Jason M. Lemkin says venture capital is in an unprecedented gold rush: faster, bigger, and more inclusive than before. Market shocks now recover in days instead of months. OpenAI's claim of 1,000% growth by 2029 is driving massive capital deployment, reaching 17-year-old founders and high school dropouts. But Lemkin warns the focus on fundamentals is slipping.
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This is just— we— I think even in VC and LP land, we live in this new news cycle. So like I had a company close a unicorn round on, I think, April 7th. There was actually a downturn in venture because of the Nasdaq, right? We had these Trump— Trump drama. I think the stock market fell 15%, didn't it? Nasdaq or something. And then everyone was freaking out in growth stage VCs for at least 3 days, for at least 3 days. And already this company that did a unicorn round has an offer to do a top-up round at an even higher valuation. So like we, like, you know, we used to be when there was a downturn or something, it would have shocks for the system for at least a few months, right? Now the shock, the shock doesn't even last until the next 20 VC comes out, right? So it's just, I hear all this stuff, but all I see is a gold rush. All I see is gold rush in the SF Bay Area. All I see, OpenAI says they're going to grow 1,000% by 2029. Everyone's just looking to make an insane amount of money. And they don't care about the nickels and dimes and the casualties, and they will deploy every dollar they can. I think we can talk about liquidity and all this, but I honestly think that today is a much bigger gold rush than 2021 or other times. We get— I've never seen such a gold— because this gold rush goes all the way down to high school kids. Like, this gold rush is up and down the stack of tech, and it's both fun and a little cynical and a little crazy, but it's— this is You know, in the 2020 gold rush, you had to be a crusty old B2B guy, right, that had been doing this for years or have something in consumer. Now every 17-year-old kid is dropping out. I mean, Harry, you know what this is like, but they're dropping out and they're in the gold rush and it's glorious and weird and risky and full of baloney. But I've never seen anything like this gold rush. Never.
