This Creator Investor On The Truth About The AI Gold Rush | Term Sheet

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0:49Allie Garfinkle:Red Bull gives you wings. Visit redbull.com slash bright summer ahead to learn more. See you this summer. Are we in an AI bubble? AI literacy is like sex ed. You have to know about it. AI is devouring venture capital in 2026. Over$240 billion was poured into AI startups in Q1, up 150%. And AI is taking 80 cents of every venture dollar. Though the gold rush is here, most Americans are still playing catch up. Claire Zhao saw that gap and started posting videos to educate the masses. This week, Lightspeed, managing more than$40 billion in assets, created a role that has never existed in venture capital.

1:28Allie Garfinkle:An investor who's also a creator. Maybe I've just been, you know, bought into the cult. And that investor is Claire. Welcome to Termsheet. I'm Ali Garfinkel. Now, before we get to our interview with Claire, a little bit of news. This is a little bit of a back to the future moment in the private markets this week. Cerebris is at long last going public. Now, for the uninitiated, Cerebris is an AI chip startup that initially filed to go public back in 2024. And we're here. They filed again. They are now about to hit the public markets this week. Now, if you're sitting here wondering, a chip startup?

2:06Allie Garfinkle:The answer is yes. And do they compete with NVIDIA? The answer is actually yes. Now, Cerebris is looking to go out at about a$35 billion valuation, which is very, very, very infinitesimal compared to NVIDIA's$5 trillion. But for a long time, the company has billed itself as an Nvidia challenger. Now which one are you, the bull or the bear? If you're the bull, what you probably believe is that Cerebrus over time is going to build on its existing partnerships with OpenAI and AWS and ride that inference wave to a trillion dollar valuation or more. Now if you're the bear, what you probably believe is that this is ultimately hype driven, the company has customer concentration problems, and that eventually the public markets will not be able to take so many chip companies.

2:49Allie Garfinkle:Which one are you? Let me know in the comments or send me an email. And now for my interview with Claire. So if you are into tech and you are on social media, you have probably seen Claire Zhao explaining SpaceX, explaining the AI bubble, explaining funding rounds. Claire, you have found a lot of success as a creator. You have hundreds of thousands of followers. You are also, for a time, the youngest investor ever at GSV Ventures. And now you have a new title. You are going to be joining Lightspeed as a first of its kind ever in venture. You are going to be a creator who's also an investor. Can you tell us more about that?

3:26So I've been in the venture space for about six years. I became a partner at GSV, joined as an associate, grew through the ranks, and have been thinking deeply about the space. And about a year ago, decided to start creating content. What was the first day? What was day one of creating content? March 2025. And I had actually been thinking about it for a long time. So it did take some courage to start putting my face out there on short form media because I didn't think any other venture folks were out there. So, you know, I always thought that short form media, at least for me, I saw so many eyeballs there, but serious content never extended there.

4:01And so, yeah, March 2025, I was like, why don't I just challenge myself, post every single day, see what happens. And it just grew.

4:09Allie Garfinkle:So you've been thinking about it. Yeah. And then you got to sort of critical mass in your head. Yeah. And then it came out into the world. What was the first set of videos like? I mean, as of any creator, they will tell you that their first, honestly, first 50 is all throwing spaghetti at the wall and figuring out what sticks, figuring out how your audiences react to it. And the great thing about content compared to something like your venture role where you need five to 10 years to have any sort of feedback loop is you can find out in literally the first three minutes. I can tell when and how a video will perform.

4:37In the first three minutes. You learn with different platforms, but how the algorithm spreads. I feel like I've taken the most productized, techie approach to building content. You basically have all these different variables, like how shareable a piece of content is. Watch time, whether it drives engagement and commenting. So you might have things that are quite interesting, but people don't save for long enough. Or you might have things that people don't actually like the subject, but it's highly shareable. Like anytime I talk about what the future labor market looks like, highly shareable because people are concerned and they want to share with their friends.

5:13Oh, this is what this person has said or this is what this report has shown. I think I've now built this feedback loop in my head and kind of have gotten a very good sense of what will stick and what won't with at least the audience that I've built.

