The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Gili Raanan is the Founder of Cyberstarts, one of the best performing venture funds of the last decade. He is famed for being the seed investor in Wiz, Islands and Cyera, leading to multiple 10x+ funds. He has the only remaining monopoly in venture; cyber security in Israel. If it is good, Gili sees it, it is that simple.  AGENDA: 00:00 — Does the Venture Business Even Work Anymore? 05:58 — The Insane Rise of $150M Seed Rounds! 08:58 — Will Mega Funds Ever Actually Return Venture Economics? 11:13 — How Do You Value Companies Growing at Impossible Speeds? 14:50 — The Truth About Growth: Why Most Companies Eventually Plateau 18:50 — Do Margins Still Matter in the Age of AI? 24:32 — How To Make Mega Money in the World of Secondaries 28:11 — What Are Core Misalignments Between GPs and LPs That No One Discusses? 37:57 — Quick Fire: Best Investment, Most Memorable Founder, Investing Icon    

AGENDA: 05:00 — Anthropic vs. OpenAI: Who Is Actually Winning the Enterprise War? 07:55 — "Air of Desperation": Is OpenAI Losing Its Invincibility? 18:00 — SpaceX at $2 Trillion: Elon's Insane Plan to Build Data Centers in Space 29:00 — Jeff Bezos' $100 Billion Fund: The End of "Doing It the Hard Way" 34:00 — The $20 Billion "Acqui-hire": The Groq Deal Broken Down 40:40 — Figma's Death Spiral? Why the Markets Are Terrified of AI Disruption 56:00 — The Broken VC Math: Why You Need $1BN To Do Series A 01:04:00 — Win or Die: The Terrifying Reality of the Unicorn "Dead Zone"  

Matthew Steckman is the President and Chief Business Officer of Anduril. Matt played a central role in securing the $20BN contract Anduril just won with the US military. Prior to Anduril, Matt served as Chief Revenue Officer for Zipline. Before Zipline, Matt held several leadership positions at Palantir. AGENDA: 3:45 — Anduril's $20BN Army Contract Broken Down 6:30 — What Do Most Defense Founders Get Completely Wrong? 9:15 — Can You Build a Billion-Dollar Defense Company Without the US? 12:05 — Why Government Contracts Are Brutal (And Why Most Fail) 15:40 — How Does Anduril Predict Wars 5–10 Years Before They Happen? 18:20 — Why Cyber Warfare Is the Most Dangerous Battlefield No One Understands 23:50 — Why There Will Only Be ONE Winning Drone Company 28:10 — How Anduril Decides Where to Deploy $100M+ Product Bets 35:20 — What Would Anduril Buy If They Had an Unlimited Checkbook? 41:10 — Why Anduril Must Go Public 45:00 — Quickfire: The Future of War, VC Mistakes & Career Advice    

Shaunt Voskanian is the CRO @ Figma, where he has scaled the sales machine to over $1BN in ARR and over 400 people. Prior to Figma, Shaunt was Senior VP of Global Sales at Datadog where he scaled the revenue org to $1BN in ARR.  AGENDA:  04:33 - Are Great Sales Leaders Born or Trained? 06:55 - In a world of PLG, is sales less important than ever? 11:51 - Why does Shaunt not believe in traditional customer success teams? 14:31 - Does the role of the SDR survive in two years' time? 19:19 - When is the right time for sales to intercept in a PLG motion? 21:43 - How to Set Sales Quotas in a PLG AI Sales World? 31:19 - How has what you look for in sales hires changed over time? 42:54 - How do you judge sales performance if not on quota? 54:49 - Quick fire: Outdated sales tactic, What Role Dies, Best Sales AI Tool  

AGENDA: 04:02 NVIDIA's GTC: What You Need to Know 11:39 Meta's 20% Layoffs & Atlassian Lets Go of 1,600 21:42 How to Test AI Fluency in Employees 30:59 Anduril Lands $20BN Army Contract 46:46 Travis Kalanick Returns With Atoms 49:55 If Travis Kalanick Ran Uber Today, Would it be $1TRN Company? 56:03 When is it Right to Replace Founders 01:04:24 Adobe CEO Exit Shock    

Gokul Rajaram is one of the greatest operators turned investors of the last 2 decades. He is trusted as the go to advisor for the greatest founders in the world. Today he serves as a Board Director at three public companies: Coinbase, Pinterest and The Trade Desk. Prior to Marathon (his firm), Gokul served on the executive team at DoorDash and Block. Before Block, he served as Product Director of Ads at Facebook. Earlier in his career, Gokul served as a Product Management Director for Google AdSense. Gokul is also a prolific angel investor, having invested in 700+ companies, including Airtable, Figma, Groq, Runway, Supabase, and Vercel.  AGENDA: 03:53 — Investing Lessons from Google, Doordash and Facebook 05:32 — Why Mark Zuckerberg is the Greatest Distribution Genius Alive 07:23 — Why Every Company Today Needs to be Multi-Product 09:16 — Negative Gross Margins: Are the Best Companies Actually Built on "Shit" Economics? 10:50 — The SaaS Apocalypse: Is the Entire Sector Going to Zero? 12:15 — The 8 Moats of Enduring Software Companies: How to Analyse Companies 14:50 — Why Brand is No Longer a Strong Moat (And What Replaced It) 16:13 — Salesforce vs. Atlassian: Which Systems of Record are Dying? 18:13 — Outcome-Based Pricing: Is This the Total Death of Seat Pricing? 20:16 — The Bolt-On AI Trap: Why Rebuilding Your Entire UX is Non-Negotiable 23:44 — Are the Outcome Sizes of Vertical SaaS Large Enough for VC Today? 28:16 — The Zombie Cohort: What Happens to Private Companies with High Valuations? 32:44 — Is "King Making" Complete Bullshit? 34:21 — Durability Over Margins: What Really Matters in a 100x Growth World 35:36 — The Non-Consumption Miracle: Why Granola and Gamma are Crushing It 38:50 — The PayPal Rule: Can You Raise Prices 5 Times in 3 Years? 42:47 — My Biggest Miss: How I Misread the Shopify Billion-Dollar Mark 45:18 — The Courage to Bet: Why Instacart is the Best VC Deal Ever 46:33 — Seed vs. Growth Pricing: When Does Price Actually Destroy Returns? 50:53 — Does "Proprietary Founder Access" Even Exist? 54:33 — Double Down or Diversify? The Truth About Fund Reserves 59:44 — The Vanta Anti-Portfolio: A Mistake I'll Never Forget 01:01:21 — When to Sell: The "Sell a Third, Hold a Third, Trade a Third" Rule 01:04:12 — Why Remote Early-Stage Companies are Dying 01:07:33 — Why Mid-Level Partners are Fleeing Mega Funds 01:09:47 — The Best CEO Superpowers: Larry, Mark, Jack, and Tony 01:12:33 — The Next 10 Years: Why Dropouts are "AI Maxing" the World    

