rory o'driscoll

T3 · host / generalist

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.

77 calls·41 names·42% bull·last heard 12 days ago·20VC

track record

no scored calls yet — needs a stated position or a categorical verdict, with a matured window vs SPY

top calls

highest conviction · one per company

1sthigh conviction

$LINEARLinearposition

Linear's capital efficiency (2 rounds only) returns Rory's fund 1 multiple times

Linear founder Karri Saarinen raised only two rounds, refuses VC meetings, extreme capital discipline. Rory (Scale VP): 'It will return my fund one multiple times over and I'm incredibly grateful.' Validates that capital efficiency can still generate fund-returning outcomes in AI era.

20VC2026-07→

2ndhigh conviction

$ANTHROPICAnthropicposition

Anthropic laps OpenAI on revenue growth and profitability, reaching $5B Q1 ARR with 70% gross margins

Anthropic grew Q1 revenue to $5B (matching all of 2024) while expanding gross margins from 38% to 70% and projecting operating profit in Q2; at this trajectory it will overtake OpenAI in revenue, growth, and profitability within quarters.

20VC2026-05→

3rdhigh conviction

$NVDANvidiaposition

Nvidia prints $81.6B quarter with $56B profit, stock flat as market digests AI capex sustainability

Nvidia is the most profitable company on the planet at $200B+ annualized profit run-rate, with 80% revenue growth and mid-20s PE; the market has already priced in the AI capex boom and now waits for ROI proof on the next $2T of spend.

20VC2026-05→

most discussed · click a bar to filter

recurring themes

77 total

$BENCHMARK

Benchmark

HIGHrory o'driscoll·20VC·12 days ago

Benchmark's Uber (640x) vs WeWork (25x) shows controversial CEO replacement can create massive value divergence

Benchmark swapped Travis Kalanick at Uber (became $80B outcome) but kept Adam Neumann at WeWork (went bust); a16z later backed both founders, revealing venture's willingness to bear decade-long grudges and bet on iconic founders regardless of governance.

"They famously swapped out Travis for um as CEO and to the undying hatred of Emil Mik who's now at the Department of Defense and obviously Travis and a lot of controversy on that d…"

50:00

$STRIPE

Stripe

HIGHrory o'driscoll·20VC·12 days ago

Stripe hits Rule of 80 with superior pricing, efficiency, and AI tailwind vs Adyen; Rory sees sweet spot, Jason questions moat durability

Stripe's 2.75% pricing on smaller merchants + operational efficiency (Collison focus) + designed-in AI company volume (OpenAI, Anthropic) creates accelerating growth with expanding margins — a rare combination vs Adyen's harder-nosed but slower model.

"They have much higher profitability. ... And because and what's happened, I think, is they've hit a sweet spot because they have they they charge more. they have more smaller merc…"

71:30

$REVOLUT

Revolut

MEDrory o'driscoll·20VC·12 days ago

Revolut preferred over Stripe on TAM (500M exploited Europeans) and banking moat strength

European banking incumbents are overpriced and poorly run, giving Revolut a massive roll-up TAM; banking moats (network effects, regulation) are structurally stronger than payments moats which face commoditization risk.

"I think the beauty of Revolute is you have a whole continent full of overpriced, crappily run banks, right, that you can just roll over, right? And you've got 500 million European…"

78:00

$ANTHROPIC

Anthropic

HIGHrory o'driscoll·20VC·12 days ago

Anthropic's regulatory capture strategy aims to de facto ban Chinese open models via approval process

Anthropic advocates a regulatory model approval process that would require Chinese participation — unrealistic given geopolitical tensions — effectively creating a moat for frontier labs while slowing open-weight competition.

"While they're not saying they want to ban these things, they're advocating a series of steps that would add up to de facto banning or at least slowing them down. ... The third rem…"

4:52

$ETCHED

Etched

MEDrory o'driscoll·20VC·12 days ago

Etched raises $300M Series C for inference-specific ASICs challenging Nvidia's general-purpose GPU dominance

Inference-only chips can be more efficient than general-purpose GPUs; inference market may become largest chip market on planet, but execution risk high — 10+ competitors (Groq, Cerebras) and timing depends on capex cycle.

"The question now is if all you're doing is not gaming, not crypto, but just LLM multiplication, just inference, is there an even more narrowly defined chip that in return for givi…"

31:12

$ATOMS

Atoms

HIGHrory o'driscoll·20VC·12 days ago

Travis Kalanick raises $1.7B for industrial robotics holding company; Rory skeptical of conglomerate model, Jason backs founder energy

Atoms combines specific-purpose robotics (cloud kitchens, mining) under one holding company; Rory argues rollout takes longer than software and synergies unclear, while Jason bets on Kalanick's drive and iconic-founder capital access.

"It's kind of an industrial holding company across basically the big picture is it's you know atoms as the name would say. It's physical AI, AI for the real world doing a bunch of…"

43:35

$OPENROUTER

OpenRouter

MEDrory o'driscoll·20VC·12 days ago

OpenRouter LLM aggregation model (like Stripe for money, Twilio for telecom) faces commoditization as Cursor, Merge.dev launch routing products

Front-end API aggregation for LLMs makes business sense but market commoditizing rapidly — Cursor and Merge.dev already shipping routing; leaked $10B Stripe acquisition talk likely negotiation tactic to generate competing bids.

"From a business model perspective? In other words, the kind of front-end API to aggregate a lot of complexity, open router does for LLMs, what stripe does for money and what Twili…"

73:10

$ADYEN

···

Adyen

MEDrory o'driscoll·20VC·12 days ago

Adyen loses efficiency edge to Stripe as Collison brothers optimize operations and capture AI merchant volume

Adyen's hard-nosed Dutch efficiency was superior, but Stripe closed the gap on operations while adding premium pricing and AI-driven volume growth, making Stripe the better-positioned payments compounder.

"I would have said 5 years ago they look expensive relative to Aden, but now they have the wonderful combination of super strong growth, good pricing, wonderful margins. So yeah, I…"

73:00

$BENCHMARK

Benchmark

MEDrory o'driscoll·20VC·12 days ago

Benchmark's Uber 640x vs WeWork 25x shows replacement risk; a16z backs both Neumann and Kalanick

Benchmark's famous fund held both Uber and WeWork — controversial CEO replacement at Uber created an $80B outcome while WeWork failed; a16z later backed both Adam Neumann and Travis Kalanick, revealing venture's willingness to bear decade-long grudges and bet on iconic founders regardless of past controversy.

"Benchmark's best fund one of the I shouldn't say the best fund cuz actually their eBay fund was the best fund in 95 but they had an amazing looking fund that had both we work and…"

49:58

$ATOMS

Atoms

HIGHrory o'driscoll·20VC·12 days ago

Travis Kalanick raises $1.7B for robotics holding company; skeptics question synergy

Atoms combines unrelated robotics businesses (cloud kitchens, mining) under a holding company structure; while specific-purpose robotics makes more sense than humanoids, it's unclear why food prep and mining belong together other than Travis's ability to raise cheap capital — great price for founder, not necessarily for investors.

"It's not humanoids, it's specific purpose robotics. I actually think he's correct. I think we look back in the humanoids and go, we got way ahead of ourselves. You actually need s…"

42:38