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"We're in an Era of Agent-to-Agent War." Index Ventures on AI & Cybersecurity

Shardul Shah, Partner at $17B Index Ventures, joins Sourcery from the firm's NYC office to discuss its investments in Anthropic, Wiz, Datadog, Simile, Parallel, and the next generation of AI companies. Shardul joined Index in 2008 and has backed some of the most important companies in cloud infrastructure and cybersecurity, including Wiz, acquired by Google for $32B. We discuss why startup valuations will keep rising, how Index invests in founders before they even have a business plan, the firm's approach to conviction and concentration, the future of cybersecurity in an agent-to-agent world, and the evolving IPO and M&A markets. Shardul also shares how Index invested over $250M in Wiz, why the firm has historically underestimated its biggest winners, and how it identifies the next generation of category-defining founders. Shardul Shah: https://x.com/shardul_shah Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/inside-%2417b-index-ventures-anthropic-wiz-datadog-the/id1738124704?i=1000799390919 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/26H725LZnqOabEuUbQylJU?si=PnYzzQPCQTicpbl2t24Bkw 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 • Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Harvey—The AI platform built for legal work, is helping the best firms and companies close deals faster. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 build with Harvey. Visit: http://harvey.ai/ • Zone—develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com • Mercor—The human intelligence behind frontier AI. Frontier labs and leading enterprises use Mercor to turn the knowledge of 5M+ experts into the data, evals and benchmarks that make AI better at real work. Visit: http://mercor.com/sourcery • VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com • Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery • Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery Follow Sourcery for the latest updates! https://www.sourcery.vc Disclosure: Paid Ad. Agents are an experimental AI tool. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public Holding’s, Inc. makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. Brokerage accounts and services provided by Open to the Public Investing, Inc. See additional disclosures at https://public.com/disclosures/agenticdisclosures. 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Shardul Shah, Partner at Index Ventures (00:54) How venture has changed in the last 5 years (04:00) Index's biggest investments (05:35) What Index looks for when backing founders (08:41) Will AI replace venture capital? (09:17) What’s durable when AI moves this fast? (11:35) Why Index doesn't worry about valuations (15:12) "We're no longer an underdog" (16:33) The hardest part of winning deals (17:22) Inside Index's investment committee (18:25) The founder who proved his investor wrong (21:13) The lessons behind saying no and thinking bigger (22:59) The next wave of AI founders (26:10) Inside Flapping Airplanes (26:47) Did Wiz sell too early? (30:56) How much money do startups really need? (33:55) Concentration vs diversification (35:43) Why venture fund cycles are getting shorter (37:13) The changing IPO and M&A environment (39:41) What 3 decades of returns look like (41:25) The person behind Shardul's biggest decisions

Shardul ShahguestMolly O'Sheahost

Nov 2, 202644mWatch on YouTube ↗

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EPISODE INFO

Released: November 2, 2026
Duration: 44m
Channel: Sourcery with Molly O'Shea
Watch on YouTube: ▶ Open ↗

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Shardul Shah, Partner at $17B Index Ventures, joins Sourcery from the firm's NYC office to discuss its investments in Anthropic, Wiz, Datadog, Simile, Parallel, and the next generation of AI companies. Shardul joined Index in 2008 and has backed some of the most important companies in cloud infrastructure and cybersecurity, including Wiz, acquired by Google for $32B. We discuss why startup valuations will keep rising, how Index invests in founders before they even have a business plan, the firm's approach to conviction and concentration, the future of cybersecurity in an agent-to-agent world, and the evolving IPO and M&A markets. Shardul also shares how Index invested over $250M in Wiz, why the firm has historically underestimated its biggest winners, and how it identifies the next generation of category-defining founders. Shardul Shah: https://x.com/shardul_shah Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/in/podcast/inside-%2417b-index-ventures-anthropic-wiz-datadog-the/id1738124704?i=1000799390919 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/26H725LZnqOabEuUbQylJU?si=PnYzzQPCQTicpbl2t24Bkw 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒
• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery
• Harvey—The AI platform built for legal work, is helping the best firms and companies close deals faster. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 build with Harvey. Visit: http://harvey.ai/
• Zone—develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com
• Mercor—The human intelligence behind frontier AI. Frontier labs and leading enterprises use Mercor to turn the knowledge of 5M+ experts into the data, evals and benchmarks that make AI better at real work. Visit: http://mercor.com/sourcery
• VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com
• Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery
• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery Follow Sourcery for the latest updates! https://www.sourcery.vc Disclosure: Paid Ad. Agents are an experimental AI tool. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public Holding’s, Inc. makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. Brokerage accounts and services provided by Open to the Public Investing, Inc. See additional disclosures at https://public.com/disclosures/agenticdisclosures. 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Shardul Shah, Partner at Index Ventures (00:54) How venture has changed in the last 5 years (04:00) Index's biggest investments (05:35) What Index looks for when backing founders (08:41) Will AI replace venture capital? (09:17) What’s durable when AI moves this fast? (11:35) Why Index doesn't worry about valuations (15:12) "We're no longer an underdog" (16:33) The hardest part of winning deals (17:22) Inside Index's investment committee (18:25) The founder who proved his investor wrong (21:13) The lessons behind saying no and thinking bigger (22:59) The next wave of AI founders (26:10) Inside Flapping Airplanes (26:47) Did Wiz sell too early? (30:56) How much money do startups really need? (33:55) Concentration vs diversification (35:43) Why venture fund cycles are getting shorter (37:13) The changing IPO and M&A environment (39:41) What 3 decades of returns look like (41:25) The person behind Shardul's biggest decisions

SPEAKERS

Shardul Shah
guest
Partner at Index Ventures focused on infrastructure, security, and AI investing.
Molly O'Shea
host
Host of the Sourcery podcast and writer of the Sourcery.vc newsletter.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode of Sourcery with Molly O'Shea, featuring Shardul Shah and Molly O'Shea, "We're in an Era of Agent-to-Agent War." Index Ventures on AI & Cybersecurity explores index Ventures on taste-driven VC, AI durability, and conviction-led deals Shardul Shah says venture has “industrialized” over the past five years, and Index Ventures tries to stand out through taste, relationships, and judgment rather than pattern-based filtering.

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