Latest / The Learning Corner by Precursor / Episode #69: Anthropic's Safety Reckoning, Jack Dorsey Cuts Block in Half, The Venture Consensus Addiction
Transcript
- 0:00I'll be very curious to see if we fast forward ten years, were these billion dollar inception
- 0:05stage companies good investments?
- 0:07They might turn to be good companies, but were they good investments?
- 0:10That's something I always come back to is a good investment is investment that makes you a
- 0:14really good return relative to the risk that you're taking.
- 0:16There could be a good company that's a bad investment for you.
- 0:19It's the week of March 2.
- 0:21Welcome to the Learning Corner, a Precursor Ventures podcast.
- 0:29Welcome to the Learning Corner by Precursor.
- 0:30I'm Mia Farnam, and I'm joined by our GP and managing partner, Charles Hudson, where we will
- 0:35be talking through the articles and Goodreads that caught our team's attention over the past
- 0:40week.
- 0:41For our first piece this week, an anthropic researcher named Mirank Sharma published his
- 0:46resignation letter publicly on Substack where it then spread quickly across different
- 0:50channels.
- 0:50He spent two years at the company after finishing his PhD contributing to foundational
- 0:55safety work, including writing one of Anthropic's first AI safety cases.
- 0:59What drove him out wasn't dissatisfaction with the work itself.
- 1:03It was a deeper reckoning with whether the company's values were actually governing its
- 1:07actions in place.
- 1:08Meerong's departure comes right as Anthropic made a major policy reversal that's worth
- 1:13layering in here.
- 1:14Time reported last week that Anthropic is walking back the central promise of its
- 1:18responsible scaling policy, a commitment it made in 2023 to never train a new model unless
- 1:24it could guarantee adequate safety measures were in place first.
- 1:27The company is now framing that position as untenable, given that competitors aren't making
- 1:31the same commitments and federal AI regulation never materialized under the current
- 1:35administration.
- 1:36Their CSO, Jared Kaplan, put it plainly, we didn't really feel with the rapid advance of AI
- 1:42that it made sense for us to make unilateral commitments if competitors are blazing ahead.
- 1:47Mironk didn't name this directly, but he writes about repeatedly watching the organization face
- 1:52pressure to set aside what mattered most and ultimately deciding he wanted to work in a way
- 1:56that felt fully in his integrity.
- 1:58Anthropics latest valuation sits at 380,000,000,000, and the Talent AI war between
- 2:04them and OpenAI seems to make a major headline every week.
- 2:08We don't know Meerong personally, so I can only speak to what he shared in the letter itself.
- 2:13But what it reflects is even amidst the kind of wealth accumulation that joining one of these
- 2:18companies can offer, there are people on the inside who are genuinely uncertain whether the
- 2:23reward is worth the broader unknown risks.
- 2:25Charles, I know you mentioned last week that this was the first tech wave you've experienced
- 2:29where there hasn't been clear consensus about charging forward for the parties involved.
- 2:34So did this piece surprise you or something like this coming out?
- 2:37I also thought about it in the context of all the stuff around the Department of War and Yep.
- 2:41The use of this technology.
- 2:43I read this and I was like, oh, this kind of reminded me of, like, don't be evil when Google
- 2:47went into China.
- 2:48And two things can be true.
- 2:50I think it can be very true that in 2023, the people at Anthropic, and I I don't I don't work
- 2:55there, so this all speculation, felt very strongly that, like, that was a principled
- 2:59position that they could hold.
- 3:01And that they I'm sure they were like, there's probably some level of conflict that we can
- 3:05envision between this value and the business directive, but we think it's tenable.
- 3:09And I don't think anybody could have predicted that we'd be in the state of the world that
- 3:13we're in right now with AI given all the advances.
- 3:15And I think, you know, there's that old saying about, you know, values should cost you
- 3:19something.
- 3:19I'm paraphrasing.
- 3:20And I think they concluded that maintaining this value, as a person said, pretty plainly,
- 3:24like, it just is not tenable, which doesn't mean that it was never important.
- 3:28It just means that the company doesn't believe they can continue to achieve their business
- 3:33goals.
- 3:33And I think this is one of the challenges you have as a company when you decide to take a
- 3:38position or a stand on something.
- 3:39It can become more expensive over time.
