Bill Gurley

Traditional company building isn't spend $100 or $150 million a year in cash burn.

But all the big AI companies are doing that.

Maybe more.

I think OpenAI said they're going to bid $7 billion in a year.

That's not your grandfather's startup business or your grandfather's venture capital.

That's a radically different world.

And if you're a founder, you'd like to think the advice is, well, ignore all that and build your company the way you want to build it.

But if your competitor raises $300 million and is going to 10x the size of their Salesforce or 50x it,

You will be dead before you know it.

You won't be around.

So you are forced to play the game on the field.

I guess the good news is because these investors are so eager to throw money at you, you can probably take founder liquidity.

I think that's bad for the company's potential long term success.

But.

Because it fits with their strategy, they're all encouraging it.

And so I guess there'd be no reason not to.

If someone's going to pay 30x revenue and force you to play a game that you're not comfortable playing by burning hundreds of millions a year, you should probably take a little off the table.

I think it's bad for the ecosystem that we are going to remove all the small and middle outcomes and just play Grand Slam home run ball all day long.

But that's what it feels like to me.

And it feels like we didn't learn anything from the Zerp days.