Podcasts about Y combinator

John sits down with Michael Ellison, CEO and co-founder of CodePath.org, a nonprofit training first-generation and low-income college students for software engineering and AI careers, focused on skill, access, networks, and building ownership in the tech economy. Ellison shares growing up in rural Maine with incarceration and homelessness, and how persistence and relationship capital helped him break in by cold-calling Goldman Sachs and later becoming a key partner to their event. He explains his path into tech startups, joining a Y Combinator company that later exited for over $3B, and how AI increases the value of engineers while elevating human judgment and creativity. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Plaud: http://Plaud.ai/twist CLA: https://claconnect.com/tech Sentry: http://sentry.io/twist Lightfield: http://sentry.io/twist Today's show: Google once interviewed the entire Justin.tv (now Twitch) team and then walked away from an acquisition deal, saying they weren't good enough. Seven investors passed on buying 10% of Airbnb for $150,000, a stake pegged at roughly $9.25 billion today. Lon Harris and Alex Wilhelm revisit classic TWiST interviews with Justin Kan of Twitch and Brian Chesky of Airbnb to find out what those founders understood that the market didn't. PLUS, how did a box of cereal win over Paul Graham and get Airbnb into Y Combinator? Flashback Guests: Justin Kan on X: https://x.com/justinkan Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/ Justin Kan (@justinkan) on X Brian Chesky on X: https://x.com/bchesky AirBnB: https://www.airbnb.com/ Relevant Links: TWiST E900: Justin Kan, co-founder of Justin.tv, Twitch & Atrium (Feb 5, 2019) → https://thisweekinstartups.com/episodes/L3DP8VCE12s TWiST E1735: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on early rejection, customer focus & AI (May 4, 2023) → https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZ-BjJZxNoA Halo 3: the game that flooded Mahalo with traffic → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halo_3 Weblogs, Inc.: Jason's blog network, home of Engadget → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblogs,_Inc. Instinct: the invite-only personal AI agent from founder Noah Shinn → https://www.instinct.co/ AMD to acquire World Labs for $8.2B in stock; Li becomes AMD chief scientist (Bloomberg) → https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-28/amd-to-buy-fei-fei-li-s-world-labs-ai-startup-for-8-2-billion Lovable: where Lon says he'd rebuild a bad app in two hours → https://lovable.dev/ Y Combinator → https://www.ycombinator.com/ Paul Graham on X → https://x.com/paulg Obama O's and Cap'n McCain's: the cereal that funded Airbnb → https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbnb#History Stripe: what Paul Graham suggested they build instead → https://stripe.com/ Timestamps: 0:00 Justin Kan on episode 900 (Feb 2019) 3:44 When Jason and Justin realized people watch gaming 5:52 Mahalo, Halo 3, and betting a company on 3% of its traffic 10:21 CLA: Get started with CLA's CPAs, consultants, and wealth advisors now at https://claconnect.com/tech at https://www.claconnect.com/withyou 11:42 The "zombie startup" years and Google's rejection 17:06 Instinct: the AI agent built for venture capitalists 19:43 Sentry: New users can get $240 in free credits when they go to https://sentry.io/twist and use the code TWIST 28:08 Kozmo.com and the era of "make number go up" 30:06 Lightfield: Name one person who's ever enjoyed updating a CRM. Exactly. Lightfield's AI agent does it for you - it even prospects and books your meetings. Used by thousands of startups. Free at https://lightfield.app/ 32:57 Why AI companies have to monetize faster 34:00 Clip: Justin Kan on knowing yourself as a founder 37:24 An early rejection of "founder mode"? 38:33 Brian Chesky on episode 1735 (May 2023) 39:27 "I hope that's not the only idea you're working on" 43:27 What 10% of Airbnb for $150K is worth today 46:05 Obama O's and the Y Combinator interview 48:15 Why investors fund unkillable, attention-hacking founders 54:37 Clip: Chesky on AI, deepfakes, and authenticity 58:13 Is AI costing jobs or just making them busier? 1:05:04 Did AI create "millions of startups"? Subscribe to our newsletters on Substack: TWiST: https://twistartups.substack.com/ TWiAI: https://www.thisweekinai.ai/ TWiVC: https://thisweekinvc.substack.com/ Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/ Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

Et si le principal frein de votre entreprise, c'était vous ?Pendant des siècles, on a construit les entreprises autour des humains.Des process pensés pour des humains, des outils pensés pour des humains, un savoir qui vit dans la tête des humains.Pierre-Louis Biojout pense que ce modèle est en train de s'effondrer.Sa thèse est simple : une entreprise ne fera plus travailler des salariés, mais des agents IA.Des systèmes qui lisent l'information, prennent des décisions, agissent seuls, et tournent pendant que vous dormez.Donc si une boîte fonctionne pour faire tourner des agents IA, alors ils peuvent opérer toute la structure.C'est là que le rapport de force s'inverse.Une multinationale doit réorganiser des milliers de personnes, des outils fermés et des années de contexte jamais écrit nulle part.Idem pour un solopreneur qui démarre aujourd'hui, il peut tout construire avec et pour les agents, et aller infiniment plus vite.Pour le prouver, Pierre-Louis a fait une expérience.Il a donné à un agent ce dont un fondateur a besoin pour faire ses premiers euros : une carte bancaire, un nom de domaine, un email, un serveur et des objectifs.Le lendemain matin, il y avait deux ventes et une semaine plus tard, sept.On parle dans cet épisode :Des métiers d'exécution qui vont disparaître, et de pourquoi il y voit une libération plutôt qu'une menaceDes agents trop motivés, capables de tenter de pirater un fournisseur pour atteindre leur objectifDu coût réel de l'intelligence, qui baisse à tâche égale mais dont la facture exploseDe la course entre modèles américains / chinois, et de la place de l'EuropeUn épisode pour définitivement comprendre que l'IA fera votre travail. À vous de choisir si c'est à votre place ou avec vous.Vous pouvez contacter Pierre-Louis sur Linkedin et X.Je vous ai négocié un code promo : GDIY2026 pour -50% sur les deux premiers mois de Nanocorp.TIMELINE:00:00:00 - Qu'est-ce qu'un agent IA et comment ça marche concrètement00:16:59 - Polytechnique et Y Combinator : un parcours atypique00:30:20 - Se confronter à l'échec rapidement00:40:29 - Allons-nous devenir des managers d'IA ?00:49:49 - Comment rendre nos IA autonomes ?01:02:40 - Le commencement de Nanocorp01:11:06 - Peut-on vraiment créer des entreprises avec Nanocorp ?01:21:54 - Concurrencer les gros SaaS en quelques sessions de code01:28:33 - Les projets les plus fous créés sur Nanocorp01:40:38 - Comment réduire le coût de ses tokens01:47:58 - Quels sont les prochains gros changements des modèles ?01:55:07 - Des entreprises sans aucun humain ?Les anciens épisodes de GDIY mentionnés : #564 - VO - Mati Staniszewski - ElevenLabs - "Humans were never meant to write, but to speak."#564 - VF - Mati Staniszewski - ElevenLabs - « L'humain a été fait pour parler, pas pour écrire »#560 - Rudy Gobert - 4x meilleur défenseur NBA - Le druide de la longévité#531 - Mathias Frachon - The Product Crew - IA et agents, tout part en vrille, il est temps de vous y mettre#429 - Nicolas Dessaigne - Y Combinator - Le berceau des futurs géants de la techNous avons parlé de :Y CombinatorÉcole PolytechniqueSan Francisco / Silicon ValleyNanocorpAnthropic (Claude)Claude CodeOpenAI (ChatGPT)StripeNvidiaIntelligence artificielle générale (AGI)AirbnbDeepSeekMistral AIHugging FaceAlain Aspect (Prix Nobel de Physique)Les recommandations de lecture :Ultra-intelligence : Jusqu'où iront les IA ? de Emery CrouchetUn grand MERCI à nos sponsors : Squarespace : https://squarespace.com/doitQonto: https://qonto.com/r/2i7tk9 Brevo: brevo.com/doit eToro: https://bit.ly/3GTSh0k Payfit: payfit.com Club Med : clubmed.frCuure : https://cuure.com/product-onely (code DOIT)Rejoignez-nous sur la communauté GDIY : https://communaute.gdiy.fr/c/bienvenueNos formations avec l'EDHEC : https://www.letincelle.edhec.edu/Vous pouvez retrouver la liste de tout le matériel utilisé pour enregistrer nos épisodes sur cette page.Vous souhaitez sponsoriser Génération Do It Yourself ou nous proposer un partenariat ?Contactez mon label Orso Media via ce formulaire.Hébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

