Jesse Chenard

𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐔𝐑𝐄 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐑𝐒 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐘𝐒𝐓𝐈𝐅𝐈𝐄𝐃 4: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐀𝐓𝐎𝐑 𝐕𝐂 Continuing on routes into Investment Teams in Venture (https://lnkd.in/gvWW28eF), last time we talked about Career VCs (https://lnkd.in/gRXHh4CQ), this time: 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘖𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘝𝘊. 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐧 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫? “Operator” refers to professionals in engineering, product, sales, marketing, corporate development, etc within tech companies from startups to Big Tech. 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐬 & 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐁𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐧 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫 𝐕𝐂 ✅Experience: Early-stage companies need specialist knowledge in their sector and experience in ‘company building’. Operator VCs have this from their background and so can help more than equivalent Career VCs. ✅Credibility: The experience an Operator VC brings helps them connect with founders and teams who face similar challenges. This credibility builds strong bonds before and after an investment. ✅Network: Operator VCs already have a network of teams, founders and experts they can lean on for sourcing and diligence. ❌Financial skills: At non-Partner levels, a large part of VC involves financial and company/market analysis. Career VCs develop these skills through banking or consulting, whereas operators can lack this expertise. ❌Compensation: Non-partner roles at VCs can have a lower base comp than senior operator roles in tech. 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐠𝐞𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐎𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐕𝐂 Despite their unique experience, Operators don’t always have an easy path into VC. Unless senior enough to join as a Partner, the lack of analytical and financial skills means some find it hard to get in and, once they are, can struggle with these aspects of the job. To counteract this, I have two suggestions:  1️⃣ Get the training – plug financial/analytical gaps with a fully-fledged MBA or focused education;  2️⃣ Play to your strengths – Use expertise (eg tech if from an engineering background) to supplement rather than compete with Career VCs. 𝐒𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐨𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐨 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠  The nature and style of work in VC is very different to a tech company:   1️⃣ Fragmented, short duration teams working towards a transaction, rather than a long-term macro goal 2️⃣ Partnership vs CEO organisational structure 3️⃣ Transactional work where, unlike sales, ‘more’ is not necessarily better. As a result, skills that made operators successful in tech don’t always translate well to VC. Some adapt, while others find it difficult and ultimately leave the industry. 𝐓𝐢𝐩𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐠𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐕𝐂 𝐯𝐢𝐚 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐞 1️⃣ Showcase experience: What is your operational superpower and how can you highlight it? 2️⃣ Up-skill: learn the basics of financial modelling and corporate analysis so you are at less of a disadvantage. 3️⃣ Investment Interest: Engage with startups and invest time or money. Build a ‘portfolio’, and explain how your operational skills add value to the companies you help.

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With RL techniques like GRPO, it’s become easy to fine-tune small models to outperform foundation models on vertical tasks. We’re open sourcing Osmosis-Apply-1.7B: a small model that merges code (similar to Cursor’s instant apply) better than foundation models. Links in comments! Using foundation models for high specificity, low complexity tasks like code merging can be overkill - instead, it’s better to use a specialized model instead for higher performance and latency. We fine-tuned the model on 100K real-world code commits where the model needs to merge a code edit snippet into an original code snippet. On the test dataset (subset of CommitPackFT), foundation model performance ranged between 0.77-0.93 reward score. In comparison, Osmosis-Apply-1.7B achieved a 0.98 reward score - while also being 3X-5X more affordable than the next cheaper model AND ~10X faster! Why this matters: the best AI agents use multiple models to ensure task specialization and reliability at scale - on top of cost and latency benefits as well. Links to the model and full write-up (with reward function, hyperparameters, etc.) are in the comments - reach out if you’re interested in using reinforcement learning!