Elena Verna is the Head of Growth at Lovable, one of the fastest growing companies in the world having hit $400M in ARR in just 18 months. Prior to Lovable, Elena was Head of Growth at both Dropbox and Miro.  AGENDA: 00:00 – Why "Growth Is Now a Trust Problem" (Not a Marketing Problem) 06:10 – Is SEO Dying Because of AI Search? 07:00 – Did Lovable's Growth Come From the Founder's Personal Brand? 08:30 – Why Every Founder Should Push Employees to Be Marketers? 13:10 – Why Every Employee at Lovable Ships Code (Even Marketing) 21:20 – Why Paid Marketing in Year One Is a "Death Trap" 31:50 – Why Annual Subscriptions Are the Wrong Monetization Model for AI 37:00 – If Elena Had an Unlimited Marketing Budget, What Would She Do? 48:00 – How Lovable Does Product Launches  

AGENDA: 00:00 - ANTHROPIC VS. THE PENTAGON: The Billion Dollar Supply Chain War 07:11 - B2B PANIC: Why Leading Companies Are Losing Deals to OpenAI 12:19 - THE ANTHROPIC ENDGAME: Will Claude Eclipse ChatGPT? 17:39 - THE DATA CENTER ARMS RACE: Is the AI Hype Cycle Finally Dead? 24:43 - 24/7 PERSISTENT AI: Why You'll Soon Need Data Centers in Space 30:37 - THE DEATH OF THE JUNIOR: Why Entry-Level Jobs are Vanishing 41:55 - AGENT-LED GROWTH: The Secret Reason Startups are Exploding in 2026 46:58 - THE ERA OF GENTLE DECELERATION IS DEAD: Public Markets Turn Brutal 55:54 - FIGMA MAKE IS TERRIBLE? The Failure of Quarterly Software Releases 01:00:54 - THE ULTIMATE STOCK PICKS: What to Buy and Sell Right Now    

Miles Clements is a Partner @ Accel where he helps to lead their growth fund. At Accel, Miles has led or invested in Atlassian, Cursor, Linear, and more.  AGENDA:  03:38 Where is True Alpha and Value in a World of AI  05:10 Why it is Total BS that Cursor is Dead 07:55 Why Cursor Were Not Wrong to Build Their Own Models 09:38 What is the Upside When Investing in Cursor at $27BN? 15:12 Do Sub $10BN Outcomes Even Matter to a Fund the Size of Accel? 17:07 Losing ServiceTitan: Investing Lesson Learned… 19:55 Missing Rippling: What We Learned 27:20 What is Accel's Win Rate 30:22 How VCs Approach Ownership Has Changed 35:09 Does Miles Feel Happier or Sadder to be an Anthropic Investor Post Pentagon Debacle 36:45 What Happens to Companies Like Miro and Snyk with High Prices to Live Upto? 38:05 Why it is a Great Time to Be Thoma Bravo and Vista  38:36 Why Founder-Led Companies Are Always Better 41:12 Why Would Any Founder Go Public Today 43:48 When is the Right Time to Take Chips Off The Table? 45:24 Should VC Firms Have Evergreen Funds and Be Responsible for Public Positions 50:28 You Can Pick Any VC to Join Accel, Who Does Miles Choose…     

Mitchell Green is a legendary growth equity investor and the Founder and Managing Partner of Lead Edge Capital, a firm with over $5 billion in assets under management. Known as a relentless "money maker", Mitchell has led investments in the likes of Bytedance, Toast, Procore, Duo Security and more. AGENDA: 0:00 The SaaS Apocalypse: Why Incumbents Aren't Going to Zero 05:50 "Dead Money": Why Public Software Estimates Were Too High 08:15 Leverage is the Enemy: Lessons from the 1999 Retail Crash 11:50 The Truth About Growth Equity: Zeroes vs. 10X Returns 15:40 Mainframes to AI: Why Oracle and SAP Will Thrive 20:35 The "Stock-Based Comp" Scandal: Silicon Valley's Hidden Crime 24:35 ByteDance vs. The World: Why China Could Win the AI War 31:50 Selling is the Job: Why Buying is the Most Glamorous Part of VC 35:45 Too Many Tourists: Why 50% of VCs Shouldn't Be in the Business 44:10 The Gross Dollar Retention Rule: The Only Number That Matters in SaaS

AGENDA:  04:13 Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins 13:54 Was Sam Altman Wrong to Take the Deal  24:28 OpenAI's $110BN Mega Round: The Breakdown 28:22 Who Has a Bigger Valuation Premium: Sam Altman or Elon Musk 34:38 Why We Got the SaaS Apocalypse Wrong? 43:24 Why Salesforce Could be the Best Buy in Public Markets 47:46 Block Lays Off 40% of Team: AI or Overhiring 01:00:16 Cursor Hits $2BN in ARR… so not Dead? 01:18:15 How to Pick Winners in AI?      