(0:00) Intro(1:28) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel(2:12) Start of interview(3:25) Ryan Nowicki Stewart's Origin Story(5:06) The origin of Pennant AI and Ryan's goal of building a “world model for corporate governance”(5:21) Why institutional investors struggle to scale governance oversight across thousands of portfolio companies(7:48) How Proxy Voting Works: annual meetings, shareholder votes, engagement, and why governance decisions can have major financial consequences(10:28) Proxy Season: why voting is concentrated in the spring in the U.S., but governance engagement is increasingly a year-round and global process(11:28) Ryan's decision to join Y Combinator and why a corporate governance startup fit into the YC ecosystem(15:00) His experience with technology founders and executives perception on current proxy voting system(15:54) Building a “living, breathing operating system” for governance rather than relying on static reports and PDFs(18:53) The continuing role of proxy advisors and why institutional investors are looking for alternatives to legacy providers(24:12) Who Pennant Serves: institutional investors, public companies, and corporate advisors(25:18) Why Pennant does not publish a house voting policy and instead helps investors implement their own governance frameworks(29:57) Founder Control, Dual-Class Shares, and Investor Power: the shifting balance among founders, boards, management, and institutional investors. Reference to Stripe's Investor Letter from August 2026 “the Singularity started on 1/1/26”(30:50) Public and Private Markets Converging: SpaceX, Anthropic, OpenAI, Stripe, and new approaches to ownership and governance. *Reference to E210 with Eric Ries.(35:20) Global Governance: Japan, the U.K., the U.S., and how shareholder engagement differs across markets. *Reference to E221 with Stavros Gadinis.(38:40) Y Combinator, OpenAI credits, and why Pennant remains model-agnostic(39:39) Choosing AI Models for Governance: why different models perform better at different governance tasks(41:47) Pennant's Governance Arena: testing how frontier AI models respond to governance questions(43:33) Pennant after YC Demo Day: new investors, enterprise clients, and plans to grow the company(45:12) What Ryan wants directors to understand about AI, shareholder engagement, and why technology can create more time for meaningful investor conversations(46:37) Books that have influenced Ryan:Horrible Histories by Terry Deary (1993-2013)The Thinking Machine by Stephen Witt (2025)Mobilize by Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar and Madeline Hart (2026)(48:46) His mentors: Stephanie Creary and Abe Friedman (reference to E43 with Abe from 2021)(50:44) A quote Ryan thinks of often: “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts” (51:37) An unusual habit: Settlers of Catan. An unusual passion: the Australian Baseball League (53:11) The living person he most admires: Angela Merkel, and lessons from her patient, evidence-driven approach to leadership(54:42) Where to find Pennant AI and follow Ryan's workRyan Nowicki Stewart is the co-founder and CEO of Pennant AI, a Y Combinator-backed governance technology company building AI-powered tools for institutional investors, public companies, and advisors. ---Stay connected with Boardroom Governance:Website: boardroom-governance.comNewsletter: Boardroom Governance on SubstackYouTube: Boardroom GovernanceLinkedIn: Evan EpsteinX: @evanepsteinSubscribe to the Boardroom Governance newsletter for governance insights and exclusive subscriber content: evanepstein.substack.com---Music: “Seeing The Future” by Dexter Britain, via Free Music Archive, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Automating Your Dealflow Process Hello, this is Hall T. Martin with the Startup Funding Espresso -- your daily shot of startup funding and investing. Startup investors see a tremendous amount of deal flow. Finding quality deals is the challenge. Here are some key steps to automate the dealflow process: Set up tools to search for founders with a specific background. For example, one can set a search to find founders from Y Combinator or Techstars. Search for founder configurations. One can search for startups with two co-founders, which in some analyses, have a higher success rate. Search for early-stage startups in the MVP phase. Most venture capitalists don't look to invest at the very earliest stage. Connect with angel groups deaflow by connecting to their pipeline. Set growth criteria and tune the search for those with a higher growth rate. Set the search for specific sectors such as life sciences, tech, or consumer product goods. By determining the key criteria, one can automate the search process to find deals that fit those criteria. Consider what criteria you are looking for and set up automation tools for it. Thank you for joining us for the Startup Funding Espresso where we help startups and investors connect for funding. Let's go startup something today. _________________________________________________________ For more episodes from Investor Connect, please visit the site at: http://investorconnect.org Check out our other podcasts here: https://investorconnect.org/ For Investors check out: https://tencapital.group/investor-landing/ For Startups check out: https://tencapital.group/company-landing/ For eGuides check out: https://tencapital.group/education/ For upcoming Events, check out https://tencapital.group/events/ For Feedback please contact info@tencapital.group Please follow, share, and leave a review. Music courtesy of Bensound.

