Molly O’Shea@MollySOSheaOct 8

BREAKING: USV Raises $900M in New Funds $500M dedicated for early-stage, & a $400M opportunity fund The largest fund cycle in the firm's history. FULL INTERVIEW + HQ TOUR For more than 20 years, Union Square Ventures deliberately kept its funds small. I sat down with General Partners Fred Wilson (@fredwilson ), Rebecca Kaden (@rebeccakaden ) & Mike (@mignano), to break down why the firm is getting bigger now, what it's betting on, & where VC goes next. Nick Grossman (@nickgrossman ), also a General Partner, was out of town for the recording. @usv was early to Twitter, Etsy, Twilio, MongoDB, Coinbase, Duolingo & Abridge. Their new thesis is that AI could obliterate entire markets. "I was a little surprised how many of them said, 'Are you sure you shouldn't raise more?'" -- Rebecca Kaden We cover › Why USV raised $900M & why some LPs wanted it to raise more › Series A checks now running $10M to $30M › Supertake, USV's first incubation, & a seed strategy built around incubations + proprietary seeds › The "Rebel Alliance" & the case for open AI infrastructure › Why energy is 20% to 30% of the portfolio & one of the cleanest bets on AI 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Fred, Rebecca & Michael, GPs at USV (01:12) USV's biggest fund ever: $900M (02:13) TOUR: Inside USV's New York office (07:19) An AI agent that runs your portfolio (12:38) AI Agents won't watch Netflix for you (14:00) USV's new strategy for the AI era (16:54) The real cost of building in AI (21:03) The fight over monetizing Twitter (23:54) Why Amazon is shutting out agents (31:02) Why smaller funds pick better (33:40) What Series A looks like now (40:17) Is ARR a fake metric? (46:00) 20 years of USV's biggest wins (51:10) Why great founders still fail (57:46) Will Anthropic compete with its customers? (59:54) Why Coinbase moved off Claude (1:01:44) An AI doctor that writes prescriptions (1:04:09) Your AI lawyer is the worst it'll ever be (1:08:29) Who protects you from your own AI agent? (1:11:58) Fred Wilson's been hacked 4 times (1:13:31) Coinbase: a security company in disguise (1:16:28) Betting on markets that don't exist yet (1:21:16) From first-time founder to Suno