Lessons from Sarah Catanzaro, GP at Amplify Partners

On Investment Philosophy and Venture Capital

On Her Core Investment Thesis: "I invest in the tools that I wish I had earlier in my career; tools that enable us to collect, store, manage, analyze, and model data more effectively." [1]
The 'Practitioner Turned Investor' Advantage: Amplify Partners champions the "practitioner turned founder," and as a "practitioner turned investor," Catanzaro leverages her hands-on experience to identify and support startups solving real-world data problems. [1]
Investing in Problem-Solvers, Not Just Technology: "We don't invest in people who are just enamored with like new technologies. like we invest in people who want to solve problems. and want to build products." [2]
The Importance of Stamina in Venture Capital: "Frankly I think, what it really takes to succeed in venture is stamina. You need to be always on because any interaction could potentially be a future investment opportunity or opportunity to help facilitate a customer/candidate relationship for a startup."
Focusing on a Niche: After a period of generalist investing, Catanzaro realized her passion and expertise were in data and ML tools. "I just didn't have like the same passion. for all domains uh my my heart was really in data and ML tools and platforms wi which you know makes a lot of sense because that's that's where I've spent most of my career." [3]
The Human Element in VC: "You probably spend more time with your co-workers. than almost any other person in the world. and you know I think it's super important that you know the people who you work with are people who you admire." [4]
On the Rigor of Thesis-Driven Investing: A strong investment thesis must encompass "an understanding of like what is the problem. and why does the technology unlock a solution to that problem." [4]
The Real Work of a Senior VC: "I think one of the things that is really hard in venture is that you know as you become more senior. it's actually more work not less...structurally as as you mature as an investor you do more deals which means you have more portfolio companies which means that you have more obligations."
Her Unfair Advantage as a VC: "I both enjoy and have the background necessary to get into the kind of like technical. nittygritty...by more deeply understanding the products that I invest in I can actually you know guide founders." [4]
On the Future of Venture Capital: "There will be a lot of startups that come to market there will be a lot of startups that fail." [3]

On Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

AI is a Tool, Not a Silver Bullet: "AI is not a substitute for building great products...AI is just a technique. it's just an underlying. technology that you can build use to build great products. but you still need to build you know a compelling product that solves an urgent problem for somebody." [3]
The Evolution of MLOps: "I think it's become a lot easier to develop and train ML models...But I actually don't think it's gotten any easier to build ML-driven applications." [2]
The Gap Between Prototyping and Production in ML: "So in order to build an ML-driven software application, in order to move from prototype into production, ML teams need to kind of cobble together all of these pieces. And it's not just implementing all of these pieces that's hard. Even understanding how they ought to fit together can be really challenging." [2]
The Need for Better ML Tooling: "I'm hopeful that there will be kind of a new generation of ML tools on the horizon, that make integration extensibility a primary goal, like tools that are designed to work together." [2]
Many ML Problems are Data Management Problems: "I think many companies have realized that their ml. problems are actually data management problems."
The Importance of Failing Fast in ML: "I actually think that in ML failing. fast is really critical um and you know some of these tools that enable users to like prototype ML driven solutions. might help them better understand like is this going to work what additional investments do I need."
Decoupling Model and Application Development: "We need to explore. ways to uh kind of like decouple. model development and ML driven app development."
The Danger of AI Hype: "I think people see the output of models like you know GPT3 etc and they're amazed by what AI can do and so the conversation. doesn't even hinge on like do we have access to this data set or we have access to this talent pool or we have this type of workflow." [5]
On the Intersection of AI and Creativity: For a company like RunwayML to succeed, it required founders who had both "the AI. knowhow...but they also need to like deeply deeply. understand art." [4]
The Goal is Unlocking Creativity, Not AGI: Successful companies in the creative space are "focused on unlocking creativity. not you know achieving AGI. and I think that really shines through in their product." [4]

