SALON: The New Era of Investing - Lessons Learned for Investors

In this emerging AI era, what’s different this time when it comes to tech investing? We’ve seen major disruptions before, both business model (eg, internet > mobile > social > AI) and cultural/structural/economic (eg, ZIRP, gig workers, Covid, remote working, cloud computing).

Prior eras followed a similar playbook: irrational exuberance leading to the trough of despair, followed by the emergence of a handful of market leaders with escape velocity and long tail of minor players, all setting into a level of market maturity that keeps things in balance.

Will the AI era follow same? Or does the velocity of tech evolution and democratization of access to these sophisticated technologies mean something different?

What have investors learned from these past cycles that informs how they select investments and support their portfolio companies? What past mistakes have they made that they are correcting for now, and how?

We unpack all these topics with another Salon episode featuring three leading travel tech investors to share their battle scars and assessment of this new climate of investing.

Follows

Gilad Berenstein – host

Cara Whitehill - host

Gaurav Tuli - guest

Chris Hemmeter - guest

Mia Morisset - guest

Go Deeper

• When Not to Take VC Advice - Sifted
• The great SaaS obituary: why reports of its death are greatly exaggerated - Medium
• The 3-Person Unicorn Startup - NfX
• How AI is disrupting the VC and startup ecosystem - Fast Company
• How AI is fundamentally changing the operational needs of startups - World Economic Forum

Book Recommendation: Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away, Annie Duke