- 3:42And if you're not prepared to defend it, there'll be some people who will question,
- 3:45well, did we ever mean it in the first place?
- 3:47And, you know, I don't think we know enough about the specifics of what OpenAI agreed to do
- 3:52with the Department of War, but there are all these questions about if you're a technology
- 3:56provider.
- 3:56And same thing when when there was a whole thing, well, hey.
- 3:58Should Google work with the military?
- 4:00There are a lot of people at Google who felt like, hey.
- 4:01Didn't sign up for this.
- 4:02And I think on the one hand, it's hard to sell people on joining a company that has a mission
- 4:07and then changing the meaning of that mission midway through.
- 4:10You are, of course, going to lose people.
- 4:12Also, I I think corporations were in a different place in 2020 and 2021.
- 4:17I think they cared a lot more about how their employees felt about the nature of the work.
- 4:21Yeah.
- 4:21I think given the layoffs and the cost pressure, I think companies are kind of like,
- 4:26we're just gonna do what we plan to do.
- 4:27We're back we're back to the old world.
- 4:29Back.
- 4:29We've been there for a few years.
- 4:30We're back to the old world where there might be some mission orientation to the company when
- 4:33you join, but these value statements are flexible.
- 4:36And if they become inconvenient or untenable, companies will change them.
- 4:40My one question or thought about this was I was wondering, I assume it's coming internally,
- 4:44where the pressure is coming from to abandon specific policies like the one that Anthropic
- 4:49is leaving behind.
- 4:50Because it's very clear that as of today, OpenAI and Anthropic, they are the front
- 4:54runners.
- 4:54I know that investors love to say like, oh, we're definitely pushing those large companies
- 4:58for profitability, but doubtful just given the large reason.
- 5:02It wasn't like that was prohibitive to them to people becoming interested.
- 5:06So it is fascinating that a lot of this pressure is likely coming internally even
- 5:10though they are so likely the two leaders in this space.
- 5:13My suspicion is what you said is true because that's the side of the doubt.
- 5:17Like, we don't know what the internal Yeah.
- 5:19Slack and messaging conversations I remember when I was at Google, when Google went to
- 5:24China, the the amount of internal tension angst.
- 5:27There were a lot of people who were like, this is a violation of my perception of the company,
- 5:32and now I'm associated with something that I don't believe in.
- 5:35No matter how much you pay them.
- 5:37I'm not saying that these people are are not fairly compensated.
- 5:39Yeah.
- 5:40But if you're asking people to put in insane hours and make big sacrifices in their personal
- 5:44life, it's natural they're gonna identify with their work because you want them to.
- 5:48So when they identify with their work, you have to always be mindful of the fact that the
- 5:52company's identity and beliefs in some ways, they will see themselves in those.
- 5:56And if they don't see themselves reflected, they might say, why do I want even with, like,
- 6:00fabulous conversation, do I wanna spend sixty or eighty hours a week?
- 6:04I think it's one of the nice privileges of being well compensated in tech if you've been
- 6:08responsible with your money, no pun intended.
- 6:10You have the ability to say, don't need to or want to do this.
- 6:14This doesn't reflect I'm I'm guessing that, like, the janitor at Anthropic Yeah.
- 6:19Is facing a different Yes.
- 6:20Calculus and is being asked to do different things.
- 6:22And I don't mean privilege in a judgmental way.
- 6:24It is one of the privileges of the fact that, like, tech workers are generally well
- 6:27compensated that if you find companies that are not consistent with your values.
- 6:31I think I'd argue it's pretty hard to stay in commercial AI because I think right now
- 6:35everyone feels like, just wanna win, and I'll do almost whatever it takes, although with some
- 6:40limitations apparently based on the the Department of War stuff, to win, and I'll
- 6:44become a better citizen once we've won.
- 6:46Or or we're better guys than those guys, so it's better if we win than they win.
- 6:50And you can very quickly spiral on that stuff if you're not careful.
- 6:53Well, our next piece is a post that Jack Dorsey posted publicly on X last week, announcing that
- 6:58Block, his payments, and fintech company is reducing its workforce by nearly half, going
- 7:03from over 10,000 employees down to just under 6,000.
- 7:06That's more than 4,000 people let go or entering consultation, and Jack chose to share
- 7:11it publicly in his own words on the same day employees were notified.
