Sarah Guo

Who they are

Sarah Guo is Founder and Managing Partner of Conviction — she left Greylock in 2022 to start the fund herself and co-hosts No Priors, an AI podcast she runs with Elad Gil at no-priors.com.

Person

Sarah founded Conviction in October 2022, launching it from scratch as an AI-focused early-stage fund when GPT-3 was new and most of the industry was still watching. Before that she spent roughly eight years at Greylock Partners, rising to one of its youngest General Partners — the arc from Goldman Sachs banking and growth investing through Greylock to her own fund is a clean progression from evaluating deals to leading them to owning the whole enterprise. She studied at Wharton and the Lauder Institute, which signals both finance rigor and international orientation — Lauder is specifically designed for people who want to operate across languages and geographies, and she is fluent in Chinese. Her public voice runs through three channels: her blog at sarahguo.com, the No Priors podcast she co-hosts with Elad Gil (no-priors.com), and a Mouthwash podcast she co-hosts with Erik Torenberg — the topics across all three are AI infrastructure, autonomous agents, AI governance, mechanistic interpretability, and what she calls Software 3.0. She has been on the keynote stage at RSAC, spoken at TEDAI San Francisco, and was interviewed by The Economist in early 2026. Her portfolio footprint — early backer of Baseten, Sierra, Collate (which raised $95M), and Nova Intelligence, plus board seats at Distributed Spectrum, Latent, and Onyx Security — clusters tightly around AI infrastructure, security, and enterprise applications.

Network

Her most visible recurring collaborator is Elad Gil, with whom she co-hosts No Priors — over 100 episodes interviewing AI engineers, researchers, and founders. She recently interviewed Satya Nadella on the podcast, discussing ambition, trust, and AI startups. Erik Torenberg is a co-host on her Mouthwash podcast, which covers market trends and startup dynamics.

Elad Gil· Co-host, No Priors podcast
Satya Nadella· CEO, Microsoft — interviewee on No Priors
Erik Torenberg· Co-host, Mouthwash podcast

How they likely show up

Founded Conviction in October 2022 and has been building it as a solo GP → high agency, comfortable with institutional uncertainty, doesn't need a large firm structure to act.
Three active public platforms (sarahguo.com blog, No Priors podcast, Mouthwash podcast) → ideas-first operator who processes thinking publicly; likely uses publishing as a filtering mechanism for founders and LPs alike.
Portfolio clusters tightly around AI infrastructure and security (Baseten, Sierra, Onyx Security, Distributed Spectrum) → thesis-driven investor, not spray-and-pray; she is betting on a specific stack.
Wharton + Lauder dual program education → built for cross-border, analytically rigorous work; likely comfortable with long-horizon, multi-variable reasoning.
Goldman Sachs banking → Greylock GP → founded own fund: each move added ownership and reduced institutional constraint → pattern suggests she optimizes for conviction over consensus.
Fluent in Chinese and codes in JavaScript → combines international orientation with hands-on technical curiosity, which is unusual for a finance-trained investor.

Conversation tips

→ Reference a specific No Priors episode or a post from sarahguo.com — she publishes specifically to signal what she cares about, and generic compliments about 'the podcast' will land flat.
→ Ask her to go deep on a specific thesis (e.g. Software 3.0, AI infrastructure) rather than asking broadly about AI — she thinks in frameworks and will engage more if you engage with her framework.
→ If you are a founder, be precise about your technical architecture early — her portfolio suggests she diligences infrastructure claims carefully; vague 'AI-powered' pitches won't hold her attention.
→ Her Satya Nadella interview was framed around ambition and trust — those are live themes for her right now; a conversation anchored to either concept is likely to open up.

Toolbox

Openers

Open on the Collate raise — she was an early investor and the company just raised $95M, making it a live portfolio win to congratulate her on specifically.
Reference her Satya Nadella No Priors interview: she framed it around ambition and trust in AI startups — a pointed angle that's worth unpacking with her directly.
Her blog at sarahguo.com uses the term 'Software 3.0' to frame her fund thesis — naming that framing and asking what it looks like in practice is a strong opener that shows you did the reading.

Discovery questions

You've backed companies across AI infrastructure (Baseten), customer experience (Sierra), and security (Onyx Security) — how do you think about which layer of the stack produces durable companies versus ones that get commoditized?
No Priors covers mechanistic interpretability and AI governance alongside founder interviews — how much does your view on AI safety shape which infrastructure bets you make at Conviction?
You left Greylock to build Conviction when the AI wave was just forming — what's different about running a fund built for this moment versus one that adapted to it?

Avoid

Don't open with a generic AI market overview — she has interviewed dozens of the leading researchers and founders in AI and will have sharper views than any briefing document; let her set the frame.

Make it yours