A company discussed on 20VC with Harry Stebbings.

ClickHouse CEO: AI Margins Need to Improve | Revenue Concentration Should be a Concern
Aug 31, 2026 · 1:05:57
Aaron Katz, co-founder and CEO of ClickHouse, tells Harry Stebbings the AI cycle is 'just getting started' — revenue growth is unprecedented, but the biggest risk is revenue durability because agentic apps have low switching costs. He accepts lower gross margins if expansion is possible, measures AI token spend by ROI, and predicts agents will have identities, budgets, and pick their own infrastructure. He argues open-weight models won't win the enterprise over trust concerns, and sees enterprises moving back on-prem. ClickHouse revenue went 0, 12, 50, 200, finishing north of 500 this year, with >200% NDR; Katz would take the under on $1B ARR by December 2027. He calls the $2B Series B with no product the priciest round; revenue concentration matters — AI customers are under 12% of revenue.

Only 10% of Neo-labs Will Survive | Factory CTO, Eno Reyes
Aug 29, 2026 · 1:29:23
Eno Reyes, Factory CTO, says the cheapest AI model isn't the cheapest system: outcome-based pricing can make frontier models cheaper, and predicts 99% of workflows will run on open models in three years but the remaining 1% holds most economic value. He calls 'Chinese models' a psyop by frontier labs, says frontier valuations are overweighted, sees Anthropic's $2 trillion Claude Code bet as risky due to model lock-in, and credits Microsoft with the best AI hand. Reyes says model routing is commoditized, warns 80-90% of neo labs could die in 18 months unless tied to durable workflows, and insists enterprises must own their intelligence rather than let labs control it. He rejects pedigree in hiring, wants token budgets funding outcomes, and expects SaaS to sell before cannibalization.

The AI Bubble WILL Burst | Should we be fearful of Chinese Open-Source | Jerry Murdock
Aug 22, 2026 · 1:10:09
Jerry Murdock, co-founder of Insight Partners, warns the AI bubble may burst by March if the Iran war continues, citing credit market complacency and Japan’s $1 trillion Treasuries. He predicts at least half of Neo Clouds disappear within 36 months, favors Fireworks over Base10, and argues open-source models plus ASIC chips will drive customization while frontier labs retain complex tasks. On security, he calls sandboxes the most underrated layer, naming Docker and E2B as leaders, and expects OpenRouter’s 5% markup to be disrupted by inference exchanges. He adds private equity is highly at risk to any financial dislocation, and in quick-fire bets Nvidia exceeds $10 trillion in five years while picking Meta as the Mag 7 short.

Stripe's $8B OpenRouter Bet | Anthropic's First Profit & The Math Behind Reaching $600B in Revenue?
Aug 20, 2026 · 1:17:47
Harry Stebbings, Jason Lemkin and Rory O'Driscoll analyze SpaceX's $60B Cursor takeover, Stripe's $7B OpenRouter deal, Anthropic's first profit, Silver Lake's $43B Workday bid and Lovable's $13.3B round, arguing all reward speed and growth over margin. Musk got Cursor at ~10x forward revenue; Microsoft, not Meta, is the real loser. OpenRouter is a niche that may vanish in five years, yet could become 20-30% of Stripe revenue. Anthropic's first profit on $11.5B Q2 revenue was inevitable at ~40% gross margin; only 2027-28 projected revenue matters for its IPO. Workday is a 5.3x-revenue system-of-record LBO baseline versus 70x trailing for OpenRouter, and Higgsfield's $5.5B and Lovable's $13.3B are compared to Cursor, with Lovable 'not radically off' as AI apps accrete moats.

Frontier Labs Threatened by Kimi? Should the US Ban Chinese Open-Source Models & Stripe Buys PayPal
Jul 23, 2026 · 1:27:39
Harry Stebbings, Jason Lemkin, and Rory O'Driscoll debate China's near-frontier open-weight models Kimi and Quan, arguing the US should not ban them but compete. They discuss OpenAI's 'AI Communism' tweet, the commoditized inference market leading OpenRouter to consider sale while Fireworks AI hits $1B ARR at $17.5B valuation. The panel notes the application layer has not arrived, with infrastructure spending far exceeding app revenues. They analyze the Stripe-Advent bid to take PayPal private at ~$60B, predicting a 35% premium deal. Finally, they touch on Databricks' $188B Series M, nuclear energy progress, and the strange inversion of private and public markets.
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