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

AGENDA:  03:29 OpenAI and AMD's Major Partnership 07:35 Microsoft Have F***** Up the OpenAI Partnership  17:08 OpenAI's Developer Day Announcements 20:45 Why VC is the Most Forgiving Asset Class on Price and Valuation 29:10 What Does it Take to IPO in 2025: Why Snyk Will Not IPO 42:30 Four Strategies Companies Need to Take to Own Their Own Destiny 49:31 Vercel Raises $300M at $9BN: Suicide Round or Strategic 55:39 Does King Making Really Work in Venture Capital: Legora vs Harvey 01:08:11 Chamath Raises Latest SPAC: SPACs are Back 01:10:56 Polymarket Raises $2BN at a $9BN Valuation 01:14:53 Quick Fire Questions and Wrap-Up  

Andrew Feldman is Co-Founder & CEO of Cerebras, building the world's fastest AI inference and training. Cerebras recently closed a $1.1BN Series G round at an $8.1 billion valuation, backed by top names including Fidelity, Atreides, Tiger Global, Valor Equity and 1789 Capital. Under his leadership, they've leapfrogged GPU limits in inference, operate at trillions of tokens per month, and are filing to go public soon. AGENDA: 02:43 Why We Did Not IPO and Raised $1BN From Fidelity 05:03 Analysis of Chip and Compute Landscape Today 07:14 NVIDIA Showing Signs They Are Running Out of Ideas 13:57 The Real Questions to Ask on Chip Depreciation 24:54 Energy Requirements for AI: Is it Feasible? 29:25 Mag7 Value Concentration: Feature or a Bug 31:57 Talent is the Bottleneck and Trump Makes it Worse 32:55 The War for Talent: Secrets No One Sees 34:22 Evaluating the Data Centre Economy: Many Will Lose Money 38:01 Three Changes the US Could Make to Beat China in AI 42:30 Why 80% of our Revenues are in the UAE 47:26 Quick Fire Questions 58:59 Why Work Life Balance is Total BS  

Ketty Slonimsky is Chief Growth Officer at Palta, the platform behind apps like Flo (the #1 female health app with 77M+ MAU), Simple, and Zing AI, where she leads a centralized growth function across the portfolio. She was previously first VP Product & Growth at HeliosX (£900M+ ARR, bootstrapped D2C healthtech), has advised companies like SonderMind, Runna, Guardio, Cheddar, P&G Digital Ventures, and is a board advisor at HeliosX. AGENDA: 02:33 What is Growth and When to Hire For It 06:04 Three Profiles of Successful Growth Leaders 10:07 Challenges and Learnings from Failed Ventures 21:17 How to Optimise User Onboarding for Growth 26:14 Biggest Lessons on Retention  30:25 How to Artificially Create Organic Growth and Community Building 32:10 Why LTV Models are BS 37:35 How to Use Influencers to Grow Insanely Fast 47:07 The Metrics that Matter in Growth 49:48 Push Notifications and Engagement: What To Do vs What Not to Do? 51:57 Quick Fire Round  

AGENDA: 03:58 Understanding Burn Multiples and Capital Efficiency in an AI World 11:54 What Metrics Founders Need to Focus on in a World of AI 19:31 The Role of Kingmakers in Venture Capital: Harvey, Abridge, Profound 33:42 Klarna, Figma, Stubhub, all Down: Are Public Markets Turning? 36:35 OpenAI Needs the Same Energy as Japan… WTF! 41:09 How Can We Fund the $1TRN Sam Altman Needs for Energy 52:39 FiveTran and DBT: Is the Wave of Consolidation About to Begin? 59:44 Does Private Equity Need to Change in a World of AI 01:06:23 Political Expression and Corporate Responsibility    

Jonathan Ross is the Founder & CEO of Groq, the AI chip company redefining inference at scale. Under his leadership, Groq has raised over $3B from top investors. The company has reached a valuation of nearly $7B, positioning itself as one of NVIDIA's most formidable challengers. Previously at Google, Jonathan led the team that built the first Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), making him one of the leading architects of modern AI hardware. AGENDA: 00:00 The Future of AI and Compute 05:07 Why the Hyperscalers Have to Keep Spending Recklessly on AI 12:49 Why OpenAI and Anthropic Will Have to Build Their Own Chips 19:47 OpenAI and Anthropic Will be $5BN Companies: The Bull Case 29:50 Why China is Behind the US in AI and Deepseek is More Expensive to Run 33:55 How Europe Could Compete in AI and Why the US is More Risk Averse Than Europe 42:51 Why AI Will Lead to Too Many Not Too Few Jobs 43:19 Deflationary Pressures and New Job Markets 45:51 The Future of Vibe Coding 47:14 Why AI Companies Should Strive to Have Low Margins 49:31 Why We Have to Have Nuclear Energy and How to Bring it Back 56:55 How Permits are Ruining the Potential of AI 01:03:58 Why OpenAI and Anthropic are so Undervalued 01:16:53 Quickfire: Biggest Fear, Nvidia: $10TRN, Zuck Buying AI: Work or Not  

James Gibson is Head of Revolut Business. Under his leadership, Revolut Business now processes over $33 billion in monthly transaction volume and generates more than $1BN in annualised revenue.  AGENDA:  04:10 Is Consulting the Worst Background for Aspiring PMs 07:09 How Revolut Hires for it's Product Team 17:21 How Revolut Sets Goals: What Works, What Does Not 19:37 How Revolut Structures Their Product Teams 22:13 How Revolut Structures Product Review Sessions  27:23 New Bets Process at Revolut 29:11 How Revolut Balances Super Users and General Customers 36:55 How Revolut Drives Product Velocity and Efficiency 39:26 Future of Product with AI 44:56 Quick Fire Questions and Reflections  

AGENDA: 00:00 Why I am 100% Equities and 0% Cash 04:35 Nvidia's Massive $100BN Investment in OpenAI 08:39 Is Anthropic Negatively Positioned by OpenAI Gaining NVIDIA Investment 27:30 Is Triple, Triple, Double, Double Dead 44:00 Navan Files to Go Public at $8BN 49:31 Lockup Periods and Liquidity 50:35 Impact of H-1B Visa Changes on Startups 01:02:42: Notion Hits $500M ARR Re-Accelerating 01:09:42 Why Founder Friendly is Total BS Today  

Hemant Taneja is the CEO and leader of General Catalyst, the firm he has scaled over the last decade into one of the largest with over $40BN in AUM. He has been one of the most influential investors of the past two decades, leading early bets in Stripe, Snap, Gusto, Samsara, Grammarly, and Canva. He also played a pivotal role in Livongo's $18.5B merger with Teladoc, one of the largest digital health deals in history. AGENDA:  00:00 Introduction  03:37 Is Hemant a CEO or an Investor? 05:42 With $40BN AUM Is General Catalyst Still a VC Firm? 12:11 Has Trump Done More to Hurt or Help the US? 13:25 No One is Talking About the True Impact of AI on Jobs 21:30 Is Hemant Concerned by the Concentration of Value in MAG 7?  27:30 Has Trump Done More to Hurt or Help the US? 30:27 GC's Anthropic Investment: Upside from a $60BN Price  37:06 Do Margins Matter in a World of AI 45:23 Does Revenue Growth Matter in a World of AI  49:39 Why it is BS to Turn Down a Company Based on Price 56:06 We Have Invested $5BN Into Stripe Over 14 Rounds 01:00:02 VC is About To Be Flooded with Retail Investment: What Does It Mean for VC 01:08:51 “What I Learned Losing the Series A of Snap, Stripe, Samsara” 01:11:25 Future of Venture Capital: Walmart vs Chanel    

