Ep 150: How AI Is Transforming Diligence, Decision-Making & the Future of Investing with John Melas-Kyriazi

Ep 150: How AI Is Transforming Diligence, Decision-Making & the Future of Investing with John Melas-Kyriazi

From Joe Lonsdale: American Optimist by Joe Lonsdale

April 17, 2026 · 35 min

About this episode

The episode discusses how AI is transforming diligence and decision-making in investing with guest John Melas-Kyriazi.

John Melas-Kyriazi is the co-founder and CEO of Standard Metrics , which powers portfolio management for more than 150 venture capital firms and 10,000 companies. He runs a high-growth SaaS company at the leading edge of the AI wave. How is AI transforming how investors source and diligence deals? How are agents parsing pitch decks, prepping board meetings, and building powerful new workflows? And as competitive advantages shift, what are the new moats for SaaS companies in the AI age? We discuss these and other timely topics with John. At an early age, he fell in love with science fiction and built vacuum-tube amplifiers in his parents' basement, before studying physics and materials science at Stanford. There he became a research scientist until pivoting to investing, first at StartX and later Spark Capital. Born out of firsthand experience, he co-founded Standard Metrics alongside the 8VC Build team to create a better solution for portfolio management software. We begin our conversation with John’s path from academia to investor and founder. Next, we explore how Standard Metrics centralizes data, improves portfolio intelligence, and powers smarter investment decisions. Then we…

People in this episode

Host: Joe Lonsdale

Guest: John Melas-Kyriazi

Topics covered

  • AI in investing
  • portfolio management
  • venture capital
  • SaaS companies
  • decision-making
  • data centralization

Keywords

  • AI
  • investing
  • portfolio management
  • SaaS
  • venture capital
  • decision-making
  • data intelligence

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Standard Metrics, 8VC, StartX, Spark Capital

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