My guest today is Ramtin Naimi, the founder of Abstract Ventures, back for our second conversation. Few people see as many companies as Ramtin and his firm, so this time we zoom in on what they’re seeing right now.

The question he keeps coming back to is whether this is 2019 or 2021: early in a run, or at the top of one. Hot rounds now come with a second, pricier tranche for the firms that lost the deal, and he’s seen more term sheets pulled or renegotiated in recent weeks than at any time since 2021.

We also get into the neolabs, one of which plans to spend $1 billion on a single training run, how the goalposts for a best-case outcome moved from $10 billion to a trillion dollars, and the biggest mistake he’s made building Abstract.

Please enjoy my conversation with Ramtin Naimi.

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page ⁠here⁠.

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Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by ⁠The Podcast Consultant⁠.

Timestamps:

(00:00:00) The Speed of Today's Deal Market

(00:05:43) How Today Compares to 2021

(00:08:25) Mega Funds and LP Liquidity

(00:13:43) New Ways to Pay for Compute

(00:17:13) GPU Scarcity and the Neolab Boom

(00:20:42) Why Proactive Seed Bets Win

(00:27:42) Is Late Stage the Safe Bet?

(00:31:58) Data Companies and New Angels

(00:34:46) How Abstract Is Evolving

(00:38:17) Rating the Market's Froth