Why the most expensive Seed deals are the cheapest | E2299
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What is the impact of the upcoming SpaceX IPO on the venture capital market?
Hello and welcome back to Twist. Today is Wednesday, June 10th, 2026. And if it's a Wednesday here on Twist, you know that means it's venture capital roundtable time. This week in Startups is brought to you by Netsuite. The business landscape is very chaotic right now. That's why you need Netsuite by Oracle. Get the free business guide demystifying AI at Netsuite.comslash twist. Deal. Founders scale faster on deal. Set up payroll for any country in minutes, hire anyone anywhere, get visas handled fast, and get back to building. Visit deal.com/slash twist to learn. Learn more. And Squarespace, turn your idea into a beautiful website. Go to squarespace.com/slash twist for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.
The good news is that this week we have some of my absolute all-time favorite investors, including Mr. Tomaz Tungus of Theory Ventures. Tomaz, you've been on the show before. You're brilliant. What's new in your world and how are you?
I'm phenomenal. Thanks for having me on the show. It seems like the world is changing every day. Excited to talk about it more.
Yeah, I feel like if we'd done the show a week ago, it would have been literally an entirely different topic list, which I think goes to show how fast things are moving along, which is why I'm glad we have Michael Downing from Castalia Capital. Michael, welcome to the show. Welcome back, I should say. How are you? Thanks very
much.
Much Alex, thrilled to be here. Also, I'm glad you're wearing a suit jacket like Jason makes me. That way I'm not the only person who looks like the weight staff. Appreciate it. I got the memo. Good. I'm glad I'm glad I made it to your house. All right. And then we have uh once again we have Paige Dhorty from Behind Genius Ventures. Latest fund was eight point nine million fund two, making her one of the rare emerging managers that's really powering through and making it happen even in the era of mega funds. Paige, welcome back.
Thank you, Alex. I'm so happy to be here. I'm excited to dive into the discussion.
Okay, so clearly we are sitting here two days before SpaceX will go public. It's supposed to price at $135 per share. No range, just a straight price. Elon's offering one number, take it or leave it. It's oversubscribed. We also have recently seen uh confidential IPO filings from both Anthropic and OpenAI setting us up for about $3.5 trillion worth of liquidity. If you add $1.7 plus $850,000. 56 plus 950, whatever it is, adds up to about three and a half trillion. Uh, my question for you, Tomaz, is pretty simple. Are we seeing three unique companies go out and possibly return a lot of money to investors and should not read into that about what it means for other companies that may want to find liquidity?
Or is this more an indication that the exit market is finally um you know, de-icing itself and becoming a bit more uh amenable to the venture capital? Cycle.
I think we're going to see broad liquidity. I mean, uh, Reuters announced, I think, this morning, that the SpaceX IPO was two and a half, maybe three times oversubscribed, which was a stunning number, just considering that the sum total of those three offerings that you mentioned, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic, if they raise what they intended to, would be greater than the sum total of all IPOs dollars raised in the previous decade. So there clearly There's just huge demand for exposure to AI and space. So I I think that's that's really telling. And then you're starting to see some other S1s, right? Bending Spoons uh came out, which is a holding company. They bought AOL, which kind of blew my mind. And that business is doing incredibly well on the back of AI.
They're uh think I think about them as like an AI holding company where they buy legacy businesses and then reinvigorate them with uh AI native. of coding practices and seems like there's more IPOs coming. So uh broadly, you know, speaking broadly, it looks like it will be a very good year for twenty twenty six will be an excellent year for liquidity.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the impact of the upcoming SpaceX IPO on the venture capital market?
0:00–7:29
2
How are seed‑stage valuations changing and why might the most expensive deals be the cheapest?
7:29–15:06
3
What is the “Sequoia scam” dual‑tranche controversy and how does it affect founders?
15:06–23:40
4
How are tokens‑for‑equity and GPU‑hours‑for‑equity reshaping startup financing?
23:40–32:40
5
What are the first impressions of Anthropic’s Claude Fable 5 and does it represent a step‑function in AI performance?
32:40–40:51
6
Where does value accrue in the AI stack – models, application layer, or private data?
40:51–51:24
7
How has the power balance shifted back toward founders in the current funding environment?
51:24–1:01:07
8
What does the re‑industrialization of American manufacturing mean for startups like Nox Metals?
1:01:07–1:08:23
Speakers
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