S2E16: AI is better than Love Island | Ashu Garg and Jaya Gupta (Foundation Capital)

When Silicon Valley drama gets juicier than reality TV, you know something is changing in tech. In this episode, Foundation Capital partners Ashu Garg and Jaya Gupta reveal why SaaS is dying, explaining that 9 out of 10 mid-sized SaaS companies are already seeing churn as AI-native startups eat them from below. They share wild stories from the frontlines, including a startup landing a $20M deal with their first customer and the soap opera unfolding at Cursor - where the company collecting 100% of your infrastructure costs is simultaneously building your competitor. As Manny puts it, "This is better than Love Island." The conversation gets spicier as Ashu admits he won't even take meetings with companies that have revenue ("I want big ideas, not messy revenues") and predicts that neither OpenAI nor Anthropic will be the ultimate winners despite their massive valuations. Jaya reveals how young founders are outpacing third-time unicorn builders because in AI, everyone's learning curve started at the same time - experience just became a liability. They close with a radical vision: forget building another feature company. The future belongs to companies deploying 500 AI agents to replace what used to require 500 different SaaS tools. For founders navigating this chaos, their advice is brutal but simple: think bigger, move faster, and remember that most of what worked in SaaS won't work in AI.