Vertical First, AI Second | Vijay Rajendran & Amit Goel, gAI Ventures | Top Decile S1E21

In 2026, it feels like every venture firm is chasing the coolest AI model or use case. Vijay Rajendran and Amit Goel built an entire firm around the opposite idea: vertical first, AI second - and the domain expert who's lived the problem for decades. In this episode of the Top Decile Podcast, Connor Sattely sits down with the co-founders of gAI Ventures, a venture builder that builds vertical AI companies from scratch alongside domain experts. Vijay led portfolio value at 500 Global - 2,800 companies across 80 countries with dozens of unicorns - and was previously a fintech founder and studio venture lead inside a global bank. Amit is exactly the kind of domain expert the firm now backs: an exited operator with 20 years in payments and identity. They make the contrarian case for why "a task is not a job" (AI can do 90–95% of the work, but the regulatory, compliance, and human-in-the-loop remainder is where the real business lives), why the collapsing cost of human cognition finally makes a hands-on venture-builder model practical, and why they hand founders the majority of the equity to keep them motivated for the long haul. They walk through their "minus one to one" journey - building the first two versions of a product before a company even has two people - and share portfolio companies Fastrackr AI (AI-native tooling for the RIA and wealth-management space) and Swayke AI (AI tooling for small-business lending and invoice factoring), each led by a founder with 16+ years in the vertical. In this episode: 00:00 - The contrarian thesis: vertical first, AI second 03:26 - Why "a task is not a job" (the radiology lesson) 05:24 - Why build a venture studio instead of staying operators 07:19 - Why a venture builder needs its own AI R&D function 08:19 - Generalists working with specialists: assessing domain experts 10:11 - Portfolio spotlight: Fastrackr AI and Swayke AI 12:15 - The origin story: how the two co-founders met 14:12 - The LP "operator coalition" and Decile as first institutional backer 17:20 - Explaining venture as an asset class to first-time LPs 20:01 - When to take hands off the wheel: the carve-out model 22:06 - Advice for aspiring venture builders: make your pipeline concrete 23:49 - Treat the fund structure itself like a product About the guests: Vijay Rajendran and Amit Goel are the co-founders of gAI Ventures, a venture builder that creates vertical AI companies alongside domain experts. Vijay previously led portfolio value at 500 Global (2,800 companies across 80 countries) and was a fintech founder and venture studio lead inside a global bank. Amit is an exited founder with 20 years of operating experience across payments and identity. You can learn more about Vijay and Amit's fund, gAI Ventures, here: https://decileaccess.com/funds/gAI-Ve... About VC Lab: VC Lab is the leading venture capital accelerator, helping emerging managers launch top-decile funds. Powered by Decile Group, VC Lab has helped launch hundreds of funds across 90+ countries. 🎯 Apply to the next VC Lab cohort: https://govclab.com 🌐 Learn more about Decile Group: https://decilegroup.com 🎙️ Subscribe for new episodes of the Top Decile Podcast every week Follow VC Lab: LinkedIn:   / vclab   X / Twitter: https://x.com/govclab