In March, Slow Ventures hosted a four‑hour etiquette workshop for about 50 tech founders at Maxwell Social in Lower Manhattan. The session mixed wine pairings, hosting tricks and a lesson on reading a room, underscoring a shift from pure coding to soft‑skill mastery in an AI‑driven market.

Sam Lessin, founding partner at Slow Ventures and former Facebook product VP, warned that AI has turned coding into a commodity. In most deals, winning customer trust now outweighs technical flair. He urged founders to approach data requests with respect and calm, arguing that charisma can win investors where code alone no longer differentiates.

The event, staged with a playful nod to Versailles, signals a broader trend among tech titans. Formerly focused on engineering, leaders like Zuckerberg and Bezos now sport designer jackets and attend cultural galas, reflecting a pivot toward public persona and networking as key growth levers.

For investors, the lesson is clear: funding decisions will increasingly hinge on founders’ interpersonal acumen as AI diminishes the edge of technical expertise. Firms that cultivate charisma alongside innovation are better positioned to secure capital and scale in a crowded startup ecosystem.