Podcasts about Kleiner Perkins

American venture capital firm

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Kleiner Perkins

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Best podcasts about Kleiner Perkins

Latest podcast episodes about Kleiner Perkins

Go To Market Grit
Inside Aurora's Push to Make Autonomous Trucking Real | Chris Urmson

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later May 26, 2025 90:38


Chris Urmson has spent the last 20 years pushing the limits of autonomous driving—first at Carnegie Mellon's DARPA Grand Challenge team, then as co-founder of Google's self-driving car project, now Waymo.On this week's episode, the Aurora CEO retraces that journey—from building robot cars in the desert to leading a public company pioneering driverless trucking.He shares why autonomy was always a matter of when, not if, how he handled a high-profile departure from Waymo, and what it takes to build at the intersection of deep tech, safety, and infrastructure.Now eight years into Aurora, Urmson says the future he's been chasing is finally within reach.Guest: Chris Urmson, Co-Founder & CEO of AuroraChapters: 00:00 Trailer00:43 Introduction01:59 FSD: are we there? 14:31 The competition, a million dollar check from LA to LV22:50 Dream like an amateur, execute like a pro32:30 Operate with integrity42:49 The future is here, unevenly distributed49:36 Underestimated decisions, minimizing regrets1:03:55 Retaining value1:16:45 Integrating self-driving1:28:20 Lifer1:29:25 Who Aurora is hiring1:29:53 What “grit” means to Chris1:30:15 OutroMentioned in this episode: Waymo, Google, Rivian, Dmitri Dolgov, Uber, Tesla, The DARPA Grand Challenge, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, United States Department of Defense, Carnegie Mellon University, Stanford University, FedEx, Werner Enterprises, Hirschbach, Schneider Electric, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Sebastian Thrun, Batman, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Anthony Levandowski, Donald Trump, Apple iPhone, Airbnb, Blackmore, Stripe, Titan, Ford, Volkswagen, RJ Scaringe, Peterbilt Motors Company, The Volvo Group, Continental AG, Dara KhosrowshahiLinks:Connect with Chris UrmsonXLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Strap on your Boots!
Episode 304: Reinvent Venture Capital with Purpose and Impact with Alex Chompff

Strap on your Boots!

Play Episode Listen Later May 26, 2025 17:20


In this episode of Zero to CEO, I speak with entrepreneur, investor, and Evolution Co-Founder Alex Chompff about redefining venture capital through ethics, inclusion, and long-term impact. From his early days in the military to his time at Kleiner Perkins during the dot-com boom, Alex shares the lessons that shaped his values as a founder and investor. Now at the helm of Evolution Ventures, he explains how ethical venture capitalism can drive regional growth and build meaningful partnerships that go beyond profit. We also explore how personal values like fatherhood and service influence his leadership style, and how initiatives like the Minerva Fund are creating a more inclusive startup ecosystem.

CFO Thought Leader
1100: Lines, Not Dots: Turning Optionality into Outcomes | Chad Gold, CFO, Fullstory

CFO Thought Leader

Play Episode Listen Later May 25, 2025 50:22


Imagine an accounts‑receivable clerk clicking through four different systems just to finish one routine task. Chad Gold sees that bottleneck instantly. Fullstory's newly launched Workforce product maps every mouse‑stroke of such employee journeys, then surfaces friction points so companies can “make them more productive, so they can do even more value‑added things,” Gold tells us.The scene encapsulates the finance leader's thesis: data depth wins. “The companies that have the capabilities to capture the most comprehensive sets of data in a meaningful way are going to win,” he says. That conviction drew Gold—now in his fourth CFO chapter—to the Atlanta‑based behavioral‑data platform. Fullstory records the complete digital experience of each customer, from e‑commerce clicks to SaaS workflows, and feeds the corpus into AI models that flag churn risk or recommend instant actions, such as sending a coupon to a wavering shopper. The result drives revenue and reduces churn, he tells us.For its part, Fullstory has raised capital rounds through Series D and counts Kleiner Perkins, Stripes, Premier, Salesforce Ventures, GV and Dell Technologies among its backers, he tells us. Independent directors Ryan Barreto of Sprout Social and former Atlassian CFO Alex Estevez deepen the bench. After 22 years in finance, Gold values “lines, not dots”—long‑term relationships that provide partnership, not just cash. By pairing that philosophy with a platform built to illuminate every click, he aims to turn invisible friction—whether customer or employee—into the next chapter of growth. Stakeholders across the business will feel the lift, Gold predicts.

The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Duolingo Co-Founder on Why $3M is Harder than $100M to Raise | Why You Should Always Take Tier 1 VCs Even at Worse Terms | Why Europe Can't Win Unless the US Screws Up | How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education with Severin Hacker

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

Play Episode Listen Later May 19, 2025 91:43


Severin Hacker is the Co-Founder and CTO of Duolingo, the world's most downloaded education app with over 100 million monthly users. Since its 2021 IPO, Duolingo has reached a market cap of $20BN. The company has raised over $183M from top-tier investors including CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins, Union Square Ventures, NEA, Ashton Kutcher, and Tim Ferriss. Severin is also an active angel investor, with standout bets including Decagon, one of the fastest-growing AI-native dev shops globally. Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:  00:00 – Why It's Harder to Raise $3M Than $100M 02:10 – The Real Reason Duolingo Couldn't Have Started in Europe 04:40 – Duolingo's AI Pivot: What “AI-First” Actually Means 07:00 – The 12-Year Bottleneck Duolingo Crushed with AI 11:40 – How Duolingo Uses AI Internally (and Why They Love Cursor) 13:30 – Where AI Still Sucks (Especially in Engineering) 16:00 – Will AI Kill the CS Degree? Severin's Surprising Take 18:00 – The End of Work? UBI, Purpose, and the Future of Labor 25:20 – OpenAI vs Duolingo: Are They Coming for Language Learning? 29:20 – Duolingo's Biggest Mistake: “We Waited Too Long on This…” 39:30 – Duolingo's Secret Sauce: What Investors Always Get Wrong 45:00 – Would You Go Public Today? Severin's Surprising Answer 49:00 – Best and Worst Parts of Going Public—A Rare Honest Take 51:00 – Should Europe Give Up? Severin's Unfiltered Opinion 56:00 – Harsh Truth: “Europe Can't Win Unless the U.S. Screws Up” 59:10 – Why Founders Have to Move to the US to Optimise Their Chance of Success 1:01:00 – Why Union Square Was the Only VC to Say Yes 1:03:00 – The Real Value of Tier 1 VCs (Even at Worse Terms) 1:05:00 – From PhD Student to Billionaire: Does Money Buy Happiness?  1:09:00 – Why Severin Sometimes Lies About His Job 1:10:20 – Founder Marriage Advice: “Write a Contract” 1:11:50 – How to Pick a Life Partner – Severin's Tuesday Night Test 20VC: Duolingo Co-Founder on The Doomed Future of Europe, Reflections on Money, Marriage and the Future of AI

Go To Market Grit
From Scaling Cisco to Seeding AI: John T. Chambers on Speed, Strategy, and Reinvention

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later May 19, 2025 87:08


John Chambers led Cisco through the rise of the internet—transforming it into the world's most valuable company at its peak.On this week's Grit, the former Cisco CEO unpacks how he scaled the business from $70M to $50B+, pioneered M&A as a growth strategy with 180 acquisitions, and built what many called the best sales force in tech.Now leading his own venture firm, Chambers shares how he's backing the next generation of AI-native startups.Guest: John T. Chambers, Former Cisco Executive Chairman & CEO, JC2 Ventures Founder & CEOChapters: 00:00 Trailer00:45 Introduction01:45 Track record, relationships, trust13:21 Acquisitions every year17:32 Product-focused24:40 Family, dyslexia, and without shame30:46 Wang Laboratories35:59 Ready being CEO40:17 Reinventing your business50:08 Numbers don't lie54:09 Sales calls and making mistakes56:20 Adapting leadership style1:06:32 Best leadership year ever1:13:35 A busy, exhausting schedule1:22:07 Candid with me1:25:21 What “grit” means to John1:26:43 OutroMentioned in this episode: John Doerr, OpenAI, Wang Laboratories, IBM, Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Apple Inc., Meta Platforms, FMC Corporation, DuPont de Nemours, Inc., John Mortgage, Don Valentine, Sequoia Capital, Alcatel Mobile, Lucent Technologies, Inc., Verizon Communications Inc., AT&T Inc., Rick Justice, Pankage Patel, Larry Carter, CNBC, Jim Cramer, George Kurtz, CrowdStrike, Randy Pond, Rebecca Jacoby, Mel SelcherLinks:Connect with JohnXLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner Perkins

Go To Market Grit
How Matt Murphy Made Marvell Essential to AI and Cloud

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later May 12, 2025 85:07


Matt Murphy transformed Marvell from a broad-based chip supplier into a $100B data infrastructure leader—powering the rise of AI, cloud, 5G, and custom silicon.On this week's Grit, the Marvell CEO shares how he refocused the company's strategy, led major acquisitions like Inphi ($10B) and Cavium ($6B), and positioned Marvell at the center of the next era of compute.He also reflects on lessons from his father, a longtime CEO, the discipline of running 90 miles a week, and how staying steady through industry cycles has set him apart.Chapters:00:00 Trailer00:47 Introduction03:00 Huge company, taking the long view10:28 Market cap shift to big tech14:44 The data infrastructure opportunity20:30 Massive economic opportunity31:33 Semiconductor industry and geopolitics40:46 Taiwan and Moore's Law 44:05 Getting hammered down 50%47:05 Silicon Valley51:15 All in despite risks55:37 The CEO checkbox1:01:22 Email from Matt, subject: Grit1:07:35 The higher you go1:15:44 Who Marvell is hiring1:20:14 What “grit” means to Matt1:24:40 OutroMentioned in this episode: Jim Cramer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC), Maxim Integrated, Mattel, Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc, Juniper Networks, Meta Platforms, Amazon.com, Inc., Cavium, Inc., Inphi Corporation, Aquantia Corporation, Mellanox Technologies, Nvidia Corporation, Microsoft Corporation, OpenAI, Anthropic, John Chambers, Facebook, Spotify, Airbnb, Google, Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, Donald Trump, Intel Corporation, Robert Norton Noyce, Gordon Moore, Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD), Andrew "Andy" Stephen Grove, Bloomberg, Intuit Inc., Lip-Bu Tan, Sehat Sutardja, Whay S. Lee, Starboard Value, Rick Hill, Novellus Systems, Inc., Michael Strachan, Deloitte & Touche LLP, Apple Inc., Steve Jobs, Chris KoopmansLinks:Connect with MattLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner Perkins

The VentureFizz Podcast
Episode: 380: Eduardo Torrealba - CEO & Co-Founder, Lumafield