- 7:14What made this one circulate so widely is the reasoning.
- 7:18Jack was really explicit that this is not a company in distress.
- 7:22Block's gross profit is growing.
- 7:23They're adding customers, and profitability is improving.
- 7:27The cut is happening because Jack believes that AI paired with smaller, flatter teams
- 7:32represents a fundamentally new way of building and running a company, and he decided it was
- 7:36better to act on that now than to drag out a slower reduction over months or years.
- 7:42He writes that repeated rounds of cuts destroy morale, focus, and trust.
- 7:46So he chose one hard, clear action instead.
- 7:49We've covered a handful of CEO statements about AI being at the forefront of how they're
- 7:54building their companies, but this is one of the largest workforce reductions we've seen as
- 7:59a percentage of total headcount out in the public.
- 8:01Do you think this becomes a catalyst that other companies of similar size start making similar
- 8:06cuts, or does this feel like it's still maybe on its own island for now?
- 8:11I think it's a excellent question, and I have, like, good friends who work to block, and so I
- 8:17feel really bad for them.
- 8:18That's a massive cut.
- 8:19I think we're also in this zone where when sometimes when there's something macro and I
- 8:24don't I don't know why they did this, so this is all speculation.
- 8:28I do think we're in an era right now where there is a premium for AI focused decision
- 8:34making, showing that you're putting AI at the forefront.
- 8:37And, you know, getting rid of 40% of your staff is a pretty strong statement.
- 8:42Now, I read some more cynical takes, which is like, well, the company had just overhired, and
- 8:47that this was as much about the sort of Twitter style.
- 8:50We have too many people relative to, like, what needs to be done, and rather than admit I don't
- 8:56I don't know, though, but, like, I that's plausible.
- 8:59But to overheard by 40% of the company seems like a lot.
- 9:02And I think it reminds me a lot of I think it was Klarna who got rid of all the customer
- 9:06service people, and then they're like, we might have overdone it.
- 9:09We haven't heard as much about that since then, but the tech's in a different And I suspect
- 9:13there are other CEOs in the Valley and in the Fortune 500 who are like, well, I'm glad Jack
- 9:19went first.
- 9:20Now maybe we can do something similar and not be out front and first.
- 9:27With all of these things, I always think it's interesting to see what happens.
- 9:31And tech is now in a, like, permanent layoff phase.
- 9:34It used to be that layoffs were these, like, singular events.
- 9:37They happen so often now in big tech, they're just not news anymore.
- 9:40When a big tech company cuts five or 10% of its workforce, and we think about how big some of
- 9:45these companies are, that's a lot of people.
- 9:46It's just ceased to be and in a lot of ways, tech has become like other large corporate
- 9:51entities where they're just constantly tinkering with not just the total workforce,
- 9:55but the balance of people across functions and roles.
- 9:58And I think what used to be a career that was safe in an industry that was in kind of
- 10:03permanent growth and hiring mode has really gone in the opposite direction.
- 10:07So I really do hope that we get insights into what happened at that Block.
- 10:11And I think the Twitter one's instructive.
- 10:13Like, Twitter Twitter didn't fall over when all those people left.
- 10:16I'd argue that it's probably not the same asset it was when all those people were there either.
- 10:21I mean, it was good timing.
- 10:21The Citrini Market Research came report came out last week, and you saw the markets reflect
- 10:26that reaction.
- 10:27Mean, Block's stock soared 24% after hours when that announcement was shared.
- 10:33What this decision assumes is that if this is, you know, done for truly AI purposes and not in
- 10:39a different business decision like we kind of alluded to.
- 10:42What this decision assumes is that the remaining employees are also prepared and
- 10:47upskilled enough to actually leverage these AI tools and absorb a new way of working without
- 10:52performance taking a hit.
- 10:54And while this is certainly more concrete than the leaked memos about AI efficiency that we've
- 11:00seen from other CEOs, I'd argue that the underlying dynamic is maybe similar, more about
- 11:06signaling or direction than demonstrating clear progress forward.
- 11:10Two things that, at least, for me, are worth thinking about.
- 11:13One is I do keep reading about a lot of CEOs who are focused on profit per employee.
- 11:18And my hunch is, if history is any guide, Black will not tip over tomorrow because all these
- 11:24people are gone.
