Podcasts about Union Square Ventures

What if the biggest opportunity in music monetization isn't streaming, social media, or live concerts? It's the $300 billion pro AV industry, and most musicians and music tech innovators have never thought about it. This week on the podcast, Graeme Harrison, vice president and general manager of Bluesound Professional, joins Dmitri to break down how commercial audio is reshaping the way brands use music in physical spaces. From 15,000 7-Eleven stores to NFL stadiums to the US Senate, Graeme's work sits at the intersection of music, technology, and brand experience in ways the music industry rarely talks about. In this episode, Graeme and Dmitri dig into why congruent audio and visual together are 1,200% more effective than either one alone, how commercial music licensing pays artists significantly more than residential streaming, and why the rise of AI-generated music in public spaces could trigger a second era of elevator music that cuts artists out of the equation entirely. They also get into the growing world of biophilic soundscaping, adaptive AI playlist curation, and what it means for a brand like 7-Eleven to use music not as background noise but as a core part of its identity. If you work in music tech, artist services, or brand strategy, this episode reframes where the money is and where it's headed.   The News What's Next Now That Live Nation Has Been Found to Act as a Monopoly The MLC Re-Designated by the U.S. Copyright Office Suno raises over $400 million, pushing valuation to $5.4 billion Board Raises $20M Series A Led by Union Square Ventures as It Expands From Gaming Hardware to AI-Powered Creation Platform Ableton Extensions will let you code your own tools and actions for Live The Music Tectonics podcast goes beneath the surface of the music industry to explore how technology is changing the way business gets done. Visit musictectonics.com to find shownotes and a transcript for this episode, and find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Let us know what you think!  Get Dmitri's Rock Paper Scanner newsletter.

Board, the startup building what it calls "together tech" designed to bring people into the same room, has closed a Series A led by Union Square Ventures. Also, a new AI compliance service sits between AI models and end users to flag and replace any messages that might present a compliance problem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of the Established Podcast, Charlie O'Donnell, NYC venture capitalist, community builder, and Author of Founder Unfriendly: What Investors Won't Tell You About Getting Funded  joins Frank Gruber, host of the podcast and Co-CEO at Established and Managing Partner at Established Ventures, for an honest conversation about venture capital, startup fundraising, and the realities founders rarely hear from investors. Charlie shares lessons from more than 20 years in venture, including his time at Union Square Ventures and as founder of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, while discussing insights from his new book, Founder Unfriendly: What Investors Won't Tell You About Getting Funded. The discussion covers why most startups are not a fit for traditional VC, how founders should think about risk, the hidden dynamics inside partner meetings, why storytelling matters in fundraising, and how AI is changing the future of startups and investing. Charlie also shares actionable advice on customer discovery, building community-driven companies, and designing a business that aligns with the life you actually want. Get Involved! Founders, investors, startup teams, entrepreneur support organizations (ESOs), and innovators, we invite you to join the Established Network, our digital hub where creativity, capital, and collaboration collide. https://established.network    Watch the episode on the Established YouTube Channel at: https://soty.link/ESTYouTube   Thank you for listening, and as always, please check out the Established website and subscribe to the newsletter at: www.est.us    Subscribe to the Established podcast: https://theestablishedpodcast.com/     Startup of the Year helps diverse, emerging startups, founding teams, and entrepreneurs push their companies to the next level. We are a competition, a global community, and a resource. Startup of the Year is also a year-long program that searches the country for a geographically diverse set of startups from all backgrounds and pulls them together to compete for the title of Startup of the Year. Check out Startup of the Year at: www.startupofyear.com   Established is a consultancy focused on helping organizations with innovation, startup, and communication strategies. It is the power behind Startup of the Year. Created by the talent responsible for building the Tech.Co brand (acquired by an international publishing company), we are leveraging decades of experience to help our collaborators best further (or create) their brand & accomplish their most important goals. Check out Established at: www.established.us Connect with us on X (formerly Twitter) - @EstablishedUs  Connect with us on Facebook - facebook.com/established.us

Today on the Invest In Her podcast, host Catherine Gray talks with entrepreneur and AI innovator Bethany Crystal, founder and CEO of Build First, an AI learning lab and product studio focused on helping people turn ideas into working products—often in under an hour. With a background spanning startups, venture capital, workforce development, and leadership roles at organizations including Union Square Ventures, Tech:NYC, and Stack Overflow, Bethany has spent more than a decade helping people adapt to major technology shifts. She is passionate about making AI approachable and practical for everyday people, and has already trained more than 1,500 individuals through hands-on workshops, hackathons, and live build sessions.  In this episode, Bethany and Catherine dive into the rapidly evolving world of AI and what it means for entrepreneurs, creators, and the future of work. Bethany shares how she unexpectedly began building AI-powered mini apps for her own family and how that experience led her to launch Build First. The conversation explores why learning to "build" with AI is becoming an essential skill, how non-technical founders can use AI tools to bring ideas to life faster than ever before, and why experimentation is more important than perfection in today's business landscape. Bethany also discusses balancing entrepreneurship with motherhood, her grassroots leadership work in New York City, and her belief that the future belongs to people willing to adapt, create, and embrace emerging technology. Websites Mentioned: https://buildfirst.ai/ https://www.showherthemoneymovie.com www.sheangelinvestors.com    Follow Us On Social Facebook @sheangelinvestors Twitter (X) @sheangelsinvest Instagram @sheangelinvestors & @catherinegray_investinher LinkedIn @catherinelgray & @sheangels  

