Podcasts about Initialized Capital

This week, we're re-releasing Erik Torenberg's interview with Alexis Ohanian. Alexis discusses his journey from co-founding Reddit to creating the venture firm Seven Seven Six, detailing its unique approach of using software to enhance venture capital operations and founder support, transparency, and accountability — 

In the heart of a quiet French village, a young girl stared at the night sky, dreaming of the stars and the mysteries of space. That girl, Eloa Guillotin, would grow up to co-found Beyond Aero, a groundbreaking company building hydrogen-electric planes, redefining the future of aviation. Beyond Aero has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Bpifrance, Y Combinator, Initialized Capital, and Female Funders Found.

Alexis Ohanian is the General Partner and Founder of Seven Seven Six, an early-stage venture capital firm with $1 billion under management that he describes as a technology company that deploys venture capital. Alexis was the co-founder of Reddit, one of the most popular online forums in the world, which he sold 18 months after its 2005 launch for $10 million and returned as Executive Chair in 2014 to help lead the turnaround of the business. In between and since, he has invested in early-stage ventures as a partner at Y Combinator, a co-founder of Initialized Capital, and most recently founder of 776. Despite his success in entrepreneurship and investing, Alexis is most well known in the world at large as the husband of tennis star Serena Williams. Our conversation covers Alexis' initial ride at Reddit, taste of early-stage venture capital, and return to Reddit to scale the business alongside the challenges of managing a modern social media platform. We then turn to his investing as a technology company, including Cerebro – 776's transparent operating system, thematic ideas, traits of successful founders, social media engagement, investments in women's sports, and lessons learned from his wife Serena.   Learn More Follow Ted on Twitter at @tseides or LinkedIn Subscribe to the mailing list Access Transcript with Premium Membership

Brett Gibson is the Managing Partner at Initialized Capital (https://initialized.com). Initialized Capital is an early-stage venture firm that champions some of today's most inspired and obsessive builders and thinkers, with 27+ unicorns (like Coinbase, Instacart, & Flexport), $3.2b in assets under management, and 175+ portfolio companies. In this episode we discuss Brett's fascinating journey from software engineer to early YC founder to Managing Partner at Initialized Capital, the investment thesis for crypto at Initialized, what's most exciting these days across the crypto landscape from Brett's unique vantage point, how to interpret the present moment in crypto, his most generalizable advice for crypto founders (from an investor perspective), and much, much more.Recorded Tuesday December 12, 2023.

Garry Tan is president and CEO of Y Combinator, which funds hundreds of companies per year through a web-based application. Tan is also the co-founder, board partner and advisor of Initialized Capital, an early stage venture capital fund, and co-founded Posterous, a blog platform acquired by Twitter. In this presentation, Tan shares advice and insights for aspiring entrepreneurs and startup founders that challenges prevailing wisdom.

President and CEO of YCombinator Garry Tan sits down with Tyler & Sterling and recounts his time as an early hire at Palantir, starting his company Posterous and becoming an investor of dozens of well-known startups. The companies Garry has worked with are worth a combined $226 billion.Garry gives valuable advice on cofounder dynamics, doing your inner work, and startup strategies for both Investors & Operators.Chapters:00:00 Intro05:55 Garry's $200 Million Mistake13:00 Why Posterous Stopped Growing14:30 Why You Should Pay Attention To The Competition 21:10 A Healthy Cofounder Relationship Means Having Conflict 29:38 Adverse Childhood Experiences & Why You Should Heal Them32:45 A 'B' is an 'F' in Startups37:07 Users Lie To You Until They Are Paying For Something43:40 Culture Radiates From The Founder49:30 Startups Fail Because They Build Something People Don't Want54:30 Why SF Is The Best Place to Find PMF1:03:45 Tyler & Sterling's Takeaways Connect with Garry:YT: https://www.youtube.com/@GarryTanLI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garrytanX: https://twitter.com/garrytanMore on Garry: Current President and CEO of YC, Garry was a partner at Y Combinator from 2011 to 2015, where he built key parts of the YC experience for founders including Bookface and the Demo Day website. Garry is the co-founder of Initialized Capital and Posterous (YC S08), a blog platform acquired by Twitter, and prior to that, he was an early designer and engineering manager at Palantir (NYSE:PLTR), where he designed the company logo. Garry holds a BS in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford.

Simone Charley is one of the top strikers in the NWSL and a key piece in the Angel FC rotation. She scores goals on the pitch, but is ideating on ways to create value off of it. Angel FC has a laundry list of some incredible investors, such as Christina Aguilera, Natalie Portman, Alexis Ohanian, Becky G, Lauren Cheney Holiday, Initialized Capital and more. So we figured why not create a startup to pitch them? Simone and I sit down for 20 minutes to construct an early product ready to disrupt the sports media industry. 0:00- Intro 1:33- Simone's physical rehab progress and Angel FC season update 3:25- Let's build a startup 4:30- Getting started 6:20- Broadcasting company 9:58- The product 13:48- Pricing 15:35- Finding the right target audience 18:19- The title of our startup.... 21:53- Outro --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/a--and--a/support

In the latest episode of The Hiring Enablement Podcast, we are joined by Kat Steinmetz, Partner at Initialized Capital to dive deep into culture and leadership in the start-up world.With a diverse background in Human Resources, Talent Development, and now in the Venture Capital field, Kat brings valuable insights into the role that HR and leaders play in shaping a company from the ground up. Tune in as Kat sits down with Solutions Driven's Chief Growth Officer, Nicki Paterson, to talk about:   The importance of embedding diversity in businesses as early as possible Why structure is freeing when done right The power of a compelling narrative backed with data  Creating a sense of accountability through kindness and compassion How awareness in leaders help shape a company's culture The similarity of hiring an executive and investing in a founder Plus Kat's advice to start-up leadership groups And much much more!