The VentureFizz Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later May 12, 2025 57:25


Episode 380 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Eduardo Torrealba, CEO & Co-Founder of Lumafield. As part of my conversation with Eduardo, we talk about the importance of working on hard things. Yes, it's hard to build things that seem impossible at the time but it is that level of difficulty that attracts the top talent across engineering and other functional areas to join the company. And, it is that level of difficulty that once you establish product market fit, it can been highly defensible and really difficult to copy. And, it is that level of difficulty that attracts the best investors to fund a company with the hopes that it can be an industry defining company, especially when there is hardware involved. Take Lumafield, a pioneering developer of accessible X-ray CT technology, recently announced a $35M Series B round of funding led by Spark Capital, along with previous investors Lux Capital, Kleiner Perkins, DCVC, Future Shape and angel investors like Tony Fadell - yes that Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod and Founder of Nest. When you have an industry leader like Tony, who after seeing their product & vision and ended up committing to an investment into the company after a 30 minute meeting, you know you are on to something big, as he understood the problem first hand based on his experience. In the video version of our podcast, there is a brief video showing Lumafield's platform in action, as you need to see it to truly appreciate the complexity yet the obvious use case it has when building physical products. In the show notes, I have also included a fun video from Lumafield with Tony where they take a look at the evolution of the iPod by looking at the inside of different generations. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EC6BQPowf7w In this episode of our podcast, we cover: * Eduardo's background story and his initial journey into entrepreneurship with an IoT soil moisture sensor company called Oso Technologies. * Joining Formlabs and what he worked on in the earlier days of the company and what he learned during the company's growth to a billion dollar valuation. * The full story of Lumafield in terms of how the team came together and the problem they are solving. * The fundraising process and the current state of the company, plus future plans ahead. * Lessons learned from building companies and raising capital. * The importance of a strong company pitch. * And so much more Episode Sponsor: As a longtime champion of the local startup ecosystem, Silicon Valley Bank supports innovative companies with the solutions and financing they need through every stage of growth. With more than 1,500 bankers and relationship advisors, and $42B in loans as of Q2 2024 – SVB delivers the right people, service and resources to support your entire financial journey. Learn more at SVB.com.

Elevate with Robert Glazer
Why Tech VC Dave Whorton Threw Out The Silicon Valley Playbook

Elevate with Robert Glazer

Play Episode Listen Later May 6, 2025 62:12


Dave Whorton is an experienced tech investor and founder who spent 20 years of his career at the highest levels of Silicon Valley venture capital and tech startups. He worked directly at the top venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins and co-founded four companies, including drugstore.com and Good Technology. He is also the founder of the Tugboat Institute and the author of the brand new book, Another Way. Dave joined host Robert Glazer on the Elevate Podcast to discuss his remarkable career, the pros and cons of the Silicon Valley growth strategy, and the Evergreen Companies that achieve lasting, sustainable growth. Special Thanks to the Sponsors of the Elevate Podcast Shopify: Sign up for your $1/month trial period at ⁠⁠shopify.com/elevate⁠⁠ Indeed: Get a $75 sponsored job credit to boost your job's visibility at ⁠⁠Indeed.com/elevate⁠⁠. NPM Tech Unheard Podcast: Tune into Tech Unheard from Arm and NPM—wherever you get your podcasts. Northwest Registered Agent: Don't wait—protect your privacy, build your brand, and set up your business in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes! Visit ⁠⁠https://northwestregisteredagent.com/elevate⁠⁠ today. Quince: Go to quince.com/elevate for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC Exclusive: Why Mega Platforms Will Win in VC | Why You Cannot Do VC If You Do Not Do Pre-Seed | Why Market Sizing is BS | Where Will Foundation Models Build/Buy Apps vs Where Will They Not with Bucky Moore

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

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2025 65:07


Bucky Moore is a Partner @ Lightspeed Venture Partners, announced exclusively in the show today on 20VC. Prior to Lightspeed, Bucky spent an incredibly successful 7 years at Kleiner Perkins working with Mamoon Hamid to build one of the most successful early stage firms of the last decade. Bucky has made investments in the likes of Prisma, Netlify, Browserbase and more.  In Today's Episode We Discuss: 03:07 Big News: Joining Lightspeed Venture Partners 04:09 Why Mega Platforms Will Win the Next 10 Years of VC 09:33 Are Foundation Model Companies Good Venture Investments 16:04 What Applications Will Model Providers Buy/Build? What Will They Not? 22:03 How to Approach Price Sensitivity in a World of AI 28:25 Why is it BS to do Market Sizing When Making Investments in AI 34:03 Is the Future of VC Domain Specialization 38:38 How to Know What Company Wins in Super Competitive Markets 41:06 Why Every Firm Has to do Pre-Seed To Win in VC Today? 44:43 The Risks of Multi-Stage Investing: Is Signalling Risk Real? 48:53 Investing Lessons from Leading Rounds in Glean and Windsurf 56:54 Quick Fire Round: Lessons from Mamoon, Fave CEO, Next 10 Years  

Go To Market Grit
HubSpot CEO on the Future of SaaS, AI, & Leading Through Change

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later May 5, 2025 77:15


From a 350-square-foot home in South India to leading HubSpot, a $30B CRM powerhouse, Yamini Rangan's journey is nothing short of remarkable. In this episode, Yamini shares how she's guiding HubSpot through a post-pandemic shift toward product-led growth, the hard-won lessons behind building go-to-market alignment, and why human-centric leadership is her edge in an AI-first world. Plus, her take on why data is the new battleground in tech.Chapters: 00:00 Trailer00:52 Introduction02:22 Fire in my belly10:06 Constraints12:19 Peak performance16:38 Helping while in sheer panic21:43 The general ethos30:14 Customer value36:08 Excited and scared47:25 Becoming CEO54:19 Feeling behind1:01:51 Very lonely1:05:34 Losing credibility1:08:42 Slowing down, sitting still1:12:31 No patience to finish a book1:15:39 Who HubSpot is hiring1:15:54 What “grit” means to Yamini1:16:45 OutroMentioned in this episode: Sequoia Capital, Carl Pieri, Brian Halligan, Zoom Workplace, Meta Platforms, Google, Anthropic, Microsoft, Salesforce, Blockbuster Video, BlackBerry Limited, Axon Enterprise, Netflix, Snapchat, Harvey, Dharmesh Shah, Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, Sapiens: A Brief History of HumankindLinks:Connect with YaminiXLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner Perkins

Go To Market Grit
From White House to Wall Street: David Rubenstein

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 28, 2025 71:10


David Rubenstein helped pioneer modern private equity—building The Carlyle Group into a $400B global investment firm from a modest D.C. office and a relentless fundraising streak. But beyond PE, his legacy spans presidential libraries, historic American artifacts, and a lifelong obsession with civic contribution.In this episode, David shares how he raised billions without a background in finance, why owning a baseball team was more than just a trophy purchase—and what building true generational success really means beyond wealth alone.Chapters:00:00 Trailer00:53 Introduction01:40 Family, wealth, class14:40 Happiness disparity and longevity19:25 I need more to give away more25:04 The relentless fundraiser 33:53 Kids and travel36:06 No track record, the great white buffalo38:59 Business and politics43:53 Fired from Washington45:52 Fundraising, presidents, podcast guests48:04 Private equity and sports53:44 Expenses — no charges55:49 Waking up with energy 57:26 Preserving copies1:02:05 Organizational architecture1:03:41 Bury me in my plane1:08:11 Not a big luxury spender1:10:32 What “grit” means to David1:10:50 OutroMentioned in this episode: Andrew Rubenstein, Stanford University, Bill Gates, Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Procter & Gamble Company, Forbes 400, Duke University, University of Chicago, Harvard Corporation, Johns Hopkins University, California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), President of the United States of America, Donald J. Trump, Jimmy Carter, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Smithsonian Institution, National Gallery of Art, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Arianna Huffington, Xi Jinping, Hank Greenberg, Stephen A. Schwarzman, Tim Cook, Jeff Bezos, Baltimore Orioles, Fred Trammell Crow, Harlan Crow, National Basketball Association (NBA), National Football League (NFL), Arctos Partners LP, Anthropic, Magna Carta Libertatum, Declaration of Independence, Emancipation Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln, US Constitution, National Archives, Lincoln Memorial, Thomas Jefferson Memorial, Mount Vernon, Monticello, Montpelier, Mark Cuban, Paul McCartneyConnect with David:X: @DM_RubensteinConnect with Joubin:X: @JoubinmirLinkedIn: Joubin MirzadeganEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.comkleinerperkins.com

GREY Journal Daily News Podcast
Chainguard's rapid rise to a multi-billion dollar valuation raises questions about software security

GREY Journal Daily News Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 23, 2025 2:21


Chainguard, a software supply chain security startup, secured $356 million in a Series D funding round, achieving a valuation of $3.5 billion. The funding was co-led by Kleiner Perkins and IVP, with new investors including Salesforce Ventures and Datadog Ventures. The valuation reflects a threefold increase from the previous valuation of $1.12 billion after a $140 million Series C round. Chainguard focuses on secure software development tools, particularly for open-source software, and reported an annual recurring revenue of $40 million, aiming to exceed $100 million by fiscal year 2026. The company has raised a total of $612 million since its founding in 2021. Cybersecurity investment remains strong, with Exaforce recently raising $75 million in a Series A round and total funding for VC-backed cybersecurity startups surpassing $2.7 billion in Q1 2024, a 29% increase from the previous quarter.Learn more on this news visit us at: https://greyjournal.net/news/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Go To Market Grit
No Reset Button: Reinventing Amplitude in a Post-AI World

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 21, 2025 77:16


Amplitude helped define the modern analytics stack, powering digital products with deep behavioral insights. But in a world shifting toward agentic interfaces and vertically integrated AI, even a category leader has to evolve.In this episode, CEO Spenser Skates shares how he's rethinking AI within the constraints of a 13-year-old codebase, why analytics remains Amplitude's competitive edge—and why taking the company public early was a risk worth taking. Links:Connect with SpenserXLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner Perkins

