StrictlyVC Download

At a StrictlyVC event in New York this past Wednesday, Connie talked to Marc Lore, founder and CEO of Wonder, about Wonder's plans for the future, including the news that Wonder is buying GrubHub for $650 million, or $6.65 billion less than the Netherlands-based food delivery company Just Eat Takeaway paid for the company just four years ago.

Ashton Kutcher, Guy Oseary, and Effie Epstein of Sound Ventures talk about their AI strategy and why they think we are in the early innings of artificial intelligence startups.

Connie talks to legendary venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, founder and managing director at Khosla Ventures. 

Connie and Alex talk to billionaire Frank McCourt about his plan to buy TikTok and transform it into a decentralized platform where users have control over their data and identity.

Connie & Alex talk to Hemant Taneja and Pranav Signhvi of General Catalyst about their “Customer Value” strategy, a  funding model in which General Catalyst pre-funds a company's customer acquisition cost in exchange for a capped return linked directly to the customer value generated from its investment. Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie talks with former Vice President Al Gore and his business partner, Lila Preston, about a new, annual climate report that their sustainability-focused investment management firm, Generation Investment Management, has issued. 

Connie talks to Lina Khan, Chair of the Federal Trade Commission, about the need for regulation in the tech industry to ensure competition and address potential risks of AI, the challenges of regulating innovation in a rapidly changing tech environment, and the potential risks and benefits of breaking up big tech companies.

Connie chats with seed-stage investor Saul Klein about the European startup scene.Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie talks to Rippling CEO Parker Conrad about Rippling's new $200 million round that the company raised at a hefty $13.4 billion valuation.Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie talks to Eric Liaw of IVP about London, succession, and that Klarna kerfuffle.

Connie talks to Arjun Sethi, co-founder of the venture firm Tribe Capital,  about Termina, a startup he cofounded that helps investors perform quantitative due diligence on their own portfolio and new deals. 

Connie & Alex talk to David Pakman,  Managing Partner and Head of Venture Investments at CoinFund, about why the crypto market is suddenly hot again and how crypto and AI can work together. 

Connie chats with Medha Agarwal and  Amy Yin, who are joining Defy as a GP and Venture Partner, respectively. 

Connie & Alex talk tech news, and then Connie interviews Dick Costolo (former Twitter CEO), Adam Bain (former Twitter COO), and David Fisher (former Facebook Chief Revenue Officer) of 01 Advisors.

Connie interviews Keith Rabois, a partner at Founder's Fund and a co-founder and CEO at OpenStore, a startup that is rolling up Shopify businesses, about his investments in Trabo, Faire, Ramp, Royal, and OpenAI ... and much more.

Connie talks to Pete Koomen, co-founder of Optimizely and a Group Partner at Y Combinator, about Y Combinator's selection process, why YC's size is an advantage, and how it has changed since Koomen was a Y Combinator entrepreneur.

Connie & Alex talk tech news, and then Connie speaks with Hans Swildens, founder of Industry Ventures, a venture firm, fund of funds, and secondary shop with more than $7 billion under management.

At TechCrunch Disrupt 2023, Connie talks to Reed Jobs, son of Steve, whose new fund, Yosemite, is devoted to making  cancer "non-lethal in our lifetimes"; and Katie Haun, a former federal prosecutor and Andreessen Horowitz partner whose inaugural $1.5 billion fund, Haun Ventures, is targeting web3 and crypto deals. 

Connie talks to Vice President Al Gore and Lila Preston of the sustainability-focused public and private equity firm Generation Investment Management about a fascinating report Generation just issued on climate tech trends. Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie & Alex talk to Michael Kim of Cendana Capital, which has just raised $470 million to back seed and pre-seed VC funds.

Connie & Alex talk tech news and then chat with longtime venture capitalist Heidi Roizen of Threshold Ventures about teh startup market as well as her new podcast, The Startup Solution.Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie & Alex cover a couple of this week's tech stories, and then Connie talks to Michael Brown, co-founder and CEO of Teamshares, a startup that is buying mom-and-pop shops with the promise that employees will own 80% of the business within twenty years. Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie interviews Erin Price-Wright of Index Ventures about a deal Index struck with Oracle to provide a mix of Nvidia's chips to its AI portfolio companies at no cost.Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie & Alex talk tech news. Special thanks to this week's sponsor, Affinity!

Connie & Alex talk to Dan Gwak of Point72 Venture Capital,  the VC arm of Steve Cohen's vast hedge fund empire, about why defense tech is suddenly so hot.

We talk tech news, and then Connie talks to Eric Kim and Chi-Hua Chien of Goodwater Capital about their focus on consumer tech "utilities."

Connie talks to Andy McLoughlin of Uncorked Capital about managing investing risk and what's next in seed investing.

Connie talks to Jason Del Rey, author of veteran journalist Jason Del Rey about his new book, Winner Sells All: Amazon, Walmart, and the Battle for Our Wallets, which chronicles the no-holds-barred battle between Amazon and Walmart to become the biggest retailer in the world.

