Insight's Parekh Defends Diversification Over AI Lab Bets — SkimNews
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- Devin Parekh, co-runner of Insight Partners for 26 years, oversees $90 billion in assets under management and holds stakes in OpenAI, Anthropic, and Databricks — a portfolio he said defies the VC tendency to pick one winner.
- Insight Partners has not completed a major buyout since 2024 and is writing smaller $20–25 million checks earlier rather than later-stage rounds, because fast-moving raises now come with "almost no incremental data."
- Parekh said he is an LP in two funds whose entire thesis is putting 35–40% of capital into OpenAI or Anthropic — a strategy he called risky given that "this business has always rewarded diversification over a long horizon."
- Insight returned more than $20 billion to LPs over the past two years via strategic sales and IPOs; on secondaries, Parekh advised fund managers to "take your basis out anyway" rather than wait for further upside.
- Anthropic — already larger than Salesforce at four years old — is likely to file to go public soon, Parekh said, with SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic all potentially hitting public markets within six to eight months at valuations north of $1 trillion.
- Parekh dismissed AI doomerism as overblown, pointing to NYU Langone's use of AI on 50 million patient records to flag heart attack risk as evidence that net effects are "highly positive."
Why it matters: Insight's $90 billion AUM and dual OpenAI/Anthropic stakes let it profit from either lab's IPO, while LPs in concentrated vehicles face binary outcomes — and Parekh's warning that current round pricing lacks incremental data mirrors the 2021 peak that, in his own words, "didn't end well."
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