Monday has been hit harder than almost any other public SaaS company. With $1.3BN in ARR, the company is valued at just $3.8BN; a more than 60% fall since IPO. Today, Eran Zinman, Monday's CEO joins Harry Stebbings in the hotseat to walkthrough six of the biggest threats to Monday's business; what is real, what is not and what are the unknowns.  AGENDA: 05:47 Six Threats Monday Faces Today  07:04 Threat #1: Vibe Coding: Will Companies Vibe Code Everything 11:24 Threat #2: Will OpenAI and Anthropic Own the Application Layer  13:52 Threat #3: Will Agents Turn Monday and Salesforce into a Database 18:43 Why is Monday Adding 15% Headcount When Everyone is Cutting? 21:40 How Monday is Using AI to be More Efficient 27:49 What Happens to Seat Pricing? What Comes Next? 34:17 What No One Sees About Enterprise AI Adoption 37:13 How Google AI Overview Smashed 10% of our Customer Acquisition 38:49 If Bullish on Monday, Why Has Eran Not Bought More Stock… 40:38 How to Manage Internal Morale When Stock is Down 60% 44:08 Do Private Companies Have Advantages Public Companies Do Not Have 47:28 With $1.5BN in Cash, Why is Eran Not Buying More Companies… 53:30 What is the Most Offensive Bet Eran Would Like to Take? 57:13 Quickfire: Marriage, Biggest Short, Mentors  

Jerry Murdock is the Co-Founder of Insight Partners, one of the most formidable growth investors of the last three decades, with over $90 billion in AUM and a portfolio that has shaped the modern software economy. Jerry never does podcasts, and so this is his first-ever long-form interview.  AGENDA: 03:50 There is an AI Tsunami Beginning 05:43 Cursor is F***** and Everyone Knows It 07:28 How Open Source Will Crush in an Agent First World 10:20 Is NVIDIA F**** 17:32 Are Systems of Record Dead in an Agent-First World 21:04 Humans Will Not Buy Software, Agents Will… 24:57 Universal Basic Income Will Have to Happen, Mass Unemployment is Coming 30:54 What Happens to Tech Private Equity: Is Thoma Bravo F****** 37:50 What Single Decision Does Jerry Regret Most… Why? 41:45 Single Biggest Mistake With Insight… What Did Jerry Learn? 45:26 Why is Now the Best Time to Start a Fund 47:03 The Twitter Bet that Made $90BN Insight 49:34 Biggest Marriage and Parenting Advice 56:04 Will Agents Help Us Live Forever    

AGENDA: 03:55 Anthropic Security Product Wipes Billions Off Public Markets 11:17 Do Agents Turn SaaS Incumbents into Valueless Databases 22:07 Anthropic Secondary Sale Makes Hundreds Decamillionaires 23:20 Citrini Research Piece: Everything You Need To Know 26:04 Will DoorDash Be Replaced by Agents 34:22 Will "Ghost GDP" Soften Consumer Spending Power 42:46 Why No Public Company Has Created a Good Agent Product 47:19 Is Tech Private Equity and Thoma Bravo F***** in this Market 51:05 OpenAI Massively Increases Spending Plans: Analysis 56:24 Figma Fights Back: Earnings Through the Roof 01:02:12 Momentum Versus Value: Four Public Stocks to Buy 01:09:30 Jack Altman Joins Benchmark Capital    

Lucas Swisher co-leads the growth fund at Coatue where he has partnered with iconic companies like OpenAI, Harvey, Deel, Canva, Openevidence, Anthropic, and others. Prior to Coatue, he was on the investment team at Kleiner Perkins, where he focused on growth stage software businesses.  AGENDA: 04:23 Why Public SaaS Is Getting Crushed in the AI Wave 06:01 How to Find Value in the Deluge of Public SaaS 10:34 Durability of Revenue in AI 17:42 Market Size vs. Founder Quality: What Wins? 19:04 Why Price is the Last Thing to Matter 24:58 Mega-Funds Math: Can $5B+ Funds Still Generate Venture Returns? 28:04 What Returns Are 'Enough'? Why 3x Isn't Exciting at Growth 30:34 When Double-Downs Go Wrong: Overestimating TAM and Multi-Product Expansion 33:03 Margin Matters… But at Scale: AI Gross Margins, Cost Curves & Efficiency 36:42 Why it has never been harder to be a seed investor 39:25 Is 'Kingmaking' a Myth: When Capital Helps (and When It Hurts) 44:12 Is Canva Really a Platform Company? Multi S-Curves and Leaning into AI Early 46:05 Lessons from Mary Meeker: Modeling, Storytelling with Data, and Not Missing the Forest 48:27 Lessons from Mamoon Hamid: Spotting Inflection Points with Minimal Data (Figma Story) 49:54 LP 'Pick One' Games: Mamoon Hamid, Mary Meeker, Insight Partners 51:41 OpenAI vs Anthropic: Who Wins? 56:52 Most Memorable Founder Meeting: Harvey and Founder-Market Fit 59:00 Career Decisions & Misses: Leaving Insight, Missing Anduril, and Looking Ahead  

Alexander Embiricos is the Head of Codex at OpenAI, leading the development of the company's flagship AI coding systems that power automated software generation, debugging and developer workflows. Under his leadership, Codex has become one of the most widely adopted AI developer platforms.  AGENDA: 05:13 Will Coding Be Automated? Why AI Could Create More Engineers, Not Fewer 07:17 Do We Need PMs? The "Undefined" Product Role and When It Matters 08:06 The Real AGI Bottleneck: Human Prompting, Validation, and "Too Much Effort" 13:04 Three Phases of Agents: Coding → Computer Use → Productized Workflows 13:52 Enterprise Reality Check: Security, Permissions, and Safe Agentic Browsing 17:57 Is Inference the New Sales and Marketing?  18:49 What % of Codex Was Written by AI? 21:33 Do OpenAI Use AI for Code Review? 23:31 Is there any stickiness to AI coding tools? 28:22 What Does "Winning" Mean at OpenAI? Mission, Competition, and Moats 32:04 The Future UI: Chat or Voice 34:10 Agent-to-Agent Workflows: Designing for Approvals, Compliance, and Automation 35:39 Do Coding Models Have a Data Moat? 36:50 How does Codex View Data: Will They Build Their Own Mercor and Turing? 37:27 How Does Codex View Consumer: Will They Compete with Lovable? 41:56 Benchmarks vs "Vibes": How People Actually Judge Models 42:43 Cursor's Edge and the Case for Building Your Own Models 47:37 Is SaaS Dead? What Still Defends Value (Humans + Systems of Record) 51:28 Talent Wars and Career Advice for New Engineers in the AI Era 01:01:03 Guardrails, the Fully AI-Managed Stack, and a 10-Year Vision for Everyone      