Healthcare organizations are under increasing pressure to make better use of data, AI, and automation but none of those technologies can reach their full potential without reliable access to the right patient information. In this episode of Interop Now, host Sandy Vance chats with Dima Goncharov, co-founder & CEO of Metriport, about the evolving healthcare interoperability landscape, health information exchanges, FHIR, QHINs, and the challenge of bringing fragmented clinical data together. They discuss why interoperability is becoming table stakes in modern healthcare, the limits of building connections in-house, and how a stronger data foundation can help providers move from simply exchanging information to using it to improve care. They also explore how AI and large language models answer complex patient questions in real time when the underlying data is trustworthy, accessible, and properly organized.In this episode, they talk about:Why healthcare interoperability continues to evolve and why connecting to a single network still isn't enough to create a complete patient picture.How health information exchanges, national networks, and emerging frameworks such as TEFCA fit into today's interoperability landscape.Why healthcare data transformation, patient matching, record location, and deduplication remain major challenges even after connectivity is established.Why Metriport believes interoperability should be treated as table-stakes infrastructure, rather than a project healthcare organizations have to continually build and maintain themselves.How clean, accessible longitudinal patient data creates the foundation for AI, automation, and modern care models.Why AI and LLMs could help providers synthesize complicated healthcare data and answer patient-specific questions in real time.Real-world examples of interoperability helping providers surface previously unavailable information, avoid unnecessary testing, and make faster treatment decisions.A Little About Dima:Dima Goncharov is the Co-Founder and CEO of Metriport, an open-source platform transforming healthcare data exchange. With a background as a software engineer, Dima has built everything from aerospace and defense mission systems to highly available cloud database services at Amazon Web Services (AWS). Dima's passion for transparent, secure, and accessible health data solutions is evident in Metriport's mission and the APIs they've developed for seamless medical record retrieval. Dima is an alumnus of both British Columbia Institute of Technology and of Y Combinator's S22 cohort. Now based in San Francisco, he leads Metriport's efforts to modernize and open up healthcare interoperability for providers everywhere.

This academy for promising high school grads is somewhere between a trade-school, Y Combinator and Peter Thiel's Fellowship Program. Autonomy-1 will have a small, transformer-based AI model taking charge of a space probe. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Denied insurance claims cost clinics money, staff time, and patient care, and AI agents are starting to change that.In this entrepreneur interview, Shahbaz Virk (co-founder of Cair Health) explains how AI agents can handle medical billing from start to finish. That covers checking eligibility, reworking denied claims, and even waiting on hold with insurance companies. He shares why so many claims get denied, how growing up with a nurse mom shaped his founder story, and why rural health is central to his mission. Whether you're a startup founder building in healthcare or an operator buried in admin work, this conversation shows what an AI-powered billing team actually looks like.In This Episode:Why insurance claims get deniedAI agents that call insurers for you90% touchless claims after six months150 minutes per claim cut to under threeY Combinator vs. a healthcare-specific acceleratorAI's role in rural health ⏱️ Chapters: 0:00 Introduction 0:44 What Care Health does 2:06 Why medical billing affects patients 3:15 Why insurance claims get denied 5:35 A nurse mom and the origin of Care Health 6:37 From health economics research to AI 8:40 Y Combinator vs. the Fuel Accelerator 10:45 The metrics that matter: touchless claims 11:44 How AI agents work together on a claim 13:17 Will AI replace medical billers? 15:08 Customers and traction 16:14 AI for rural health in Arkansas 17:53 Care Health in three years 18:40 From 150 minutes per claim to under three 20:00 Large vs. small health systems—Connect with Shahbaz

Max Junestrand, co-founder and CEO of Legora, explains how Legora became the fastest company in history to grow from $1M to over $100M in annual recurring revenue (ARR), in 21 months. He joins Truth Works hosts Jessica Neal and Peter Clark live from Legora's office.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━WHO IS MAX JUNESTRAND?Max Junestrand is the 27-year-old Swedish co-founder and CEO of Legora, an AI platform for lawyers, law firms and in-house legal teams. He studied computer science and business, worked at two Y Combinator startups, and is not a lawyer.WHAT IS LEGORA?Legora is a legal AI company founded in Stockholm, Sweden and backed by Y Combinator. It helps lawyers review contracts, research case law and draft legal work. Legora serves some of the largest legal institutions in the world across Europe, the UK and the US, employs 900 people, and acquired five companies in 2026.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━HOW LEGORA STARTED- Founded in 2020 by a psychologist, an engineer, a physicist and a lawyer- Max joined in 2023, after the release of ChatGPT- Started with €50,000 in angel funding before Y Combinator- Rejected by Y Combinator once, accepted on the second application- Built inside Mannheimer Swartling, the largest law firm in the Nordics, for nine monthsBefore Legora, Max applied to 400 jobs and got two interviews. Both rejected him.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━HOW LEGORA HIRES AND SCALES- Headcount grew from 250 to 900 people in one year- 0.3% of applicants receive an offer- Max personally interviews every director-level hire- Recruiting is treated as a privilege, not an obligation- Performance reviews use a 1–5 scale with direct feedback- The company is office-first with almost no remote work━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━KEY FACTS FROM THIS EPISODE- $1M to $100M+ ARR in 21 months- A contract review estimated at $44M was completed in 4 days- A third-party study found Legora helps lawyers catch missed errors in 71% of cases- Legora builds for where AI models will be in 3–6 months━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━QUESTIONS ANSWERED IN THIS EPISODE→ How did Legora grow so fast?→ Why did Legora's team move into a law firm?→ How do you hire at scale without lowering the bar?→ How do you give hard feedback in a culture that avoids it?→ How do you build one culture across Stockholm, London and New York?→ Why is it becoming unethical not to use AI in legal work?→ How will AI change the work of lawyers in the next two years?→ Can legal AI improve access to justice?━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━"You can just do things. You can be a little bit unreasonable in your ambitions." — Max Junestrand, CEO of Legora━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT TRUTH WORKSTruth Works is a podcast about building companies and the people behind them. Hosted by Jessica Neal, former Chief Talent Officer at Netflix, and co-host Peter Clark.Legora: legora.comLegora careers: legora.com/careersSponsored by Manifest Law, the AI-native immigration law firm.#Legora #MaxJunestrand #LegalAI #AIforLawyers #YCombinator #StartupGrowth #Hiring #TruthWorks #JessicaNeal

