20VC: Reid Hoffman on Foundation Models: Who Wins & How Do Incumbents Respond | The Inflection AI Deal: How it Went Down | Why Trump is a Threat to Democracy | The Future of TikTok | Lessons from Sam Altman, Brian Chesky and the OpenAI Board

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

Reid Hoffman has been one of the most impactful people in technology over the last two decades. He is the Co-Founder of Linkedin (acq by Microsoft for $26BN) and Co-Founder of Inflection.ai. As an investor, Reid has backed the likes of Facebook, Airbnb, Zynga and more. Reid is also a Board Member @ Microsoft and was on the board of OpenAI.

In Today's Show with Reid Hoffman We Discuss:

1. Foundation Models: Commoditisation, Business Models, Incumbents:

• Does Reid believe we are seeing the commoditization of foundation models?
• Is it too late for new foundation models to be born today? Are they VC backable?
• How will foundation models eventually make money? What will be the sustainable business model?
• Does Reid believe that foundation models will be acquired by large cloud providers? Who goes first?

2. Inflection & Microsoft: What Went Down:

• How did the Microsoft and Inflection deal go down? Did Satya call up one day and make it happen?
• With the decay rate of models, Microsoft did not do it for the models, so why did they do it?
• Was Inflection a sustainable business in it's own right?
• Does this not prove that to win at this game, you have to be an incumbent with incumbent cash?

3. OpenAI: Board, Lessons and Management:

• What are 1-2 of Reid's biggest lessons from being on the OpenAI board with Sam?
• Why did Sam ask Reid in front of the whole company if Reid would fire him if he did not perform?
• Scarlett Johannsen, super alignment team quitting, NDAs tied to equity, this is a lot in a short amount of time, how does Reid analyse this?

4. Trump is the Biggest Threat to Democracy: What Lies Ahead?

• Why does Reid believe that Trump is a threat to democracy and evil?
• What were Reid's biggest takeaways from a two hour lunch with Joe Biden?
• How does a Trump administration change the world of AI, technology and startups?

5. The Future of TikTok:

• Is TikTok a threat to US democracy? Should it be banned?
• What will be the outcome of the current judicial process? Will they sell to a US entity?
• How could Trump impact the future of TikTok in the US?

6. Reid Hoffman: AMA:

• What are Peter Thiel's biggest strengths and weaknesses?
• I believe Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most unappreciated public market CEOs, what are the core components that Reid believes makes Mark so special?
• How did Reid miss out on investing in SpaceX's first round? What did he not see that he should have seen?
• What do we think is crazy today but will be a no brainer and very normal in 10 years?