Circular Finance, $1T Dreams, and the AI War for Talent with Joe Floyd of Emergence Capital
Run the Numbers
Where AI Budgets Come From
Joe says companies repurpose headcount budgets into AI tools, with line-of-business leaders funding AI purchases instead of hires.
In this episode, CJ sits down with Joe Floyd, General Partner at Emergence Capital, for a candid conversation about the venture landscape reshaped by AI. They unpack how acqui-hires are rewriting the social contract between founders and investors, why AI engineers are commanding “boy band money,” and how SaaS playbooks are being torn up and rebuilt in real time. Joe explains the economics of AI-native startups — from circular capital flows to model-provider costs — and explores whether the next trillion-dollar private company could come from this new wave. Along the way, they discuss valuation frenzy, headcount discipline, and why curiosity might be the most valuable skill in tech today.
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LINKS:
Joe Floyd on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joefloyd/
HarbourVest Partners:
CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222
Mostly metrics:
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TIMESTAMPS:
(00:00:00) Preview and Intro
(00:00:54) Opening and Episode Overview
(00:02:53) Sponsor – RightRev | Tipalti | Aleph
(00:07:07) Back to the Office and Startup Pace in San Francisco
(00:08:40) AI Tooling Experiments and the Risk of Short-Term Hype
(00:10:19) Building Stickier AI Products and Competing in Crowded Markets
(00:12:27) SaaS Moats, Product-Market Fit, and the AI Shift
(00:14:00) How Productivity Platforms Use AI To Stay Sticky
(00:15:58) Continuous Authentication and the Next Wave of Security Tech
(00:16:36) Sponsor – Rillet | Fidelity Private Shares | Mercury
(00:19:54) Acqui-Hires, the Social Contract, and the War for AI Talent
(00:22:42) Stock-Based Comp and the Economics of Attracting Engineers
(00:24:39) The New Go-to-Market Playbook and Curiosity as a Superpower
(00:27:59) AI’s Impact on Sales, Forecasting, and Buyer Behavior
(00:29:11) Coding Agents, Headcount Reduction, and the Future of Engineering
(00:32:21) Building Defensible IP and Competing in the LLM Ecosystem
(00:34:34) AI ROI, Payback Periods, and the Search for Efficiency
(00:37:17) Valuations, Fund Cycles, and the Venture Market Reset
(00:40:20) The Circular Flow of AI Capital and Infrastructure Overbuild
(00:45:37) AI Pricing Models, Platform Wars, and Open Source Futures
(00:50:02) The Race to the First $1 Trillion Private Company
(00:51:09) Credits and Outro
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SPONSORS:
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