2025 was, undoubtedly, the year of AI. In the first episode of 2026 Beezer Clarkson, Partner at Sapphire Partners, and Nick Chirls, Partner at Asylum Ventures revisit some of their favorite moments from the year before to see what the top voices in VC saw as emerging AI trendlines and how the venture ecosystem and global markets might respond next. In this episode we’ll hear from – among others – Sarah Tavel of Benchmark about what it means to be truly AI native, Sunil Dhaliwal & Mike Dauber of Amplify about finding technical VCs in the age of AI, and Micah Rosenbloom of Founder Collective on how early stage venture often misses major trends like AI until it’s too late.

Learn more about Sapphire Partners: sapphireventures.com/sapphire-partners

Learn more about OpenLP: openlp.vc

Learn more about Asylum Ventures: asylum.vc

Learn more about Benchmark: benchmark.com

Learn more about Amplify: amplifypartners.com

Learn more about Founder Collective: foundercollective.com

Learn more about Curie.Bio: curie.bio

Read Sarah’s Substack Posts: sarahtavel.com

For a monthly roundup of the latest venture insights, including the newest Origins episodes, subscribe to the OpenLP newsletter – delivered straight to your inbox: subscribe.openlp.vc

Nothing presented herein is intended to constitute investment advice, and under no circumstances should any information provided herein be used or considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by Sapphire Ventures, LLC (“Sapphire”). Any offer or solicitation of securities by Sapphire may only be made in accordance with the current offering documents for a managed Fund in which Sapphire is an advisor. Additionally, Sapphire does not solicit or make its services available to the public; such offerings may only be provided to accredited investors and qualified purchasers defined within the Securities Act of 1933 and the Investment Company Act of 1940. Information provided reflects Sapphire Ventures’ views as of a particular time. Such views are subject to change at any point and Sapphire Ventures shall not be obligated to provide notice of any change. Due to various risks and uncertainties, actual events, results or the actual experience may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated in these statements. While Sapphire Ventures has used reasonable efforts to obtain information from reliable sources, Sapphire makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of third party information presented herein. Nothing presented herein may be relied upon as a guarantee or assurance as to the future success of any particular investment opportunity or strategy. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Origins host Beezer Clarkson, LP at Sapphire Partners and co-founder of OpenLP, and Nick Chirls, GP at Asylum Ventures, dig into their recent conversation with Micah Rosenbloom, Managing Partner at Founder Collective. They discuss the EQ and self-awareness required to switch from operator to investor, how to separate signal from noise in venture cycles, and how the speed of iteration is now such that a window of one or two days can change the entire calculus of an investment.

Learn more about Sapphire Partners: sapphireventures.com/sapphire-partners

Learn more about OpenLP: openlp.vc

Learn more about Asylum Ventures: asylum.vc

Learn more about Founder Collective: foundercollective.com

For a monthly roundup of the latest venture insights, including the newest Origins episodes, subscribe to the OpenLP newsletter – delivered straight to your inbox: subscribe.openlp.vc

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Welcome to Origins

0:34 How Involved Should Operators Be With Their CEOs?

2:16 VCs and Trends Are Seven Years Too Late

3:19 Repeat Portfolio Companies: Courageous Or Insane?

5:42 How Do VCs Handle the Speed of Iteration?

Micah Rosenbloom is a Managing Partner at Founder Collective, a firm dedicated to seed investing and, crucially, to keeping their fund sizes below $100 million. Micah talks with Beezer Clarkson, Partner at Sapphire Partners, and Nick Chirls, Partner at Asylum Ventures, to discuss Founder Collective’s philosophy of keeping their fund size small to avoid the “billions or bust” mentality, how most investors have a bad track record of spotting trends at seed, and how consumer goods are still worthwhile investments even against the backdrop of AI. They also debate a recent post from Nick to get to the fundamental question of whether investors taking big risks are courageous or lucky.

