The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch 20VC's Big Fat Quiz of the Year: Founder, Fund and Breakout Company of 2025 | Predictions for 2026: The Company to Buy, The Biggest Short | Why Salesforce Could Win 2026 and The Tailwinds NVIDIA Will Face
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Dec 22, 2025 
In this engaging discussion, Jason Lemkin, SaaS entrepreneur and founder of SaaStr, and Rory O'Driscoll, a seasoned venture capitalist, delve into their predictions for 2026. They highlight Dario Amodei as a standout founder and discuss the impact of companies like Salesforce and Databricks. The duo explores the biggest surprises of 2025, including talent wars, and share insights on top tech stocks to watch. They also debate the potential impacts of AI on employment and speculate on upcoming IPOs, making for a thought-provoking and entertaining conversation.
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Model Releases Enabled Whole New Apps
- Claude 3.5/3.7 (and 4) unlocked a wave of usable AI products across categories this year.
- Many apps only became viable once those models reached sufficient quality and reliability.
Execution Trumps Hype For Funds
- Index Ventures executed the classic venture playbook extremely well in 2025 with major exits and ownership.
- Delivering consistent ownership in breakout outcomes remains the most objective measure of fund performance.
Narrow Focus Scaled Fast
- OpenEvidence focused on doctors as the primary user and grew to 500,000 of the million US doctors in a year.
- That product-market fit created highly targeted revenue opportunities from drug companies advertising to specialists.