10+ hours of podcasts, in 5 minutes.
5 quotes from 1 episode on How I Invest, each with a timestamped link to the source.
Leo Polovets views high meeting volumes as the foundation for accurate pattern recognition in venture capital. Leo Polovets avoids heavily funded hardware categories like humanoid robotics, questioning if manufacturers scaling to 10 million units will ever rely on third-party suppliers.
General-purpose humanoid robots currently lack the efficiency of specialized arms for repetitive industrial tasks.
“I think what they're not good at so far is like efficiency…”
From Leo Polovets on Why Humanoid Robotics Traps Early Venture Capital
Chips remain a rare hardware category protected from in-house production by extreme manufacturing difficulty.
“Outside of things like chips where I think it's just so hard to build that most companies just don't want to touch that…”
From Leo Polovets on Why Humanoid Robotics Traps Early Venture Capital
Leo Polovets avoids early humanoid robotics rounds despite predicting a trillion-dollar winner. Incumbents hold large capital advantages, making seed entry mathematically unappealing.
“I think humanoids are like a really hard category to invest in. So we haven't done investments in this space and I feel like we're pretty unlikely to because it's very well funded.”
From Leo Polovets on Why Humanoid Robotics Traps Early Venture Capital
Hardware companies building actuators and sensors face verticalization risks. Leo Polovets asks if manufacturers deploying 10 million units will continue buying third-party parts or develop their own.
“Let's say Figure or Optimus takes off and they have a million robots in the field or 10 million robots in the field in 10 years. Are they still going to buy their actuators from a third party or are they going to develop their own?”
From Leo Polovets on Why Humanoid Robotics Traps Early Venture Capital
Limiting pitch meetings leaves investors poorly calibrated. Leo Polovets finds it difficult to identify successful startup companies without taking high volumes of meetings.
“It's very hard to pick out companies if you just don't take a lot of meetings…”
From Leo Polovets: Passing on Price Was Susa's Costliest Mistake
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