Podcasts about data collective

Het is weer tijd voor een nieuwe Doorzetters! Deze week gaan Ruud en Richard in gesprek met Rik van der Woerdt, CEO van Amsterdam Data Collective.Kunstmatige intelligentie en machine learning. Het klinkt voor veel ondernemers nog erg ver weg, maar diverse toepassingen kunnen nu al voor succes zorgen. Als je tenminste de juiste stappen zet. In deze aflevering kom je alles te weten over kunstmatige intelligentie en wat het bedrijf Amsterdam Data Collective er precies mee doet.Dit en nog veel meer in de nieuwe aflevering van Doorzetters!Want opgeven, is GEEN optie!

Naveen Rao is the cofounder and CEO of MosaicML, a platform that enables you to train and deploy large AI models on your data in your secure environment. They've raised funding from amazing investors such as Lux Capital, Data Collective, and Maverick Ventures. Prior to this, he was the cofounder of Nervana. It got acquired by Intel for $408M. In this episode, we cover a range of topics including: - AI compute workloads - Compute platform for training and inference - How to train your own LLM - Ways to reduce the cost of training AI models - Advantages of training domain specific models - In-context learning - Context windows of LLMs - Moat of AI-infused businesses Naveen's favorite book: The Righteous Mind (Author: Jonathan Haidt) --------Where to find Prateek Joshi: Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com Website: https://prateekj.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

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During the Covid lock down, many people were inspired to use their free time to try new things. Steve Neat, the GM of Alation in EMEA was no exception; he took up cycling. Though of course he was intimately familiar with the strong benefits that the Alation data catalog offers, he had never really experienced these benefits for himself in such a clear-cut way. Listen is as he shares his unique story.   ABOUT STEVE NEAT: A software industry executive and sales leader with over 30 years of experience helping leading global enterprises to maximize the business value of their IT investments and data assets. Successfully assisted high-growth companies like Oracle and Siebel to establish their UK sales operations, transformed the commercial sales organisations at SAP and SAS, and successfully scaled early-stage, VC-backed start-ups like Roambi and Collibra in the EMEA market. Experienced in building and managing direct (enterprise and inside) and indirect sales teams by attracting, motivating and leading some of the best talent in the industry. Operating internationally across all vertical industry sectors, and accomplished in SaaS, Cloud, ERP, CRM, BI, analytics, mobile and data intelligence propositions.   ABOUT ALATION: Alation is the leader in enterprise data intelligence solutions including data search & discovery, data governance, data stewardship, analytics, and digital transformation. Alation's initial offering dominates the data catalog market. Thanks to its powerful Behavioral Analysis Engine, inbuilt collaboration capabilities, and open interfaces, Alation combines machine learning with human insight to successfully tackle even the most demanding challenges in data and metadata management. More than 330 enterprises drive data culture, improve decision making, and realize business outcomes with Alation including AbbVie, American Family Insurance, Cisco, Exelon, Fifth Third Bank, Finnair, Munich Re, NASDAQ, New Balance, Parexel, Pfizer, US Foods, and Vistaprint. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Alation was named to Inc. Magazine's Best Workplaces list and is backed by leading venture capitalists including Blackstone, Costanoa, Data Collective, Dell Technologies, Icon, ISAI Cap, Riverwood, Salesforce, Sanabil, Sapphire, and Snowflake Ventures. For more information, visit alation.com.

Let AI, Embedded in the Alation Product do the Cumbersome Data Discovery Alation is the leader in enterprise data intelligence solutions including data search & discovery, data governance, data stewardship, analytics, and digital transformation. Alation's initial offering dominates the data catalog market. Thanks to its powerful Behavioral Analysis Engine, inbuilt collaboration capabilities, and open interfaces, Alation combines machine learning with human insight to successfully tackle even the most demanding challenges in data and metadata management. More than 330 enterprises drive data culture, improve decision making, and realize business outcomes with Alation including AbbVie, American Family Insurance, Cisco, Exelon, Fifth Third Bank, Finnair, Munich Re, NASDAQ, New Balance, Parexel, Pfizer, US Foods, and Vistaprint. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, Alation was named to Inc. Magazine's Best Workplaces list and is backed by leading venture capitalists including Blackstone, Costanoa, Data Collective, Dell Technologies, Icon, ISAI Cap, Riverwood, Salesforce, Sanabil, Sapphire, and Snowflake Ventures. For more information, visit alation.com. 

Ellen Chisa is Cofounder & CEO of Dark, a programming language, editor, and infrastructure that makes it easy to build backends. Dark is source-available (open-source "adjacent") and raised $4M from investors such as Cervin Ventures, Boldstart (where Ellen now works as a Founder-in-Residence), Data Collective, Harrison Metal, and Xfactor.