In this episode of FOMO Sapiens, Patrick McGinnis sits down with Charlie O'Donnell, founder of Brooklyn Bridge Ventures and author of Founder Unfriendly: What Investors Won't Tell You About Getting Funded, for one of the most practical and honest conversations about venture capital you're likely to hear. Charlie has spent more than two decades inside the New York startup ecosystem, starting as the first analyst at Union Square Ventures, helping open First Round Capital's NYC office, and going on to invest in over 100 companies through Brooklyn Bridge Ventures, the first venture fund based in Brooklyn. In this conversation, he dismantles some of the most persistent myths about fundraising: what "interested" actually means from a VC, why rejection is data and not a verdict, how to time-bind a process to create real urgency, and how to shape the conversations investors have after you leave the room. If you've ever wondered why a seemingly weaker startup got funded while yours didn't, this episode has the answer. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Great private Capital Reset is upon us. Markets are volatile and driving new economic imperatives. Are VC funds still VC funds, even if they raise billions per fund? What happened to the rest of the market? What is driving VC investments? What do Limited Partners think? What is on their minds? This and more, in episode 76 of Tech Deciphered. Navigation: Intro The State of the Reset: The Hangover from the Party? LP Fatigue and VC Differentiation What Really Matters: Performance.. Returns The Mega Fund Question The Case for Smaller… Rightsized Funds What Comes Next? Conclusion Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Bertrand Introduction Welcome to episode 76 of Tech Deciphered. This episode will be about the great private capital reset. As you know, or you have probably heard, there is significant structural transformation in the world of venture capital, and we are probably witnessing a fundamental reset of the private capital stack. We got a huge bubble in 2020, 2021. Fueled by near-zero interest rates. We got inflated fund size, compressed due diligence, and now a generation of zombie funds and zombie startups. Now that rates have normalized, exits have not been as much as expected. LP patience is a warning sign, and I guess the industry is being forced to confront an uncomfortable truth: most VC funds raised since 2017 might not return what their LPs expected. You know, how do we start?   Nuno This is going to be a relatively nuanced episode. Obviously, there is going to be a lot of haves and have-nots, both in terms of VC funds, also in terms of startups. And so I want to start with that. This is going to be more nuanced than all transformational and disruptive.   Bertrand It’s not the end. It’s not the end.   Nuno State of the Reset: The Hangover from the Party? It’s not the end. There’s still huge mega funds that are raising more and more. It’s clear that the music has stopped, right? So if we’re playing the game of chairs, the music has stopped. Around ’22, ’23, we started seeing the first signals that funds had raised way too much money. Firms collectively raised around $669 billion globally in 2021 alone. If we fast forward now to last year, 2025, depending on the sources, we did some internal analysis at Chameleon. We came up with $75.6 billion was raised last year by 493 funds, right? So That’s a significant drop, right, in terms of fundraising. Other sources would say a little bit more. There’s a little bit of a discussion around how much did the top 30 funds capture. If you believe some of the stats out there, they would say that actually top 30 funds captured 75% of all capital raised last year. We did again some internal analysis at Chameleon, and the conclusion we came to, it was closer to 50 to 55%. So not as dramatic as some of the sources out there, but still pretty dramatic. There’s a lot of capital concentration on the top funds. Again, the top 30 funds would’ve raised 50 to 55% of capital or up to 75% according to other sources. So definitely a tremendous amount of concentration. There was a lot more fragmentation in terms of capital raised if we’re looking at the years from 2010, 2011, all the way through 2021. So 2021 would’ve been sort of the peak of non-concentration if you look at that. And that again, now we are getting more and more concentration. There’s more and more of this arbitrage around, I’ll give money to the top funds, I will not give money to the smaller funds, or I’ll give less money to the smaller funds. There’s a little bit of a movement around concentration. We’ll talk about it later and what that means. Are mega funds really better? Are the small funds still the way to go? We’ll talk a lot about that later in today’s episode. There seems to be a little bit of a bifurcation. We could say it’s either bifurcation around top-tier VCs or larger VC funds versus smaller VC funds. My perspective is the bifurcation that we’re seeing right now is more of a bifurcation between funds that are no longer just stepped into the VC space, but they’re actually becoming more and more private equity firms with full asset management range from early stage all the way to late stage. Think of it almost like a private equity hedge fund, quasi, versus classic VC funds. And I think what we’re seeing is the Andreessen Horowitzes, the a16zs of the world, the NEAs, the Sequoia Capitals, just to name a few, becoming more and more broad asset class managers across private equity, whereas you have more classic VC happening in earlier stages. And so that’s the real bifurcation that I think is actually happening.   Bertrand And maybe not really hedge fund, because they are always still long-only funds. So there is no hedging happening, at least as far as I know.   Nuno Well, some of these guys have become RIAs, like A16z has become an RIA, so they can do secondaries.   Bertrand That’s true. Yeah.   Nuno And they can also sell stuff, etc. So I don’t know how aggressive they’re going to be in terms of secondaries and selling and actually doing other kinds of services you can do if you’re an RIA. But it’s not, I think, out of the realm of possibility that they would sort of acquire and sell stock more rapidly. In that way, to your point, Bertrand, maybe they actually become beyond just long guys, right?   Bertrand Yes. Another trend I have seen is some of the larger VC funds seems to have no problem investing in multiple competitors. This was not possible before. I mean, if you’re a VC fund, you had some sort of duty not to invest in the competitors, but now some invest OpenAI, Anthropic at the same time. Do you see that as part of this evolution?   Nuno For sure. And I think there’s a lot of people like the ostrich putting their heads below the ground and it’s like, “Eh, no, no, nothing to see here.” But that does constitute a conflict of interest. And if I’m a startup raising, this assumption that you will not invest in one of my competitors is no longer there, certainly for the mega funds, because of that notion of deployment of capital. Now, some funds will still hide under the notion, actually formally from a fund perspective, we’re not investing in competitors. It just happens that different types of our funds are investing in competitors. Like maybe my growth fund is investing in a competitor to my early stage fund, right? But our funds are relatively independent. So I think there’s a little bit of hide and seek that will go on if you talk to some of the fund managers. Well, they say, well, we’re not investing out of the same fund into these competitors. But between you and I, as we know, a lot of these partnerships actually do a lot of stuff together at the general partnership level. So are there really actual Chinese walls between the funds? Well, it really depends on the partnership. And to be honest, most of the partnerships don’t have very significant Chinese walls between the funds, right? The managing general partners sometimes actually occupy investment committee roles across different funds. So I think the conflict of interest is there. So that’s why I say there’s a little bit of ostrich behavior. Put your head behind the ground or below the ground and just pretend nothing is happening. Just sharing maybe a couple of interesting stats. Global fund closings for 2025, according to our numbers at Chameleon, 1,098 closed. In 2025. Closed is when you start deploying capital, right? Whereas— so it’s not closed down, it’s closed like we start deploying capital. And that number, 1,098, is dramatically down from 1,600 in 2024. And it’s actually the lowest number of closings that we saw since 2014. So again, this is bad, right? It means there’s less funds doing fund closings and deploying capital in the market than since 2014 and dramatically below the 2024 numbers, right? Where we already saw some market readjustments. The number of active VC firms in the US that did 2+ deals, which is not a huge bar, has dropped 38% back to numbers in 2023. So we don’t have numbers that are a little bit more up to date, but basically in 2023, those numbers are already dramatically dropped. So there’s less and less active funds. So there’s funds that might be in the market, but they’re not actually deploying that much capital, not doing that many investment. They’re sort of either zombie funds or relatively passive funds that have passed their investment period. For those listening to us, the investment period for a VC fund is normally between the first 3 to 5 years of the fund, which is when you build your portfolio, when you can invest in new companies. After that time period, everything that you do up to normally what would be year 10 is follow-ons. You put more money into the companies that you’re already invested in, that you already constructed portfolio with during those 3 to 5 years.   Bertrand Yeah, that’s a pretty scary change. And obviously, I guess we’ll come to it, but the time it takes to fully liquidate investments is getting longer and longer. In the old days, we used to talk about VC funds having a 10-year life, maybe a +1/+1 in terms of extension of the fund life. But it looks like it’s taking 16 to 18 years actually to get full liquidity from a fund investment.   Nuno LP Fatigue and VC Differentiation And I think that’s the scariest piece. I mean, just to share some numbers, we in venture capital talk about vintages, right? Which year did your fund start in? Normally when you did your first close onto the fund, as we were saying before, close is when you get all your investors at that moment in time to come in and you do your first close so the next fund starts running. 2018 vintage funds, right? This is now almost 7 years ago. So you should start having— actually 8 years ago almost at this point in time. You should start already getting distributions or you start getting cash back if you’re a limited partner and investor in those funds, you should start getting cash back. Half of all 2018 vintage funds have returned $0 to their LPs. So they’ve had no distributions to their LPs. 2020 vintage, which was a very hot vintage, only 42% have begun any distribution. So 58% have distributed $0, right? 2021, only 25% have done any distributions. Now, I happen to have a 2018 vintage fund and a 2021 fund. My 2018 fund has already distributed over 3x net of fees in distributions, and my 2021 fund’s already over 10% distributed back in distribution. So we’re very proud of that. But in general, the numbers are awful. There’s no liquidity back to LPs. And to your point, that’s kind of a big deal because some of these funds have been going on for 7, 8 years, and where’s the liquidity going to come from? On the other hand, if you look at TVPI, so DPI is distributions to paid-ins cash on cash. But if you look at TVPI, which is total value to paid-in, which also includes the book value or the value that you’re marking it on your books, basically the paper value as we call it for the company, even on that, the median 2017 fund, so 2017 vintage fund has a TVPI, total value to paid-in, of only around 1.76x, which is well below what should be, which is sort of the 2 to 3x benchmark of a really good performing fund. So the median funds are doing very, very poorly overall. So if you add that to the fact of what’s happening and distributions are taking a long time, back to your point, Bertrand, it’s taking like— this should be a 10-year asset class, maybe 11, 12 years, and now it’s looking a little bit like a 15, to 18-year asset class, which is not what most limited partners sign up for. Part of this dynamic, I think, is that we’ve had tremendously overvalued private companies over the last few years, right? Secondly, these companies have just stayed private longer. And I was having a discussion recently with a friend of mine, it’s like, hey, what’s this thing about companies are staying private much longer? Is there some dynamic around secondaries? And the reality is there is a dynamic around secondaries, right? Because if I’m a very large fund and I can get away with doing secondaries on my portfolio, I will get liquidity at some point, right? But someone else is stuck with private stock, which hopefully will IPO, but who knows, right? And so there’s this funny dynamic right now of because of secondaries, because of a couple of other things that are happening in the market, actually a lot of these startups are staying private for tremendous amounts of times, and some of them will IPO and they’ll be huge deals. Some of them might not and might not warrant the latest private valuations that they’ve exercised. And so there’s this tremendous noise that we’re seeing in the mid to late funnel of privately held companies where some are just waiting to be public. Some of them might not be able to go public at anything that is an up round versus private valuations that they’ve had in previous moments and in previous rounds.   Bertrand And obviously the 2 to 3x returns that funds are targeting, and obviously more 3x than 2x, I mean, that was good and nice if it’s a 10-year fund, but if it’s the same 3x for 15 to 18 years, it’s not at all the same rate of return annualized. So it’s a really, really, really big issue if you keep the return the same, but you extend the duration of the fund. Concerning going IPO, there is a lot of complexity going public, the IPO process itself, but also after that when you’re a public company. It changed how you can run the business. Some would argue that we have had an issue with more companies delisting than companies listing on the public market. So I think there might be also separate issues about the efficiency of the public market and maybe a need for change. We went very strongly in one direction for the public market, have post and run, but was it really ultimately the right thing to do? I’m actually not so sure.   Nuno Yeah, I mean, just to be clear, this is anecdotal, but when we tell prospective LPs at Chameleon about our returns, the last few funds, 2018, 2021, the first reaction is, “You must be lying, right? Surely you can’t have distributions already for 2021,” et cetera, et cetera. So clearly there’s almost a state of disbelief right now from limited partners. And liquidity does matter. So clearly you have to move forward. So how did we get to this point where we had this bubble 2021 all around that time space and now things don’t look so good. Well, the macro conditions have changed dramatically. I mean, rates when they were near zero, safer assets yield nothing or yield nothing. So basically you had to push capital into longer duration risk assets like venture capital. And so you had to push it. So the opportunity cost of capital also has fundamentally shifted. Obviously a 3x VC return in 15 years over 10 actually competes very poorly against 5% annual credit returns over several years. So there’s been a readjustment of stuff. And then the public equities in particular, the tech public equities have had a lot of volatility, but some of them have done extremely well, right? Chipsets, things like NVIDIA, the Amazons of the world, Alphabets, et cetera, et cetera. They’ve done very, very well. So why would I invest in a long-term illiquid asset that takes now longer to give me money back, and in some case doesn’t give me back, if I can invest just in public equities, and a variety of other things. The venture debt costs have increased dramatically. The burn rates that were sustainable back in the day with sort of the addition of venture debt, private credit, et cetera, now are overblown at this moment in time. At the end of the day, there’s been a lot of movements also overall in the pipeline in terms of valuations, et cetera, et cetera. Now, I would put a grain of salt into all the numbers I just told you. There still is a little bit of the haves and have-nots in startup land. Certainly in early stage where if you’re a hot AI company, you can get away with raising a Series C or $480 million. This is actually a true story. Series C, right? Not Series C, a $480 million at $4 billion pre-money valuation. Whereas if you are maybe in a space that’s less hot, you’ll have more difficulty in raising money at this point in time, might not be able to even raise a Series C, right? So there’s a little bit of the haves and have-nots happening on the VC side in early stage that has been really amplified by the macro regime and where we’re at, which is actively zero-rate era is done and now the new regime is quite different. And so I can get better returns by doing something else.   Bertrand Kind of makes sense. I mean, if you have some ways the SaaSpocalypse in the public market because there is that fear that AI is going to completely change the game for especially for the more typical software companies. Good luck raising private money to quote unquote just build traditional software companies. You cannot expect a warm embrace from the private market if the public markets are completely destroying that category. I’m not saying that this is there forever, uh, things might change over time, but for sure what’s happening on the public markets always have a very strong impact on the private market.   Nuno Indeed. So what’s happening in this relationship between limited partners and VCs, the general partners? Again, limited partners are the people that give venture capital firms and venture capital funds their capital to actually deploy. And they are a variety of different players, right? Could be endowments, like university endowments, pension funds, family offices, very high net worth individuals, fund of funds, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, in particular, if you look at the institutional investors, the endowments, the pension funds, the fund of funds, they have allocations that they do to different asset classes typically. And the feedback that we’ve received from the market is they are increasingly frustrated with what’s happening in terms of distributions. They’re not getting capital back. It’s like, I gave you capital 8 years ago, 9 years ago, 2017, 2018 vintages, and I’m not getting any capital back. So what the hell’s happening? On paper, it looks maybe the fund’s doing okay or it’s doing great in some cases, but where’s my money? And so that creates a little bit of wait-and-see kind of game on portfolio allocation. As we’re thinking through their re-ups, putting more capital into funds that they’re already actually put capital or putting in capital into new slots, into new fund managers that they want to put money into. They’re like, well, let’s wait and see. I want to get my money back or get some money back first before I redeploy it. Again, this is a little bit the haves and have-nots because we’ve seen, for example, a couple of top-end LPs in terms of returns that have a little bit the opposite problem, right? Because they are into funds that are performing extremely well. They actually are over that period and they want to actually redeploy. But to be honest, the average in the industry right now is a wait-and-see game. It’s like, I want to wait and see, which leads to what can only be characterized— I was hearing someone the other day, one of the top advisors in the LP community, saying this is the worst fundraising environment ever for venture capital. Not the last 20 years, 30 years, like ever, right? Since this became an asset class more institutionally in the late ’60s, early ’70s, Pulse Robo 2 as it was created, this is the worst fundraising environment ever. Oh, wow.   Bertrand And concerning TVPI, let’s not forget that typically it’s not mark-to-market. So the metrics in terms of TVPI, correct me if I’m wrong, you know, but the metrics in TVPI are based on typically the last fundraise. So if the valuation went down but there was no additional fundraise, we wouldn’t know by looking at the TVPI metrics. It will only be updated if there is a new Financing, equity financing, or an exit.   Nuno Yeah, normally most funds act like that. Some funds are a little bit more aggressive and do do mark-to-market, but normally funds would be conservative and say, hey, I’m being conservative, it’s whatever is the last known valuation of the company. And if there wasn’t a priced round, it’s a little bit more obscure than that, right, Bertrand? Because it might actually be the company has raised money on a note, or either convertible note or a SAFE note, and that wouldn’t count as a priced round. So I would say actually, even if it was a cap that’s below with a significant discount, I won’t recognize the assets as a down round. I won’t recognize the asset with a lower valuation because formally it wasn’t a price round. So it’s on the one hand conservative, on the other hand, it’s only relating to price rounds or exits to your point. So it’s sort of, you can be like, hmm, well, we opt to do that because we think it’s actually the most conservative route. Mark-to-market is extremely difficult to do. And who would do the mark-to-market for you, right? It’s like it’s some valuation firm, et cetera.   Bertrand I’m not saying a mark-to-market is easy, but I’m not sure I would call using the last valuation something conservative in the context that most startups will fail. So it’s not clear.   Nuno Well, in some cases it is, some cases it’s not, right? Depends on the startup situation, to be honest. Yeah, yeah.   Bertrand But yeah, at least that’s how it’s done. So for instance, to evaluate the impact of the SaaS apocalypse, it’s tough to know. We will have on the private market. I mean, we will see that in a few quarters. Because if companies still exist in that environment, if they still do additional truly price rounds after that, that’s when I will start to know.   Nuno I mean, just to share a little bit more data, like VC fund close time stretched to 15 months. Basically, it’s just taking a long time to raise money. It’s taking a long time to do your first close, get your fund running. When entrepreneurs complain to me that their fundraising is difficult, I always say, you have no clue how difficult it is compared to ours. First-time funds have collapsed. We had some numbers that only 77 first-time funds actually closed. I assume this is in 2025 versus 215 in 2023. So that’s a huge number. We did some internal analysis on our side and we did some analysis that emerging fund managers, emerging fund managers are normally people that are in their first one or two funds. Basically emerging fund managers gained some ground until 2017. Reaching by then a slice that was 63.7% of all capital raised in 2017. But since then, the capital deployed to emerging managers has been largely reduced to actually 24.2%, right? So it’s gone from 63.7% in 2017 to 24.2%. So this has been a culling of sorts on emerging managers and almost like a slaughterhouse of emerging managers. Compared to previous situations, which is obviously incredibly concerning if you’re an emerging manager starting your VC firm, et cetera, et cetera. So really tremendously problematic for those. We think capital’s not leaving VC. I think we see a lot of the institutionals saying— there’s some numbers as high as 33% of institutional investors plan to invest more in venture in the next 12 months. So I don’t think capital’s leaving VC. I think it’s really concentrating. We’ll come back to the concentration issue later in the episode. And part of that concentration comes from a topic that has been widely spoken in venture capital recently, which is differentiation. How do you differentiate in venture capital if you’re talking to a limited partner, right? How does my firm differentiate versus the firm next to mine? And that’s incredibly, incredibly challenging. Bertrand, what are your thoughts on that?   Bertrand Differentiation is always a question. I mean, if you’re an entrepreneur, Typically, you think fully about the best possible partner for your stage and for your type of business model. You want a VC who understands fully your business model, because if they don’t, then it’s going to be troubled down the line. But that’s true that another piece of the puzzle is that the best VCs help you get more visibility in terms of achieving potential customer deals, in terms of attracting the best talent. And that’s where VCs’ brand names can help. If you can say you have backing by some of the top, most visible names in the industry, and usually these are the mega funds because others have trouble to be as visible, then they have some sort of unfair advantage compared to others. So I can see that there is some level of concentration happening naturally, especially in the later stage from Series B onwards.   Nuno What Really Matters: Performance… Returns Yeah, I mean, we did some analysis internally about What are the top funds that invested in the top performing companies in early stage, Series C, Series A? And we looked at it by size of fund and the top performing normally are funds below $100 million, but in some cases very closely followed by funds between $100 and $500 million. And actually funds above $500 million, so $500 million to $1 billion and then $1 billion and above are actually tremendously underperforming. So this notion of the industry that says, well, the mega funds still see The top investments early on, because they still deploy in Series C and Series A opportunistically, in some cases even spray and pray if they have their own incubation and acceleration programs, is not true. Actually, we verified that over the last 12 to 13 years. It is not 12 to 13 years in vintage, right? So up to a 2021 vintage fund. So we went basically 12, 13 years back from there. And it’s not true. Actually, the most performing are 0 to 100 and then 100 to 500. And as I said, there’s 100 to 500 in a couple of years actually are a little bit better. Than the $0 to $100 million ones. So that’s the first thing that’s a conclusion. And actually, that’s not shocking. If we remember back in the day, Kleiner Perkins used to raise funds up to $600 million, Benchmark raised their $425 million funds. It seems like the sweet spot for a VC fund would be around $500 million at the top end, like maximum. And now somehow people are saying, well, I’m raising a $3 billion VC fund. It’s like, well, it can’t be a VC fund. The return profile is totally different, right? You can’t deploy that capital just based on early stage investing. And by the way, you’re not seeing the guys at early stage, all that you’re seeing, you’re going to make your returns in mid to late stage, right? Back to what we said at the beginning of the episode. So there’s a little bit of the haves and have-nots there. The big guys are raising more and more money, but they’re no longer venture capital. And I think limited partners that are a little bit more evolved, that are a little bit more conscious of this, that have been in the market longer, are realizing that shift. So it’s like if they want to have the alpha of venture capital, they need to deploy to the sub-$100 million funds or the sub-$500 million funds, right? That’s where they need to actually focus their VC capital. They can still deploy to mega funds, but they’re deploying to a different asset class. They’re deploying to a private equity, mid to late stage asset class, which looks maybe a little bit more like a growth fund or something like that. The second part of differentiation is the honest truth is most VC funds are like, I have proprietary network access, right? I’m ex-Stripe or I’m ex-Google or I’m ex-Facebook or whatever, and I have access to that. I mean, we know proprietary networks from that standpoint are no longer true. The whole thing that created Silicon Valley back in the ’70s of what I used to call the country club deals where there were a few people coming out of the big companies, the Fairchilds of the world, later on the Intels of the world, et cetera, et cetera, that made some money along the way that sort of bootstrapped their next companies, were well-known quantity to the existing VCs and raised money relatively easy on ideas, that doesn’t work anymore. Someone was telling me the other day one interesting thing that I wasn’t quite aware of, a lot of it had to do with the NDAs. I don’t know if you knew this, Bertrand, but like the fact that in California, it was sort of the Silicon Valley community sort of imposed this, we don’t sign NDAs thing and Boston continued signing it. And this whole NDA enforcement issue and non-compete, actually not the NDA thing, but more strongly that California did not enforce non-competes. I could leave Fairchild and start a company that magically was doing something that could be considered competitive to Fairchild. And that was sort of part of the acceleration actually of venture capital in California versus, for example, Boston, which was sort of hand in hand at the beginning.   Bertrand Yeah, I mean, I’m a big, big believer in California success coming from not enforcing or banning non-compete agreements. I think it’s a key part of the game. If you lock people into not doing something similar in the next 6 months to 24 months. And the industry has always been moving fast. So this is a significant time where you are blocked to do something very similar. I think it was really an issue. So I think it’s a key part of the game and it has been there. I don’t know how it started, but I think that non-enforcement of non-compete has been a key part of the success of California. I’m actually pleased to say that Washington State is going in the same direction. They are just signing a non-compete ban. And you might remember that at the federal level, I think in 2024, there was also a ban that was put in place to ban non-compete, but this has been reversed by the courts. So this is not there anymore. So that’s why we see a state like Washington State putting their own ban, and we might see more state by state moving in that direction. I think it was not helping at all, this non-compete. I mean, there is obviously stuff that needs to be done, like you cannot steal secrets, you cannot steal IP.   