Go To Market Grit
Flexport's Third Act: Winning in a Broken Global Trade System

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 14, 2025 103:28


Flexport was a breakout success—reimagining global trade with tech at its core. But when the freight market cooled and efficiency overtook service, things started to unravel. Founder Ryan Petersen stepped aside, handing the CEO role to former Amazon exec Dave Clark. Months later, he was back at the helm.In this episode, Ryan explains what went wrong, how he's rebuilding Flexport—cutting $300M in costs, restoring customer focus—and why promoting from within beats chasing outside stars. He also weighs in on Trump's proposed tariffs and what they could mean for the future of global trade.Chapters: 00:00 Trailer00:31 Introduction02:07 Meeting smart people, seeing the world03:40 Eroded margins09:52 Charismatic and overconfident15:32 Not an overnight decision20:08 The founder has returned23:10 Redoing the hiring26:38 No substitute for passion31:00 Working for and with my brother37:28 Working with forwarders42:14 Being a founder can be lonely47:49 Life's work54:06 The right person for the job1:00:55 19 countries1:04:57 Blowing people up1:07:24 Work and being a good dad1:08:34 Not doing it for money and loving money1:17:52 Import and export tariffs1:22:57 De minimis1:25:54 Panama and the Suez Canal1:36:50 Going public1:42:24 Who Flexport is Hiring 1:42:42 What "grit" means to Ryan1:43:06 OutroMentioned in this episode: Founders Fund, Amazon, Toyota Motor Corporation, Slack, Brex, Pedro Franceschi, Henrique Dubugras, United States Customs and Border Protection, ImportGenius, Michael Kanko, Y Combinator, Paul Graham, Intel Corporation, Shopify, Geely Holding (Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co., Ltd.), The Volvo Group, Intuit TurboTax, David Petersen, BuildZoom, TechCrunch, Google, Figma, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Jimmy Carter, Panama Canal Authority, United States Navy, Coinbase, Uber, AirbnbLinks:Connect with RyanXLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.comLearn more about Kleiner Perkins

Go To Market Grit
Brex 3.0: Inside the Radical Turnaround with Pedro Franceschi

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 7, 2025 95:00


Guest: Pedro FranceschiPedro Franceschi is the co-founder and CEO of Brex, a fintech company reshaping how businesses manage their finances.Originally from Brazil, Pedro went from teenage hacker to leading one of the most well-known names in modern financial technology—building a platform trusted by startups and enterprises alike.In this episode, Pedro shares what it took to launch “Brex 3.0,” why he moved to a single-CEO model, and how tough structural changes set the stage for leaner, faster growth.Chapters:00:00 Trailer00:46 Introduction01:45 Startup roller coaster05:21 Founders know how to have fun07:12 Belief barrier evolution12:00 Early state of life in Brazil13:23 Controlling variables15:32 Screen time19:23 Making small decisions23:27 Learning raises the bar26:15 People manager38:49 Getting underwater42:05 Growth accelerated47:51 Vision from the top down52:13 Leadership organization54:01 AI software engineering physics54:43 People complain about change59:42 Believers and non-believers1:04:09 Equity and bonus controversy1:08:40 Big swings and going public1:14:15 Control in unpredictability1:18:04 Living in a pixel1:19:52 Meditate, sleep, diet, exercise1:24:36 Mental health and stress1:33:12 Who Brex is hiring1:33:49 What "grit" means to Pedro1:34:39 OutroMentioned in this episode: Silicon Valley, Facebook, Meta Platforms, Inc., Mark Zuckerberg, Mastercard, Rio de Janeiro, iPhone, Bill Gates, Tim Urban, Jony Ive, Apple Inc., LinkedIn, Salesforce, Brian Chesky, Airbnb, Anthropic Claude, Cursor, Codeium Windsurf, Cognition Labs Devin, Vercel, Retool AI, Amplitude, Spenser Skates, Elon Musk, Tesla, Inc.Links:Connect with Pedro:XLinkedInConnect with Joubin:XLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.comThis episode was produced by Kleiner Perkins and edited by IQvideo.The trailer and distribution for this episode were handled by Atomik Growth.Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Go To Market Grit
From India to Silicon Valley: The Jay Chaudhry & Zscaler Story

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 31, 2025 56:44


Before Zscaler was a $32B cloud security giant, it was just 10 engineers—half in Bangalore, half in a borrowed U.S. office.As founder and CEO of Zscaler, Jay Chaudhry bet $50M of his own money on one radical idea: secure the internet in the cloud.Born in a Himalayan village with no electricity, he built Zscaler into one of the world's top cybersecurity giants.In this episode, Jay breaks down why 50% of the Fortune 500 trusts Zscaler, why he still interviews candidates, and how he's incubating the company's next big AI bet.Chapters:00:00 Trailer00:42 Introduction01:21 His fifth company04:26 Entrepreneurs' existential fear10:53 Customer engagement and new innovations12:46 No private jets, no business class19:34 “I never used money”23:38 Born and raised in India26:17 Hiring legends30:35 Walking on water35:09 “Dolphining”39:55 Areas of weakness42:11 Passionate even on the weekends44:56 Work during roller coasters47:35 The weight of the world is on your shoulders49:21 Leveraging AI56:20 OutroMentioned in this episode: Elon Musk, Microsoft, Bill Gates, BlackBerry, Steve Ballmer, Satya Nadella, Hewlett-Packard (HP), IBM, John Fellows Akers, Steve Jobs, NeXT, Inc., Linux, Cisco, United Airlines, San Francisco International Airport, Sundar Pichai, Ravi Mhatre, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Six Flags, AI (artificial intelligence), securityLinks:Connect with JayLinkedInConnect with JoubinXLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

TechCrunch Startups – Spoken Edition
Mortgage as an employee benefit? Kleiner Perkins leads $23.5M Series A for Multiply Mortgage

TechCrunch Startups – Spoken Edition

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 26, 2025 5:38


After hitting record lows at the start of the pandemic, mortgage rates began to climb in 2022 and haven't come down significantly since.  With 30-year mortgage rates hovering at over 6.5% today (they were as low as 2.49% in 2020!), buying a home is simply not that attainable for many people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Go To Market Grit
#235 Effective, Transparent Government with OpenGov's Zac Bookman

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 24, 2025 76:13


Guest: Zac Bookman, CEO and Co-Founder of OpenGovThirteen years after co-founding the government transparency startup OpenGov, Zac Bookman is still finding ways to surprise people. In 2023, Cox Enterprises bought the company for $1.8 billion — but as far as Zac is concerned, “we're just getting started.”“ I left the vast majority of my net worth in the company,” he says. “So I'm a believer. I'm all in.”The mission of powering “more effective and accountable government” has been stable since OpenGov's earliest days, and that mission has informed everything from hiring to M&A to the decision to sell. “These people buy and don't sell,” Zac said of Cox. “They're all in on the mission. And they're all in on taking care of employees. So I see a triple win: A win for employees, win for the investors, win for the customers, maybe a quadruple win for me and the management.”Chapters:(01:46) - OpenGov's mission (04:34) - Shrinking the product-market fit (07:34) - Super misson driven (08:59) - Why OpenGov almost shut down (13:08) - Zac's early career (16:16) - Picking (and losing) a CTO (22:50) - Growing upside-down (25:29) - The SPAC backstabber (31:26) - Why Zac didn't get fired (33:24) - Selling in 2024 (37:04) - Growth by acquisition (42:31) - John Chambers and PMF (49:32) - Zac's cross-country bike ride (56:25) - Expectations vs. reality (58:57) - The coup attempt (01:01:59) - Tiring work (01:05:47) - Going to the White House (01:09:40) - DOGE & disrespect (01:12:54) - “We're just getting started” (01:14:18) - Who OpenGov is hiring (and where) (01:15:13) - What “grit” means to Zac Mentioned in this episode: Joe Lonsdale, Cox Enterprises, OpenAI, the Department of Government Efficiency, Workday, H.R. McMaster, Stanford University, Formation 8, 8VC, the National Academy of Sciences, the Stanford Review, Kamala Harris, Marc Andreessen, Balaji Srinivasan, Coinbase, Earn, Ben Horowitz, Facebook, Steve Laughlin, Cisco, Laurene Powell Jobs, Glynn Capital, Acme, Allen & Company, Harry You, Joe Tucci, EMC, Bill Green, Accenture, Tyler Technologies, HP, Josh Kushner, GTY Technology Holdings, John Keker, Palantir, CKAN, Oracle, Kevin McCarthy, The American Technology Council Summit, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Satya Nadella, Pat Gelsinger, Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, Elon Musk, Bill Clinton, and Al Gore.Links:Connect with ZacLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Go To Market Grit
#234 From Bootstrapped to $12B: Mailchimp's Ben Chestnut on Life After the Exit

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 17, 2025 71:11


Guest: Ben Chestnut, Former CEO and Co-Founder of MailchimpIf you find yourself selling your startup, then Mailchimp co-founder Ben Chestnut has some important advice for you: Get a dog. When Intuit bought Mailchimp in 2021 for $12 billion, the company asked Ben if he wanted to stay on as CEO, but he chose to “walk off into the sunset” and let the new owners take over. After that, he estimates it took 6 to 12 months before he stopped checking his email, social media, and calendar with the same level of stress a CEO might have. Adopting a dog, he discovered, forces you to “get OK with the voices in your head."“After the acquisition, that's all I do, I walk the dog,” Ben says. “And the dog was good therapy ... No judgments from a dog.”Chapters:(01:09) - Growing slow (03:06) - The long journey (07:48) - Is money a burden? (09:35) - Building globally in Atlanta (11:22) - Ben's upbringing (12:59) - The first 10 years (17:58) - Scaling to one billion emails (19:22) - Freemium (23:32) - No equity (26:00) - Deciding to sell (33:55) - “I'm a sunset guy” (35:29) - Stress and support (37:25) - Time with the parents (39:07) - Get a dog (42:24) - The voices in your head (46:03) - Serial and “Mailkimp” (53:00) - Hiring interviews (57:14) - Fitness routines (59:27) - Lights off (01:01:46) - AI & reinvention (01:06:30) - The worst days (01:09:15) - What “grit” means to Ben Mentioned in this episode: Intuit, Wolt, DoorDash, LinkedIn, Dan Kurzius, Salesforce, ExactTarget, Pardot, Constant Contact, Rackspace, Free by Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine, Charles Hudson, the Freemium Summit, Drew Houston, Dropbox, Evernote, Phil Libin, TechCrunch, Brian Kane, Catalyst Partners, Georgia Pacific, Scott Cook, Bing Gordon, Vinay Hiremath, Loom, Joe Thomas, Caltrain, Flickr, Saturday Night Live, Droga5, Cannes Film Festival, Strava, Twitter, LinkedIn, Nvidia, Glean, Rubrik, Amazon AWS, and Mechnical Turk.Links:Connect with BenLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Making Billions: The Private Equity Podcast for Startup Founders and Venture Capital Investors
3 Steps to Unlocking Powerful Investments in Any Industry

Making Billions: The Private Equity Podcast for Startup Founders and Venture Capital Investors

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 17, 2025 54:18 Transcription Available


Send us a text"RAISE CAPITAL LIKE A LEGEND: https://offer.fundraisecapital.co/free-ebook/"Hey, welcome to another episode of Making Billions, I'm your host, Ryan Miller, and today I have my dear friend Alex Chompff. Alex is the lead partner at Evolution Ventures. Before that, he launched a successful career in venture capital at the prestigious Kleiner Perkins, after a career in the Marines. So what does this mean? Well, it means that Alex understands how to build successful portfolios and startups as both an angel investor and a venture capitalist, and he's about to teach you and I the critical aspects of launching your first fund, closing your first deal, and verifying winning investment strategies that your competitors just cannot see. Subscribe on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTOe79EXLDsROQ0z3YLnu1QQConnect with Ryan Miller:Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rcmiller1/Instagram: Everyday AI: Your daily guide to grown with Generative AICan't keep up with AI? We've got you. Everyday AI helps you keep up and get ahead.Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify Intelligent Investment Today - The Warren Buffett WayINTELLIGENT INVESTMENT TODAY, a Shortcast "mini-podcast" series each around ten...Listen on: Apple Podcasts SpotifySupport the showDISCLAIMER: The information in every podcast episode “episode” is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction. By listening or viewing our episodes, you understand that no information contained in the episodes should be construed as legal or financial advice from the individual author, hosts, or guests, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal, financial, or tax counsel on any subject matter. No listener of the episodes should act or refrain from acting on the basis of any information included in, or accessible through, the episodes without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer, finance, tax, or other licensed person in the recipient's state, country, or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction. No part of the show, its guests, host, content, or otherwise should be considered a solicitation for investment in any way. All views expressed in any way by guests are their own opinions and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the show or its host(s). The host and/or its guests may own some of the assets discussed in this or other episodes, including compensation for advertisements, sponsorships, and/or endorsements. This show is for entertainment purposes only and should not be used as financial, tax, legal, or any advice whatsoever.