In the immortal words of Andy Grove, “Training is one of the highest leverage activities a manager can perform.”  WorkRamp is the learning cloud for leading B2B companies such as Box, Lattice, Loom, and Intercom. The company has raised almost $70M across multiple rounds from top VCs and angels including Jack Altman, Elad Gil, Initialized Capital, Y-Combinator, and Susa Ventures to name a few.  I absolutely loved this conversation with WorkRamp's founder and CEO, Ted Blosser, and have no doubt that you will walk away with a ton of actionable ideas.  Topics covered include:  How the company struggled with PMF early on and how they overcame it The importance of vision and the framework he learned from the CEO of Cisco How the best SaaS businesses leverage customer education for acquisition, activation and retention Why “being 10x better” is terrible advice for startups How to break into an existing market and compete against incumbents Why it's so important in this economy for everyone in the company to be a seller  How AI is poised to change education (in a corporate setting and for children) Chapters: 00:00 Intro 02:42 What is WorkRamp? 03:45 WorkRamp in numbers 04:51 Struggling with PMF 06:26 Finding PMF 10:03 Grand Vision 12:49 What did your background have to do with founding WorkRamp? 15:09 The founding story 16:33 Advice on entering an incumbent category 19:13 Selling strategy 21:40 Onboarding switching clients 24:45 How do customers use the LMS? 29:37 WorkRamp growth channels 34:09 Finding PMF multiple times 37:24 New products 38:13 Employee learning categories 40:20 How do founders leverage enablement training? 43:30 How is AI changing the educational space? 46:27 Lightning round Guest Contact Info: WorkRamp linkedin.com/tedblosser Learn Podcast Sponsor:  This podcast is brought to you by ⁠grwth.co⁠. Grwth offers fractional CMOs, paired with best-in-class digital marketing execution to support early-stage startup success. With a focus on seed and series A companies, Grwth has helped a number of SaaS, digital health, and e-commerce startups build their go-to-market function and scale up. To learn more and book a free consultation, go to ⁠grwth.co⁠. Get in touch with Mosheh: ⁠linkedin.com/in/moshehp ⁠⁠twitter.com/MoshehP ⁠⁠hello@pmfpod.com⁠⁠www.pmfpod.com

In this episode of High Bit, Aaron discusses the challenges of hiring a team to build an infrastructure-as-a-service platform for blockchain networks. When Aaron and his cofounder Joe Lallouz first created Bison Trails, they initially faced challenges running nodes and infrastructure for different networks. They found that by investing in tests early on and improving automation capabilities, they could streamline operations. Coinbase eventually acquired Bison Trails in January 2021. For more info on High Bit, and to listen to all of the other episodes, visit: www.Initialized.com/HighBit Topics: 2:28 Aaron's Background and How He Became an Engineer 5:21 Building Grand St. and Selling the Company to Etsy 10:55 The Early Days of Building Bison Trails 16:21 Building the Early Team of Infrastructure Engineers with Blockchain Experience 19:53 Slashing: The Penalties Imposed on Validators in Blockchain Networks for Misbehavior 27:07 What Bison Trails Taught Aaron About Building Large Organizations 33:28 Aaron on Lessons He Learned While Hiring the Bison Trails Team 38:00 Life After Bison Trails and Coinbase. What's Next for Aaron Henshaw? High Bit is a new podcast hosted by Initialized Capital managing partner Brett Gibson about the art of technical problem-solving. A high bit is the most significant part of the binary representation of a number. In programming language, it is commonly referred to as the most important thing you need to understand about a problem. We spoke with our first four guests about just that. In each episode, we'll break down a gnarly engineering problem and hear how the builder's ingenuity and inventiveness led to a successful outcome. High Bit is produced by Initialized Capital and hosted by Brett Gibson. Our showrunner is Candy Cheng. Episodes were shot and edited by Jordan Berns. Production support by Kevin Heinz and BTB Video Production.

In this episode of High Bit, Jose walks us through the challenges of troubleshooting a complex problem encountered during the pre-launch testing of a space-bound asteroid mining refinery. Using a real-life example, he illustrates the application of a fishbone diagram and the necessity of methodical problem-solving, even under extreme time pressure. Topics: 1:41 What is AstroForge? 7:13 How Jose Met His Cofounder Matt Gialich 13:18 Using a Fishbone Diagram to Find the Root Cause of a Problem 15:01 The "Holy Shit" Moment When a Launch Does Not Go According to Plan 20:37 Validating All the Points of Failure to Get to a Solution 26:25 Lessons Learned from Working Under Time Pressure High Bit is a new podcast hosted by Initialized Capital managing partner Brett Gibson about the art of technical problem-solving. A high bit is the most significant part of the binary representation of a number. In programming language, it is commonly referred to as the most important thing you need to understand about a problem. We spoke with our first four guests about just that. In each episode, we'll break down a gnarly engineering problem and hear how the builder's ingenuity and inventiveness led to a successful outcome. High Bit is produced by Initialized Capital and hosted by Brett Gibson. Our showrunner is Candy Cheng. Episodes were shot and edited by Jordan Berns. Production support by Kevin Heinz and BTB Video Production.

In this episode of High Bit, Ethan reveals the unique challenges of building a reliable and global crypto trading platform. “There's no downtime because crypto trades 24/7,” he said. “So in that way, it's a lot more like Google than the New York Stock Exchanges.” Ethan also shared the art of balancing safety and speed in product development. “You need to adapt, and you need to change up your workflow as the market changes. We want to wrap that whole messy ecosystem in a layer that allows institutions to interact with crypto just like they would any other asset class.” Topics: 02:26 From Broadway Technology to Talos 06:23 Crypto Trading is "More Like Google Than NYSE" 11:46 Examining the Various Failure Scenarios of Trading Crypto 15:56 The Importance of Getting Details Correct in Making a Successful Trading System Work 21:35 Client Communication as Part of the Engineering Effort 25:05 Building Safety Features into the Product 29:30 Adaptability Around Messiness High Bit is a new podcast hosted by Initialized Capital managing partner Brett Gibson about the art of technical problem-solving. A high bit is the most significant part of the binary representation of a number. In programming language, it is commonly referred to as the most important thing you need to understand about a problem. We spoke with our first four guests about just that. In each episode, we'll break down a gnarly engineering problem and hear how the builder's ingenuity and inventiveness led to a successful outcome. High Bit is produced by Initialized Capital and hosted by Brett Gibson. Our showrunner is Candy Cheng. Episodes were shot and edited by Jordan Berns. Production support by Kevin Heinz and BTB Video Production.

In this episode of High Bit, Renuka shares the evolution of Clockwork's AI-powered nail-painting robot. She shares her insights into safe AI utilization and how she adopted software engineering principles into the hardware process. Topics: 1:56: Renuka's Background as a Systems Engineer at Nvidia 5:27: Using an Off-The-Shelf AI Model to Create the First Version of Clockwork 10:06: Discovering Pointillism in Nail Painting 14:46: Using AI in Safe Ways 18:29: A Very Humbling Lesson for a Software Engineer 22:55: Making Nail Painting as Easy as Grabbing a Cup of Coffee High Bit is a new podcast hosted by Initialized Capital managing partner Brett Gibson about the art of technical problem-solving. A high bit is the most significant part of the binary representation of a number. In programming language, it is commonly referred to as the most important thing you need to understand about a problem. We spoke with our first four guests about just that. In each episode, we'll break down a gnarly engineering problem and hear how the builder's ingenuity and inventiveness led to a successful outcome. High Bit is produced by Initialized Capital and hosted by Brett Gibson. Our showrunner is Candy Cheng. Episodes were shot and edited by Jordan Berns. Production support by Kevin Heinz and BTB Video Production.

