Venture Bros

Aziz & Mo discuss the growing importance and use cases of NFTs and how that blends in perfectly with how metaverses become an extension of human economic behavior. Also, metaverse wars and pandemics are a thing...

Aziz & Mo discuss how markets and startups are responding to the energy crisis, and we discuss nuclear energy with enough detail to wind up on a list somewhere. Hi, Special Agent Stevens!

Aziz & Mo are back from hiatus and discuss everything from Mo's newfound vegetarianism and the origins of biotech. 

Mo dropped out because he got a case of the bubblies after a bad shawarma, so Hussain and Aziz go over the top headlines from the last few days. Yup, new format! If you like it, we'll do it again. If not, Hussain will be executed live on the next episode.

We're joined by Hussain Haji, a serial entrepreneur (a title he hates), to discuss his experience getting 2 exits as a MENA founder, what happens to the middle tier of a MENA VC's portfolio, and we both make Mo laugh hard enough to wet himself while discussing semi-serious topics.

Aziz mansplains stablecoins to Mo, then he explains how crypto regulations are sort of like the UFC in the early days, Mo discusses how he's going to navigate the down market as a founder, and we both discuss whether Do Kwon can be a “war time CEO” like GW Bush was in 2002 (but not exactly)…

Aziz & Mo join Aidan Gold of HyperChange//HyperGuap VC to discuss what VC has become and how it should return to its roots of making moonshot bets on ideas that could change the trajectory of humanity for the better... 

You May Not Know If You're Any Good At This Business For Many Years After You Start, International Startup News & Valuations Don't Necessarily Correlate with the US, & We Go Over Some Of The Many Ways Startups Die

Mo & Aziz Cover The Latest Updates On Musk's Twitter Takeover, We Dive Into Musk's History As CEO Of Tesla & SpaceX, & We Discuss What The Future Looks Like For Twitter With Musk At The Helm

Elon Musk Becomes Twitter's Largest Shareholder, Jeff Bezos Is The Pot Calling The Kettle Black, Opinions On Censorship Aren't Binary But Rather A Spectrum, and Sweeeeeeet Caroliiiiiiiiiine...

Fast May Be The First Domino To Fall After The Insanity Of 2021, Founders Who Were All Talk Suddenly Couldn't Walk The Walk, The Market Kinda Looks Like Its Going To $#!t The Bed, & Some General Macroeconomic News, Opinions, Fear Mongering, Saber Rattling, & Existential Crises

Mo & Aziz Reminisce On Baseball And Perfect Games, We Discuss The Latest On President Biden's Crypto Executive Order, & How The Web3 Community Will React

Corporate Affairs Clashing With Foreign Policy, The New Normal Of Financial "Deplatforming", Startup Autonomy In The Face Of Political Dissent, & How Modern Sanctions Are Toothless Without Tech

War Has Always Incentivized Massive Technological Breakthroughs, How Some Are Trying To Engineer Similar Incentive Structures To Get The Same Results Without Violence, & Inventions You Probably Did Not Know Came From Conflict

Nothing In Startups Works The Way It Did Before The Pandemic, Maintaining Culture Is A Bit Harder When You Can Only Interact Online, How To Build Remote Teams Without Adverse Selection, Inflation Is Always a Monetary Phenomena, & How Founders Should Navigate Price Instability

Mo and Aziz Reminisce On The Early Days Of COVID Contagion In Los Angeles, & We Discuss Our Experiences With VCs Of Different Kinds...

We're joined today by Lloyed Lobo, the founder of Boast.ai. Boast automates the process of claiming R&D tax credits for businesses of all sizes across the United States and Canada. We discuss what it was like to grow up in Kuwait before joining the startup scene in Silicon Valley.

Massive Foreign Rounds In Local Startups Like Lean & Rain Financial, The Region's Laws Start To Modernize, Kuwait's Central Bank Opens The Door To Neo Banks, & What This All Means For Capital Mobility In The Near Future...

We're joined today by Jason Rodrigues, a Partner at Celo leading founder programs focused on expanding the global ecosystem of startups, DApps, developers, and users on the Celo blockchain. We discuss the growing crypto scene in Dubai, the latest in web3 news, and more...