Jesse Zhang is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Decagon, the conversational AI platform for customer experience. As one of the fastest growing companies in the valley, they have raised over $230M at a last round price of $1.5BN. Prior to Decagon, Jesse founded Lowkey (acquired by Niantic), studied CS at Harvard, and worked at places like Google, HRT, Citadel, and Intel. AGENDA: 00:00 Introduction and Sponsor Messages 03:43 Olympiad Mathematician to Startup Founder 05:34 Selling to Niantic and What I Did Differently the Second Time 07:16 Why 90% of Founders Build Companies the Wrong Way 12:19 Scaling to $50M ARR in 15 Months 31:31 Is the AI Talent War Out of Hand: How To Compete with Meta Pay Packets 32:38 Why Remote Work is Total BS 34:06 Competitors in AI Customer Experience: Sierra, Intercom and more 37:34 AI Market Predictions 44:56 Embracing Stress and Winning Culture 50:13 Quick Fire Questions: Most Underrated AI Founder, Biggest Changed Opinion      

AGENDA: 00:00 Opendoor's Potential and Market Valuation 03:32 Why Did Kaz Leave $300M on the Table to Join Opendoor 04:44 Why Does Kaz Believe OPEN Can Be a Good Business When the Market Doesn't 06:34 How does Kaz Feel About OPEN Becoming a Meme Stock? 17:25 Kaz's $0 Salary but $1BN Stock Based Compensation 23:41 Oracle and OpenAI Partnership: WTF is Going On? 42:21 Microsoft's Investment in OpenAI: A Financial Perspective & Who Has the Power 44:46 Why Sam Altman is the Greatest Politician of our Time 48:33 How Anthropic's Revenue Could Go to Zero Overnight? 50:12 Replit Raises $250M at $3BN Valuation and Higgsfield Raises $50M at $50M ARR 01:06:33 IPO Insights: Figure, Gemini, and Via All Go Public 01:11:26 Why Adobe Have Failed in an Age of AI and What Incumbents Have To Do? 01:13:20 Quick Fire Round: Adobe Up or Down by EOY? What Price Will OPEN Be EOY?  

Brendan Foody is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Mercor, the fastest growing company in history. The company solves talent allocation in the AI economy and they have scaled from $1M to $500M in revenue in just 17 months. With a rumoured new funding round pricing the company at a whopping $10BN, the company has the likes of Benchmark, Felicis, Emergence, and of course, 20VC, all on their cap table.  AGENDA:  04:34 Why My Mother Thought I Was Selling Drugs as a Kid 07:48 In The Time My Peers Graduated, I Created a $10BN Business; Is College Worth it? 10:27 Scale, Surge, Mercor, Turing: How Do Data Providers Differentiate 20:57 Scaling from $1M to $500M: We Quadrupled Since Scale was Acquired 33:43 Is There Too Much Cash in Private Markets? 34:55 Why Evaluation Benchmarks in AI are Total BS 35:44 Revenue Sustainability in AI Companies 36:48 Should Investors Give a S*** About Margins When Analysing AI Companies 40:46 The Future of AI Model Providers: Who Wins 45:58 You Cannot Create a $10BN Company without 9-9-6 Work Culture 48:56 We Literally Have Too Much Money, We Cannot Spend It…  52:36 Quick Fire Round: OpenAI vs Anthropic, Lessons from Peter Fenton and Jack Dorsey  

Amit Bendov is Co-Founder & CEO of Gong, the leading AI-sales platform. The company has raised about over $600 million from some of the best in the world including Sequoia, Thrive, Salesforce and more. Gong has surpassed US$400 million in ARR, serves thousands of customers (including multiple Fortune 10s), and is valued at over $7BN.  AGENDA:  00:00 – Why CRM Was Always a Lie and Gong's Secret Insight 04:30 – Will AI Kill Salesforce? Mark Benioff's Nightmare 08:15 – Why 99% of VCs Said No to Gong's Seed Round 12:00 – The Shocking Trial Close That Changed Everything 18:00 – Can AI Make Every Seller Perform Like LeBron? 20:30 – Will Sales Software Shift from Software Budget to Human Labor Budget? 25:00 – Why AI SDRs Are “Stupid” and Bound to Fail 35:00 – Gong's Darkest Hour: Shrinking, Churn, and Losing Muscle 41:30 – The Re-Acceleration Playbook: How Gong Got Back to Hypergrowth 54:00 – Would Amit Ever Sell Gong—or Take It Public?    

AGENDA: [00:05] Musk's $1 Trillion Pay Package: The Breakdown? [00:15] Scale, Windsurf: Are Founders Just Mercenaries Chasing Cash Today? [00:21] Ramp at $1B ARR, Brex at $700M — Is AI Causing All Boats To Rise? [00:26] Sierra at $100M ARR Worth $10B — Bubble or Brilliant Bet? [00:30] Kleiner Perkins Invests $100M into Anthropic at $183BN… WTF? [00:36] $10B in OpenAI Secondaries — What Happens When 1,000 New Millionaires Hit SF? [00:40] Anthropic Pays $1.5B to Authors — Fair Deal or Pure Piracy? [00:44] Why Did ASML Just Invest into Mistral at $14BN? [00:52] Atlassian Buys the Browser Company for $610M — Genius Move or Panic Buy? [01:18] IRL CEO Arrested for Fraud: Is More To Come?  

Mati Staniszewski is the Co-Founder and CEO of ElevenLabs, the world's leading AI voice platform. Since launching in 2022, ElevenLabs has raised over $350M, most recently at a $3.3BN valuation, making it one of Europe's fastest AI unicorns. The company counts Andreessen Horowitz, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and Sequoia Capital among its backers. Today, Mati announces that the company has hit a staggering $200M ARR. ElevenLabs took 20 months to hit $100M ARR. 10 months to hit $200M ARR. Can they do $300M in 5 months… AGENDA:  [00:00] $100M in 20 Months?! ElevenLabs Untold Growth Story [12:20] Are AI Models Already Plateauing—or Just Getting Started? [14:00] Why OpenAI Can't Beat ElevenLabs  [17:30] The Talent Wars: How Do You Retain World-Class AI Researchers? [23:10] PR vs Product: Why Most Startups Botch Their Launch [36:00] Are U.S. VCs Playing a Different Game Than Europe? [44:00] The Real Cost of AI: Why ElevenLabs Built Its Own Data Centers [59:00] Voice Agents = Multi-Billion Dollar Business of the Future? [01:05:00] Buy OpenAI or Anthropic? Which Foundation Model Wins? [01:09:30] Europe: Strengths, Weaknesses and What Needs to be Done  

Alex Schultz is the Chief Marketing Officer and VP of Analytics at Meta, where he has spent nearly two decades shaping the company's growth and marketing strategy. He has been instrumental in scaling Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to billions of users worldwide. Alex is is also the author of Click Here: The New Rules of Marketing, the definitive guide to modern growth — available now on Amazon.  AGENDA:  00:00 – Is All Marketing Actually Performance Marketing? 04:00 – When Did Facebook Have the Wrong North Star? What Did They Learn? 16:00 – Will AI Create Companies Run by Just ONE Person? 27:00 – Is AI About to Hit the Biggest Plateau Since Self-Driving Cars? 30:00 – Is China Secretly Winning the Global AI Arms Race? 38:00 – Does AI Kill Content or Supercharge It? 44:00 – Why Brand Marketing Is Harder (and More Important) Than You Think 47:00 – Will Glasses Replace Phones Forever? 51:00 – What Would Alex Do If He Were Sundar at Google Today? 59:00 – What is the Greatest Strength and the Greatest Weakness of Zuck?  