Listen now | On today’s show we have Beezer Clarkson, Managing Director of the LP arm of Sapphire Partners where she leads investment in venture funds such as Union Square Ventures, Amplify, and Data Collective. Not only does Beezer have tremendous depth and insight into the world of VC, but she is also someone I am proud to call a friend. I can’t wait to share my conversation with Beezer with you. Get on the email list at ventureunlocked.substack.com

In this episode, Miguel Armaza sits down with Anu Shultes, CEO of LendUp, a mission-driven fintech company focused on expanding access to credit and creating pathways to better financial health. A 25-year veteran of the financial services industry, Anu has a personal mission to lift people out of poverty and infuses her work with her passion for financial inclusion. Anu’s career spans a broad spectrum of roles across subprime credit cards, subprime loans, and prepaid cards. Her significant experience building efficient operational processes and teams to support them has led her to become one of the few female CEOs in fintech. LendUp is backed by a long list of top VCs, including QED, PayPal Ventures, Google Ventures, Y-Combinator, Thomvest, Radicle, Data Collective, Susa Ventures, and many more!

Connie & Alex run through the week's top news stories and then quiz VC Matt Ocko of Data Collective about his early fears about Covid-19 and how startups in his firm's portfolio are attacking the pandemic head-on.Music:1. "Inspired" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3918-inspired)2. "Dream Catcher" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4650-dream-catcher)3. "Blippy Trance" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5759-blippy-trance)4. "Pamgaea" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4193-pamgaea)5. "EDM Detection Mode" by Kevin MacLeod (https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3687-edm-detection-mode)License: CC BY (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Artificial intelligence is on the mind of entrepreneurs and business executives all over the world. And while everyone is talking about it, understanding how and where to actually apply it to your business is quite a different matter. In this episode, Jon Prial talks with Bradford Cross, a founding partner at Data Collective, the world's leading machine learning and big data venture capital fund. Find out how to collect differentiated data and apply AI to it to get big results.

Are we headed for a real-life version of Westworld? In this episode of the Impact Podcast, Jon Prial welcomes Suzanne Gildert, the Founder and CEO of Sanctuary AI, a startup that builds human-like robots called synths, or synthetic humans, complete with human-like bodies and minds. Together, they discuss robots and AI-powered software, and what it will take for them to become a part of business processes. They also cover learning and training AIs.  You'll hear about: What it takes to make an effective AI The right way to train an AI The rise of AI ethics and AI rights Who is Suzanne Gildert? Suzanne is founder and CEO of Sanctuary AI, a company with a mission to create ultra human-like robots — “synths” — that are indistinguishable from us physically, cognitively and emotionally. Sanctuary is structured to explore both cutting edge technology and the ethical issues that arise from creating human-like machines. The company strives to create a micro-society in which synths can develop and be granted a safe haven as they transition into full acceptance by our wider society. Prior to Sanctuary, Suzanne founded Kindred Inc., an artificial intelligence and robotics company. She hand built over 30 robots to demonstrate Kindred's core technology concept of human-robot teleoperation for reinforcement learning. She grew the company to over 50 employees and opened offices in Vancouver, Toronto, and San Mateo. She helped raise over $50 million in venture funding for Kindred from top tier investors including Eclipse, Google Ventures, First Round Capital and Data Collective.

DCVC leads investments in safer fertilizer, fighting deforestation and fighting disease.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ali Ghodsi is the cofounder and CEO of Databricks which accelerates innovation by unifying analytics across data science, data engineering, and the business. The company has raised $500M at a $2.75B valuation from NEA, Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Data Collective, Microsoft, Coatue Management, Green Bay Ventures, and SineWave Ventures to name a few.

Ali Ghodsi is the cofounder and CEO of Databricks which accelerates innovation by unifying analytics across data science, data engineering, and the business. The company has raised $500M at a $2.75B valuation from NEA, Andreessen Horowitz, Battery Ventures, Data Collective, Microsoft, Coatue Management, Green Bay Ventures, and SineWave Ventures to name a few.

Matt Ocko, Managing Partner of Data Collective, invests in deep tech with an algorithmic edge, shares decision-making in difficult markets, building a world-class team, state of Seed in 2019 & taking risks to create a utopian future

Matt Ocko, Managing Partner of Data Collective, invests in deep tech with an algorithmic edge, shares decision-making in difficult markets, building a world-class team, state of Seed in 2019 & taking risks to create a utopian future

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The post E23: “Angel” podcast: Matt Ocko, Managing Partner of Data Collective, invests in deep tech with an algorithmic edge, shares decision-making in difficult markets, building a world-class team, the state of Seed in 2019, being brave & taking risks to create a utopian future appeared first on This Week In Startups.