AGENDA: 04:14 Anthropic's $30B Raise at $380B 06:18 Why SaaS Stocks Keep Getting Crushed 18:15 Wall Street's New Religion: AI Replaces Headcount  22:42 The Bear Case for Shopify: What Could Go Wrong? 31:51 Replit and Lovable are Proof Figma Missed Out: Figma; Buy or Sell?  48:42 Stripe Raises at $140BN: Is Stripe Wildly Overvalued or Adyen Undervalued?  54:36 OpenAI Buys OpenClaw 01:06:28 Thrive's $10B Growth Fund 01:09:10 Arif Janmohamed Leaves Lightspeed for New Firm 01:17:12 Workday's Founder Returns as CEO: Will it Work?  01:20:34 Which Founder Returns Next: HubSpot, Twilio, Gitlab? 01:24:03 Is Monday.com a Screaming Buy? 01:28:25 Jason and Harry Bet $200,000  

Sebastian Siemiatkowski is the co-founder and CEO of Klarna, the global digital bank with over 114 million global active users and 3.4 million transactions per day. Seb is one of the leading public company CEOs pushing the boundaries of AI.  AGENDA: 04:50 — The Real Threat to SaaS is The Switching Cost Coming Down 05:57 — What revenue multiple will software companies trade at in the future? 14:12 — Why you need to build your own customer service AI to win 23:51 — Klarna has two times the customer base of Revolut. They will beat Revolut 25:39 — How I lost a billion dollars not investing in Nubank 30:57 — Why Nubank are more likely to win the US than Revolut? 34:28 — We used to be 6,000 people. Now we are just 3,000 39:58 — When is a high valuation too high and can be dangerous? 42:45 — How we got Sequoia to invest and Michael Moritz to join the board 53:14 — If you are an investor today that is not building then you're at a fundamental disadvantage 01:11:43 — I have changed my mind on the adoption cycle... I think it will take longer than people think 20VC: Is SaaS Dead: Klarna Replaces 1,500 Internal SaaS Products | Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski

Carles Reina is VP of Sales at ElevenLabs, where he was the first investor and fourth employee. Carles has scaled the revenue org from Day 1 to over $330M in just 3 years. Carles is also an active investor with investments in ElevenLabs, Revolut, Happy Robot and more.   AGENDA: 0:00 How I Turned $20K into $16M with Revolut Angel Investment 10:45 Why I Don't Believe in Product-Market Fit 15:40 How to do Land and Expand: Turning $12K Deals into Millions 19:40 The 20X Rule: A "Ruthless" Comp Plan for Elite Reps 24:35 Public Shaming? Why Honest Pipeline Reviews Save Companies 28:50 Why Your Sales Reps Should Never Be in the Office 35:45 The Outbound King: How to Pivot from 90% Inbound 45:45 "Vibe Coding" & The Death of Technical Ceilings 55:35 Why I'd Fire Myself: The Secret Psychology of High-Performers    

AGENDA: 03:43 Anthropic Predicts $149B in ARR in 2029 09:27 Will FDEs Become More or Less Powerful 26:17 Harvey Raises $200M at an $11BN Valuation 42:45 Is Customer Support a Terrible or Terrific Investment Category 56:14 Anthropic's Superbowl Ad: Who Won and Who Lost 01:11:30 Do CEOs Have to Work Harder Today Than Ever  

Anish Acharya is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), where he leads consumer and fintech investing at Series A. He serves on the boards of standout portfolio companies including Deel, Mosaic, Clutch, Titan, and HappyRobot and has led early bets in companies like Runway and Carbonated. Before a16z, he founded and exited two startups—Snowball (acquired by Credit Karma) and SocialDeck (acquired by Google) and scaled Credit Karma's U.S. Card business to over 100 million members. AGENDA: 00:03 - Why building an AI company today requires being in San Francisco 06:58 - The "SaaS Apocalypse" myth: Why "vibe coding" everything is a lie 09:11 - How AI agents are finally breaking the lock-in of legacy software providers 10:13 - Incumbents vs. Startups: Who actually wins the AI distribution war? 14:39 - Why the developer tool market looks more like Cloud than Uber and Lyft 22:43 - The death of the Chatbox? Why browse-based interfaces are still preferable 27:14 - Why power users are 10x more valuable in the age of AI consumption 28:36 - Do margins matter in a world of AI? 34:46 - Why we are definitively not in an AI bubble right now 38:58 - Why the Legal and Customer Support industries will have dozens of winners 39:44 - Lessons from Marc Andreessen: Why the "quality of being right" supersedes process 44:51 - Is "Triple, Triple, Double, Double" dead? The new physics of growth 01:10:41 - The a16z Playbook: How to win 100% of the deals you chase    

Ariel Cohen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Navan (formerly TripActions), an AI-powered travel and expense platform. Last month, Ariel took the company public, since being a public company, they have faced a torrid time seeing stock price decline by 50%. The company is currently valued between $4BN-$5BN.  AGENDA: 0:00 The Truth About Going Public After 11 Years 5:50 Why We Couldn't Wait: The Real Reason for the IPO 8:15 Disrupting the Giants: Amex, Concur, and the $1T Opportunity 11:50 "If We Don't Build This, We're Dead": Seeing ChatGPT Early 18:35 Why Navan Built Their Own Customer Service AI  23:45 Why Infrastructure is Overrated (and What Actually Matters) 28:55 Vibe Coding: How We Rebuilt Our Product in 6 Hours 34:55 Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? 38:50 Lessons from Robinhood: Energy, Ethics, and the Stock Price 45:10 The Cost of Success: $1B Mistakes and Parenting Regrets  

AGENDA: 00:00 - SpaceX Completes Acquisition of xAI in $1.25 Trillion Merger 08:44 - The Rehabilitation of the IPO and the End of "State Private Forever" 15:53 - The 2026 SaaS Massacre: Public Market Collapse  31:20 - Next-Gen CRM War: Hubspot Down 50%+ vs Next Gen Heavily Funded 45:30 - Microsoft's $360 Billion Market Cap Loss and the Shift in AI Narrative 52:45 - Nvidia's Strategic Retreat: The Dispute Over the $100 Billion OpenAI Investment 01:03:30 - Waymo Raises $16 Billion at a $110 Billion Valuation 01:17:30 - The Launch of OpenClaw and Moltbook: 1.5 Million Agents Join a Social Network    

