Would you still go into early stage VC today?
Have an offer to join a decent early stage fund, but with the whole AI situation at the moment, I’m somewhat concerned about where the industry is heading. Any thoughts / suggestions?
Your concern is understandable. Though you could look at some of the following aspects to base your decision on:
- your message indicates it's a "decent" early stage fund. If that observation if based on the size and/or track record of the fund, it's surely worth a serious thought. Bigger funds may have multiple themes of focus creating required diversification in the portfolio assets and in turn career stability and growth
- any specific sector of focus? If that is very leaned to areas which could have severe impact of AI advancing, then worth reconsidering. Though arguably, the GP would themselves be looking to diversify a bit away from those likely effected sectors
- your personal interactions with GP. That is on the softer side if the interactions were encouraging or gave required comfort or showed clear path for progression within the fund
- lastly, the decision could be based on what alternative options you have. If there is something that is more appealing, then it's easier to decide
Overall, for your specific situation, AI concerns shouldn't be the only thing you should be looking at.
Good thing I read through the comments before posting because I wouldn't want to be accused of copy-pasting your work.
Does this fund have a good enough name and seniors to get good deal flow? That’s all VC is
Sir are you having a stroke
Thanks, it’s an emerging manager, but has made some good investments in the last couple of years
100% on VC - way better opportunities and the AI risk is mostly for incumbent enterprise SaaS that will get kicked to the curb.
VC there’s a longer time horizon to survive if you’re at an established manager, more opportunities to find early stage AI deals that can 10x+ etc.
No one in venture is afraid that venture investing itself is going to die, the existential dread is really hitting bloated growth buyout shops and massive enterprise SaaS PE investors as they’ve only really existed for the past 15 years or so (Golden Age of SaaS buyouts from like 2005-current).
Venture can also be way more flexible from a mandate perspective and maneouver around this Vs the 50 JAMMBO SaaS PE investors that are all mandated to look for bootstrapped software companies to buyout lol
Thanks, that’s helpful and makes sense. I guess the reality is that it’s ultimately up to me and how I perform. The potential upside and responsibility is exciting, but the downside risk of not being a great investor and plateauing at a relatively mediocre salary compared to IB is scary.
Succeeding in VC isn't even about being s grest investor. It's nowadays more about networking and having the right connections, often times even before leaving college. Look at how a lot of the large AI startups have founders who already knew VCs from STEM events before finishing undergrad
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