Gil Elbaz cofounded Applied Semantics which he sold to Google for over $100 Million. Applied Semantics was the creator of Adsense which Google turned into a $15 billion business representing 23% of its total revenue. Elbaz most recently founded Factual which provides accurate and comprehensive data on places and people worldwide. The company has raised over $100 million from investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Felicis, Founder Collective, or Data Collective. 

Gil Elbaz cofounded Applied Semantics which he sold to Google for over $100 Million. Applied Semantics was the creator of Adsense which Google turned into a $15 billion business representing 23% of its total revenue. Elbaz most recently founded Factual which provides accurate and comprehensive data on places and people worldwide. The company has raised over $100 million from investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, Felicis, Founder Collective, or Data Collective. 

Join us as we speak with Ali Tamaseb from Data Collective about research-driven innovation in health and insurtech

On this episode of Health Stories, Erik is joined by James Hardiman (@hardimanjames) and Scott Barclay (@SABarclay) of Data Collective, a deep tech and AI venture fund.Scott and James are live in-studio with Erik to discuss a number of interesting topics around the health space. Scott and James explain what they mean when they say innovation in the last 50 years was driven by the semiconductor but the next 50 years will be driven by biotechnology. The three of them discuss the state of the healthcare in the US and how entrepreneurs and investors can “take a crowbar to the health system.” They discuss the misaligned incentives in the US healthcare system and how payers might be incentivized to pay for preventative care. They mention that the US pays about 18% of GDP for healthcare while still having poorer health outcomes than countries in Northern Europe that pay about 9% of GDP. They explain why they are predicting a contraction in the number of hospitals in the US and why there are double to triple the number of hospitals per capita in the US than there are in a country like Denmark. They also talk about a number of interesting developments in health tech these days, including a company that can verify the integrity of a supply chain by analyzing the microbiome of the resultant products and a company that is using computer vision to detect falls.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

On this episode of Health Stories, Erik is joined by James Hardiman (@hardimanjames) and Scott Barclay (@SABarclay) of Data Collective, a deep tech and AI venture fund.Scott and James are live in-studio with Erik to discuss a number of interesting topics around the health space. Scott and James explain what they mean when they say innovation in the last 50 years was driven by the semiconductor but the next 50 years will be driven by biotechnology. The three of them discuss the state of the healthcare in the US and how entrepreneurs and investors can “take a crowbar to the health system.” They discuss the misaligned incentives in the US healthcare system and how payers might be incentivized to pay for preventative care. They mention that the US pays about 18% of GDP for healthcare while still having poorer health outcomes than countries in Northern Europe that pay about 9% of GDP. They explain why they are predicting a contraction in the number of hospitals in the US and why there are double to triple the number of hospitals per capita in the US than there are in a country like Denmark. They also talk about a number of interesting developments in health tech these days, including a company that can verify the integrity of a supply chain by analyzing the microbiome of the resultant products and a company that is using computer vision to detect falls.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Scott Barclay is a nearly ubiquitous presence around the healthcare IT world, standing at the intersection of technology and health since 2005. He has journeyed down the data stream from CVS to startup whisperer to venture capital investor over the last several years, always searching for ways to combine information and empathy. But it wasn’t […]

Harry Glaser is the Founder & CEO @ Periscope Data, the startup that allows you to transform your business with the fastest, most powerful analytics platform. To date, Periscope have raised over $34m in funding from some of the very best in the business including Bessemer, SV Angel, DFJ, Susa Ventures and Data Collective, just to name a few. With this funding they now serve over 975 customers including Adobe, Flexport, Tinder, NewRelic and more. Prior to founding Periscope, Harry was a Product Manager @ Google. Fun fact about Periscope, it was voted the best small company to work for in 2017.   In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Harry made his way from being a PM at Google to convincing his co-founder Tom to leave his comfortable corporate job in Seattle to chase the startup dream in the valley? Diverse Teams: There a a lot of all white male teams in SaaS, what should they do to create a more diverse, well-rounded team? What is the first step? What is the framework for achieving this hiring ambition? What are the biggest challenges? Where does Harry see founders most often making mistakes in building diverse teams? Data Teams: Why does Harry believe that founding teams must have data professionals within them from Day 1? Why does Harry believe this makes those startups more successful? What are the fundamental benefits? How does this data-centricity change the decision-making of the organisation? What are the core challenges in scaling this data team? Moving Upmarket: Why does Harry believe that it is better to do SMB to enterprise than enterprise to SMB? How does the product fundamentally change when addressing the enterprise market? How does the structure of the team change with the move? How does the messaging of the company alter with the move to a more enterprise focus? 60 Second SaaStr What does Harry know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning? Harry recently tweeted “you don’t choose the kind of CEO you are”, what kind of CEO are you then? A moment in Harry’s life that has served as an inflection point and changed the way he thinks? What can a founder do today to instantly make a better workplace culture? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Harry Glaser