Connie talks to Miles Grimshaw of Benchmark about his bets in Langchain and Benchling and how Benchmark thinks about investing in foundational AI models.

Connie & Alex pick out two tech stories that caught their eye and then chat with Ian Sigalow, a partner at Greycroft, which backed Scopely, Bumble, Axios, and The RealReal and recently raised a billion dollars in capital in one of the toughest fundraising climates ever.

Connie & Alex talk to Spencer Bogart of Blockchain Capital about his firm's recent investment in Tools for Humanity, the Sam Altman-backed startup behind Worldcoin, an ambitious attempt to create an identity token for everyone in the world. 

Connie & Alex talk tech news, and then Connie interviews Gary Marcus, scientist, entrepreneur,  author, and expert on AI. (Marcus was one of the experts who joined OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in talking to the Senate this week on the future of artificial intelligence.) 

Connie & Alex skim through this week's tech news and then talk to Elad Gil, who has been called Silicon Valley's biggest solo venture capitalist, with investments in such high fliers as well as Stripe, Anduril, and Figma as well as more recent bets in cutting-edge AI startups such Character.ai, Harvey.ai, and  Perplexity.ai.

Connie & Alex talk tech news, and then Connie talks Harry Nelis of Accel about the VC scene in Europe.

Connie & Alex cover a new company that is combining neurons with silicon to create a new type of AI, the pressure CEOs face when trying to lead their companies over Zoom, and whether we should be receiving payments from AIs that are scraping data from a world we created. 

Connie interviews Parker Conrad of Rippling about how Conrad was able to save his company from Silicon Valley Bank's epic implosion, while Alex talks to Paul Eremenko about Universal Hydrogen's quest to power planes with hydrogen. 

Connie & Alex go over this week's most interesting tech news stories, and then Connie talks to Aydin Senkut of Felicis Ventures about his firm's investments in companies such as Canva and Adyen and what he thinks about the potential of AI, fintech, and more.

Connie & Alex talk to Larry Cheng,  a founding partner at Volition Capital and the lead investor behind such hits as Chewy.com, about where Volition is placing its bets; how he hooked up with Chewy founder and meme stock king Ryan Cohen; where the market is going in 2023; and much, much more.

Alex finds some brights spots in this week's tech news, and then Connie talks to Neil Sequeira of Defy.vc about what it takes to raise a VC fund these days, where Defy is investing, and more.  

Alex muses about where AI is taking us, and then Connie goes right to the source: Sam Altman, head of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence platform behind the seemingly human chatbot ChatGPT.

Connie talks to Sequoia partner Alfred Lin, who earned the top spot on the 2021 Forbes Midas List thanks to his investments in Airbnb and DoorDash, which went public on consecutive days in December, 2020. Lin talks to Connie about what Sequoia has learned from its investment in FTX as well as how Sequoia is preparing its portfolio for the future. 

Connie & Alex talk tech news, and then Connie interviews Peter Wagner of Wing Venture Capital about how the VC world is changing in these tougher times. Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie talks to Fabrice Grinda, the founding partner at FJ Labs, a venture fund that has invested in over 900 startups around the world, about some of the financing risks that startups face given high interest rates.Nextt, Connie and Alex chat with Bradley Tusk, the CEO and founder of Tusk Ventures, which invests at the intersection of venture capital and regulation. Tusk has some interesting end-of-year predictions and thinks Elon Musk's management of Twitter could ultimately cost him much more than the $44 billion he paid for the social media platform. Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4.  "Bleeping Demo" by Kevin MacLeod (https://filmmusic.io/song/7012-bleeping-demo)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)

Connie & Alex sprint through a couple of news stories, and then Connie talks to economist, VC, and MIT fellow Paul Kedrosky about OpenAI and some of the risks it could pose today and down the road.Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie & Alex talk tech,  and then Connie interviews two newsmakers: Phil Haslett, founder and Chief Strategy Officer of EquityZen, a secondary marketplace; and Dina Radenkovic, Co-Founder & CEO of Gameto, a startup dedicating to changing the way women think about their reproductive health. Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie & Alex take a tour of the most important tech news stories this week. Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie & Alex talk to David Pakman, Head of Venture Investments and Managing Partner at CoinFund, about FTX's implosion this week. Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie & Alex skim over this week's tech news, and then Connie interviews Geoff Ralston, President of Y Combinator, about the state of YC and why he's leaving the incubator after so many years in its clutches.

Connie & Alex talk about some of their favorite tech stories this week and then chat with James Currier, founding partner of NFX, a venture firm exclusively focused on pre-seed & seed stage startups, about Generative AI, the hottest thing to hit venture since Web3.Music: 1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)3. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Connie & Alex talk tech news, and then Connie chats with Antonio Rodriguez of Matrix Partners about the firm's focus on software infrastructure and why it pays to bet early. 

Connie & Alex go over a few of their favorite tech stories this week, and then Connie talks to Alex Wiltschko and Krishna Yeshwant of GV (Alphabet's venture arm) about Wiltschko's plans to digitize scent.