- 11:25And the impact of people being gone, especially in large numbers and big companies, usually
- 11:30isn't felt for some period of time.
- 11:32And maybe this is the bet, which is usually what ends up happening is, like, you're not as
- 11:35responsive.
- 11:36You can't build as much stuff.
- 11:37You focus on the core.
- 11:38You miss new opportunities.
- 11:40Your company remains good at the core thing, but never gets better at anything else.
- 11:43And maybe the bet is that, like, AI breaks that paradigm.
- 11:46But I wouldn't be surprised if in the short term, Block's financial metrics improve
- 11:50dramatically.
- 11:50You've cut out a significant chunk of cost, and whatever the impact is of that on revenue is
- 11:55unlikely to show up in the same time period.
- 11:58Our last piece is a LinkedIn post from Nick Pulos, founder and GP over at Euclid Ventures.
- 12:03His core argument is that the venture industry has developed what he calls a consensus
- 12:07addiction and shares data to support the statement, seed startups priced below
- 12:12$20,000,000 are nearly four times more likely to produce a 50 x return than those priced
- 12:19above.
- 12:20And yet, the ninety fifth percentile seed pre money valuation just hit $80,000,000.
- 12:25That's up a 138% in a single year.
- 12:28Meanwhile, the number of rounds closed hit a decade low even as total dollars deployed hit a
- 12:33post twenty twenty two high with a six a z just raising $15,000,000,000, roughly 20% of all VC
- 12:40dollars deployed last year.
- 12:41Nick's argument is that capital is flooding into what he calls fundability, hot market
- 12:45signals, brand name, co investors, consensus legibility, and mistaking all of that for
- 12:50investability, meaning actual return potential.
- 12:53And his team traced back every billion dollar plus exit in 2025 back to its first check, and
- 12:58the data is consistent.
- 13:00The vast majority started with the 500 k to $5,000,000 raises.
- 13:04Platform funds were underrepresented relative to their AUM share.
- 13:07And the key takeaway here is counter to the behavior we see in the market today, if winners
- 13:12were legible at first check, the data would show it, and it doesn't.
- 13:16The forex return gap between sub 20,000,000 and above 20,000,000 c valuations is undeniably
- 13:22large.
- 13:22But my instinct is that this data alone won't change behavior.
- 13:25Funds will keep pricing rounds this way, and founders will keep opting in.
- 13:30My question is who actually benefits the most from Nick and the Euclid team putting this out
- 13:35there.
- 13:35And I know that's not what they wrote it for, but my question was like, okay.
- 13:37What does everyone do with this information now other than just kind of have a little public
- 13:41discourse on it via in the comment section?
- 13:43Well, I mean, we benefit.
- 13:45Like, I I obviously agree with Nick.
- 13:48I do think though I've talked to a fair number of LPs about this very topic, and there's a
- 13:53couple arguments I hear from them.
- 13:55Number one is, well, that's old data.
- 13:57The world isn't the same anymore.
- 13:59Yes.
- 13:59Once upon a time, that was true, but it's not true anymore.
- 14:03Second, you know, a lot of the big funds tell LPs we're good at everything.
- 14:08We're good at seed.
- 14:09We're good at a.
- 14:10We're good at multistage, and we have tremendous access.
- 14:13And there are two things I believe most LPs and GPs at larger funds believe.
- 14:18One is that they see all of the best stuff and that the best stuff is as identifiable at day
- 14:24one as it is at series a.
- 14:27And I think the latter part is the part where I think mistakes are made.
- 14:31So I do think if you just do the math also, it is a lot easier to get and this is something I
- 14:36tell LPs all the time.
- 14:37It is a lot easier to get high cash on cash multiples with low entry prices.
- 14:42And I will say there are some counter examples.
- 14:45Like, you look at Wiz, that's a company that started life very expensive, and whenever the
- 14:50deal closes will end life very expensive.
- 14:53And I think it was a 100 pre and 23,000,000,000.
- 14:56But the question is, like, is that the new normal or is that an outlier?
- 15:00And so I think right now, we're running an experiment which essentially says price doesn't
- 15:05matter anymore.
- 15:06The the counterargument is you take the VennCap plus Andreessen argument, which is that the
- 15:11scale of the winners is so big that if you can get companies that are 50 to $100,000,000,000
- 15:16in size, doesn't really matter.