What happens when you take the most exclusive asset class in the world and list it on the New York Stock Exchange? Sarah Pinto is finding out in public, every trading day.Sarah spent close to a decade investing in mission-driven growth-stage companies at Emerson Collective, the organization founded and led by Laurene Powell Jobs, where she helped build the venture effort and backed names that are now household ones: OpenAI, Anthropic, and Coinbase. She began investing in July of 2008, which turned out to be an instructive moment to start, and has been focused on tech since 2010.Today she is a portfolio manager at Robinhood Ventures, where she runs two funds built around a structural problem rather than an appetite one: only about 1% of Americans have any exposure to private companies, because most people aren't accredited. Robinhood Ventures Fund I (RVI) is a '40 Act closed-end fund that IPO'd in March 2026 and holds a concentrated portfolio of late-stage frontier companies: Databricks, OpenAI, Stripe, and SpaceX among them. Fund II (RVII) is the other side of the barbell: a BDC investing in a broad, diversified portfolio of Y Combinator seed-stage companies.Beezer digs into the machinery and the tensions - why the '40 Act and BDC wrappers make any of this possible, how she pitches founders against Sequoia and Index, whether venture really belongs in a public product at all, and what the data actually shows about how retail investors behave when the price drops. It is a conversation about access, structure, and the strange discipline of running a venture portfolio in full public view.Quotes“Only about 1% of Americans have any exposure to privates, because most people aren't accredited. Which means that they can only watch companies like Anthropic or OpenAI emerge from the sidelines. They can't be a part of it. They can't actually benefit from that value creation.”“Most of my GP equivalents at other funds don't have to be marked to market every single day, whereas I am. That is the challenge. It comes with a lot of additional scrutiny and it comes with volatility that you don't have if you are private. But it is the only way today that the SEC will let non-accredited investors invest - and frankly for good reasons.”“The CFOs of the companies we invest in know that retail is 25% to 30% of the stock market. In the same way that you bring crossover institutional investors into your late rounds, you should probably bring retail as a constituency. It's the one constituency you don't talk to until your IPO. And now you really need them.”Time Stamps[01:05] Meet Sarah Pinto: Emerson Collective to Robinhood Ventures[03:58] The Through Line: Investing at the Intersection of Purpose and Returns[05:46] Why Only 1% of Americans Can Access the Private Markets[07:10] What Emerson Collective Was Built to Do[08:15] RVI and the '40 Act Innovation: A Venture Fund That Trades Like an ETF[09:49] Robinhood as Both Distribution and Product[11:29] How the Portfolio Actually Gets Built[14:02] What You're Really Diligencing When You Buy the Fund[14:33] Why the Apple IPO Math Doesn't Work Anymore[15:44] Marked to Market Every Single Day[16:44] What Changes When You Manage Venture Publicly[19:38] The Pitch to Founders: Why Robinhood Is an N of One[21:35] Retail as a Constituency Before the IPO[23:58] Is Venture Really a Public Product?[24:19] Learn by Doing: Fees, Disclosure, and the $25 Share[28:01] RVII and the Other Side of the Barbell[29:48] Why YC: The Power Law, Concentration, and Hard Data[31:11] Taking a Seed Fund Through the LP Inquisition[31:59] The Live Roadshow and the Most Edgar Filings in IPO History[33:13] What's Next for Robinhood Ventures[36:30] Getting More Women Investing EarlyLinksConnect with the guest and host on LinkedIn!Sarah PintoBeezer ClarksonLearn more about:Robinhood VenturesRobinhood Ventures Fund I (RVI)Robinhood Ventures Fund II (RVII)Emerson CollectiveLGT Capital PartnersOpenLP

280 | Das Cybercab kommt! Welche Businesses entstehen jetzt?Partner dieser Folge:HolviDas beste Geschäftskonto für Teams mit HOLVI - und das für 0€ mit HOLVI Flex. Klick hier und mach deine Finanzen einfacher.Mach das 1-minütige Quiz und finde eine Geschäftsidee, die zu dir passt: digitaleoptimisten.de/quiz. Mich erreichst du unter alexander@digitaleoptimisten.deKapitel(00:00) Intro(01:20) Bringt AI uns alle um? AI Slop Grenades vllt.(21:22) Tesla Cybercab (33:23) Alex' erste Geschäftsidee ist jetzt im Y Combinator(37:12) Apple Watch hört immer zu und das iPhone ist faltbar(50:15) Geschäftsidee von Alex: Lesestapel(56:07) Geschäftsidee von Samuel: UpgradSo erreichst du uns:Sprachnachricht senden: https://www.speakpipe.com/digitaleoptimistenEmail schreiben: alexander@digitaleoptimisten.deLearningsRealistische AI-Beurteilung statt HypeDie Diskussion zeigt eine Spannbreite zwischen Katastrophenwarnungen und nüchternem Realismus; die Wahrheit gilt als grau. Für Gründer bedeutet das, statt reinen Hype zu glauben, eine systematische Szenarien-Planung zu nutzen. Empfohlen ist es, Baseline-, Upside- und Risikoszenarien zu erstellen, Budgets konservativ zu planen und regulatorische Entwicklungen im Blick zu behalten.Corporate Upskilling als MarktIn der Folge wird Upgrade als achtwöchiges Vorbereitungs- und Leveling-up-Programm beschrieben, um Juniors AI-Kompetenzen aufzubauen. Das Angebot richtet sich explizit an große Corporates, also B2B, mit Preisrahmen von 5.000 bis 10.000 Euro pro Graduate; Vor-Ort-Trainer sind möglich. Implementierung umfasst neben Transfer-Inhalten auch Standards zu Data Security sowie Tools wie NNMAKE und Zapier, um Prozesse aufzusetzen.Autonome Mobilität verändert InfrastrukturHypothese: Robo-Taxis könnten langfristig zu einer großen geteilten Fahrzeugflotte führen, die außerhalb der Städte operiert und Ladeinfrastruktur erfordert. Chancen liegen in neuen Park- und Ladestationen sowie in einem Shared-Modell statt individuellem Fahrzeugbesitz. Preisgestaltung, Wartung, Reinigung und Regulierung bestimmen, ob dieses Modell Bahn/ÖPNV ergänzt oder ersetzt.Lesestapel: Von Tabs zum physischen MagazinDie Idee Lesestapel wandelt digitale Lesezeichen aus Browser-Tabs in ein monatliches Magazin um; es gibt zwei Angebotsstufen: digitales PDF/App vs. gedrucktes Hardcover. Wichtig: Urheberrechtsfragen stehen noch offen; der Print-Ansatz kann Marketingeffekt erhöhen, daher könnte Druck zuerst sinnvoll sein. Umsetzung erfordert eine klare Content-Quelle, Rechteklärung und eine passende Abonnentenstruktur.Keywordsautonomes FahrenTesla CyberCabAnthropic KIApple Vision ProiPhone Duowie verändert autonomes Fahren ÖPNV und Bahnverkehrauswirkungen KI auf Arbeitsmarkt und Jobsregulatorische hürden für Frontier KI Labskamerabasierte selbstfahrende Modelle vs LiDARfoldable iPhone Duo vs Vision Pro marktvorsprungHype Cycle KIDoomsday Szenarien KITry Nearby Influencer MarketingJourneyman Unicorn IdeasUpgrade Corporate Weiterbildung