James Hardiman of Data Collective joins Nick to discuss The Deep Tech Debate: Why Invest in a Capital Intensive, Long Time-to-Exit Category?. In this episode, we cover: James' definition of deep tech The segments within the category How this area differs from others Types of founders and founder profiles that he looks for Why he's willing to invest in a capital intensive, long-time horizon category Why deep tech will drive the biggest outcomes How founders are able to de-risk deep tech opportunities where many others don't The waves that are coming in deep tech and finally how some consumer, social companies became deep tech companies by accident.   To listen more, please visit http://fullratchet.net/podcast-episodes/ for all of our other episodes. Also, follow us on twitter @TheFullRatchet for updates and more information.

Florian Leibert is the Founder & CEO @ Mesosphere, the most flexible platform for containerized, data-intensive applications. They are trusted by some of the world's leading companies from Yelp to Yammer to Verizon and have raised over $120m in VC funding from the likes of a16z, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla, Data Collective and then incumbents such as Microsoft and Hewlett Packard. Prior to founding Mesosphere, Florian spent time with Twitter and Airbnb, both as a tech lead and if that was not enough, Florian also has a stellar angel portfolio including the likes of Away, Cockroach Labs, Drift and Buoyant. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Florian came to found Mesosphere? What were the big takeaways for him from his more formative years at Twitter and Airbnb? 2.) Why does Florian believe that sometimes "you should not listen to your investors"? What is the right way to communicate this disagreement to them? What supporting evidence is required to substantiate your thoughts? What method would Florian prefer to receive such feedback? 3.) What are the biggest benefits of having strategics such as Microsoft and Hewlett Packard on the cap table? What are some potential drawbacks? What advice would Florian give to founders contemplating taking strategic investment? When is the right time for these staretgics to insert themselves? 4.) With the scaling of Mesosphere, how have Florian's thoughts and approach to sales execution changed? What have been the core struggles? Why does Florian think it is imperative to build the sales team slowly? 5.) At what point does Florian think that operational efficiency must be front and centre for founders scaling their companies? What has Florian found to be the most challenging personally in achieving such operational efficiency? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Florian’s Fave Book: Alchemist: A Fable about Following Your Dream Florian's Fave Blog: Seeking Alpha As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Florian on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. NatureBox Unlimited snack plans offer all you can eat snacks for one fixed price per employee. Naturebox use simple ingredients you can trust to create bold flavors you can’t find anywhere else. All NatureBox snacks are free from artificial junk and variety is endless with options from sweet or savory to vegan or gluten-free. Simply choose the plan that fits your team’s unique snacking habits and select any of NatureBox’s time-saving add-on’s. And beyond Unlimited snacks, you’ll receive perks such as free kitchen setup, no contracts, a dedicated account manager and more. Simply click here to and use the offer code VC20 to get 20% of your first Naturebox month. Leesa is the Warby Parker or TOMS shoes of the mattress industry. Leesa have done away with the terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating a luxury premium foam mattress that is ordered completely online and ships for free to your doorstep. The 10-inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with 3 unique foam layers for a universal, adaptive feel, including 2 inches of memory foam and 2 inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, design to keep you cool. All Leesa mattresses are 100% US or UK made and for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter. Go to Leesa.com to start the New Year with better nights sleep!

Spenser Skates is the Founder & CEO @ Amplitude, the only analytics solution built for modern product teams that helps you understand user behaviour and ship the right solutions fast. They have raised over 55m in VC funding from many friends of SaaStr and 20VC including Eric Vishria @ Benchmark, Neeraj Agrawal @ Battery Ventures, the teams at IVP, Data Collective, Box Group and SV angel, just to name a few of their incredible investors. Prior to Amplitude, Spenser founded Sonalight, an app that allowed users to text while they drive, backed by the likes of Y Combinator. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How did Spenser make his way into the world of SaaS and come to found Amplitude?   How did Spenser look to build and scale his sales team, as an engineering focussed founder? Where does Spenser see most engineering founders go wrong in their approach to sales? What were the stumbling blocks that Spenser found hard in this learning process? What is his biggest advice to technical founders to scale the learning curve fast? How does Spenser view the importance of a customer’s willingness to pay? Does that suggest a correlated amount of value? How should this propensity to pay, change with the stage of the provider? How does Spenser suggest founders mitigate discounting? What have been Spenser’s core learnings in creating an incentivised sales team? What are the core drivers that yield the behaviour desired? How does Spenser look to align this with engineering teams, traditionally disgruntled with sales’ compensation packages? 60 Second SaaStr What does Spenser know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of Amplitude? What is Spenser’s fave SaaS reading material? How does that vary according to stage of business? How does Spenser view discounting? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Spenser Skates

