Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman: Acquired by Meta | Microsoft Layoff 9000 People | OpenAI's Bombshell

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

July 10, 2025

Duration

1h 12m

Channel

The Twenty Minute VC

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Rory O’Driscoll is a General Partner @ Scale where he has led investments in category leaders such as Bill.com (BILL), Box (BOX), DocuSign (DOCU), and WalkMe (WKME), among others. Jason Lemkin is one of the leading SaaS investors of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Algolia, Talkdesk, Owner, RevenueCat, Saleloft and more. ----------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:08 Daniel Gross & Nat Friedman: Why Two Legendary VCs Walked Away From $1B to Join Meta 08:07 Meta’s AI Talent Magnet: Will It Actually Work? 15:38 Cursor Is Breaking the Market: Can Anyone Compete? 18:58 OpenAI’s SBC Bombshell: More Stock Comp Than Revenue 23:40 CoreWeave’s Power Play: Buying Their Landlords 27:50 Is Circle Next to Go Shopping with Meme Equity? 30:25 PE Is Back: The Olo Take-Private Explained 37:02 Why Triple, Triple, Double, Double Is No Longer Sexy 47:47 QSBS Hack: The Billionaire’s Tax Loophole You’re Missing 53:02 Microsoft’s AI Layoffs: Salespeople Are Dead, Long Live Engineers 55:54 “If You Need a Week to Learn AI, You Should Be Fired” 59:06 Kalshi Quick-Fire Round ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZ... Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Follow Harry Stebbings on X: / harrystebbings Follow Jason Lemkin on X: / jasonlk Follow Rory O’Driscoll on X: / rodriscoll Follow 20VC on Instagram: / 20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: / 20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/con... ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #roryodriscoll #jasonlemkin #ai #meta #openai #shaunmaguire

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Jason Lemkin

  guest

• Rory O’Driscoll

  guest

• Harry Stebbings

  host

• Narrator

  other

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Jason Lemkin and Rory O’Driscoll, Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman: Acquired by Meta | Microsoft Layoff 9000 People | OpenAI's Bombshell explores meta’s AI Talent Landgrab Reshapes Venture, PE, and Tech Careers The discussion centers on Meta hiring Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman away from their red‑hot AI fund, unpacking the financial math, LP impact, and what it signals about AI talent wars and venture incentives.

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