Day: September 23, 2025

• General Catalyst’s CEO emphasized the complexity of achieving true AI transformation.
• AI integration requires data infrastructure, business-specific models, and leadership, he said.
• Major investments by General Catalyst include Airbnb, Windsurf, and Mistral AI.

True AI integration has four non-negotiables, according to General Catalyst’s CEO.

“When you think about transforming an enterprise with AI, you actually have to do four things correctly,” Hemant Taneja said on an episode of the 20VC podcast released on Monday.

Taneja said that it is “very, very difficult” to achieve all four things and ensure that AI adoption goes beyond prototyping an OpenAI or Anthropic model.

“That’s why these things are hitting a wall,” he added.

The VC said that companies need to prepare their data infrastructure for AI adoption first. Data infrastructure includes components like servers, databases, cloud platforms, and networking equipment that work together to make data secure and usable.

The second must-have is large language models that understand your business.

“You have to train these models in the context of your secret sauce, your business,” he said.

Next, companies need to think about workforce transformation, since humans and AI will work together.

“Some humans are going to manage AI agents. Some AI agents are going to manage humans,” he said. “Imagine how the org charts have to change.”

“The fourth, for all this to work, you actually need courage at the top. The CEOs need to really get behind it to drive it.”

General Catalyst’s major investments include Airbnb, Windsurf, and Mistral AI, among others. The firm did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Taneja joins a list of tech and business executives who have spoken about the importance of leaders getting deeply involved in AI.

In a May podcast, John Chambers, a VC and Cisco’s former CEO, said that most leaders do not reinvent themselves.

“As a leader in AI, you have to reinvent yourself, in my opinion, every year,” he said.

This is because AI is moving in “internet terms” at “five times the speed” and delivering “three times the results,” Chambers said.

Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang, who regularly speaks about how AI agents and humans will work together in the future, said he uses AI as a tutor every day.

“In areas that are fairly new to me, I might say, ‘Start by explaining it to me like I’m a 12-year-old,’ and then work your way up into a doctorate-level over time,” he said at a conference in May.

AI’s ability to rapidly collect, analyze, and communicate information could close the tech gap, Huang said.

• Luis von Ahn is the cofounder and CEO of Duolingo, a language learning platform.
• Von Ahn shared with new hires five tips on how to succeed at Duolingo.
• New hires should be proactive in identifying and solving problems on their own, he said.

Luis von Ahn, the CEO of the language learning platform Duolingo, says he’s got 5 tips for new hires.

Von Ahn wrote in a LinkedIn post on Monday that Duolingo welcomed 42 new graduates this fall. He said the company’s fresh hires would always ask him for advice on how to succeed.

First, von Ahn said new hires should not come in with “massive egos” or be duplicitous in their dealings with colleagues.

“Don’t be a jerk,” von Ahn wrote.

“Duolingo has an allergic reaction to toxic behavior, and our culture quickly identifies and rejects it,” he added.

Second, von Ahn said Duolingo employees should be proactive in coming up with solutions when they encounter any problems. He cited the example of Duolingo’s company blog, which one of their engineers started.

Von Ahn said Duolingo didn’t have a company blog at first. One engineer complained about it to von Ahn for months, while another engineer went ahead and made one. The latter engineer “did way better at Duolingo,” von Ahn said.

“If something bothers you, you generally have the freedom here to fix it. We’re still figuring lots of things out, and if you see a problem, you can actually do something about it here,” von Ahn wrote.

Third, von Ahn said new hires must approach their work with a company and mission-first mentality.

“When making decisions, think in this order: What’s best for the company’s mission? What’s best for your team? What’s best for you?” von Ahn wrote.

“This doesn’t mean work yourself to death. But people who focus on what’s good for Duolingo’s mission tend to do better than people who are purely selfish,” he continued.

Fourth, von Ahn said new hires should use Duolingo themselves.

“Obvious but important: actually use Duolingo. I still report bugs. How else can you improve something you don’t understand?” he said.

Fifth, von Ahn said it was important for new hires to recognize that luck and hard work are necessary for a successful career.

“You don’t have to be the most brilliant person. You just have to show up and keep going until luck finds you. If you stick with it, you’ll surprise yourself with how far you can go,” von Ahn wrote.

Representatives for von Ahn at Duolingo did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

Von Ahn isn’t the only tech CEO who said that companies welcome hires who take the initiative to solve problems independently, instead of being told to do so.

Lovable CEO Anton Osika told Business Insider last month that he wants “builders, not talkers” at his vibe coding startup.

“We’re biased toward people who show they can ship, iterate, and make something real—whether that’s a product, a project, or even just a hack that proves a point,” Osika said.