Oren Zeev is one of the most prominent solo capitalists in venture. He is one of the most no BS investors of our time. Oren manages over $1BN in AUM and is known for his "radical alignment" approach, often taking $0 in management fees. His track record includes massive successes like Navan, Audible, and Houzz. AGENDA: 03:11 – Why the Best Investments Always Look "Wrong" at the Start 05:58 – The AI Tsunami: How to Spot Beneficiaries vs. Victims 10:43 – The Death of Incumbents? Why Most AI Predictions Are Wrong 14:12 – Why Chasing Hyper-Growth is a "Disaster Waiting to Happen" 19:41 – The Biggest Mistakes From 2021 and Investing Lessons From It? 25:52 – Is the Future of Venture Boutique or Mega Fund: Does the Middle Die? 32:00 – The Great VC Shakeout: Why 50% of Funds Will Slowly Die 38:52 – Why Oren Zeev Takes $0 in Management Fees 50:48 – Why VCs Should Never Tell Their LPs What They Are Doing? 59:11 – How I Missed Investing in Facebook and Lessons Learned      

Omer Shai serves as the CMO at Wix. Shai leads a team of over 400 people and is responsible for the company's global online and offline marketing activity, which boasts an incredible growth of approximately 3 million new users every month. Under Shai, the marketing department has executed hundreds of worldwide campaigns for television and social including 5 Super Bowl commercials, creative videos, podcasts and more. AGENDA: 00:00 — The AI Agent Revolution: 93% Automation? 03:55 — Why I'm Buying TWO Super Bowl Ads This Year 08:58 — The $100M Marketing Secret: Brand vs. Performance 13:28 — Why LTV is Bullshit (and What You Should Use Instead) 18:52 — 10x Your Growth: How to Find Tomorrow's Arbitrage 27:10 — SEO is Dying? Why I'm Increasing My Ad Spend Anyway 31:14 — The TikTok Fail: Why Even Big Brands Can't Crack It 36:11 — Stop Selling the "Why": Put the Product in the Center 47:57 — Will AI Make You Unemployed? A Warning for Marketers 52:27 — Why Celebrity Endorsements Never Work  

AGENDA: 03:36 Brex Acquisition by Capital One for $5.15BN 10:54 Does Brex's Acquisition Help or Hurt Ramp? 16:28 TikTok Deal Completed: Who Won & Who Lost: Analysis 19:30 Anthropic Inference Costs Higher Than Expected 37:50 Open Evidence Raises at $12BN from Thrive and DST 53:56 Wealthront IPO Disaster: Is $1.5BN IPO Too Small? 01:07:27 Salesforce Wins $5BN Army Contract: The Last Laugh for SaaS  

Max Junestrand is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Legora, the legal AI company that has scaled to $70M in ARR, 750 of the world's leading law firms as customers and over 300 employees in just 2 years. They have raised over $200M from some of the best in the business including Benchmark, General Catalyst, Redpoint and ICONIQ.  AGENDA: 04:16 Why Does Everyone Think Harvey When They Hear Legal AI? 07:35 Why OpenAI is Toast? Switching to Anthropic! 11:47 24 Months: Which Foundation Models Will Win?  23:53 Lessons Scaling from Europe into the US 28:53 Do Americans Work As Hard As They Say? 32:20 Why Seat Models Are Not Dead in SaaS? 36:17 How to Use Competition To Drive a Fire in Your Team? 40:59 Is Legal AI a Winner-Take-All Market? How Does It End? 47:18 The Future of Law Firms: Do Juniors Get Fired? 53:19 How We Raised $200M and 3 Rounds with No Deck 57:21 Quickfire Round: Best Advice, Closest Mentor, Biggest Mindset Shift  

AGENDA: 00:03:00 – Harry's Wild Start: Making £1.75M at 19 in 36 Hours 00:06:00 – How Harry Got Marc Benioff on 20VC with Cold Emailing Alone 00:07:30 – Raising $70M on WhatsApp – Relationship Building Secrets 00:12:00 – Decision Framework: What Would Pat Grady (Sequoia) Do? 00:15:00 – Chase Your First Million – It Unlocks Everything 00:16:30 – Advice for 19-Year-Olds Today: Niche Down, Interview Leaders, Publish 00:18:00 – University Is a Waste for Most | Leverage Youth & Risk 00:22:30 – How Getting Kicked Out of School Changed Everything 00:30:00 – Why Should Everyone Be Creating Content Today and How to Start 00:35:30 – 7 Lessons from Billionaires 00:36:00 – #1: Never Accept No (The $12M Turnaround Story) 00:37:30 – #2: Beat Down the Door (53 Emails to Marc Benioff) 00:39:00 – #3: Just Start – 99% Never Do 00:40:30 – #4: Use a Role Model Framework for Hard Decisions 00:42:00 – #5: Chasing Money Won't Make You Happy – Enjoy the Art 00:44:00 – #6: Break Big Visions into Achievable Milestones 00:45:30 – #7: Win Over the Partner (Power of Pillow Talk)  

AGENDA: 03:30 Can VC Survive With Public Market Prices Today 15:20 The Implosion of Thinking Machines 21:13 Elon Musk vs. OpenAI: The Legal Battle 40:50 Can OpenAI Win Ads? 55:50 ClickHouse's $15BN Deal: Analysed 58:55 Replit's $9BN Deal: Analysed 01:08:35 There Are Only Two Types of Deals VCs Want To Do Today      

Winston Weinberg is the CEO and Co-Founder of Harvey, the leading professional services platform engineered with AI for law, tax, and finance. Winston has raised over $980M for Harvey from Sequoia, a16z, GV, Elad Gil and more with a last round price of $9.2BN post-money. Before founding Harvey in August 2022, Winston was an attorney at O'Melveny & Myers LLP, specializing in antitrust and securities litigation.  AGENDA: 04:10 #1 Thing Every Founder Needs to Do Everyday 05:33 Must Do Daily Routines and Productivity Tips for CEOs 12:45 How to Get Sequoia and a16z Term Sheets 15:06 Why VCs Suck at Helping Companies Hire? 27:01 What No One Understands About Enterprise AI Adoption 38:06 AI's Impact on Professional Services 39:26 Future of Law Firms: Do They Die? 43:38 What Everyone Should Know That No One Tells You About Hiring in Europe 47:08 I Have Massive Trust Issues… 54:17 Biggest Lessons on Effective Deal-Making  59:20 Cold Emailing OpenAI and It Leading to a Term Sheet 01:02:33 Quick Fire Round Try NEXOS.AI for yourself with a 14-day free trial: https://nexos.ai/20vc  

