Palle Broe

Early Uber. Write about world class operators on Rule of Thumb (link below).

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

This is a very AI’ish phrase: it is genuinely useful

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@HalePrevention If you cant get me an appointment on time do you do refunds?

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@HalePrevention just crossed $200M in pARR. I hear there is a lot of noise about how to report ARR so thought I would share ours ⤵️

pARR = Potential ARR.

What we think we will get to at some point soon-ish.

You could maybe call it vibeARR

or short term TAM?

Mostly rooted in gut feel.

100% uncorrelated with ARR.

Anyway, seems legit.

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@Benioff and @levie have been saying all the right things when it comes to the AI impact, yet their stocks have been tanking. What does that tell us?

Investors dont believe SaaS companies will be winners in the AI world.

Or at least not if they keep behaving like SaaS companies.

Salesforce is down 38% over the past 10 months. Box is down 38.5% over the same period.

Sprinkling in AI features across their existing products is not enough.

They want entirely new products and customer experiences built.

They want to see sacrifice of existing revenue to pursue new AI driven revenue.

Intercom has showed the way.

A complete reset of the company and existing customers.

Its a brutal undertaking.

These founders have spent the past 15 - 25 years building their business.

Now they need to rethink their entire product.

Whilst competitors are moving at lightning speed.

Do they have the energy for another 10 years of building from scratch?

Time will tell.

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

In combination, the 10 leading AI Apps are 𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐮𝐞𝐝 𝐚𝐭 $1.3𝐓 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐠𝐞𝐧𝐞𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 $59𝐁 𝐢𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞. Are we in an AI Bubble?⤵️

OpenAI just raised at $852B and Anthropic at $380B 🤯.

I had a look at the 10 most valuable private AI Apps.

To compare their valuation with their revenue.

In turns out, it might not be that crazy after all.

The below 10 AI Apps have a valuation of $1.3T in total.

And combined revenue of $59B.

Thats a 22.5x revenue multiple.

Which is high but not crazy - particularly considering their growth curves.

Revenue Multiples:

🔸 Anthropic: 13x
🔸 OpenAI: 34x
🔸 Anysphere (Cursor): 15x
🔸 Perplexity: 31x
🔸 ElevenLabs: 33x
🔸 Together AI: 11x
🔸 Glean: 36x
🔸 Harvey: 58x
🔸 Sierra: 67x
🔸 Synthesia: 40x

There might be some individual companies that are valued very highly (Sierra and Harvey in particular) but overall it seems reasonable.

𝘈𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘋𝘢𝘵𝘢 𝘵𝘢𝘬𝘦𝘯 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘱𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘪𝘤 𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘤𝘦𝘴 - 𝘵𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘥𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺

Thanks to Harmonic for the data 🔥

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@vbouchouev @Doomerzoomer Unbelievable!

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@Doomerzoomer A credit for the graph would have been nice....

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@tbpn just got acquired by OpenAI to help Sam tell his story.

Content Creators/Distributors are THE most important person in any company today.

If you cant get attention what does it matter if you have a good product.

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@lessin @EricNewcomer MEDVi

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@ditzikow late to the game

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@EricNewcomer Posted this agesssss ago

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@HalePrevention Do you have any locations in NYC?

[Hale Prevention @HalePrevention]

Get your Calcium Score today. Best predictor of heart disease.
- $249. No referral needed.
- 15 minutes per scan.
- Same day appointments.
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[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

Is @MenloVentures building the most impressive AI portfolio in all of venture right now?

2026 is already looking like a breakout year for the storied firm.

Many VCs are playing the volume game - Menlo is doing the opposite:

➡️ Low volume
➡️ High conviction
➡️ Early bets

And it’s compounding.

Look at their AI investments:

🔸 Anthropic
🔸 Suno
🔸 Lovable
🔸 Higgsfield
🔸 Mercor
🔸 Chai Discovery
🔸 Delphi
🔸 Wispr Flow
🔸 Hale
🔸 Abnormal

+ many more exceptional companies (Legora, Inception, Goodfire, OpenRouter)!