I talk with Scott Barclay today. Scott is a partner at Data Collective (DCVC), an early-stage fund that makes venture capital investments in data scientists and entrepreneurs working on hard big data problems. We discuss what it takes for an entrepreneur to succeed in the healthcare ecosystem today, including an essential ingredient: Empathy. Data Collective is a $1bn+ venture capital firm focused on early-stage investing in deep tech and data compute, based in Palo Alto and San Francisco but investing globally. Scott focuses on health and data and leads the firm's practice in Computational Care, envisioning and funding the future of special early-stage teams working on hugely ambitious problems in how health care is provided and applied with data and empathy. Current board or investment roles include Karius, Element. AI, Unity Medical, Enzyme, Medical Informatics, Noteworth, SafelyYou, PatientBank, BlueTalon, InnaMed and Subtle Medical. By background, Scott is a serial angel investor and adviser in health and data start-ups. Scott helped create and scale the first massive digital health platform (Surescripts) and served CVS Health as a GM and innovation leader across the company's health care and retail assets. Previous stints include the Boston Consulting Group, starting a capital markets desk in London for Banc of America Securities, and an MBA from Insead. Scott grew up in rural Virginia and worked many summers in a manufacturing plant, and graduated from the University of Virginia where he was militantly liberal arts and math and science.  00:00 What Data Collective is. 01:30 Scott's time as Director of Strategy at Surescripts. 03:45 E-Prescribing. 07:30 Identifying problems and asking why we can't handle those problems differently. 08:05 “There is no innovation without execution.” 09:00 Having empathy for the problem. 10:00 Why this isn't a place for incrementalism. 12:30 “We don't have an Elon Musk of how we provide healthcare.” 15:00 Why we need empathy when solving problems in the provision of care. 16:00 Three business models that work, and where empathy sits in each one. 25:25 Virta Health as an example for modeling successful healthcare provision. 26:30 Carrum Health and Bundled Health Care. 29:40 The problems Scott is ready to see solved and invest in. 30:15 “None of us can see the whole forest and also experienced all of the nooks and crannies of that forest floor.” 33:00 “The lever that we believe in is the spirit of the entrepreneur.” 35:50 You can learn more at dcvc.com or by emailing scott@dcvc.com.

Mat Ellis is the Founder & CEO @ Cloudability, the startup that provides cloud cost efficiency at scale and they have raised close to $40m in VC funding including from our good friends at Foundry Group and Data Collective. As for Mat, prior to Cloudability, Mat held executive positions with four startups, and key technology roles at Frito-Lay, Pepsi Cola and Goldman Sachs and he currently sits on the boards of the Oregon Entrepreneurs Network and the Technology Association of Oregon. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How did Mat make the move from the UK to SaaS startup founder in Portland, Oregon? How has Mat seen elements change within the business when moving through the stages of company growth? What were the challenges when going through these strategic inflection points? At present, many SaaS founders are looking to hire COOs, what does Mat believe about this hire? When is the right time to make the hire? What should one look for in their first COO? How does Mat assess the balance of sustainability and growth? How does Mat balance between this tough line? What are the inherent challenges? What are Mat’s thought on culture maintenance when startup move into hypergrowth? What is core to retain this startup culture with the scaling through stages? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Mat Ellis