Noam Lovinsky is the CPO @ Superhuman (formerly Grammerly). Prior to Superhuman he was a Senior Director of Product Management at Facebook. In his earlier years he was CPO @ Thumbtack and spent 5 years as a Director of Product Management at Google where he was responsible for all of Youtube's applications.  AGENDA: 03:43 What is Great Product Leadership in a World of AI 07:45 Does the Design Phase Die in a World of Vibe Coding 12:21 How AI Changes Product Development Most 22:23 Accelerating Product Development 29:32 AI's Impact on Product Building 34:19 Predictions for 2026 34:45 Quick Fire Round 38:41 Reflections and Future Plans  

AGENDA: 05:02 Anthropic's $10 Billion Fundraise 07:54 Has Claude Code Beaten Cursor Already 15:54 OpenAI Could Still Go to Zero 26:33 Andreessen Horowitz's $15 Billion Fundraise 45:16 The Middle is Dead: Boutique vs. Large Platforms in Venture 50:01 The Future of Venture Capital 01:08:06 The Impact of Wealth Taxes on the Industry      

Alex Rampell is a General Partner at Andressen Horowitz, where he leads their $1.7BN apps fund. Just last week, a16z announced they had raised $15BN for their latest funds, over 20% of all capital raised by venture firms. At a16z, Alex has led deals into Plaid, Mercury and OpenDoor to name a few.  AGENDA: 04:55 How to Do 5x on a $15BN Fund Pool?  09:21 What Two Groups of Funds Will Win the Next Decade in VC? 14:39 What Three Things Are the Best Founders Able to Do?  19:22 The Best Companies Have Hostages, Not Customers 31:37 The Two Types of Deals You Want To Do In VC 38:52 The Importance of Founder/Capital Fit 40:34 Multiple Successive Rounds Are Dangerous… Here is Why? 42:13 Challenges of High Valuations 45:27 The Importance of Ownership in Deals 52:47 Is Triple, Triple, Double, Double Dead 58:33 Advice on Selling Companies 01:11:55 What is the Future of Venture Capital    

Luke Harries is Head of Growth at ElevenLabs, where he leads marketing, product, engineering, and developer experience. ElevenLabs has raised $281M with the latest round pricing the company at a $6.6B valuation. Previously, Luke held roles at PostHog and Microsoft, and is also an angel investor supporting startups like Lovable and Runna. AGENDA:  The $6.6B Growth Engine Behind ElevenLabs Why Luke Said "No" to Investing in ElevenLabs (and Why He Was Wrong) How ElevenLabs Makes a Horizontal Product Strategy Work How to Build Sharded Growth Teams That Actually Scale The 7-Part Launch Playbook That Gets 700K+ Views Per Product The Truth About CAC, Payback, and Performance Marketing in AI SEO Isn't Dead: The Mini-Tool Strategy You Should Steal Kill Your Inbound SDRs—The Case for Voice AI in Sales Why You Don't Need PMs and the Rise of Growth-Led Product Teams    

Chad Peets is one of the great sales leaders of our time. Currently, Chad is leading all things sales at X. Previously he was the sales saviour at Snowflake and was an advisor to the CEO there. He was also a MD at Sutter Hill where he sat on the board of companies like Sigma Computing and Augment Code.  AGENDA: 04:53 How to Recruit the Best Sales Talent Today  06:27 Why Europe is a Nightmare for Recruitment in Sales 11:29 How to Evaluate Sales Talent: Green and Red Flags 21:58 Why Remote Work is BS and You Have to be in Office 23:43 How to Improve Sales Team Performance in Just 24 Hours 27:45 When to Fire vs When to Give More Time 32:10 How to Set Sales Quotas Effectively 34:39 Adjusting Compensation Plans for Better Performance 37:50 Why Work Life Balance is Total BS 41:08 Biggest Lessons on Leading Sales Teams 50:37 What is The Future of Enterprise Sales with AI 58:40 Quick Fire Questions and Final Thoughts  

Chad Peets is one of the great sales leaders of our time. Previously, he was the sales saviour at Snowflake and was an advisor to the CEO there. He was also an MD at Sutter Hill where he sat on the board of companies like Sigma Computing and Augment Code.  AGENDA: 04:53 How to Recruit the Best Sales Talent Today  06:27 Why Europe is a Nightmare for Recruitment in Sales 11:29 How to Evaluate Sales Talent: Green and Red Flags 21:58 Why Remote Work is BS and You Have to be in Office 23:43 How to Improve Sales Team Performance in Just 24 Hours 27:45 When to Fire vs When to Give More Time 32:10 How to Set Sales Quotas Effectively 34:39 Adjusting Compensation Plans for Better Performance 37:50 Why Work Life Balance is Total BS 41:08 Biggest Lessons on Leading Sales Teams 50:37 What is The Future of Enterprise Sales with AI 58:40 Quick Fire Questions and Final Thoughts  

AGENDA: 04:30 Groq Acquired by NVIDIA for $20BN: The Breakdown 17:13 Meta's $2BN Acquisition of Manus: Did They Sell Too Early 36:04 OpenAI's Stock-Based Compensation Strategy 47:42 Will AI Replace Venture Capitalists 56:13 Navan Trading at 4x ARR: Who is Good Enough to Go Public? 01:09:46 The Rise of Invisible Unemployment 01:14:21 The Future of Work and Education in an AI-Driven World    

