▶ 66:00 · $THINKING-MACHINES · Lemkin: Thinking Machines co-founder departure for $80M equity shows AI founder opportunity cost distortion

episode briefing

20VC

Travis Kalanick Raises $1.7B for Atoms | Google Cloud Grows 82% But The Market Tanks

2026-07-30 · 18 company · 21 thematic

sentiment

7 bull4 bear7 neu

speakers

jason lemkin

Founder of SaaStr, a community and media platform for B2B software founders and executives. He is an early-stage investor and a frequent commentator on SaaS growth and go-to-market strategy.

rory o'driscoll

Rory O'Driscoll is a partner at Scale Venture Partners, a late-stage venture firm. He references Scale's portfolio (Linear, DataBricks, HubSpot, Salesforce, Palantir) and fund dynamics. He previously invested in Anthropic (2021) and tracks AI infrastructure closely.

quote

“she probably has 1% if she's like a late co-founder, right? So, what's Thinking Machines worth on paper? 8 billion. Oh, she's only got 80 million. I'd leave that behind. It's nothing.”

—jason lemkin

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