Go To Market Grit
#233: Boom's Blake Scholl on Supersonic Flight & Risking It All

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 10, 2025 88:45


Guest: Blake Scholl, Founder & CEO of Boom Supersonic“Passion and drive trumps knowledge and experience,” says Boom Supersonic CEO Blake Scholl. Long before he was running Boom — which earlier this year successfully tested the world's first privately-developed supersonic jet — he was enabling “the world's most obnoxious spam cannon” at Groupon, or designing a barcode-scanning game for retail shoppers.But eventually, Blake found the courage to be more audacious and do something closer to his lifelong love of aviation. He began educating himself about things he had never thought to learn, and tapping his LinkedIn network to get intros to the smartest people in the industry. “If you imagine yourself on like the day of IPO, 99 percent of what you needed to know to get to that day, you didn't know on day one,” he says. “So, why not take 99 percent to 99.5 percent, and work on the thing you really want to exist, even if you don't know anything about it yet?”Chapters: (01:07) - Blake on Boom's beginnings (01:52) - Breaking the sound barrier (05:23) - Concorde's legacy (09:36) - Navigating regulations (12:08) - Boomless supersonic flight (16:48) - The test flight (20:11) - Day-of nervousness (24:26) - Carrying passengers (26:55) - Cost & wi-fi (30:19) - “No middle seats” (32:35) - Hard tech (36:48) - What if Apple made a plane? (39:08) - Blake's career journey (43:29) - The risk of failure (49:12) - Finding the courage (52:49) - Balancing life with Boom (56:42) - Learning how to build a jet (01:00:20) - The power of LinkedIn (01:02:38) - Y Combinator Demo Day (01:08:24) - Richard Branson (01:11:38) - Dividing yourself (01:14:19) - Being a focused dad (01:20:05) - Exuberance vs. fear (01:24:15) - Hiring slowly (01:27:17) - What “grit” means to Blake Mentioned in this episode: Chuck Yeager, ChatGPT, the Apollo program, Elon Musk, SpaceX and Falcon 1, Boom Overture, Starlink, Boeing, Airbus, iPhone, Jony Ive, Uber, Airbnb, Anduril, United Airlines, American Airlines, Eclipse Aviation, Tesla, Scott Kirby, Mike Leskinen, Inktomi, Yahoo!, Amazon, Pelago, Google Ads, Kima Labs, Barcode Hero, Groupon, iPad, Eric Schmidt, Steve Jobs, Khan Academy, Sam Altman, Loopt, Virgin Atlantic, Paul Graham, Michael Seibel, Ashlee Vance, Bloomberg, Hacker News, Jared Friedman, Sen. Mark Kelly, SV Angel, Ron Conway, Virgin Galactic, Lockheed Martin, Gulfstream, Jeff Bezos, Jeff Holden, and How It's Made.Links:Connect with BlakeTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Go To Market Grit
#232 CEO NetApp, George Kurian: New Chapters

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 3, 2025 58:18


Guest: George Kurian, CEO of NetAppFor almost 10 years, George Kurian has been CEO of the data infrastructure firm NetApp, overseeing its pivot to cloud services. After he  took the job — a surprise promotion dropped on him just days before it was announced — he had to learn on the job how the job could be.“ There are a lot more stakeholders that a CEO has to deal with than a chief product officer,” George says, referring to his previous role. “There's also a lot more external commitment ... It was a really all-consuming effort to get the company turned around.”He said the CEO job can be “fairly lonely” because you may want to be peers or friends with your team and your board — but in fact, they are sometimes your subordinates and your superiors, respectively.“ We wouldn't be here without others having contributed significantly on the journey,” George says. “[But] there are times when you have to step back and say, ‘I see a pattern that my team is not seeing,' or ‘Do I think that we can do a better job than we are doing?'”Chapters:(01:10) - Commuting to Sunnyvale (04:49) - Growing up in India (08:04) - Protect the child (09:33) - Raising kids in Silicon Valley (12:44) - Money motivation (15:04) - NetApp's renaissance (21:39) - Writing new chapters (23:15) - Culture shifts (26:38) - Coming to NetApp (29:41) - Surprise! You're the CEO (32:41) - Making sacrifices (35:04) - Work vs. family tension (37:18) - Doubt & lonely decisions (42:38) - The data wave (45:27) - Enterprise AI (51:36) - Starting your own company (53:33) - Navigating difficulty (56:28) - Who NetApp is hiring (57:11) - What “grit” means to George Mentioned in this episode: EMC, OpenAI, DeepSeek, CalTrain, the San Francisco 49ers, Princeton University, Subway, Vons, Thomas Kurian, Google Cloud, Stanford University, Brian Cox, Oliver Jay, the Quakers, Jay Chaudhry, zScaler, Manmohan Singh, Oracle, IBM, Sun, Amazon, Microsoft, Glean, Kobe Bryant, Steph Curry, McKinsey, Akamai, Cisco, Gwen McDonald, and the San Francisco Friends School.Links:Connect with GeorgeLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Growing the Future
Wade Barnes: From Billion Dollar Startup to Starting Over Part 3

Growing the Future

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 3, 2025 68:37


In this episode of the Growing the Future Podcast, Wade Barnes, founder of Farmer's Edge, shares the raw and unfiltered story of his entrepreneurial journey—from the early days of pioneering precision agriculture to the pressure cooker of fundraising, navigating investor dynamics, and the hard lessons learned through an IPO.

Go To Market Grit
#231 CEO & Co-Founder Harvey, Winston Weinberg w/ Ilya Fushman: Worthy Sacrifices

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 24, 2025 65:44


Guests: Winston Weinberg, CEO & co-founder of Harvey; and Ilya Fushman, partner at Kleiner Perkins“If you think about pretty much any job out there in the world, we will have some sort of [AI] copilot,” says Kleiner Perkins partner Ilya Fushman. “The question is, who are the right folks to build it, and what's their vision?”For Harvey CEO & co-founder Winston Weinberg, the vision is clear: Silicon Valley cannot and should not try to disrupt the legal profession by automating the job of lawyers. Instead, he says, they need to have “respect for the industry” before designing AI solutions that speed up specific tasks.“These industries are incredibly complex,” Winston says. “Legal is one of the oldest professions known to man. There are firms that are over a hundred years old. There are firms that are hundreds of years old, and having a brand that says, ‘We are partnering with the industry to transform it' versus ‘We are just going to steamroll the industry' is really important for us.”Chapters:(01:16) - The zeitgeist switch (02:58) - What is Harvey? (06:10) - Chief Law Officers (07:58) - Agentic workflows (09:43) - Ilya's investment thesis (12:48) - Collaborating with AI (16:05) - Task automation (20:52) - Why is it called Harvey? (23:14) - Respecting the legal industry (26:43) - Winston's past jobs (28:47) - First steps (32:13) - Scaling the company (35:02) - Scaling yourself (37:19) - Who works for Harvey (40:50) - Making mistakes (43:15) - Making sacrifices (45:51) - Growing too fast (50:50) - Setting priorities (54:54) - Harvey's competitors (57:38) - Internal virality (01:00:46) - Testing Harvey's limits (01:03:29) - Who Harvey is hiring (01:04:01) - What “grit” means to Winston Mentioned in this episode: ChatGPT, the Fortune 500, Microsoft Copilot, Gabe Pereyra, Activision, Excel, Counsel AI Corporation, Suits, Harvard University, Netflix, Dell, O'Melveny & Myers, Hueston Hennigan, Meta, Reddit, Jason Kwon, Anthropic, Marissa Mayer, Eric Schmidt, Google, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Glean.Links:Connect with WinstonTwitterLinkedInConnect with IlyaTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

GREY Journal Daily News Podcast
Together AI's Rise to Billion Dollar Valuation Sparks Major Investor Interest

GREY Journal Daily News Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 20, 2025 1:36


Together AI raised $305 million in a funding round led by General Catalyst and Saudi Arabia's Prosperity7 Ventures, achieving a valuation of $3.3 billion, up from $1.25 billion after a previous funding round. Significant investors included Salesforce Ventures, Nvidia, Kleiner Perkins, and Coatue. Together AI reported annualized revenue exceeding $100 million, an increase from $30 million in February. Investments in AI startups showed strong momentum, with Anthropic securing $1 billion from Google in January, and over $42 billion invested in AI startups during the fourth quarter of the previous year, nearly double the prior quarter's investment.Learn more on this news visit us at: Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Go To Market Grit
#230 Co-Founder Wolt & Head of International at DoorDash, Miki Kuusi: The Next Mountain

