Patient Capital in the Age of the $10B Seed | Brian Smith, S3 Ventures

The current venture market is defined by a dangerous decoupling of capital from reality. While the industry chases $10B seed valuations and trillion-dollar infrastructure bets, Brian Smith and S3 Ventures are executing a "Discipline Arbitrage." They argue that the real returns in AI will not come from the massive CapEx spenders, but from the application layer that solves boring, regulated, enterprise problems.

This episode audits the structural risks of the current AI wave and explains why staying as a small fund may be the ultimate competitive advantage.

Agenda

• 01:30 Cisco Moment & 28 Bellagios
• 06:31 Applications First, Agents Next
• 19:06 2021 Bubble vs 2025 Reality
• 32:55 Defining Patient Capital
• 44:09 Strategic Advantage of Small Funds
• 53:03 Return to Atoms

Guest Links
Brian Smith, S3 Ventures (Website, X, LinkedIn) 

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Austin Next Links: Website, X/Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn
Ecosystem Metacognition Substack

What is Austin Next?

Austin is building the new tech, cultural, and intellectual stack. The region is a living laboratory to answer a single question: How do you build a global innovation superpower?

Host Jason Scharf dissects innovation from the individual to the ecosystem. From the soundstage to the data center to the fab, we decode the mechanics of Austin's innovation ecosystem.

As Atoms, Bits, and Intelligence converge, we explore how Hard Tech scale, digital velocity, and creative density collide. This is an audit of the future. We map the physics of the flywheel so builders and investors can navigate the chaos.