In diesem Deep Dive spricht Markus mit Stefan Lederer, CEO und Co-Founder von bitmovin. Stefan erzählt vom zweiten Durchlauf des Bitmovin AI-Incubators, in dem 15 von 500 Bewerbern in zwei Monaten sieben marktreife Produkte gebaut haben, davon, warum Europa in der Product-Market-Fit-Phase noch zu schwach ist, und wie Y Combinator bitmovins Weg von der Uni-Ausgründung zum globalen Player geprägt hat.Production: Hanna MoserMusik (Intro/Outro): www.sebastianegger.com

Timestamps:04:14 – Why Context Management Matters10:34 – How Compresr Works20:07 – Getting Into Y Combinator36:03 – What People Get Wrong About AIEpisode description:Kamel Charaf is the Co-Founder and CPO of Compresr, a company helping AI teams reduce the amount of context they send to large language models. Instead of building another AI application, Compresr sits one layer lower: it decides what information the model actually needs before the request reaches it.In this episode, Kamel explains why context management is becoming a real infrastructure problem for AI companies. As more teams use agents, company brains and large document workflows, the amount of text sent to models keeps growing. That can make AI slower, more expensive and less reliable.Kamel also talks about building Compresr out of the EPFL orbit, joining Y Combinator, moving between Switzerland and Silicon Valley, and learning to shift from a research mindset to a more commercial one. The conversation gets into token costs, enterprise pilots, on-premise deployment, Swiss talent, YC's “bro style” advice and why the next layer of AI may be less flashy than the apps everyone talks about.The cover portrait was edited by⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.smartportrait.io⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.‍Don't forget to give us a follow on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Linkedin⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, and⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Youtube ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠so you can always stay up to date with our latest initiatives. That way, there's no excuse for missing out on live shows, weekly giveaways or founders' dinners.

 Prem Kumar is the Co-Founder and CEO of Humanly, a Bellevue-based hiring technology company built to fix something he saw up close: two people interviewing for the exact same job with the exact same panel getting treated completely differently. Before Humanly, Prem spent about a decade at Microsoft and led product and design at TinyPulse. Humanly went through Y Combinator and has raised roughly $52 million to date—most recently a $25 million Series B.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dans cette nouvelle série en partenariat avec Fundora, on décortique tous les aspects du Private Equity en prenant des exemples concrets de la pop culture.Aujourd'hui, on découvre l'histoire de Y Combinator. L'incubateur mythique a été créé en 2005 en partant d'un constat simple : les startups ont besoin de structure et d'encadrement. Ses fondateurs créent ainsi un réseau d'entrepreneurs qui profitent des compétences et des contacts de chacun, maximisant leurs chances de succès.Et le modèle fonctionne, puisque AirBnb, Reddit ou encore Stripe sont passés par YC.Matthieu Stefani et Bradley Lafond (CEO de Fundora) partent de cette usine à success story pour expliquer le fonctionnement de l'investissement early stage et s'intéresser aux incubateurs.Au programme :00:00:00 Y Combinator : l'incubateur qui a révolutionné internet00:05:00 Le modèle YC et son impact00:10:33 La nécessité d'investir encore plus vite à l'ère de l'IA00:21:57 Les fonds de continuation et le secondaire dans le Private Equity00:28:33 Le risque de la "waterfall" et des exits00:32:51 La dette privée et les fonds evergreenMerci à notre partenaire Fundora de soutenir la Martingale.Allez sur fundora.fr et prenez le contrôle de vos investissements.Fundora est une plateforme d'investissement. La valeur de vos placements peut augmenter ou diminuer. Votre capital est assujetti à un risque.On vous souhaite une très bonne écoute ! Et pour recevoir toutes les actus et des recommandations exclusives, abonnez-vous à la newsletter de La Martingale, c'est par ici.La Martingale est un podcast du label Orso Media.La libre antenne de votre podcast préféré, Allo La Martingale, a désormais son propre flux ! Abonnez-vous sur Spotify, Apple Podcasts ou votre plafeforme audio favorite pour ne manquer aucun nouvel épisode. Pour s'abonner à la newsletter, c'est ici : https://lamartingale.io/ La Martingale, c'est aussi un assistant IA qui vous apporte des réponses éclairées issues des interventions des experts passés au micro du podcast. Pour tester, direction https://beta.lamartingale.ioLa Martingale est un média d'Orso Media. Vous souhaitez entrer en contact avec a rédaction ? Ou nous soumettre une collaboration ? Ecrivez-nous ici : https://orsomedia.io/contactHébergé par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.

