About this episode
Deedy Das, Partner at Menlo Ventures and former founding team member at Glean, joins Sourcery to unpack a major shift reshaping venture capital: the move from rigid investment theses toward founder-led conviction.With 48+ years of experience, 80+ public companies, 165+ mergers and acquisitions, and $6.8B+ under management, Menlo Ventures is partnering with Anthropic through the $100M Anthology Fund to back the next generation of AI startups.Deedy explains how the firm identifies infrastructure companies early — often before the broader market recognizes their importance — and why iconic outcomes rarely emerge from predefined theses. He breaks down what distinguishes durable AI businesses from short-lived momentum plays, and how top investors evaluate founders capable of building enduring companies.We also explore the rapid evolution of the AI stack — from internet-scale training to reinforcement learning, agentic systems, and the pursuit of the economic Turing test.Topics Covered:The strategy behind Menlo + Anthropic’s Anthology FundWhy “anti-thesis” investing winsFounder traits that predict generational companiesAI infrastructure gaps still waiting to be builtProduct taste as a competitive moatThe danger of overfunding startupsWhy Deedy became one of tech’s most followed voices on XDeedy Das: https://x.com/deedydas Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ?https://x.com/sourceryy ??????? ?????YouTube : https://youtu.be/Gjw0oBznXuQ????????• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery• Turing—Turing delivers top-tier talent, data, and tools to help AI labs improve model performance—and enables enterprises to turn those models into powerful, production-ready systems. https://turing.com/sourcery
