Chip Hazard

Venture Capitalist @flybridge and @xfactorventures. Impatient gardener.

[Chip Hazard @chazard]

Earlier this year my kids said "we know what you do @flybridge, but not how". That, coupled with an @XFactorVentures offsite, led me to capture 25 years of VC lessons. Which became a 9,000-word multi-part blog series, the first of which is here: https://t.co/kopQfAu6pl

[Brian Smiga @Speedyvc]

Got 1 minute? Learn how to red-team your investment decisions in venture from the master @chazard at @flybridge

https://t.co/M184FurCTp

[Chip Hazard @chazard]

Love this post. Especially the line “The interesting questions aren't about the technology anymore - they're about what we build with it.” I also agree with the “no such thing as an AI company”, and wrote about that in Feb ‘23 https://t.co/arXTxf7rTo

[Cristóbal Valenzuela @c_valenzuelab]

Runway is not an AI company. Runway is a media and entertainment company. And I actually think the era of AI companies is over.

It's not because AI failed - quite the opposite. It's because AI is becoming infrastructure, as fundamental as electricity or the internet. Calling yourself an AI company today is like calling yourself an internet company. It's meaningless because it's universal. Every company uses the internet; every company will use AI.

For Runway, our focus is art, media, and entertainment at large. We began Runway almost seven years ago with a vision that remains largely unchanged today: AI is a necessary tool for storytelling. To achieve that vision, we had to work backwards to build the best research team that could deliver the best models on which we could build the best products.

I often talk about our work as a new kind of camera. Not in the literal sense of capturing images, but in terms of its historical impact. The camera didn't just create photography - it birthed entire industries, economies, and art forms. Cinema, television, TikTok - all children of that first revolutionary tool that could capture light and time.

I think the work we are doing at Runway is part of a new foundation for an entirely new media landscape. Just as the camera transformed how we capture reality, AI is transforming how we create it. The models and technical capabilities we've built are just the beginning - they're the equivalent of those first daguerreotypes, primitive yet pregnant with possibility. The mistake many make is seeing AI as the end goal. It's not. AI is the mechanism, the underlying infrastructure that enables something greater. The real revolution isn't in the technology itself but in what it enables: new forms of expression, new ways of telling stories, new methods of connecting human experiences.

Media has traditionally operated like a one-way street. Creation flows down established channels to reach consumers. Even when distribution was disrupted - first by social media, then by streaming - the fundamental pattern remained: someone creates, others consume. The roles were clear, the boundaries defined. But we're witnessing something different now. Imagine watching something that generates itself as you watch it - truly dynamic content that responds to you, understands you, creates for you. Universal Simulation and world building. The distinction between creation and distribution dissolves when content can shape itself in real-time. That is the foundation for an entirely new media landscape. It's about fundamentally reimagining what media can be: interactive, generative, personal - yet simultaneously shared and universal.

This is also why pure AI companies are becoming obsolete. The interesting questions aren't about the technology anymore - they're about what we build with it. The next wave of innovation won't come from companies focused on building better models. Models are commodities. The technical foundations are now well-established and known by everyone. There are no secrets. The wave of change will come from those who understand how to use these tools to create new forms of media, new types of experiences, new ways of telling stories. The infrastructure is laid. The foundation is built. Now comes the exciting part: creating something meaningful with it.

The end of AI companies marks the beginning of something far more interesting: the birth of truly new media. Not just new platforms or formats, but entirely new ways of creating and experiencing content. We're not building an AI company. And that's a far more exciting mission. Like it has always been; back to our roots.

[Appwrite @appwrite]

Appwrite started as an idea to simplify backend development but now has over 130K cloud users, 42K GitHub stars and 5M+ Docker pulls for self-hosting.

Here’s why building your open-source project in public can significantly boost your success. 👇🧵

[Chip Hazard @chazard]

Today we took portfolio company headshots over here at Garden Ventures.

[Chip Hazard @chazard]

11/ You can check out the full index report and sign up for monthly insights here https://t.co/kbNiFvONFP. We're continuing to develop this and would love your feedback. If this resonates and is useful, please give us a RT and share with your colleagues

[Chip Hazard @chazard]

1/ 🚀 Introducing the @Flybridge AI Index: a new public market index tracking the performance of AI-focused companies. Here's a thread of our main takeaways - you can find the index and full report at https://t.co/kbNiFvONFP 🧵

[Chip Hazard @chazard]

10/ We hope the AI index becomes a vital barometer for the industry, allowing us to compare its growth and impact to other innovation waves. We anticipate some volatility ahead but by sharing these insights, aim to support founders, investors & leaders as they navigate the waters

[Chip Hazard @chazard]

@alphaprep Definitely!

[Chip Hazard @chazard]

With two active funds and a couple of smaller SPVs, we should have plenty resources to support the portfolio

[Chip Hazard @chazard]

Garden Ventures just did a capital call. I have never understood why it is called “dry powder” versus “fresh soil”

[Chip Hazard @chazard]

My neighbor runs a hedge fund and they have a completely different approach to gardening than I do as a VC. I think their firm is called Quad Pine Capital.

[Chip Hazard @chazard]

Paid up for growth for this year’s crop. As the seed investor, Farm Stand Ventures got a huge mark-up!