5:25Allie Garfinkle:What topics did you find resonated with your audience early? Like what was some spaghetti that stuck on the wall and you said, oh, OK, that's it. I've seen a lot of content try to, for better or for worse, dumb things down. And I didn't want to take all the things I was seeing in tech and dumb it down for the audience because I think a lot of people are able to actually understand the stories just haven't been translated for them. Especially as a woman, I've seen a lot of finance content. It's like for the girlies. And I'm like, no, I think, you know, as women, we can understand this. No, I actually do get it.

5:54Yeah, we can. But I would just like to hear as, you know, in its regular form. And so, you know, I wanted to say first authentic to the content that I was interested in, a bias to what the ecosystem didn't necessarily have, which was an investor's perspective or kind of that macro 30 ,000 foot view perspective on where the world was heading and trying to play translator. I think there were a lot of headlines. And I do think for your regular audience, they're being flooded with all these headlines, but they don't know what it means. Does it mean that, you know, this space is going to be this space is being targeted by Anthropic and therefore I need to start developing my own skill set in design now that they're developing cloud design?

6:31You know, I've spoken extensively about the AI supply chain. So what does that mean as someone who, you know, might not necessarily have access into understanding the world of NVIDIA and memory and chips?

6:43Allie Garfinkle:You know, you were the youngest partner at GSV. Did you always want to be in venture? Was that always the plan? I knew I always wanted to do something in the intersection of tech, business, and education. I've always played translator. My mom doesn't speak great English. When we were moving, played translator for her. Navigated living in both Asia and the U.S. While I was at grad school, had the opportunity to join G.C. where I could merge these three worlds. And so took up the opportunity. And it was one of the most amazing experiences just being able to dive deep into an industry. As someone who's always been passionate about future technologies, being able to translate all those future technologies into what that would look like in education and workforce settings.

7:23Allie Garfinkle:Is there any part of investing that is a translation task, especially in the AI era? I've always thought of venture as a narrative job. Some of the best investors that I can point to or look up to are storytellers. They're able to sell you on why. Who are you thinking of when you think of that? Brad Wilson's blog, looking at the content that Bill Gurley and Brad Gershner have been able to put out in their BG2 pod. I've always looked at those as great models of investors who also navigate storytelling very well. I've always seen those jobs as going hand in hand because when you are building yourself as an investor, you are selling why you should be a partner, right?

8:05You're selling why this vision makes sense. You're selling why your vision for the future of the world is supposed to align with this specific company in venture specifically because you are existing in multiple spaces. You're existing in the same rooms as AI researchers who haven't been exposed to the financial metrics. Right. And so you have all these founders who might currently exist in the AI research world. They're deep in founder mode, but then eventually as a potentially IPO or they have an amazing exit, they have to learn how to navigate the finance world. Right. And then at the same time, through all of this, a company is also needing to tell its story to the masses.

8:40Like, what do you represent? What is your brand? What are you doing to change the world? And so I think of venture as existing in this interesting space where you are helping a founder navigate all of these spaces. And in doing so, you have to play translator quite well because one, you have to master all these spaces, but also be able to tell the story across all these spaces because those stories look very different depending on whether you're talking to a general consumer or if you're talking to a banker or if you're talking to another founder.

9:06Allie Garfinkle:Where is AI awareness for your audience right now? I mean, definitely mixed. I operate by day in this space that is very techno-optimistic. And I think by default, I am pretty techno-optimistic. I grew up with a dad who would bring us to every single sci-fi movie. He actually collects sci-fi movie props. So what is the best sci-fi movie prop he has? Maybe not. What is your favorite? Well, I don't know. Shout out to Claire's dad, wherever you are. Having the Terminator head in your basement is probably a good reminder of what happens when AI goes the Skynet route. I've always been a big believer in what AI and technology can unlock for society.

9:40I think, you know, humanity is always innately wanted to build and invent. It's kind of like core to who we are as a species. So I exist in that space on a daily basis. And it's so fun being able to be at a place like Lightspeed or at GSV. having peers that feel that excitement or existing in Silicon Valley where so many people believe in this vision. At the same time, I think creating content has and building this audience with the general masses has actually been a humbling experience in many ways. It's pushed me to go beyond this kind of techno-optimistic bubble and recognize that a lot of people aren't necessarily anti-tech.

