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Daniel Khachab: "We Are in the Middle of a Cold War for AI Talent" | E1220

Daniel Khachab is the co-founder and CEO of Choco. Today, Choco’s AI platform facilitates half of all food traded in major cities like New York, Paris, London, and Berlin, cutting food waste and streamlining distribution. Since its founding in 2018, Choco has raised $330 million from Bessemer, Coatue (its first European investment), and Insight, reaching unicorn status within 2.5 years. Previously, Daniel was the youngest Managing Director at Rocket Internet, where he oversaw growth across Latin America, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (01:02) Pivoting from SaaS to AI (05:00) Which Jobs Have Changed Most & Which Will Change Slowest? (06:31) Where Is AI Impact Truly Significant & Where Is It Still Lagging? (08:33) Is SaaS Ending, Marking a Shift to AI-Driven Software? (10:44) Is Europe a Decade Away from Adopting an AI-Driven SaaS Ecosystem? (14:07) Should Foundation Models Build Apps or Enable an App Ecosystem? (16:48) Does AI Lead to Job Loss or New Opportunities? (23:05) About an AI Talent Cold War (25:48) With London’s AI Ecosystem, Why Base in Berlin? (29:21) How Can Europe Strengthen Its AI Position in Chips, Models, and Energy? (34:43) How Does Regulatory Fragmentation Across Countries Impact AI? (36:52) If Ambition Is Key, Why Not Expand to the US or UAE? (38:39) Covid Time (47:37) On Work-Life Balance (48:53) Lesson on Fundraising (56:41) Why Spain is the Worst Market for Choco (58:45) Raise to Compete or Avoid the Frenzy (01:01:54) Quick-Fire Round ----------------------------------------------- From Seed to $1BN in 30 Months: 1. We Killed a $BN SaaS Business to be AI First: Why does Daniel believe that SaaS is dead? What does an AI-first company mean? Why does Daniel believe AI-first companies will win the next 10 years? What foundation models does Daniel and Choco use today? How has the cost of using different models changed? What categories are vulnerable to being attacked with vertical products from the foundation model providers? 2. Europe is F*******: Why and What To Do: Why does Daniel believe Europe is at a massive disadvantage in the next 10 years of AI? Chips: What can Europe do to encourage chip production and manufacturing to take place on European soil? Energy: What can European governments do to encourage energy providers and new forms of renewable energy to innovate to provide the energy AI needs? Talent: Why does Daniel believe AI talent is the hardest problem that Europe faces? What can governments in EU do to resolve this problem? 3. Lessons Scaling to $1BN in 30 Months: Does Daniel regret raising at a $1.1BN valuation? Why did he throw a unicorn party with the round? Why does he regret it so much? What did Daniel spend money on that he wish he had not spent money on? What did Daniel not spend money on that with the benefit of hindsight, they should have spent money on? When your competition raises a lot of funding, does that mean you should also? ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Daniel Khachab on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanielKhachab Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #20vc #harrystebbings #danielkhachab #choco #venturecapital #ceo #founder #fundraising #worklifebalance

Daniel KhachabguestHarry Stebbingshost
Oct 27, 20241h 17mWatch on YouTube ↗

At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Founder Declares SaaS Dead, Warns of Global Cold War for AI

  1. Daniel Khachab, founder and CEO of Choco, explains why his company pivoted from being a classic SaaS marketplace to becoming AI‑first, with 100% of new revenue coming from AI products. He argues that large language models erode traditional software moats, pushing companies toward “agentification” where software behaves like autonomous employees rather than static tools. Khachab predicts that great companies will become smaller, more automated, and that only truly AI‑first companies will win, while emphasizing the painful labor implications of automation and the need to upskill entire organizations.
  2. He and host Harry Stebbings discuss Europe’s structural disadvantages in AI—chips, energy, and foundation models—plus a ‘cold war’ among governments competing to attract top AI talent with aggressive incentives. The conversation also covers fundraising discipline, European tech culture and regulation, crisis leadership through COVID, and a long‑term, almost masochistic definition of what it takes to be a generational founder.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Treat AI as a core product shift, not a feature add‑on.

Khachab moved Choco so that a majority of new and future revenue comes from AI products, arguing that if most value comes through APIs and agents, companies must structurally reorient to building with AI across every function rather than sprinkling AI into legacy products.

Assume your software moat will shrink; attack your own business.

He believes LLMs will allow competitors to replicate years of code in days, so the defensible move is to disrupt yourself first—focusing future moats on proprietary data, relationships, and distribution instead of code alone.

Design for agents, not UIs: software becomes an ‘employee.’

Khachab predicts most business software will be controlled by natural language prompts, with far less traditional UI; designers will craft agent “characters” and behaviors, and sales/marketing will sell AI ‘employees’ (scalable up or down) rather than feature lists.

Use AI to upskill and shrink teams, not just cut costs.

He sees a future where great companies get smaller in headcount, automating repetitive roles like customer support and account management, while simultaneously rushing to give remaining employees deep AI skills so they remain relevant in the market.

Recognize the emerging geopolitical ‘cold war’ for AI talent and infrastructure.

Governments in the US, UK, UAE, and Saudi are actively courting AI founders with visas and subsidized salaries, while pouring capital into chips and energy; Khachab argues Europe currently lacks AI sovereignty on all three fronts.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

I think SaaS is dead. It’s the agentification of SaaS.

— Daniel Khachab

Someone is going to disrupt us with this technology. Scenario two is it’s actually us doing that.

— Daniel Khachab

If you were to leave Choco tomorrow and you would not have the skills on how to build with AI, then your skillset will be obsolete.

— Daniel Khachab

In Europe today, we’re not producing the chips, we’re not producing the energy, we don’t have the foundational layer models.

— Daniel Khachab

Who the fuck wants to be a rainbow‑colored pony? I don’t want to be a unicorn.

— Daniel Khachab

Why Choco pivoted from traditional SaaS to AI‑first productsThe ‘agentification’ of software and Khachab’s belief that SaaS is deadWorkforce impact of AI: job automation, reskilling, and hard layoffsAI talent cold war and geopolitical race for chips, energy, and modelsEurope vs US/Middle East: regulation, capital, and founder mindsetCrisis leadership and company culture, especially during COVIDFundraising philosophy, unicorn valuations, and building generational companies

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