I have interviewed 1,000 entrepreneurs over 10 years. Nik Storonsky and our guest today are the two best that I have interviewed.  Joining the show today; Alan Chang, Co-Founder and CEO of Fuse Energy. Alan has scaled Fuse Energy from $2M in revenue in the first year, to $20M the second year to now $400M in the third year. Like Netflix beat incumbents to own media, Revolut beat incumbents to own banking, Fuse will beat incumbents to own energy. Prior to founding Fuse, Alan was one of the first three hires at Revolut where he played a crucial role alongside Nik (Founder) in scaling the company to over $75BN valuation.  AGENDA: 00:04:00 — The interview process that led to the $150M pay packet 00:05:05 — The moment I knew Revolut was going to be a $TRN company 00:06:10 — How Revolut drove speed and urgency in their teams 00:07:35 — Biggest lesson from Nik Storonsky @ Revolut 00:09:40 — If you want to build a generational company, you cannot have work-life balance 00:11:40 — What I disagreed with Nik @ Revolut on most 00:13:35 — Is Nik right that Revolut should have got a banking licence earlier? 00:15:05 — The green movement and the idea of "using less" is BS 00:22:55 — Why China is the shining light for regulation to follow 00:33:00 — What Nik at Revolut taught me about ownership and excuses 00:34:50 — The signs of truly top performing people in a team 00:36:55 — We do not have enough ambitious founders — we need to do more, not focus 00:39:55 — You need to work weekends to win 00:43:50 — Every single year we 10x revenue — now at ~$400M 00:44:35 — Why Eastern European engineers are the best Items Mentioned in Today's Show: Try NEXOS.AI for yourself with a 14-day free trial: https://nexos.ai/20vc  

Matt Fitzpatrick is the CEO of Invisible Technologies, leading the company's mission to make AI work. Since joining as CEO in January 2025, he has raised $100M, hit the $200M ARR milestone and accelerated AI adoption across industries from sports to consumer and government. Previously, Matt was a Senior Partner at McKinsey, where he led QuantumBlack Labs, the firm's AI R&D and software development arm. AGENDA: 04:40 Interview with Matt Fitzpatrick: Career Journey and Leadership 09:35 The Single Biggest Barriers to Enterprises Adopting AI 15:26 It is BS That Enterprises Can Adopt AI Without Forward-Deployed Engineers 28:05 Are AI Talent Marketplaces Dead? What is the best model? 46:33 How Does the Data Labelling Market Shake Out: Who Wins/ Who Loses 48:27 Are Revenue Numbers for Data Labelling Real Revenue? Or GMV? 51:20 Best Capital Allocation Decision? What did Matt Learn from it? 53:19 How Important is Brand for AI Companies Selling Into Enterprise? 01:05:59 Remote Work vs. In-Person Collaboration 01:17:06 What Does No-One Know About the Future of AI That Everyone Should Know  

AGENDA: 03:48 Founder of the Year 2025 06:58 Product of the Year 10:05 Fund of the Year 20:52 Breakout Companies of 2025: Who Made the Biggest Impact? 26:57 Biggest Surprises of 2025 32:57 Predictions for 2026: Top Performing Tech Stocks of the Year 35:25 B2B Stocks to Watch 38:31 Why Salesforce Could Be the Buy of 2026 47:11 Google, Meta, Apple, NVIDIA, Microsoft: Buy One, Short One 55:38 IPO Speculations: Who Will Go Public in 2026 01:00:57 The Impact of AI on Employment  

Gérald Marolf is the Chief Product Officer at On Running. Gérald oversees the full range of On's shoes, apparel and accessories to make sure each delivers performance, comfort and style. Before On, Gérald spent over a decade building consumer brands with collaborators such as Microsoft and Ferrari. AGENDA: 00:00 – Why Most "Great Products" Fail to Create Emotion 03:00 – How Perfume Taught Me Everything About Desire & Product 06:10 – The Brutal Reality of Building Physical vs Digital Products 16:00 – Why "Simple Design" Is Overrated and Dangerous 23:00 – Why Vuori is the Brand to Short in Consumer  28:30 – The Biggest Product Mistake: Listening to Customers Too Much 32:10 – On Only Do Tennis Because of Roger Federer 38:30 – Were We Too Late to Marathon Running? A Painful Admission 43:40 – The Most Controversial Product On Has Ever Launched 49:00 – Are Counterfeits Good or Bad in Fashion?  

AGENDA: 03:32 Lightspeed's $9 Billion Fundraise 05:20 The Impact of Mega Funds on Seed VCs 10:09 The Supercycle of Growth and Late-Stage Investments 13:06 Disney Invests $1BN into OpenAI and What It Means 23:19 Oracle Hit Hard: Is Now the Time to Buy 28:34 Broadcom's Market Cap Drop and Anthropic's AI Chip Orders 35:04 Cursor Competes with Figma: The Convergence of Design and Coding Tools 46:20 The Biggest Danger for Incumbents: Being Maimed by AI 55:28 Boom Supersonic Raising $300M to… Power Data Centres… WTF 01:00:24 Will SpaceX IPO at $1.5TRN and The Elon Option Value    

David George is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he leads the firm's Growth investing team. His team has backed many of the defining companies of this era, including Databricks, Figma, Stripe, SpaceX, Anduril, and OpenAI, and is now investing behind a new generation of AI startups like Cursor, Harvey, and Abridge. AGENDA: 03:05 – Why Everyone is Wrong: Mega Funds Does Not Reduce Returns 10:40 – Is Public Market Capital Actually Cheaper Than Private Capital? 18:55 – The Biggest Advantage of Staying Private for Longer 23:30 – The #1 Investing Rule for a16z: Always Invest in the Founder's Strength of Strengths 31:20 – Why Fear of Theoretical Competition Makes Investors Miss Great Companies 35:10 – Does Revenue Matter as Much in a World of AI? 44:10 – Does Kingmaking Still Exist in Venture Capital Today? 49:20 – Do Margins Matter Less Than Ever in an AI-First World? 53:50 – My Biggest Miss: Anthropic and What I Learn From it?  56:30 – Has OpenAI Won Consumer AI? Will Anthropic Win Enterprise? 59:45 – The Most Controversial Decision in Andreessen Horowitz History 1:01:30 – Why Did You Invest $300M into Adam Neumann and Flow?    

Raaz Herberg is the Chief Marketing Officer and VP Product Strategy at Wiz, the fastest-growing cloud security company in history. As one of the first 10 employees, Raaz has helped scale the business from nothing to a multi-billion-dollar ARR business. Before Wiz, Raaz was a Senior PM working on Azure at Microsoft.  AGENDA: 03:51 What No One Knows About The Early Wiz Days 09:08 Most Effective Marketing Wiz Ever Did? Lessons from it? 24:11 How Wiz Mastered Enterprise Sales and Product Development 39:12 The Value of Proof of Concept an Why Everyone Gets Them Wrong 44:23 Why The Best Leaders Give More Equity Than They Should 52:55 The Impact of COVID on Business Operations 01:01:33 What in AI is No One Talking About That Everyone Should Be? 01:07:29 Why Does Raaz Think Custom Tools Will Dominate the Enterprise?    

