Vince Hankes: Why We Put $300M into OpenAI; Sam Altman's Pitch; Lessons from Josh Kushner | E1009

ℹ️ EPISODE INFO

Released

May 3, 2023

Duration

56m

Channel

The Twenty Minute VC

Watch on YouTube

▶ Open ↗

📝 EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Vince Hankes is a Partner @ Thrive Capital where he has led the firm’s investments in OpenAI, Melio, and Airplane.dev. He currently sits on the board of Airtable, Benchling, Lattice, and Melio. Prior to joining Thrive, Vince was an investor at Tiger Global where he learned the craft of venture from the legend that is Lee Fixel. -------------------------------------- Timestamps: 0:00 Who is Vince Hankes? 10:22 AI: Hype or Generational Defining Transformation 14:11 How Thrive Capital Invested in OpenAI 22:23 How Will OpenAI Commoditize? 33:17 AI Regulation 45:40 Biggest Investment Mistakes and Wins 50:18 Quick-Fire Round -------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode with Vince Hankes We Discuss:

1. From Tiger Global to Partner @ Thrive Capital: How Vince made his way into the world of investing with Tiger Global? What are 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from working alongside the legendary Lee Fixel? Why did Vince make the move from Tiger to Thrive? How do the two firms differ?

1. The OpenAI Investment: The Memo: How did the OpenAI deal come to be? What were the round dynamics? Market Evaluation: How did Vince and the team analyze the market top down? Competition: Who did Vince identify as the core competitors to OpenAI? Defensibility: How did Vince think through the long term defensibility of OpenAI’s model? Does Vince believe these models will become commoditised? Price: How did Vince and the team get comfortable with the $29BN price?

1. AI: Hype or Generational Defining Transformation: Trend or Transformation: Why does Vince believe AI will be the defining technology of our generation? Startup vs Incumbent: Does Vince think the value will accrue to the incumbent or the startup? Open or Closed: Does Vince think we will operate in a closed (one model rules them all) environment or an open-source environment with many models? AI Talent: Where does Vince think the majority of the best AI talent will concentrate? Speed: Why would Vince be scared if he were a startup today looking at the incumbents?

1. The Changing Investor: Lessons from Good and Bad: How has Vince changed most significantly as an investor over time? What has been his single biggest investing mistake? How did he learn from it? What has been his biggest investing success? How did that change his mindset? What has Thrive done in their org structure to allow them to make bets very few other firms can do? -------------------------------------- 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 Vince Hankes on Twitter: https://twitter.com/vhankes Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vc_reels 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 -------------------------------------- @VinceHankes @ThriveCapital @HarryStebbings

🎤 SPEAKERS

• Vince Hankes

  guest

• Harry Stebbings

  host

🧾 EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of The Twenty Minute VC, featuring Vince Hankes and Harry Stebbings, Vince Hankes: Why We Put $300M into OpenAI; Sam Altman's Pitch; Lessons from Josh Kushner | E1009 explores why Thrive Backed OpenAI: Inside Vince Hankes’ High-Conviction AI Bet Vince Hankes, partner at Thrive Capital, explains his evolution from financial rigor at Tiger Global to founder- and product-centric investing at Thrive. He walks through Thrive’s decision to invest roughly $300M in OpenAI at a $29B valuation, emphasizing instinct, technological discontinuity, and potential to rival search-scale opportunities over precise TAM modeling. Hankes discusses how he evaluates AI’s hype versus reality, why he expects most value to accrue at the application layer, and how OpenAI’s ecosystem and infrastructure orientation can defend against commoditization. He also reflects on trust-building with founders, internal culture at Thrive under Josh Kushner, lessons from missing Canva, and how great investing blends empathy for customers with quantitative discipline.

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