John Callahan, co-founder of True Ventures, believes that in five years we won’t be using smartphones the way we do now, and in 10 years we might not be using them at all.
For venture capitalists with two decades of big winners from consumer brands like Fitbit, Ring, and Peloton to enterprise software makers HashiCorp and Duo Security, it’s more than armchair theory. This is a theory that True Ventures is actively betting on.
True didn’t get this far by following the crowd. The Bay Area firm has operated largely under the radar, even as it manages about $6 billion across 12 core seed funds and four “select” opportunity funds, which it has used to pump more capital into portfolio companies that are gaining traction. While other venture capital firms are ramping up promotions, building personal brands on social media and podcasts to attract founders and deal flow, True is going in the opposite direction, quietly cultivating a tight network of repeat founders. This strategy seems to be working. Callahan said the firm boasts 63 profitable exits and seven IPOs in a portfolio of about 300 companies assembled over its 20-year history.
Three of True’s four recent exits in Q4 2025 involved repeat founders who returned to the company after previous successes, Callahan said. Still, what really stands out in a sea of AI hype and mega-rounds is Callahan’s thinking about the future of human-computer interaction.
“We won’t be using iPhones within 10 years,” Callahan says flatly. “I don’t think we’ll be using them in five years. Or, let’s put it a little safer, we’ll be using them in a completely different way.”
His argument is simple. Our mobile phones are inadequate interfaces between humans and intelligence. “The way we send confirmation texts, send messages, and write emails right now is very inefficient and not a great interface,” he explains. “They’re more likely to make mistakes and disrupt our normal lives.”
We believe this so strongly that True has spent years researching alternative interfaces, software-based, hardware-based, and everything in between. It was the same instinct that led True to bet on Fitbit early on before wearables were revealed, to invest in Peloton after hundreds of other venture capitalists said “no thanks,” and to back Ring when founder Jamie Siminoff kept running out of money and even the judges on “Shark Tank” turned him away. Each time, Callahan said, the bet looked questionable. Each time, we were betting on new ways for humans to interact with technology that felt more natural than before.
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The latest manifestation of this hypothesis is Sandbar, a hardware device that Callahan describes as a “thought companion.” So, in more everyday terms, it’s a voice-activated ring that you wear on your index finger. Its sole purpose is to record and organize your thoughts through voice notes. This isn’t trying to be another humane AI pin or compete with Oura’s health tracking. “It does one thing very well,” Callahan says. “But one of them is a basic human behavioral need that is missing from today’s technology.”
The idea is to be there when an idea comes to you, acting as a kind of thought partner, rather than passively recording the audio around you. Callahan says it comes with an app, is powered by AI, and represents a completely different philosophy of how we should interact with intelligence.
But it wasn’t just the product that attracted Sandbar founders Mina Fahmi and Kirak Hong to True. “When I met Mina, our visions were completely aligned,” Callahan recalls. True’s team had already been thinking about alternative interfaces for years, making targeted investments around their potential. As a result, they ended up meeting with dozens of founders. But the approach of Fahmi and Hong (who previously collaborated on neural interfaces at CTRL-Labs, a startup acquired by Meta in 2019) stood out. “It’s about what[the ring]allows you to do. It’s about the actions it allows you to take. You quickly realize that you can’t live without it.”
Callahan’s old line about Peloton, “It’s not about the bike,” is echoed here. For some, this bike, even in its earliest versions, was appealing. But Peloton’s real purpose was the behavior it enabled and the community it created. The bike was just a tool.
This philosophy of betting on new behaviors, not just new gadgets, also explains why True has remained disciplined with its capital. Even though AI startups have raised hundreds of millions of dollars at multi-billion dollar valuations since their inception, True insists it can stick to what it does best: writing seed checks of $3 million to $6 million for 15% to 20% ownership in startups, which is often the first thing you see.
Callahan said True intends to raise more money to fund its operations, but is not interested in raising billions of dollars. “Why? We don’t need that to build great things today.”
The same cautious approach influences his view of the broader AI boom. While Callahan said (in response to a question) that he believes OpenAI’s value could soon reach $1 trillion, calling it the most powerful wave of computing we’ve ever seen, he sees warning signs in the circular financing deals that support hyperscalers and the $5 trillion in capital spending expected in data centers and chips. “We’re at a very capital-intensive time in the cycle, and that’s concerning,” he points out.
That said, he’s optimistic about where the real opportunities lie. Callaghan believes the greatest value creation is not at the infrastructure layer, but at the application layer, where new interfaces enable entirely new behaviors.
It all goes back to his core investment philosophy, which sounds almost romantic. It’s the kind of perfect venture capital wisdom that would ring hollow to most people. “You should be scared and lonely and you should be called crazy,” Callahan said of early stage investments done right. “And it should be really vague and vague, but you should be with a team that you really believe in.” After five to 10 years, he says, you’ll know if you were on to something.
Either way, it’s notable that Callahan says the era of cell phones is over, given True’s track record of betting on hardware that many others have overlooked, including fitness trackers, connected bikes, smart doorbells, and now a thought-capturing ring. Early is key, and the trend lines support his assertion. The smartphone market is virtually saturated, growing at just 2% a year, while wearables (smartwatches, rings, voice-enabled devices) are expanding at double-digit rates.
Something is changing in the way we interact with technology, and True is betting accordingly.
The photo above is a stream ring on a sandbar. For more of our conversation with Callaghan, tune in to next week’s StrictlyVC Download podcast. New episodes drop every Tuesday.
