Sarah Guo

Carving out conviction around the future of AI with Sarah Guo • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 15, 2022Posted in artificial intelligence, EC venture capital, Sarah Guo, Startups, Venture, venture capitalNo Comments

There’s no better way to show you have high conviction in yourself as an investor than being the biggest LP in your $101 million fund, right? Especially if you name your firm Conviction, as Sarah Guo did after leaving Greylock following a decade of investing for the well-known venture group. Last week, she announced that she raised $101 million for her new fund to back companies that are building artificial intelligence and what she describes as software 3.0. Guo spoke to ZebethMedia’s Equity podcast, co-hosted by Natasha Mascarenhas and Alex Wilhelm, about her inaugural fund and the broader market that she is investing in today. The entire conversation is live now wherever you find podcasts, so take a listen if you haven’t yet. Below we extracted four key excerpts from the interview to discuss further. Guo’s comments were edited lightly for clarity. Think of venture in innings Part of the allure of startups is that when things don’t go wrong, which they often do, you might just find yourself as an early employee of a rocket ship. That counts in VC, too, of course, if you were the first person to back a company like Airtable or see the power of connected fitness. But what happens when you want to disrupt a category that has been around the block a few times? Guo shared her framework around venture innings, and how that plays a role in her new focus areas at Conviction:

Sarah Guo isn’t late to the AI party • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 12, 2022Posted in conviction, Equity podcast, greylock, Sarah Guo, StartupsNo Comments

Sarah Guo isn’t late to the AI party, but she did just raise a $101 million fund to bet on the appetizers. Hello and welcome back to Equity, a podcast about the business of startups, where we unpack the numbers and nuance behind the headlines. This is our Wednesday show, where we niche down to a single person, think about their work, and unpack the rest. This week, Natasha and Alex interviewed Guo, who worked at Greylock for nearly a decade, and her launch of Conviction. We spoke about the self-correcting venture market, what made her leave Greylock, and even rewound to her last episode with us (recorded almost exactly three years ago). There was also an especially fruitful conversation about the opportunity in artificial intelligence right now, and how she’s defining Software 3.0. (Warning: We talk about SaaS!) We also dug into why she started a fund, the LP market, and more. The conversation ran a bit long, but it felt reasonable to keep going given the sheer breadth of stuff that we wanted to get through. Don’t forget that Equity is going to be live at Disrupt next week, on Tuesday morning. It’s going to be a blast. And before we go, two programming notes (that help your wallet, too): Equity drops every Monday at 7 a.m. PT and Wednesday and Friday at 6 a.m. PT, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. ZebethMedia also has a great show on crypto, a show that interviews founders, a show that details how our stories come together and more!