The strategy is simple (and rare):

Only ~2 investments per partner per year.

Go early.

Many deals at Seed.

While others “spray and pray”

Menlo picks few and goes deep.

And when it works… it really works.

Thanks to Harmonic for the data 🫶

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@FredrikHjelm4 @itsalfredw @joelhellermark @jschildt @MaxJunestrand @filiphmark 🤣🤣🤣

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@eriktorenberg ➡️ A16Z
@jaltma* ➡️ Benchmark
@mariogabriele ➡️ Hummingbird

I have said it before and I will say it again:

👉🏻The most important hire a VC firm can make is a world class media and content creator.

Distribution is crucial, both to attract founders and to assist startups with GTM

I expect to see many more of these over time.

*𝘈𝘭𝘴𝘰 𝘢 𝘥𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘰𝘥 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘪𝘯𝘧𝘭𝘶𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶 𝘢𝘴𝘬 𝘮𝘦.

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 "20𝐱" 𝐐𝐮𝐨𝐭𝐚 𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞 is another crazy AI phenomenon 🤯.

My good friend @Carles_Reina just did an interview with @HarryStebbings on his role leading sales at @elevenlabs (worth a listen!).

One thing that stood out to me from the interview is the quota they give new hires.

20x their base salary 🤯.

The math is easy.

Say an Account Executive makes $150K in base salary (pretty standard in NYC) - that person has to bring in $3M to hit quota.

When I worked in SaaS, 3–6× base salary was the standard.

And only 20-30% would hit that number.

At Elevenlabs +80% are hitting their quotas.

I would expect other top tier AI companies are seeing the same pattern.

In order to bring in 20x base aggressive outbound is not enought.

You need to have an insane momentum and pull from the market.

If I worked in Sales I would run as fast as I could to the fastest growing AI companies 🏃💨.

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

Is Benchmark still the most desirable Series A terms sheet in the world?

For the past 25 years that has been true.

But when they lost 3 partners in a row:

➡️ Miles Grimshaw
➡️ Sarah Tavel
➡️ Victor Lazarte

many thought they had lost their edge.

Yet looking at their leading AI investments - we see another story.

Having led early checks in startups dominating their verticals:

🔸 Sierra
🔸 Legora
🔸 Mercor
🔸 Cursor
🔸 LangChain
🔸 HeyGen
🔸 Numeral
🔸 Reducto
🔸 Agentio

They have also brought on "EV" to the team and seems to be back firing on al cylinders.

Unlike A16Z, GC and Lightspeed they have stayed true to their $500M fund size.

Under the notion that "small focused teams produce better cash on cash returns".

Notably they are one of the only VC firms who have not invested in the foundation models (OpenAI, Anthropic etc.)

Whether or not that plays out in the long term is to be seen.

Safe to say landing an investment or job at Benchmark continue to be the ultimate status signal.

👉 Full deep-dive here: https://t.co/FvgP2t2a1c

Thanks to Harmonic for the data 🫶

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

"𝘞𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘢𝘴 𝘨𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵". Those were the words of @roelofbotha, the now former steward at Sequoia Capital.

Its a good reminder, that there is no resting on your laurels in VC.

Particular in the age of AI.

AI is not only a disruptive force for the world - it is also existential for venture capital firms.

I had a look at 12 leading US based VC firms and their most promising AI investments.

Specifically I looked at the below firms:

🔸 @sequoia
🔸 @a16z
🔸 @benchmark
🔸 @kleinerperkins
🔸 @generalcatalyst
🔸 @lightspeedvp
🔸 @foundersfund
🔸 @khoslaventures
🔸 @IndexVentures
🔸 @Accel
🔸 @MenloVentures
🔸 @eladgil

👉 Read the full breakdown here: https://t.co/elKftnH7YM

[Palle Broe @supbroe1]

@Jolo36359723674 Yeah seems like it varies across the country. From $50 - $600 based on where you live.