10:22They just feel like they've been left out of the journey. And because nobody's playing translator for them, their exposure to this story is only doom and gloom oriented. It's only about how tech is going to take their jobs. You look at the Maslow's hierarchy of needs, AI has done a pretty bad job of addressing every part of the stack. It's like literally your water need, right? Like data center is taking your water, your purpose, your job. And so - I've never heard that. Yeah.

10:50Allie Garfinkle:Actually, yes. Yeah. And so like, of course, there's panic. Of course, there's anxiety. And I don't I don't fault people for having anxiety. I sit in my day job and I see how much excitement there is for AI, for humanity, for science, for health care, for just scientific progress. The fact that we might have orbital data centers. I don't know. And that was always like a movie concept for me. But I think for your regular audience, they're only hearing the negative headlines, the most extreme headlines, and they're not necessarily seeing the incremental, exciting change that we are seeing that I feel I have privileged access to through my work and venture.

11:27Allie Garfinkle:What do you think is the most important thing any general audience needs to understand about AI? That really, this is, I mean, everybody says an unprecedented time, but two, it really is kind of a jagged frontier, right? It's jagged intelligence. I think it's interesting because when I post anything about AI, I will see either a reaction that is, oh, no, this doesn't work. I've tried it and terrible output, like these investors and these founders must be lying. But then I'll also see reactions that are like, this thing's going to take my job. What do we do? We shut it down. And so it's almost this tension where we need to kind of center where AI is today.

12:07There's a lot of promising where AI will go. But I also think there's maybe a discrepancy between how people are using it today and what the technology is enabling at kind of the tech bro Silicon Valley level. I think, for example, I'm seeing a lot of people only exposed to AI in the form of a better search engine. And I think that's therefore when you tell them that this, you know, something like an alpha fold is going to help us discover entirely new protein structures and therefore unlock personalized vaccines. Like that is a there's just a massive gap between better search engine and personalized medicine that could eventually extend lysine.

12:42Find cures to cancer, find cures to autoimmune diseases.

12:45Allie Garfinkle:Yeah. And I think this part of the story. That already existed. And that's actually a harder story to tell than, oh, it's going to take your job. Yes, I think there's enough messaging and storytelling around the super intelligence and singularity story. But what about all the cool advances that we are making for humanity? And what about logging the incremental step changes in both positive and negative directions? We've only heard the very broad headline. And so there's not that nuance. And therefore, it's just this ominous thing that you have to be afraid of. And so hopefully the work that we're able to do is really play translator that this is exciting.

13:21It's less scary than you might think. But there are also things that we as an industry want to invite the public to be involved in. What I've been really surprised by is actually just seeing that these AI lads actually do really care about how people use these tools, how they're exposed to it. They're working to invite people to the table. Obviously, you know, we're not in a perfect world. No, we're not. Yeah. But I think there's. But the effort matters. Yeah. As I think about maybe where the public sits with broader AI sentiment and where the tech world is building, there is definitely silos.

13:55But at least I'm seeing in the public sphere an interest in tech. There's an innate desire to learn and participate in the future. And I think for the big tech world, there's a desire for people to feel as excited as we are about about these technologies.

14:10Allie Garfinkle:You've talked before about how it's important for people to get educated about AI, particularly students. What would you compare that importance to? AI literacy is almost like sex ed. You don't have to love this technology. You don't have to promote it, but you have to know about it. And if you don't, the ways that people interact with this technology is going to be kind of the worst form of it. When we talk about diffusion of this technology to young people, the ways that they're going to learn about it is through Snapchat or meta AI, as opposed to learning about how it can be used to accelerate scientific discovery or how it might enable their own entrepreneurship.

14:48Having knowledge and awareness is critical. And if you don't even give them access to that awareness, you're doing a disservice to those people. Education has actually been one of the most high friction industries of introducing any search technology. And so I've actually thought a lot about the diffusion of different technologies, specifically the diffusion of like AI technology. I think what's interesting is you have all these different factors at play in the education space. You simultaneously have kids who are using this as a cheating tool, institutions who are trying to ban it, but then also want to use it because if you don't use it, then or not preparing people for the future, but then simultaneously Gen Z actually having a newfound angst against AI.

