Kevin Surace argues venture capital's cheap money era is ending. He cites a three-month-old startup seeking $8 billion with no product, warns such valuations will collapse, and tells founders to build toward profitability instead of assuming endless funding. Even giant companies with massive brand value face AI-driven disruption similar to Kodak's fall.
The assumption that you can always get money and it's almost free, this is going to change. I just saw a company that is 3 months old and they're going out for money at an $8 billion valuation. They haven't built anything yet. Smart people, 3 smart people, but $8 billion valuation, $8 billion. That is just not a sustainable thing, right? This will change. I just don't know when. So I would unlearn that right now and I'd start to build moats and start to build towards profitability because ultimately cash will be king. And these crazy valuations are not gonna hold up. What was worth $8 billion is gonna be worth $8 million or something, right? Or zero. So there's that. If you're at a large company, you think your brand is worth $100 billion or a trillion dollars or, or whatever it is. And AI is going to disrupt that for many of these companies, just like what happened to Kodak and others. And it's going to just crater the company.