Nuno Yeah.   Bertrand Even stealing employees, there should be some restraints. We need to find the right balance, but you have to be careful there. That was key for the success of California, and I’m glad to see that this is a trend that’s going to go beyond California. And I hope most states will have a ban on non-compete.   Nuno Maybe just to close on the differentiation process, two things. One, I think there’s this notion When you talk to some LPs, that seems to be a little bit ingrained, some LPs that prefer specialized funds. We’ve also done some significant analysis internally and have talked to a couple of datasets other than our own, or people that own datasets other than our own, and the feedback has actually been not so fast. Actually, generalist funds over time cannot perform specialist funds. There seems to be a little bit of a sweet spot around generalist funds. We like to call ourselves multi-specialized at Chameleon, but ultimately from the perspective of specialized versus Generalist funds, the picture’s not as clear as specialized funds outperform generalists or generalists outperform specialized. We’ve seen there are pockets where actually generalists outperform specialized, in other pockets where specialized of a certain size can outperform generalists. So that’s one topic on differentiation that is a little bit broader. And then the final topic on differentiation, it’s really an industry that hasn’t innovated dramatically on where it creates the most value, which is really the picking stage, right? So it’s having great deal flow, very optimal, productive, efficient due diligence with very few resources and the ability to then get into those deals. That’s where most of the value is created. And then hopefully liquidating the asset if there’s an opportunity to do so at the right time, either through secondary trade sales or an IPO or something else. And what we’ve seen is the industry has innovated very little. I mean, the only thing I could point out in terms of core innovation at the top of the funnel has been the creation of the mega funds, the well-known funds, right? Like a16z, Union Square Ventures, et cetera, et cetera. But there needs to be more innovation on that cycle. And that’s why we certainly at Chameleon believe that the future is to have quant and AI-native VC firms that develop their own tooling, their own platforms. We have Mantis in our case that allow you to have this unfair advantage in how you source deals and how you do due diligence, how you get into the deals, et cetera, and how you take it to the next level. And we think that’s the beginning of the next stage is that the industry becomes more tech-enabled, shockingly enough, an industry that has made all its returns on tech or almost all of its returns on tech. That we need to be more tech-enabled ourselves. But I think the writing is on the wall there, and that will be a source of differentiation certainly over the next 3 to 5 years.   Bertrand One thing the industry has innovated somewhat and maybe could innovate even more is providing liquidity beyond trade sale and an IPO, because it’s clear that if VCs want more liquidity without waiting 18 years, you need that liquidity at different stage, not just when it’s time to do an exit, a full exit for the business. And for employees as well. I mean, it’s one thing to stay for a company for 4 years, which is your typical vesting. Maybe you extend that to 6 years, to 8 years, you have a great time at the company. But to think that maybe you have to stick around for 15 to 20 years in order to get liquidity on your stock options. I mean, that’s too much to ask for most people. I mean, people have a life, they have other things to do, other plans, they might want to move, they come at a different stage of life. So you need to provide them liquidity. The new game is we are not going to exit until 15 to 20 years, else it’s truly unfair. It’s not just unfair, but people will say, you know what, I’m going to go across the street, go work for Amazon or Google. I will have RSUs at best regularly that are liquid, and why bother? I mean, we need to find pathways to liquidity for both investors but also employees. There has been a change in that direction, but I think we need more of this change, and maybe not just reserved for the absolute biggest, most successful companies like OpenAI or SpaceX, but also us as well. Hopefully we can find a way.   Nuno Well, now we have these AI companies that actually grow so fast that they will IPO in one year. Now, isn’t that what’s going to happen? They raise They raised $500 million in Series C or $1.4 billion in Series C, and they’re going to IPO in 2 years. No? Is that not the new reality? I’m being facetious.   Bertrand At the same time, I mean, there are rumors that some of them are going to IPO this year. I mean, we talk about OpenAI, about Anthropic. I mean, OpenAI is quite old, but Anthropic is a relatively new business, quote unquote. So I think it’s a good time.   Nuno The Mega Fund Question So maybe it will be true after all. Moving to the next section, are mega funds still venture capital, Bertrand? Are they still venture capital funds?   Bertrand Yeah, I guess venture capital is a term that can encompass from small to very big funds. I truly don’t know. I mean, once you reach a growth stage, are you truly a VC fund? I don’t know. I think some of these definitions are kind of arbitrary from my perspective. What is clear is that you as a business need different providers of capital. And as we just discussed, you as a business, probably need to keep going and stay private for longer. One reason being, again, there is a tremendous cost to being a public company. There are some true strategic disadvantages. And at the same time, just practically, I mean, you need to get bigger and bigger in order to have a chance of a successful IPO. So you cannot just go IPO at a $500 million valuation. I mean, that’s like committing suicide, at least in the US market on NASDAQ. So my point is, you truly have no choice. You need to extend and If you need to extend, then you need to have capital providers that are there at later stage and therefore have more money. Is it still true venture capital? Is it true venture? I don’t know. At some point, it makes sense that from the startups to the capital providers, everyone adjusts to a reality where the life cycle is getting longer.   Nuno We don’t think it is. We don’t think mega funds are venture capital. We have actually some data that shows that they’re not in terms of actual returns. The alphas you can generate, the IRR that you can generate is actually not comparable. We did some analysis again with some of our datasets and from 2012 to 2022, so that’s the datasets that we used so that we had actual distributions and stuff we could take into account and so on and so forth. And looking at IRR, just to share some numbers in terms of IRR over those 10 years on sub-$100 million funds versus above $1 billion funds, the differences are incredibly stark. And this is true for global and US IRR, right? So just to quote some numbers in terms of average, sub-$100 million funds, global IRR of 22.9%, US IRR of 21.6% versus above $1 billion, 9.1% and 9.0%. Median IRR, if we just looked at median, 7.3% and 16.6% for sub-$100 million funds, 7.5% and 8.1% above $1 billion. Top quartile IRR, sub-$100 million, 31% versus 30.4% US IRR. And then above $1 billion funds, 14.7%, 15.5%. So it’s very clear if you sort of cut this in different ways, averages, medians, top quartiles, et cetera, over all these years that sub-$100 million funds are in a very different asset class than above $1 billion funds. They’re in different alpha that you can generate and so on and so forth. Now to the point you made, Bertrand, I don’t fully disagree with the point you made of the bigger funds should become bigger. I just think they’re becoming different things. Now, again, some of these funds will hide under the facts like, well, wait a second, we have all these assets under management, but they’re over different funds. Sequoia, we’re still raising small early-stage funds, $500, $600 million funds. And then we have larger funds for growth, et cetera, et cetera. Andreessen Horowitz, a little bit less clear what they’re actually doing. We heard that they’ve raised $15 billion across funds. I’m not sure if that’s the exact number at the end of the day. But the point is, if I’m a multi-asset class manager, like early growth, et cetera, et cetera, then it still applies what Nunu is saying. I’m still going after the $500 million, $600 million early-stage funds. Well, not so fast, right? Because you still have all this capital with managing general partners that are maybe across funds for which their incentives in particular, both carry and management fees are coming from the larger funds. Et cetera, et cetera. So there’s necessarily conflicts of interest. In many cases, the funds are just straight up big, right? And so they are above a billion. And so I don’t think a lot of these guys are in early-stage investing anymore, right? It may appear that they are, but I don’t think that’s where the returns necessarily are going to come from. And so if you are a limited partner, if you’re looking at your asset class allocation, again, you’re absolutely free to put money into mega funds because that’s the kind of asset class you want to play in. In terms of a blended private equity asset class that has a little bit of growth, a little bit of whatever, or actually a lot of growth, a lot of late stage, and maybe a little bit of early stage. And I want something that’s a little bit more blended, right? But if I still want the alpha venture capital, I need to deploy to funds that are early stage, right? And that’s like up to $100 million, up to $500 million. I think that’s my two cents on that topic. We see crossover things coming around, like guys who do both public and private markets. Again, that starts feeling a bit like a hedge fund. A lot of these funds have also become RAs, as we discussed earlier. So I feel the writing’s on the wall. The mega funds are going more and more after either some mechanism of edging or a mechanism that’s a little bit more blended in terms of private equity than classic venture capital.   Bertrand Yes, I think a few things. One, if you’re an LP, I can imagine that dealing with multiple $100 million funds might be more difficult. You, you need to know the partners, you need to have some background, uh, visibility. You need potentially to change regularly of VC investments. So I can see some level of simplicity if you just focus on the bigger ones, especially if you have a lot of assets you have to put to work. Another piece of the puzzle, I would guess that the bigger funds are able to return money faster because they are at later stage of the cycle. So instead of that 15 to 18 years, maybe they are more in a 5 to 10 year range, while the smaller funds being there more early might be the one who are taking longer to deliver. So I can see that Yes, there is an IRR picture, but there is also time to liquidity that is not the same. So that can probably also influence. And in terms of crossover PE hybrid model, I mean, for sure we have seen some of the public equity investors doing crossover, meaning going into private equity firms like Coatue, like Tiger Global and others. And for companies that are preparing for IPO, there is a lot of value to work with these firms because they have very good visibility and understanding of the public markets. And their presence in the cap table is also a sign of quality, typically for public market investors. So there is a lot of value and logic for them to be there on both sides of the puzzle. But again, the fact that firms keep delaying IPOs, that the market is not so much startup-friendly, makes this model a bit more difficult. But personally, I think there is value there.   Nuno Yeah, I think on the mega fund, just so that I’m not boo-booing everything, I mean, but there’s definitely angles in terms of the asset class that make a lot of sense. And there’s the scalability of the model. The ability to go after Series B, Series C, as well as mid-stage, as well as late-stage, even secondaries over time, to your point, in some cases even public equities. And that level of skill I think matters. We’ve also seen, as we’ve known, we won’t mention any brands, but people will know who they are, that late-stage hedge funds and investors, even if they’ve done okay-ish in growth in private equity, don’t necessarily do well in venture. So it’s clearly a very different asset class, right? So once you start getting venture teams together, The returns are not quite the same. Actually, sometimes they’re not even quite the same as the growth investments. So clearly they’re very good at the growth side, but not so good in early stage. But definitely there is a case for it. The Case for Smaller…Rightsized Funds But if we switch gears maybe to the small, or I would call right-sized funds, maybe just to quote a couple of numbers and then open up the discussion. Small funds do seem to outperform larger funds. There’s a lot of data in the market that shows some of that dynamic outperformance frequency. All the Very historical numbers from Cambridge Associates from 1981 to 2010. 19 out of 30 vintages were won by sub-$150 million funds. We did our own analysis as I was sharing before. Funds between $0 and $100 won most years between around 2010 and 2021. And the years that they didn’t outperform in terms of investing in the top-performing companies in early-stage Series C, Series A, they were outperformed by the $100 to $500 million funds. The $500 to $1 billion funds and $1 billion or above were never even in the same league in terms of performance, of having identified those top performers in terms of quantity over those early-stage investments. Top 10 funds by vintage, 2004 to 2006, 2016 numbers. Top 10 funds, 73% were sub-$100 million. 2004 to 2016, top 10 funds by vintage, 73% of those were sub-$100 million. So there seems to be a little bit of a case that actually smaller funds, sub-$100 million, sub-$500 million in some cases, are outperforming the larger funds over time. Now, these funds are complex in and of itself. The positive of it is small fund GPs like myself, we are deeply invested in our own funds. We’re not there to just make management fee monies. I mean, we’re not making $1 million, $2 million a year in management fees of salary ourselves, like some of the larger funds. So we are there to really get the carry and be less focused on management fees. And so I think there’s a little bit of alignment around that and really taking that kind of perspective on portfolio construction and liquidation, being also more aggressive on the individual time that we spend with our startups. On the negative side, obviously a lot of these smaller funds, not the case of Chameleon, but others out there are single GPs, very little teams or very small teams. And so it’s sometimes difficult to actually do a lot for portfolio companies as well. And this is where the mega funds, for example, a16z notably would say, hey, we have 600+ people that can support you, right? On market development, business development, communications, talent recruiting, all this stuff. Question mark whether that’s the right way to do it in terms of operating model, if technology is not a better way of supplying that value back to your portfolio companies, or if there’s no better way of doing it. But still, that’s one of the appeals of actually dealing with a larger mega fund if you’re a startup, right? That they will have the resources, also the financial resources to put more capital in you. But also, again, if there’s entrepreneurs listening to this right now, and hopefully there are, it’s a two-edged sword, right? Because if you have Andreessen Horowitz putting money in you, or NEA, or General Catalyst, or whatever, putting money in you on a Series C and then not doubling down on the Series A or the Series B, there will be questions, right? Because like they have the capital, they have other funds, so why the hell are they not putting more money in? Um, so, so it’s a little bit of a two-edged sword.   Bertrand Yeah, I think that one is a pretty big one. And on top of it, as we discussed, some of these big firms have multiple funds managed technically by different teams. So you might have convinced the early-stage teams, they have investors, they’re happy, but you don’t convince the growth-stage firm. As you say, it might raise questions because people might think that there is some communication between the early-stage team and the growth-stage team. So why the heck are they not deciding to invest? And as we also discussed, even worse possible situation, what happens if the growth-stage team has invested in your competitor? It’s even more trouble. So I think trying to understand how firms behave, what’s the reputation of the firm, what’s the reputation of the partner you are working with, I mean, can have tremendous importance and impact. When it’s time for you to work with a firm.   Nuno Indeed. I mean, at the end of the day, we still believe that the smaller fund— we at Chameleon discuss the notion that our limit should be $500 million per fund, right? And that’s the logic of it. We think that model is the model that works well in venture capital. We do recognize, as I said before, why mega funds keep raising more and more money, right? It becomes a harm’s race at that end of the market. As I said, probably a slightly different asset class, or if not a significantly different asset class as well. So seeing a little bit both sides of the market, I mean, we often compete with the mega funds, but honestly, a lot of the mega funds are kind to us and they let us in. And this whole notion of elbows out, we haven’t felt it that much in the market. And people see our value at the table. And in many cases, I, I do see the larger funds more and more seeing the value of smaller funds coming in on the same rounds and even in some cases co-leading early stage rounds like Series C. So it’s not like elbows are out everywhere across the board. So I don’t mean to say this is like an all-out war between small funds and big funds and the small funds need to win or the big funds need to win. I think actually there’s a lot of potential for coexistence. My point is more that the asset classes and the returns are quite different over time, and that’s how I would think through it. And if you’re an entrepreneur, you should think about that as well, right? What are the implications of taking money from certain funds versus others in terms of the expected returns, expected time allocated to you? For example, if you’re not doing very well as a as a company, right? Will the big funds spend the same amount of energy on you if you’re not doing great and all of that? So it’s a little bit sort of a beware, open your eyes, both for limited partners and for startups. What do you actually want, right? What do you want from your VC firm if you’re a startup? And what do you want from your VC firm if you’re an LP?   Bertrand I must say, as an entrepreneur, uh, a board member, I have seen some situations where the bigger funds are actually trying sometimes to elbow out the existing investors. Like, uh, we have that much money to put to work, we cannot do less. And you’re like, yeah, but I don’t need that much money. And then they’re like, okay, just don’t let your existing investors do their pro rata. I don’t think it’s great because an entrepreneur, if your investors, your VCs, trusted you earlier stage when it’s more risky, and when it’s becoming less risky, you don’t give them the right to their pro rata because you have to let this big guy come in. That’s not great. Or even if there is not this pro rata issue, when an investor tries to put more money to work than it’s really necessary, it’s also not a good idea as an entrepreneur to take more capital than you could use. It will dilute you more, it will set higher expectations in terms of valuation, it will push you to use that capital faster than maybe would be reasonable. So I think that’s something you want to be careful with the bigger funds. So don’t talk to funds that are in some ways beyond your stage and try to make it work in that context. Or don’t accept to have your strategy change dramatically for no good reason by funds that just want to put too much money to work in your business. And that for me is surprising because it should also be in their best interest not to invest in businesses that are not ready to accept that much capital. But as we have seen, there were in the past some funds that believe that capital is a moat. Was a good idea. So hopefully, I guess we’re a bit behind that. But yeah, I would say entrepreneurs, be careful, find partners that are the right partners for you at your current stage. Sometimes some big names look great, but at the same time, if it comes with a lot of issues, from too much capital to also taking the risk that these partners don’t understand the stage of the business you are in or your industry, Just be careful. There is a lot of value to have firms that are very focused on your stage, on your industry, are finely attuned to that situation.   Nuno What Comes Next? Maybe to end in terms of sections, what comes next? And maybe we can come up with some predictions that are a little bit provocative on what’s going to happen to the market. You, if you’re listening to us, feel free to interact with us on LinkedIn, on X. If you have our email address, shoot us an email as well. We’d love to hear from you if you think these are the right predictions or if we’re totally off. Maybe I’ll throw in the first one, Bertrand, and we’ll go one by one. So we’ll each put one at the table and see where we head. My first one is that we’ll have a huge culling of VC investors. We had this rapid expansion of the VC asset class with arguably at least tens of thousands of firms globally, maybe even over 10,000 in the US. I think we’ll have a culling and the culling will continue and we’ll have several firms sort of getting eliminated over the next couple of years that will have either because they’re having tremendous difficulty doing their first close in their next fund, or the returns are not there, or it’s a firm that has done 3, 4 funds, but for some reason the returns have just gone out of whack in the last few years during the bull years. And so therefore, actually they can’t justify to raise more funds out there. So I predict there will be a significant elimination of active firms in the next at least 2 to 3 years. So maybe by 2028, and we’ll be below, I don’t know, 30% of number of active firms that we are today. The other side of it is I do think if we look beyond that, 2029, 2030, and so on, we’ll have the reemergence of not micro funds, but nano funds where people will start deploying capital very, very early and writing small angel checks, but doing it in a way that it’s sort of not this cottage industry that we’ve had of angel investors. So I think angel investment will be disrupted by people that will use more and more of the AI toolification out there to actually manage their portfolios of 10, 15, 5K investments in a way that is a lot more professional, creating sort of an advent of nano funds.   Bertrand Yeah, makes sense. On my side, in terms of prediction, I think there is a possibility that the mega fund model keeps expanding and looks more similar over time to some PE models. So do we have the top 10 VC firms that look more like a Blackstone than a Kleiner Perkins or Sequoia used to be? That for me will be an interesting question and development. I think that there is some possibility that it keeps going in that direction. A lot of incentives are pushing things that way.   Nuno My next prediction is that DPI, distributions to paid-in cash on cash, just cash back, will become essential for limited partners. I think TVPI, total value to paid-in, that also has in there, as we just said, paper valuations. There’s a lot of disbelief now around the TVPI metric if there isn’t distributions going alongside it. For those who, again, don’t know what TVPI is, it’s total value paid in, but it also includes DPI. So it’s cash on cash component plus a remaining valuation to paid in, an RVPI. And the problem is the RVPI really, in reality, it’s that kind of on-paper valuation that never gets attributed. I think LPs, they’ve seen the writing on the wall and they’re like, dude, just show me your DPI numbers. I don’t care about TVPI. Some LPs will still ask about TVPI just to make sure that the rest is sort of looking in order. Like, show me the money, show me the cash. Actually, it’s not money, show me the cash, right? I want money back.   Bertrand But that’s an issue. I mean, if you’re supposed to raise financing every 3 or 4 years, good luck getting DPI to show for that. So you need to be at least on your third fund in order to be able to show DPI, I guess.   Nuno I mean, my corollary to that, Bertrand, is if you allow me just to have a corollary kind of prediction, is that we’ll see certainly for funds like $50 million and above, $100 million, $200 million, et cetera, even increased concentration, right? I really need to have anchors that believe in me over time. And we might start having, again, the advent— we had it some decades ago, the advent of cap table kind of VCs, right? Like Sutter Hill Ventures, right? Where they’re not really raising funds anymore. And so we might have the advent of that, that we’ll have structures that are created that have more permanent capital allocated to them, or at the very least more concentrated capital by very few players.   Bertrand Interesting. Me on my side, as I shared before, I believe secondaries are, are important and here to stay. Um, in the past, some could argue, is it a distress signal or something? I, I don’t think it’s true anymore. In a world where your average startup might take 15 to 18 years to exit through M&A or IPO, we need to have other options. For funds, for employees, they cannot be expected to stick around for so long and have no liquidity. I mean, it’s just pure madness. It’s just bad alignment at some point to do that. So I think secondaries are becoming the third liquidity pathway for VCs, for employees, and it should be more and more a key part of the game, a key infrastructure in the VC/startups tech industry.   Nuno I mean, on specialized versus generalist funds, I believe we’ll continue seeing the coexistence of those two models where the specialized funds will in many pockets actually outperform generalist funds, but where we’ll continue seeing that the large franchises, the tier one franchises will likely be generalist funds. I mean, we just saw it in the cycle. The AI cycle went upon us. We had a 2021 fund. We could easily adapt and go into AI and figure out that AI was growing very fast. I mean, if you have an ultra-specialized fund and that’s your remit and that’s the only thing you can invest on, very difficult to change even during our investment period. I will put a caveat on that. We don’t call, for example, ourselves at Chameleon generalist. We call ourselves multi-specialized because our scoring models for the verticals that we track are specialized within Mantis. Because the partnership is specialized, we all focus on different areas. And because we have the Kin network that allows us to tap into that level of expertise, Again, I think the world will be specialized coexistence. Some pockets specialized will do very well, certainly on the smaller fund size, but the big franchises will likely look a little bit more generalist. And as I said, multi-specialized from our perspective is the future. We’ll start seeing more and more funds that are multi-specialized like ourselves. Do you want to talk about AI and how it’ll distort the metrics? No.   Bertrand Yes. I think AI is an exciting moment in the tech industry. It feels in some ways that the same way we had a big distortion coming with COVID and work from home in 2020, 2021. 2021, where suddenly everyone and their mother will build a SaaS company or invest in a SaaS company. AI feels a bit of the same. I mean, to be clear, I truly believe it’s deserved. I mean, we are facing a dramatic shift in how computing is being done in terms of value you can get from software. So at the same time, AI will probably distort this matrix for a long time. We clearly see a split where investments are going, in what startups are being created. So I think, yeah, we will see some distortion. And we know that maybe 50% of all deal value is going to AI in 2025. We have seen single rounds reaching 40 billion, like to OpenAI. We have seen, as you discussed, some seed stage investment of 400 million. So AI investing and AI startups are definitely a beast on their own. And will distort VC metrics for a long time. And we might need two sets of metrics in parallel, you know, AI versus everything else. So that would be an interesting bifurcation in the industry in some ways. I would say it’s fair to separate AI versus non-AI. We reach a point where it’s two different beasts.   Nuno Conclusion So in conclusion, AI has changed the world and it’s changing VC as well, as we discussed earlier in the episode. We have a tremendous momentous occasion for the asset class where venture capital is really bifurcating into very large funds, which no longer are in venture capital or seemingly may be distributed between different asset classes, and the smaller funds, sub-$500 million and sub-$100 million, that keep having the better returns, but also with much smaller scale. We’re seeing a culling of the industry where the industry is definitely getting smaller and smaller and more concentrated at both ends, number of VC firms, as well as a number of limited partners per fund and the interest that some of these limited partners have of being more and more concentrated in their own portfolio allocations. And last but not the least, the discussion around specialized versus generalist, where it seems like there’s some clear winners on some asset classes, on some sizes, in some industries, but on others, there’s other kinds of winners. And so maybe the future is multi-specialized, as I framed at the end. Thank you so much for listening. If you want to check us out and if you want to comment, feel free to send us messages on X, LinkedIn, to both myself and Bertrand, as well as send us an email. Thank you so much, Bertrand.   Bertrand Thank you, Nuno.