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 17, 2025 81:51


Guest: Miki Kuusi, head of international at Doordash + CEO & co-founder of Wolt + co-founder of Slush tech conferenceBefore Miki Kuusi launched the Finnish delivery startup Wolt, which DoorDash acquired in 2022, he wasn't just another startup entrepreneur. From 2011 to 2015, Miki was the CEO of the hugely influential European tech conference Slush, which brings thousands of founders and VCs to Helsinki every winter. “You could argue that Slush was my university for things leading up to Wolt, and what I do today,” Miki says. “That's where I learned most of the core lessons that I put into action.” One thing he remembers thinking in those early days: Everything was going to be redefined by the internet.“I just wanted to get a shot at building one of these services of the next hundred years,” he says. “And that was the driving motivator for me. If the driving motivator had been money, I don't think we would be here today.”Chapters:(01:14) - Act 3 (03:36) - Unlocking local commerce (06:13) - Selling Wolt (09:27) - The competition (14:20) - DoorDash's and Wolt's origins (17:50) - “Maybe we're the idiots in the room” (22:44) - Difficult years (25:13) - Startups in Europe vs. U.S. (28:56) - Learning from DoorDash (31:51) - Market correction (35:24) - Delivery around the world (39:17) - “ Glorified recruiting companies” (42:31) - Convincing restaurants (44:11) - Slush (48:21) - The next mountain (54:13) - Ambition and concentration (59:58) - Family and distractions (01:04:34) - Email overload (01:07:07) - Time as currency (01:09:25) - Priorities and onboarding (01:15:49) - The power of culture (01:19:32) - Who Wolt and DoorDash are hiring (01:20:39) - What “grit” means to Miki Mentioned in this episode: Tony Xu, Uber, Lyft, Uber Eats, Postmates, Delivery Hero, GrubHub, DeepSeek, OpenAI, Anthropic, Kees Koolen and Booking.com, 83North, Supercell, DashPass, Wolt+, Microsoft Excel, Amazon, Parker Conrad and Rippling, Andreeseen Horowitz, Fortnite, WhatsApp, Barry's Bootcamp, and Slack.Links:Connect with MikiLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Beyond The Horizon
Compilation Of Corruption: Ghislaine Maxwell, The Kleiner Perkins Party And Her Loyalty To Andy (2/12/25)

Beyond The Horizon

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2025 28:07


In 2011, Ghislaine Maxwell attended a holiday party hosted by the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins in Silicon Valley. Ellen Pao, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins and ex-CEO of Reddit, later revealed that Maxwell was present at this event. Pao noted that, at the time, there were already reports alleging Maxwell's involvement in procuring underage girls for sex, yet she was still included in the guest list. This revelation underscores the extent of Maxwell's connections within elite circles, even amid serious allegations.Following Ghislaine Maxwell's 2021 conviction for sex trafficking, there was widespread speculation that she might cooperate with authorities to reduce her sentence by providing information on associates, notably Prince Andrew, who faced allegations of sexual misconduct linked to Jeffrey Epstein's network. However, Maxwell did not offer such cooperation, and Prince Andrew has consistently denied any wrongdoing. In February 2022, he settled a civil lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexual abuse, without admitting liability. Consequently, Maxwell's decision not to "flip" left Prince Andrew's legal standing largely unaffected by her trial.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.com

The Moscow Murders and More
Compilation Of Corruption: Ghislaine Maxwell, The Kleiner Perkins Party And Her Loyalty To Andy (2/12/25)

The Moscow Murders and More

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2025 28:07


In 2011, Ghislaine Maxwell attended a holiday party hosted by the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins in Silicon Valley. Ellen Pao, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins and ex-CEO of Reddit, later revealed that Maxwell was present at this event. Pao noted that, at the time, there were already reports alleging Maxwell's involvement in procuring underage girls for sex, yet she was still included in the guest list. This revelation underscores the extent of Maxwell's connections within elite circles, even amid serious allegations.Following Ghislaine Maxwell's 2021 conviction for sex trafficking, there was widespread speculation that she might cooperate with authorities to reduce her sentence by providing information on associates, notably Prince Andrew, who faced allegations of sexual misconduct linked to Jeffrey Epstein's network. However, Maxwell did not offer such cooperation, and Prince Andrew has consistently denied any wrongdoing. In February 2022, he settled a civil lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexual abuse, without admitting liability. Consequently, Maxwell's decision not to "flip" left Prince Andrew's legal standing largely unaffected by her trial.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.com

The Epstein Chronicles
Compilation Of Corruption: Ghislaine Maxwell, The Kleiner Perkins Party And Her Loyalty To Andy (2/10/25)

The Epstein Chronicles

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 11, 2025 33:43


In 2011, Ghislaine Maxwell attended a holiday party hosted by the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins in Silicon Valley. Ellen Pao, a former partner at Kleiner Perkins and ex-CEO of Reddit, later revealed that Maxwell was present at this event. Pao noted that, at the time, there were already reports alleging Maxwell's involvement in procuring underage girls for sex, yet she was still included in the guest list. This revelation underscores the extent of Maxwell's connections within elite circles, even amid serious allegations.Following Ghislaine Maxwell's 2021 conviction for sex trafficking, there was widespread speculation that she might cooperate with authorities to reduce her sentence by providing information on associates, notably Prince Andrew, who faced allegations of sexual misconduct linked to Jeffrey Epstein's network. However, Maxwell did not offer such cooperation, and Prince Andrew has consistently denied any wrongdoing. In February 2022, he settled a civil lawsuit filed by Virginia Giuffre, who accused him of sexual abuse, without admitting liability. Consequently, Maxwell's decision not to "flip" left Prince Andrew's legal standing largely unaffected by her trial.to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-epstein-chronicles--5003294/support.

Go To Market Grit
#229 Former CEO Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick w/ Bing Gordon: Change the Game

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 10, 2025 119:32


Guest: Bobby Kotick, former CEO of Activision Blizzard; and Bing Gordon, general partner at Kleiner PerkinsIn 2020, when President Trump signed the executive order that would ban TikTok in the U.S., Bobby Kotick called his old friend Steven Mnuchin. The former Secretary of the Treasury told him that, if TikTok's U.S. operations were to be sold to an American company, Microsoft would be the only bidder.A couple calls later, he reached ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming, who said he'd rather sell to Bobby than Microsoft. Concerned about his ability to get the deal done solo, Bobby called Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and offered to make a joint bid. Nadella declined, but added, “ if the deal doesn't get done, we should sit down and talk about us buying Activision.” TikTok currently remains Chinese-owned, but three years later, Microsoft paid $75 billion for Activision Blizzard.Chapters:Mentioned in this episode: Harvard-Westlake School, Alison Ressler, Vivendi, Berkshire Hathaway, Bruce Hack and Arnaud de Puyfontaine, John Riccitiello and EA, Call of Duty, Bizarre Creations, Atari, Apple II, Commodore 64, Jean-Louis Gassée, Apple Lisa, Howard Lincoln, Philips, Magnavox Odyssey, Sutter Hill Ventures, Infocom and Zork, Toys-R-Us, Howard Hughes, E. Parry Thomas, Sun Valley, Thom Weisel, William Morris Endeavor, Guitar Hero, Davidson & Associates, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, World of Warcraft, Medal of Honor, Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, Chris Roberts, Overwatch, Tencent, Time Warner, Jeff Bewkes, Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In, Lina Khan, Samsung, Elon Musk, James L. Jones, UFC, E. Floyd Kvamme, Toy Story 2, Procter & Gamble, Ron Doornik, John Lasseter, Xerox PARC, Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata, Goldeneye 007, James Bond, Barbara Broccoli, Oculus, Apple Vision Pro, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Sam Altman, Mustafa Suleyman, Spotify, Candy Crush Saga, Disney, Phil Spencer, Clarence Avant and Motown Records. Links:Connect with BobbyTwitterLinkedInConnect with BingTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Go To Market Grit
#228 Co-Founder Alinea & Tock: Selling Experience

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 3, 2025 80:07


Guest: Nick Kokonas, co-founder of the Alinea Group and former CEO of TockAs of October 1, 2024, Nick Kokonas is no longer an owner of the Alinea restaurant group, which he co-founded and ran for almost 20 years. When he bought a vineyard in Napa Valley prior to the exit, one of his sons remarked, “He's given up. Time to go out to pasture.”Nick admits that the work ahead of him is “not the same” as the high-pressure world of a Michelin-starred restaurant in Chicago. But he's started working with the magician Nate Staniforth on a new restaurant concept that will present diners with illusions and surprises over the course of a two-hour experience. “If you want to feel wonder and feel childlike again, go see a magician,” Nick says. “[But] there's so much bad cultural baggage ... what we wanted to do was create an experience that is not really about magic.”Chapters:(02:29) - Celebrity restauranteurs (07:14) - The next act (12:30) - Buying the vineyard (15:37) - Fear is motivating (17:59) - Opening night (22:03) - Tongue cancer (27:56) - “OK, let's fix this” (31:10) - Selling experience (38:32) - The table plate (42:40) - Feeling full (44:14) - Next Restaurant and Tock (49:33) - Being still (51:19) - Nate Staniforth's lottery illusion (56:57) - The magic restaurant (01:02:29) - Being misunderstood (01:07:44) - Working via email (01:11:43) - “Enemies” (01:18:23) - Who Nick is hiring and what “grit” means to him Mentioned in this episode: Mike Gamson, Shaquille O'Neal, Jeff Kaplan, Steve Bernacki, Robin Anil, Grant Achatz, OpenTable, American Express, The Big Lebowski, The New York Times, eGullet, Gourmet Magazine, Roger Ebert, Eddie van Halen, Goodfellas, The Devil Wears Prada, Batman, the Chicago Bears, Madonna, Taylor Swift, Bavette's and Brendan Sodikoff, Pablo Picasso, Chef's Table, Google, Brian Fitzpatrick, Finding Real Magic, David Blaine, Mark Cuban, Mark Caro, Chicago Magazine, John Mariani, Cat Cora, Homaro Cantu, Dave Portnoy, Pete Wells, and Eric Asimov.Links:Connect with NickTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Go To Market Grit
#227: CEO & Founder Axon, Rick Smith: Push Risk

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 27, 2025 75:41


Guest: Rick Smith, CEO & Founder of Axon (formerly TASER)Being a founder-CEO is a “unique superpower,” says Axon's Rick Smith: People like him get a longer leash from the board to try things that outside CEOs might not.“My job is to push risk into the organization,” Rick says. “If there's a project with a 50 percent chance of success, a 50 percent chance of failure, but it's going to pay 100 to 1, any finance person will tell you, you should take that bet all day long.”One of those bets was the transition from running a weapons company called TASER into a broader public safety firm called Axon, which makes cloud-supported body cameras fro police, tactical drones, AI records management software and more. “If we never have a product failure, then we're not taking risks anymore and we're going to end up getting disrupted,” Rick says.Chapters:(01:09) - Tasers vs. guns (03:35) - Axon's growth (07:09) - Biggest surprises (09:33) - How TASER got started (13:11) - Reinventing the taser (17:24) - A humiliating launch (23:33) - Rick's family (26:14) - The Auto Taser failure (30:21) - The darkest days (34:26) - Hans Marrero (37:25) - Family and burnout (42:49) - Rick's family (45:49) - Pivoting the business (51:37) - Axon body cameras (53:46) - Axon's current products (58:08) - Re-educating the cops (01:02:09) - Pushing risk (01:05:44) - Competing with the gun (01:10:16) - Exponential stock plans (01:14:17) - Who Axon is hiring (01:14:46) - What “grit” means to Rick Mentioned in this episode: UnitedHealthcare and Brian Thompson, Harvard University, human-machine interfaces, Star Wars, Timecop, Star Trek, Jack Cover, Project Apollo, Ed Owen; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; Tom Smith, Rodney King, the Sharper Image, Steve Filmer, Phil Smith, Silicon Valley Bank, Emil Michael, Bob Kagle, Benchmark, Norwest Ventures, Molly Wuthrich, Josh Isner, The Terminator, Ferrari, Richard Branson, Burning Man, Steve Jobs, Brenda Smith, Hadi Partovi, Amazon AWS, Microsoft, DraftOne, Ambience Health, OpenAI, Mark Zuckerberg, Michael Brown, Computer Aided Dispatch, Elon Musk and SpaceX, and Luke Larson.Links:Connect with RickTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Go To Market Grit
#226 President & COO Coinbase, Emilie Choi: Through the Storm