Agenda: 04:00 – Anthropic Raises $13BN: The Analysis? 19:00 – Is Zuck's $14BN Scale bet the biggest blunder in AI? 27:00 – Lovable Raising at $4BN and Vercel at $9BN: Justified or Madness? 36:00 – Quarterly Results for Snowflake, Mongo, Okta, Zoom Skyrocket: Is B2B SaaS back from the dead? 48:00 – Is Jensen Huang right there will be $4TRN in AI gains? 57:00 – Will AI wipe out SaaS margins with 10% GPU taxes? Or is Notion the exception? Items Mentioned in Today's Episode: Try NEXOS.AI for yourself with a 14-day free trial: https://nexos.ai/20vc    

Nick Frosst is a Canadian AI researcher and entrepreneur, best known as co-founder of Cohere, the enterprise-focused LLM. Cohere has raised over $900 million, most recently a $500 million round, bringing its valuation to $6.8 billion. Under his leadership, Cohere hit $100M in ARR. Prior to founding Cohere, Nick was a researcher at Google Brain and a protégé of Geoffrey Hinton. AGENDA:  00:00 – Biggest lessons from Geoff Hinton at Google Brain? 02:10 – Did Google completely sleep at the wheel and miss ChatGPT? 05:45 – Is data or compute the real bottleneck in AI's future? 07:20 – Does GPT5 Prove That Scaling Laws are BS? 13:30 – Are AI benchmarks just total BS? 17:00 – Would Cohere spend $5M on a single AI researcher? 19:40 – What is nonsense in AI that everyone is talking about? 25:30 – What is no one talking about in AI that everyone should be talking about? 33:00 – How do Cohere compete with OpenAI and Anthropic's billions? 44:30 – Why does being American actually hurt tech companies today? 45:10 – Should countries fund their own models? Is model sovereignty the future? 52:00 – Why has Sam Altman actually done a disservice to AI?  

Jason James is the Co-Founder of Tezi and one of the leading product minds in the valley. Prior to Tezi, Jason was the VP Product at Instacart and before that was Head of Product and Design at Thumbtack.  AGENDA: 00:00 Product lessons scaling Instacart to $40B – what really moves the needle 02:15 Why “quick optimizations” won't build billion-dollar products 04:30 MVPs are dead? How AI is reshaping product development 07:00 Do startups even need PMs anymore in the age of AI? 11:30 The biggest product mistake Jason made building Tezi 16:30 Why most hiring managers fail at recruiting 20:00 The resume trap: how to spot if someone was just “on the elevator up” 26:00 The three roles founders always end up firing 28:00 Are most CPOs actually terrible? 36:30 The myth of startup “culture” – why growth is the only thing that matters 43:00 Did DoorDash actually beat Instacart? The inside take 48:00 Fundraising secrets founders never realize until it's too late    

AGENDA: ​​00:00 – Marc Benioff vs Snowflake, Databricks & Palantir: Who Wins the Data Cloud War? 05:10 – Does Benioff Feel The Need to Buy AI Talent Like Zuck Is? 09:00 – What Salesforce has Learned From Palantir on Forward Deployed Engineers? 18:00 – Will SaaS apps disappear in an AI world? Why Satya is Chatting S*** 23:40 – Are SDRs really screwed by AI… or just evolving? 26:10 – Benioff on Who Wins: OpenAI or Anthropic? 30:00 – Nat Friedman reports to Alex Wang: Genius move or career downgrade? 34:00 – Anthropic's $10B round: Have we hit peak AI hype? 47:00 – Klarna's wild ride: From $45B to $6B to IPO at $15B 55:00 – Inside a16z's seed machine: 72 bets vs Sequoia's 27 57:45 – Martìn Casado: Is consensus investing dangerous—or the only game? 01:05:00 – The big lesson: consensus, contrarian, and why investing is harder than ever  

Byron Deeter is a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, and one of the most renowned SaaS investors. Byron has led 19 unicorn investments, including IPO successes like ServiceTitan, Procore, Twilio, Box, Gainsight, Intercom, DocuSign, SendGrid. His portfolio includes eight companies that have gone public. Insane.  Agenda: 00:00 – Why are the stakes in AI higher than ever before? 05:20 – Is defensibility in AI gone for good? 07:40 – Do margins even matter when backing the next Anthropic or Perplexity? 09:50 – How does Byron think about future dilution when investing in AI today? 12:10 – With 40% of venture money going to 10 deals, is there any point investing elsewhere? 13:40 – Is vertical SaaS dead? Is there any point when the large players can own it? 18:00 – Will AI shift from the tech budget to the human labor budget and unlock trillions? 21:10 – Are we entering the era of billion-dollar businesses built by 10 people? 25:20 – Is treble-treble-double-double now too slow for AI companies? 33:10 – In today's AI gold rush, is it better to scream the loudest or just build the best product? 41:10 – What specific growth rates are best in class, good and not good enough today?  55:00 – Is venture now just a game of scale — Chanel vs. Walmart?    

Agenda: 00:00 – Databricks hits $100B: Bubble or just the beginning? 03:15 – Is Databricks actually undervalued at 25x revenue? 07:40 – Are we on the verge of the biggest IPO wave ever? 11:30 – Can Andreessen's Databricks bet return $30B+? 18:10 – Who really gets rich when mega-unicorns IPO? 19:30 – Is the return of Chamath's SPACs the ultimate bubble signal? 28:00 – Should OpenAI staff be cashing out billions in secondaries? 33:30 – Founder raises $130M… then walks away. Is this the new normal? 36:30 – Nubank's $2.5B profit: The best FinTech in the world? 48:00 – On Running at $15B: Can consumer brands still be VC-backed rockets? 52:00 – CoreWeave takes on $11B in debt: smart bet or ticking time bomb? 1:11:00 – Will AI spend really hit trillions—or is it all hype?  

Anton Osika is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Lovable, the fastest growing company on the planet. In just 7 months, they have scaled from $0 to $120M in ARR. They have raised over $200M in funding from some of the best including Accel, Creandum and 20VC. Their latest round priced the company at a whopping $2BN.  Agenda for Today: 00:00 – Is AI an Arms Race… Or Just a Talent War? 03:45 – How Does Anton Compete with Zuck's $100M Packages for Talent 07:30 – Founder Mode vs. Structure: Can Chaos Scale? 10:15 – The Brutal Truth About Defensibility in AI Startups 13:20 – Unit Economics: Are AI Companies Doomed to Bleed Cash? 17:00 – GPT-5: Game-Changer or Overhyped Disappointment? 20:10 – How Lovable Hit $100M ARR in Just 7 Months? 25:15 – Replit, Figma, Bolt: Which Competitor is the Best? 30:00 – The Security Bombshells No One Talks About 36:40 – Should Anyone Still Study Computer Science? 40:30 – Work-Life Balance Is Dead: Inside Anton's 10x Culture 56:00 – OpenAI, Anthropic, or Grok: Who Wins the AI Wars?    

Max Junestrand is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Legora, the collaborative AI powering the next generation of lawyers. Now this is an insane story for many reasons; first, Max turned down a multi-million dollar career in gaming to build Legora. Second, he has raised from the best of the best including Benchmark and IVP. Third, he has scaled the firm with 1/6th of the capital of his closest competitor, Harvey have raised a reported $800M while Legora have raised just $120M.  Agenda: 00:03 – From Pro Gamer to AI Founder: How World of Warcraft Shaped Max's Mindset 04:58 – The $5–10M Gaming Career He Walked Away From 07:55 – Are AI Models Plateauing… or Just Getting Started? 10:02 – Swarms of LLMs: The 100x Cost Bet That Could Change Legal Forever 12:00 – Partnering With the Lawyers You're “Killing” 15:00 – How He Cracked Sweden's Hardest-to-Enter Law Firm 21:45 – The $500K Coffee That Saved the Company at YC 30:00 – Closing 15 Term Sheets in 7 Days – Why Benchmark Won 36:00 – Beating a $5BN Rival With a Fraction of the Funding 53:50 – Building a Cult Culture: The 9-9-6 Mentality in Europe  

AGENDA: 00:04 – Was GPT-5 the Biggest AI Letdown Yet? 00:17 – Is OpenAI's Real Target Anthropic's $6B Revenue? 00:22 – Why Anthropic Might Secretly Be Worried 00:28 – The Hidden Business Strategy Behind OpenAI's “Underwhelming” Launch 00:32 – Should Perplexity Really Try to Buy Chrome for $34.5B? 00:35 – The $3B N8N Deal: Genius Bet or Bubble FOMO? 00:38 – Why Datadog's Best Quarter Ever Still Tanked the Stock 00:44 – Palantir's 50% Growth at Scale – Can It Last? Is Palantir Overpriced? 00:53 – Shopify's Ruthless Path to 91% Revenue Growth With 30% Fewer Staff 01:01 – Are Seed and Series A Valuations Now at Dangerous Highs? 01:06 – What Does The Highest Levels of Capital Concentration Mean For Early Stage Founders? 01:15 – Could Palantir Hit a $2 Trillion Market Cap by 2030?    

