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▶ 78:18 · $POOLSIDE · Jason Lemkin: Poolside sold to Nvidia after failing to raise capital despite strong team and vision
episode briefing
20VC

Jensen Huang Declares AGI Has Arrived | Tesla Launches Cybercabs | Index Pulls Out of Town

2026-09-10 · 15 company · 10 thematic
sentiment
12 bull1 bear2 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
“Poolside effectively didn't they would deny that they sold, but they sold a license for their product to Nvidia, which was an openw weight um enterprise US focused model and they, you know, the company still exists, but they cashed out qui…”
—jason lemkin
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