Mamoon Hamid: AI - Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws | E1217

Mamoon Hamid is a General Partner @ Kleiner Perkins and one of the greatest venture investors of our time. In the past, Mamoon has led rounds in Figma, Slack, Rippling, Intercom, Glean and Box. Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, Mamoon was a Co-Founder of Social Capital, and prior to that a Partner at U.S. Venture Partners (USVP).
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Timestamps:

(00:00) Intro
(03:01) Where Will AI's Value Accrue, and Where Should Capital Focus?
(05:28) Is AI Investing Different from Traditional SaaS Investing?
(07:49) Sustainable Growth vs. Sugar High Revenue
(14:18) Will Foundation Models Subsume Application Layer Companies?
(20:50) Where Does Kleiner Perkins Fit: Boutique or Capital Accumulator?
(22:07) Lessons in Reserves Management & Capital Concentration
(26:53) Why Do Breakout Companies Plateau?
(30:19) What’s Mamoon’s Best Performing Investment
(38:55) What’s Mammon’s Founder Type?
(43:14) Should Founders Maximize Fundraising and Valuation Only?
(46:10) What VCs Do Today That They Shouldn’t
(47:53) Thoughts on Voting Structures in Decision-Making
(51:21) Mamoon’s The Most Contentious Deal
(54:24) Mamoon’s Biggest Loss
(57:33) How Do the Best CEOs Run a Board?
(59:11) Quick-Fire Round
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In Today’s Episode with Mamoon Hamid We Discuss:

1. The Greatest Venture Deal of All Time: Figma or Slack:
What is Mamoon’s highest returning deal?
What did Mamoon see in Dylan and Figma when they had no revenue and very little user data?
What compelled Mamoon to write Stewart the check with Slack? What did he not see with Slack that he should have seen?

2. Taking Control of the Great Brand in Venture: Kleiner Perkins:
Is it true that Kleiner approached Mamoon and gave him the keys to the Kleiner kingdom? How did it go down?
Will Kleiner go back to having multiple products, large growth funds, international funds? What does Mamoon want Kleiner to be in 5 years?
What was the hardest element of the transition into Kleiner? What did Mamoon not know that he wishes he had known?

3. Becoming a Generational Defining Investor:
Market, founder, product, how does Mamoon rank them 1-3?
How has Mamoon changed most significantly as an investor?
What does he know now that he wishes he had known when he became a VC 19 years ago?
What is his biggest loss? How did it shape his mindset and go forward investing approach?

4. AI Supercycle: The Greatest Time to Invest
Where does Mamoon believe the value will accrue in this wave of AI?
Where are many investors spending a lot of time but Mamoon believes is not worthy of that time?
Will scaling laws continue?
Have we ever seen an incumbent set spend like this incumbent class? How does that change the game for VCs?
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