Uncapped #52 | Mike Volpi from Hanabi Capital

Building a modern venture capital firm in the AI era requires abandoning legacy assumptions about software development and rigid stage-based investing. Because AI has drastically lowered the cost of creating software, traditional venture models that spread capital across broad portfolios are increasingly ineffective. Instead, firms must prioritize deep technical fluency and build brand equity organically through high-value, direct support for founders. In the current AI landscape, access to massive compute and proprietary data serves as the primary competitive moat, favoring a small group of dominant frontier labs. Future software companies will likely shift from generic product offerings toward solving specific business problems through integrated workflows and AI agents. This transition demands that investors maintain a beginner's mind, treating founders as equals while navigating a market where the traditional boundaries between venture and growth stages have largely dissolved.