits. The underdogs. The independent thinkers. The outliers.
@Sequoia
’s Arc is purpose-built to help these individuals build the next legendary company.🌲🌲🌲
Learn more here:
We
@sequoia
are so amped to partner with Alan and the Draftea team to help bring the first Daily Fantasy Sports app to Mexico! Alan played football professionally and studied law in Mexico before the Stanford GSB. He's gritty and he IS the customer- textbook founder fit.
80% of sales commission calculations contain errors (a process that's historically been managed in spreadsheets). That's why we
@sequoia
are excited to partner with
@captivateiq
as they help companies modernize sales commissions with automation.
There has been exciting news this week in AI. But our job is to focus on the next wave...the underdog so that they can come in and usher in the next wave of AI.
If
@Microsoft
came out with a phone with an AI inference chip built in, GPTChat integrated with
@bing
for search,
@OpenAI
Whisper for speech-to-text dictation, DALL·E 2 capabilities in their photo app, and an AI-native (GPT-powered) email
...then they would make
@Apple
dance.
Systems of Action >>> Systems of Record. AI will disrupt the SaaS stack by taking action, not just records. In sales, reps will spend more time in systems of action like
@Gong_io
,
@outreach_io
,
@captivateiq
, and
@clarihq
than the underlying CRM.
Woah- $13B! I am so proud of
@xanderatallah
and
@dfinzer
! Alex - you've always been a hard-working genius and you deserve this. As a freshman he built a dorm room FB 😆 and scraped the school directory to help me with a student body election (🙏😬).
In the past 100+ years only twelve companies have earned the title of most valuable public company in the US. Most recently Nvidia.
The majority of these companies are tied to major technology advancements. Four of which were types of computing (Mainframe, Personal, Mobile,
Dear Friends- if you are smart, ambitious, and have started a company in the past 12-months or plan to start one i the next month or so - please DM me and apply to Arc Sequoia. You will not regret it.
The rise of AI has ushered in an exponential rise in cyber attacks, and offensive security professionals can’t keep up. But
@XBOW
is fighting fire with fire. We are proud to partner with
@oegerikus
and his team and lead their seed round.
I didn’t expect to take external seed investment for
@xbow
. However, when
@kostabuhler
and
@laurenmhreeder
reached out on Xmas eve, we quickly discovered a common purpose, mapping out a path to change offensive security for good. Sequoia Capital is leading XBOW’s $20M seed
This is a big moment for
@skiffprivacy
and for
#Crypto
/ Web3. For the first time, Skiff has made online docs fully private (end-to-end encrypted) AND fully decentralized on the
@IPFS
through a partnership with
@protocollabs
And this is just the beginning! Web3 here we come!
🌐 We at Skiff are excited to share that we’ve removed our waitlist and integrated fully decentralized storage into Skiff via a collaboration with Protocol Labs.
Read more here 🚀🌐
1/
@DataBricks
has one of the most advanced Data Lakehouse and Analysis platforms in the world. Many leading enterprises rely on DataBricks as their enterprise source of truth.
Update: We closed the form and any inbound applications last night around midnight. Our talent team is reviewing apps and will reach out to the subset we're going to interview. Thanks to all who reached out and replied.
Today marks a profound moment of pride and reflection as we celebrate Greek Independence Day. As a citizen of both the USA and Greece, this day resonates deeply within my soul, embodying not just the history of a nation's fight for sovereignty, but also the universal yearning for
Amazing response and very excited to meet such brilliant, talented candidates. Heads up that this opportunity is in the USA only and is for US-based students and recent grads. Thank you!
From Idea to IPO...and Beyond.
DM me if you are building a generational company and are seeking a partner that will endure decades alongside you.
@sequoia
is built for the enduring founder and the generational company.
Today is a crucible moment in
@sequoia
’s journey. The traditional 10-year fund cycle of VC has become obsolete.
Enter: The Sequoia Fund. It removes all artificial time horizons on how long we can partner with companies. (1/3)
Google may synonymous with search, but it won't be forever. Search is unbundling into a wave of opportunities. New interfaces (Voice, Visual, and Veiled) are emerging and lower-funnel industry-specific search will flourish.
#AI
#search
#Software
@Forbes
Steve Jobs often referred to the personal computer as "a bicycle for our minds." In this month's
@Forbes
piece on
#ArtificialIntelligence
, I think through how Jobs may have extended his analogy for the AI revolution.
1/ Chaos. That sums up crypto this past year.
But to stop there would be a mistake. As Napoleon wrote, "The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies." The same can be said of the crypto market.
153 years ago today the transcontinental railroad was completed! The US was united with powerful new technology. Let's build bridges, railroads and rockets!
@LayerZero_Labs
this low key reminds me of your thesis :)
Facebook $FB is renaming to Meta. Both $FB and Roblox $RBLX are trying to be the Metaverse. Which is more likely the Metaverse leader in 2030?
IMO, Roblox. They have a younger audience, less controversy, and 10s of millions of users already in a metaverse. Plus
@DavidBaszucki
If every lock-maker in America was required to give the government a master key that could open all the locks they made, we would not stand for that. So, why do some tolerate this idea with encryption backdoors? Clear thoughts from my friend
@milichab
We may be in a boom, but capital efficiency is not dead! Capital efficient businesses eat inefficient businesses in the long-term. An eComm example from the last boom: WebVan raised $404M pre-IPO while Bezos raised only $9.2M pre-IPO and had a door as his desk. Efficiency wins.
