On TechCrunch’s Equity stage at Disrupt, Jennifer Neundorfer didn’t mince words about the AI frenzy: investors and founders are obsessed, and many pitches now sound interchangeable. What gets her attention are teams using AI to create entirely new user experiences—not incremental tweaks—paired with a crisp story about why their approach is truly different and why they are the right people to execute it. TechCrunch
Neundorfer cautioned that sameness breeds fatigue. The founders who cut through explain, in concrete terms, how their product diverges from the “dozens of similar startups” and anchor that narrative in their own unfair advantages—domain insight, distribution, data, or execution speed. She expects a correction that many current beneficiaries of AI hype won’t survive; the enduring companies will be category definers that skate to where the technology is going, not where it was last quarter. TechCrunch
Her filter is pragmatic: winners “build at the edge of what’s possible today and for what’s coming next,” while staying relentlessly customer-led. Founders who can read the market—and ship against real customer priorities rather than just technical possibility—gain a durable edge. TechCrunch
Neundorfer also shared career context from her time at YouTube and 21st Century Fox: moving into venture required shifting from hands-on operating advice to supporting founders as people as well as partners. Now a mentor and active seed investor, her broad advice—especially for underrepresented founders—lands the same: tune out the noise and build a great business. The rest is distraction. TechCrunch
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