{"id":392069,"date":"2026-04-22T12:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/392069\/"},"modified":"2026-04-22T12:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T12:10:09","slug":"top-vc-to-ai-startup-founders-sell-while-the-boom-lasts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/392069\/","title":{"rendered":"Top VC to AI Startup Founders: Sell While the Boom Lasts"},"content":{"rendered":"

Elad Gil<\/a>, Silicon Valley’s top solo venture capitalist, has a stark message for AI<\/a> founders: sell your company soon, while conditions are still favorable.<\/p>\n

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“Founders running successful AI companies should all take a cold, hard look at exiting in the next 12-18 months, which may be a value-maximizing moment for outcomes,” Gil wrote in a blog post this week.<\/p>\n

Gil’s perspective carries weight. He’s raised<\/a> more than $2 billion for a personal war chest to invest in AI startups. Gil, a serial founder who sold a startup to Twitter (now X), has backed several notable players in the space, such as Harvey<\/a>, Mistral, Pika, and Perplexity<\/a>. He was also an early investor in Anduril, Airbnb, and Stripe.<\/p>\n

Investors have raised the alarm of an AI bubble<\/a> since last year. But Gil’s warning reflects both optimism about AI’s growth and caution about how quickly the tech landscape can change. <\/p>\n

Gil’s reasoning draws on history. During the internet boom of 1995 to 2001, roughly 2,000 companies went public, but only a dozen or two dozen survived long-term. He thinks a similar pattern could emerge with today’s AI boom.<\/p>\n

Right now, demand for AI is surging. Many startups are seeing rising revenue <\/a>and appear durable. But Gil warned this momentum may not last. As competition intensifies and the market matures, weaker or less differentiated companies could struggle to maintain their position.<\/p>\n

“In the AI era, most companies, including those that are ramping revenue today, will see the market, competition, and adoption, turn on them,” Gil wrote.<\/p>\n

For founders, that creates a narrow window. Selling or merging while valuations remain high could maximize returns before conditions shift.<\/p>\n

“While the tide is rising, many companies will seem to be unstoppable and durable \u2014 whether they are or not in the long run remains to be seen,” he warned.<\/p>\n

That said, he does not believe all AI startups face the same fate. A small group, such as major model developers like OpenAI and Anthropic, are likely to become foundational players.<\/p>\n

“A handful of companies should absolutely not exit (eg. OpenAI, Anthropic) but many should if they can while everything is on the upswing,” Gil wrote.<\/p>\n

Sign up for BI’s Tech Memo newsletter here<\/a>. Reach out to me via email at abarr@businessinsider.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elad Gil, Silicon Valley’s top solo venture capitalist, has a stark message for AI founders: sell your company…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392070,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,33795,202671,202672,6166,363,364,1656,202674,1239,3463,202673,82779,31488,202675,111,139,69,620,7493,1037,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-392069","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-ai-boom","10":"tag-ai-founder","11":"tag-ai-startup-founders","12":"tag-anthropic","13":"tag-artificial-intelligence","14":"tag-artificialintelligence","15":"tag-company","16":"tag-competition-intensifie","17":"tag-condition","18":"tag-dozen","19":"tag-early-investor","20":"tag-elad-gil","21":"tag-last-year","22":"tag-market-mature","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-newzealand","25":"tag-nz","26":"tag-openai","27":"tag-revenue","28":"tag-startup","29":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392069"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392069\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}