Today's guest is Ian Naccarella, CEO and Co-Founder at 83 Sciences. Founded in 2026 and backed by Y Combinator, 83 Sciences is an AI materials discovery company that transforms unpublished experimental data into searchable scientific knowledge. Its platform captures information from laboratory notebooks, voice notes and scientific instruments, helping researchers optimize experiments, accelerate materials discovery and turn overlooked data into publications, patents, commercial products and industry-academic partnerships.Prior to co-founding 83 Sciences, Ian was an entrepreneurial fellow at MIT focused on commercializing new climate technologies with professors. He was also a strategy manager at battery materials company Sila Nanotechnologies and a consultant with Boston Consulting Group, focusing on areas such as Climate and Sustainability, Cleantech, Consumer Tech, Public Sector and Financial Institutions. Ian also holds bachelor's and master's degrees in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.In the episode, Ian talks about:0:00 His journey from engineering and consulting to an AI materials startup3:48 Turning frontier AI discoveries into synthesizable real-world materials5:21 How AI discovers enabling materials that accelerate core battery innovation7:17 How Frontier AI links material synthesis, structure and properties10:42 Scaling experimental data pipelines to automate materials discovery12:53 The opportunity to build an AI science company and team from scratchTo find out more about all the great work happening at 83 Sciences, check out the website www.83sciences.ai

Pour l'épisode de cette semaine, je reçois Claire Gouze, la CEO et cofondatrice de Nao Labs.Nao est un framework open source permettant aux équipes data de construire des agents d'analytics capables de répondre aux questions des équipes métier en s'appuyant sur le contexte propre à l'entreprise.Au cours de cet épisode, nous sommes revenus sur le parcours de Claire, de ses débuts comme Data Scientist chez BCG Gamma à son rôle de Head of Data chez Sunday, avant de lancer Nao avec son associé Christophe.Nous avons parlé des différentes itérations du produit, du choix de pivoter vers l'open source et de l'importance du contexte pour rendre les agents IA fiables lorsqu'ils travaillent avec la donnée d'une entreprise. Claire nous explique notamment pourquoi Nao s'appuie sur des fichiers Markdown plutôt que sur des approches de type RAG, et comment ils évaluent leurs agents pour limiter les erreurs sur les métriques clés.Nous avons également échangé sur leur passage chez Y Combinator, l'impact de YC sur leur niveau d'ambition et leur vitesse d'exécution, ainsi que sur leur stratégie go-to-market très orientée communauté, contenu et événements.Enfin, Claire nous partage la manière dont elle utilise elle-même des agents IA au quotidien chez Nao pour automatiser une partie du travail opérationnel et sa vision des prochains mois dans un marché de l'IA qui continue d'évoluer extrêmement rapidement.Vous pouvez suivre Claire sur LinkedIn.Bonne écoute !Mentionnés pendant l'épisode :NaoBCG GammaSundayY CombinatorCursorClaudePour soutenir SaaS Connection en 1 minute⏱ (et 2 secondes) :Abonnez-vous à SaaS Connection sur votre plateforme préférée pour ne rater aucun épisode

Dans cet épisode d'OVNIs, Arnaud Laurent reçoit Jonathan Lascar, entrepreneur devenu investisseur chez Bpifrance avant de revenir à ses premières amours avec Kivala Système. Jonathan retrace un parcours de près de quinze ans dans l'écosystème tech français, de ses premières aventures entrepreneuriales à la gestion du fonds French Tech Accélération, puis à la direction du Hub de Bpifrance.Il raconte surtout les coulisses de Kivala, une solution d'interphone connecté pensée pour redonner aux résidents le contrôle des accès à leur immeuble : validation du marché avant même d'avoir un produit, développement hardware et software, modèle par abonnement, levée d'un million d'euros et choix d'une production en France. Jonathan revient également sur la décision de céder rapidement l'entreprise alors qu'elle entrait dans une phase d'accélération, et partage les convictions tirées de son parcours : oser, confronter ses idées au marché et se rappeler que l'exécution compte davantage que l'idée elle-même.[00:00:00] Jonathan Lascar : entrepreneur, investisseur, puis entrepreneur à nouveau[00:02:25] De l'entrepreneuriat à l'investissement chez Bpifrance[00:05:23] Gérer un fonds de 200 millions d'euros à 30 ans[00:06:34] Pourquoi l'Europe n'a pas réussi à reproduire Y Combinator[00:07:53] Ce que l'entrepreneuriat apporte au métier d'investisseur[00:08:56] Les débuts de WeSprint et l'accompagnement des startups en région[00:11:19] Pourquoi redevenir entrepreneur après huit ans chez Bpifrance[00:12:47] La naissance de Kivala Système[00:14:04] Trouver un marché avec une vraie proposition de valeur[00:15:29] Réinventer l'interphone et le contrôle d'accès des immeubles[00:16:36] Construire une startup hardware et software rapidement[00:18:20] Comment trouver le bon CTO et le bon associé[00:19:32] Vendre son produit avant même de l'avoir construit[00:20:28] Lever 1 million d'euros avec des investisseurs stratégiques[00:20:59] Pourquoi faire le choix du Made in France[00:22:10] Pourquoi céder Kivala aussi rapidement[00:23:17] L'approche de Verisure et la décision de vendre[00:24:41] Faut-il savoir vendre plutôt que continuer seul ?[00:25:55] Quinze ans d'entrepreneuriat : les convictions de Jonathan Lascar[00:26:30] « Ce n'est pas l'idée qui compte, c'est l'exécution »[00:27:38] Les erreurs, regrets et leçons apprises en chemin

This week Chris sits down with Zane Hengsperger, Founder and CEO of NOX Metals, a metal supplier in Detroit he started in 2025. NOX buys metal from the mill, cuts it to the exact size a machine shop needs, and ships it out. The whole operation runs on software the company writes itself. Zane is 26, and his first job was scrubbing the floors of his dad's machine shop at 14. He went into software, then came back to run a machine shop. That is where he saw that metal was the bottleneck for everyone making parts in America. The incumbents have been around for 200 years and have never put software to work. NOX is a year old and has raised an $11.5M seed round. It has written a million lines of code and quotes an order in 10 seconds. They discuss:• The 18-minute call with Y Combinator that put him on a plane the next day• Why his dad hired software engineers for a machine shop back in 2017• How one piece of software does the work of 20 salespeople• Why two of his engineers moved their desks onto the factory floor• Why the forklift driver gets equity after three months• The 7pm order that was in Dallas by 10 the next morning• Why he says America needs 100x more factories• Where AI has let him down so far This one is for anyone betting on American manufacturing. Timestamps(00:00) Intro(01:10) Reading Alex Karp and Walking Back Into a Machine Shop(06:06) Hiring Young Technicians Who Want Hard Work(09:10) Why the Brand Is the Moat(14:28) Lessons From a Dad Who Ran a Machine Shop(16:14) Getting Into Y Combinator With One Day's Notice(22:06) Buy a Saw and Write Instant Quoting Software(27:37) Software Engineers on the Factory Floor(34:29) Is America Actually Reindustrializing?(40:55) America Needs 100 Times More Factories(45:26) Quotes in 10 Seconds Instead of Eight Hours(50:09) Delta Cargo Deliveries and Why Detroit Is Ripping(56:07) Where AI Falls Short and What the Next 24 Months Hold(59:13) The Customer Is the Core Thing Left in America === Presented by True North Advisors: True North AdvisorsTrue North Advisors is a multi-family office and private wealth advisory firm serving business owners, entrepreneurs, and families since 2000. With over $5.6 billion under management, they're real investors offering conflict-free counsel and portfolios built around your life. Learn more at https://truenorthadvisors.com === Sponsored by: AirshareAirshare is trusted across the country for fractional ownership, jet cards, charter, and aircraft management. They give you a smarter way to fly private - over 25 years of experience, operating their own fleet, with the top safety ratings in the industry. Drive up to the FBO, walk on, and go. Go to flyairshare.com to learn more. Collateral PartnersCollateral Partners builds institutional-grade investor materials for private credit, private equity, real estate, and family office firms, the kind of marketing collateral that helps you close capital. Learn more at https://collateral.com/powers Relay Human CloudRelay Human Cloud gives you pre-vetted, fully managed global talent for up to 75% less than hiring locally. Your best people stop doing repetitive work and get back to the work that moves your company forward. Learn more at https://www.relayhumancloud.com/powers === Chris on Social Media:X: https://x.com/fortworthchrisInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/thepowerspodcastLinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd Watch POWERS on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNXVisit our website: https://www.powerspod.com/Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO

