The phone is dead. Long live . . . what exactly?

True Ventures co-founder Jon Callaghan doesn’t think we’ll be using smartphones the way we do now in five years — and maybe not at all in 10 years.

For a venture capitalist whose company has had some big winners over the past two decades—from consumer brands like Fitbit, Ring, and Peloton to enterprise software makers HashiCorp and Duo Security—that’s more than armchair theories; it’s a thesis that True Ventures is actively betting on.

True hasn’t gotten this far by following the crowd. The Bay Area firm has operated largely under the radar, despite managing about $6 billion through 12 core funds and four “select” opportunity funds, which it has used to pour more capital into portfolio companies that are gaining momentum. While other VC firms have become more promotional – building personal brands on social media and podcasts to attract founders and deal flow – True has gone in the opposite direction, quietly building a tight network of returning founders. The strategy appears to be working: According to Callaghan, the company has 63 profitable exits and seven IPOs amid a portfolio of some 300 companies assembled over its 20-year history.

Three of True’s four recent exits in the fourth quarter of 2025 involved returning founders who rejoined the company after previous successes, Callaghan says. Yet it’s Callaghan’s thinking about the future of human-computer interaction that really stands out in a sea of ​​AI hype and mega-rounds.

“Ten years from now we won’t be using iPhones anymore,” Callaghan says bluntly. “I don’t actually think that in five years we’ll be using them – or let’s say something else that’s a little bit safer – we’ll be using them in very different ways.”

His argument is simple: our phones are lousy as an interface between humans and intelligence. “The way we get them out now to send a text to confirm this or to send you a message or write you an email – [that’s] super inefficient, [and] not a great interface,” he explains.[They’re] sensitive to errors, sensitive to disruption [of] our normal life.”

He’s so confident that True has spent years exploring alternative interfaces: software-based, hardware-based, and everything in between. It’s the same instinct that led True to bet on Fitbit early on before wearables were an obvious choice, to invest in Peloton after hundreds of other VC firms said “no thanks,” and to back Ring when founder Jamie Siminoff kept running out of money and even left the judges on “Shark Tank.” turned him away. Each time, the bet seemed questionable, Callaghan says. Each time it focused on a new way for people to interact with technology, which felt more natural than before.

The latest manifestation of this thesis is Sandbar, a hardware device that Callaghan describes as a “thought companion” – or, in more colloquial terms, a voice-activated ring worn on the index finger. Its sole purpose: to capture and organize your thoughts through voice notes. It’s not trying to be yet another Humane AI pin or compete with Oura’s health tracking. “It does one thing very well,” says Callaghan. “But that one thing is a basic human behavioral need that is missing from technology today.”

The idea is not to passively absorb ambient noise, but to be present when an idea strikes and serve as a kind of thought partner. It’s linked to an app, uses AI and, according to Callaghan, represents a very different philosophy on how we should deal with intelligence.

What attracted True to Sandbar founders Mina Fahmi and Kirak Hong, however, wasn’t just the product. “When we met Mina, we were absolutely aligned on our vision,” Callaghan recalls. True’s team had been thinking about alternative interfaces for years and made targeted investments around that possibility. As a result, they had met dozens of founders. But the approach of Fahmi and Hong – who previously worked together on neural interfaces at CTRL-Labs, a startup acquired by Meta in 2019 – stood out. “It’s about what [the ring] makes possible. It’s about the behavior that makes it possible, which we will soon realize we can’t live without.”

There’s an echo here of Callaghan’s old line about Peloton: “It’s not about the bike.” For some, the bike – even its first version – was convincing. But Peloton was really about the behavior it enabled and the community it created; the bicycle was just the vessel.

This philosophy of betting on new behaviors – and not just new gadgets – also explains how True has managed to stay disciplined when it comes to capital. Even as AI startups rake in hundreds of millions at billion-dollar valuations, True insists the company can continue doing what it does best, which is writing $3 million to $6 million seed checks for 15% to 20% ownership in startups it often sees first.

Callaghan says True will raise more money to fund what works, but he’s not interested in billions of dollars. “Like, why? You don’t need that to build something great today.”

That same measured approach colors his view of the broader AI boom. While he says (when asked) that he believes OpenAI could soon be worth a trillion dollars, and while he calls this the most powerful computing boom we’ve ever seen, Callaghan sees warning signs in the circular financing deals supporting hyperscalers and their projected $5 trillion in CapEx spending on data centers and chips. “We are in a very capital-intensive part of the cycle, and that is concerning,” he notes.

That said, he is optimistic about where the real opportunities lie. Callaghan thinks the biggest value creation lies ahead – not in the infrastructure layer but in the application layer, where new interfaces will enable entirely new behavior.

It all comes back to his core investing philosophy, which sounds almost romantic – the kind of perfect VC wisdom that would ring hollow to most people: “It should be scary and lonely and you should be called crazy,” says Callaghan of early-stage investing done right. “And it has to be very blurry and ambiguous, but you have to be with a team that you really believe in.” Five to 10 years later, he says, you’ll know if you were on to something.

Either way, based on True’s track record of betting on hardware that many others have missed – fitness trackers, connected bikes, smart doorbells and now thought-provoking rings – it’s worth paying attention when Callaghan says the phone’s days are numbered. Being early is the whole point – and the trend lines support his thesis: the smartphone market is actually saturated, growing at barely 2% per year, while wearables – smartwatches, rings and voice-activated devices – are growing at double digits.

Things are changing in the way we want to interact with technology, and True is moving accordingly.

Pictured above, Sandbar’s Stream ring. For more information about our conversation with Callaghan, please visit the Download Strictly VC podcast next week; new episodes appear every Tuesday.