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▶ 76:59 · $DEEPSEEK · DeepSeek raising at $74B valuation: Chinese AI model distillation of US models raises competitive concerns
episode briefing
20VC

Canva Slashes Growth | Demis Hassabis & Jeff Dean: Talent Exodus at Google | Musk's $55B Terrafab

2026-08-13 · 29 company · 22 thematic
sentiment
15 bull8 bear6 neu
speakers
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.

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.

harry stebbings

Founder of 20VC (The Twenty Minute VC), one of the most popular venture-capital podcasts, and its associated fund.

quote
“Deepseek raising an 8 billion at reported 74 billion. Um, Bite Dance Band's distillation of US models. Um, which I thought was interesting.”
—harry stebbings

episode shorts · 1

Could Bending Spoons Buy HubSpot?

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$FIG···bearish· mediumjason lemkin
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$AIRTABLEbearish· mediumrory o'driscoll
Airtable growth slowdown signals 'era of no code is over' per Amjad Masad
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$INTERCOMbullish· medium· posrory o'driscoll
Intercom successfully pivoted to AI-native customer support; Rory O'Driscoll was investor
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$CURSORbullish· mediumjason lemkin
Cursor and Windsurf pivoted fast in 2022 to become AI-native coding leaders
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$REPLITbullish· mediumrory o'driscoll
Replit pivoted from 6-year wilderness to AI-native IDE after adding models
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$DDOG···bullish· highrory o'driscoll
Datadog perfectly positioned for AI infrastructure boom: sells observability to vendors needing 100x more monitoring
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$TWLO···bullish· mediumrory o'driscoll
Twilio caught the AI agent wave: Jeff Lawson anticipated agents need more voice and text APIs
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$NET···bullish· mediumrory o'driscoll
Cloudflare benefits from greatest infrastructure boom in history as AI drives compute and networking demand
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$PLTR···bullish· highrory o'driscoll
Palantir earns 'grab the moment' award: growth accelerated from 18% to 98% via outcome-based pricing and forward-deployed engineers
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$CANVAbearish· highrory o'driscoll
Rory O'Driscoll values Canva at $12B vs $50B peak on decelerating growth and existential risk
Canva's deceleration to 20% growth with existential AI risk justifies ~$12B valuation (3-4x ARR) versus prior $50B marks; liquidity will only return after proving the model works…
$AIRTABLEbearish· highjason lemkin
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$NOTIONbullish· mediumrory o'driscoll
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$ANTHROPICbullish· highrory o'driscoll
Anthropic at 'peak brass ring moment': should IPO fast after pulling ahead of ChatGPT in coding
Anthropic has comfortably pulled ahead of OpenAI in coding, creating a narrow window to go public at peak valuation before competitive dynamics shift; the team makes every correct…
$GOOGL···bearish· highrory o'driscoll
Google's AI efforts rated 'B+ A minus, not A+': lost Jeff Dean and Demis Hassabis, failing in coding model race
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$SPCX···bullish· mediumrory o'driscoll
SpaceX vertical integration (Starlink launch + satellite) is model for Elon's Terra Fab semiconductor ambition
SpaceX's superb vertical integration — launching its own satellites for Starlink — proves Elon can execute full-stack hardware projects; Terra Fab applies this playbook to semicon…
$TSM···neutral· highjason lemkin
TSMC capacity bottleneck: Jensen Huang monopolizing supply, Musk building TerraFab to bypass decade-long queue
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$NVDA···bullish· mediumjason lemkin
Nvidia's Jensen Huang monopolizing TSMC advanced packaging capacity, forcing rivals to build own fabs
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$INTC···neutral· mediumrory o'driscoll
Intel raises equity for first time since 1979 IPO to join Musk's TerraFab consortium amid AI capex boom
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$REVOLUTneutral· mediumrory o'driscoll
Revolut CEO incentive package targets 40% ownership at $500B: 16% participation rate on $300B value creation debated
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$DEEPSEEKneutral· lowharry stebbings
DeepSeek raising at $74B valuation: Chinese AI model distillation of US models raises competitive concerns
DeepSeek's reported $74B raise for distilling US models highlights geopolitical tension in AI — Bytedance restricting distillation suggests IP protection becoming strategic.
$WHATNOTbullish· highjason lemkin
Whatnot raises $545M at $20B: live shopping 'QVC for internet' with 2x GMV growth and 12% take rate
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$SHOP···bullish· mediumrory o'driscoll
Shopify blows out Q2: commerce platform proving resilient to AI disruption
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$NET···bullish· high· posrory o'driscoll
Rory O'Driscoll's 'buy Cloudflare' call up 50%; AI infrastructure winners need no business model change
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$DDOG···bearish· mediumrory o'driscoll
Datadog growth pressured as OpenAI (largest customer) cuts observability spend by $150M
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$TEAM···neutral· highjason lemkin
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