Michael Feng is the Co-Founder @ Hummingbot (https://hummingbot.org/). Backed by Initialized Capital, Slow Ventures, & more, Hummingbot is open source software that helps you build high-frequency crypto trading bots that specialize in market making and arbitrage strategies. They average $100M+ 24H volume, have 1M+ all-time downloads, and support 13+ HFT strategies. In this episode we dive deep on recently decentralizing their operations to HBOT token holders, why they restructured as a not-for-profit organization, the key differences between TradFi and crypto markets for traders, & much more.Recorded Tuesday May 30th, 2023.

“If there's one thing you can get very, very good at, especially in L&D or maybe areas where it's not a direct sales, right? I'm like, okay, what have you done for me lately? Kind of thing. What is the ROI here? You've got to be incredibly good at your storytelling. So you've got to paint the picture for people. You've got to enroll them. They need to become champions for you. Here's what we're doing. Here's why this is important. Here's how you're gonna be involved. This is how I'm gonna enroll you. This is how you're gonna influence your amazing people that you've taken this time to hire, right? And this is what's going to happen from those programs, and this is where we're going, and this is what the roadmap is. So you've gotta become an incredible marketer.”During the episode, you'll hear about Kat's experiences with: Stitch Fix and Box and how her love for music and Burning Man helped her thrive. The secret sauce for hiring and developing exceptional talent and building community within an organization. What it takes to maintain a unique culture when companies go public.Join us for this exciting episode to gain insights and inspiration from a true innovator in the startup space.

Kat Steinmetz (Principal, Initialized Capital) joined us on The Modern People Leader. We talked about the HR skills that are useful as a VC and why more people from HR should make the jump into VC. Timestamps:   (1:12) Good news stories (6:22) At one point Kat was a touring musician, makeup artist, and HR leader all at the same time (16:00) Being a “multi-potentialite” (21:20) Why we should be jealous she gets to work at Initialized Capital (24:40) Figuring out she was a good fit for VC (31:09) The HR skills that have been useful as a VC (33:30) Why more people from HR should go into VC (39:00) The biggest people challenges at her portfolio companies (40:50) Getting through the frozen budget of HR (45:06) The hiring frenzy that led to recent layoffs (49:07) Evaluating deals from a people lens (53:30) The leadership team's culture is the company's culture (58:28) Rapid fire questions Subscribe to the MPL Weekly Digest: https://forms.gle/qdt6YaWULfoEHb6n8 Follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-modern-people-leader

This episode of Dear Asian Americans is brought to you by Toyota.As the proud partner of those who dare to dream, Toyota wants the stories of these Asian American Dreamers to stretch beyond the page. They must be seen, heard, and most importantly, supported. We hope these narratives will inspire you to chase your own Asian American Dream.Learn more about Toyota at toyotausa.com.#ToyotaDayOneGarry Tan joins Dear Asian Americans for the Asian American Dreamers Series brought to you by Toyota. Listen in as Jerry and Garry talk about growing up in the Bay Area during the rise of Silicon Valley, his journey from Initialized Capital to Y Combinator, and what the Asian American dream means to them.Connect with Garry on LinkedIn, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter.// Support Dear Asian Americans:Merch: https://www.bonfire.com/store/dearasianamericans/Buy Me a Coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/jerrywonSubscribe to the Newsletter: https://subscribepage.io/daanewsletterLearn more about DAA Creator and Host Jerry Won:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerrywon/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jerryjwon/// Listen to Dear Asian Americans on all major platforms:Transistor.fm: http://www.dearasianamericans.comApple: https://apple.dearasianamericans.comSpotify: https://spotify.dearasianamericans.comStitcher: https://stitcher.dearasianamericans.comGoogle: https://google.dearasianamericans.com  Follow us on Instagram:  http://www.instagram.com/dearasianamericans Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dearasianamericans Subscribe to our YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/dearasianamericans // Join the Asian Podcast Network:Web: https://asianpodcastnetwork.com/Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/asianpodcastnetwork/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/asianpodcastnetwork/Dear Asian Americans is produced by Just Like Media:Web: http://www.justlikemedia.comInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/justlikemedia

Ahmed Elsamadisi built the data infrastructure at WeWork before realizing every company could benefit from his team's innovation. Traditional star schemas aren't the best way to manage data. Ahmed instead pioneered a new approach using a single-table column model better suited for real questions people ask. He launched Narrator in 2017 to make it easier to turn data questions into answers and has since raised $6.2M from Initialized Capital, Flybridge Capital Partners, and Y Combinator. Ahmed received his BS in Robotics from Cornell. Hear from a pioneer (and tech provocateur) how new data wrangling techniques are making it easier for mere mortals to get more value out of their data.Listen and learn…How a roboticist who got his start building self-driving cars and designing missile defense systems ended up redefining how data is storedWhy traditional approaches that require SQL to access data are brokenHow a single-column schema eliminates the complexity of joining systems and tablesWhy it's easier to tell better stories with data using temporal relationships extracted from customer journeysWhy Snowflake, Redshift, and BigQuery are really all the same… and data modeling is the place to innovate What it means to replace traditional tables with activities… and why they'll eliminate the need for specialized data analysts How to reduce data storage costs by 90% and time to generate data insights from weeks to minutes Why data management vendors are responsible for bad decisions made using your data What is data cleaning and how you should do it What is a racist algorithm Why querying data with natural language will never work Is the WeCrashed version of Adam Neumann's neuroticism accurate? Hear from someone who lived it... References in this episode:Google's LaMDA isn't sentientChandra Khatri from Got It AI on AI and the Future of Work Derek Steer from Mode on AI and the Future of Work Barr Moses from Monte Carlo on AI and the Future of Work Peter Fishman from Mozart Data on AI and the Future of Work Ahmed on Twitter 

This week, Nihal wraps up an earlier conversation with Jacqueline Blackburn of Scout Ventures. Then, in our main interview, he talks to Initialized Capital partner Parul Singh about how a web3 could change disease research and science more generally.