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While we are spending a significant amount of time on AI (as is everybody else), we continue to be on the look out for opportunities others are ignoring. On the back of our recent investment in Salmon Group Ltd, where we are partnering with some truly world-class entrepreneurs, I had the chance to share some thoughts with Tech in Asia on why fintech companies in the Philippines are standing out. As I mentioned in the piece, the sector’s growth comes from a “confluence of things”: regulatory improvements, digital fluency, and a young, growing population eager to spend. Add in the pandemic-driven adoption of digital payments, and you’ve got a strong foundation for local players to scale and attract international capital. Full article here: https://lnkd.in/gfRd36mG Antler Martell Hardenberg Keerat Singh Sethi Pavel Fedorov

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The AI economy will need to come up with ~$780B in net-new annual revenue to pay back the CapEx pouring into infrastructure. Does that worry you? You wouldn't be alone. In our latest essay, "Deus Ex CapEx," we explore the assumptions and incentives behind the current AI data center boom. Importantly for founders, we also dig into whether it's driving what some are taking for granted: that it will reduce pricing for application-layer AI. 3 data points from our piece to give you a sense of scale & stakes: + Big Tech aims to spend $364B on AI infra in 2025 (~50% of revenue), while FCF plunges. Much of it is uncertain, however, with options & LOIs abounding. + Right-sizing GPU depreciation cycles to 3 years (from 5.5-6) would shave $780B off the collective enterprise value of the “AI Big 5” (~30% of S&P 500). + Coincidentally, this is the exact same number as the CapEx revenue shortfall. Foundation AI pricing, meanwhile, has come down on a per-token / per-model basis. As inference costs decline however, reasoning is expanding workloads (and token usage). AI is getting cheaper... frontier intelligence, not so much. Get the full essay below, and our breakdown of the CapEx-revenue shortfall in the comments. https://lnkd.in/gbP5ED_G

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2 years ago today, A16Z announced they put $100M into Pinecone, as everyone and their mother tripped over each other to invest in vector databases. Given how little standalone vector DBs are valued now, the hype cycle is wild to look back on. Quick timeline below: Late 2022: • ChatGPT launches. • Early RAG architectures emerge. • First buzz around Pinecone, Weaviate, Milvus, Chroma. Q1 2023: • Massive demand surge for vector search. • Vector DBs seen as critical infra. • Heavy VC excitement (“new database category!”). Q2 2023: • Peak hype. • Pinecone raises $100M, Weaviate raises $50M. • Every AI infra diagram has a vector DB layer. Q3 2023: • Saturation hits. • Postgres, Redis, MongoDB add native vector search. • Clouds bundle it. Q4 2023: • Hype fades. • Vector search becomes a commodity. Early 2024: • Market tightens. • Attention shifts to agents, fine-tuning, orchestration.

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YL Ventures loves seeing our portfolio company Miggo Security continue to push the boundaries of #runtime #protection, and #application #security with #AI. Their Miggo #WAF #Copilot (https://lnkd.in/g7V6AeWJ) adds #intelligence and #automation on top of existing WAFs to give security teams faster, clearer, and more precise #protection. Leveraging their Predictive Vulnerability Database (https://lnkd.in/gwRrjHeG), Miggo WAF Copilot enables security teams to instantly defend live applications against critical #vulnerabilities seconds after a vulnerability is disclosed -- without waiting for #patches or relying on manual #remediation. This is the forward-looking innovation our #CISO friends are telling us they need: Proactive, context-aware and built for speed. YL Ventures is proud to support Miggo Security as they continue to shape the future of #AppSec!

