What VCs Really Think About Personal AI Agents | E2347
October 8, 2026 · 1 h 19 min
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Today’s show:
A personal AI agent that’s still invite-only just hit a $10 billion valuation. Guest host Deedy Das of Menlo Ventures is joined by Kanu Gulati of Khosla Ventures, Chris Farmer of SignalFire, and Sheel Mohnot of Better Tomorrow Ventures to debate whether Instinct can beat Meta’s Muse, what they actually use their own agents for, and what breaks when everyone’s agent makes the same move.
Plus we’re also talking about OpenAI’s math breakthroughs, the Factory vs. Cognition fight, and whether SaaS is still worth funding. Catch the whole debate on this week’s VC roundtable.
Guests:
Deedy Das on X: https://x.com/deedydas Menlo Ventures: https://menlovc.com
Kanu Gulati on X: https://x.com/KanuGulati Khosla Ventures: https://www.khoslaventures.com
Chris Farmer on X: https://x.com/chriswfarmer SignalFire: https://www.signalfire.com
Sheel Mohnot on X: https://x.com/pitdesi Better Tomorrow Ventures: https://www.btv.vc
Relevant Links:
OpenAI’s 722 math manuscripts from an unreleased internal model → https://github.com/openai/math
OpenAI’s earlier Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize result → https://openai.com/index/navier-stokes-solution/
Pramaana Labs, the Khosla-backed startup turning tax rules into provable logic → https://pramaanalabs.ai
Logos Research, the Imperial College spinout verifying AI-written financial code → https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/articles/2026/logos-research-plans-to-make-ai-reasoning-trustworthy-in-high-stakes-environments/
EvenUp, SignalFire’s AI company for personal injury law → https://www.evenuplaw.com/
WindBorne Systems, the Khosla-backed weather balloon company Kanu mentioned → https://windbornesystems.com
Gokul Rajaram’s X Post: https://x.com/gokulr/status/2107851356019290569?s=20
micro1, the AI training data company Chris and LAUNCH backs → https://www.micro1.ai
Vercel’s data on companies shifting to open-weight models → https://vercel.com/i/open-weight-models
Instinct raises $1B at a $10B valuation (SiliconANGLE) → https://siliconangle.com/2026/09/28/everyday-personal-ai-assistant-startup-instinct-raises-1b-at-10b-valuation/
Meta introduces Muse, its personal AI agent → https://about.fb.com/news/2026/09/introducing-muse-personal-a