Our latest guest on CLIMB by VSC, is Katelin Holloway, an investor and founding partner of the venture capital firm Seven Seven Six. Prior to becoming a founding partner alongside Alexis Ohanian, Katelin was the former head of people and culture at Reddit, and an investor at Initialized Capital. At Seven Seven Six, Katelin is focused on helping her companies build inclusive company cultures, working with founders to make that a part of each startup from day one. In this episode we discuss: (0:01) Introduction to Katelin Holloway and her experience spanning companies like Pixar and Reddit before founding Seven Seven Six (5:32) How did Seven Seven Six decide upon their areas or categories of investment interest? (8:23) What kind of ClimateTech companies or categories is Katelin and Seven Seven Six is drawn to invest in? (12:05) Can consumers have an impact on climate change? Are consumer-centric solutions investable within climate innovation? (15:14) Katelin shares what excited her about DroneSeed, her climate investment (18:06) Key differences when building in climate tech startups vs. those in general tech (22:46) What CEOs and founders can do to make sure their companies don't have a clashes between 'climate' and 'tech' within their company (25:46) What are some pitfalls or mistakes Katelin sees from founders building in Climate Tech? (29:06) What stands out to Katelin about a climate tech founder? What makes a successful climate tech founder? (32:38) What Katelin thinks about VCs hesitance to back companies that work with governments (or with long sales cycles)? (36:11) Katelin shares the story behind Seven Seven Six Fellowship and the climate initiative led by Elizabeth Garvin (38:35) Advice to young people and young professionals who are interested in climate innovation? (41:05) Final thoughts & key takeaways from our episode today About VSC Ventures: For 20 years, our award-winning PR agency VSC has worked with innovative startups on positioning, messaging, and awareness and we are bringing that same expertise to help climate startups with storytelling and narrative building. Last year, general partners Vijay Chattha and Jay Kapoor raised a $21M fund to co-invest in the most promising startups alongside leading climate funds. Through the conversations on our show CLIMB by VSC, we're excited to share what we're doing at VSC and VSC Ventures on climate innovation with companies like Ample, Actual, Sesame Solar, Synop, Vibrant Planet, and Zume among many others.

I'm taking a few weeks off to go climb some mountains on my bike. In the meantime, I'll be doing reruns of some of my Panic with Friends favorites, like this one with Garry Tan. This episode aired back in September of 21. If you missed it when it first came out, now is a good time to catch up. I think you'll really enjoy it.  Garry is a unique individual I've only met a couple of times. He says he's a fan of the show, so he knows how to sell. His resume is bananas – something we love on Panic with Friends; they may not be famous to everyone, but they're famous to me! Garry is a Stanford Graduate, was at Y Combinator in the heyday, and was partners with Alexis Ohanian (founder of Reddit). If that weren't enough, Garry was a seed investor in Coinbase. Oh, and Garry's now part of my go-to list on the crypto space along with Fred Wilson and Chris Dixon.  Guest - Garry Tan, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Initialized Capital  howardlindzon.com, initialized.com, youtube.com/garrytan  Twitter: @howardlindzon, @garrytan, @PanicwFriends, @knutjensen  youtube.com/garrytan  linkedin.com/in/garrytan  #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance  Show Notes: Introduction (00:56) Welcome Garry (04:28) Best place to start a company (04:53) Early life in the Bay area (07:01) First ‘business' (08:00) Achieving the American Dream (09:07) Garry's first startup (10:58) Balance in a world of endless opportunity (17:30) Launching Initialized (18:42) Panic about Y Cominator (19:58) Work on hard, valuable and fun stuff (20:45) VC at $1 trillion in a decade (24:42) Lean startup / Fat startup (27:35) Crypto ups and downs (28:36) Seed round investing (31:28) Software runs the world (33:58) Transitioning the non-digital natives (35:18) Obscure industries drive the economy (35:56) Building a media platform (39:52) How Garry stays up to date (42:52) Sky NIMBy's (44:26) Closing thoughts (49:25) Wrapping up (54:18) 

“What can I do?” This is the question I get most often.  It's the question that early on pivoted our newsletter and then this podcast towards measurable action steps that help you feel better and drive systemic change. I don't have anywhere near all the answers to basically anything, so I usually answer people with “What CAN you do?”…to stall for time, but also to open up the conversation. Because the answer to what CAN you do is usually best found at the intersection of your interests or passions or skills, and the eleventy billion problems and opportunities we have before us. And so, almost a hundred and fifty published conversations later and ten times as many offline, some of my favorites remain talking to young people about their lived experiences and how they're directing it towards a problem and solution, towards a radically better world, however ambitious and however much I am a moron and don't understand the basic science behind it. But on the other hand, somebody's gotta support these folks. And so those of us with privilege, with a mic or a checkbook or both have to – at the very least – step up and ask a slightly different version of that question, which is: “How can I help?” My guests today are Lissie Garvin and Laura Stieghorst. Lissie is the Foundation and Fellowship Director at the new 776 Foundation, the philanthropic arm of the venture capital firm with the same name, both founded by Alexis Ohanian. Lissie helped run Reddit, was chief of staff at Initialized Capital, working alongside Alexis, and holds the same role as a co-founder at 776 the firm. Laura Stieghorst is one of the first 776 Fellows. She is the co-founder and CEO at BASICO2, where they are working to understand how we can safely rebalance ocean chemistry using natural mechanisms to remove CO2 from the ocean and restore coral reefs. No biggie, right? Combined, these two humans are a shining example of humanity's young people, our most affected, our most ambitious, doing hard things. Because we have to, because they want to, because, in the end, some of these things might be possible, and might change the world. ----------- Have feedback or questions? http://www.twitter.com/importantnotimp (Tweet us), or send a message to questions@importantnotimportant.com New here? Get started with our fan favorite episodes at http://podcast.importantnotimportant.com/ (podcast.importantnotimportant.com). ----------- INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/a/8952/9780812975598 (The Wild Trees) by Richard Preston https://bookshop.org/a/8952/9781623172480 (Climate: A New Story )by Charles Eisenstein https://bookshop.org/a/8952/9780674241282 (Lessons from Plants) by Beronda L. Montgomery Find all of our guest recommendations at the INI Book Club: https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club (https://bookshop.org/lists/important-not-important-book-club) Links: Follow https://twitter.com/garvinlissie?lang=en (Lissie) and the https://twitter.com/776Foundation (776 Foundation) on Twitter Follow https://twitter.com/laura8fl1?lang=en (Laura )and https://twitter.com/BASI_CO2 (BASICO2) on Twitter https://www.gofundme.com/f/basico2 (Donate) to BASICO2 https://www.776.org/ (Apply) to the 776 Fellowship Program Follow us: Subscribe to our newsletter at http://newsletter.importantnotimportant.com/ (newsletter.importantnotimportant.com) Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/ImportantNotImp (twitter.com/ImportantNotImp) Follow Quinn: http://twitter.com/quinnemmett (twitter.com/quinnemmett) Edited by https://anthonyluciani.com (Anthony Luciani) Produced by https://www.linkedin.com/in/willow-beck-074070122/ (Willow Beck) Intro/outro by Tim Blane: http://timblane.com/ (timblane.com) Artwork by https://amritpaldesign.com/ (Amrit Pal)