Christian Lanng is the Founder & CEO @ Tradeshift, the startup with the vision to transform the way businesses work together. With 250+ people, offices in 9 countries and over $200m in funding from some of the best including Data Collective, HSBC and Intuit, they are likely one of the biggest and best startups you might not have heard of. As for Christian, he is one of the most visionary European entrepreneurs of the last decade having grown from digitising invoices in Denmark when he was at Uni to working on digitizing the EU later. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Christian made his way from Denmark to founding one of the hottest startups in Silicon Valley? 2.) What does Christian mean when saying, "we should be discussing the globalization of technology"? How will we see the evolution of manufacturing over time? What is the bottleneck for automation? 3.) Christian has previously stated that his competitors have 'hostages not customers'. Why does he say this and how does that affect his view of competition and customer service? 4.) Christian has raised over $200m in varying fundraising climates, how did the rounds differ? What were Christian's keys to fundraising success? What does he know now that he wishes he had known in the beginning? 5.) How does Christian approach networking in a very unconventional style? What are the benefits of doing so? What does Christian advise startup founders looking to expand either their founder network or their investor network? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Christian’s Fave Book: The Subtle Art Of Not Giving A Fuck Christian’s Fave Blog: SaaStr As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Christian on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. But before we dive into the show today, there are some products that you simply cannot remember what life was like before them—for me that is x.ai. They bring you Amy and Andrew, the AI-powered personal assistants who schedule meetings for you. The beauty of Amy or Andrew is that you interact with them just like you would any other person, in plain English. You hand over meeting scheduling, and they get the job is done. Which means that you can avoid the tedious hours of email ping pong usually required to schedule a single meeting. Even better though, there is no sign in, no password, nothing to download. All you do is cc amy@x.ai Beautiful! And you can check it out now on https://x.ai/20vc/ It really is a must! Link: https://x.ai/20vc/ Code for your first month free: 20VC Workable is the all-in-one recruiting software for ambitious companies. From posting a job to tracking and managing candidates, Workable provides everything you need to hire better. Transparent communication, organized candidate profiles, structured interviews and a full reporting suite gives hiring teams the information they need to make the best choice. Workable is available for desktop and mobile and you can find out more on workable.com where you can try it for free.

