Vinay Iyengar
@VinIyengar
building @anansicapital, alum @harvard, he/him 🏳️🌈
1.2K Following 4.9K Followers
A decade ago Harvard was considered a real step down from Stanford and MIT for students interested in technology and entrepreneurship.
But in the past few years, the Harvard ecosystem has birthed Cursor, Etched, Mercor, Degagon, Cognition, EnterAI, Basis, Hyperliquid, and Chai Discovery, among many others.
In the AI era, Harvard is now the undisputed GOAT for startups.
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A lot of VCs (myself included) used to shit on the ex-banker/consultant founder archetype.
But I'm increasingly realizing I was wrong. In an age where building is easier and distribution/execution is still hard, these programs are the perfect training grounds.
2 years at McK/GS/etc. teaches you how to grind, how to sell to enterprises, how to work effectively in a team, and gives you a deep understanding of business models. Exactly what it takes to succeed as a founder in 2026.
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Anybody have an Instinct invite link for me? Have heard amazing things and would love to try it out.
Two types of nepo babies, depending on how they internalize the silver spoon they’re born with.
The Phoebe Gates’ who believe their last name makes them above the law.
And the Josh Kushners’ who wanna prove they’re more than just their last name.
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Bill Gates' daughter Phoebe accused of 'cookie stuffing' scheme that has max penalty of 20 years in prison: reports
When prices and fundamentals diverge meaningfully, all that matters is narrative. And in a narrative-driven world, this behavior is exactly what you would expect to happen.
This was crypto in '21/'22. And it's AI today.
h/t @davidjhlee for coining this - the "crypto-ification" of an asset class.
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The extent of lying / exaggerating among 16-24 year olds pitching VCs for their first round or two is at an all time high right now. It’s ok to be ambitious and optimistic. Not ok to lie about VC termsheets that one didn’t receive or to talk about a verbal LOI from a customer as a signed scaler contract.
Yes, we VCs are often lazy, yet some of us still do a few minutes of due diligence before we make an offer to invest.
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Capital seems to be flooding into growth. The common adage I hear is "it's easier to go from 100m to 1b ARR than 0 to 100m." Perhaps this is true, but the valuations you have to pay for the best growth assets don't make any sense.
This feels just like 2021 all over again. So many ZIRP-era growth-stage SaaS companies are now trading at under their last private marks.
History rhymes...
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There's so much BS and grift happening right now with megafunds leveraging traunched rounds and warrant coverage.
They're creating an artificially high sticker price while keeping their blended valuations low. It completely screws over early employees and smaller funds/angel coinvestors who most of the time don't even realize it's happening.
Be wary of the greedmaxxers ya'll.
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Legora vs. Harvey feels like the new Ramp vs. Brex.
Sometimes being the 2nd entrant into a new, massive market is the best position.
100m post seems to be the clearing price now for a “hot” seed deal in the Valley. With zero product, zero traction.
It makes zero sense to me how investors are underwriting this. I have a suspicion the ‘26 vintage will be terrible.
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Visiting the Anthropic office and literally watched security make a baby sign an NDA. Crazy times.
SF: on August 5th, @topology_vc is bringing together a small group of founders, researchers, engineers, and curious people to learn together in a beautiful home
We're going to cover actuators: technology, manufacturing, supply chain, etc
Request an invitation below
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Science fair was really important in sparking many curiosities for me back in HS
And I just met some really awesome people. @VinIyengar and I first met at ISEF, and many of our close friends today (h/t @JasonSCui @neil_davey) we also met on those trips
And so we thought it'd be fun to do a little science fair alum reunion (NYC first, and soon in SF)
Sign up here if want to join!
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I'm cohosting a HH with my best friend @pchopra28 on 7/21 in NYC for science fair alums (like @Society4Science ISEF/STS).
If science fairs were an important part of your high school experience, come through!
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If I were a founder today, I'd start an AI-enabled rollup/service business. And this list of ideas is where I'd start :)
DM me if you're building in the space. @anansicapital is actively funding entrepreneurs. No such thing as too early or too weird!
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The Pope 🤝 a founder of Anthropic writing a 42k word manifesto together was not on my bingo card for 2026. We're living in crazy times.
“The traditional SaaS business model is dead." — @VinIyengar, Anansi Capital
Watch the full episode:
If you’re a founder building in infra, data or AI, @JasonSCui should be your very first call. He’s truly the 🐐
Insane pickup by @a16z
🚀 Excited to share that I’ve joined @a16z as a partner on the infrastructure team, where I’ll be investing in all things infra, data, and AI.