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 20, 2025 60:11


Guest: Emilie Choi, president & COO of CoinbaseAfter the collapse of FTX in 2022, “the whole industry was tarnished,” recalls Coinbase COO Emilie Choi. “Politicians came out criticizing crypto, saying it was a fraud.”But unlike FTX, Coinbase was a public company in the U.S. So when the SEC served it a Wells notice, announcing its intent to charge the company with violating securities laws, the executive team took an unusual step: They went on the offensive, publicly calling BS on the agency.“Well-regarded CEOs from TradFi, they were like, ‘You don't do that,'” Emilie says. “'You don't antagonize your regulator.' ... It was a combination of chutzpah and maybe desperation that we were like, ‘We have to go tell our story, because if we don't, nobody else will.'”Chapters: (01:14) - Working with founder CEOs (04:12) - Mission first (07:16) - Reviewing candidates (09:48) - Unusual hiring (11:22) - Crypto after FTX (16:29) - Operation Choke Point 2.0 (19:19) - Grin and bear it (21:24) - Channeling negativity (24:21) - Going to war with the SEC (26:20) - Donald Trump and Gary Gensler (28:38) - Was it worth it? (31:19) - Shipping challenges (34:03) - OKRs and personal goals (36:41) - Brian Armstrong and structure (40:56) - The COO guidebook (43:30) - Removing bureaucracy (46:50) - Investing in crypto (49:41) - After Coinbase (53:03) - Constantly on (54:53) - Favorite interview questions (56:28) - Who Coinbase is hiring (58:28) - Standing for something Mentioned in this episode: Google Chat, executive coaches, Mark Zuckerberg, LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner, speed reading, Warner Bros., Elizabeth Warren, Sam Bankman-Fried, Wells notices, Paul Grewal, Chris Lehane, Airbnb, OpenAI, FOIA requests, Balaji Srinivasan, Dan Romero, Kevin Scott, Microsoft, Patrick McHenry, Ritchie Torres, Fairshake PAC, A16z, Ripple, Stand With Crypto, Dogecoin, Robinhood, Charles Schwab, JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Paul Ryan, Faryar Shirzad, Kara Calvert, Elon Musk, Earn.com, Ben Horowitz, Bain Capital Ventures, Claire Hughes Johnson and Scaling People, Directly Responsible Individuals, Fidelity, BlackRock, Yahoo!, Stewart Butterfield, Brad Garlinghouse, Alibaba, Flickr, cognitive tests, and Loom.Links:Connect with EmilieTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Go To Market Grit
#225 CEO Lattice, Sarah Franklin: Trailblazer

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 13, 2025 72:01


Guest: Sarah Franklin, CEO of LatticeAs the CEO of a growing company, Lattice's Sarah Franklin has learned that one of her most important contributions is taking a leap of faith. “You have to have the courage to be the first one to do it,” she says,” and to show that it can be done, and to pave the way so that then your team feels trust.”Sarah cautions, though, that sometimes courage is deciding to stop and go a different direction. As agentic AI becomes more common, the people building companies like Lattice should look to the “cautionary tales” of how social media and mobile phones have changed society, she says.“We can have the courage to say, what are the outcomes that we want to prevent? Or what are the outcomes that we want to make sure happen? This all takes, courage, because it's all unknown.”Chapters:(01:14) - Schooling in Mexico (04:09) - Raising brave children (10:28) - Sarah's upbringing (13:29) - The pursuit of money (16:23) - Measuring success (19:28) - Learnings, not regrets (22:55) - Make an impact (26:44) - Pitching Trailhead (32:56) - Elevating a B2B company (35:27) - How to colonize Mars (38:39) - Marketing, the Salesforce way (44:21) - Dolphining and truth-tellers (50:56) - Renewed purpose (56:30) - The challenges of being CEO (01:00:18) - Pave the way (01:03:25) - “Humanizing AI” (01:06:57) - Handling controversy (01:11:04) - Who Lattice is hiring and what “grit” means to Sarah Mentioned in this episode: FaceTime, Salesforce, Marc Benioff, Mahatma Gandhi, Instagram, the Fortune 500, Java, Jerry Maguire, National Parks, Nike, Michael Jordan, Apple and “Think Different,” Sara Varni, Scott Holden, Andy Kofoid, Databricks, Datadog, Behind the Cloud, Oracle, Microsoft, Elon Musk, Amazon AWS, George Hu, Mike Rosenbaum, Cheryl Feldman, Zac Otero, Guidewire Software, AI agents, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and LinkedIn.Links:Connect with SarahLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Go To Market Grit
#224 CTO & Co-Owner 37signals, David Heinemeier Hansson: Perfect Flow

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 6, 2025 94:11


Guest: David Heinemeier Hansson, CTO & co-owner of 37signals and creator of Ruby on Rails 37signals CTO David Heinemeier Hansson has organized his life around his passions: Writing, racing sports cars, and coding. “ Why aren't we all doing that?” he wonders. “Why aren't we all trying to optimize our life in such a way that much of it is enjoyable?”Part of the problem, David argues, is that it's impossible to find a creative or productive flow inside of mainstream work culture. Open offices, managerial over-hiring, and sloppy scheduling prevents people from reaching a flow state.“40 hours a week is plenty than most people,” he says. “... So many people today are focused on just adding more and more hours. They're not thinking about how those hours are spent.” Chapters:(01:19) - 24 Hours of Le Mans (06:48) - Amateurs in sports car racing (10:54) - Flow and meditation (15:25) - Mundane bulls**t (18:14) - Optimizing for flow (21:09) - Calendars and open offices (24:30) - Full-time managers (29:06) - Small companies (32:20) - Selfishness and work (40:21) - Taking other people's money (45:43) - Temptation (49:49) - Moderately rich (55:19) - “The day I became a millionaire” (58:56) - The hassle (01:03:58) - Achieving the dream (01:08:34) - Shopify and Tobias Lütke (01:14:50) - Trade-offs and downsides (01:18:43) - The impact of Ruby on Rails (01:22:02) - “I love being wrong” (01:25:37) - DEI and illegal drugs (01:29:49) - Not hiring (01:30:35) - What “grit” means to David Mentioned in this episode: TikTok, Minecraft, Mario Kart, Formula One, NASCAR, Lewis Hamilton, the NBA, Tesla Model S, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Steve McQueen, Jason Fried, Tetris, Bullshit Jobs: A Theory by David Graeber, Elon Musk and Twitter, the Dunbar number, Zappos, Google, Adam Smith, Stripe, Meta, Jeff Bezos, Basecamp, Zapier, 1Password, GitHub, SpaceX, private jets, Aesop, the Pagani Zonda, the Porsche Boxster, Lamborghini, Coco Chanel, LeBron James, Hey, Steve Jobs, Michael Arrington and TechCrunch, Y Combinator, Dr. Thomas Sowell,Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn, Grit by Angela Duckworth, and LEGO. Links:Connect with DavidTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Go To Market Grit
#223 Great Stories and Gritty Advice for 2025

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 30, 2024 65:05


On this special episode of Grit, we look back at some of the coolest stories and best advice our guests have shared in 2024. Chapters:(00:49) - David Risher on his Amazon easter egg & moving on (07:02) - Jason Kilar on bouncing between relevance & irrelevance (15:13) - Eoghan McCabe on "re-founding" the company he started (22:59) - Mark Fields on battling with Trump & running to the fire (29:41) - John Hanke on intensity and balance (38:00) - Rony Abovitz on whether losing he's bitter about losing Magic Leap to COVID (47:42) - Mark McLaughlin on sacrificing personal time (57:39) - Taylor Francis on building culture Listen to all of these episodes:#201 CEO Lyft, David Risher: The Ride#214 Former CEO Hulu & WarnerMedia Jason Kilar: No Labels#191 CEO & Co-Founder Intercom, Eoghan McCabe: Second Beginning#209 Former President & CEO Ford, Mark Fields: All Cylinders#203 CEO Niantic, John Hanke: Buried Ships#212 Founder Magic Leap & SynthBee Rony Abovitz: Underdog#202 Chairman of Qualcomm, Mark McLaughlin: The Right Pitch#189 Co-Founder Watershed, Taylor Francis: Worthy MissionsConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

DealMakers
Steven Galanis On Raising $200 Million To Build A Platform And App Allowing Fans To Request Personalized Video Messages From Celebrities

DealMakers

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 29, 2024 41:21


Steven Galanis, co-founder of Cameo, epitomizes the entrepreneurial spirit. His story, steeped in family tradition, innovation, and grit, is a fascinating tale of navigating life's twists and turns to build a hyper-growth company in the talent world. Steven's latest venture, Cameo, has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Valor Equity Partners, Kleiner Perkins, Morgan Stanley, and Amazon Alexa Fund.

