The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Roman Chernin is Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer of Nebius, one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure companies in the world. Today, Nebius operates some of the largest AI compute clusters globally and serves leading AI labs, enterprises, and developers. Today, Nebius has a market cap of $57BN. 
AGENDA: 
00:00 — Why AI Infrastructure Is Not a Bubble
05:00 — The Real Impact of Open Source on OpenAI & Anthropic
11:00 — Jevons Paradox: Why Cheaper AI Creates More Demand
13:00 — The Four Layers of AI Infrastructure Explained
19:00 — If Nebius Had 10x More Capacity Tomorrow
26:00 — The Shift from Training to Inference and Agents
31:00 — How Token Factory Cuts AI Costs by 70%
44:00 — Sovereign AI, Europe, and the Future of Model Building
49:00 — Competing Against Hyperscalers with 10x More Capital
59:00 — The Biggest Threat to Nebius Isn't Competition—It's Consolidation

Jacob Lauritzen serves as the CTO at Legora, the fastest growing B2B enterprise company in history; hitting $100 million in ARR in just 18 months . Legora boasts a valuation of $5.6BN and has raised a total of $866 million in funding. Legora's investors include the likes of Accel, Benchmark, and Bessemer Venture Partners, alongside strategic tech giants NVIDIA (NVentures) and Salesforce Ventures.
AGENDA: 
05:01 - How to Hire the Best Product Talent in 2026

06:21 - The New Product Bottleneck: Shifting Beyond Code Creation

09:24 - System Design vs. Code Creation: The Future Role of the Engineer

14:04 - The Evolving Software Development Lifecycle & The Death of the Design Phase

22:23 - Will Product and Engineering Fully Converge?

29:16 - Scalability and UX: Designing for 10x vs. 100x Spikes

38:15 - Scaling the Organization: What Breaks with a 250 Person Product Team

47:05 - Quick-Fire Round: Hyper-Growth Tactics & Out-Working the Giants

AGENDA:
00:00:00 — Private Markets Are "F***ing Done" & The Shift to Heavy CapEx
00:00:46 — Anthropic Files to Go Public 
00:04:59 — Will the Anthropic IPO Break the Startup Ecosystem?
00:06:22 — The "Billion-Dollar Position" Era: VCs Reset Their Expectations
00:18:11 — The Trillion-Dollar Cash Grab: Google, SpaceX, and OpenAI Rush the Queue
00:23:15 — Is the SaaS Apocalypse Over? Bouncing Off the Bottom
00:25:34 — The Death of Human Per-Seat Licenses as Multiples Shift
00:27:18 — Winners vs. Losers: How Agentic Focused Products Captured the Market
00:30:26 — Cognition Raises $1 Billion at a $26 Billion Valuation
00:33:04 — Token Budgeting Panic Hits Corporate America
00:35:46 — Multi-Model Workflows and the Future of Cost Containment
00:41:20 — Choosing Tokens Over Humans: The 2027 Engineering Reality Check
00:46:42 — Can Large Companies Survive Slashing One-Third of Their Engineering Talent?
00:57:40 — Big Law Flex: Kirkland & Ellis Pledges $500 Million to Build In-House AI
01:01:21 — Giving Away the Crown Jewels: Will Firms Trust Claude?
01:08:44 — Robinhood's AI Move: Automating Financial Planning vs. Beating the Market
01:16:15 — Apollo Warns PE Software Returns Are About to Be Disastrous
01:19:15 — $10 Billion Carry Pools: Will VC Winners Quit the Game?
01:24:10 — The 9-9-6 Work Ethic: Performative Theatre or Startup Reality?
01:30:10 — The Great Valley Contradiction: Working 24/7 to Automate White-Collar Work

Brendan Foody is the Founder and CEO @ Mercor, one of the leading data providers to the largest labs on the planet including OpenAI. In the last two years, Brendan has scaled the company to $1.5BN in ARR and a valuation of $10BN. 
AGENDA: 
True or False:
Mercor lost Meta and OpenAI as a customer with the hack?

Mercor has been poaching competitor talent, paying them millions? 

Mercor revenue is not real revenue and is only GMV?

12:56 Would Brendan sell Mercor for $30 billion? 
14:23 Why everyone is wrong that AI will lead to labor displacement?
15:59 We will create many new jobs that do not exist with AI. 
16:59 Why training agents will be a massive labor category that does not exist today 
19:51 Will we see the data provider market unbundle and specialize into verticals? 
22:24 Is the stated revenue really revenue or is it really GMV? 
27:55 How a 1 million ARR company secured one of the best investors in the world with a helicopter ride 
29:41 How Felicis secured the deal of the decade with a race track and a set of Ferraris 
32:59 Which investment round felt like the highest price to grow into? 
34:49 Why will value accrue to the infrastructure layer, not the application layer, in the next 12 months? 
35:46 Why the model is the product and why application layer companies should be scared as a result 
37:22 Why network effects will be the determinant of value creation 
38:46 Why the forward-deployed motion, not the GTM motion, will determine true value creation. 
41:59 Why token spend within organizations is going to continue to increase 
43:54 Why agent evaluation to commoditize the model layer will be a massive business for enterprises? 
51:13 Why we should have increased capital gains tax 
01:01:31 How to compete with $20 million a year from Meta? 
01:08:49 Will Mercor go public and when?

Nico Laqua is the Co-Founder and CEO of Corgi Insurance, an AI-native insurance carrier built for startups. Corgi is the most intense workplace culture in America. The team works 7 days per week. The founder sleeps in the office. ⅔ of the first 30 team members have a Corgi tattoo. This week, Corgi raised $106M, valuing the company at a whopping $2.6BN. 
AGENDA: 
06:35 Why going to university was a massive waste of time 
09:42 Why we work seven days a week 
11:58 Why we do work trials and how that is a test of people's stamina 
18:41 Why we created a cafe in the biggest annoyance with San Francisco 
22:00 Why I am so bullish on London 
23:49 Why I haven't sold a single secondary 
24:19 Why people who found companies in New York prioritise dating over their company 
30:46 Biggest lessons on cash comp and equity 
31:13 Team members can be split into three separate groups 
34:59 Biggest lesson from Brian Chesky on price 
35:44 What is the right amount of time to be fundraising for? 
36:47 Good companies get deals done and what makes the best venture investors? 
40:34 Why AI makes sales and marketing more valuable 
43:12 Why I don't like boards and I don't think they're effective 
46:19 What I would like to see more of from venture funds 
48:05 Who was Corgi's first believer?