???????? Hi friends!

Well it’s been quite the week for the tech and venture ecosystem this week and in the UK’s answer to the All In Pod (OK, sans besties and billions) I’ll be exploring LIVE all sorts of things that are happening in the venture ecosystem with friends of the pod Eghosa Omoigui and Jonathan Sun ???? 

Join us at 6pm UK time today with a glass of something nice and some popcorn and feel free to send us your spiciest takes and questions in the chat ???? 

Here’s the link to join – hope to see you there!

This week on Nothing Ventured I spoke to Sam Beni. If you want to hear a real hero’s journey, you definitely want to check this out.

From arriving in the UK as an asylum seeker and not being able to work, to co-founding a business he couldn’t take a salary in, or hold shares in and where he lived on the office sofa for years to founding and exiting multiple startups all culminating in his role as Head of Innovation at Tech Nation, Sam’s story is absolutely incredible. Check it out!

This week there have been a few things that have caught my eye in the tech and venture ecosystem and what we’ll be talking about this evening, namely:

???? What the hell is going on at OpenAI?
???? Softbank and Tiger Global’s fall from grace
????️ What’s the future for venture according to Sam Lessin

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Now let’s get into it.

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The Lowdown

Revolving Door at OpenAI
Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock, you will have come across the news that Sam Altman was sacked from OpenAI, hired by Microsoft, returned to OpenAI and sacked half the board.

This evening we’ll be talking about what might have been the story behind the story and what this all means for the future of not only OpenAI, but the pace of development in the whole space.

first and last time i ever wear one of these

— Sam Altman (@sama)
Nov 19, 2023

Softbank and Tiger Global say goodbye to the good times
These two behemoths became a byword for excess in the private markets, with Tiger Global at one stage sending out one termsheet every single day.

But as the chickens have come home to roost with Softbank having had to deal with the fall out from WeWork, the sale of ARM and all sorts of other problems and Tiger Global having just lost Scott Shleifer, the head of the PE business and seen a $30bn drop in the value of their assets – what happens next for these two investors that at one point were the most courted in the ecosystem.

Sam Lessin’s view on the Future of Venture
Sam’s deck on his view on the future of venture is a must read, Eghosa, Jonathan and I are going to be digging into some of the nuggets that came out of it and what this means for startups and VCs alike.

And finally, back to memes from our favourite meme master, unsurprisingly around the OpenAI shenanigans again!

Ilya Sutskever be like

— Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq. (@ParikPatelCFA)
Nov 20, 2023

????And that’s a wrap for this edition of The Lowdown – I’d appreciate your feedback so just reply to this email if you’ve got something you’d like to say.

???? And if you think someone else might love this, please forward it on to them,

???? Finally, if you’re a fan of the Nothing Ventured podcast, please don’t forget to like, rate and subscribe wherever you get your pods – it really helps us spread the word.

That’s it from me so until next time…

Stay liquid 🙂

Aarish

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