Charlie O'Donnell is one of the most influential figures in New York's startup ecosystem. With more than two decades of experience spanning Union Square Ventures, First Round Capital, and then creating the first venture capital fund based in Brooklyn, Charlie has backed well-over 100 early-stage startups. In this all-Brooklyn episode, Charlie brings his uniquely candid and deeply informed perspective on how venture capital actually works and insights from his new book Founder Unfriendly where he unpacks common misconceptions about VC and how both founders and investors can build more transparent, productive relationships. We dive into the evolving venture landscape, the realities behind investor feedback, and how startups and large corporations can better collaborate for mutual success. We talk about why fundraising isn't winning and how to sell tickets to the future. If you want a clearer, more honest understanding of how venture capital decisions get made—and how to navigate them—this episode is a must-listen.

Ever wondered how venture capitalists actually pick winning startups? In this solo breakdown on the BRAVE Southeast Asia Tech Podcast, Jeremy Au pulls back the curtain on the secretive world of venture capital. Whether you are building a stealth startup in Singapore or scaling across Indonesia and the Philippines, understanding the investor mindset is crucial for securing funding. Jeremy breaks down the four core functions of a great VC and the spectrum of fund strategies, from index portfolios like Y Combinator to highly concentrated bets like Union Square Ventures. Learn the intense mathematics behind deal flow, why top VC funds sift through over 5,000 pitches just to invest in 10, and how you can position your startup to stand out in the highly competitive Southeast Asian tech ecosystem. Key Takeaways: Collaboration vs. Competition: How VCs work together (and against each other) across different funding stages. The 4 VC Fund Strategies: Discover the differences between Index Portfolios, Concentrated Bets, Multi-stage Aggregators, and Venture Builders. The VC Sourcing Funnel: Why changing your LinkedIn to "Stealth Startup" gets VC associates' attention immediately. Unicorn Hit Rates: A comparative look at the success rates of Union Square Ventures (8%) versus Y Combinator (0.95%). 0:00 - Collaboration vs. Competition in Venture Capital 0:47 - The Startup Stages: From Pre-Seed to Growth VC 1:23 - The Four Core Functions of Every Great VC 1:36 - 4 Major VC Fund Strategies Explained 3:52 - Minority Investment vs. Management Control (Tesla vs. Toys "R" Us) 4:42 - Unicorn Hit Rates: Union Square Ventures vs. Y Combinator 5:45 - The Intense VC Sourcing Funnel (5,000 Startups to 10 Deals) 7:00 - Proprietary Sourcing & "Stealth Startups" on LinkedIn 8:23 - How VCs Do Reference Checks and Share Deals Watch, listen or read the full insight at https://www.bravesea.com/blog/hidden-vc-strategies Get transcripts, startup resources & community discussions at https://www.bravesea.com WhatsApp: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VakR55X6BIElUEvkN02e TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jeremyau Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremyauz Twitter X : https://x.com/jeremyau LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bravesea English: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts Bahasa Indonesia: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts Chinese: Spotify | YouTube | Apple Podcasts #VentureCapital #Business #Startup #Podcast #southeastasia #techpodcast

Send us a textMiguel Armaza sits down with Santiago Suárez, Co-Founder & CEO of Addi, one of Colombia's fastest-growing fintech and commerce platforms. With a background that spans global finance and a track record of driving innovation in Latin America, Santiago shares a candid, in-depth look at lessons from scaling Addi to over $1.3 billion in annualized GMV, serving 2.5 million customers, and achieving industry-leading gross margins above 55%.In this episode, Santiago and Miguel dive deep into Addi's unique approach to board management—treating every board meeting as a “dirty laundry” session to maximize transparency, trust, and tangible input from world-class investors like Andreessen Horowitz, GIC, and Union Square Ventures. Santiago also unpacks the company's relentless focus on operational excellence, from shifting to a North Star-driven management style to building a contentious yet high-performing executive team with global talent from Amazon, Capital One, and PayTM.Timestamped Overview00:00 Intro03:57 Monthly updates streamline meetings09:00 Building Success Amid Challenges13:02 Seamless commerce and finance ecosystem14:20 Persistent Networking Pays Off18:49 Marketplace built on consumer demand21:43 Scaling globally through self-funding24:00 Show Your Work The Why27:30 Empowered Customer Service Equity31:30 AI Agents Powering Transactions34:10 AI Data and Deployment Nuances38:30 Building success through early funding41:30 CEO weekly field day

This week's Espresso covers news from VAAS, Somos Internet, Loto, and more!Outline of this episode:[00:30] – Starian raises $115M from General Atlantic[00:38] – VAAS raises $3.7M in a round led by Headline[00:45] – Mercado de Recebíveis reaches $56M valuation[00:57] – Somos Internet raises $18M Series A round[01:07] – Loto raises $1M pre-seed round[01:19] – Whalemate raises $1M for cybersecurity platform[01:30] – B3 acquires 62% stake in fintech Shipay[01:38] – Evertec acquires Tecnobank for $145M[01:50] – Latamlist Roundup August 1st – August 15thResources & people mentioned:Startups: Starian, VAAS, Mercado de Recebíveis, B3, Shipay, Somos Internet, Loto, Whalemate, Evertec, Tecnobank,VCs: General Atlantic, Headline, Union Square Ventures, Ribbit Capital, Parceiro Ventures, 

Albert Wenger, Partner bei Union Square Ventures, spricht über die Zukunftsfähigkeit Europas und notwendige politische Visionen. Er teilt, warum ein bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen unvermeidbar ist, weshalb Deutschland seine Energiekrise lösen muss und wie Europa seine Wettbewerbsfähigkeit zurückgewinnen kann. Was du lernst: Warum billige Energie entscheidend für Wohlstand ist Die drei wichtigsten Zukunftsthemen für Europa Wie Deutschland seine Wettbewerbsfähigkeit verliert Was Gründer jetzt beachten müssen ALLES ZU UNICORN BAKERY: https://zez.am/unicornbakery  Mehr zu Albert: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertwenger/  Website: https://www.usv.com/  Join our Founder Tactics Newsletter: 2x die Woche bekommst du die Taktiken der besten Gründer der Welt direkt ins Postfach: https://www.tactics.unicornbakery.de/ 

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

Albert Wenger ist Managing Partner bei Union Square Ventures. Der New Yorker Wagniskapitalgeber hat sich durch frühe Investments in Firmen wie Twitter, Coinbase, Etsy und Duolingo einen Namen gemacht. Im OMR Podcast spricht der Deutsch-Amerikaner über seine These, dass Aufmerksamkeit in Zukunft wichtiger sein wird als Kapital. Er verrät außerdem, wieso US-Präsident Donald Trump in einigen Punkten die richtigen Themen adressiert, aber dennoch gestoppt werden muss beim Angriff auf die Demokratie – und was man von der Serie Star Trek aus den 1960er Jahren lernen kann.