Learn more about Sapphire Partners: sapphireventures.com/sapphire-partners

Learn more about OpenLP: openlp.vc

Learn more about Asylum Ventures: asylum.vc

Learn more about Founder Collective: foundercollective.com

For a monthly roundup of the latest venture insights, including the newest Origins episodes, subscribe to the OpenLP newsletter – delivered straight to your inbox: subscribe.openlp.vc

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Welcome to Origins

2:16 What Can Small Do For You?8:57-A Whole Team of Ex Operators

14:52 How Micah’s View of the Market Has Changed18:48-Why the Market’s Tough Right Now

21:49 Early Stage VCs Are Usually Seven Years Too Late
30:14 Investing: Courage or Luck?42:59-Predictions for 2026

Origins host Beezer Clarkson, LP at Sapphire Partners and co-founder of OpenLP, and Nick Chirls, GP at Asylum Ventures, dive into their recent conversation with Kyle Samani, Founder and Managing Partner of Multicoin Capital. They discuss their learnings on crypto, including why Nick is more bullish on bitcoin than Kyle, and how LPs conceptualize investing in firms like Multicoin. They also break down why people who came up as Crypto traders and investors are uniquely positioned to excel in early stage venture.

Learn more about Sapphire Partners: sapphireventures.com/sapphire-partners

Learn more about OpenLP: openlp.vc

Learn more about Asylum Ventures: asylum.vc

Learn more about Multicoin: multicoin.capital

For a monthly roundup of the latest venture insights, including the newest Origins episodes, subscribe to the OpenLP newsletter – delivered straight to your inbox: subscribe.openlp.vc

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Welcome to Origins

1:02 Is Bitcoin an Unproductive Asset?

1:56 The Problem With Web3.0

3:49 Assessing Crypto Managers As an LP

6:21 The Hard Part Isn’t Buying Bitcoin, It’s Holding It

8:21 Trained In Crypto, Excelling In Traditional Markets

Kyle Samani is the Founder and Managing Partner of Multicoin Capital, a thesis-driven investment firm that invests in cryptocurrencies, tokens, and blockchain companies reshaping trillion-dollar markets. He joins Beezer Clarkson, Partner at Sapphire Partners, and Nick Chirls, Partner at Asylum Ventures, to discuss the philosophies that underpin Multicoin’s investment strategies. He also unpacks how blockchain technologies are already reshaping global finance away from legacy systems and towards embedded trading platforms that will sit within traditional messaging and media platforms.

Learn more about Sapphire Partners: https://sapphireventures.com/sapphire-partners

Learn more about OpenLP: https://openlp.vc

Learn more about Asylum Ventures: https://asylum.vc

Learn more about Multicoin: https://multicoin.capital

Jerry Neumann’s post on markets v. innovation: https://reactionwheel.net/2025/07/a-look-at-growth

For a monthly roundup of the latest venture insights, including the newest Origins episodes, subscribe to the OpenLP newsletter – delivered straight to your inbox: subscribe.openlp.vc

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Welcome to Origins

2:43 The Origin Story of Multicoin

7:07 Financially Long & Intellectually Short Bitcoin

8:53 What Is an Internet Capital Market?

19:18 What Happens to Banks?

21:14 What Did You See In Solana?

30:22 The Rise of DATs

36:40 Did Web3.0 Live Up To Its Promise?

Origins host Beezer Clarkson, LP at Sapphire Partners and co-founder of OpenLP, and Nick Chirls, GP at Asylum Ventures, unpack their recent conversation with Sarah Tavel, Partner at Benchmark. Together they discuss their takeaways from Sarah’s recent decision to take a step back at Benchmark to fully focus on AI, getting into the lessons they can learn from that approach and what that means for the future of artificial intelligence. They also discuss the current state of venture in light of this decade’s AI boom, and theorize where this will put the ecosystem in the future.

This episode of Origins is supported by Sydecar. Visit https://sydecar.io/origins-podcast to learn more.