AGENDA: 03:46 SpaceX's $800 Billion Valuation: A Deep Dive 09:18 IPO Market Predictions for 2026 18:18 Netflix's Bold Move: Acquiring Warner Brothers 27:43 Tiger's New Fund Strategy 33:02 Databricks' Head of AI $500 Million Seed Round 36:38 Harvey Raises $160M at an $8BN Valuation 48:22 Will LLMs Kill the App Layer 01:02:02 Google's AI Capabilities 01:06:58 Chinese Open Source Models in US Startups 01:08:57 Airwallex Raises $330M at an $8BN Valuation 01:23:50 Prediction Markets and Insider Trading  

Tarek Mansour is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Kalshi, the leader in the world of prediction markets. Just last week, they announced their $1BN raise at an $11BN valuation. In total, they have raised $1.59BN from some of the best, including Sequoia, a16z, General Catalyst, IVP, Meritech, and more. They also last week announced exclusive partnerships with CNN and CNBC, marking their move into mainstream media and news.  AGENDA: 03:28 Why Did Kalshi Need to Raise $1BN 10:35 Why is Kalshi vs Polymarket Such a Fierce Rivalry? 20:44 The Future of Prediction Markets 25:09 Why Does Kalshi Partner with CNN When They Could Replace Them? 26:27 Why Did Tarek Fight For the Rights of his Early Investors So Much? 27:25 What Makes Alfred Lin The Best? 29:19 Does Having Sequoia as an Investor Change the Game? 36:58 Are Teenage Founders Today Emotionally Ready to Lead Companies 38:30 Quick Fire Round: Celebrity Investors, Relationships with Parents  

Bending Spoons is the acquisition machine of the tech world. They have acquired the likes of Evernote, Vimeo, Eventbrite, Streamyard and more. However, they never open their gates to the secrets behind Evernote's product machine. Today that changes with Federico Simionato joining 20Product. Fede has been a Product Lead at Bending Spoons for 8 years where he has led product teams at Evernote, WeTransfer and more.   AGENDA: 03:02 From Dentist Games to $11BN Bending Spoons 04:54 Advice for Aspiring Product Managers 05:38 Building a Coveted Brand at Bending Spoons 07:43 Evaluating and Testing New Product Ideas 13:35 How Evernote has Mastered User Retention 25:24 The Impact of AI on Product Design and Prototyping 31:19 How Bending Spoons Does Product Launches and Lessons Learned 33:27 How Every Product Team Should Do Monthly Updates to Users 36:38 Recording and Transparency in Updates 38:06 Lessons from Failed Product Launches 45:14 Structuring Teams and Acquisitions 47:12 Monetization Strategies and Push Notifications 57:21 Quick Fire Round: Insights and Reflections  

AGENDA: 04:20 Thrive and OpenAI Partnership  07:14 Databricks Raising $5BN at $134BN Valuation: Cheap or Not? 17:39 Eventbrite Acquired by Bending Spoons for $500M 21:39 Pagerduty's $1BN Market Cap, Just 2x Revenue 26:59 The TAM Trap: Why SaaS Is Like Japan 37:42 Lessons from Companies Hitting $100M ARR 44:57 The Future of Labour Markets is F****** 52:10 The Importance of Compounding in Investments 56:45 The Relevance Game in Venture Capital 01:05:01 Supabase at $5BN or Lovable at $6BN: Which One?  

Jonathan Siddharth is Founder and CEO of Turing, one of the fastest-growing AI companies advancing frontier models. Jonathan has led the company to an astonishing $350M ARR with just $225M raised and a profitable company. A Stanford-trained AI scientist, Jonathan previously helped pioneer natural language search at Powerset, which was acquired by Microsoft. AGENDA: 03:35 Data, Compute, Algorithms: What is Most Abundant? What is Lacking Most? 09:18 What Does No One Know About AI's Data Requirements That Everyone Should? 17:05 The Biggest Challenges Enterprises Have with AI Adoption 20:38 Why Will 99% of Knowledge Work Will be Gone in 10 Years 27:12 How Will Data-Driven Feedback Loops Replace Technology as the Moat 36:08 Who Wins the Data Labelling Market? Who Loses? 38:23 Is Revenue BS in Data Labelling? Are Players Calling GMV Revenue?  45:20 Why is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? 51:23 Will the Phone be the Primary User Interface to an AI World? 57:07 Quickfire Round    

John McMahon is widely regarded as one of the greatest enterprise-software sales leaders of all time. He's the only person to have served as Chief Revenue Officer at five public software companies: PTC, GeoTel, Ariba, BladeLogic and BMC Software. He helped scale BladeLogic from a startup into a public company — ultimately leading to its ~$880M sale to BMC — and drove GeoTel into a multi-billion dollar acquisition. Today he sits on the boards of top names such as Snowflake and MongoDB, while also mentoring and influencing a who's-who of modern SaaS sales leaders. AGENDA: 03:33 The Art and Science of Sales: Insights from a Veteran 04:29 Adapting Sales Strategies in the Age of AI and PLG 07:47 The Ultimate Framework to do Deal Qualification 14:13 How to Drive Urgency and Maintain Sales Process 20:06 How to Hire the Best Sales Reps 25:11 Step-by-Step Guide to Training Sales Reps 45:22 The Mindset of the Best Sales Reps 54:55 Single Most Important Skill to Win in Sales  

AGENDA: 04:06 Anthropic's $30BN Investment from Microsoft and NVIDIA 07:01 Google vs. OpenAI: Sam Altman's "War Mode" Memo 15:27 NVIDIA's Customer Concentration: Bull or Bear 22:12 Is "War Mode" BS: Does Hyper-Aggressive Ever Work? 36:12 Sierra Hits $100M ARR: Justify $10BN Price? 46:14 Implementation is the Biggest Barrier to Enterprise AI Growth 01:04:04 Is LLM Search Optimisation (GEO) Selling Snake Oil? What AI is a Fraud vs Real? 01:14:27 Figma Market Cap: Is the IPO Market F****** for 2026