Presto Charging is like Stripe for EV charging, providing a marketplace for EV fleet owners and EV charging networks via an app and API. They recently raised a $15 million seed round led by Union Square Ventures and included investments from Congruent Ventures, Jetstream, and Powerhouse Ventures.Ashwin is also a “papa to two feisty girls, weekend road bike cruiser, and photographer in hibernation.” Before Presto, he led the Vehicles and Electrification program at Uber. Here are 5 topics we covered in the podcast:1. Founding PrestoAshwin and co-founder JJ Rayner left Uber after facing the fragmented EV charging ecosystem firsthand. They created Presto to simplify access to public charging, turning a many-to-many problem into a one-to-many platform.2. Business Model & CustomersPresto serves B2B partners like Hertz, Avis, and Uber, offering a unified app and API for seamless EV charging. Their bottom-up approach won customer trust by delivering exceptional UX and fast support.3. Tech & ImpactPresto acts like "Stripe for EV charging," using data and machine learning to recommend reliable stations. Their system supports dynamic pricing and grid integration to drive long-term charging infrastructure growth.4. Founder JourneyAshwin encourages aspiring founders to “just do it,” with eyes wide open and a partner they trust. He stresses building in a sector you love, even if the leap from corporate life feels uncertain.5. Routines & ResourcesTo stay focused, Ashwin prioritizes recharge time with family and biking, emphasizing deliberate rest. He recommends books like Fall in Love with the Problem and Delivering Happiness for aspiring entrepreneurs.--

Albert Wenger, Partner bei Union Square Ventures, einem der erfolgreichsten Risikokapitalfonds weltweit, diskutiert mit Fabian über die großen gesellschaftlichen, wirtschaftlichen und technologischen Herausforderungen unserer Zeit.  Er teilt seine Perspektiven zu Themen wie der Zukunft der Arbeit, dem bedingungslosen Grundeinkommen und der Rolle Europas im globalen Wettbewerb. Außerdem erfährts du, warum wir an einem Wendepunkt stehen, der vergleichbar mit dem Übergang vom Agrarzeitalter ins Industriezeitalter ist, und was Politik, Wirtschaft und Startups tun müssen, um diese Transformation erfolgreich zu gestalten. Was du lernst: Die Herausforderungen des 21. Jahrhunderts: Warum wir ein neues Gesellschaftssystem brauchen, um mit KI, Klimawandel und Migration umzugehen Die Bedeutung von günstiger, verfügbarer Energie für den Wohlstand von Gesellschaften Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen: Wie ein Grundeinkommen helfen kann, die Automatisierung und den Wandel der Arbeitswelt zu meistern Warum bestehende Sozialsysteme überholt sind und welche Anpassungen notwendig wären Startups und Innovation: Warum Product-Market-Fit das wichtigste Element für den Erfolg eines Startups ist Wie Gründer auf Marktveränderungen reagieren und große Probleme lösen können Technologie und Macht: Wie KI die Gesellschaft radikal verändert und warum jede Firma eine KI-Strategie braucht Warum offene APIs und Interoperabilität entscheidend für Innovation und Wettbewerb sind Führung und Skalierung: Wie Gründer mit ihren Unternehmen wachsen und von Machern zu Leadern werden Die Bedeutung von Vision und Motivation für ein wachsendes Team ALLES ZU UNICORN BAKERY: https://zez.am/unicornbakery  Mehr zu Albert: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertwenger/  Website: https://www.usv.com/  Zur Lesung am 03.04.2025: https://berlin.fotografiska.com/de/events/book-launch-die-welt-nach-dem-kapital Join our Founder Tactics Newsletter: 2x die Woche bekommst du die Taktiken der besten Gründer der Welt direkt ins Postfach: https://www.tactics.unicornbakery.de/  Kapitel: (00:00:00) Die Deutsche Bundestagswahl in Bezug auf Startup & Wirtschaft - was hätte besser laufen können? (00:06:30) Wie könnte die Gesellschaft wieder näher zusammenrücken? (00:11:32) Alberts Forderungen an die aktuellen politischen Verantwortlichen in Deutschland (00:15:32) Die Auswirkungen von Trump auf Startups & Wirtschaft in den USA (00:20:15) Alberts Einschätzung von Unternehmern in der Regierung am Bsp. Musk (00:29:04) Kontrolle vs. Selbstbestimmung in Social Media & Co, (00:34:34) Bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen: Chance oder Utopie? (00:43:57) Wie würde sich die Arbeit durch bedingungsloses Grundeinkommen verändern? (00:51:52) Alberts Prozess, um sich seine Vision von der Welt zu erarbeiten  (00:55:59) Wie challenged Albert seine eigenen Thesen? (01:01:08) Wie hilfreich ist jahrzehntelange Erfahrung? (01:03:34) Was macht nach Alberts Erfahrungsschatz wirklich erfolgreiche Startups aus?

So what to J.D. Vance's highly controversial speech at the Paris AI Summit this week? According to That Was The Week's Keith Teare, it was “a breath of fresh air”. Others will argue it was just more MAGA putridity designed to alienate our European friends. Some tech notables, like Union Square Ventures partner Albert Wenger, take both views simultaneously, acknowledging on the one hand that Vance was correct to push back against “regulatory capture”, but on the other that Vance was “mistaking jingoism and wishful thinking for true global leadership”. Here are the 5 KEEN ON takeaways from this weekly tech round-up with Teare:* J.D. Vance's Paris AI Summit speech marked a potential turning point in US-Europe AI relations. His message prioritizing AI opportunity over safety prompted European regulators to pull back on some restrictions, with the EU dropping its AI liability directive and the UK rebranding its AI Safety Institute.* Anthropic's growth is accelerating, with projections of $34.5 billion in revenue by 2027. They're currently outperforming OpenAI in some areas, particularly coding, and are expected to release a major new AI model soon.* The Musk-OpenAI conflict has intensified, with Musk's $100 billion bid for OpenAI's non-profit arm being rejected. Meanwhile, OpenAI is planning to incorporate its Q* (Q-star) model into a new GPT-5 release that will combine reasoning, operational capabilities, and multimedia functions.* The AI industry is seeing rapid advancement in humanoid robotics, with companies like Apptronics and Figure receiving significant valuations. Figure's valuation jumped from $2 billion to $39 billion after securing a major automotive partnership.* Traditional political alignments are becoming less relevant in tech policy, with Teare arguing that economic growth and technological progress are transcending traditional left-right divisions. This is exemplified by some progressives like Reid Hoffman embracing AI optimism while traditional conservatives champion technological progress. FULL TRANSCRIPTAndrew Keen: Hello everybody. It is Saturday, February 15th, 2025, a day after Valentine's Day. It's been a day or a week dominated by a certain J.D. Vance. Yesterday, he made a very controversial speech in Munich, which apparently laid bare the collapse of the transatlantic alliance. He attacked Europe over free speech and migration. So he's not the most popular fellow in Europe. And a couple of days before that, he spoke in Paris at the AI Summit, a classic Parisian event talking about summits. Macron, of course, also spoke there. According to The Wall Street Journal, Vance's counts were good. The German, of course, being a conservative newspaper. According to The Washington Post, which is a progressive newspaper, he pushed the "America First" AI agenda. Others, like Fast Company, ask what to make of Vance's speech at the Paris AI conference. According to my friend Keith Teare, the author of That Was The Week newsletter, the speech was a breath of fresh air. I was going to call you Marx, Keith. That would have been a true Freudian error. What do you admire about Vance's speech? Why is it a breath of fresh air?Keith Teare: Well, it's in the European context that it's a breath of fresh air. I think from an American perspective, he didn't really say anything new. We already think of AI in the way he expressed it. But in Europe, the dominant discussion around AI is still focused on safety. That is to say, AI is dangerous. We have to control it. We need to regulate it. And as a result of that, most of the American developments in AI are not even launched in Europe, because in order to be made available to citizens, it has to go through various regulatory layers. And that slows everything down. So in the context, Vance stood up on the platform in front of all of the people doing that regulation and told them basically, rubbed their noses in it, saying how self-destructive their approach was for European success. His opening lines were, "I'm not here to talk about AI safety. I'm here to talk about AI opportunity." And in the days since, there's been quite a big reaction in Europe to the speech, mostly positive from normal people and adjusting policy at the regulatory level. So it's quite a profound moment. And he carried himself very well. I mean, he was articulate, thoughtful.Andrew Keen: Yeah. You say his speech marks a crucial inflection point. I wonder, though, if Vance was so self-interested as a MAGA person, why would he want even to encourage Europe to develop? I mean, why not just let it be like social media or the Internet where American companies dominate? Is there anything in America's interest that the Trump-Musk alliance would benefit from strong European AI companies?Keith Teare: Well, from strong European AI openness, yes. I don't think Vance thinks for a minute there are any European companies that will be able to compete in that open environment. And so most of his purpose is economic. He's basically saying open up so that our guys can sell stuff to you and the money will flow back to the U.S. as it has done with Amazon and Google and every other major tech innovation in recent years. So it's basically an economic speech masquerading as a policy speech.Andrew Keen: I wonder if there's an opportunity for Europe given the clear divisions now that exist between the U.S. and Europe. I wonder whether there's an opportunity for Europe to start looking more sympathetically at Chinese AI companies. Did Vance warn in his speech, did he warn Europe about turning to the Chinese, the other potential partner?Keith Teare: Yeah. There are two parts of his speech I didn't really incorporate in the editorial. The first was a subplot all around China, which he didn't name, but he called "dictatorships." We don't want dictatorships leading in AI. And then there was another subplot, which was all about free speech and openness and not censoring, which was aimed at the Europeans, of course, and the Chinese.Andrew Keen: Discussion of their free speech, or at least it's their version of free speech, isn't it?Keith Teare: I think the funny thing is in order to be consistent, they're going to have to allow all free speech. And they will, because they know that. And so, weirdly, the Republicans become the free speech party, which makes no sense historically. But it is happening. And I thought there were a lot of interesting things in that speech that symbolized a very confident America. However, the reason America is doing this is because it's weak, which is a paradox.Andrew Keen: Politically weak or militarily weak or economically weak?Keith Teare: Not militarily - it's super strong, but economically it's relatively declining against China. It's the next Europe. America is the next Europe. China is the next America. And in that context, America's brashness sounds positive to our ears and to mine as well, because it's pro-optimism, pro-progress. But actually, it's coming from a place of weakness, which you see in the tariffs and the anti-Chinese stuff.Andrew Keen: And I want to come to the Munich speech where Vance was pretty clear. Trump's always been clear that if there is an opportunity for Ukraine, Ukrainians have to work for American access to its raw materials, minerals, etc. Whether America's foreign policy now is becoming identical to that of China, helping other countries as long as they provide them with essential resources.Keith Teare: Yeah, exactly. By the way, one of our commentators, David John William Bailey on LinkedIn, is saying we need to explain this. He says he's also attempting "$1 trillion mob-style shakedown." Anyone defending this is either deluded or only reads hard-right propaganda.Andrew Keen: Well, but Keith, you've always claimed to be a progressive. You always claim to be a man of the left. You have a background in left-wing communist activism. Now you're on board with Vance. You were on board the week before with Musk. You're ambivalent about Trump. What does this say to you? What does this suggest about you personally, or is the reality of politics these days that the supposed conservatives like Vance are actually progressive in their own way and the supposed progressives in the Democratic Party are actually conservative?Keith Teare: Well, as you know, I don't like those labels anymore because I think they're trying to fit a modern narrative into an old set of boxes. I think, broadly speaking, Vance is an economic progressive. He wants the economy to grow. He wants GDP to grow.Andrew Keen: Some people say everyone's a progressive in that sense if they want GDP to grow.Keith Teare: Yeah, but not very many people can do it. So I think they really are serious that they believe innovation in tech and GDP are correlated. And I believe GDP and social good are correlated. And so if you really want to be a progressive that wants people to have a good life, you have to support economic growth. And I think Vance does. And I think that's what his narrative is about. He's basically telling Europe that they're going to get the opposite, which has been true, by the way, now for a decade. European GDP per capita is as low as $35,000 a year. American is $85,000 a year.Andrew Keen: That's an astonishing shift. And this is going to be remembered, I think, as an important week in the American-European relationship. You said that the aftermath of the Vance speech has been remarkable and telling. The EU dropped its AI liability directive. The UK rebranded its AI Safety Institute. OpenAI removed diversity commitments. So a speech is now having an impact, particularly this Paris speech when it comes to AI policy, both in Europe but also in the US as well.Keith Teare: Yeah, I wouldn't give too much credit just to the speech. I think the speech is symptomatic of a lot of zeitgeist change and everyone is getting in line with the new zeitgeist, which is tech is good, AI is good, censorship is bad.Andrew Keen: Well, I don't know if that's - I'm not sure I would call that the zeitgeist, Keith. I mean, you're talking in Palo Alto, where that's always been the zeitgeist. I think if anything, in universities and book publishing, the reverse is true.Keith Teare: Yeah. So I'm an avid MSNBC watcher. I watch Morning Joe every morning with Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough. And so I'm kind of imbued with the liberal narrative compared to what's going on. And what's happened is a very rapid change from the days after the election when the liberal narrative was "we need to look at ourselves" has now become a narrative that "the judges have to save us from the administration." The administration is not democratic, even though it was elected, and we've got to rely on judges because there's no one else to rely on.Andrew Keen: That doesn't mean the zeitgeist has shifted. It just means that the people on one side have shifted their focus, but they still are not sympathetic to Trump, Vance, Musk.Keith Teare: I think there is increasing sympathy. I think you're going to be surprised. I think if an election was held today, Trump would win by more.Andrew Keen: Well, he would certainly win by more if he was running against Harris. That's another question. So it's been another remarkable week for AI content. One piece that you pick out, which I thought was interesting, is from somebody called Elizabeth Yin. Nice to have a female author - too many of our authors are male. Maybe I'm being too woke. But the AI takeover, according to Yin - no one's jobs are safe. This isn't exactly news, is it?Keith Teare: No, she's really summarizing what we've been talking about in That Was The Week for quite a while. But I thought it was a good summary. And she gives some kind of prioritization. There's a section that talks about regulated professions, human-centric jobs, creative and entrepreneurial jobs, energy and infrastructure and distribution. And she then breaks down what she thinks the main impact of AI is going to be. She kind of leaves it where you kind of want more from her because she doesn't thoroughly go through all of these. But she's a VC, she does early-stage investing. She's very good. And the one thing she says, which I don't think anyone's going to disagree with, is "fewer workers more." I was at an event this week in San Francisco where there was a panel with some VCs and entrepreneurs on exactly the same questions she's asking - where the cuts are going to come first or what sectors are going to be most dramatically affected in the short term. And people weren't entirely clear. But the one area that comes up is healthcare - that's the lowest hanging fruit at the moment.Keith Teare: Yeah, there's a funding event this week from a company that applies AI to biology, specifically cancer programming - anti-cancer cells. So you're going to see AI in everything. And it's that will lead to an acceleration of invention for sure, because the individual is still really important. By the way, there's another article about that this week. The individual now has an army of talent in AI, able to help them make progress. It just speeds everything up.Andrew Keen: Yeah. So what other AI news in the summary? There's a couple, 2 or 3 pieces on Anthropic. I use Anthropic. I like it. Their growth soars to 34.5 billion in 2027 revenue. That's of course, speculative. And they announce their next major AI model could arrive within weeks, Anthropic competitive with OpenAI.Keith Teare: Yes, and they're better than OpenAI at some things. They're already better than OpenAI at coding. If you put it in context, those three Anthropic pieces sit alongside the Google piece and the OpenAI pieces. And what it tells you is we've seen a major acceleration of product roadmaps and plans in the last couple of weeks, mainly in response to the DeepSea news, I think.Andrew Keen: Yeah, it's interesting that DeepSea was a one-week wonder, but there are no headlines at least from you on DeepSea. It seems to have stimulated change as you suggest, rather than change things in its own way. And then your Google pieces - interesting that they're rolling out a new memory feature for Gemini AI, allowing recall of past conversations, which is increasingly getting to the point where these AIs, if not human or sentient, certainly are able to remember things and have conversations.Keith Teare: Yeah, and that becomes much easier once you go from LLMs to other LLMs with agents. An agent is a piece of software that speaks to another LLM to complete a task. And so you could have in software a memory agent or a recall agent whose only job is to say, "Is this question been asked recently and what did I look at the last time?" and bring it into the context for whatever the current question is. And I think we're going to see more and more of this. I've spent most of my week building a multi-agent system for my company, Single Rank. I have a question taker agent that you ask a question of. It then farms out to a database agent or a chart drawing agent or an expert reasoning agent. They all have different jobs and they come back and give their answers to the original agent, and then it gives the answer to the user. So this collaborative agents concept is becoming very real now. And memory is one of those - I think Perplexity is the most advanced.Andrew Keen: Yeah. We were talking about Perplexity before we went live. You convinced me - I use Anthropic but you said for me it's probably wiser to use Perplexity where I still have all the access to Anthropic, but it adds a layer and some more intelligence. As I said, I was at an event this week where one of the venture people from OpenAI was there who talked about Sam Altman's projection that in the not too distant future there'll be billion-dollar individual startups. Are you suggesting, Keith, that's not that far on the horizon, given the power of AI that individuals can do all and do the entire startup without needing the help of anybody else?Keith Teare: Depends on the startup. If the startup is mainly software, that's probably true. But if it needs account management and billing and all the others...Andrew Keen: But eventually all that stuff will get - that's the easy part, isn't it? You can always get that done.Keith Teare: It's the hard bit right now, like reconciling invoices to receipts. I'm not very good at that. So I think it's coming with two things: rising agents and then agents that can use tools to follow, do actions, if you will. So it's coming and it's probably coming this year and it'll accelerate. So, yes, it will get there. I think the headline of a single founder of $1 billion company is just a headline. But it's directionally correct.Andrew Keen: It does. And it does reiterate Elizabeth Yin's point that no jobs are safe - in finance, in HR, in coding, in content. I mean, I'm using it more and more to summarize these conversations. I don't need a large editorial staff. So clearly dramatic change. And in fact, your startup of the week, Keith, the robotics startup Apptronics, is in talks for new funding at an almost $40 billion valuation - a hardware company. Does this speak of the reality of this new AI revolution? That it's not just theory, it's practice now?Keith Teare: Yeah. Well, Figure has gone from 2 billion to 39 billion in less than a year. And why? Because one of the major car companies signed an agreement with it to have these robots on production lines in its factories. And the start of the week, by the way, is Apptronics, which is a different humanoid robotics company, also raising a lot of money but slightly earlier in its journey than Figure.Andrew Keen: It's my mistake - I have to admit I thought it was Figure so that's my error. I'm going to add an Apptronics image to this content. I'm rather embarrassed.Keith Teare: You've probably already got one. That said, they both speak to the same truth, which is AI is going to manifest itself in the physical world in the form of humanoid robots sooner rather than later.Andrew Keen: And that was another of Tim Draper's - he was one of the speakers at this event I went to in San Francisco. I know he's an investor in your firm. That was his big prediction. So Apptronics is building robots for humans. Are they just a kind of earlier version of Figure in some ways?Keith Teare: An earlier version, possibly more advanced in concept because they started later when the software gets better by the week. So the later you start, the more advanced the software is that you can leverage. And so we're not going to see an end to this. There's going to be a lot more of it. I think humanoid robots are really interesting because the physical world is built for humans. You know, steps, ladders, everything.Andrew Keen: But I'm not sure that would be the case, especially when it comes to, say, self-driving cars and roads. That's going to change as well, isn't it?Keith Teare: Well, you still have roads because they still are...Andrew Keen: You still have roads. But I'm saying the roads themselves will become more and more suited to self-driving cars as opposed to human-driving ones.Yeah. You would hope the roads would become more intelligent and communicate to the cars, but that seems to be much further off.Andrew Keen: But I'm sure the Chinese will do that. Not the Americans, not even in San Francisco. Meanwhile, there is still lots of tech news. There's this open feud between Sam Altman at OpenAI and Elon Musk. Musk this week had a bid to buy OpenAI for around $100 billion. Is this just sensational, meaningless stuff? Is this froth or is it meaningful in the long run? The Musk-Altman fight?Keith Teare: Well, the specifics of this are super interesting because it's very clever of Musk. What Musk is offering to buy is not OpenAI. He's offering to buy the not-for-profit part of OpenAI. Now Altman is trying to put a value on that not-for-profit because he wants it to go away, or at least be subsumed. And he's trying to do it at a very low valuation so that the stakeholders in the not-for-profit don't get much. So Musk put a super high price on the not-for-profit to force the board of OpenAI to put a proper value on it as it transitions or to stop transitioning - one or the other. And I think if I was on the board of OpenAI now, I'd be very worried. They rejected his offer yesterday, by the way, but that will not be the end.Andrew Keen: What is Musk doing? Is it just because he hates Altman and he's annoyed that he was one of the co-founders and he's no longer involved? Because if he does indeed do what he seems to want to do, which is weaken, even undermine OpenAI - I mean, the real winners are probably Anthropic and Google then rather than Musk.Keith Teare: Well, and Grok - he has his own Grok xAI.Andrew Keen: But is xAI a real player? I mean, he can get massive valuations, but how does it compare with Anthropic or Gemini?Keith Teare: It's good. I mean, it's very good. And the next version, rumors are that it's going to be a top performer.Andrew Keen: Certainly not a top - you said it's good, but it's not...Keith Teare: It depends on what for. But it's certainly as good or better than DeepSea already.Andrew Keen: So there is a method to Musk's madness. It's not just about hating Altman and OpenAI.Keith Teare: Well, because it's Musk, there's more than one thing going on. He has economic interests in xAI, for sure. He's also really pissed off with Altman because he considers that Altman basically stole the OpenAI idea from him, which is not really true when you get into the facts. But he believes that. And not only that, but lied by making it not-for-profit and then turning it into a for-profit when he promised he wouldn't. So Musk basically feels like he's got the moral high ground and that gives him the energy to fight. Altman is clearly tired of the whole thing. He's just trying to do what he's trying to do, you know, and having a light shone on it.Andrew Keen: So it's the first time you have articulated some concern about OpenAI. You've always been quite bullish. Are you suggesting that your bullishness in the past is changing a little bit?Keith Teare: I don't think so, because I think this is a bit of a sideshow. The biggest news this week about OpenAI is the decision to abandon the Q* model - not abandon it, but incorporate it into a new GPT-5 later this year.Andrew Keen: So how would a unified next generation release work? Which would be what? Everything together?Keith Teare: It would do reasoning, operational stuff, actions, and it would do what other LLMs do, including being capable of video and image production all in one, and probably will retain its position as the best across all of those different things. So I don't see that anything bad is going to happen to OpenAI. I do think Musk can be an irritant and it could force them into corporate decisions about valuation and merging their different components that aren't to their liking. That could happen.Keen: My interview of the week, which you were kind enough to include in this week's newsletter, is with Greg Betta. Most people won't be familiar with Greg Betta. He's a tech writer, journalist based in the North Bay San Francisco, but he's also the coauthor with Reid Hoffman, who everybody knows, of a new book called "Super Agency: What Could Possibly Go Right With Our AI Future?" And from a progressive point of view, it's optimistic about AI. So I guess Hoffman is one of the few progressives, Keith, who actually is optimistic about AI. Is that fair?Keith Teare: Yeah. He really represents that part of the liberal spectrum that was in the New York Times article last week suggesting the Democrats should embrace technology and innovation. And the book is symptomatic of that. I didn't have a chance to listen to the interview - give us a flavor of what he said.Andrew Keen: It's standard - it's like listening to you. He believes that this progress will ultimately benefit. He distinguishes himself a bit too, I thought, created some light between him and Hoffman. I think he sees Hoffman as being slightly more optimistic than him. But it's about super agency - you and I have talked endlessly about agency, about humans being able to shape their lives. And of course, that's the big debate. For the critics, it's the AI that will shape us. For the optimists, AI will enable us to shape the world. It's an age-old argument, and it's not going away.Another figure on the left, if that's still a term that means anything, is Albert Wenger. He's your post of the week and he comes back to the Vance speech. He says praising this speech by Vance is mistaking jingoism and wishful thinking for true global leadership with a real vision of AI and humanity. I'm assuming you don't agree with Albert on this issue.Keith Teare: I do agree with him. I think I wanted to take a positive view of Vance's speech for his optimism in the context of Europe. It was a great speech. Albert's right that the American framing is entirely jingoistic. And AI isn't - AI is entirely global and humanistic. So there is a contradiction between a declining superpower being a champion of progress for its own nation versus what Albert would prefer, which is leadership that is truly global in nature.Andrew Keen: It's interesting that the first comment on Albert's tweet was from someone called "e/acc" who says this may be the most e/acc speech of all time. I didn't know what that meant - it meant effective accelerationism. Are you familiar with this term, Keith?Keith Teare: Yeah, this is the Marc Andreessen Peter Thiel framing against the philanthropists.Andrew Keen: So are you an effective accelerationist? Do you believe in...Keith Teare: Effective altruism versus effective acceleration? This is interesting. You say they're the same thing - I don't think anyone thinks that. But I think you might be right. But as long as you put them in the right order, I think if you get acceleration and growth and value, you're going to get a better life.Andrew Keen: Yeah, it's a play on effective altruism, but it's thinking in the same way that the world can become a better place.Keith Teare: Yeah. And the altruists wanted it to be done by good deeds as opposed to by economic progress.Andrew Keen: And even Albert acknowledges, like you, that there are aspects of the speech which in your language are a breath of fresh air. He said the only good point was the clear pushback against regulatory capture. Is it going to be effective? I mean, is it clear that the days of Lina Khan are over? Are we at the end of the period of regulatory capture, whether it's in Europe or the U.S.? As you say, one of the consequences of the speech was that the Europeans have taken a step back from regulation.Keith Teare: I would say the new Lina Khan is Elizabeth Warren. Lina Khan's gone. She's a sideshow. But Elizabeth Warren is still mainstream.Andrew Keen: Yeah, but a much, much older and perhaps less powerful figure, especially in Trump's America. I mean, Warren, she can talk a lot and get people annoyed, but she can't actually do anything. Whereas Lina Khan actually controlled regulatory capture - I mean, she was the head of the FTC.Keith Teare: Exactly. But I find Warren intensely irritating. It's amusing to me that Musk is asking how her net worth went from $200,000 to double-digit millions. And it's because she got subsidized by pharma, because she's pro-vax. And she's plugged into that.Andrew Keen: That's a controversial observation. You're saying anyone who gets supported by big Pharma is pro-vaccine? Does that mean that anyone who's anti-vax is not going to get the money? Most of us are pro-vax.Keith Teare: I'm totally pro-vax. But I'm just saying politicians like her typically get high net worth through serving stakeholders. And she is very against the credit card industry, for example. But she's not against pharma. So she's found her niche.Andrew Keen: Well, that's not a very generous interpretation, although it does suggest that when you give Elon Musk the keys to the Treasury and the IRS, then all these things are going to get revealed. And we should end with another interesting X from Albert, which I think gets to a lot of this. He said, "If you're young and capable and care about democracy, you should work for Doge." What do you make of that? I tend to think he's right.Keith Teare: I can't fully understand his meaning. In my brain, I'll interpret it the way I would, which is what I said last week.Andrew Keen: And to add to the quote, he said, "Offense is the best defense."Keith Teare: Yeah. The main threat to democracy is unelected bureaucrats blocking progress. I mean, if you think about it...Andrew Keen: Like Elizabeth Warren, in your view, at least.Keith Teare: No, I'd use the Obama example. Obama wanted to get a really good healthcare plan. And as soon as he was in office, he made speeches saying, "I won't be able to achieve what I want to achieve unless you, the people, are on the streets." Because Washington is averse to change. And it turned out that he had to make all kinds of compromises. And he ended up with what we today call Obamacare. But his experience was an experience of being blocked. And Trump basically has been through that himself. We're probably mostly thankful for that based on his first administration. He now is older, and he's not prepared...Andrew Keen: Suddenly older. I don't know about wiser.Keith Teare: He's not prepared to let the bureaucracy stand in his way. And Musk is his weapon. And there is something positive about a better, cheaper state and more democratic if the elected people can do what they said they were going to do.Andrew Keen: Yeah. And bring the expenses down. "If you're young and capable and care about democracy, you should work for Doge" - wise words from Albert Wenger. We will return to all these themes, Keith, in the future. Have a good week and we will see everybody again next week. Thanks so much.Keith Teare: Everyone. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