Today’s episode is about new ideas about a very old problem in consumer finance -- high-cost lending to high-risk borrowers. My guest is LendUp CEO Sasha Orloff, who is one of a new generation of fintech founders building alternatives to traditional payday lending. In public policy, there has been a long-standing assumption, sometimes implicit and sometimes explicit, that widespread access to credit -- especially mortgages -- is a good thing. A host of government regulations, programs, and bank supervisory activities aim to promote more credit, because we’ve assumed that wider credit access is, broadly speaking, good. Is it, though? Most people would agree that up to a point, it’s good, and beyond some point, it becomes bad. It definitely becomes bad at the point where the borrower can’t realistically repay the loan. It can also become bad if the pricing is so high that the person ends up worse off for borrowing, instead of better, especially if the borrower doesn’t understand the terms We could do many episodes on the tough issues embedded in this question. One is whether it’s better to have high-cost loan options that are legal and subject to regulation, or to outlaw them, knowing that shutting down legal options will drive some desperate people to use illegal ones, which hurt them even more. Another is the philosophical question of how much the government should protect people from themselves. If the price of a high-cost loan is clear, and borrowers understand it, should the government respect their decision on whether to take it, or substitute its judgment for theirs and remove the option? Again, public policy has been debating these issues for decades --  maybe centuries -- and still is, including through many of the initiatives taken to date by the CFPB. In this podcast, we won’t tackle those questions, but will instead ask a very different one: What if we didn’t need to resolve them? What if, thanks to technology, we could solve the problems surrounding high-cost credit -- or a big chunk of them -- not through regulation, but in the marketplace. LendUp.  Sasha Orloff founded LendUp to provide more affordable credit to the 50% of Americans with credit scores below 680. He had worked at a big bank, and at an NGO in the developing world, and had a brother in the technology world who kept telling him that better software could create better products. He finally founded LendUp, to build them. LendUp offers credit products online -- which means it has, automatically, a lower cost structure than the traditional bank model of branches. As Sasha explains in our discussion, it has also designed its products to offer borrowers a gateway to better credit scores, credit options, and financial health. LendUp is backed by major investors including Y-Combinator, Google Ventures, QED Investors, Startfund, Kleiner Perkins, A16Z seed fund, Thomvest Ventures, Kapor Capital, Bronze Investments, Founders Co-Op, Data Collective, Susa Ventures, and Radicle Impact. Sasha and the firm have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, NYTimes, Financial Times, CNN, NBC, TechCrunch, Venturebeat, Inc, Wired, Bloomberg, Fortune, Dow Jones, American Banker, Marketplace and many others. He has presented at TEDx, and LendUp, and they won Finovate Best In Show. FastCompany named the firm as one of the World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Personal Finance, and it won runner up in Webbys for best website design. They have presented at LendIt, Emerge, Money20/20, The HubSF, NBC News, and Huffington Post Live, and participate in The Clinton Global Initiative on Financial Inclusion. Sasha also serves on the Consumer Lending Advisory Board for TransUnion (one of the three major credit bureaus) A regulatory note.  After Sasha and I recorded this episode, the CFPB announced an enforcement action against LendUp. The order is, among other things, a warning flag for startups about the importance, and the great challenges, of maintaining complete regulatory compliance in the midst of rapid growth. The company has responded with a massive expansion of compliance staff. Following the announcement of consent order last fall, it issued this statement: We started LendUp because the traditional banking system wasn’t working for more than half of Americans. From day one, we’ve committed ourselves to offering better, safer and more transparent credit products and to aligning the success of our business with the success of our customers. We genuinely believed the product features that were identified by the CFPB and the California DBO– like optional expedited funding and a 30 cent per day discount for early repayment—were in the best interests of our customers. But we fell short in the execution and in meeting the expectations of our regulators.  We have since taken action to resolve every issue they’ve raised, including beginning to refund customers prior to entry of the Consent Order and Settlement Agreement. We’ve also made significant investments to build out our legal and compliance operations. In this respect, we are a different company today, with a completely new legal and compliance team that is larger now than our entire company when we started these exams. Importantly, those teams are brought in at the beginning of the development lifecycle for every new product and feature. We are proud of the progress we’ve made to expand access to credit, lower borrowing costs and provide credit-building opportunities to our customers. LendUp has: Graduated more than 20,000 borrowers to the highest rungs of the LendUp Ladder in more than 11 states Saved Californians alone more than $18M in 2016 (and an estimated $40M to date nationwide) Delivered over 800,000 free credit education classes; and Helped LendUp customers improve their credit scores: according to TransUnion data, 66% of LendUp customers showed a credit score increase – more than those in the control group using similar types of products from other lenders. We are eager to keep building on this track record, and look forward to continuing our work to put our customers on paths to better financial health. I have found Sasha to be one of the most thoughtful people in fintech. I think you’ll be fascinated by his overview of the shrinking of the American middle class, the impact of the smartphone revolution; innovation models fort startups versus banks; how making financial education interesting; and how to redesign regulation for the 21st century, The loans at Lendup cost less than traditional payday options, but more than loans to prime customers, because the borrowers are simply higher risk. If lenders can’t charge enough to cover that risk, they won’t serve these customers. If they can, though, and if they can leverage technology to gain efficiency and underwriting accuracy, and if they can enable high-risk borrowers to build and repair credit records, and if they can educate people about managing their finances, and can also make a great return on capital and then truly scale up…. then seemingly unsolvable problems can, maybe, begin to.get solved. More links: Study on LendUp impact on credit scores. LendUp education on credit scores. More for our listeners: I'll hope to see you at "LendIt in New York in February, SXSW in March, FinXTech Summit in April and of course CFSI’s Emerge in June. Remember to review Barefoot Innovation on iTunes, and please sign up to get emails on new podcasts and my newsletter and blog posts at jsbarefoot.com.  My latest post argues for some healthy regulatory disruption as a new administration takes office. Go there too to send in your “buck a show” to keep Barefoot Innovation going. Please also join my Facebook fan page, and follow me on twitter. Support the Podcast And watch for the next podcast, because we’re going to turn to innovation in small business lending. My guest will be Karen Mills, the former Administrator of the SBA and at Harvard Business School, where she has just issued an updated study on small business lending This one is focused mainly on fintech. We had a fascinating conversation. See you then! Subscribe Sign up with your email address to receive news and updates. 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Michael Driscoll is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Metamarkets, the startup that provide interactive analytics for programmatic marketing. They have raised over $38m in VC funding from our good friends at Data Collective, Founder Collective, IA Ventures and more incredible investors. As for Michael, prior to Metamarkets, he started two other companies: Dataspora, a life science analytics company (acquired by Via Science in 2011), and CustomInk.com, an early pioneer in e-commerce. Fun fact: Michael is also a founding Partner of the previously mentioned VC fund, Data Collective. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How did Michael make his way from data lover to Silicon Valley SaaS Founder? Why does Mike believe in the inherent value of customer focus and product focus? What are the measurable benefits of being so specialised? Why does Mike believe it is so hard to be a cost leader in software? What are the fundamental challenges? What role does open source play in this? How does Mike view the alignment of the sales and the engineering team? Is it possible to have a harmonious relationship between the two? What should SaaS startup founders look for in potential seed investors? How can they determine whether they have these qualities? What should they look at in particular? 60 Second SaaStr Mike’s fave productivity tools? What most companies are doing wrong in their approach to data science? What does Mike know now that he wishes he had known at the start? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Michael Driscoll

