sriramkrishnan

The significance of smart people in small teams working on ambitious projects cannot be overstated. OpenAI is a case in point. Even with over 300 employees, OpenAI continues to operate with the agility and spirit of a very small startup. Upon speaking to several folks who are familiar with OpenAI, I am genuinely impressed by the achievements they have accomplished with projects like DALL-E and ChatGPT, despite having a relatively small team of project contributors.

In recent times, due to the current macro climate, I have observed many startup founders engaging in challenging conversations with VCs regarding missed milestones, the absence of product-market fit, and persistent struggles without any tangible progress. Some founders even find themselves in tricky situations as their VCs propose shutting the company down and returning capital to investors.

The 2020 to 2022 vintages for venture capital are nothing to write home about, yet. The only solace for many VC funds, large/small, new/old, and early/late stage, is that everyone is more or less in the same boat. Most funds I’ve spoken to now have a “higher bar” for what they want to invest in.

The current AI platform shift is an exciting time of tech innovation. Unlike previous shifts, such as personal computing, the internet, and mobile phones, this AI period is resulting in a rapid pace of innovation, with something new being developed every week.