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🚀 Animoca’s Yat Siu on CNBC: The Next Phase of Web3 Adoption In his recent CNBC interview, Yat Siu, Chairman of Animoca Brands, shared powerful insights on the evolving crypto ecosystem and what it means for businesses and investors: 🔹 Bitcoin vs. Ethereum ·       Bitcoin = Digital Gold: A store of value, rarely spent. ·       Ethereum = Utility: With ~$100B in total value locked, it powers stablecoins, NFTs, and L2s. Because ETH is used and spent, its rise fuels broader ecosystem growth. 🔹 The Coming Altcoin Wave As ETH strengthens (with predictions of $6K–$10K ahead), capital will cascade into altcoins and Web3 ecosystems. Corporates moving treasury allocations from BTC → ETH → other tokens show how adoption will spread across the industry. 🔹 Internet Money → Internet Customers Accepting tokens isn’t only a payment play. It’s access to a loyal, liquid, and growing community. Just like selling in different fiat currencies, offering goods in ETH, SAND, or other tokens lowers friction and builds deeper engagement. 🔹 A New Global Wealth Class and 🌍 The Big Picture Over 500 million people worldwide now own crypto and digital assets. This isn’t just about asset prices – it’s a massive new customer base. Luxury brands were early movers, integrating NFTs and Web3 strategies to reach this audience. The token economy already represents $4T+ in market cap. Every cycle of adoption redistributes value across projects, creating new opportunities for builders, brands, and investors alike. 🙌 At True Global Ventures, we share Yat’s conviction: the real story isn’t just crypto prices, but the transformation of money into a new internet-native customer economy. 👀 Watch the interview: https://lnkd.in/grXu26Em

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🚨California Takes Action with Passage of 3 Bills to Scale CDR Innovation This weekend, California made unprecedented progress in creating compliance mechanisms to help grow Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR) by providing pathways for all CDR approaches to gain market traction and grow responsibly in the state: ✅ CDR is included for the first time in the Cap & Invest program via AB1207, which creates a pathway for CDR to be permanently integrated as a compliance offset category ✅ The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund was reauthorized via SB804, and now includes a framework for CDR to be included in future allocations from the fund for climate tech innovation, including as part of an $85M climate tech innovation program ✅ The passage of SB643 creates a Carbon Dioxide Removal Purchase Program to purchase CDR credits from eligible suppliers With these actions, California has created the framework to responsibly scale CDR, creating both economic and environmental benefits for Californians. These benefits include addressing affordability by generating good paying jobs and lowering CDR technology costs, as well as deploying technologies that tackle critical challenges such as wildfire fuel load reduction (such as the pictured Charm pilot in the Inyo National Forest) and orphaned wells. In addition, this program is technology-inclusive - enabling the state to deploy a wide range of technologies that support meeting CA’s climate goals by tackling legacy and residual emissions. Over the past few years, Charm Industrial has been collaborating with legislators, the California Air Resources Board (CARB), and numerous NGO, industry, and academic partners to explore these concepts - what is the right mix of technologies for California? How can CDR help plug the gaps for residual and hard to abate emissions, and what are the benefits for Californians? We are incredibly proud of this progress, and this suite of new mechanisms provides support for R&D, supply, and demand, which together will support the scaling of the CDR industry - coupled with additional resources allocated to CARB for scaling SB905, the Carbon Capture Removal and Storage bill passed in 2022, which provides the framework to support this work. This is also yet another example of California leading the nation by fully integrating responsible CDR into its programs, creating a huge opportunity for the state to lead on scaling a wide range of technologies that will not only create environmental and economic benefits, but are also critical to helping the state stay on track for net zero and reaching California’s climate goals. Thank you to our partners in the legislature and agencies for your vision and commitment to scaling these solutions, and to all of our NGO, industry, and academic partners for all of the painstaking work to come up with the right set of solutions for California. We’re looking forward to working together to implement these important programs! 

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LineWise (YC X25), a Thailand-based startup that builds an AI-powered virtual engineer for manufacturers, has raised $1.1 million in pre-seed funding. The round saw participation from A2D Ventures, Y Combinator, Exitfund, REMUS Capital, SBXi Fund and Team Ignite Ventures. LineWise said in a statement that the funding will accelerate its aim to eliminate two of the most expensive problems in manufacturing: unplanned downtime and yield loss caused by defects. James Kujareevanich | Wenbo Zhang 🔗 Read full article link in comment #linewise #AI #VC #thailand #startupnews #funding #businessupdate

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