In this episode of Medical Spa Insider, host Alex Thiersch sits down with Daniyal Azal, CEO and co-founder of Decoda Health. Daniyal shares how his team leveraged their background in Y Combinator to build a consolidated, AI-driven operating system designed specifically for elective care practices, including med spas, longevity clinics, and anti-aging centers. They discuss the pitfalls of relying on disconnected point solutions—from booking engines and standalone phone systems to separate EMRs—and why having full contextual visibility across patient conversations, lab results, and prescriptions is essential for personalized care. Discussion points include: 00:33 Decoda Health's Origin Story and Focus on Healthcare 05:56 Replacing Point Solutions with an All-in-One System 13:46 Leveraging AI as an Operational Force Multiplier 28:15 How Modern Med Spas are Utilizing AI  42:27 The Future of Healthcare

Read the full transcript here. Why is producing meat so inefficient? How does animal agriculture contribute to hunger and malnutrition? How large are the environmental costs of meat production? How does industrial animal agriculture increase the risk of antibiotic resistance and future pandemics? Would organic or free-range farming solve these problems? What are the biggest sources of suffering for animals on factory farms? Why do people who oppose animal cruelty continue to buy factory-farmed meat? Why does meat consumption keep rising around the world despite decades of advocacy encouraging people to eat less of it? What exactly are plant-based and cultivated meat, and how are they made? Could cultivated meat eventually become a one-to-one replacement for conventional meat? What scientific and engineering problems still need to be solved? Why did plant-based meat attract so much excitement before its growth began to stall? What did companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat get right, and what challenges remain? Why has cultivated-meat research developed differently from plant-based-meat research? Could government funding accelerate alternative meat in the same way public investment helped technologies like renewable energy, electric vehicles, penicillin, and mRNA? And what would it take for alternative meat to finally reach price and taste parity with conventional meat? Bruce Friedrich is co-founder and president of The Good Food Institute (GFI), a Y Combinator funded non-profit that promotes plant-based and cultivated meat. He is also a co-founder of the alternative protein venture capital firm New Crop Capital. Links: Bruce's New Book: Meat The Good Food Institute Staff Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead WeAmplify — Transcriptionists Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant Music Broke for Free Josh Woodward Lee Rosevere Quiet Music for Tiny Robots wowamusic zapsplat.com Affiliates Clearer Thinking GuidedTrack Mind Ease Positly UpLift [Read more]

The latest episode of The Chad & Cheese Podcast delivers a hard-hitting breakdown of massive developments across technology, enterprise software, and corporate compliance. The boys tackle Salesforce leading a massive $166 million investment round into HR tech provider HiBob, exploring how this ties into broader ecosystems involving competitors like Deel, Rippling, SAP, SmartRecruiters, Workday, Paradox, Greenhouse, and iCIMS. They also break down a controversial promotional stunt by startup Lemon Lime at an unofficial Y Combinator afterparty, where attendees were offered fast-track job interviews in exchange for getting company tattoos. The conversation then shifts to the future of labor, dissecting Bill Gates' latest decade-long predictions regarding AI automation and workforce displacement. Finally, the co-hosts investigate a major regulatory shakeup from the Department of Labor (DOL) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP). They explore the rollbacks of critical affirmative action hiring mandates for federal contractors, alongside a projected budget proposal that could defund the watchdog agency and transfer its remaining functions to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Chapters 00:00 - Introduction to the episode and main themes 01:58 - Discussion on AI's disruptive potential in the workforce 03:59 - Recent funding and valuation of HR platforms like Hi Bob 08:04 - Policy changes impacting diversity and veteran hiring 11:57 - Humorous stories about personal experiences and industry events 19:55 - The resurgence of SaaS companies and their strategic moves 28:00 - Bill Gates' warnings on AI and workforce disruption 34:02 - The societal impact of AI and economic considerations 45:02 - The trend of using jobs for marketing and employer branding 55:02 - Humorous anecdotes about tattoos and job interviews

HiddenLayer has raised a $100M Series B from Delta-v Capital, Ten Eleven Ventures, Morgan Stanley, Microsoft's M12, Booz Allen Hamilton, and others. Also, AI model-training startup AfterQuery has reportedly raised a round that valued it at $3.2 billion, just five months after announcing its $30 million Series A at a $300 million valuation in April. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Join Kirill Avery, Founder and CEO of Alien, for an essential look at the architectural foundation required to keep artificial intelligence aligned with human interests. As autonomous AI agents, automated deepfakes, and synthetic accounts overwhelm the digital landscape, the internet's core problem is shifting from information discovery to trust verification. Kirill—a serial founder who coded Europe's largest consumer social app at age 16 (15M+ users) and became one of Y Combinator's youngest solo founders—shares why the rush to commercialize generative AI without robust identity layers risks eroding digital trust, and how product-first research is creating a privacy-centric infrastructure where humans and autonomous agents safely coexist.

