Why AI will dwarf every tech revolution before it: robots, manufacturing, AR glasses from CES 2026
(0:00) Guest intros: Jasons introduces Bob Sternfels (McKinsey) and Hemant Taneja (General Catalyst)
(2:52) The pace of innovation and why VC's are buying hospitals
(9:30) CFOs vs CIOs and unlocking growth
(20:46) The job market and why graduates aren't getting hired
(27:33) Why education is broken
(40:03) Tech time capsule
Follow Hemant Taneja:
https://x.com/htaneja
Follow Bob Sternfels:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bob-sternfels
Follow the besties:
https://x.com/chamath
https://x.com/Jason
https://x.com/DavidSacks
https://x.com/friedberg
Follow on X:
https://x.com/theallinpod
Follow on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod
Follow on TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod
Follow on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod
Intro Music Credit:
https://rb.gy/tppkzl
https://x.com/yung_spielburg
Intro Video Credit:
https://x.com/TheZachEffect
20VC: General Catalyst CEO Hemant Taneja on The Future of Venture Capital: Chanel vs Walmart | Lessons Scaling GC to $40BN in AUM | Investing $5BN+ Into Stripe Over 14 Rounds | Investing Hundreds of Millions into Anthropic at $60BN Valuation
Hemant Taneja is the CEO and leader of General Catalyst, the firm he has scaled over the last decade into one of the largest with over $40BN in AUM. He has been one of the most influential investors of the past two decades, leading early bets in Stripe, Snap, Gusto, Samsara, Grammarly, and Canva. He also played a pivotal role in Livongo's $18.5B merger with Teladoc, one of the largest digital health deals in history.
AGENDA:
00:00 Introduction
03:37 Is Hemant a CEO or an Investor?
05:42 With $40BN AUM Is General Catalyst Still a VC Firm?
12:11 Has Trump Done More to Hurt or Help the US?
13:25 No One is Talking About the True Impact of AI on Jobs
21:30 Is Hemant Concerned by the Concentration of Value in MAG 7?
27:30 Has Trump Done More to Hurt or Help the US?
30:27 GC's Anthropic Investment: Upside from a $60BN Price
37:06 Do Margins Matter in a World of AI
45:23 Does Revenue Growth Matter in a World of AI
49:39 Why it is BS to Turn Down a Company Based on Price
56:06 We Have Invested $5BN Into Stripe Over 14 Rounds
01:00:02 VC is About To Be Flooded with Retail Investment: What Does It Mean for VC
01:08:51 "What I Learned Losing the Series A of Snap, Stripe, Samsara"
01:11:25 Future of Venture Capital: Walmart vs Chanel
Hemant Taneja - Engineering Global Resilience - [Invest Like the Best, EP.382]
My guest today is Hemant Taneja. Hemant is the CEO and Managing Director of General Catalyst, the global venture capital firm you’ll hear us refer to as GC. GC has set out to build resiliency across critical industries worldwide. The firm leverages technology to retool sectors such as healthcare, energy, defense, and manufacturing and explores innovative capital structures to support founders and businesses. Hemant discusses how the firm is positioned to respond to the aftermath of crises, including the pandemic, wars, energy issues, and beyond. We also discuss the building of a category-defining healthcare company, Livongo and much more. Please enjoy this conversation with Hemant Taneja.
Listen to Founders Podcast
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
-----
This episode is brought to you by Ramp. Ramp’s mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Ramp is the fastest growing FinTech company in history and it’s backed by more of my favorite past guests (at least 16 of them!) than probably any other company I’m aware of. It’s also notable that many best-in-class businesses use Ramp—companies like Airbnb, Anduril, and Shopify, as well as investors like Sequoia Capital and Vista Equity. They use Ramp to manage their spending, automate tedious financial processes, and reinvest saved dollars and hours into growth. At Colossus and Positive Sum, we use Ramp for exactly the same reason. Go to Ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus.
-----
This episode is brought to you by Tegus, where we're changing the game in investment research. Step away from outdated, inefficient methods and into the future with our platform, proudly hosting over 100,000 transcripts – with over 25,000 transcripts added just this year alone. Our platform grows eight times faster and adds twice as much monthly content as our competitors, putting us at the forefront of the industry. Plus, with 75% of private market transcripts available exclusively on Tegus, we offer insights you simply can't find elsewhere. See the difference a vast, quality-driven transcript library makes. Unlock your free trial at tegus.com/patrick.
-----
Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com).
