The phone is lifeless. Long live . . . what precisely?

The phone is lifeless. Long live . . . what precisely?

True Ventures co-founder Jon Callaghan doesn’t assume we’ll be utilizing smartphones the approach we do now in 5 years — and possibly by no means in 10.

For a enterprise capitalist whose agency has had some big winners over its twenty years – from client manufacturers like Fitbit, Ring, and Peloton, to enterprise software makers HashiCorp and Duo Security – that’s more than armchair theorizing; it’s a thesis on which True Ventures is actively betting.

True hasn’t gotten this far by following the crowd. The Bay Area agency has largely operated under the radar despite managing roughly $6 billion across 12 core seed funds and 4 “select,” opportunity-style funds that it has used to pour more capital into portfolio firms that are gaining momentum. While other VCs have grown more promotional – constructing private manufacturers on social media and podcasts to draw founders and deal circulate – True has gone in the other way, quietly cultivating a good network of repeat founders. The strategy appears to be working: according to Callaghan, the agency boasts 63 exits with features and 7 IPOs amid a portfolio of some 300 firms assembled over its 20-year historical past.

Three of True’s 4 latest exits in the fourth quarter of 2025 concerned repeat founders who got here again to work with the agency again after earlier successes, says Callaghan. Still, it’s Callaghan’s pondering about the future of human-computer interplay that actually stands out in a sea of AI hype and mega-rounds.

“We’re not going to be using iPhones in 10 years,” Callaghan says flatly. “I kind of don’t think we’ll be using them in five years – or let’s say something different that’s a little safer – we’re going to be using them in very different ways.”

His argument is simple: our telephones are awful at being the interface between people and intelligence. “The way we take them out right now to send a text to confirm this or send you some message or write an email – [that’s] super inefficient, [and] not a great interface,” he explains. “[They’re] prone to error, prone to disruption [of] our normal lives.”

So certain is he of this that True has been spending years exploring different interfaces – software-based, hardware-based, every thing in between. It’s the same intuition that led True to guess early on Fitbit before wearables had been apparent, to put money into Peloton after a whole lot of other VCs said ‘no thanks,’ and to again Ring when founder Jamie Siminoff stored operating out of cash and even the judges on “Shark Tank” turned him away. Each time, the guess regarded questionable, says Callaghan. Each time, the guess was on a new approach for people to work together with technology that felt more pure than what got here before.

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The latest manifestation of this thesis is Sandbar, a {hardware} device that Callaghan describes as a “thought companion” — or, in more mundane phrases, a voice-activated ring worn on the index finger. Its singular goal: capturing and organizing your ideas via voice notes. It’s not making an attempt to be another Humane AI Pin or compete with Oura’s health monitoring. “It does one thing really well,” Callaghan says. “But that one thing is a fundamental human behavioral need that is missing from technology today.”

The thought isn’t to passively document ambient audio however to be there when an thought strikes, serving as a sort of thought accomplice. It’s connected to an app, leverages AI, and, according to Callaghan, represents a really different philosophy about how we should always work together with intelligence.

What drew True to Sandbar founders Mina Fahmi and Kirak Hong wasn’t just the product, though. “When we met Mina, we were just absolutely aligned on vision,” Callaghan recollects. True’s team had already been pondering for years about different interfaces, making focused investments round that risk. They’d met with dozens of founders, as a result. But the strategy of Fahmi and Hong – who beforehand labored together on neural interfaces at CTRL-Labs, a startup acquired by Meta in 2019 – stood out. “It’s about what [the ring] enables. It’s about the behavior it enables that we will very soon realize we can’t live without.”

There’s an echo right here of Callaghan’s outdated line about Peloton: “It’s not about the bike.” To some, the bike – even its earliest iteration – was compelling. But Peloton was actually about the habits it enabled and the community it created; the bike was just the vessel.

This philosophy of betting on new behaviors — not just new gadgets — also explains how True has managed to remain disciplined about capital. Even as AI startups increase a whole lot of thousands and thousands at billion-dollar valuations out of the gate, True insists that it’s in a position to keep on with what it does best, which is to put in writing seed checks of $3 million to $6 million for 15% to twenty% possession in startups that it often will get to see first.

Callaghan says True will increase more cash to fund what’s working, however he’s not inquisitive about elevating billions of {dollars}. “Like, why? You don’t need that to build something amazing today.”

That same measured strategy colours his view of the broader AI growth. While he says (when requested) that he believes OpenAI might soon be price a trillion {dollars}, and while he calls this the most highly effective compute wave we’ve seen, Callaghan sees warning indicators in the round financing offers backing hyperscalers and their $5 trillion in projected CapEx spending on data facilities and chips. “We’re in a very capital intense part of the cycle, and that is worrisome,” he notes.

That said, he’s optimistic about the place the real alternatives lie. Callaghan thinks the biggest worth creation is ahead of us – not in the infrastructure layer however in the application layer, the place new interfaces will allow completely new behaviors.

It all comes again to his core investing philosophy, which sounds nearly romantic — the sort of pitch-perfect VC knowledge that would ring hole from most people: “It should be scary and lonely and you should be called crazy,” Callaghan says about early-stage investing executed proper. “And it should be really blurry and ambiguous, but you should be with a team that you really believe in.” Five to 10 years later, he says, you’ll know when you had been on to one thing.

Either approach, based on True’s monitor document of betting on {hardware} that many others missed – fitness trackers, linked bikes, sensible doorbells, and now thought-capturing rings – it’s price paying consideration when Callaghan says the phone’s days are numbered. Being early is the complete point — and the development traces assist his thesis: the smartphone market is successfully saturated, rising at barely 2% yearly, while wearables — smartwatches, rings, and voice-enabled devices — are increasing at double-digit charges.

Something’s shifting in how we wish to work together with technology, and True is inserting its bets accordingly.

Pictured above, Sandbar’s Stream ring. For a lot more from our dialog with Callaghan, tune in to the StrictlyVC Download podcast next week; new episodes drop every Tuesday.

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