We are back in Munich at the DLD Conference, Europe's foremost tech gathering. DLD is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and, to mark this occasion, we spoke to some of the leading DLD'ers about the tumultuous last twenty years. First up is the Union Square Ventures partner Albert Wenger, author of The World After Capital, who - in spite of all the problems of the last two decades - remains defiantly optimistic about the future. He emphasizes the need to move beyond "industrial age thinking" focused on physical capital toward solutions suited for the digital age, where attention is the primary constraint. On AI, Wenger believes we've reached a genuine breakthrough moment, suggesting a 10-15% chance of artificial superintelligence emerging within the next year or two. He advocates for open AI models rather than concentration among a few large tech companies, proposing copyright reforms to encourage transparency in AI development. Wenger also discusses his practical efforts to create positive change, including his universal basic income pilot in Hudson, NY, and initiatives promoting "steward ownership" to make capital more enabling and less extractive. He envisions a future where technological advances help solve climate change, disease, and food security challenges while restoring natural environments. Throughout our conversation, Wenger emphasizes the need for radical new experiments and policy approaches rather than incremental change, arguing that current systems and traditional political solutions are inadequate for addressing contemporary challenges.Albert Wenger is a partner at Union Square Ventures (USV). Before joining USV, Albert was the president of del.icio.us through the company's sale to Yahoo and an angel investor (Etsy, Tumblr). Albert is the author of the book The World After Capital. On his blog Continuations he writes about technology, science, philosophy and more. Albert graduated from Harvard College in economics and computer science and holds a Ph.D. in Information Technology from MIT. Albert is married to Gigi Danziger. They have three grown children and live in New York City.Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit keenon.substack.com/subscribe

0xDesigner is an designer, imagineer and self-described provocateur. He is currently working on Design Everydays where he shares design concepts that explore ways web3 can be more useful, exciting or easier to use. Follow him on Warpcast @0xdesigner and on X @0xDesigner. Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/187-0xdesigner For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Camila Russo is the Founder of The Defiant, a media company focusing on decentralized finance, and the author of The Infinite Machine, the most read book on the history of Ethereum. Previously, she was a markets and crypto reporter at Bloomberg News. Follow her on X ⁠@CamiRusso. Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/186-camila-russo For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

W1NTΞR is the co-creator of BasePaint, a collaborative pixel art project built on Base. He specializes in unique smart contracts, user interfaces, and everything in between. W1NTΞR has built several crypto projects in the last few years and worked for FAANG companies and startups before that. Follow him on X @w1nt3r_eth and on Farcaster @w1nt3r. Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/184-w1nt3r For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Union Square Ventures is building an AI operating system to support their investment team.  But it's not what you think: It's a constellation of AI tools that captures and synthesizes the firm's collective wisdom. It's evolving every day, and Matt Cynamon is the mad scientist in charge Matt calls himself a “regular” at USV. In practice that means he's responsible for running experiments with AI for the firm. As an inherently curious person with the professional obligation to tinker, he's built a suite of tools for the firm, including:  The Librarian, a chatbot trained on around 15,000 articles from USV's blog Portfolio Tracker, a GPT that analyzes the investments made by the firm Meeting Notes, a tool that makes it possible for team members to interact with meetings   I sat down with Matt to talk about how AI is enabling him to bring his ideas to life as a generalist, get demos of the tools listed above, and exchange notes on all the other projects he has in the works at USV. We edit actionable insights extracted by an AI from meetings at USV and prepare them to be posted on the firm's X handle live on the show. We even try out an art project at USV's office called The Dream Machine, which generates art from conversations. Here's a link to the episode transcript.    This is a must-watch for anyone interested in riding the AI wave by learning how to ship useful products quickly. If you found this episode interesting, please like, subscribe, comment, and share!  Want even more? Sign up for Every to unlock our ultimate guide to prompting ChatGPT here: https://every.ck.page/ultimate-guide-to-prompting-chatgpt. It's usually only for paying subscribers, but you can get it here for free. To hear more from Dan Shipper: Subscribe to Every: https://every.to/subscribe  Follow him on X: ⁠https://twitter.com/danshipper⁠  Timestamps: Introduction: (00:00:52) How Matt became in charge of everything AI at USV: (00:01:56) How AI empowers generalists to be creators: (00:06:22) The Librarian, a chatbot trained on everything USV has published: (00:10:41) Portfolio Tracker, an AI tool to track USV's investments: (00:21:09) The AI projects that Matt has in the pipeline at USV: (00:27:21) Meeting Notes, USV's AI note-taking tool: (00:34:33) Prompting AI to generate a post for USV's X handle: (00:44:57) Why it's important to diversify ownership over data: (01:00:20) The Dream Machine, AI that generates images from conversations: (01:03:20) Links to resources mentioned in the episode: Matt Cynamon: @mattcynamon Union Square Ventures: @usv, https://www.usv.com/  More about the AI tools at USV: https://www.usv.com/people/the-librarian/, https://www.usv.com/writing/2024/02/ai-aesthetics/  The X post generated live on the show: https://x.com/usv/status/1847354782941663523