Martin Mignot is a Partner at Index Ventures, the best-performing fund in the world right now. In the last three months, they have sold Wiz for $ 32 billion, sold Scale for $14.9 billion, and IPO'd Figma as the largest investor. In addition to this, they are the largest or second-largest shareholders in Roblox, Revolut, Adyen and Datadog.  Agenda for Today: 00:00 – Why Gross Margin is the Biggest Sin in the Early Days 04:50 – Why Most People Shouldn't Become VCs 07:40 – Why it is BS to Suggest the Future of VC is Boutique vs Mega Fund 09:10 – Do Multi-Stage Funds Really Give a S*** About Seed 13:50 – The Founder Trait That Trumps Market Size Every Time 18:45 – How Spotify Still Haunts Index Ventures & What They Learn From It? 28:50 – The Brutal Truth About European vs. U.S. Founders 34:20 – The Case for a European AI Giant (and Who Might Build It) 40:50 – The Return of the 7-Day Founder Work Week 52:10 – Biggest Lessons from Leading Revolut's Series A 56:40 – Betting Against Nick Storonsky? Don't. 1:03:10 – The One Competitor Index Ventures Admires    

Peter Rahal is the Co‑Founder & CEO of David Protein, the highest protein‑to‑calorie ratio for any protein bar on the market. Peter has raised over $85M from Greenoaks, Dr. Peter Attia and Dr. Andrew Huberman with the latest round valuing the company at $725 million. The company is poised for over $100 million in first‑year revenue. Formerly, Peter co‑founded RXBAR in his mom's basement with a $10k start, growing it into a household brand and selling it to Kellogg for $600 million. poised for over $100 million first‑year revenue   Agenda for Today:  00:04 – The One Piece of Advice from My Father That Made $600M 00:07 – Selling Protein Bars from a CrossFit Gym to $2M in Year One 00:12 – Why Raising Money Early Would Have Killed RXBAR's Success 00:15 – Product vs Brand: What Every Brand Gets Wrong Today 00:17 – Why Red Bull is the Best Brand in the World? What Can We Learn From It?  00:20 – Are Brands the New Religion? How Status and Community Really Work 00:27 – The Boiled Cod Stunt: Brilliant Marketing or Massive Waste of Time? 00:35 – Selling RXBAR for $600M: Inside the Decision and the TAM Ceiling 00:40 – $100M Overnight: What Really Changes When You Get Rich 00:44 – The Hidden Costs of Success: Health, Relationships and Obsession 00:47 – Why Peter Doesn't Care What People Think… and Actually Likes Upsetting Them 00:53 – The $10B Plan for David: From Protein Bars to a Portfolio of Brands  

Agenda: 00:00 – The Worst IPO Mis-Pricing Ever: What Really Happened at Figma 02:30 – Fidelity vs Founders: How Important is Fidelity When Going Public 07:00 – Why Founders Secretly Want a Pop, Even If It Makes Them Look Stupid 10:15 – The Truth Behind the $3B Figma "Left on the Table"  14:00 – Direct Listings vs IPOs: Should Figma Have Gone Direct  23:00 – CEO Compensation is Broken, Brian Halligan Doesn't Hold Back 29:00 – The New Normal: Growth Rounds with Elon-Style Moonshot Packages 33:00 – Is Canva Next? Why Founders Should "Run, Forrest, Run" to the NASDAQ 36:00 – The Case for Going Public: VCs Are a Bigger Pain Than Public Markets 44:00 – Can AI Even Work for SMBs? Why No One's Cracked the Code (Yet) 51:00 – Meta's Monster Quarter: Growth, Cash Burn, and the Real AI Strategy 56:00 – CEO of the Year? Why Jensen Huang Leaves Zuck & Satya in the Dust 1:00:00 – Cognition's $15B Deal & Mass Layoffs: The Most Savage M&A Move of 2025 1:07:00 – Ramp's $22B Raise: Genius Move or Suicide Round? 1:09:00 – CRV Shrinks, Benchmark's Bet, and the Future of Venture Strategy

Miles Dieffenbach is Managing Director of Investments at Carnegie Mellon University, where he helps oversee a $4 billion endowment with a focus on venture capital, private equity, and alternative investments. Under his leadership, CMU's private book has remained self-funding during some of the toughest years for liquidity.  Agenda for Today: 00:04 – "I Had Cancer at 26 – It Changed Everything" 07:00 – Inside the $4BN Carnegie Mellon Endowment: The Investment Blueprint 10:45 – Are LPs Getting Screwed in Venture? 13:30 – 90% of LPs Shouldn't Be in Venture – Here's Why 16:00 – Seed Funds Are a Trap (And No One Wants to Admit It) 20:00 – The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds 24:00 – "Index Is the Best in the Game – Here's Why They Win" 29:30 – "The Dirty Secret of LPs: Brand Over Performance" 34:30 – "When Founder-Friendly Goes Too Far" 38:00 – "The OpenAI Bubble – Will It All Go to Zero?" 44:00 – "Ping Pong Diligence & Wildest Fundraising Stories"  

Ron Gabrisko is the Chief Revenue Officer at Databricks, where he joined in 2016. Under his leadership, Databricks has scaled from $0 to over $4BN in annual revenue. He has grown the sales team from 0 to over 1,000 globally, leading expansion into enterprise, government, and international markets. Ron previously held senior sales roles at Cloudera and IBM, bringing deep experience in data and AI infrastructure. His tenure at Databricks has been defined by hypergrowth, multi-product adoption, and world-class GTM execution. Agenda for Today: 00:04 – The Databricks Origin Story: Ali, Ben Horowitz & 7 PhDs 00:08 – Ali vs JPMorgan: Turning Down $10M to Stay Cloud-First 00:13 – Prospecting Day: How Ron Scaled the GTM Culture 00:16 – Why Databricks' Pricing Model Was Its Secret Weapon 00:19 – Enterprise vs SMB: The Risky Bet That Paid Off 00:23 – From $2M to $13M ARR: How Ron Built the First Sales Engine 00:29 – Can AI Replace Salespeople? Ron's Brutally Honest Take 00:36 – How to Get Your First Million-Dollar Rep (and Keep Them) 00:42 – The Culture Secret Behind Scaling to 5,000 Sales Reps 00:45 – Why Databricks Waited Until $500M ARR to Go International 00:52 – What Makes a Great Sales Meeting? Ron's Gold Standard 00:58 – The Snowflake Wars: Why Ron Says Databricks Is 5 Years Ahead  

Agenda: 00:00 - Why Benchmark Is Bleeding Partners (and Why That's the New Normal) 04:57 - “I Wouldn't Leave Benchmark… Unless I Had THIS” — Jason on Brand vs Autonomy 09:01 - The Rise of the Solo GP & The Death of LP Conventional Wisdom 13:50 - The Unstoppable Force of Elad Gil & The Myth of LP Discipline 18:45 - Is Vibe Coding the New SaaS? Jason's $10K/Month Spend Reveal 26:57 - Cursor's Growth Is Insane—But Is It Sustainable? 31:44 - Will Microsoft, Google, or Amazon Win the AI Infra War? 37:42 - Is GitHub Copilot the Biggest Miss in Microsoft's History? 44:15 - Are Big Tech Incumbents Now Too Powerful to Fail? 48:00 - Apple's AI Problem: Is It Time for a Management Overhaul? 52:30 - Figma's IPO: $30B Return, Zero Hype. What Happened? 1:06:00 - Final Bets: Cursor to $4B ARR, Lovable to $400M ARR, OpenAI to $800BN?      

Martin Casado is a General Partner @ a16z where he leads the firms $1.25BN infrastructure fund. At a16z, Martin has led investments in companies like Cursor, dbt Labs, and Fivetran to name a few. Before joining a16z, he co-founded Nicira, acquired by VMware for $1.26B. At VMware, he served as CTO of Networking. Widely regarded as a visionary in enterprise infrastructure, Martin has helped shape the modern cloud computing stack. Agenda: 00:00 – Analysis of Current AI Investment Landscape 04:45 – Will Anthropic Kill the AI App Layer? 09:20 – “The Oligopoly Is Coming—Just Like Cloud” 12:50 – Are AI Models Actually Terrible Venture Investments? 15:40 – Why it is BS to Put Down AI Apps for Having Temporary Revenue 21:30 – “Open Source Is a National Security Weapon—And We're Losing” 26:40 – “Have the Foundation Models of the Future All Been Founded Already” 34:30 – Why it is BS to Denigrate AI Apps for Having Low Margins 38:40 – Does AI Make 1x Engineers 10x or 10x Becomes 100x 44:10 – “We're All Dead Wrong About AI and Job Loss” 50:30 – “The Only Sin in Venture: Backing the Wrong Winner” 55:10 – What People Think They Know About Wealth But Do Not  

Fernando Fanton is one of the most respected product leaders in Europe, having held Chief Product Officer roles at Monzo and Just Eat. He previously led product and tech at Rappi, one of Latin America's most valuable startups. Today, Fernando is the CPO @ Property Finder; one of the biggest breakout unicorns from MENA.  Agenda: 00:00 – Is “having a vision” actually killing great product teams? 03:15 – Why do most products suck—and what separates the great ones? 07:20 – Should we kill the PM role entirely? Fernando says maybe. 11:45 – Is Monzo's obsession with trust more powerful than speed? 16:10 – What's the #1 reason internal tools will never replace SaaS? 21:00 – Will AI wipe out the need for designers and PMs? 26:30 – Is it arrogant for product teams to protect users from “bad” choices? 32:15 – What's the future of product when OpenAI controls the whole stack? 37:40 – What Monzo product blew up—and why no one saw it coming? 42:55 – Can a bank built on principles really become a $100B company?  

Agenda: 00:00 – Did Jason Just Kill Replit?  03:45 – Why Claude Lies To You and Cannot Be Trusted 06:50 – You Cannot Trust Agents. Period. 10:20 – Why Windsurf Was Dead Without Claude 12:30 – Cursor vs. Lovable: What's the Better Bet? 14:40 – Should You Still Invest in Cursor at $28B? 18:05 – Would You Bet on Anthropic at $100B or OpenAI at $300B? 24:15 – Inside OpenAI's Secret Weapon: The Calvin French-Owen Memo 27:50 – Perplexity Just Crushed ChatGPT and Claude 32:15 – Will Cursor Build Their Own Models Before Anthropic Cuts Them Off? 33:20 – Figma's IPO at $16B: Outrageous or Fair Game? 41:55 – 90% of Seed Funds Are Cooked—Is Rob Go Right? 52:15 – How Often Do You Meet a Founder Who Can Return the Fund? 1:08:00 – Which Seed Fund Would You Back Today?  

Edwin Chen is the Founder and CEO of Surge. Founded in 2020, Surge has scaled to $1BN+ in revenue with zero external funding. At the same time, their competitor, Scale.ai raised over $1.3BN to reach $850M ARR. Today, Surge have the world's largest model providers as customers and have just 120 employees.  Agenda: 00:00 — “Everyone Else Is Just a Body Shop” — Edwin Calls Out the Whole Industry 01:05 — Why 90% of Big Tech Is Wasting Time on Useless Problems 03:45 — “I Don't Do 1-on-1s” — How Surge Kills Meetings and Still Moves 10x Faster 05:55 — Will a Single Person Build a $1B Company?  08:10 — 100x Engineers Are Real — Here's How to Spot Them 12:10 — Why Most PhDs Are Useless in AI Training 14:20 — Built to a Billion With Zero VC — Edwin Explains How and Why 17:00 — “No Sales Team, No PR, No BS” — Why Surge Stays in the Shadows 21:15 — The Real Reason AGI Might Take Until 2040 24:45 — Will Synthetic Data Kill Human Labelling?  29:00 — “Academic Benchmarks Are a Scam”  31:05 — Why the Real Bottleneck in AI Isn't Compute or Models — It's THIS 33:00 — What Every AI Company Should Be Asking (But Isn't) 35:15 — “No, I Wouldn't Sell Surge for $100B”  39:00 — Is the Application Layer Doomed? Edwin Predicts the Future of AI Startups 46:30 — Have the Leading Foundation Models Already Been Founded?  48:10 — AGI Could Be Dangerous — And Most People Are Ignoring Why 20VC: Scaling to $1BN+ in Revenue with No Funding: Surge AI | The Most Insane Scaling Story in Tech | 

Scott Wu is the co-founder and CEO of Cognition, the company behind Devin, the world's first AI software engineer. On Friday last week they pulled off the acquisition of the year, acquiring Windsurf, following their licensing agreement with Google. Previously a world-class competitive programmer, he was a gold medalist at the International Olympiad in Informatics and a member of the U.S. Math and Physics Olympiad teams. Before Cognition, he was a founding engineer at Scale AI, helping shape the early AI infrastructure stack. AGENDA: 00:00 – Why are founders walking away instead of going down with the ship? 01:05 – How did Cognition pull off the $220M Windsurf deal in just 72 hours? 04:45 – What really happened behind closed doors the weekend Windsurf was acquired? 07:15 – Did Google overlook a goldmine in the Windsurf team and IP? 09:00 – Who are the 100 people that secretly shape the future of AI? 12:30 – Can application startups ever gain leverage over foundation model giants like Anthropic? 14:15 – Is coding about to be replaced by simply describing what you want? 17:30 – 50% of new code is AI-written. Where does that go next? 20:45 – “We've gone from 0 to $80M ARR in 6 months. Quietly.” 25:00 – Are IDEs and agents just the training wheels for the real future of software engineering? 28:20 – If you could only back one—OpenAI or Anthropic—who's the better bet? 30:00 – Why has Cognition kept its insane growth a secret… until now?    

Agenda: 00:00 Windsurf was dead—then this deal changed everything 05:00 The Windsurf x Google x Cognition saga explained 09:00 The OpenAI deal collapsed—what really happened 15:00 FTC rules forced a brutal deal structure—who lost? 17:00 The investors' returns: who actually made money? 21:30 Will Google's corp dev team get fired over this? 23:00 Cognition's genius $220M acquisition of Windsurf: Most brilliant Deal of the Year 26:00 The biggest recruiting flex in Silicon Valley this year 35:00 “Roll your own SaaS” is complete nonsense 38:00 Lovable vs Cursor vs Replit: who wins the coding war? 41:00 Why Lovable could be the ChatGPT of builders 44:00 Will these vibe-coded apps become durable businesses? 48:00 The shocking churn rates hidden inside AI SaaS 55:00 Are these $2B valuations actually... cheap? 56:30 Grok just destroyed GPT-4 in benchmarks—WTF?! 01:01:00 Why Grok might overtake OpenAI in the next 12 months 01:11:00 Meta just invested $3.5B in Ray-Bans—WTF? 01:12:30 Should every S&P 500 company buy Bitcoin now? 01:15:00 Will Meta kill open source? What happens to Llama 5?  

Vlad Tenev is the Founder and CEO of Robinhood, the greatest story on Wall St of the last decade. In the previous 18 months, Robinhood has increased its net revenue by 58% to nearly $3B; a $500M loss in 2023 turned into a $1.1B profit in 2024. Robinhood's stock is up roughly 4x, lifting their market cap to north of $80B. Today, Robinhood has nine lines of business that do over $100M in revenue.  Agenda:  00:00 – “Tokenization Is The Biggest Innovation in Finance” 03:28 – How Robinhood 4x'd Its Market Cap in 8 Months 06:40 – AI Writes 50% of All Net New Code at Robinhood 10:02 – Why Robinhood Built a Secret ChatGPT for Support 12:11 – The One Customer Type That Transformed the Business 15:29 – “CoreWeave Is Retail's Way Into AI” — The Meme Stock Defense 18:05 – Inside Robinhood's Tokenized Private Shares Product 21:23 – “Capital as a Service” — Vlad's Wild Vision for Startup Fundraising 24:10 – The $100M Revenue Line Vlad Wishes He Could Kill 26:45 – Robinhood Is Building... Cash Delivery Trucks?! 29:55 – “We Were Shipping Nothing”: Vlad on the 2020–2022 Culture Crisis 33:20 – What Line of Business Will Be the Biggest For Vlad in 5 Years Time 35:11 – The One Competitor Vlad Actually Respects 36:55 – From Men's Health to Japanese Toilets: Vlad's Weirdest Quickfire Yet 38:40 – “I Was in the Dumps”: What 2022 Taught Vlad About Resilience 40:00 – Where Robinhood Is Headed: The Next Decade of Financial Infrastructure    

Kieran Flanagan is the CMO at HubSpot, where he's led the transformation of their growth strategy from SEO-led to multi-channel and AI-powered. Formerly SVP of Marketing, he helped scale HubSpot's user base to millions and revenue past $2B. Before HubSpot, he drove breakout growth at Marketo and Salesforce. Kieran is one of the most respected voices in SaaS marketing and a pioneer in growth-driven content strategy. Agenda: 00:03 – The Death of Growth Teams? Kieran's Wild Prediction 06:44 – AI Innovation Pods: The New Org Structure for Startups 10:18 – Email Personalization That Tripled Conversions 13:21 – From Software Budget to Labor Budget: The Shift is Happening 16:35 – The Big Lie: Why Autonomous Agents Still Suck 19:24 – The Secret Sauce Behind HubSpot's Email AI Stack 21:44 – Segment-Based Marketing Is Dead. Enter Micro Audiences. 24:15 – Content Collapse: Why Google Organic Is Getting Torched 30:52 – The Future of AI SEO: 1 Product, 100 Pages, Infinite Prompts 33:16 – Memory = Moat: Why ChatGPT Is Becoming Unbeatable 35:46 – Prompt Engineering is the New Coding: Here's How to Win 41:03 – The Death of the Middle Manager Marketer 46:17 – OpenAI vs. Anthropic: Kieran's $400M Bet 48:00 – Europe Is Falling Behind: The Harsh Truth on Regulation 52:39 – CMO Playbook 2025: Micro-Audiences, Creator-Led, AI at Scale    

Agenda: [00:00] The AI Talent Crisis No One's Ready For [03:00] Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman: Why Two Legendary VCs Walked Away From $1B to Join Meta [12:00] Meta's AI Talent Magnet: Will It Actually Work? [15:00] Cursor Is Breaking the Market: Can Anyone Compete? [18:30] OpenAI's SBC Bombshell: More Stock Comp Than Revenue [22:00] CoreWeave's Power Play: Buying Their Landlords [26:00] Is Circle Next to Go Shopping with Meme Equity? [28:00] PE Is Back: The Olo Take-Private Explained [35:00] Why Triple, Triple, Double, Double Is No Longer Sexy [41:00] QSBS Hack: The Billionaire's Tax Loophole You're Missing [48:00] Microsoft's AI Layoffs: Salespeople Are Dead, Long Live Engineers [50:00] “If You Need a Week to Learn AI, You Should Be Fired” [53:00] Will Sequoia's Sean Maguire Be Pushed Out? Place Your Bets [57:00] Will There Be a Recession in 2025? Jason Bets $75K It's a No [1:00:00] Is Linda Yaccarino Still CEO of X by Year-End? [1:03:00] Circle and CoreWeave's Meme Rally: Real or Mirage?  

Scott Galloway is a Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern, where he's taught for over two decades. He's the founder of several successful companies, including L2 (acquired by Gartner for over $150M), Red Envelope, and Prophet. He's a New York Times bestselling author of four books on business and tech, and co-hosts the award-winning Pivot podcast. Galloway also serves on the boards of The New York Times Company and Panera, and his public talks have been viewed tens of millions of times globally. In Today's Episode We Discuss: 02:00 – How to Win in a New Economy of AI 06:00 – Should We Break Up Big Tech? 08:00 – Why Young People Have a Right to Be Angry? 11:00 – Why the Tax Code Is Rigged Against the Young 13:00 – Tax Changes That Would Make Young People Rich Again 17:00 – The Tinder Effect: Why Men Are Angry 20:00 – The Loneliness Epidemic in Men 23:00 – Remote Work & The Case for Alcohol 26:00 – Why Richer Families are Happier Families 30:00 – The Truth About Kids and Career 34:00 – Are Billionaires Happy? 38:00 – Becoming a Better Son, Father, Partner 46:00 – Behind the Persona: Who Scott Galloway Really Is    

AGENDA: 00:00 – $400B in AI CapEx: Rational Investment or Madness? 05:00 – Figma's IPO: Rule of 80, $1.5B in cash, 40% margins. Unreal. 08:00 – Adobe Screwed the Deal—Should They Have Just Bought Canva? 16:00 – Pay-to-Play Deals: Heroic Hail Mary or Guaranteed Write-Off? 21:30 – How Index Is Returning $3.5B on 2 Deals 24:00 – Melio's $2.5B Exit: Insane Growth… So Why Did They Sell?! 35:00 – Massive Penthouses and the Death of Focus: AI Founders Beware 39:00 – Chime, Anthropic, Menlo & The Art of Selling LPs the Future 41:00 – Couchbase Acquired: PE Buyers Are Back… Or Are They? 44:00 – Why No One's Buying These 9-Figure SaaS Zombies 48:00 – If You Didn't Grow from AI By June 30, You're Already Dead 53:00 – Superhuman vs The AI-Natives: Who Wins the Replatforming War? 54:30 – Oracle's $30B AI Deal: Larry Did It Before You Even Started 56:00 – Scale Is Dead. Long Live Surge. The AI Data War Gets Bloody. 01:01:00 – Asana CEO Move & the Great Founder Exodus of 2025 01:06:00 – Will Cluely's Founder Be a Billionaire by 2029? Place Your Bets      