Retaining talent is a superpower for successful companies and creating environments that support employees is often the foundation of retention. Our guest today is Cameron Yarbrough, Co-Founder and CEO of Torch, a platform that helps companies build professional growth through the power of trusted relationships. We are big believers in coaching and mentorship and Torch has really caught our eye with how they are able to measure ROI on these traditionally difficult-to-measure relationships. We also talk to Cameron about Torch’s recent $40 million Series C financing round right before the market downturn.About Cameron Yarbrough:Cameron is Co-Founder and CEO at Torch Leadership Labs, a leadership development company built on principles of psychology and management best practices. Prior to Torch, Cameron worked at the Stanford Graduate Business School as a facilitator to MBA students in Interpersonal Dynamics. He has a Masters in Counselling Psychology and a clinical background. He also was a CEO and founder of an e-commerce in the first dot-com wave in 1997.A word from our sponsor:At Ripple, we manage all of our fund expenses and employee credit cards using Jeeves. The team at Jeeves helped get me and my team setup with physical and virtual credit cards in days. I was able to allow my teammates to expense items in multiple currencies allowing them to pay for anything, anywhere at anytime. We weren’t asked for any personal guarantees or to pay any setup or monthly SaaS fees.Not only does Jeeves save us time, but they also give us up to 3% cash back on our purchases including expenses like Google, Facebook or AWS every month. The best part is Jeeves puts up the cash, and you settle up once every 30 days in any currency you want, unlike some other corporate card companies that make you pre-pay every month. Jeeves also recently launched its Jeeves Growth and Working Capital initiative for startups and fast-growing companies to enable more financial freedom for companies. The best thing of all is that Jeeves is live in  24 countries including Canada, US and many other countries around the world.Jeeves truly offers the best all-in-one expense management corporate card program for all startups especially the ones at Ripple and we at Tank Talks could not be more excited to officially partner with them. Listeners of Tank Talks can get set up with a demo of Jeeves today and take advantage of our Tank Talks special with a‍ $250 statement credit after the first $2,500 in spend or a $500 statement credit after the first $5000 in spend. Lastly, all Jeeves cardholders receive access to their Lounge Pass program and access to over 1300 airports globally.Visit tryjeeves.com/tanktalks to learn more.In this episode we discuss:02:47 How Cameron’s career led him to Stanford Graduate Business School and ultimately Torch05:28 Cameron’s journey of self-discovery after selling his first business09:18 The final push that led Cameron to start Torch13:09 Why companies should still invest in supporting employee's professional growth15:55 How Founders can leverage their missions to find and retain great employees17:11 How companies can better embody their missions19:26 The most important leadership skills for founders to master25:06 How Torch shows ROI on coaching and mentorship to leaders27:01 How Torch devised their unique method of coaching and mentoring29:11 Cameron’s advice to first-time founders31:40 How founders should think about stress and how Cameron manages his own stressful times34:33 Dealing with impostor syndrome36:18 The importance of humility and authenticity in founders37:36 Coaching high-calibre entrepreneurs40:01 Cameron’s experience with M&A and the lessons he learned42:14 Plans for their recent $40M Series C led by 137 Ventures, in addition to follow on capital from Initialized Capital, Norwest Venture Partners, and Obvious VenturesFast Favorites:🎙- Favorite Podcast: Wow In The World📰- Favorite Newsletter/Blog: Josh Bersin📲- Favorite Tech Gadget: Calm App📈-  Favorite New Trend: Remote Work📚- Favorite Book: The Invention of Nature🤔 - Favorite Life Lesson: Be humble and be vulnerable This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit tanktalks.substack.com

Kat Steinmetz is a Principal of Initialized Capital, a venture capital firm for early-stage companies. Specializing in HR and leadership development, she is a trusted executive with an interest in startups. She cut her teeth as the Head of Human Resources at Burning Man, building their HR and growing their talent pool over a decade-long tenure. Today, she continues to serve as an investor and advisor for several startups. In this episode… One of the best ways to capture an audience as a business is to create an incredible experience for the customer. That initial impression is what will last — and ultimately drive people back to your product. Curating that experience is difficult and often requires a lot of creativity. Few people know this principle more than Kat Steinmetz.  Kat is an executive with an incredible and diverse career. She started as a software engineer before transitioning to music and eventually getting into HR. From there, she learned the importance of building an impactful culture. She now uses that knowledge to craft complete experiences for the startups at Initialized Capital.  Dov Pollack sits down with Kat Steinmetz, a Principal at Initialized Capital, to talk about HR and the ability to lead others through curated experiences. They start with Kat's own winding journey before exploring topics such as accountability, instructional designers, and how to guide leaders. She also talks about her time at Burning Man and what it was like to build their HR from the ground up.

 One biotech startup is trying to use blockchain technology to revolutionize the way potential treatments for rare diseases are identified for funding and development. According to Vibe Bio CEO Alok Tayi: “Vibe is a community of patients, scientists and partners that help identify promising treatments for rare diseases and other overlooked diseases, and fund them in innovative ways.” In this episode of The Scoop, Tayi shares his vision for how Vibe Bio aims to disrupt the centralized control of big pharma, and explains why a decentralized autonomous organization (or ‘DAO') is the optimal solution for organizing the members of the Vibe community. According to Tayi, the biology of rare diseases is often understood, but biotech companies do not have enough incentive to fund research given the limited financial upside. As Tayi notes: “There actually ends up being a myriad of different candidate medicines with promise that are sitting on shelves today, but simply lack the capital and the focus to be able to develop them.” This is the problem Tayi hopes to address through Vibe Bio. By using a DAO structure, Vibe Bio is able to put forward governance proposals to identify promising treatment options. $VIBE token holders can then vote on which treatments will get funded via the proceeds of the DAO's token sale. As Tayi explains, this decentralized approach empowers patients who would otherwise be unable to get assistance from centralized biotech companies: “When you start to move away from a traditional sort of financing model to one that's community led, patients can now be in the driver's seat of deciding what medicines to pursue, what disease areas we should try to treat, not profit or politics.” Earlier this week, Vibe announced it received $12 million in a funding round led by Initialized Capital, which also included participation from prominent angel investors Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan, as well as 6th Man Ventures — the venture firm helmed by The Block Co-Founder Mike Dudas — amongst others. Episode 58 of Season 4 of The Scoop was recorded remotely with The Block's Frank Chaparro and Alok Tayi, Co-Founder & CEO of Vibe Bio. Listen below, and subscribe to The Scoop on Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher or wherever you listen to podcasts. Email feedback and revision requests to podcast@theblockcrypto.com. This episode is brought to you by our sponsors Fireblocks, Coinbase Prime & Cross River Fireblocks is an enterprise-grade platform delivering a secure infrastructure for moving, storing, and issuing digital assets. Fireblocks enables exchanges, lending desks, custodians, banks, trading desks, and hedge funds to securely scale digital asset operations through the Fireblocks Network and MPC-based Wallet Infrastructure. Fireblocks serves over 725 financial institutions, has secured the transfer of over $1.5 trillion in digital assets, and has a unique insurance policy that covers assets in storage & transit. For more information, please visit www.fireblocks.com. About Coinbase Prime Coinbase Prime is an integrated solution that provides institutional investors with an advanced trading platform, secure custody, and prime services to manage all their crypto assets in one place. Coinbase Prime fully integrates crypto trading and custody on a single platform, and gives clients the best all-in pricing in their network using their proprietary Smart Order Router and algorithmic execution. For more information, visit www.coinbase.com/prime. About Cross River Cross River is powering today's most innovative crypto companies, with banking and payments solutions you can rely on, including fiat on/off ramp solutions. Whether you are a crypto exchange, NFT marketplace, or wallet, Cross River's API-based, all-in-one platform enables banking as a service, ACH & wire transfers, push-to-card disbursements, real-time payments, and virtual accounts and subledgers. Request your fiat on/off ramp solution now at crossriver.com/crypto.

