Short transcript of a conversation led by Jason M. Lemkin about how seed investing changes in the fast-moving AI era. Lemkin argues the classic thesis—bet on top founders plus innovation—still matters but is more fragile because rapid iteration and many near-duplicates can appear quickly; durable advantages may arise from deep technical layers (e.g., AI agents) and scale. The dialogue questions whether early explosive progress is defensible and whether market moats accrue over time.
Chapters
What the hell does seed investing mean when anything, even with progress, you might see 10 better versions in 30 days.
What does that mean you do then? I'm a student of this business. Yeah.
What do you do for seed? I think, I don't know. We should ask the new benchmark guy who's smarter than me. But for me I think the answer is is the old one. I just. I'm worried it won't hold. Which is the innovation plus the best founders get there. You've got to still bet on the best founders. You just can't take that early first month explosion as seriously as you used to. It's not as defensible that innovation. But if you have the best founders, what else are you going to bet on?
The interesting question is to your point on doing Gamma at 2 billion, do you think that same statement is so fast forward now Gamma, you're doing 100 million in ARR. Do you think the next clone who starts at zero can catch up or do you think over time that the distribution moat, the market brand leader moat, do you think some kind of moats accrue over time with scale? Or do you think everything's up for grabs all the time?
No, no, I just think that. No, what I think is there is a plane of stability that is leaner than it used to be, that is still fragile. I'll give you an example. So at Replit, whatever, I don't have the ACT numbers. Let's say they go 1 to 250 this year. It's going to be less than lovable. Harry will stipulate it's not as good as lovable. Okay, but, but here's the thing. What has happened in Replit is most of the competition can't build the AI agent. They can. So even Bolt, which was the early leader, they're now distant number three. They don't even have an AI agent anymore. They've outsourced it to Claude. And so these products that are really, really good are building a deep layer of sophistication.