Doctors are working harder than ever to treat patients as the U.S. physician shortage continues to grow. Here’s how AI is helping the healthcare industry when it comes to speed, cost, and accuracy.
Excited to share three major
@dust4ai
milestones:
1. Customers love the product. 70% weekly active over monthly active users. Strong retention. 100% NPS when Sequoia conducted our independent diligence calls with enterprise customers. Direct quotes from customers including “250
We just closed a $16m series A and passed $1m ARR with 70% WAU/MAU.
We have what it takes to build a global product that will reinvent how we do work and interact with machines in the workplace.
Time to reflect on the trajectory of Dust so far and the broader ecosystem⤵️🧵
2/ Generative AI is not new, but high-profile apps from
@OpenAI
@Midjourney
and
@Huggingface
have captured our collective imaginations and opened our minds to the endless possibilities AI can provide
Internet anonymity will take a huge leap forward, thanks to generative AI advancements by companies like
@NVIDIAAI
. Read my thoughts on the benefits and downsides of this new technology in my latest
@ForbesTech
piece.
We’re inspired by companies like
@skiffprivacy
, who we partnered with at seed. Where else are the biggest opportunities in privacy, autonomy and web3? What do you want to see in the world? Tell us: web3
@sequoiacap
.com.
Today marks the one-year anniversary of our original essay on Generative AI. Nobody could have predicted the firestorm that ensued.
In this new essay, we discuss what we got right and wrong, where we stand, and where we go from here.
Put yourself in the customer's shoes!
The
@captivateiq
founders epitomize that. They understand commission plans because for years they made commissions plans.
Four years in, they've raised another $100M at a $1.25B valuation to serve more customers!
Data in a data warehouse is like inventory in a warehouse: useless unless used. 🏭
To be useful to business teams there are two choices: 1) overworked data engineers or 2) a self-serve app.
@canvas
is that app!📊
Try it free:
8/ When we launched the
#ForbesAI50
almost five years ago artificial general intelligence felt like something that was a long way off. Today, the sci-fi future we once imagined feels closer than ever. Learn more here:
Dear SalesOps, CROs, AEs, BDRs, all variable comp champs -
@captivateiq
just raised a $46M Series B to better serve you. Automated, flexible, accurate commissions help you focus & win! DM me for an intro straight to the founders!
Covid-19 highlights a significant trend in artificial intelligence - drug discovery. Read my latest
@Forbes
piece on how researchers like
@StanfordHAI
’s
@Rbaltman
&
@TheRightStef
are leveraging AI to accelerate the fight against COVID-19.
As a partner to
#AI
and
#Automation
companies I look for software that elevates and enables employees, not replaces them. What are some more examples of automation softwares that elevate? One of my favorites is spreadsheets/VisiCalc
@DanB
@BobFrankston
.
@sequoia
often discusses slopes rather than intercepts, as Ravi Gupta crisply outlines in this fun conversation on 20 Minute VC. Thanks,
@HarryStebbings
.
Excited for
@TechCrunch
&
@jordanrcrook
to host the Pitches & Pitchers competition today at 1pm PT! Register to watch 6 early-stage founders pitch their startups & receive feedback from
@anthonyha
,
@etherington
, Anne Gifford & myself.
Update: Thank you for your interest and support. We were overwhelmed by amazing candidates and have reached out to our finalists via email. If you didn't get an email, don't be discouraged. There are many amazing opportunities out there in tech and VC. I'll put effort into
3/ Apps like
@runwayml
brought gen AI to the big screen with
@allatoncemovie
,
@Neeva
became the first AI-native search engine. There are few areas of productivity this technology isn't changing.
5/ Predictive infrastructure is helping to AI and ML data teams to label, clean, and process data critical for model training.
@scale_AI
is is joined by companies like
@CoactiveAI
@SnorkelAI
and
@HelloSurgeAI
to help devs build better models through better data.
11/ If you’re building a new AI-powered product we’re excited to see what you’re hard at work on. Consider applying to Arc, our seed stage catalyst, or contact me directly:
Today, we’re announcing the availability of Commure Scribe - an AI-powered, ambient documentation tool - for free in all of our existing provider products. Over 250,000+ providers, across 350+ facilities, 40+ health systems now have access to scribing.
Today: Skiff Mail launches. Private, end-to-end encrypted, open source email, with wallet login and more.
Thanks to
@pierce
for covering the Skiff Mail launch.
4/ Better generative AI infrastructure is leading to more useful LLMs.
@OpenAI
is betting big on Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF).
@AnthropicAI
is taking a different approach with their chatbot Claude, using Reinforcement Learning Constitutional AI (RL-CAI)
Digital communication was introduced 182 years ago today, when Samuel Morse demonstrated the Telegraph. Humble beginnings with intellectual descendants ranging from Fax to the Internet.
🧠Founders in AI🧠
🚨Only 72 hours left to apply for the
#AI50
!🚨
🇺🇸We started the annual Forbes AI 50 in 2019 to feature the 50 top AI upstarts in America🇺🇸
🚀Since then we have had over 1M reads leading to jobs, customers, funding, and better public understanding of AI🚀
5) The "oldie but goodie" remains enterprise SaaS - the cloud revolution isn't over, though the bar is raised for smarter, broader, more generalizable software.
6/ The predictive power of AI is enabling a proactive approach to digital and physical health and safety with
@AbnormalSec
providing protection of a company's cloud email environment and
@viz_ai
tackling disease detection and care coordination platform on the medical front.
CJ Desai, President and COO of
@ServiceNow
is also an open source maximalist. He’s eagerly awaiting more open source “Small Language Models that can boost efficiency” across their workflows