This week we meet Brett Gibson (@brettdg), a Partner at Initialized Capital. Brett is an OG Y Combinator alum, a former founder and software engineer, and now a venture capitalist focused on investing in crypto. Tune in for Brett's thoughts on how to meaningfully change the financial system. We cover everything from what YC was like in the early days, to the current state of the crypto markets, to DAOs as a new model of VC and, of course, Brett's giant cat (which Gary Tan told us to ask him about)!Get in touch with us at podcasts@orangedao.xyz with any feedback or speaker recommendations.

On this episode of the Traction podcast, host Lloyed Lobo of Boast.AI features a fireside chat between Harj Taggar, Partner at Y Combinator, and Alda Leu Dennis, General Partner at Initialized Capital from the in-person Traction Conference.   Previously, Harj was a Co-founder and CEO at Triplebyte and Co-founder and President at Auctomatic. Harj was also the first seed investor in a number of unicorns including Instacart, Coinbase, Rippling, and Opendoor.   In this episode, Harj dives into:   1:26 - How he became the first partner at Y Combinator  7:36 - The #1 mistake when starting up 11:29 - The most common mistakes post launch and post product-market fit 15:47 - The balancing act of hiring too fast vs. too slow 17:00 - How CEOs need to transform on their journey to building a unicorn company 20:00 - The key factor that helps early stage companies raise money   Learn more at https://tractionconf.io   Connect with Harj Taggar: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harjtaggar/   Learn more about Y Combinator at https://www.ycombinator.com/   This episode is brought to you by:   Each year the U.S. and Canadian governments provide more than $20 billion in R&D tax credits and innovation incentives to fund businesses. But the application process is cumbersome, prone to costly audits, and receiving the money can take as long as 16 months. Boast automates this process, enabling companies to get more money faster without the paperwork and audit risk. We don't get paid until you do! Find out if you qualify today at https://Boast.AI.   Launch Academy is one of the top global tech hubs for international entrepreneurs and a designated organization for Canada's Startup Visa. Since 2012, Launch has worked with more than 6,000 entrepreneurs from over 100 countries, of which 300 have grown their startups to seed and Series A stage and raised over $2 billion in funding. To learn more about Launch's programs or the Canadian Startup Visa, visit https://LaunchAcademy.ca    Content Allies helps B2B companies build revenue-generating podcasts. We recommend them to any B2B company that is looking to launch or streamline its podcast production. Learn more at https://contentallies.com  

My guest today is Garry Tan, founder and managing partner of early-stage venture firm, Initialized Capital. Before starting Initialized, Garry was a partner at Y Combinator, employee number 10 at Palantir, and co-founder of YC backed blog platform Posterous. Our discussion covers what's missing in the investment world, how to best systematize venture investments, and what he learned from Paul Graham. Please enjoy my conversation with Garry Tan.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.   -----   This episode is brought to you by Tegus. Tegus is the new digital hub for market intelligence. The Tegus platform empowers Investors and Corporate Development teams to invest smarter by pairing best-in-class technology with the highest quality user-generated content and data. Find out why a majority of the top firms are using Tegus on a daily basis. Head to tegus.co/patrick for your free trial.   -----   This episode is brought to you by Lemon.io. The team at Lemon.io has built a network of Eastern European developers ready to pair with fast-growing startups. We have faced challenges hiring engineering talent for various projects - and Lemon.io offered developers for one-off projects, developers for full start to finish product development, or developers that could be add-ons to the existing team. Check out lemon.io/patrick to learn more.   -----   Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.    Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus   Show Notes [00:02:45] - [First question] - Why he's interested by software and the global brain [00:06:23] - How the shift from global to local manifests in his investing and company activities [00:11:42] - Ways to increase throughput that would benefit everybody in the investing world  [00:17:13] - What software he would build if there were no limitations and what happens at the systems level of securing deals at Initialize  [00:23:33] - Why there is no objective application process for early-stage capital and how much human judgment we can remove from approving funding [00:26:49] - Shared characteristics amongst new inventions he finds favorable  [00:31:49] - Whether he's able to evaluate an idea without a prototype [00:33:33] - Why travel planning software was the worst idea of 2012 and what he sees as the bad idea of today [00:36:06] - The most common reasons for failure in these types of businesses [00:39:07] - Is big enabling technology shifts what manifests in successful outcomes? [00:40:37] - The role of media and how it intersects with investing [00:44:29] - What he attributes to the success of his firm and thriving in chaos [00:48:11] - Would he press a button that would have made his childhood easy, and whether he's met founders who haven't come across adversity in their lives  [00:50:00] - His thoughts on the world today via the lens of his portfolio [00:53:12] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him   

Garry Tan is the founder and Managing Partner of Initialized Capital. Born in Canada, Garry moved to the Bay Area as a toddler and now is fighting to save San Francisco! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we have Alda Leu Dennis, General Partner at Initialized Capital. Founded in 2011, the firm has been an early backer of companies such as Coinbase and Instacart and describes itself as the “Honey Badger” of venture capital. Founded in 2012 with a sub $10MM fund I, they currently ~$1B in AUM. Prior to joining Initialized, Alda was a managing partner at 137 Ventures (a firm co-founded by past VU guest Justin Fishner-Wolfson). At 137, she led investments in Planet Labs, Wish, Coupang, CourseHero, and Work Market.  Alda also has held various operational roles including COO at Airtime, and General Counsel at Founders Fund, and at Clarium Capital. She did her undergrad at Stanford and received her Law Degree at UCLA. Subscribe at ventureunlocked.substack.com

Garry Tan, co-founder of Initialized Capital and one of the earliest investors in Coinbase, shares his outlook on crypto products, his concerns with crypto regulation, and how it will challenge America's democracy. Deeply rooted within the world's tech hub, Tan expresses that Silicon Valley will continue to be home to the internet. Tan explains what he learned in Y Combinator, his peers who have gone on to develop multi-billion dollar companies, and what it means to invest in early stage startups. What role does crypto play in all this? Tan outlines where that fits in as well. Interviewed by Ash Bennington on September 16, 2021.