Alan Cowen is the cofounder and CEO of Hume, a company building voice-to-voice foundation models. They recently raised their $50M Series B from Union Square Ventures, Nat Friedman, Daniel Gross, and others. Alan's favorite book: 1984 (Author: George Orwell)(00:01) Introduction(00:06) Defining Voice-to-Voice Foundation Models(01:26) Historical Context: Handling Voice and Speech Understanding(03:54) Emotion Detection in Voice AI Models(04:33) Training Models to Recognize Human Emotion in Speech(07:19) Cultural Variations in Emotional Expressions(09:00) Semantic Space Theory in Emotion Recognition(12:11) Limitations of Basic Emotion Categories(15:50) Recognizing Blended Emotional States(20:15) Objectivity in Emotion Science(24:37) Practical Aspects of Deploying Voice AI Systems(28:17) Real-Time System Constraints and Latency(31:30) Advancements in Voice AI Models(32:54) Rapid-Fire Round--------Where to find Prateek Joshi: Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com Website: https://prateekj.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

RAC is a Grammy award-winning musician, record producer, and pioneering creator in crypto. He is currently building Factory.fm (a music app) and Oscillator (a music protocol). Follow RAC on X @RAC. [0:00] - How RAC combined his interests in business and music to create a remix-as-a-service collective [13:56] - His discovery of and excitement about Ethereum [20:56] - Permissioned vs permissionless remixes [28:07] - RAC's early attempts to bring music onchain [37:10] - Creating a shared social graph for onchain music [50:57] - Why music requires a dedicated social graph [1:03:14] - RAC's creative process Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/181-RAC For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Host Jennifer Sanasie breaks down the news in the crypto industry from Coinbase's clarification on Kamala harris' crypto donations to NYAG's subpoenas to VC firms about Uniswap."CoinDesk Daily" host Jennifer Sanasie breaks down the biggest headlines in the crypto industry today, as a Coinbase spokesperson clarifies the crypto donations accepted by the Future Forward USA PAC, a major source of support for Harris. Plus, Robinhood Crypto faces $3.9 million settlement with the state of California and the NYAG office sent subpoenas to VC firms including a16z and Union Square Ventures about Uniswap.-This episode was hosted by Jennifer Sanasie. “CoinDesk Daily” is produced by Jennifer Sanasie and Melissa Montañez and edited by Victor Chen.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jason is the Founder & CEO of Airstack, a leading Farcaster development company, and the creator of Moxie, a community owned, community-governed Farcaster protocol on a mission to grow the Farcaster GDP. [0:42] - Jason's experience working at the White House during Bill Clinton's presidency [3:30] - Becoming a highly successful tech entrepreneur [12:18] - Making the decision to go all in on Farcaster [15:47] - Moving from Twitter to Farcaster after a decade [18:52] - Flipping traditional social economics with Farcaster [21:56] - Moxie's careful approach to monetizing Farcaster [34:48] - The Moxie airdrop and rewards structure [41:02] - Moxie 101 and how to get started Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/180-jason-goldberg For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

I had the pleasure of sitting down with Perry, the CEO & Co-Founder of Gladiate, on my latest podcast episode. Perry's journey from a legal background to spearheading operations and data initiatives for prominent tech companies like Etsy and Grubhub is truly inspiring. His knack for optimizing business processes and nurturing data-driven cultures within startups, backed by renowned venture networks like Y Combinator and Union Square Ventures, sets him apart in the tech world. Despite his tech prowess, Perry's emphasis on emotional intelligence shines through, making him not just a tech guru but also a fantastic human being. Plus, we share some epic karaoke moments! Listen in to our conversation for some invaluable insights from Perry.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-lawman-s-lounge--4267400/support.

Nobody (legal name: Nobody Special) is the founder & CEO of Theopetra Labs. Theopetra aims to build a network state where citizens collectively & equally own both the financial infrastructure of the nation and the real estate it encompasses. Nobody previously has spent several years working in residential real estate and experimenting with concept like microspaces. Follow Nobody on X @Mel_Anic. [0:42] - Growing up as an immigrant and early entrepreneurial experiences [4:45] - Introduction to crypto and early Web3 real estate projects [7:52] - Sourcing early interest in Theopetra [11:25] - Theopetra's approach to crowdfunding and community ownership [17:13] - Using micro spaces to bootstrap Theopetra [21:59] - Micro spaces as a minimal viable living space to reduce burn [27:24] - Lifestyles fit for micro space living [30:44] - The current state of Theopetra and benefits of being a member [35:55] - The importance of community within Theopetra [39:14] - Other projects building in the Network State space [42:43] - Attempting to break the longest live stream world record Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/179-nobody-special⁠ For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Follow me @samirkaji for my thoughts on the venture market, with a focus on the continued evolution of the VC landscape.This week I'm excited to sit down with Lindel Eakman from Foundry. Lindel has been an investor in funds and companies since the early 2000s when he started at UTIMCO.In our conversation, Lindel talks about being one of the first investors in Union Square Ventures, his preference for smaller partnerships, and the art of conducting quality reference calls on GPs. Having known each other for a while, our chat felt like a fun and casual water cooler conversation about the venture capital world.About Lindel Eakman:Lindel Eakman is a partner at Foundry, where he focuses on early-stage investing. Since joining in 2015, Lindel has been active across the portfolio, working closely with partner funds and leading new direct investments. He is known for his humble and supportive approach, valuing the hard work of founders.Before Foundry, Lindel managed the private investment program at the University of Texas Investment Management Company (UTIMCO) from 2002 to 2015. At UTIMCO, he built the venture capital program and invested in firms like IA Ventures, True Ventures, Union Square Ventures, and Foundry.Lindel began his career in finance at KPMG in the M&A Tax Practice from 1997 to 2001 and then worked as a Corporate Finance Associate at Stephens, Inc. in 2002. He holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business and a BBA in Accounting and Finance from Texas Christian University. He is a CPA and a CFA charter holder.In this episode, we discuss:(01:14) Early Career and Union Square Ventures and moving to Foundry(03:00) Investment Philosophy and Strategy(04:28) The value of partnering with emerging managers(05:55) Selecting GPs and Making Investment Decisions(10:30) The Current Venture Market Landscape in 2024.(13:00) Challenges and Opportunities for New Managers(17:00) Future of Venture Capital(21:00) Importance of People in Venture(25:00) Secondaries and Liquidity Opportunities(29:00) The importance of evaluating partnership dynamics in emerging managers(33:00) Best practices for conducting reference checks.(37:00) How virtual interactions affect partnership assessments and fundraising(42:00) Advice for new managers on constructing a venture portfolio, focusing on sectors and small funds(47:00) Role of Large Funds in a Venture PortfolioI'd love to know what you took away from this conversation with Lindel. Follow me @SamirKaji and give me your insights and questions with the hashtag #ventureunlocked. If you'd like to be considered as a guest or have someone you'd like to hear from (GP or LP), drop me a direct message on Twitter.Podcast Production support provided by Agent Bee This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit ventureunlocked.substack.com

Mike is a co-founder of Rainbow, one of the most widely used wallets in crypto (wowowow). Before Rainbow, Mike started a couple of companies and worked for a few others after dropping out of college following his first semester. Follow Mike on X @mikedemarais and on Warpcast ⁠@mikedemarais.eth⁠. [0:42] - Mike's story from college dropout to crypto founder [10:31] - Starting companies to fix computers & 3D print toys [17:24] - Why Mike likes small towns and lower tier cities [23:53] - The irresistible opportunity to build in crypto [27:00] - Mike's product and design forward approach [30:33] - Inflection points in Rainbow's growth to date [38:25] - Breaking down Rainbow's ETH rewards program [46:25] - The future of Farcaster compared to Twitter Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/178-mike-demarais For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

We're back! This time with Charlotta Holmquist, President and Co-Founder of Blixt. Blixt is based in Sweden and just closed a fundraise led by Union Square Ventures. Their solid state circuit breaker and x-verter technology have the potential to fundamentally change how we approach building the grid.We've never left a conversation so excited about what the future could look like. We discuss everything from transformers for data centers, what the benefits of solid state power electronics are, the implications of them, the possibility of “flexible” interconnections, and so much more. Tune in for one of our favorite episodes in recent memory! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.dertaskforce.com/subscribe

Joshua is the Founder & CEO of DoNotPay. He is a Thiel Fellow who has been called "Robin Hood of the Internet" for building products to save people time and money. DoNotPay is an automated service that handles over 200 consumer rights challenges such as cancelling subscriptions, obtaining refunds, and appealing tickets. Follow Joshua on X @jbrowder1. [0:16] - How Joshua turned his penchant for parking tickets into a successful business [6:31] - Joshua's early experiences building iPhone apps [9:11] - Why Joshua took a careful and patient approach to starting DoNotPay while at Stanford [14:11] - Why Joshua waited so long to start charging for DoNotPay [15:51] - Alternative business models for DoNotPay [19:32] - Joshua's approach to building a lean, efficient team [24:25] - Operating as a global, in-person, nomadic organization [26:45] - How the advent GPT has transformed DoNotPay's services [35:20] - Joshua's perspective on the current and future states of AI [39:16] - Why Do Not Pay issues dividends to its employees and investors [43:16] - Joshua's approach for growing DoNotPay from here [45:43] - Technology's fast pace of change versus society's slow pace of change [48:47] - Wisdom gained from The Thiel Fellowship Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/177-joshua-browder For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Jeremy is Co-Founder, Chairman and CEO of Circle, the financial technology company behind the USDC stablecoin. Before Circle, Jeremy co-founded several companies, including Brightcove and Allaire Corporation, which was acquired by Macromedia. Follow Jeremy on X @jerallaire. 0:00 - Jeremy's career growth in parallel to the internet 10:06 - Comparing the first decade of internet adoption to the first decade of crypto innovation 18:37 - Why infrastructure innovation precedes application innovation 25:44 - What happens when the marginal cost of moving value approaches zero 33:59 - Crypto's potential impact on existing institutions and society at large 43:19 - Jeremy's thoughts on internet-native currencies 48:07 - The potential impacts of regulating crypto Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/176-jeremy-allaire For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Luca is the CEO of the Pudgy Penguins. Pudgy Penguins is one of the two or three most successful PFP NFT collections in the world by floor price and volume. Since dropping out of high school, Luca has become a serial entrepreneur and successful internet marketer who has built multiple e-commerce businesses. Follow Luca on X @LucaNetz. [0:00] - How an entrepreneurial mindset allowed Luca to experience early success in brand building, e-commerce, and NFTs [9:35] - Luca's entrance into crypto and his fundamental beliefs about the industry [14:13] - The importance of self-awareness and building the right team for Pudgy Penguins [20:14] - The unique properties of building in Web3 [26:29] - Luca's experience building alongside the Pudgy Penguins community [30:56] - The pros and cons of being a Non-Founder CEO [34:26] - Why Luca believes IP is the most valuable part of NFTs [39:55] - The current state of NFTs at large [42:37] - The future of IP, NFTs, and crypto's impact on value Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/175-luca-netz For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Michael is the Founder and CEO of Big League Advantage (BLA), a company that uses deep analytics to forecast future performance of minor league baseball players in which it invests. Prior to creating Big League Advantage, Michael was a Major League Baseball player, pitching for the Philadelphia Phillies. Follow Michael on Twitter @mschwimer. 0:00 - Michael's baseball career, and entrepreneurial start 6:21 - Choosing baseball over basketball 10:52 - The challenges of starting Big League Advantage 15:27 - Breaking down BLA's VC-like model 22:21 - Why players choose to work with or pass on BLA 31:42 - Comparing predictive analytics between sports 36:41 - The key dynamics of BLA deals 41:44 - The progression and development of BLA to date 43:21 - Name, Image, and Likeness deals in college sports 44:40 - How age factors into BLA's investment decisions 46:40 - Michael's plans for the future of BLA Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/174-michael-schwimer For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Augustus is the Founder & CEO of Rainmaker, a cloud seeding and weather modification company. The company's objective is to facilitate more precipitation in the American West in the near-term, while terraforming Earth more broadly over time. Augustus previously co-founded another startup and was named a Thiel Fellow in 2024. Follow Augustus on X @ADoricko. Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/173-augustus-doricko For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Jesse is the creator of Base, an Ethereum Layer 2 incubated by Coinbase, where Jesse has worked since 2017. Less than one year since its mainnet launch in August 2023, Base has quickly become the leading L2 by many metrics as of the time of this episode's release. Prior to Base, Jesse led all of Coinbase's consumer-facing engineering from 2017 to 2021. Jesse originally joined Coinbase through the acquisition of Clef, a passwordless identity solutions company he started. Follow Jesse @jessepollak on both X and on Warpcast. [0:00] - Jesse's story and path to Coinbase [7:02] - How a sabbatical led Jesse to build Base [13:30] - How Coinbase's culture enabled the creation of Base [16:48] - Taking iterative shots with a talented team [21:06] - The importance of persistence [26:27] - How Base's builder-focused culture came to be [29:05] - Navigating when to move fast and breaking things versus when to make decisions carefully and deliberately [34:46] - Why Jesse believes many L2s will be successful [43:19] - Coinbase Smart Wallet & Onchain Summer II Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/172-jesse-pollak For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Emin is Co-Founder and CEO of Ava Labs, the organization behind the Avalanche smart contract network. He is a computer scientist, software engineer, and researcher who has focused on distributed systems, network security, and cryptocurrencies for more than 20 years. Before building Ava Labs, Emin was an associate professor of computer science at Cornell University and co-director of the Initiative for Cryptocurrencies and Smart Contracts at the university. In 2003, Emin designed Karma, the first cryptocurrency based on a proof-of-work protocol, years before the creation of Bitcoin. Follow Emin on X ⁠@el33th4xor. 0:00 - Emin's deep history around cryptocurrencies 8:20 - Why Bitcoin took him and his colleagues by surprise 11:28 - Emin's vision for the future of the crypto industry 16:34 - Avalanche's approach to scaling crypto-economic activity 23:05 - How Avalanche's architecture supports multiple sub-nets 27:34 - The real importance of decentralization 32:40 - Emin's perspective on technological regulation 41:57 - The unique properties of Avalanche's Snowball consensus 49:00 - Why the best technology does not always win in the market Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/171-emin-gun-sirer For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Brendan is Co-Founder & CEO of Mercor, a global labor market using AI to find optimal matches between people and work opportunities. He and his co-founders were selected as Thiel Fellows as part of the 2024 class. Brendan previously founded a cloud computing company called Seros and dropped out of Georgetown University. Follow him on X @BrendanFoody. Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake/170-brendan-foody For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Nick is the Founder and General Partner at 1confirmation, a cryptocurrency focused investment firm. After raising its first $26M fund in 2017, 1confirmation now has over $1 billion in assets under management. The firm's early-stage investments include OpenSea, Farcaster, Worldcoin, Polkadot, Cosmos, Polymarket, dYdX, Degen, and others alike. Prior to starting 1confirmation, Nick was a Principal at Runa Capital and worked in business development in the early days at Coinbase. Follow Nick on X @NTmoney and on Warpcast @nick. Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at pods.media/pod-of-jake/169-nick-tomaino For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Miguel Armaza interviews Mike Seckler, CEO of Justworks, one of the largest platforms for SMBs providing HR, Tax, and payroll services in the US and Internationally.Founded in 2012 in NYC, Justworks recently crossed $300 million in annual revenue and is backed by some of the best NY-based VCs, including Bain Capital Ventures, FirstMark, Thrive Capital, Union Square Ventures, Index, and Redpoint.We recorded this conversation live in the heart of NYC at Barclays Rise, as part of New York Fintech Week. Mike was outstanding and he delighted a room full of 100 fintech entrepreneurs and builders. I'm sure you'll be delighted as well.We discuss:The secret to success of great entrepreneursHow to run a functional board of directorsThe power of focusing on one product for a long timeSuccessfully managing a pre and post-merger integrationWhy doing something great requires tons of pressure… 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 65,000+ 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 