Philipp Freise is Co-Head of European Private Equity at KKR, where he manages the largest private fund in Europe with $8BN in the latest fund. Philip has led KKR's investments in FGS Global, Superstruct, Axel Springer SE, BMG Rights Management, Fotolia, GetYourGuide, GfK SE, Leonine, Mediawan SAS, Scout24 Switzerland and Trainline. Previously, Philip worked at McKinsey & Company in and co-founded Berlin-based VC firm Venturepark, Europe's first pan-European incubator. Agenda: 00:00 – "We Lost $500M in Turkey. Here's Why We'll Never Do It Again." 01:40 – Inside Europe's Biggest PE Fund: $8B of Pure Firepower 03:55 – The $100M Dot-Com Failure That Changed My Career 06:45 – Why Picking the Wrong VC Will Destroy Your Company 10:20 – KKR's $500M COVID Gamble: Genius or Insane? 12:35 – Why We Ignored the Market & Deployed 40% of Our Fund 15:55 – KKR's Ruthless Portfolio Discipline: Love Doesn't Matter 17:10 – Do Power Laws Apply in PE? Freise Destroys the Myth 18:45 – The Truth About Capital Intensity in the Age of AI 20:10 – Can AI Kill the PE Model? Here's What Philipp Says 26:00 – The Secret to Great Investment Decisions at KKR 32:40 – Why There's a $3T Liquidity Time Bomb in Venture 34:25 – The Death of IPOs? How KKR Exits Without Going Public 40:05 – Will KKR Europe Hit $20B? Freise's Bold Prediction 43:45 – Helsing, Space, and Defense: The New Age of DeepTech Bets 45:30 – Tariffs, China, and the Future of the German Car Empire 47:00 – Freise vs. Bitcoin: Will USD Still Rule in 10 Years? 48:15 – 4 Global Shocks Happening Right Now That You Need to Know 51:30 – KKR Missed Spotify AND Alibaba?! The Painful Stories 53:00 – Do Andreessen & General Catalyst Scare KKR? Freise Responds 54:30 – The One Metric That Will Define KKR's Next Decade  

Kim Graves is GM, Americas at Notion, where she oversees all Sales and Customer Success efforts across the region. She brings extensive experience in building and scaling high-performing sales organizations, most notably at Slack where she helped grow revenue from $6M to over $1.5B. In addition to her operational role, Kim serves as a founding partner at 20SALES, a GTM-focused VC firm, where she advises early-stage companies on scaling revenue and optimizing sales processes. Agenda: 07:00 – The Secret to Winning a Discount Conversation 09:30 – Notion's Wild New Sales Method: Mindsets Over Stages 12:00 – Why Great Sellers Never Talk Product Too Soon 14:00 – How Slack Avoided the Biggest PLG Trap of All 17:00 – The Fatal Mistake Founders Make Layering Sales on PLG 20:00 – The “Renaissance Reps” That Build Billion-Dollar Motions 23:00 – How to Spot True Grit in a Sales Hire (Without Asking Directly) 26:00 – The Case Study Test That Filters Out Bullshitters 30:00 – The Real Reason Most Reps Fail Onboarding 33:00 – Should Reps Own Their Own Pipeline? Kim's Take Is Clear 36:00 – Why Cold Calling Works in 2025 (And Nobody Does It) 39:00 – The Sales Team Audit: The REKS Framework That Changes Everything 43:00 – How to Avoid Hiring the Wrong Rep Under Pressure 45:00 – When Sales Feels Second Class: PLG vs Enterprise Tension 47:00 – The One Thing Reps Still Do That AI Will Obliterate 50:00 – AI Sales Tools: Why Every Startup Is Failing to Get It Right 53:00 – Will We Have More or Fewer Reps in 5 Years?  56:00 – Enterprises Are Scared of AI – Here's How You Break In Anyway 59:00 – Kim's Secret for Getting Past Gatekeepers and Fake Champions 1:09:00 – Kim's Hardest Phase at Slack and How She Survived It  

Agenda: 04:21 - The Meta Acquisition Bombshell: Nat Friedman & Daniel Gross Join Facebook?! 06:00 - Facebook's $100 Billion Gamble: Can Zuck Buy the Future? 09:27 - The “Magic Room” Theory: Why Only Insiders Get Billion-Dollar Paydays 11:27 - Is Loyalty Dead in Silicon Valley? The Great Talent Exodus 16:00 - Harvey's $5 Billion Valuation: Genius or Bubble? 19:00 - The AI Gold Rush: Can Software Really Eat Human Labor? 22:00 - The B2B Unicorn Dilemma: Are There Enough $100B Companies? 25:00 - IPO Mania: Why Navan, Canva, and Circle Are Shaking Up the Markets 29:00 - Meme Stocks & Market Madness: The Circle Rollercoaster 32:00 - Canva's Billion-Dollar Question: Why Stay Private? 36:00 - Larry Ellison's Power Play: How to Buy Back Your Own Empire 39:00 - The Sales Tech Revolution: Why “Cheating” Tools Are the Next Big Thing 42:00 - Slack Lockdown: Is B2B Software About to Get Ugly? 45:00 - The Ultimate Quickfire: Will Trump Launch a Smartphone? Will the US Seize AI?    

Johannes Reck is the Founder and CEO of GetYourGuide, the $2BN company that started with a holiday to China and nothing to do. For the first two years, GetYourGuide received only 5 bookings. Today the platform does 33,000 per day and is worth $2BN. They have raised from some of the best, including an amazing story with Masa Son and Softbank.  In Today's Episode We Discuss: 01:45 – “I Regret Our Series A — Too Much Dilution” 03:50 – US vs Europe: Why European Founders Are Tougher 06:10 – “Germany Spends €100B on Pensions, €7B on VC – It's Insane” 08:40 – Why Europe Fails to Build $10B Startups 10:25 – 90% of Our Team in Berlin Aren't German. Here's Why. 12:20 – Recruiting Netflix's Head of Growth Nearly Killed Me 16:20 – “We Had 5 Bookings in 2 Years. 3 Were My Mum.” 18:00 – “I Asked My Parents to Remortgage Their House for a Pivot” 21:15 – The Vatican Tour That Changed Everything 23:30 – Why VCs Rejected GetYourGuide 100+ Times 28:30 – The $14M Series A That Nearly Killed the Company 31:00 – “I Hired All the Wrong People – Then Laid Off 30%” 36:30 – The $450M SoftBank Deal... Then COVID Hit 40:00 – “We Went to $0 in Revenue in 3 Weeks” 42:10 – The Sequoia Tree Mindset: Grow Through Fire 49:30 – What SoftBank's Masa Son Was Really Like in Person 52:00 – How He Thinks About Secondary, Wealth, and Not Losing His Soul 55:30 – “My Worst Hires Came from Listening to VCs Too Much” 58:30 – Angel Investing in Trade Republic and TravelPerk: My Lessons 01:01:00 – Do You Have to Work 7 Days a Week to Win?  

Cem Kansu is the Chief Product Officer at Duolingo, where he leads product strategy for over 90 million monthly active learners. Since joining Duolingo, Cem has played a pivotal role in driving record user engagement, revenue growth, and product innovation, including the launch of Duolingo Math and the wildly successful Duolingo Music. Under his leadership, the company has consistently ranked as the #1 education app globally.  In Today's Episode We Discuss: 04:12 – Cem's Origin Story: From Google Ads to Saving Duolingo's Business 06:45 – “Mini CEO” Myth: Why PMs Need to Ditch the Ego 08:55 – The Truth About Design Speed and Pixel Perfection 11:30 – The INSANE Story Behind Duolingo's Viral Chess Launch 14:42 – Why Smaller Teams Are the Future of Product 17:20 – Duolingo's AI Playbook: How They're Building 10x Faster 20:05 – Will Engineers Even Exist in 5 Years? Cem Gets Real 26:10 – Do AI Tools Have ANY Defensibility? Cem Doesn't Hold Back 29:00 – Why Duolingo Took So Long to Monetize (And What They Learned) 33:05 – Cem on Killing Ads, Tasteful Monetization, and Investor Doubt 38:30 – The Secret to Duolingo's Paywall Strategy (And What Not to Do) 42:05 – Cem's Weirdest Retention Hack? A Single Emoji… 46:25 – The Crazy Science Behind Push Notifications at Duolingo 50:00 – In-App Purchases Done Right: GEMS, Freeze, and the Psychology of Value 53:15 – Why Cem Thinks Daily Retention Is the King Metric 55:10 – The ONE Product Feature That Changed Duolingo Forever 57:45 – Will Duolingo Become the Disney of Gen Z? 01:00:00 – Dating on Duolingo?! Cem Reacts to Harry's Craziest Product Ideas 01:03:45 – Cem's Biggest Product Mistakes — And What He'd Kill Tomorrow 01:12:00 – The One Thing Every PM Must Do to Survive the AI Wave 01:14:00 – Duolingo in 20 Years: Cem's Wildest Vision Yet  

