E441: Startup Investing When the Cost of Building Goes to Zero

What if AI makes the founder more important, not less? John Borthwick is the Founder of betaworks, the startup studio and venture firm behind companies including Giphy, Dots, bitly, and TweetDeck, with investments in companies including Twitter, Tumblr, Kickstarter, and Hugging Face. We break down why John now puts more weight on founders than products, how betaworks identified Hugging Face before transformers reshaped AI, and why he believes the biggest opportunity is moving toward the AI application layer. We also discuss open-source AI, AI security, the changing nature of work, and why John believes AI was discovered rather than invented. John Borthwick is the Founder of betaworks, the startup studio and venture firm behind companies including Giphy, Dots, bitly, and TweetDeck, with investments in companies including Twitter, Tumblr, Kickstarter, and Hugging Face. We break down why John now puts more weight on founders than products, how betaworks identified Hugging Face before transformers reshaped AI, and why he believes the biggest opportunity is moving toward the AI application layer. We also discuss open-source AI, AI security, the changing nature of work, and why John believes AI was discovered rather than invented.