Balaji Srinivasan is the Founder & CEO @ 21.co, the company that believes for bitcoin to succeed we need to build the full stack infrastructure for bitcoin, from silicon to hardware. 21.co have backing from some of the best in the world including a16z, Peter Thiel, Scott & Cyan Banister, Naval Ravikant and previous guest Data Collective's Matt Ocko. Balaji is also a Board Partner @ a16z, where he has served for the past 3 years. Prior to a16z and 21.co, Balaji was Co-Founder & CTO @ Counsyl, the genomics startup that now tests 4% of all US births and raised $65 in funding. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Balaji made the move from operations to a16z and the back to startups? How did his time in operations affect his investing mentality and vice versa. 2.) Why does Balaji believe that the number 1 barrier for most startups is regulation? Why does Balaji look to the unseen? 3.) With such value being held back by regulation, what is the FDA, FAA, SEC etc holding back? How can that value be unlocked? How can you carve out jurisdictions where you can have early adopters? 4.) How can new products look to gain customer validation through micro testing market segments? What are the requirement to do this successfully? What are the common mistakes 5.) How does Balaji view the future of regulation? How can tech help make regulation faster and more efficient? What are the barriers to it's widespread adoption and implementation? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Balaji's Fave Book: The Sovereign Individual, The Princeton Companion To Mathematics As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Balaji on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Snapchat here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. The Twenty Minute VC is proudly sponsored by Luma, Luma is the world’s first ever Surround WiFi system that brings speed, security and control to the home network. And Unlike traditional routers, Luma comes in a pack of two or three sleek devices to place in different rooms in your home. Luma then creates a mesh network that work together to create an outrageously-fast, ultra-secure Surround WiFi network.  Lastly, Luma’s app lets you easily see and control which devices, users and content are on your network. To buy your Luma, simply dead to getluma.com or amazon.com. So many problems start with your head: stress, depression, anxiety, fear of the future. What if there was some kind of exercise you could do, that would help you get your head in shape. That’s where the Headspace app comes in. Headspace is meditation made simple. The Headspace app provides guided meditations you can use whenever you want, wherever you want, on your phone, computer or tablet. They have sessions focused on everything from dealing with stress and depression, to helping you eat more mindfully. So download the Headspace app and start your journey towards a happier, healthier life. Learn more at headspace.com/20vc. That’s headspace.com/20vc.

Josh Reeves is the Founder and CEO @ Gusto. Gusto reimagines payroll, benefits, HR, and personal finance and it is this reimagination that has led to their recent addition to the unicorn club with investors including Google Capital, Kleiner Perkins, Data Collective and General Catalyst, just to name a few. As for Josh, he was selected for the 2012 Forbes 30 Under 30 list. Prior to co-founding Gusto, he was the CEO and co-founder of Unwrap, a SaaS startup which was acquired in 2010, and he began his career as an early employee at Zazzle. I would also like to give a big hand to Jason Lemkin and Phil Libin for the intro to Josh today. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: HR and Payroll is not sexy so how did Josh make his way into the industry and what was the a-ha moment for Gusto? Josh has said before ‘he lives and breathes how a company is built.’ How has Josh looked to grow and develop his own internal organisation at Gusto? How does this vary with stage? Josh has hired over 300 people at Gusto, how does he approach the interview process? What is the right way for employers to approach the ‘making offers’ stage? How important does Josh feel it is to have an ownership culture and internal entrepreneurialism? How can this environment be fostered and developed? 60 Second SaaStr How employers can ensure new employees have an amazing first day? What does Josh know now that he wishes he had known when he started? The biggest mistake SaaS companies make with their HR and payroll organisation? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Josh Reeves

Chad Arimura is the Founder & CEO @ Iron.io, where he drives the team to build the world's best cloud infrastructure services. Now they do have some pretty sizeable clients including the likes of Google, Zenefits, Twitter, Whole Foods and they have the backing from the likes of Steve Anderson’s Baseline Ventures, Bain Capital, Matt Ocko from Data Collective and our friends at Sapphire Ventures just to name a few and Prior to co-founding Iron.io, Chad was CIO and founder of AllDorm Inc., a collegiate media and marketing company that provided fundraisers and viral marketing campaigns for clients such as Volkswagen, Domino's Pizza, and Visa. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Chad came to found Iron.io ? With a complex product like Iron, how much of a role does education play in the onboarding process for prospective new clients? To what extent does content marketing play the dominant marketing function for Iron both in terms of educating customers and converting potential customers? How does Chad view the balance of much larger ACV clients with long sales cycles compared to SME’s with smaller ticket sizes and shorter sales cycles? What are the challenges when selling to large corporates and CIO’s in the traditional corporates? 60 Second SaaStr What does Chad know now that he wish he had known at the beginning? What is Chad’s favourite reading material? How does Chad deal with stress as a Founder & CEO? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Chad Arimura