Uncapped #49 | Kevin Hartz & Bennett Siegel from A*

<p>Kevin Hartz and Bennett Siegel are co-founders and GPs at A*, a five year old early-stage venture capital firm with $1B in AUM. A* has invested in companies like Notion, Cape, Whop, Paraform, Simile, Krea, Mercor, Watney Robotics, Andera and others.</p>

<p>Kevin is also the co-founder of Eventbrite (NYSE: EB) and co-founder and board member of Xoom, an online money transfer service that IPO’d in 2013 and later acquired by PayPal for $1.1B. Notable investments, primarily at the seed/early stages, include PayPal, Airbnb, Pinterest, Reddit, Anduril, and Palantir among others. Bennett was previously a partner at Coatue building out their venture capital business where he invested in earliest financing rounds for Ramp and Decagon, among other investments. </p>

<p>We discussed how AI is reshaping venture capital, software, and startup building – from the rise of younger founders and AI researcher-led companies to the growing pressure on traditional software businesses. We also covered the changing economics of seed investing, the influx of mega funds into early-stage venture, AI rollups, robotics, and why this may become the biggest technology boom yet.</p>

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<p>Timestamps:</p>

<p>(0:00) Intro</p>

<p>(0:25) The A* Capital story</p>

<p>(1:16) Why big funds went into seed</p>

<p>(7:50) The mother of all bubbles</p>

<p>(10:46) Why founders are getting younger</p>

<p>(13:00) Mapping talent, not markets</p>

<p>(16:31) The rise of AI researcher founders</p>