Nearly a decade ago, a brave VC took a million-dollar leap of faith and made a bet on a small company called Bitbank. Fast forward to today and that investment turned into a $600 million return, as Bitbank became Coinbase. Brett Gibson, a general partner from the firm, came on to tell the story and better explain how venture capital is flowing into the crypto space at break-neck speed. -- Sorare: Where fantasy meets reality. Collect, trade and earn weekly prizes on https://thewolfofallstreets.link/sorare. #OwnYourGame -- HBAR Foundation: Fund your project quickly and easily with the HBAR Foundation. Apply for a grant and be put on the fast track to success at https://thewolfofallstreets.link/hbar --- If you enjoyed this conversation, share it with your colleagues & friends, rate, review, and subscribe. This podcast is presented by Blockworks. For exclusive content and events that provide insights into the crypto and blockchain space, visit them at: https://www.blockworks.co ーーー Join the Wolf Den newsletter: ►►https://www.getrevue.co/profile/TheWolfDen/members

Today we're excited to have Garry Tan from Initialized Capital. His resume is bananas. Garry is a Stanford grad, a Y Combinator alum, and a seed investor in Coinbase. We cover his early days with Posterous, cutting his teeth at Y Combinator, founding Initialized Capital, and his media moves on YouTube. Get an inside seat on what makes a great entrepreneur, founder, and investor. Garry's a big fan of the show, and it's safe to say he'll become a regular.  Guest - Garry Tan, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Initialized Capital  howardlindzon.com, initialized.com, youtube.com/garrytan  Twitter: @howardlindzon, @garrytan, @knutjensen  youtube.com/garrytan  #fintech #invest #investment #venturecapital #stockmarket #finance 

We sit down with Initialized Capital's Kim-Mai Cutler to talk about her opposite journey from us at Acquired, going from journalist to VC. We riff on how the landscape has evolved from Kim-Mai's parents' "Hewlett Packard generation" in the Valley through the TechCrunch era that se was a big part of, to today and how the nature of reporting, investing and influence -- the intersection of the two -- has changed.

Confused by negotiations on valuation and dilution? Tired of not being heard by men? Feeling like the underdog negotiating against an investor who has 20x the deal experience?   What you need is the advice of a seasoned investor you can trust.   Enter this ground-breaking interview with Alda Leu Dennis, General Partner at Initialized Capital.    Not only is Alda a former litigator (aka expert of experts!) and operator, she came highly recommended from a founder we trust.   In this episode, Alda gifts all female founders her simple, laser sharp strategies for negotiating and winning. You'll learn effective levers founders can use to negotiate on valuation, how important it is to understand what your counterparty cares about, and how to communicate in a way that will be heard. We hope this episode makes all the difference in your next round!   Alda's bio:   Alda Leu Dennis is a General Partner at seed-stage investment firm, Initialized Capital. She has over a decade of investing and legal experience and is focused on investing in startups with founders that are solving real world problems with software in sectors including famtech, consumer behavior, and underserved markets. Some of her investments include The Mom Project, A-Frame, Kinside and Ava. Before Initialized she was managing partner at 137 Ventures where she led investments in Planet Labs, Wish, Coupang, CourseHero, and Work Market (acquired by ADP). Previously she was COO at Airtime, General Counsel at Founders Fund, Assistant General Counsel at Peter Thiel's Clarium Capital Management. 

Kim-Mai Cutler, a longtime tech journalist and currently a partner at Initialized Capital, joins the show with Scott Kitun. Kim-Mai has spent most of her life around Silicon Valley and knows from her experiences and studies just what the problems tech faces and its impact on California and the world as a whole. She dives into her journey, how she got interested in journalism, and how building those relationships in tech got her interested in the venture, how venture has grown and helping founders turn their great ideas into real businesses. She also talks about her interest in real estate and proptech companies, her work studying the ongoing California housing crisis and finding viable paths forward for better policy and innovation.

Today on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast we have a domain expert in the world of VC – and someone who has been a visionary when it has come to one of the biggest movements in VC over the past 8 years: emerging managers.Samir Kaji, the Founder & CEO of Allocate, is a well-respected industry leader in the VC world. He has spent over 20 years partnering with VCs at First Republic Bank and Silicon Valley Bank, where he led the Venture Capital and Private Equity banking efforts. At First Republic, he built out the infrastructure and client base that served the VC and PE community. He's evaluated over 800 VC fund managers and worked with thousands of LPs at First Republic.Samir and I had a fascinating conversation about the evolution of venture capital and what's to come for the industry. He's seen a lot in his career in Silicon Valley that has spanned multiple market cycles. He shared his perspective on: The challenges that GPs and LPs face during fundraising. Why the structural inefficiencies of allocating to funds - and perceived risks with emerging managers - led so many LPs to miss out on the Fund I's of now legendary emerging managers Lowercase Capital, K9, and Initialized Capital. The case for emerging managers in a venture portfolio and why emerging managers are the future of venture capital. The trend of non-institutional capital coming into the venture world. How LPs will be able to better discover and allocate to fund managers in the future. In his time in Silicon Valley, he's become an unquestioned thought leader in the world of VC, particularly in the emerging manager space. He has consistently written seminal thought pieces and instructional guides on the topic – and now talks about the space with his podcast, Venture Unlocked.His experiences working with many of the top VC funds and LPs globally has culminated in a journey that he's now starting by founding Allocate.He has observed a number of inefficiencies with emerging managers when it comes to firm building and capital raising. He's seen many emerging managers struggle with fundraising due to the difficulties finding the right LPs. He's seen the challenges that LPs have with being able to locate and allocate to new emerging managers, many of whom have gone on to outperform benchmarks and become the next generation of brand name firms.He believes that the ecosystem is ready for a decentralized, democratized, and diverse ecosystem of fund managers. And Allocate is the connective tissue that will solve these challenges for both GPs and LPs alike. Thanks Samir for coming on the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast to share your wisdom about the world of venture. 

Shadiah Sigala is the Founder and CEO of Kinside, a platform to provide modern childcare benefits for today's working parent. Childcare issues cost the United States' economy an estimated $4.4 billion in lost productivity each year and also impact employee retention rates. Kinside serves hundreds of employers by connecting their employees to tens of thousands of reserved spots at top rated daycares and preschools nationwide. Kinside's intuitive app brings much-needed relief for new parents transitioning back into the workplace, and aids employers in their retention efforts with parents at all stages. Kinside has raised over $4M from investors including Initialized Capital, Haystack, Precursor Ventures, January Ventures, Y Combinator and Kairos. Shadiah is a serial tech entrepreneur, previously co-founding HoneyBook, a SaaS tech company that powers over 50,000 freelancers in managing their business and clients. Shadiah broke ground in her first generation Mexican-American immigrant family by receiving degrees from Harvard (Master's in Public Policy) and Pomona College (BA in Latin American Studies. She has authored groundbreaking studies regarding the gender pay gap and sexual harassment in the freelance economy, published on Fortune, Forbes, and Huffington Post, among others. In this episode, we will cover: How Shadiah's love of novelty and challenge led her to the world of startups Why Shadiah thinks it's a mistake to keep a new idea under wraps The role of co-founders and how to find them Why it's important for founders taking care of themselves – and to take a pay check from day one Raising the first round of capital, showcasing confidence, and equalizing the dynamic between investors and founders The case for selling ahead of building and landing your first customer with a PowerPoint pitch Kinside's critical role in addressing the childcare crisis caused by the pandemic

Ruben Harris wants you to succeed. Like other guests on The Operators, he left behind a successful career in finance to build a company that helps people. For Ruben, this came in the form of Career Karma, the #1 destination for career advice, and the easiest way to find a job training program. Bridging the gap between education programs that need candidates and prospective students that don't know where to start, Career Karma makes education accessible practically and effectively. Ruben is also the host of the wildly successful podcast Breaking Into Startups, a show about getting into tech from non-traditional backgrounds. In this episode, he gets into the details of who to pitch, how to talk about your startup, and how Career Karma has raised each of its financings, including getting into YCombinator and raising a Series A from Initialized Capital.

On today's podcast, a conversation with Venture Capitalist Turned Creator, Garry Tan. Garry is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Initialized Capital, a venture firm Garry started with Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian in 2011. With past investments in companies including Instacart, Coinbase and Cruise, Initialized boasts a combined market cap totalling 40 billion dollars. However, in 2019, Garry was inspired to start creating content on YouTube and in the process build a personal brand. A decision that was very much inspired by none other than YouTube luminary Casey Neistat. As a result, I sat down with Garry to discuss his entry into the world of startups, life as a Venture Capitalist with a portfolio worth over 40 billion dollars and, of course, the power of a personal brand in 2020. This conversation was recorded on October 20th, 2020, thanks for listening!

Welcome to TechCrunch daily news, a round up of the top tech news of the day. -- Facebook is the latest company taking aim at Apple -- Pinterest employees walk out -- and Initialized Capital raises a new fund. This is your Daily Crunch. The big story is: Facebook joined the growing ranks of companies publicly complaining about the 30% fee that Apple collects on payments made through its App Store.

Welcome to TechCrunch daily news, a round up of the top tech news of the day. -- Facebook takes small steps to improve its content policies as advertisers join a broad boycott -- Founder Alexis Ohanian is leaving Initialized Capital -- and Waze gets a new look. Here's your Daily Crunch for June 29, 2020. First up: As advertisers revolt, Facebook has committed to flagging ‘newsworthy' political speech that violates its policy.

Today on the show we have Garry Tan, the managing partner of Initialized Capital, a venture firm based in San Francisco he started with the Reddit Co-founder Alexis Ohanian. Garry is a designer/engineer turned early-stage investor. He was a partner at Y Combinator for nearly five years where he advised and funded over 600 companies and more than a thousand founders. He was a cofounder of YC-backed blog platform Posterous (Top 200 Quantcast site, acquired by Twitter in 2012). Before that he was employee #10 at Palantir, where he was a founding member of the engineering team for Palantir's financial analysis product, and also designed Palantir's logo. He has a Bachelor Degree in Computer Systems Engineering from Stanford. Garry regularly shares his insights and advice for founders on his Youtube Channel.  This episode is cohosted by GGV Colleague Christine Hinton. For the full transcript of the show, go to nextbn.ggvc.com Join our listeners' community, go to nextbn.ggvc.com/community

As we all saw in Oscar-winning short film Hair Love, black hair is beautiful but it's also notoriously difficult to manage. One of the first hair memories Naza founder and CEO Natanya Montgomery has is of her mom brushing her hair into three afro puffs on the top of her head. When she was seven, she started coming to terms with the state of her hair, and that's when her mom took her to the salon for the first time.

“Airbnb's unit economics are quite legendary — the S-1 is going to be MOST disrupted FASTEST in the next 3 YEARS? Caps for effect.” Who Tweeted that? Initialized Capital's Garry Tan? Homebrew's Hunter Walk? Y Combinator co-founder Paul Graham? Or perhaps one of the dozens of other venture capitalists active on Twitter . No, it was Parrot.VC, a new Twitter account and website dedicated to making light of VC Twitter.

Sanjay Dastoor is the co-founder and CEO of Skip which operates shared electric scooters for reliable last-mile transportation. The company has raised so far over $30 million from Accel, Y Combinator, SV Angels, Menlo Ventures, Initialized Capital, and Maven Ventures. Before Skip, Dastoor cofounded Boosted which builds and develops lightweight, wireless, remote-controlled motorized electric longboards. The company raised $70 million from top investors like Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, and iNovia Capital.

Chandan Lodha Contributor Chandan Lodha is co-founder at CoinTracker, a Y Combinator and Initialized Capital-backed startup that offers a secure cryptocurrency tax calculator. He was previously the Product Manager on Project Loon at Google[x]. Fred traded bitcoin, ether and a handful of other cryptocurrencies on Gemini, Binance and Coinbase last year. Unfortunately, due to the crypto downturn, his trading yielded a capital loss of more than $35,000.

Venture capitalists' latest on-demand delivery bet is in the pharmaceutical space. Truepill, an online pharmacy powering delivery for the likes of Hims, Nurx, LemonAID and other direct-to-consumer healthcare brands, has nabbed a $10 million Series A from early-stage VC fund Initialized Capital. The investment brings the Y Combinator graduate's total raised to $13.4 million. Y Combinator, Sound Ventures, Tuesday Capital and others participated in the round.

One of the latest additions to the on-demand economy is Papa, a mobile app that connects college students with adults over 60 in need of support and companionship. The recent graduate of Y Combinator's accelerator program has raised a $2.4 million round of funding to expand its service throughout Florida and to five additional states next year, beginning with Pennsylvania. Initialized Capital led the round, with participation from Sound Ventures.