Neil Mehta

Of course, you look at a bird and they flap their wings. I got to replicate that. And the Wright brothers are like, wait a second. The laws of aerodynamics are the laws of aerodynamics. You're not going to change the laws of aerodynamics. You just have to figure out how to make fixed wing flight work. And of course, they make it work.

Of course, you look at a bird and they flap their wings. I got to replicate that. And the Wright brothers are like, wait a second. The laws of aerodynamics are the laws of aerodynamics. You're not going to change the laws of aerodynamics. You just have to figure out how to make fixed wing flight work. And of course, they make it work.

And I think business is the same, which is like the laws of great businesses are the laws of great businesses. We know how this works. Did you delight customers? Do you break trade-offs to create something operational or technically really great? Do you have a competitive advantage? Is it a large market?

And I think business is the same, which is like the laws of great businesses are the laws of great businesses. We know how this works. Did you delight customers? Do you break trade-offs to create something operational or technically really great? Do you have a competitive advantage? Is it a large market?

Whenever we've screwed up at Green Oaks, it's usually been because we ignored the laws of crypto. No, no, you don't need a board in crypto. Don't worry about it. No, no, you don't need an auditor. It's not a thing that you need. You don't need to delight customers. It has nothing to do with customers. It has something to do with price movement and fund flows.

Whenever we've screwed up at Green Oaks, it's usually been because we ignored the laws of crypto. No, no, you don't need a board in crypto. Don't worry about it. No, no, you don't need an auditor. It's not a thing that you need. You don't need to delight customers. It has nothing to do with customers. It has something to do with price movement and fund flows.

You know, it makes sense to me, but I guess the laws are different this time. They never are. And so we absolutely look at evals and R1 benchmark and figure out, wow, DeepSeek figured out a way to deploy a model at the 35x reduction for input-output tokens on a comparative basis to OpenAI's reasoning models. That's a pretty impressive feat.

You know, it makes sense to me, but I guess the laws are different this time. They never are. And so we absolutely look at evals and R1 benchmark and figure out, wow, DeepSeek figured out a way to deploy a model at the 35x reduction for input-output tokens on a comparative basis to OpenAI's reasoning models. That's a pretty impressive feat.

What are the takeaways in terms of competitive advantage for OpenAI's model on a comparative basis to others? That's a really interesting question. But what we try not to do at GreenOaks is get excited about that development. and then deploy our time and effort, eventually invest a lot of capital just based on that.

What are the takeaways in terms of competitive advantage for OpenAI's model on a comparative basis to others? That's a really interesting question. But what we try not to do at GreenOaks is get excited about that development. and then deploy our time and effort, eventually invest a lot of capital just based on that.

We try to bring the abstraction level back up to what does this mean for customers? And then we work backwards from that. So when we talk about the model companies, our reaction has been like these large CapEx spends. My feeling has been, and by the way, I've been wrong.

We try to bring the abstraction level back up to what does this mean for customers? And then we work backwards from that. So when we talk about the model companies, our reaction has been like these large CapEx spends. My feeling has been, and by the way, I've been wrong.

If you look at the valuations of these businesses, the investment that you have to make versus the payoff you get, and then the fact that you have to make that investment 12 months later, and there seems to be like a pretty fast catch up. It just didn't strike me as in the laws of business is a great business model.

If you look at the valuations of these businesses, the investment that you have to make versus the payoff you get, and then the fact that you have to make that investment 12 months later, and there seems to be like a pretty fast catch up. It just didn't strike me as in the laws of business is a great business model.

Of course, ChachiBT has proven that you can build a consumer business on top of it.

Of course, ChachiBT has proven that you can build a consumer business on top of it.

I used to think about this a lot, especially when we were starting, because in our first many funds, people would ask us. They'd have a list of other firms they'd ask us about and be like, what about these guys? What about these guys? I found that, first of all, if we're going to screw it up or lose, it's usually something we're going to do internally.

I used to think about this a lot, especially when we were starting, because in our first many funds, people would ask us. They'd have a list of other firms they'd ask us about and be like, what about these guys? What about these guys? I found that, first of all, if we're going to screw it up or lose, it's usually something we're going to do internally.

It's almost always we've internally messed something up that has led us astray. And just getting this stuff right internally, that's hard enough. So I don't spend that much time anymore thinking about the competitive dynamic in our industry. I would actually argue it has become much less competitive. It's counterintuitive. Think about what we're doing.

It's almost always we've internally messed something up that has led us astray. And just getting this stuff right internally, that's hard enough. So I don't spend that much time anymore thinking about the competitive dynamic in our industry. I would actually argue it has become much less competitive. It's counterintuitive. Think about what we're doing.