For the last 24 months, the default way in which startups were exposed to venture capital and its effects has been, in many ways, paused. There's a slowdown. Venture capital funding for the first nine months of this year is down 7% over a similar period last year per Tracxn. There have been news stories about layoffs, company shutdowns, and downrounds at various companies from a time when unicorns were being born every three months or so. Capital is abundant. A lot of dry it remains uninvested everywhere, but it's just not getting invested at the same rate. Building a company and scaling a company is getting cheaper because of AI and LLMs, which can generate code, which can generate images or just about anything anything that you want. And the biggest change—there's a focus on being profitable. If you’ve been a regular listener of Two by Two, you’d know that VCs have always managed to sneak into most, if not all, discussions on the podcast. Maybe not in the way they’d like to be represented in general, but they have been part of the conversation in some way, shape, or form. So when hosts Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan sat down for this week’s episode, they got two founders-turned-VCs to join in and say their piece on the role VCs play in the world of startups. And what they need to be doing right. Manav Garg is the founder of Eka Software and co-founder of the operator-led Together Fund (Manav has previously appeared as a guest on the First Principles podcast as well), while Rajiv Srivatsa is the co-founder of Urban Ladder, and now a founding partner at Antler India. Welcome to episode 17 of Two by Two. This is a shorter 'highlights only' episode of an hour-and-a-half-long podcast. If you want to listen and get early access to the full episode, consider becoming a Premium subscriber to The Ken, which in addition to Two by Two, will also give you access to our long-form stories, Premiums newsletters and visual stories. Or if you just want to listen to Two by Two for now, for iOS users, we have enabled Premium subscription on Apple Podcasts. You can sign up for The Two by Two newsletter here—it's free! This episode of Two by Two was produced by Hari Krishna. Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer, mixed and mastered this episode. New episodes are released every Thursday. So follow the show wherever you get your podcasts, and tell us what you think of the show. You can write to us at [email protected] with your thoughts and suggestions.