20VC with Harry Stebbings• Dec 22, 2025• 1:12:54Interview

Predictions for 2026: Top Buy & Biggest Short | Why Salesforce Could Win & NVIDIA’s Challenges

From 20VC with Harry Stebbings

Harry(Host)•Jason(Guest)•Rory(Guest)

Executive Summary

The episode features a year-in-review for 2025 and predictions for 2026, styled as a "Big Fat Quiz of the Year." The hosts discuss top founders, venture funds, and breakout companies, with a strong focus on the impact of AI.
Key topics include the upcoming IPO pipeline featuring SpaceX, Anthropic, and Databricks, the performance of public tech stocks like NVIDIA and Salesforce, and the strategic implications of AI for B2B SaaS companies.
The conversation also touches on the intense "talent wars" in the AI sector and the potential for a societal backlash against AI-driven unemployment.

12 quotes

Concerns Raised

Potential for a societal backlash against AI-driven unemployment
Overvaluation of tech stocks and the sustainability of AI-driven growth
The risk of 'circular deals' and financial engineering in venture capital
The failure of many B2B companies to monetize AI effectively via 'copilots'

Opportunities Identified

The massive IPO pipeline for 2026 including SpaceX, Anthropic, and Databricks
AI's ability to create new breakout companies like ElevenLabs and OpenEvidence
The potential for undervalued traditional SaaS companies like Salesforce to re-accelerate through effective AI product integration
Continued dominance of NVIDIA in the short-to-medium term due to lack of viable competition

Key Themes

The 2026 IPO Megacycle

The hosts predict a major wave of IPOs in 2026, led by giants like SpaceX, Anthropic, Databricks, and Canva. They debate the sequencing and valuation challenges of taking multi-hundred-billion or trillion-dollar companies public.

This provides a forward-looking roadmap for public market investors and identifies key liquidity events for the venture capital ecosystem.

Venture Capital Performance & Strategy

The discussion evaluates the top-performing VC funds of 2025, highlighting different strategies from traditional execution (Index, Benchmark) to aesthetic-driven bets (Neo) and growth-stage dominance (Thrive). The criteria for success are debated, from raw returns to cultural impact.

This offers insights into which investment models are succeeding in the current AI-driven market and which firms are backing the next generation of winners.

AI's Impact on B2B SaaS

A central theme is how B2B SaaS companies are navigating the AI wave. The conversation contrasts successful strategies, like Databricks' pivot and Notion's pricing power, with the struggles of companies whose AI offerings fail to drive new revenue, exemplified by the 'expensive copilot' failure.

This provides a framework for evaluating the AI strategy of public and private SaaS companies, focusing on monetization and value delivery over marketing claims.

The AI Talent and Capital Wars

The hosts express surprise at the intensity of the 'talent wars' in 2025, where companies like Meta spent billions on acqui-hires, fundamentally changing compensation norms. This is linked to the seemingly limitless venture capital available for top AI startups, altering all valuation math.

This highlights the extreme competition for top AI talent and the capital dynamics that are inflating valuations and accelerating the AI arms race.

Public Market AI Winners and Losers

The discussion analyzes the performance of public tech stocks, separating the high-flyers benefiting from AI tailwinds (NVIDIA, Palantir) from the laggards (traditional SaaS like Salesforce, HubSpot). They predict which trends will continue and which underperformers might see a turnaround in 2026.

This offers a sector-specific view on public market investing, identifying momentum plays and potential value traps in the tech sector.

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Topics

IPO Venture Capital AI SaaS Databricks Anthropic SpaceX NVIDIA Salesforce Public Markets Founder of the Year Fund of the Year Talent Acquisition Valuation Monetization

Processed Feb 25, 2026 yt-dlp + mlx-whisper + Gemini