15:35I think we recently did a survey with Gallup, and it found that for Gen Z, of all the different emotions, anxiety and angst grew the most around AI. Oof. Ouch. So I think, yeah, I've been thinking a lot about how technology spreads, and education and healthcare, I think, are two spaces where you often see different velocities of adoption at the institution level versus at the user level. And I think education is one of those interesting case studies where, you know, you simultaneously have your end user as a student adopting it faster than ever, but then having mixed feelings about it. And then institutions scrambling to figure out, you know, they're like, we need to pilot all these things, but then often isn't actually putting the work to implement it correctly.

16:22This technology is inevitable. It is exciting. It's the future.

16:26Allie Garfinkle:And we can't pretend it's not there. Yeah. And if so, we need to talk about it. Yeah. And if you don't talk about it, it's a disservice to people that these institutions are serving. I do think there is something really interesting. If you're in school, for example, it's probably easier to go to chat GPT for certain things. So I imagine there's a way to sort of triage best practices and be like, OK, this is a way that I can help you learn. This is a way that it maybe would hinder you from learning. When I have seen the concern, very valid concerns around AI usage, I often ask, how do you use AI?

16:57And it is pretty telling that they, again, use it only as kind of a better search engine or they're using it as like a one-shot output and they're just taking it as a completely written essay and they're like, send it in. When people exhibit agency over this technology. It is a massive unlock for those people. At least for me, I feel like the floor has risen on my ability to design things, ability to code, ability to write. Do I think it's replacing me and do I ever use it? You know, do I take the first output that I ever get from ChatGPT or Claude and submit it? That's probably not good practice.

17:33And I think in the same way, so fair, that you probably wouldn't ideally take, you know, someone else doing your, The cheating problem has existed for a very long time. Since the beginning of school. Yes. In the same way that you won't learn if you ask your friend to do your homework, it's the same thing with ChatGPT doing your homework. I think it ultimately comes down to how you use this technology.

17:51Allie Garfinkle:I'm curious about your take on where the conversation around data centers is. In 2024, GPUs were selling faster than Taylor Swift tickets or something like that, which is crazy. What analogy would you use for the conversation around AI hardware, the conversation around data centers and where we're at right now? I don't think everybody who has entered tech has a negative villainous vision of the world. And they also want to improve it. It's just that there is kind of a difference in how we get there. Among the tech industry, the prevailing mindset around things like data centers or the harms that the AI industry is making right now is that these are problems that will be solved by AI improving itself.

18:36This idea that, yes, this massive upfront physical build out will have physical harms today. However, we're already seeing advances where, you know, closed loop data centers or advances in chip efficiency or even orbital data centers. There is a genuine desire to improve the world. And the physical build out issue is one where it's almost a difference in how you approach a problem. It's like the vision is that we get to a place where the technology is able to help us solve climate issues, is able to help us solve the data center build out issue. Obviously, I think if you're not a believer in the iterative intelligence that AI promises, it's hard to see.

19:19And you just see a bunch of reckless decision making by a couple of stakeholders. So I understand where all sides are coming from. There's an interesting opportunity for, again, tech to tell that story, because I think right now there is just kind of almost a we're just going to do this. You've seen the headlines where just we're going to build a Manhattan sized data center and not really explain the why or what this unlocks or where it fits into the supply chain or how it enables other technologies. So I think, again, always comes down to a difference in how we get there and who has visibility into the entire roadmap, if you will.

20:01Allie Garfinkle:You've invested in AI startups, right? You've served as an advisor for Arizona State University's external AI thought leadership group, which launched ChatGPTEDU. But you've also warned about the dangers of AI. What is your personal relationship to that tension? I think this technology is kind of like Promethean fire, right? It's hard to assign it this very binary good or bad, good or evil status because it's really how the technology is used. It's like, you know, I think even electricity, right? Like electricity can enable amazing things for society, but it also did technically enable... It put the lamplighters out of business eventually over a long period of time, but it is what happened.

20:47Exactly. And so you can there's always an argument to be made about why a technology can be positive or negative. You know, this is the first time ever it is not necessarily just a tool. It is also able to replicate certain functions that humans have served. I think a lot about the ways that AI is being used in place of certain relationships, right? Or, you know, my fear that AI is reducing our metacognition as people, our ability to learn how to learn, because we just kind of take AI's answer as the final answer and then you're set with it. There's no inquiry. There's no critical thinking.