Go To Market Grit
#222 CEO San Francisco Giants, Larry Baer: Winning Plays

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 23, 2024 71:17


Guest: Larry Baer, CEO of the San Francisco GiantsIn 1992, Larry Baer was part of the ownership group that bought the San Francisco Giants and successfully prevented the team from being moved to Tampa, Florida. Back then, they had a big problem to solve: An old, uncomfortable ballpark that voters wanted to see replaced, but didn't want to pay for.20 years after the construction and financial success of Candlestick Park's replacement, Oracle Park, Baer — now the CEO of the Giants — embarked on an even bigger project, developing an entire neighborhood near Oracle called Mission Rock. “We're in the baseball business, but really, we're in the media, entertainment, sports, real estate business,” he says. Chapters:(01:05) - Growing up a fan (04:37) - Larry's dad (07:28) - Stopping the move (13:28) - The Giants in 1992 (15:18) - “What am I doing here?” (19:31) - Hiring with urgency (23:34) - Last out to first pitch (27:45) - Buster Posey (30:13) - The Candlestick problem (36:36) - Making a new stadium (43:00) - Always hungry (45:01) - Becoming CEO (49:52) - Homegrown talent (52:55) - The Mission Rock neighborhood (57:27) - Revitalizing San Francisco (01:03:20) - “It all starts here” (01:07:20) - What Oracle Park means (01:09:52) - What “grit” means to Larry Mentioned in this episode: Barry Bonds, Candlestick Park, Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Juan Marichal, Josh Harris, Larry and Bob Tisch, CBS, Peter Magowan and Safeway, Charles Schwab, Don Fisher, Bill Hewlett, Arthur Rock, Charles Johnson, Harmon Burns, Bank of America, Walter Shorenstein, Dianne Feinstein, Bob Lurie, Bobby Bonds, Dennis Gilbert, Roger Craig, Al Rosen, Dusty Baker, Bob Quinn, Brian Sabean, George Steinbrenner, Bob Lillis, Matt Williams, Greg Johnson, the 1994 baseball strike, Chase Manhattan Bank, Warren Hellman, Jimmy Lee, Pacific Bell, Coca-Cola Company, J.T. Snow, Jeff Kent, Bill Neukom, Brandon Crawford, Brandon Belt, Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain, Madison Bumgarner, Sergio Romo, Hunter Pence, Marco Scutaro, Joseph Lacob and the Golden State Warriors, Tishman Speyer, Al Kelly, Ryan McInerney, Visa, Che Fico, Arsicault, Trick Dog and Josh Harris, the Chase Center, Sam Altman and Open AI, Anthropic, Daniel Lurie, Salesforce and Dreamforce, Imagine Dragons, Pink, the Moscone Center, and Billy Crystal. Links:Connect with LarryLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

This Week in Startups
Codeium's Vision for AI-Driven Development with Varun Mohan | E2064

This Week in Startups

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 20, 2024 59:00


This Week in Startups is brought to you by… Squarespace. Turn your idea into a new website! Go to https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. LinkedIn Ads. To redeem a $100 LinkedIn ad credit and launch your first campaign, go to http://www.linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups PrizePicks - Run your game. THE BEST place to get real money action while watching your favorite sports! Download the app today and use code TWIST to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup! Todays show:Jason & Alex chat with Varun Mohan, founder & CEO of Codeium, the revolutionary AI-powered coding platform backed by Kleiner Perkins & Founders Fund. Varun shares insights on pivoting to greatness, scaling enterprise solutions, and launching Codeium's new IDE, Windsurf. Timestamps: (0:00) Jason and Alex kick off the show (0:30) Failure examples and Star Wars character confusion (1:38) Introduction to the episode, guests, and Perplexity AI (4:36) Varun Mohan and Codium's journey in AI and IDE development (11:01) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST (12:29) The challenge of moderate success and building 10x better experiences (19:48) LinkedIn Ads - Get a $100 LinkedIn ad credit at http://www.linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups (21:21) Alex Wilhelm's Cascade demo and Codium's capabilities (24:49) Codium's pricing and the future of no code development (31:45) PrizePicks - Run your game. Download the app today and use code TWIST to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup! (33:31) Satya Nadella on SaaS's future and AI replacing agents (36:00) AI's impact on developer jobs, salaries, and remote work (41:27) Elite developers, hiring strategies, and in-person vs. remote work (46:03) Twist 500, upcoming events, and what VCs seek in startups (53:02) Hyper competition in AI services and niche market strategies (58:26) Audience Q&A and closing remarks Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp Follow Varun: X: https://x.com/_mohansolo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/varunkmohan Check out: https://codeium.com Follow Alex: X: https://x.com/alex LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexwilhelm Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis Thank you to our partners: (11:01) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://www.Squarespace.com/TWIST (19:48) LinkedIn Ads - Get a $100 LinkedIn ad credit at http://www.linkedin.com/thisweekinstartups (31:45) PrizePicks - Run your game. Download the app today and use code TWIST to get $50 instantly after you play your first $5 lineup! Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@founderuniversity1916

Lend Academy Podcast
Carlo Kobe, CEO of Fizz, on building a great financial app for college students

Lend Academy Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 20, 2024 35:18


[Editor's note: This is our last podcast of 2024. We are taking two weeks off and will be back on January 9. Happy Holidays everyone!]The 20 million college students in the US today, while a vast market that is somewhat homogenous, has not been a focus for many banks or fintechs. Since the Card Act in 2010, credit card issuers have not been able to set up shop on campus trolling their wares. That has left a wide open market that no company has dominated, at least not yet. My next guest on the Fintech One-on-One podcast is Carlo Kobe, the CEO and Co-Founder of Fizz. Carlo is a Gen-Z founder with a financial app focused squarely on Gen-Z consumers, specifically college students. He maybe the youngest founder I have ever had on the show, but don't let his youth fool you. He is a deep thinker and quick learner and his thoughtful approach to the market has Fizz well positioned for success.In this podcast you will learn:The formative experience as an international student that sparked the idea for Fizz.How prepared college students are for adult financial responsibilities.The attitude of college student towards credit cards.How Carlo describes Fizz today.How they created a debit card that helps build credit.How they are underwriting these college students for their line of credit.How they are able to empower college students to manage money.Where most budgeting tool fall short and how Fizz is different.How they calculate their "Available to Spend" number.Why they decided to build their own tech stack.The two partner banks they are working with today.How they were able to raise $14 million from Kleiner Perkins.How they are marketing to college students.Why they intend to let their customers go after they age out past 25.Connect with Fintech One-on-One: Tweet me @PeterRenton Connect with me on LinkedIn Find previous Fintech One-on-One episodes

The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: UiPath's Daniel Dines on Why Agents Do Not Mean RPA is F***** | Why We Have Reached the Upper End of Scaling Laws | The Future of Work in an Agent World and What Everyone Misunderstands About Enterprise AI

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

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 18, 2024 58:08


Daniel Dines is the Founder & CEO @ UiPath, one of the most incredible journeys in startups. For 10 years, UiPath was a bootstrapped company that scaled to just $500K in revenue. Then it all changed, product market fit became obvious and the rest is history. The company went on to raise funding from Sequoia, Accel, Kleiner Perkins and more. Today, the company is worth over $10BN, listed on the NASDAQ and does $1BN+ in revenue. In Today's Episode with Daniel Dines We Discuss: 1. The Future of LLMs: Why does Daniel believe that we are at the upper end of scaling laws and more compute will not lead to increased performance? Does Daniel believe we will see a world of many specialised models or fewer generalist models? OpenAI, Anthropic, Xai. Which would Daniel most want to invest in? Why them? 2. Is RPA F******* in a World of Agents: What is the core difference between RPA and agents? How do the tasks they complete differ? Why must we have a neutral meta layer coordinating RPA processes and agents? Why will siloed applications like Salesforce be unable to expand beyond their initial function?  Why does Daniel believe that agents will not complete tasks but make recommendations? 3. The Future of Work: WTF Happens with Agents: How long will it be before agents are fully utilised in the enterprise? What is the role of the human in a world of agents? What are the single biggest concerns of enterprises considering implementing agents in their companies? Why has GenAI not been successful in enterprise so far? Will this change? 4. Daniel Dines: The Billionaire Behind the Brand: How does Daniel deal with the loneliness of being CEO? What problem did Daniel struggle with for much of his twenties and thirties? How did he overcome it? Why does Daniel fear that he is becoming more and more disconnected?  Why does Daniel believe 1-1s are BS? What is Daniel's single biggest advice to a new parent today?  

DealMakers
Daniel Lee On Raising $70 Million To Build An AI-Driven Sales Assistance Platform To Automate Sales Tasks

DealMakers

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 17, 2024 24:01


In the fast-paced world of tech entrepreneurship, Daniel Lee stands out with a remarkable story of resilience, innovation, and vision. Co-founder of Nooks, an AI-powered platform transforming the productivity of sales teams, Daniel recently announced a $43M funding round, bringing the total raised to $70M. Nooks' top-tier investors include Kleiner Perkins, Lachy Groom, Stifel Venture Banking, and Tola Capital.

Fintech Leaders
Daragh Murphy, CEO of Imprint - $200M to Disrupt Co-Branded Credit Cards with a Customer-First Approach

Fintech Leaders

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 17, 2024 38:35


Send us a textMiguel Armaza interviews Daragh Murphy, CEO & Co-Founder of Imprint, a fast-growing and leading fintech in the co-branded credit card space that has raised $200 million from Thrive Capital, Ribbit, Khosla Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Stripe, and a many more great investors.In this episode, we discuss:Challenges and lessons building Imprint, including pivoting and finding product-market fitWhy a great Return on Equity (ROE) is what really matters when building a companyUsing heuristics to find values-aligned talent at ImprintA cautionary tale on the fragility of life and a reminder to live fully… and a lot more!Want more podcast episodes? Join me and follow Fintech Leaders today on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app for weekly conversations with today's global leaders that will dominate the 21st century in fintech, business, and beyond.Do you prefer a written summary? Check out the Fintech Leaders newsletter and join ~70,000+ readers and listeners worldwide!Miguel Armaza is Co-Founder and General Partner of Gilgamesh Ventures, a seed-stage investment fund focused on fintech in the Americas. He also hosts and writes the Fintech Leaders podcast and newsletter.Miguel on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/3nKha4ZMiguel on Twitter: https://bit.ly/2Jb5oBcFintech Leaders Newsletter: bit.ly/3jWIp

Go To Market Grit
#221 CEO & Chairman Sony Pictures, Tony Vinciquerra: Into the Fire

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 16, 2024 68:34


Guest: Tony Vinciquerra, outgoing CEO of Sony PicturesTony Vinciquerra never planned to get into the entertainment business, let alone to become one of the most powerful people in Hollywood. After seven years, he's about to leave the CEO role at Sony Pictures (although he will stay on as chairman for one more year) and attributes much of his success to luck: “I've been in the right place at the right time a lot of times.” That said, he also encourages his children to proactively be curious, something that has served Tony well across his whole career. “I don't have as deep an education as many of the people that [I] compete with,” he says. “So I try to make up for that by knowing what's going on and being more curious ... working harder at it and being more — I don't know what the right word is, but sucking more information in, all the time.”Chapters:(00:54) - The perks of being a studio boss (03:38) - Hulu and Peter Chernin (06:41) - Fox Television (10:03) - Building relationships (13:37) - Not retiring (15:34) - Fixing Sony (23:29) - Intellectual property (26:58) - Juggling and baseball (29:30) - Setbacks and cable networks (34:58) - The WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes (37:22) - AI and replacing writers (39:46) - Adapting to new tech (44:38) - Changing consumer behavior (49:25) - Sports media and live TV (55:31) - Bad days (58:57) - Tony's family (01:02:47) - Looking back (01:05:04) - Proactive curiosity (01:07:33) - What “grit” means to Tony Mentioned in this episode: Jason Kilar and Warner Bros., Jeff Zucker, John Waldron and Goldman Sachs, FX, Drayton McLane, Netflix, Variety, PlayStation, Spider-Man, Tom Rothman, CBS and Paramount, Comcast and NBC, Disney, Mike Hopkins, Amazon Prime, Funimation, Crunchyroll, Breaking Bad, The Last of Us, HBO, Uncharted, WBZ-TV, the Game Show Network, Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, Joker: Folie à Deux, Miramax, Here, Tom Hanks, Venom: The Last Dance, Michael Ovitz, Sam Altman and OpenAI, Pixomondo, Neal Mohan and YouTube, Susan Wojcicki, DirecTV and AT&T, NFL Sunday Ticket, Qualcomm, the New York Knicks, the Golden State Warriors, Larry Baer and the San Francisco Giants, Major League Baseball, Walmart and Vizio, Madame Web, Capital Cities, Mark McLaughlin, and Mark Fields and Ford.Links:Connect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Go To Market Grit
#220 Former CEO Amazon Worldwide Consumer, Jeff Wilke: Exponential

