Naomi Ionita and Derek Xiao are investors at Menlo Ventures, one of Silicon Valley's most successful and storied venture capital funds. Menlo has backed over 80 public companies, manages over $5 billion in assets, and has been a pillar of the VC community for an astonishing 47 years. You likely know many of Menlo's recent high-profile investments in companies like Anthropic, Chime, and Harness and historical investments such as 3Com, Hotmail, and Roku. Naomi and Derek recently led the firm's publication of a 3,500-word report chronicling the state of generative AI in the enterprise.

In this episode, we discuss

• How they decide what to invest in 
• The tripling of budgets for AI projects by 2025, according to a report from ISG and Glean
• Enterprise leaders face challenges in proving ROI and building trust in AI solutions.
• The top use cases for AI investment include customer service and enterprise search
• Menlo Ventures' perspective on the current state of VC and the opportunities in AI investing.
• Insights from Menlo Ventures' report on generative AI in the enterprise, including barriers to adoption and the potential for transformation
• The broader societal impacts and considerations of AI adoption in business and technology.

Resources

The Menlo Ventures Enterprise AI report
Menlo Ventures website
Fun fact article