Why Being a Generalist VC Is a Competitive Advantage (Aydin Senkut, Founder of Felicis Ventures)

Описание: Two decades ago, Aydin Senkut was a first-time fund manager with a thin track record to show prospective backers. LPs didn’t believe a solo GP, especially one without experience at a legacy firm, could build a lasting franchise. They were wrong. Today, Felicis is a Silicon Valley mainstay on its 10th fund, a $900M vehicle. Across its history, Felicis has backed a slew of winners, including Shopify, Canva, Crusoe, and dozens of other billion-dollar outcomes. Rather than specialize over time, Aydin has remained a true generalist, investing across markets and cycles. In this conversation, we dig into the frameworks, stories, and philosophies that shaped Felicis into what it is — and where Aydin believes the next decade of technology is heading.

We explore:
• How growing up in Turkey with entrepreneur parents shaped Aydin’s approach to risk and investing
• Lessons from working alongside Larry Page and Sergey Brin during Google’s early days
• Why Felicis deliberately chose a generalist strategy when most VCs were specializing
• How international experience became a competitive advantage in finding global winners
• The mathematical case for portfolio diversification (50-70 companies per fund)
• Why valuation concerns are often overblown when revenue growth is exponential
• Felicis’s aggressive AI investment strategy and what other investors are missing
• The future of robotics and physical AI through companies like Skild AI
• Why learning and adapting rapidly is Felicis’s constitutional principle

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Transcript: https://www.generalist.com/p/why-bein...

Timestamps
(00:00) Introduction
(03:09) How Aydin made his way to Silicon Valley
(06:15) What he learned from his entrepreneurial parents
(08:55) Learnings from the early days at Google
(15:05) The childhood roots of his investing philosophy
(16:31) Why rejection became a catalyst for his venture career
(19:28) Strategy behind Felicis's first $41M fund
(25:44) How his international background became an investing edge
(28:17) How Aydin approaches diversification at scale
(32:08) How he sizes investments based on conviction
(33:15) Generalist vs. specialist investing
(38:23) Why founders are the foundation
(42:48) Why success may look different than expected
(43:46) The Felicis journey
(48:18) Why Felicis is going all in on AI
(54:54) Why entry point matters less than potential
(57:33) How the AI bubble debate misses the point
(59:47) What makes Skild AI a standout company
(01:04:58) The AI bets Felicis missed
(01:07:55) How missing Airbnb and Uber led to backing Adyen
(01:11:20) Final meditations

Follow Aydin Senkut
• LinkedIn:   / aydins  
• X: https://x.com/asenkut

Resources and episode mentions
—Books—
• Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder: https://www.amazon.com/Antifragile-Th...
• Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results: https://www.amazon.com/Clear-Thinking...

—People—
• Larry Page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Page
• Sergey Brin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_...
• Eric Schmidt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Sc...
• Brian Chesky on X: https://x.com/bchesky
• Shane Parrish’s blog: https://fs.blog

—Other resources—
• Felicis: https://www.felicis.com
• Mastering Portfolio Construction: https://www.generalist.com/p/masterin...
• Steve Jobs’s quote on focus:   / people-think-focus-means-saying-yes-to-the...  
• Angry Birds: https://www.angrybirds.com
• Rovio: https://www.rovio.com
• Adyen: https://www.adyen.com
• Canva: https://www.canva.com
• Shopify: https://www.shopify.com
• n8n: https://n8n.io/
• Tines: https://www.tines.com
• Crusoe: https://www.crusoe.ai
• Supabase: https://supabase.com
• Skild: https://www.skild.ai
• Anthropic: http://anthropic.com
• OpenAI: https://openai.com
• Mistral: https://mistral.ai
• Airbnb: https://www.airbnb.com

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