- 15:18You get you actually can still get 50 times your money.
- 15:21But I'm like, but we just don't have that many of those companies.
- 15:25And I think, you know, it's very possible that we will, in seven years, have more regular
- 15:31trillion dollar private companies if you just have either some combination of asset price
- 15:35inflation and just the general growth of private markets.
- 15:38But that doesn't mean that that's the average underwriting outcome.
- 15:41We only have one SpaceX.
- 15:43We have one of those.
- 15:44We have, like, a Stripe.
- 15:45There's, like, 10 companies that are in this rare air.
- 15:48And, yes, the multistage people can capture those, and some of those companies started off
- 15:52life very expensive because Elon was involved.
- 15:55So I think part of this is, to some extent, the answer is both things can work.
- 16:00The question is, like, what's the balance?
- 16:02And right now, the balance of dollars is going into companies that are beginning life
- 16:07expensive, and the balance of dollars available for follow on.
- 16:10This is the part I think that people need to really internalize is when you start life as an
- 16:14expensive company backed by a multistage fund, you're just in a different universe of follow
- 16:19on fundraising considerations.
- 16:21You're already sort of in the club.
- 16:22It doesn't mean your next round is guaranteed.
- 16:24It doesn't mean they're gonna give you more money.
- 16:25You're already in the consideration set.
- 16:27Yeah.
- 16:27When you start off as, you know, two guys and a dog and a hot tub with 500 k, you've gotta,
- 16:32like, work hard to get the attention of the big funds.
- 16:36And sometimes you get their attention a la Cluelly by, like, breaking through the noise
- 16:39floor.
- 16:40And sometimes you get their attention through performance.
- 16:42But the companies that start with their attention are actually just living in a
- 16:45different world.
- 16:46And I'll be very curious to see if we fast forward ten years, were these billion dollar
- 16:52research lab compute based data center, whatever it might be, were these billion dollar
- 16:57inception stage companies good investments?
- 17:00They might turn to be good companies, but were they good investments?
- 17:02And that's something I always come back to is, like, a good investment is investment that
- 17:06makes you a really good return relative to the risk that you're taking.
- 17:09There could be a good company that's investment for you.
- 17:11And so we won't know, but right now the consensus is that price doesn't matter because
- 17:15outcomes are large and you shouldn't worry about it.
- 17:17And some ironically, some cases, low prices now become a negative signal.
- 17:21It's somehow like, oh, you couldn't raise five on 25 right out of the gates.
- 17:25Are you a bad founder?
- 17:26And some of our best companies started life very inexpensively, and I'm really glad that
- 17:31we're on their cap tables.
- 17:32There's two thoughts that came out of that.
- 17:34One was in the connection to Josh Kopelman's venture arrogance score of like, if you're a
- 17:39mega fund, you need all of these expensive deals in your portfolio.
- 17:43You need to win over I think when a six and z was raising a $15,000,000,000 fund, he's like,
- 17:47you need to be in 50% of every single high outcome deal.
- 17:51That's a lot.
- 17:52That's a lot of surface area.
- 17:53So the game is different.
- 17:54Paying up early to create signal or just have that option is so worth it.
- 17:59So that's also what's happening in the background.
- 18:02And then to your comment about, you know, fundability versus investability, Peter Walker
- 18:07had some good comments in the post after.
- 18:09You know, he said that at Carta, they saw the highest quartile of seed valuations as much
- 18:15more likely to become unicorns.
- 18:17So kind of like having that head start up for follow on capital.
- 18:20But the 50 x outcomes were spread essentially evenly across four valuation quartiles by year.
- 18:26If
- 18:27you think about it, who makes unicorns?
- 18:29Right.
- 18:29The only who can make unicorns are multistage funds.
- 18:32Someone's like, look at all the unicorns in this I'm like, well, made them all.
- 18:35They put the billion so if I could put a billion dollar valuation on every company we
- 18:39invested in, we would make a lot of unicorns at Precursor.
- 18:41And I'm not, like, making fun of the big ones.
- 18:43But I do think it's just one of these things that's, like, structurally, the people who
- 18:47assign the valuation are the ones who make the decision.
- 18:49And if you're already in a company and the company's familiar to you and your network and
- 18:53the founder is a good fundraiser and a good storyteller, that person has a good chance of
- 18:57getting to a billion dollar valuation independent of metrics and business progress.