Learn more about Sapphire Partners: https://sapphireventures.com/sapphire-partners

Learn more about OpenLP: https://openlp.vc

Learn more about Asylum Ventures: https://asylum.vc

Learn more about Benchmark: https://benchmark.com

Read Sarah’s Substack Posts: https://sarahtavel.com

For a monthly roundup of the latest venture insights, including the newest Origins episodes, subscribe to the OpenLP newsletter – delivered straight to your inbox: https://subscribe.openlp.vc

Sydecar, Inc. (“Sydecar”) has acted as a financial sponsor within this Origins podcast. Sapphire Ventures, LLC (“Sapphire”) is not affiliated with or invested in Sydecar.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Welcome to Origins

0:48 How Do We Carve Out More Time For Thinking?

3:02 How Are LPs Handling AI Risk?

6:02 Can You Achieve AI Diversity as an LP?

Eight years after becoming the first female partner at Benchmark, Sarah Tavel recently took on a new role as Venture Partner that allows her more time to fully immerse herself in AI, all while continuing to make new investments on behalf of Benchmark and serving her current portfolio. She sat down with Beezer Clarkson, Partner at Sapphire Partners, and Nick Chirls, Partner at Asylum Ventures, to unpack her learnings over the past few months, including what it means to be truly AI native, how the future of AI is social (not solo), and what that means for AI tools and the people who use them. She also discusses the importance of protecting your time as a VC and the advantages of devoting time each week to play.

This episode of Origins is supported by Sydecar. Visit sydecar.io/origins-podcast to learn more.

Learn more about Sapphire Partners: https://sapphireventures.com/sapphire-partners

Learn more about OpenLP: https://openlp.vc

Learn more about Asylum Ventures: https://asylum.vc

Learn more about Benchmark: https://benchmark.com

Read Sarah’s Substack Posts: https://sarahtavel.com

For a monthly roundup of the latest venture insights, including the newest Origins episodes, subscribe to the OpenLP newsletter – delivered straight to your inbox: https://subscribe.openlp.vc

Sydecar, Inc. (“Sydecar”) has acted as a financial sponsor within this Origins podcast. Sapphire Ventures, LLC (“Sapphire”) is not affiliated with or invested in Sydecar.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Welcome to Origins

1:46 Living & Breathing AI

8:58 AI As Both Solo & Social

16:13 What Does It Mean to be AI Native?

23:19 How Do Our Brains Need to Adapt to AI?

31:37 How AI Immersion Has Changed Sarah’s Investment Strategy

37:56 Looking For AI Frontier Companies & the Businesses Around Them

Origins host Beezer Clarkson, LP at Sapphire Partners and co-founder of OpenLP, and Nick Chirls, GP at Asylum Ventures, dig into their recent conversation with Alex Edelson, LP at Slipstream. They discuss whether a spate of recent 100X multiples means we’re living 2021 all over again, why that’s led people to deploy but not fundraise, and the level of curiosity you need to be an exceptional LP.

This episode of Origins is supported by Sydecar.

Visit https://sydecar.io/origins-podcast to learn more.

Learn more about Sapphire Partners: https://sapphireventures.com/sapphire-partners

Learn more about OpenLP: https://openlp.vc

Learn more about Asylum Ventures: https://asylum.vc

Learn more about Slipstream: https://www.slipstreaminvestors.com/

For a monthly roundup of the latest venture insights, including the newest Origins episodes, subscribe to the OpenLP newsletter – delivered straight to your inbox: https://subscribe.openlp.vc

Sydecar, Inc. (“Sydecar”) has acted as a financial sponsor within this Origins podcast. Sapphire Ventures, LLC (“Sapphire”) is not affiliated with or invested in Sydecar.

CHAPTERS:

0:00 Welcome to Origins

2:01 Did We Learn Nothing From 2021?

4:09 High Prices, Quick Deployment

6:31 Venture Lives On Bubbles