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 9, 2024 75:27


Guest: Jeff Wilke, former CEO of Amazon Worldwide Consumer and chairman of Re:Build ManufacturingJeff Wilke worked more than 20 years at Amazon, overseeing the million-person team that speedily gets packages from warehouses to doorsteps. In hindsight, he observes that Amazon Prime's exponential growth was actually an incremental daily process.“I used to say things like, ‘If God was running this plant, whoever is your God ... they can't violate physical laws. How well would they do?' And then we know where we are,” Jeff says.“If we're perfect in it, compounding over all this time, we're going to get there. But when you're in the middle of it, it can feel almost impossible.” Chapters:(01:37) - Grit and longevity (02:24) - Flow state (07:29) - Refining mental models (12:29) - The ivory tower and the shop floor (16:49) - Gnarly holidays (20:41) - Identifying grit (24:28) - Reflecting and learning (27:36) - Christmas 2000 (31:06) - The duplicate bug (34:01) - Incremental progress (38:36) - Prime Video (43:05) - Organizing the day (46:42) - Amazon's leaders (49:55) - The Whole Foods acquisition (53:33) - Amazon Fashion (59:54) - The great Kindle battle (01:02:40) - How to work with Jeff Bezos (01:05:11) - Leaving Amazon (01:09:48) - Re:Build Manufacturing (01:14:35) - What “grit” means to Jeff Mentioned in this episode: Peloton, Andy Jassy, Daniel Kahneman, Zoom, Allied Signal, Toyota and the Gemba Walk, MacKenzie Scott, Bob Thomas and Crucibles of Leadership, David Risher, Toys “R” Us, Amazon Prime, Jeff Blackburn, Louis Pasteur, Netflix, Bill Carr, Steve Kessel, Larry Bossidy, Rick Dalzell, West Point, John Mackey, Liesl Wilke, Tony Hsieh, the Met Gala, Anna Wintour, the Pittsburgh Steelers, Tim Tebow, the New York Jets, Shopbob, Gucci, Zara, Cathy Beaudoin, Walmart, Dave Clark, John Doerr, Bill Baumol, and Bing Gordon.Links:Connect with JeffTwitterConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Go To Market Grit
#219 CEO Tanium, Dan Streetman: Critical Responsibility

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 2, 2024 64:33


Guest: Dan Streetman, CEO of TaniumA graduate of West Point who served in Iraq combat operations, Tanium CEO Dan Streetman can't help but compare his business career to his military experience. Understanding huge structures and processes is a crucial skill at both Tanium and in the Army, he says, as are the skills for aligning people around a shared mission.“Before you go on an operation, you write a thing called an operations order ... [and] one of the most important things at the operations order is this paragraph called the commander's intent,” he explains, “which describes how you believe the mission is going to be accomplished and why it's important.”“You may end up doing something completely different. But as long as you understand the mission and the commander's intent, the organization can do amazing things.”Chapters:(01:05) - Election Day (02:44) - Ranger School (06:42) - Parenting and business school (09:59) - Military structures (12:27) - Serving in Iraq (15:59) - Back to normal life (21:37) - Working out (24:14) - Quality sleep (26:37) - Non-founder CEOs (31:35) - Getting the job (35:56) - Earning respect (38:49) - TIBCO (43:40) - Redline (46:37) - Going public (53:54) - Time horizons (58:35) - Free AI (01:03:11) - Whar “grit” mans to Dan (01:03:40) - Who Tanium is hiring Mentioned in this episode: Ronald Reagan, Terri Streetman, Ironman Triathlons, Jeff Bezos and Amazon, Stanley McChrystal, Jon Abizaid, Charles Jacoby, Thomas Siebel and C3, Salesforce, Bill McDermott, Carl Eschenbach, Marc Benioff, Garmin, Mark McLaughlin, Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke, World Series of Poker, Amdocs, David and Orion Hindawi, Citrix, Harvard University, Pets.com, Ben Horowitz, Vista Equity Partners, Vivek Ranadivé, Robert Smith, Operation Warp Speed, BreakLine, Bipul Sinha and Rubrik, Mikhail Gorbachev, F. Scott Fitzgerald, OpenAI and ChatGPT, and Google.Links:Connect with DanLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Go To Market Grit
#218 CEO Etsy, Josh Silverman: Second Acts

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 25, 2024 69:52


Guest: Josh Silverman, CEO of EtsyWhen Josh Silverman joined the board of Etsy, he had one condition: “Don't ask me to the be the CEO.” And technically, they didn't ask. One day, he got a phone call informing him the board had elected him as the new CEO, just days before an earnings miss. He knew the odds were against him — layoffs would be necessary, and “I was going to have to be the villain” — but decided to say yes out of a sense of duty to Etsy's users and workers. “If I can be helpful, I have a responsibility to do it,” Josh says.Chapters:(00:55) - Energy management (02:42) - Meetings (09:56) - Etsy's strategy (13:36) - Learning to delegate (17:10) - Setting an example (24:17) - Evite's rise and fall (27:46) - Self vs. company (30:22) - Legacy (34:21) - Control and agency (37:44) - Joining Etsy's board (40:40) - Becoming CEO (46:16) - Culture shock (48:09) - “We need you, trust us” (51:25) - eBay and Skype (57:15) - Pushed out (01:00:40) - Accountability and family (01:03:53) - Time horizons (01:05:55) - Gen AI-supported art (01:08:29) - Who Etsy is hiring and what “grit” means to Josh Mentioned in this episode: Ken Chenault and American Express, Nick Daniel, Rachana Kumar, Ticketmaster and IAC, Etsy Studios, Silverlake, Shopping.com, Google, Microsoft, and Austin City Limits. Links:Connect with JoshLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

Go To Market Grit
#217 CEO & Co-Founder Codeium, Varun Mohan w/ Leigh Marie Braswell: Limitless

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 18, 2024 60:30


Guests: Varun Mohan, CEO & Co-Founder of Codeium; and Leigh Marie Braswell, partner at Kleiner Perkins“A lot of people are really bad at knowing what good is,” says Codeium CEO Varun Mohan. Specifically, he's thinking of startups that hire based on a “logo” — a well-known company on the résumé — rather than exceptional talent. Codeium is based in Mountain View, CA, and Varun believes that it's incumbent on any new startup to hire in the San Francisco Bay Area, because of how exceptional talent is concentrated there. “When you hire someone that's 10x better,” he says, “you can't replace them with 10 1x people. Because the the 10x person is going to be thinking of ideas that none of these 1x people are ever going to think of.”Chapters:(01:05) - Ludicrous growth (03:54) - Seizing opportunity (07:29) - Product-market fit (13:05) - Scale AI & MIT (17:42) - Coding efficiency (22:58) - Larger companies (25:20) - Varun and Leigh Marie's working relationship (29:51) - Pivoting to Codeium (34:00) - Giving away the product (37:01) - The code-gen landscape (42:20) - Annual reinvention (45:00) - Picking a problem (47:07) - Bipul Sinha's help (50:43) - Ambition (53:13) - Building in Silicon Valley (55:11) - Spotting talent (59:11) - Who Codeium is hiring (59:43) - What “grit” means to Varun Mentioned in this episode: Graham Moreno, Wiz, ChatGPT, Google, Nuro, Goldman Sachs, Waymo, the DARPA Challenge, Alex Wang, Douglas Chen, Safeway, Equinox, Carlos Delatorre and MongoDB, The Qualified Sales Leader by John McMahon, GitHub Copilot, Microsoft, Exafunction, Mamoon Hamid, Figma, JPMorgan Chase, Starlink, SpaceX, Rubrik, Michael Dell, Stripe, and John Doerr.Links:Connect with VarunLinkedInTwitterConnect with Leigh MarieLinkedInTwitterConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

DealMakers
Gaurav Misra On Raising $100 Million To Develop AI-Powered Tools For Video Editing And Creation

DealMakers

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 11, 2024 28:37


In the AI industry, where innovation evolves at lightning speed, some founders set the pace by combining a unique cultural perspective with a relentless drive to create groundbreaking technology. Gaurav Misra, founder and CEO of Captions, is one of these visionaries. Captions has attracted funding from top-tier investors like Adobe Ventures, HubSpot Ventures, Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia Capital, and Jared Leto.

Go To Market Grit
#216 Founder Khan Academy, Sal Khan: Dangerously Curious

Go To Market Grit

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 11, 2024 46:50


Guest: Sal Khan, founder of Khan AcademyAI is poised to change nearly every business, but few are changing as quickly as education. And Sal Khan, who has spend more than a decade manually creating more than 7,000 educational videos, says that's a good thing. He's encouraged Khan Academy to focus on “disrupt[ing] ourselves ... more than almost any other organization that I know of.” The reason is backed up by the data: Personalized tutors — designed to help students achieve mastery in a subject, but previously thought to be unscalable — could shift the educational bell curve “significantly to the right,” Sal says.Chapters:(00:52) - John and Ann Doerr (05:20) - Khan Academy's origins (07:42) - What it is now (12:43) - Emotional fortitude (15:25) - Generating revenue (19:36) - The two-sigma “problem” (21:31) - OpenAI and Sam Altman (24:47) - What AI can do (27:56) - Cheating and other fears (30:06) - Video production (34:08) - Standardized tests (38:36) - AI tutors' tone (40:22) - Not leaving the closet (43:20) - Who Khan Academy is hiring (45:58) - What “grit” means to Sal Mentioned in this episode: Nasdaq, Dan Wohl, Vedic and Buddhist literature, Microsoft, Benjamin Bloom, ChatGPT, the Turing Test, Greg Brockman, Donald Trump, Bing Chat and Sydney, Khanmigo, the SAT and ACT, Schoolhouse.world, Craig Silverstein and Google, John Resig and jQuery, and Angela Duckworth.Links:Connect with SalTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.com Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm