Subscribe to stay ahead of technology trends. Never miss future editions.
Aydin Senkut, Founder and Managing Partner at venture firm Felicis, joins the podcast at a pivotal moment in tech to unpack what’s happening across venture, whether LPs are concerned, and how to win as a firm in the current environment.
You might not know this about Aydin, but he was actually one of the first employees at Google, working directly alongside Sergey Brin and Larry Page, with a key lesson: “Why the clearest signal from Larry Page wasn’t what he said yes to but the 80% of the time he said no.”
About Felicis
Felicis is a venture capital firm that backs iconic founders starting at Seed, with early bets on Notion, Canva, Shopify, Adyen, n8n, Supabase, and Mercor. Over 20 years, Felicis-backed companies have driven more than $300 billion in market value, and Aydin has appeared on the Forbes Midas List for 13 consecutive years.
Watch Now - Investing In 50 Unicorns
Throughout this episode, we also cover the origin of Felicis’s 1% founders pledge, a co-CEO’s idea borrowed from tennis mental coaching that now covers health therapy and coaching for 100+ founders with no strings attached; why Felicis is obsessed with “global resilience” and the four markets (space, defense, manufacturing, energy) big enough that 1% share still returns a fund; and the stat from Felicis’s own data showing the top 1% of exits have doubled in value every five years while the bottom 90% have stagnated.
As venture faces its own AI challenges, we asked directly whether AI is coming for the junior analysts and associates learning the trade underneath Aydin. We learn why he thinks trust, not analysis, is the one thing AI can’t replicate, and why founders keep telling him they picked Felicis for the person across the table, not the term sheet, and much more.
Available everywhere you listen to podcasts: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and X
Download the transcript 👇
Timestamps
(0:00) Meet Aydin Senkut
(2:21) The State of Venture Today
(3:49) About Felicis Ventures
(6:35) Google's First Early Employees
(8:09) Lessons from Larry and Sergey
(10:11) Building Google from Nothing
(13:10) Great Investors: Operators or Founders?
(15:57) 13x on the Forbes Midas List
(17:28) What Makes Felicis Successful
(20:11) Navigating Crucible Bets
(22:16) Characteristics of Unicorn Companies
(25:22) Coaching Founders to Stay Disciplined
(28:30) Longevity and Stewardship
(32:56) The 1% Founders Pledge
(40:21) Founders' Hardest Challenges Today
(43:07) Building an Enduring Fund
(46:52) From Meeting to Term Sheet
(49:02) Inside Felicis
(51:32) Are LPs Concerned About Venture?
(57:28) AI and the Future of Young Venture Talent
(1:00:29) The Opportunity for Emerging Managers
(1:03:39) How Aydin Spends Time Outside Venture
Lessons from this episode with Aydin
1. Being ruthlessly focus: “Cut nine things off your list”
The core operating principle: it feels productive to work on 10 things, but real focus means having the courage to kill nine of them and go all-in on one.
2. “Your weakness can be your strength”
Aydin wasn’t an engineer, never worked at a big tech company, and built a philosophy around not needing technical depth, just needing to understand what makes a company succeed.
3. Authenticity, trust, and doing the homework: “The personality of the investor really matters”
Three concrete, teachable behaviors for building trust fast: no hidden layers, a track record of not going against people, and showing up with a prepared, original point of view.
4. Market-sizing lesson for founders and investors: “Chase markets where 1% share still wins”
The math behind why Felicis is focused on “global resilience”: pick markets big enough that even a small share of them clears the bar for a great outcome.
5. Where does AI leave young talent in venture?
Why he believes relationships, not analysis, are becoming the scarce resource in venture, and the “orchestra conductor” framing for how humans and AI should actually divide labor.
Previous episodes include
See all previous episodes here 👉
If you enjoyed this episode, support our work by clicking ❤️ and 🔄 at the top of this post.
