20VC Newsletter - 27th July 2025
Here are the transcripts and top takeaways from 20VC episodes released this last week.
Monday’s episode with Edwin Chen, Founder & CEO @ Surge AI:
Download the full transcript:
My 7 key takeaways:
The V1 for the Billion-Dollar Company and How It All Started.
I’ve worked in this space for a long time and had a clear vision on what to build.
I built V1 in a couple of weeks instead of waiting to fundraise & hire engineers.
There was already a giant demand.
Why Are Our Competitors are Just Human Body Shops With No Technology?
They do not have any algorithms to measure the quality of data they’re producing.
They hire anybody with a CS PhD & pass them along to AI companies.
They are body shops masquerading as a technology company.
The One Principle That This $30 Billion Company Will Not Let Slip.
Quality is the most important thing.
We will say no to a project if we cannot guarantee the quality.
It is more important than anything else.
Did Scales Acquisition Lead to a Tidal Wave in Scales Customers Coming to Surge?
Yes.
We are already the biggest & best in this space.
Even if teams at larger companies weren’t working with us, they already knew who to turn to.
Silicon Valley Is Full of Tourists That Have the Wrong Incentives
It is a status game for most people.
People are raising not because they want to build a product that solves an idea they fundamentally believe in.
They are raising so they can tell their friends they raised $10M and get a TechCrunch headline.
Why Synthetic Data Is Not All It Is Cracked up to Be, and How That Impacts the Future of Human Labelled Data.
Models trained heavily on synthetic data are only good at benchmark-style problems & terrible at real-world use cases.
We’ve heard from a lot of companies that trained on synthetic data for a year before realising all the problems it’s caused.
A couple thousand pieces of high-quality human-labelled data is worth more than 10 million pieces of synthetic data.
Have the Biggest Model Providers Been Created Today, or Will More Be Made in the Future?
No, there could be more powerful model developers emerging in the coming years.
We are still miles away from AGI.
There could still be extremely creative breakthroughs that nobody is expecting.
Thursday’s episode with Rory O'Driscoll, GP @ Scale & Jason Lemkin, Founder @ SaaStr:
Download the full transcript:
My 5 key takeaways:
I Would Invest in Anthropic Over OpenAI
Three reasons:
There is cap table clarity.
They’ve got a working business model.
They are exercise pricing power: We are seeing these unprofitable AI models becoming profitable.
Figma is cheap at this price but it is all part of the strategy.
Their IPO is priced at 14–16× NTM with a phenomenal growth rate.
This attracts investors: Low valuation hooks prospects into meetings and fuels demand buildup.
Underwriters will “walk up” the price later.
Anti-Portfolio Trauma is the Psychological Price You Have to Pay for Being in the Game
It is the emotional tax you pay for being in good deal flow.
If you’re not seeing 10 great deals you are probably not going to do one great deal.
The psychological tax for doing one great deal is you pass on nine deals or you don't win them.
The Best Investors Meet One Founder per Month That Can Return the Fund
If you are an S-tier investor, you need to meet with one fund-returning founder at least once a month.
You cannot do all the deals.
You have to meet 8-10 a year to make money.
Why Mega Funds Are Always Better for the Entrepreneur
They do more deals & have more news flow.
They have a good brand: Lower picking ratio x higher deal volume = Constant flow of good news.
They have massive amounts of capital: They can win deals, pay more, & have the option to stuff more money in later.
Thursday’s episode with Fernando Fanton, CPO @ Monzo:
Download the full transcript:
Behind the scenes:
The 10 Things That Happened in Tech This Week That Caught Our Attention:
Anthropic Eyes $100BN+ Valuation Amid Explosive Revenue Growth
Bloomberg reports Anthropic is raising again, this time at a $100BN+ valuation, just months after raising at $3.5BN. With $4BN in annualised revenue, the AI arms race is heating up fast. Is this sustainable or a 2021-style echo?
Apple Flirts With AI Acquisitions… But No Action Yet
First Perplexity, then Mistral. Apple has been linked to multiple potential AI acquisitions, yet hasn’t pulled the trigger. Is Apple paralysed, or playing a longer game in AI? Is this the start of Cupertino’s decline in the new era?
Cursor Nears $1BN ARR, Raises at $28BN. But Is It Too Dependent on Anthropic?
Cursor is growing insanely fast, but its deep reliance on Anthropic raises questions. What happens to the application layer when infra providers start to squeeze?
Lovable Hits $100M ARR in 7 Months, Raises at $2BN
Possibly the fastest growth in SaaS history. Lovable’s rise is jaw-dropping. But is it built to last? Or will AI-native competitors leapfrog them?
Substack Raises $100M Series C.. Wait What?
Just when everyone had written Substack off as a bust, it roars back with a massive raise. Are newsletters hot again… or is this a mirage?
ScaleAI Lays Off 200: Is It Now a “Rump” AI Company?
Layoffs at Scale raise tough questions. Is it just belt-tightening, or a sign the labeling giant is struggling in the foundation model era?
Salesforce Deploys 9,000 AI Agents. Signal or Noise?
Salesforce made headlines for deploying thousands of AI agents. But in an AI-native world, is that truly impressive? Or just catching up?
Seed VC Reckoning: Rob Go Says 90% of Funds Are Cooked
A must-read post from Rob Go at NextView outlines how mega-platforms and YC are swallowing the seed stage. Is this the end of the long tail?
Palantir at 90x Forward Sales, OpenDoor +190% in a Week. Are We Back in 2021?
Some public tech names are going parabolic again. But is this irrational exuberance, or are we entering a new paradigm?
RevenueCat Turns Down £500M M&A Offer. When Does That Make Sense?
In a rare move, RevenueCat passed on a half-billion-dollar exit. Are strategic acquirers undervaluing infra SaaS, or are founders overestimating TAM?
Let us know what your big takeaways from this week’s shows were in the comments below!
Thank you for reading, and don’t miss the great guests we have next week:
Monday episode: Brannin McBee, Founder & CDO @ CoreWeave
Thursday episode: Jason Lemkin & Rory O'Driscoll
Friday episode: 20Sales
Thank you for reading 20VC.
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