Mo Got COVID, Vitalik Buterin + Elon Musk Formally Support Dogecoin, & The Dogecoin Foundation Releases A "Trailmap" Of Some Pretty Cool Updates For World's Favorite Crypto... Support The Show With $DOGE... DEzWAKVfhZGxQP688DnPbyNYv7fqi6vRx8

Mo & Aziz Continue Going Over Evidence To Suggest The True Identity Of Satoshi Nakamoto Is... Inspired By Evan L. Hatch's Medium Post: https://evanlhatch.medium.com/len-sassaman-and-satoshi-e483c85c2b10

Aidan Fitzpatrick, the founder of Reincubate and a UK tech legend in his own right, joins us to discuss how he got into the UK startup scene and how he first gained notoriety by building one of the first tools to recover lost data on iOS devices. Recognized by Queen Elizabeth II twice, Aidan is a world renowned authority in the mobile forensics space. Check out www.reincubate.com

Craig Wright Claims He Is Satoshi Nakamoto Despite Not Having The Private Keys, Why Founders May Be Better Off Operating Under Pseudonyms As Web3 Progresses, And Mo & I Go Over The Evidence To Suggest That The Real Satoshi Nakamoto Is Actually... All Of Satoshi's Communications: https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/ Evan L. Hatch's Original Medium Post: shorturl.at/tIRW0

Haris Aghadi, the founder of Meddy, is joining us to discuss the company's recent merger with Helium Health and what it means for the future of VC-backed mergers in the MENA and African tech ecosystems.

Tech Was Built By Immigrants Like The Rest Of America's Modern Industries, Losing The Monopoly On Opportunity, COVID Immigration Restrictions Hurt The US Tech Labor Market, & Will The Immigration-Fueled Boom Of 1940-1970 Ever Return?

COVID Drops A Remix And We Get Flashbacks of March 2020, How You Know Whether A Company Is Even Capable Of Executing A Pivot, Survival & Success Can Be The Same Thing When The Crisis Is Bad Enough, & You Don't Know Who Your Friends Are Until The Music Stops... Note: Apologies for the audio issues, Aziz was using Airbnb WiFi at midnight :)

Daniel Koss, of teenage YouTube gamer fame, is joining us to discuss the evolution of the creator economy over the last decade, the implications of free speech, intellectual honesty, and how DAOs & democracies can sometimes suck. This is maybe the most philosophical discussion we've ever had with a guest. Daniel is the founder and CEO of Creable.io, a digital workspace that helps creators and managers manage their entire creator business in one place.

A Tweet Got Some Attention, Not All VC Firms Are Alike, Founders Should Get Friendly With Non-Partners At VCs, Younger Founders Are Free From The Corporate Conditioning That Weighs Down Some Experienced Founders, Aziz Unexpectedly Turns Up In The News, & How Calling Bullsh!t On Some Industry Practices Creates Great Startups

We Discuss The Factors Necessary For The Success Of A "Tech Hub", Timing Is As Much A Factor As Strategy, Theories On How Regions Can Be "Nudged" Towards Progress, The Necessity Of Capital Markets, And How The Motives Behind M&A Are Shifting As Emerging Markets Mature

Gianfranco Filice of OVO Fund is joining us to discuss recent developments from across the world of Fintech, from how monetary policy has reshaped assumptions, to the implications of using sponsor banks, recent inflationary trends, and the psychology of various Fintech business models. He also shares insights on his best investments and biggest misses over the years.

Mo Is Still Horrified Of Driving On Freeways, Ninety Years Ago A Japanese Innovation Accidentally Destroyed The Middle East, MIT Develops Magnets That Turn Science Fiction Into Fact, Politicians Need To Have Skin In The Game, & Automation Is Nothing To Be Feared

Saoud Khalifah of Fakespot is joining us to discuss his journey from how he became a self-taught software savant as a child to moving to the United States to get closer to Silicon Valley to starting Fakespot after getting ripped off on Amazon.

Brandon Drew of SaaS Growth Ventures is joining us to discuss how he went from being a serial founder to joining 500 Startups as an Entrepreneur-In-Residence to starting SaaS Growth Ventures.

WeWork SPAC Attack, Trump's SPAC Becomes A Meme Stock, We Try Really Hard Not To Talk About Inflation & Crypto, David Ogilvy Would Be Amazed By AdTech, & Apple (Allegedly) Doesn't Play By Their Own Rules

The news is depressing, Mo's never heard of a barbershop, Coinbase goes head to head with the SEC, the impending death of the crypto-anarchist culture in the startup world(?!), will non-financial blockchain applications be regulated like DeFi, and you can win $DOGE and/or cash!

TV nostalgia, questioning the value of our college degrees, Facebook goes offline but thankfully doesn't wipe out an emerging economy, regulators are oddly quiet, web3 looks even better, emerging American markets, you can be a VC if you can fog a mirror, and what is a chicken fried egg?!?!

Mutual Combat Between Consenting Adults Should Be Legal, A $90M Dollar Software Bug, Lights Out in China, Nuclear Energy Is Green Energy, Who Needs OJ When You've Got Elizabeth Holmes, & Gender Equality Thanks To Free Market

China bans crypto (again!), valuation wars, dead monetary policy debates revived, bootstrapping vs raising, and Mo's bizarre undying love of Chipotle...