The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: The AI Bubble Is Wrong | AI Margins Need to Improve | Revenue Concentration Should be a Concern | Why People Over-Estimate Open Models But Enterprises Still Fear Frontier Models with Aaron Katz, ClickHouse
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Show notes
Aaron Katz is the Co-Founder and CEO of ClickHouse, the real-time analytics database powering companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Tesla and Microsoft. ClickHouse just surpassed $350M in ARR and raised over $1B from investors including Dragoneer, Khosla Ventures, Coatue, 20VC and Benchmark. Previously, Aaron was CRO at Elastic, where he helped scale revenue from approximately $5M to $500M and led the company through its IPO. Before Elastic, he spent 12 years at Salesforce, working alongside Marc Benioff and helping transform it from a 200-person startup into a global software giant.
AGENDA:
4:05 Are we in an AI bubble?
13:40 How does software change when agents—not humans—make buying decisions?
22:28 Will 90% of tokens flow through open models; can enterprises trust them?
31:09 Why did ClickHouse sponsor Fulham; and could sports teams become $20B assets?
35:49 When will ClickHouse hit $1B ARR?
38:31 Can startups still win elite talent from OpenAI? Biggest remote work mistake?
44:54 Is zero-to-$100M ARR now table stakes; or is durable growth what matters?
48:51 Is college still worth it; which jobs will survive AI?
57:58 When will ClickHouse go public; and why not next year?