| In 2022, Under 30 alum Sarah Guo walked away from a high profile investing job at Reid Hoffman’s venture fund Greylock to start her own firm, Conviction. Her first check went to a then little-known legal AI startup called Harvey.
At the time Harvey was raising its seed, it had no customers, only a pitch: law firms would one day rely on AI to do everything from research to drafting—a bold vision when OpenAI’s ChatGPT had only just launched. The pitch hooked Guo, who was convinced that AI would transform every corner of the economy. She backed the startup. OpenAI did too.
Four years and an AI boom later, Harvey is now valued at roughly $11 billion. And it’s exactly the kind of conviction-driven bet that earned Guo the No. 56 spot on this year’s Forbes Midas List, which ranks the world’s top 100 venture capital investors.
Guo’s firm Conviction has since raised $331 million across two funds and backed 27 startups, the majority focused on AI. Her portfolio includes the “ChatGPT for doctors” OpenEvidence, AI-powered customer service firm Sierra, AI coding startup Cognition and open source AI developer Mistral. Together with Harvey, those six companies alone are collectively worth more than $62 billion. Across those investments, Guo’s positions have appreciated roughly tenfold.
“When you work on early stage, you make a concentrated commitment to a person and an overall idea and then you suspend disbelief and work on the company for a long time,” Guo tells Forbes. “It’s satisfying to see the people grow and be right.”
Plus, her investment goes beyond writing the check. After Harvey CEO Winston Weinberg (now an Under 30 alum himself) sent thousands of cold LinkedIn messages to law firms, it was Guo who connected him with a lawyer at A&O Shearman, which became Harvey’s first customer. That hands-on support has continued throughout the company’s growth, he says.
Guo’s debut on the Midas List is likely just the beginning. She spends her days reading research papers, meeting with AI scientists andhosting a podcast featuring leading voices in the field, such as Fei-Fei Li.
So what does it take to earn Sarah Guo’s backing? Forbes sat down with the investor to understand how she spots the next generation of breakout companies—and what made her leave Greylock in the first place. Read the full profile here.
See you next week,
Zoya & Alex |
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