Sarah Guo

Sarah Guo spent a decade as a general partner at Greylock Partners, where she was one of the youngest GPs in the storied firm’s history, before striking out on her own in 2022. She raised a $101 million debut fund for Conviction, an investment firm she describes as purpose-built to serve “Software 3.0” — her term for the generation of software rebuilt around machine intelligence. She is the largest limited partner in her own fund.

Betting the firm on AI

Guo launched Conviction weeks before ChatGPT made generative AI a household phrase, a timing she attributes to conviction rather than luck: she told TechCrunch in October 2022 that the fundamental technology shift toward intelligent software was already visible in the underlying advances in compute, data, and algorithms. Her stated strategy was “nails, not hammers first” — backing applications of AI in security, developer tools, and productivity rather than speculative moonshots — and she paired the optimism with a self-described “allergic reaction” to snake-oil AI marketing.

Alongside investor Elad Gil she co-hosts No Priors, one of the most-listened-to podcasts in the AI industry, interviewing founders and researchers across the field. The show has made her one of the debate’s most visible optimists — an investor who argues the technology is under-hyped where it matters, even as she criticizes the marketing froth around it.