What round size is mentioned for the Thrive investment in OpenAI?

Jason M. LemkinCEO, SaaStr · Co-Founder of SaaStr AI, SaaStr Fund, Adobe Sign

VC Secrets: Focus on Your Top 1-2 Winners! #shorts

14 Dec 2025 · 1 min

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A short video (YouTube #shorts) in which two speakers discuss venture-capital strategy: VCs should concentrate resources and attention on their top one or two winning portfolio companies because returns are strongly power-law distributed. They cite Thrive’s large investment in OpenAI (referred to in the transcript as a "70 billion round") and describe the reputational/halo and loyalty effects of backing a major winner.

Questions this video answers

A '70 billion round' (as stated in the transcript).

Chapters

The one thing that is kind of interesting to it is it's a reminder and this can be a little soul crushing. As a founder, there's like only a couple of deals that matter to VCs. So when you, you'll see a VC stay on a board for 20 years and you'll see them always hanging out with this one CEO. And Thrive has a lot of winners, right? But this is a big winner, right? And so anything you can do to go deeper with those founders on your one or two winners, it's just, it's power law on steroids. But I think it's a part about going as deep with your winner as humanly possible. Still going deep on your winners.
The whole trick in venture is we try and pretend we matter, but in our hearts we know our best companies matter. And the best marketing you can do is get as close as possible to your biggest deals and Thrive to give them huge credit, put a bunch of money in to OpenAI in that I think was a 70 billion round and were there for Sam in the great fiasco of two years ago. So my guess is he's pretty darn loyal and this is a chance for them to get a halo effect as they on this initiative. But it's a huge halo effect because you know, as your last speaker said, you know, you go in with the OpenAI moniker and you get some real attention. So it's awesome for Thrive.