Show Notes:
(00:00:00) Our Partners: Ramp and Tegus
(00:03:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best
(00:03:57) Introducing Hemant Taneja and General Catalyst
(00:04:17) Global Resilience and Innovation Post-Pandemic
(00:05:56) Re-Globalization and Manufacturing
(00:07:03) Building Livongo: A 20-Year Overnight Success
(00:13:23) Aligning Incentives in Healthcare
(00:15:40) Re-imagining the Investment Business
(00:20:54) Evolution of General Catalyst
(00:27:04) Succession and Trust in Asset Management
(00:35:00) Founder-Centric Capital Goals
(00:36:32) Balancing Growth and Liquidity
(00:41:39) AI and Onshoring Productivity
(00:47:10) Defense Investments and Ethics
(00:50:11) Geopolitics and Regulation
(00:53:16) Reflections on Leadership and Strategy
(01:01:14) Hemant's Future Plans
(01:02:55) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Ever Done for Him
Responsible Innovation and Venture Capital
Hemant Taneja, a managing director at General Catalyst and the founder of the firm’s Silicon Valley operations, joins Scott to discuss the venture capital space, why he’s bullish on the healthcare sector, and why responsible innovation is more important than ever. Hemant also shares his thoughts on the energy space and why Tesla is a key player. Follow Hemant on Twitter, @htaneja. (16:44)
Scott opens with his thoughts on LVMH buying 50 percent of Jay-Z’s champagne brand as well as his thoughts on the luxury brand market.
This Week’s Office Hours: Australia vs. Facebook (49:18) and buying shares on the secondary market (56:40).
Algebra of Happiness: Love & Empathy (60:51).
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
20VC: General Catalyst's Hemant Taneja on Why We Are In A Golden Age For VC, Why Pro-Rata Is A Lazy Posture and Why He Does Not Focus On Price
Hemant Taneja is Managing Director @ General Catalyst, one of the world's leading venture firms of the last decade with Airbnb, Stripe, Snapchat, Hubspot and Gusto all in their portfolio. As for Hemant, he has led investments at GC in Stripe, SNAP, Grammarly, Gusto, Livongo, Color Genomics, Class Dojo and more. He also directs the GC Stripe Platform Fund, a $10 million initiative to help start new ventures that are built on top of the Stripe Connect platform. On the educational front, Hemant holds 5 degrees from MIT and sits on the board of Khan Academy.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Hemant made his way from 5 degrees at MIT and wanting to be an academic to pursuing startups in the world of VC with General Catalyst?
2.) Question from Sam @ ClassDojo: What were the hardest elements of establishing GC on the West Coast? With hindsight today, what would Hemant do differently given the chance? How does Hemant think about the development and ability to accelerate the creation of local reputation? What is crucial and works most effectively?
3.) How does Hemant respond to Elad Gil's "everyone is looking for the next truly deep dein to explore"? Why is Hemant so bullish that we are in the "golden age of venture capital"? Why does Hemant believe that "scale" as a key measure has run it's course? What does Hemant's thesis of the future of "unscaling" really mean?
4.) How does Hemant analyse price sensitivity in todays forthy environment? How has his relationship to price changed over time? With regards to price, what have been some of his biggest regrets and learnings drawn from real-world examples? How does Hemant assess reserve allocation? Why does he think pro-rata is a lazy posture?
5.) Hemant has said on boards for over 1,800 hours, so what does Hemant belive makes the truly special board members? How does Hemant think about first building that rapport and "intimacy" with the founder? Secondly, how important does Hemant believe it is to build similar relations with other board members? Which founder exemplifies the best board management in Hemant's mind?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Hemant's Fave Book: Home Deus
Hemant's Most Recent Investment: Spring Discovery
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Hemant on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Highfive makes meetings better for thousands of organizations with insanely simple video conferencing designed for meeting rooms. It's the easiest-to-use solution, with all-in-one hardware and intuitive cloud software. Plus, it's a high-quality experience with industry-leading audio powered by Dolby Voice. It's so easy to use, that there's no pin codes or app downloads. Just click a link in your browser, and you're in the meeting. With customers in over 100 countries, Highfive is already trusted by the likes of Evernote, Expensify, and Betterment and you can learn more by simply heading over to highfive.com.
Culture Amp is the platform that makes it easy to collect, understand and act on employee feedback. From onboarding surveys to company-wide engagement, individual effectiveness and more, the platform manages multiple sources of feedback and connects the dots for you and that is why companies like Slack, Nike, Oracle and Lyft all trust Culture Amp. It enables leaders to make better decisions, demonstrate impact and turn your company culture into a competitive edge. So put your people and culture first and find out more on cultureamp.com.