Sourcery11 Okt 2024

Alex Kolicich, 8VC | AI & Defense Tech Renaissance

Molly O’Shea is joined by Alex Kolicich, Founding Partner of 8VC. Before his venture capital career, Alex was an engineer and early product advisor at companies like Clarium, Palantir, and Google.

In this discussion, Alex talks about the current investment landscape citing the "AI capabilities gap," the potential for a "trough of AI disillusionment," and highlights the tension between AI's promise and its current limitations.

Why is Silicon Valley suddenly embracing the Pentagon? Alex explains how defense has transformed from a controversial investment to a sought-after opportunity, citing successes like Anduril, Palantir, and SpaceX, and details 8VC’s approach to investing in defense startups, including their "build program" and shares resources for government engagement.

Alex and 8VC were early investors in defense technology companies when it was not a popular area for venture capital. Some of their investments include Anduril, Saronic, Epirus, and Chaos Industries. 8VC has a "build program" where they incubate and co-found defense technology companies, providing resources like capital, government relations expertise, and shared infrastructure.

Follow on Twitter

https://x.com/MollySOShea

https://x.com/alexkolicich

Check out 8VC:

https://www.8vc.com/

Subscribe to Sourcery:

https://www.sourcery.vc/

Sponsor: Archer

Archer's Midnight is a piloted four passenger aircraft designed to perform rapid back-to-back flights with minimal charge time between flights. Learn more about how Archer is set to open up a new world of opportunity for passengers by providing safe and efficient access to people, places, and events across the communities they live, visit https://www.archer.com/

Companies mentioned:

OpenAI: https://openai.com/

Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/

Anthropic: https://www.anthropic.com/

Google: https://www.google.com/

Nvidia: https://www.nvidia.com/

Amazon (AWS): https://aws.amazon.com/

Palantir: https://www.palantir.com/

SpaceX: https://www.spacex.com/

Anduril: https://www.anduril.com/

Inflection AI: https://inflection.ai/

Adept AI: https://www.adept.ai/

Raytheon: https://www.rtx.com/

Epirus: https://www.epirusinc.com/

Saronic: https://www.saronic.com/

Case Text: https://casetext.com/

Sequoia Capital: https://www.sequoiacap.com/

Kleiner Perkins: https://www.kleinerperkins.com/

Character AI: https://beta.character.ai/

CRV (Charles River Ventures): https://www.crv.com/

Founder's Fund: https://foundersfund.com/

xAI: https://x.ai/

TIMESTAMPS:

(00:00) Preview and Intro

(01:01) AI Optimism & Uncertainty

(06:51) Public & Private Market Dynamics

(12:34) Sustainable Multiples & Oversupply of Capital

(13:49) Sponsor: Archer

(14:33) Risk & Returns of Mega Checks

(22:35) Opportunities Within the Gap

(27:18) The Exit Environment & Acquihires

(31:14) The Defense Wave

(40:26) Resources for Defense Startups

(46:42) Startup Advice for Defense

(46:51) Technical Excellence, Government Relations & Fundraising

(49:23) Surprises & Changes in H1 2024

(49:55) Shifting Views on Application Layer & OpenAI

(52:44) Wrap

RECOMMENDED PODCAST:

🎙️ This Won't LastEavesdrop on Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, Logan Bartlett, and Zach Weinberg's monthly backchannel. They unpack their hottest takes on the future of tech, business, venture, investing, and politics.

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/id1765665937

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2HwSNeVLL1MXy0RjFPyOSz

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThisWontLastpodcast

Denne episoden er hentet fra en åpen RSS-feed og er ikke publisert av Podme. Den kan derfor inneholde annonser.

Episoder(207)

USV’s New $900M Fund: Fred Wilson, Rebecca Kaden & Mike Mignano

USV spent 20 years keeping its funds small on purpose. Its new $900M raise is the largest fund cycle in the firm’s history.I sat down with USV General Partners Fred Wilson, Rebecca Kaden and Michael M...

8 Okt 1h 25min

John Collison, Stripe: AI Agents Will Rewire the Internet

John Collison, Co-Founder of Stripe, on how AI agents are changing commerce, payments and the internet itself.I sat down with John at Browserbase Navigate to talk agentic commerce, computer use, cyber...

5 Okt 28min

Frontier AI Is a Ferrari. Most Companies Need a Model Y | Turing CEO

Jonathan Siddharth, Co-Founder & CEO of Turing, joins Sourcery to break down how AI training & deployment are changing in 2026.We cover the shift from training models to pass benchmarks to training ag...

2 Okt 58min

Annie Lamont: $14B Managed, 70+ Exits, 15 IPOs, 7x Midas Investor

Annie Lamont is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Oak HC/FT, the healthcare and fintech investment firm she built with Andrew Adams. Across 40+ years she has managed $14B, backed 70+ successful exits...

1 Okt 1h 2min

IMEC Says Today’s AI Will Look Ancient in 10 Years

AI's next bottleneck? It might not be GPUs. Memory prices have risen 700% this year, while power, cooling and data transfer are all becoming major constraints on the AI infrastructure buildout. At the...

30 Sep 13min

The $500B Opportunity in Europe’s Defense Buildout

Europe is preparing to mobilize up to €800B in additional defense spending. But money alone doesn't solve one of its biggest problems.After decades of underinvestment, Europe's defense industry needs ...

30 Sep 21min

The $10T AI Buildout Has a Photonics Problem

AI's next infrastructure bottleneck? It's everything connecting them.As AI models grow, they increasingly need to run across massive clusters of GPUs. Traditional copper interconnects are running out ...

30 Sep 33min

The $3B Company Trying to Beat Amazon Prime

Stord is on track to cross $1 billion in annual revenue this year after 10Xing the business over the last four years.The goal: level the playing field with Amazon Prime for the other two-thirds of com...

29 Sep 14min