Immad Akhund is the co-founder and CEO of Mercury, a business banking platform that has raised over $160M in funding and has over 100,000 customers. He has also founded two other companies – Clickpass and Heyzap; the latter of which was acquired in 2016. Immad is a husband and the father of two kids. In today's conversation we discussed: * Starting a family at a very young age (by San Francisco standards)* Navigating founding and running several companies, including Mercury* The difference between finding more time and finding more energy* How to think about skill building with your kids* Dealing with disagreements with your spouse* The parallels between being the co-founder of a company and the co-founder of a familyListen now on Apple, Spotify, Overcast and YouTube.—Where to find Immad Akhund- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iakhund/- Twitter: https://twitter.com/immad- Curiosity Podcast: https://curiositypodcast.substack.com/Where to find Adam Fishman- FishmanAF Newsletter: www.FishmanAFNewsletter.com- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/—In this episode, we cover[1:31] Welcome[1:46] Childhood[2:44] Where does your extended family live now?[3:19] Why keep doing startups?[6:52] How did you meet your partner?[7:56] Tell me about your kids[8:42] Decision to start a family[9:51] What does your wife do?[10:59] Why did it feel like the right time to start a family?[17:13] Earliest memory of being a dad?[19:29] Advice for his younger self[22:36] What is something you worked on after having kids?[23:56] Skill building and teaching kids finance[27:46] How has his parenting style evolved?[30:29] What is an example of you getting out of balance w/kids[31:29] Has being a dad changed how you run companies?[34:36] Conflict/managing through disagreements[39:10] Kids relationship w/tech[42:07] Restore batteries[44:08] What is a mistake you made as a dad?[46:32] Follow along[47:23] Rapid fire round—Show references:Mercury: https://mercury.com/Model X: https://www.tesla.com/modelxThe Matrix: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/Union Square Ventures: https://www.usv.com/Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/ClickPass: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/clickpassHayzap: https://www.linkedin.com/company/heyzap-com/Inside Out: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/Frozen: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/Teen Titans: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343314/Doona: https://www.doona.com/en-usJuni Learning: https://junilearning.com/—For sponsorship inquiries email: podcast@fishmana.com.For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com Production support for Startup Dad is provided by Tommy Harron athttp://www.armaziproductions.com/ This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit startupdadpod.substack.com

Immad Akhund is the co-founder and CEO of Mercury, a business banking platform that has raised over $160M in funding and has over 100,000 customers. He has also founded two other companies – Clickpass and Heyzap; the latter of which was acquired in 2016. Immad is a husband and the father of two kids. In today's conversation we discussed:  Starting a family at a very young age (by San Francisco standards) Navigating founding and running several companies, including Mercury The difference between finding more time and finding more energy How to think about skill building with your kids Dealing with disagreements with your spouse The parallels between being the co-founder of a company and the co-founder of a family — Where to find Immad Akhund - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iakhund/ - Twitter: https://twitter.com/immad - Curiosity Podcast: https://curiositypodcast.substack.com/   Where to find Adam Fishman - FishmanAF Newsletter: https://www.fishmanafnewsletter.com - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamjfishman/ - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/startupdadpod/ — In this episode, we cover [1:31] Welcome [1:46] Childhood [2:44] Where does your extended family live now? [3:19] Why keep doing startups? [6:52] How did you meet your partner? [7:56] Tell me about your kids [8:42] Decision to start a family [9:51] What does your wife do? [10:59] Why did it feel like the right time to start a family? [17:13] Earliest memory of being a dad? [19:29] Advice for his younger self [22:36] What is something you worked on after having kids? [23:56] Skill building and teaching kids finance [27:46] How has his parenting style evolved? [30:29] What is an example of you getting out of balance w/kids [31:29] Has being a dad changed how you run companies? [34:36] Conflict/managing through disagreements [39:10] Kids relationship w/tech [42:07] Restore batteries [44:08] What is a mistake you made as a dad? [46:32] Follow along [47:23] Rapid fire round — Show references: Mercury: https://mercury.com/ Model X: https://www.tesla.com/modelx The Matrix: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/ Union Square Ventures: https://www.usv.com/ Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/ ClickPass: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/clickpass Hayzap: https://www.linkedin.com/company/heyzap-com/ Inside Out: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2096673/ Frozen: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2294629/ Teen Titans: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0343314/ Doona: https://www.doona.com/en-us Juni Learning: https://junilearning.com/ — For sponsorship inquiries email: podcast@fishmana.com. For Startup Dad Merch: www.startupdadshop.com  Production support for Startup Dad is provided by Tommy Harron at http://www.armaziproductions.com/

Mint this episode for free onchain on Base at ⁠pods.media/pod-of-jake⁠ Lucas is the founder of Pods — a platform for onchain podcasts. Pods launched in private beta in Q4 2023 and since then, has onboarded over 30 podcasts and over 250 episodes on the platform. Prior to Pods, Lucas was the first employee at Bankless, where he led the newsletter for 3 years and launched Bankless Collectibles — the first instantiation of podcast NFTs. Follow Lucas on Farcaster @0xl. For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Joe is the Head Coach of the Basketball Team at Bishop O'Connell High School, one of the best high school basketball programs in the country. Joe has won more than 500 games in 24 seasons and has also served as the school's Athletic Director since 2010. He is also Chairman of the McDonald's All-American Basketball Game Selection Committee & Games and runs one of the largest summer basketball camps in the country which has hosted more than 200,000 campers since his father, Morgan Wootten, started the program more than 50 years ago. Alongside his father, Joe also co-authored the third edition of arguably the best book on coaching high school basketball, Coaching Basketball Successfully. [0:16] - Joe's origin story as a basketball coach [6:13] - The importance of chemistry for a team's success [8:02] - Handing responsibility to players to promote ownership [11:07] - How Joe thinks about captains and leadership [13:02] - Developing a successful 4-year program [20:41] - Distributing playing time at every level [22:28] - Tough conversations after tryouts [26:43] - Recruiting at the high school level [28:13] - The evolution and impact of AAU basketball [33:07] - Joe's coaching philosophy [35:22] - Scouting and game planning [36:37] - Focusing on a winning effort more than winning [38:13] - How to build coaching knowledge [42:26] - How Joe approaches running his practices [45:40] - Adapting to the strengths of your team [48:07] - Final words on coaching high school basketball For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

With more than 20 years of experience scaling startups and building technology companies in the digital and mobile ecosystem, Steven Rosenblatt co-founded Oceans, a new kind of venture capital firm, in 2018 where he currently serves as General Partner.Steven has been passionate about building early stage companies and has finally fulfilled his life long goal of starting his own company.  Prior to Oceans, Steven was President of Foursquare. During his six-year tenure at the location intelligence company, he was responsible for transitioning the company from a purely consumer-facing location platform into an enterprise business, building a multi-product strategy and growing revenue by more than 70x. This entailed overseeing all aspects of strategy and implementation of the company's revenue streams along with overseeing its biggest customers. During his time, Foursquare won numerous awards, including being named in CNBC's Disruptor 50 list as one of the most disruptive tech companies in the world, Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 as one of the fastest growing technology companies in North America, and won Ad Age's Best Places to work. Steven worked closely with his investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Union Square Ventures, DFJ, and Spark Capital, and has spoken at nearly 100 events.Before joining Foursquare, Steven launched iAd, Apple's advertising platform for brands and developers, where he managed sales, agency relations, and the creative and strategy team. Steven led the opening of Apple's New York office and worked closely with leadership teams to build a presence in New York. Prior to this, Steven served as Senior Vice President of Advertising Sales at Quattro Wireless until it was acquired by Apple in January 2010.  He is a proud graduate of the University of Michigan. In this episode, Marc Beckman and Steve talk bout venture capital funding. Steven Rosenblatt gives an inside look into Venture Capital Investments. Should you take VC funding? What are VC's looking for? What makes a great founder? What are the opportunities emerging in AI? Learn all that and more in this episode with Steven RosenblattSign up for the Some Future Day Newsletter here: https://marcbeckman.substack.com/Episode Links:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenrosenblatt/Oceans:  https://oceans.ventures/To join the conversation follow Marc here:YoutubeLinkedInTwitterInstagramMarc Beckman is a Senior Fellow of Emerging Technologies at NYU, the CEO of DMA United, and is on the New York State Bar Association's Taskforce for Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets.

Jess Houlgrave is the CEO @ WalletConnect (https://walletconnect.com). Backed by Union Square Ventures, 1kx, & more, WalletConnect gives developers the tools to build secure, interactive, and powerful experiences that users everywhere can enjoy. In this episode we discuss Jess' remarkable journey to the CEO role, most exciting possibilities at WalletConnect, what crypto's getting right (and wrong) in 2024, what mistakes she most often sees from others building similar products, & much more.Recorded Monday March 4, 2024.

Jacob is the Founder and CEO of Superpower, a personal healthcare startup with an all-in-one app focused on preventing disease, optimizing performance, and promoting longevity. Previously, Jacob co-founded and sold Commsor, a user engagement software startup. He also co-founded Launch House, a cohort-based incubator program for founders, and continues to invest through Launch House which now functions as a more traditional venture fund. Follow Jacob on X @J__Cub. [0:00] - How his mother's battle with chronic illness drove Jacob to build in the healthcare industry [7:35] - Why Jacob was originally drawn to entrepreneurship [10:00] - How Jacob uses his understanding of emotional volatility to make life decisions [14:33] - Jacob's experience creating remote businesses and supporting remote cultures [24:48] - Fostering human connection through community [30:19] - The success and limits of Launch House [37:07] - An introduction to Superpower [39:13] - How Superpower bundles the world of health apps For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

This Week in Startups is brought to you by… OpenPhone. Create business phone numbers for you and your team that work through an app on your smartphone or desktop. TWiST listeners can get an extra 20% off any plan for your first 6 months at http://www.openphone.com/twist Squarespace. Turn your idea into a new website! Go to 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. Coda. A new doc that brings words, tables and teams together. All your valuable data, plans, objectives, and strategies in one place. Go to https://coda.io/twist to get a $1,000 credit! * Todays show: David Weisburd hosts Erik, Guy, and Jason Calacanis to discuss Sequoia & Union Square Ventures' returns (1:15), AI's impact on startups and labor (17:35), US startups' risk tolerance (38:10), and much more! * Timestamps: (0:00) David Weisburd intros Erik Torenberg, Guy Perelmuter, and Jason Calacanis (1:15) VC returns have been leaked, including returns from Sequoia Capital and Union Square Ventures (11:33) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at http://www.openphone.com/twist (17:35) Bearish signs for the startup employment market (25:17) Squarespace - Use offer code TWIST to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at https://Squarespace.com/twist (26:12) The emergence of the first one-person unicorn (36:46) Coda - Get a $1,000 startup credit at https://coda.io/twist (38:10) Founders & investors are now returning to San Francisco (47:35) Rapid-fire segment on recent investments * Mentioned on the show: https://www.wsj.com/tech/san-francisco-ai-boom-silicon-valley-307816b2 https://jam.dev https://www.perplexity.ai https://www.antaresindustries.com https://mesodyne.com https://limacharlie.io https://www.cloudnc.com https://codemate.ai https://www.golfgolf.tech https://www.terrakaffe.com * Follow Erik: X: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eriktorenberg/ Check out: https://www.turpentine.co/ * Follow Guy: X: https://twitter.com/guyperelmuter LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guyperelmuter Check out: https://www.gridscapital.com/ * Follow David: X: ⁠https://twitter.com/DWeisburd⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/dweisburd⁠ Check out: ⁠https://10xcapital.com * Follow Jason: X: ⁠https://twitter.com/jason⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/jason⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis * Check out the Launch Accelerator: https://launchaccelerator.co * Check out Founder University: https://www.founder.university * Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp * Great 2023 interviews: Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland * Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis * Follow TWiST: Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups * Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.founder.university/podcast

DCinvestor is an investor, advisor, and digital art collector. He is known for having one of the world's greatest NFT collections and posts frequently about digital art and Ethereum more broadly. DC is also interested in other technologies beyond crypto and has been a long-time experimenter of various VR/AR devices including, most recently, the Apple Vision Pro. This conversation is focused on The Apple Vision Pro and the future of VR/AR more broadly, including its intersection with other emerging technologies like crypto and AI. Before focusing full-time on crypto and his other interests, DC spent more than 15 years in management consulting. Follow him on X @iamDCinvestor and on Farcaster @dcinvestor. For more episodes, go to ⁠⁠podofjake.com⁠⁠. Previous guests include ⁠⁠Mark Cuban⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Vitalik Buterin⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Brian Armstrong⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Balaji Srinivasan⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Keith⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Rabois⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Ali Spagnola⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Anthony Pompliano⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Raoul Pal⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Julia Galef⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Jack Butcher⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Tim Draper⁠⁠, and over 100 others alike. Learn from founders and CEOs of companies like ⁠⁠OpenAI⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Coinbase⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Solana⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Polygon⁠⁠, ⁠⁠AngelList⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Oura⁠⁠⁠, and ⁠⁠Replit⁠⁠, and investors from ⁠⁠Founders⁠⁠ ⁠⁠Fund⁠⁠, ⁠⁠a16z⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Union Square Ventures⁠⁠, and many more. I appreciate your support and hope you enjoy. Thanks to ⁠⁠⁠Chase Devens⁠⁠⁠ for the show notes and ⁠⁠⁠Yiction⁠⁠⁠ for the music. Lastly, I love hearing from fans of the pod. Feel free to email me any time at ⁠⁠jake@blogofjake.com⁠⁠. Thank you!

Albert Wenger is a partner at Union Square Ventures, and author of The World After Capital. He joins Big Technology Podcast for a frank conversation about whether AI will lead to job loss and what to do about it. In an unusual setup, the journalist in this conversation (Alex) argues that we have less to worry about AI automating jobs than the popular narrative, and the VC (Wenger) makes the case that it will definitely happen and how we should adjust. Stay tuned for the second half where we discuss Wenger's five year experiment with UBI. --- Enjoying Big Technology Podcast? Please rate us five stars ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ in your podcast app of choice. For weekly updates on the show, sign up for the pod newsletter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/6901970121829801984/ Questions? Feedback? Write to: bigtechnologypodcast@gmail.com