20VC Newsletter - 6th April 2025
Here are the transcripts and top takeaways from 20VC episodes released this last week.
Monday’s episode with Kevin Scott, CTO @ Microsoft:
Download the full transcript:
My 7 key takeaways:
Why It Is the Best Time to Be Alive if You Are a Builder and Why Product Is Everything
People forget that the only thing that matters is making good product.
Models are not products.
We are figuring out something completely new – have conviction, get stuff done fast, and iterate.
Scaling Laws are BS
There will likely be a point when we hit a scaling asymptote but it is nowhere close at the moment.
I can clearly see what we’re doing now & what we’re doing next.
I don’t see the limit to the scaling laws.
What We Do Not Know About Data That I Wish We Knew
We do not have anything around data assessment.
We don’t really know how much value each token of data adds to a model.
Early measurements show there is a big disconnect between perceived & actual data impact.
Why We Will Have Many Agents Not One Agent for Everything
Your product managers will be domain experts.
They will need to set up feedback loops that help the agents.
The agents will become better at their jobs through the users.
The Future of Agents: Less Transactional, More Independent
The first generation of agents will be good at 5-second tasks; the next generation will be good at 5-minute tasks.
The current generation of agents is very interactive: you send a prompt and it does it immediately.
The next generation should be able to work on increasingly complex tasks over time in the background.
The Best Advice I Ever Received From the CTO @ Microsoft
You can group an individual/team’s competencies on a histogram into 3 buckets: Idiot, mediocre, and genius.
People put too much effort trying to improve the things they’re worst at & not what they’re mediocre at.
It is easier to construct a team that compliments each other.
Biggest Leadership Lesson From Satya Nadella
His core leadership principle is to create energy and produce clarity for people.
He always tries to make sure the energy in a conversation is positive.
People leave reviews and conversations with the energy to tackle the hard work ahead of them.
Thursday’s episode, our first ever LIVE show with Jason Lemkin @ SaaStr, Bhavin Shah @ Moveworks & Andrew Feldman @ Cerebras:
Join every week for more live content.
Friday’s episode with Ishan Mukherjee, Co-Founder & CEO @ Rox:
Download the full transcript:
Behind the scenes:
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: Ernie Garcia, Founder & CEO @ Carvana
Wednesday episode: Tamar Yehoshua, President of Product and Technology @ Glean
Friday episode: Live episode
Thank you for reading 20VC.
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