Agenda: 00:00 – Meta's $14.8B Deal for Scale: The Analysis 05:40 – Will Scale Lose Their $800M ARR? Will All Customers Leave? 13:00 – Who is the Winner from All Scale Customers Leaving? 21:30 – Who Made the Most Money From Scale? 24:00 – LPs Just Got $14B Back. Are They Reinvesting? 26:45 – Chime IPO: The Breakdown 29:20 – Ramp Hits $16B Valuation: Are We Back in 2021? 31:10 – Ramp vs Brex vs Mercury: Who's the Real Winner? 34:00 – Gusto Going Public with $900M in ARR??? 36:40 – Dropbox vs Glean: Can the Old Guard Survive the AI Wave? 38:50 – Is Slack Dead as a Platform? Salesforce Shutdown Slack API? 41:15 – Will China Dominate AI? The Bets Are In 43:00 – S&P Prediction, iPhone Assembly in the US, and Rory's Rants Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.  

Larry Aschebrook is the Founder and Managing Partner of G Squared in what is one of the wildest stories of venture capital. Larry started G Squared with nothing, dialling for dollars having personally invested in Twitter and Uber. In his first fund, Larry made sizable bets into SpaceX, Palantir, Alibaba and Twitter. Larry has also had mega losses along the way (discussed in the show) in Getir, 23andme and more. Today, Larry manages over $5BN and has invested in all the best from Wiz to Spotify to Revolut and Anthropic.  Agenda: 00:00 – From Broke to Billion-Dollar Bets 03:40 – The $800M Coursera Windfall 06:10 – Lyft Made Millions, Uber Lost $50M 09:05 – “We Fcked Up”: The Billion-Dollar Vintage 11:50 – How a $150M Spotify Bet Made a Billion 15:10 – The Gut Call That Dodged Theranos 18:00 – Vampires vs Zombies: The Coming Startup Purge 20:30 – When Success Almost Killed the Firm 24:20 – DPI Is King, MOIC Is Bullsht 27:40 – Why I'd Buy Anthropic at $61BN Today 30:05 – Losing $70M on 23andMe 32:10 – The Janitor of Venture Capital 34:00 – The Getir Deal That Nearly Broke Me 36:25 – Does Money Actually Make You Happy? 39:00 – What Cal Ripken Jr. Taught Me About Venture  

Agenda: 00:03 – Circle's IPO: Investors Just Left $BNs on the Table 00:06 – CoreWeave & Circle: Are We Back to Meme Stock Madness? 00:11 – Should Stripe and Databricks Finally Go Public? 00:17 – US Stock Markets: How They DOMINATE the Global Game 00:21 – 50% of Unicorns Are DOOMED. What Happens Now? 00:25 – Founders Fund Just Dropped $1B on Anduril. Why?! 00:29 – What Would You Do If LPs Let You Go Wild? 00:36 – What Missing Out on Millions for Docusign Taught Rory 00:44 – Cursor is 20% of SaaS Spend: The Shocking Data Behind the SaaS Slowdown 00:47 – AI vs. SaaS: The Great Budget War Begins 00:48 – Can AI Take Budget from the Talent Budget or Will It Remain in Software Budgets? 00:56 – SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink: Elon's Empire After the Firestorm Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.  

Micha Kaufman is the Founder and CEO of Fiverr, the leading online marketplace for freelance services. Fiverr has had an insane ride in the public markets, in 2019 the company went public with a $650M market cap, at their peak that hit over $8BN. Today, facing a wave of AI, the company has a market cap of $1.121BN on an estimated $430M EOY revenues. Prior to co-founding Fiverr, Micha successfully founded and led several startups over the last 30 years.  In Today's Episode We Discuss:  00:00 – “Fuck you. It's not my job to make you better.” Micha's viral internal email that sparked a company-wide awakening 05:00 – The real reason Micha thinks Fiverr is vulnerable to AI 07:00 – “Replace 100% of your job with AI”: Micha's challenge to every employee 11:00 – The brutal truth about entitlement in the modern workforce 13:00 – Wake the f*** up: Micha on the crisis of work ethic and ambition 15:00 – “Too many startups, zero value”: Why AI is the new dot-com bubble 17:00 – The time-to-clone has collapsed: Why your startup can be copied in 10 days 21:00 – Why distribution, not code, is the moat that matters now 23:00 – The new game of investing: Why backing “missionaries” is all that counts 25:00 – The seed investment Micha wrote off… that became his biggest win 38:00 – “Being a CEO today is like captaining a ship in a storm” 39:00 – Will governments take control of AI? The Manhattan Project analogy 42:00 – The rise of AI superpowers—and the brutal decline of everyone else 46:00 – The single-person unicorn: Is it real? Micha says yes 47:00 – Why Micha's hiring more engineers—not fewer 48:00 – Marketing is being disrupted faster than engineering. Here's how 54:00 – What cost Micha wants to cut—but can't 56:00 – Why Micha would tell his kid: “Don't go to university” 57:00 – The business Fiverr could have built before OnlyFans—and why they didn't 59:00 – How Micha decides every year whether he should still be CEO 01:00:00 – The ultimate metric: When meaning matters more than happiness  

Matt Pohlson is the co-founder and Chairman of Omaze, the most insane story in startups that you have never heard. From near death experience to working with Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney and The Pope. Omaze has raised over $200 million for charity by offering once-in-a-lifetime experiences with celebrities and icons. He's a master storyteller, a purpose-driven builder, and one of the most creative entrepreneurs in modern philanthropy. In Today's Episode We Discuss: 00:00 — He Died for 4 Minutes… Then Built a $400M Startup 04:00 — The Magic Johnson Moment That Sparked Omaze 06:30 — From $780 to $1.7M: The Breaking Bad Campaign That Changed Everything 09:00 — Star Wars, Schwarzenegger, and Selling Dreams 13:00 — He Flatlined in Surgery… And Everything Changed 18:00 — How Near-Death Killed Fear and Transformed His Leadership 22:00 — Why Fear Isn't Real — And How to Beat It 24:00 — The $250K Bet That Changed Omaze's Business Forever 27:00 — Launching Houses: The Pivot to $100M+ Revenue 34:00 — The Science of Storytelling: Make the Customer the Hero 38:00 — Why TV Still Works: $35M Ad Spend Secrets 45:00 — How They Almost Went Out of Business—Twice 50:00 — The Deck That Saved Omaze Mid-COVID 53:00 — Loneliness, Therapy, and the CEO Mental Game 55:00 — From Self-Doubt to Self-Love: The Hoffman Process 58:00 — How to Lead With Story, Science, and Soul 1:02:00 — Should Omaze Go Public? Matt's Unfiltered Take 1:05:00 — Addiction, Ambition, and Why Fulfillment Can Kill Hunger 1:10:00 — Revenue Per Employee: $7M a Head! 1:15:00 — Matt's 10-Year Vision: Fortune 500. #1 in Charity. Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.