On Data and the Modern Data Stack

Data as a Representation of the World: "I think what we need to remind ourselves always, is that data is a representation of the world. Data is a representation of human behavior." [6]
The Potential for Data to be a Weapon: Data privacy is crucial, "around the ways in which data can be used as a weapon to really oppress, again, those underrepresented populations." [6]
The "Big Data is a Lie" Philosophy: "Most companies do not in fact have like big data perhaps there are a few companies like in genomics or like astrophysics that like actually have you know pabytes of data but like most data sets are not that big." [3]
Revisiting the Modern Data Stack: "I'm beginning to kind of like revisit some of the assumptions. that I had about you know the so-called modern data stack...very good things can be replaced with things that are even better." [3]

On Founders and Startups

What She Looks for in Founders: "I seek out founders who are obsessed with using new technologies to solve critical problems." [7]
The Importance of Founder-Problem Fit: "I think what matters is that like the founders deeply understand and care about the problems that they're solving."
The Grueling Nature of Startups: "No startup is ever easy like even the ones that grow the fastest. are often like not not just like incredibly. hard but incredibly emotionally taxing incredibly like physically exhausting."
Advising Technical Founders: "I find myself constantly like reminding technical founders including those within the amplified portfolio. that like they don't need to learn things from first principles or even from experimenting. like they can just ask people who know how to do it."
Empathy for Technical Founders: "I think one of the the most important things that we can do is like have empathy for technical founders." [3]
The Path for Technical Founders is Simpler Now: With agile development, "it's easier to kind of like respond to the market and and just you know collect information that you then act. on um which I think has created kind of a a simpler path for for technical founders." [3]
Technical Founders Still Need to Build Sales and Marketing: "But that doesn't mean you don't need to build sales it doesn't mean you don't need to build marketing." [3]
Helping Founders Articulate Their Vision: "We help founders. get really uh um crisp and rigorous in their approach to uh determining. you what problem do we solve for whom." [4]
The Value of a Specialized Partner for Technical Founders: For technical founders, "they didn't really have a great partner, they didn't really have someone who could say like, Don't give me the 32nd elevator pitch, I know that there's no way that that you can distill what you're doing into a five minute demo day presentation." [1]
The Importance of a Clear Vision: "What we're typically focusing. on is you know is this company solving an urgent. problem is it a problem for which. there is no adequate solution but also does the founder have a sense of what are the adjacent. use cases or workflows that they can expand. into."

On Career and Personal Growth

The Role of Serendipity in Her Career: "I think the thing that has really defined my career has been um pursuing my curiosity. and you know just saying yes as like interesting opportunities arose." [4]
On Being a Woman in Venture Capital: "I won't pretend that it's easy. I think in fact as a female in venture capital I do need to hustle harder. You just don't have the same social structures that your male colleagues may have, but there's more opportunity to grow in a sense.” [3]
The Importance of Continuous Learning: "If you're constantly. learning I think you're often setting yourself up for um you know future opportunities. so so that like even if the company fails or even if the product fails or even if the project fails. like you're still making progress in your own career and you're kind of still succeeded."
Staying Technically Sharp Through Hands-On Work: "To be honest i i don't think i could really uh invest and have the strongest conviction. in the data and ml tools that that we work with. if i didn't continue to at least do some data work which like totally keeps me grounded."
The Value of a Peer Group: At Mattermark, she learned the power of having a peer group and building a strong team culture.
From Counter-Terrorism to Venture Capital: Her early career in using data to understand adversary behavior at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies laid the foundation for her data-centric investment approach. [6]
The Motivation to Move to the Private Sector: Frustration with bureaucratic red tape in the public sector led her to Palantir, where she saw firsthand the data challenges faced by large agencies. [7]
On Ambition and Adaptability: While her early ambition was to become Secretary of Defense, she learned to seize different opportunities as they arose, leading her down the path to venture capital. [2]
The Power of Curiosity: "I've always also just been the type of person who needs to go a little bit deeper."
Choosing a Team You Admire: "Go find a team you want to work with like that is the thing that probably matters. most." [4]

Learn more:

Lessons from Sarah Catanzaro, GP at Amplify Partners

On Investment Philosophy and Venture Capital

On Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning

On Data and the Modern Data Stack

On Founders and Startups

On Career and Personal Growth

Written by Antoine Buteau

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