- 19:00And so I am, like, very curious to see how this all plays out.
- 19:04And I think to your earlier point too, it causes people to do venture.
- 19:08I guess it causes you know, Sequoia's in Anthropic now, but much later than I would
- 19:13normally think of Sequoia.
- 19:14But if you're them, you kinda have to be in that company given its scale and scope.
- 19:18And look.
- 19:19If you've got there's a lot of ways to return a big fund.
- 19:22And in a lot of ways, I think the counter argument is, you know, if you're Andreessen and
- 19:25you've got a Databricks, there's sort of no amount of money that feels like too much to put
- 19:28into that company.
- 19:29You're like, oh, you're only gonna get five extra money at that price.
- 19:32You're like, yeah.
- 19:32But you can put in half $1,000,000,000.
- 19:34Five x and half $1,000,000,000 takes you a long way towards returning Yep.
- 19:37A big fund.
- 19:38And I think that's something I appreciate about Thrive's strategy Mhmm.
- 19:42Which is like, yes, it's a lot of money.
- 19:43But if you can concentrate it into companies that will compound and will ultimately be far
- 19:48outlier valuable, you can put 10 to work and get 30 back.
- 19:52My last question here is, we're also maybe thinking about, like, the non mega funds who
- 19:58participate largely in this type of round dynamic.
- 20:01Do you think that those GPs, if they're being honest, know the difference when they're
- 20:06writing the check between consensus versus full conviction in the moment?
- 20:11I think in my brain, I mean, like, we've got a handful of deals in our portfolio that have
- 20:15been priced around this range, and we truly believe we felt convicted in the idea and the
- 20:20and the reason behind it.
- 20:21But I think that there are funds who are not mega funds that a 100%, they're doing only
- 20:25these types of deals?
- 20:26And do you think that they're really thinking they're truly convicted or this is the ride and
- 20:30the game that I wanna play on and I have a right to play in this game as much as the mega
- 20:34funds with less AUM?
- 20:36Depends on the manager.
- 20:37I know some people who really think this is where value is created, and these companies
- 20:41that are born expensive are the good ones, and they're expensive because they're good.
- 20:44And we only wanna be in things that are expensive because they're good, and finding
- 20:48things that are good and inexpensive is not something I wanna work on.
- 20:51Yeah.
- 20:51I have several friends who subscribe to that, and they are very good at investing that way.
- 20:55I think the other thing is on a practical basis, these deals are easy to talk about.
- 20:58If you go to an LP and you're like, hey.
- 21:00I'm raising a fund.
- 21:01I'm in these three hot deals, three very expensive, but deals you've heard of that
- 21:05Andreessen or Sequoia or Lightspeed or Index is in.
- 21:08At an individual security level, the LP might not know anything.
- 21:11But if I told a lot of the people I talked to who value venture funds, you have two choices.
- 21:15Someone tells you there's a company you've heard nothing about and Sequoia's in it.
- 21:18There's a company you've heard nothing about and Sequoia's not in it.
- 21:20Most people would be like, why wanna be in the company that Sequoia's in?
- 21:22And so the thing about fundability is fundability shows up today.
- 21:27Being able to say, we we are co invested with these people, this person who spun out of this
- 21:32research lab.
- 21:33Yeah.
- 21:34It's expensive, but look at all these other really fancy VC names that are in this deal
- 21:38with us.
- 21:39That's why you should feel good about that.
- 21:41Versus like, hey, this is a company you've never heard of and you will have never heard of
- 21:44for seven years.
- 21:45And then by the time you've heard about it, I've had to raise two more funds.
- 21:48And so I do think the irony is that the people who are being rewarded for having bet on those
- 21:53companies at low valuations, those are decisions that were made a decade ago that are
- 21:57being harvested now.
- 21:58And there's more of that harvesting to come.
- 22:00The question is fifteen years from now, will it look the same?
- 22:03I don't know.
- 22:03Well, can confirm good and inexpensive is a very hard job, so we're excited to continue to
- 22:09do it here.
- 22:09Thank you so much, Charles, for joining in.
- 22:11We are all out of time today.
- 22:12Thank you to our listeners for hopping in as well.
- 22:14Please like and subscribe, and we will talk with you all next week.
- 22:16Thank you.
- 22:17Bye.