Drew Dillon is a tech founder and product leader, centered in the Bay Area. He is a person who likes to do a bit of everything, having an engineering background, but spending time in design, sales, and product management. He's been a part of many startups - Yammer being one of them, and several others from Y Combinator - along with being a consultant and fractional CPO. Outside of tech, he has 2 kids that take up most of his time. When he isn't on the sidelines of a soccer game, he enjoys woodworking and reading a good sci-fi book. At a prior startup, Drew built a system using AI, which spit out something reasonably shaped. He took a look at the process he went through to create it, and realized that there are a ton of disparate parts, all separate from the shared organizational context - IE the "why" behind what is being built. He set out to change that, and built institutional memory and product judgement within AI agents. This is the creation story of Brief. SponsorsTiger DataProtected HarborRenderLinkshttps://briefhq.ai/https://mymoxieai.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/drewdil/Checkout our episode stacks on Stacklist! https://stacks.codestory.co/ Hosted by Noah Labhart | Technical Founder & Startup Mentor.Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Bob Robotti stops by for a follow up episode. David Kessler, Portfolio Manager and Securities Analyst at Robotti & Company, is in the room with Bob to provide some additional analytical firepower. This conversation came about because Bill was researching the lumber supply chain, had a bit of recorder's block, and though "You know who I want to talk to? Bob Robotti." Bob said yes to the invite and this is the result.If this show speaks to you be sure to reach out to the team at Robotti & Company Advisors. Sponsorship InformationThank you to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Trata⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for sponsoring the show.If you're listening to this podcast, you'll like Trata. Trata is buyside to buyside conversations on individual stocks. Trata makes finding a bull or bear on any stock as easy as clicking two buttons. Over 125 funds globally contribute that collectively cover 2000+ tickers. Trata raised over $3mm coming out of Y Combinator. Before you would track 13Fs, now you can understand what funds are actually thinking. You can join as a lurker or you can join as a contributor and Trata will pay you hundreds of dollars per call. For a free trial, go to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠trytrata.com/brew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ OG Sponsor Shoutout:Thank you to ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fiscal.ai⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for sponsoring the show. DISCOUNT INFO: If you use the affiliate link ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠fiscal.ai/brew⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, you will automatically get 2 weeks of Fiscal Pro for Free and if you find that you want to upgrade, my link will get you 15% off any paid plans. About ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fiscal.ai⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fiscal.ai⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is the complete modern data terminal for global equities.The ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fiscal.ai⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ platform combines a powerful user experience with all the financial data capabilities that professional investors need. Users get up to 20 years of historical financials for all stocks globally that they can easily chart, compare, or export into their own models. And unlike legacy data terminals where it can take hours or even days, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fiscal.ai⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠'s data is updated within minutes of earnings reports. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Fiscal.ai⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ also tracks all the company-specific Segment & KPI data so you don't have to. Like to track Amazon's Cloud Revenue? They've got it.How about Spotify's premium subscribers? Or Google's quarterly paid clicks?They've got all of it.

Did you like the episode? Send me a text and let me know!! In the late 1980s, a tiny startup called Qualcomm kept losing massive trucking contracts — not to better technology, not to a cheaper product, but to something that didn't even exist. Their competitor was selling a promise, a delay, a ghost. And Qualcomm almost died for it. In this episode of Business Conversations with Pi and Piette 2.0, PI and Piette answer a listener's ultimate founder anxiety question from tuepodcast.net/askpi: "How do I compete in a saturated market against big, well-funded competitors?" The answer draws from Y Combinator archives, Forbes strategy pieces, startup veterans, and some of the most instructive David vs. Goliath business stories ever told — from Instacart vs. Amazon to Zappos vs. every retail giant in existence. The conclusion? Your biggest competitive advantage isn't your brilliance. It's their comfort. What You'll Learn: Why obsessing over your competitor's every move is the single biggest strategic error a founder can makeThe race car driver analogy that explains why looking at the wall means hitting the wallThe Justin.tv story: how copying a competitor's feature caused two companies to waste their own runway simultaneouslyWhy vaporware is a psychological weapon — and how Qualcomm survived itWhy competing on price against a well-funded Goliath is always a death sentenceThe Willie Keeler "hit them where they ain't" strategy and the blue ocean approachHow Maxim Integrated built a billion-dollar company by serving the customers giants couldn't afford to bother withHow Prego's extra chunky sauce discovered a hidden one-third of the American market that nobody was servingHow Absolut Vodka carved out a premium niche in a market where the product is legally identical to every competitorWhy Zappos and Digi-Key weaponized speed and customer service to outmaneuver corporate giantsThe 100X rule: why being 30% better isn't enough — and how Instacart solved the avocado problem Amazon couldn'tHow Cruise beat Google's decade-long self-driving head start by seeking out the hardest problems on purposeTimestamps: [00:00:00] – Introduction & The Listener Question[00:01:00] – Qualcomm vs. a Product That Didn't Exist: The Opening Hook[00:02:30] – The Classic Goliath Problem: How Every Ambitious Founder Gets Here[00:03:00] – The Race Car Driver Analogy: Why Looking at the Wall Means Hitting It[00:04:00] – Justin.tv (Later Twitch) and the Corporate Imposter Syndrome Trap[00:05:00] – The Blind Leading the Blind: When Both Competitors Are Copying Each Other's Mistakes[00:06:00] – The Theater Set Illusion: Why Your Competitor's PR Is Just Duct Tape and Panic[00:06:30] – Markets Support Multiple Winners: The Regional Bank Reality Check[00:07:00] – Stop Watching Competitors — Start Watching Alternatives[00:07:30] – Qualcomm's Full Story: Fighting Vaporware With a Real Product[00:08:30] – The Pork Chop Joke: Why Competing on Price Is the Fastest Way to Die[00:09:30] – Hawaiian Airlines vs. Southwest: How Well-Funded Giants Use Cross-Subsidization to Destroy You[00:10:30] – Willie Keeler's "Hit Them Where They Ain't" — The Blue Ocean Approach[00:11:00] – Maxim Integrated: Building a Billion-Dollar Empire on the Long Tail Nobody Else Wanted[00:12:30] – Howard Moskowitz and Prego's Extra Chunky Sauce: Finding the Hidden Cluster[00:13:30] – Absolut Vodka: Competing on Packaging When the Product Is Legally Identical[00:14:00] – The Meatball Shop & Bonobos: Do One Thing, Own It[00:14:30] – Weaponizing Speed and Customer Service: Your Two Asymmetrical Advantages[00:15:30] – Digi-Key: $2 Billion in Revenue With Zero Salespeople[00:16:30] – Zappos: How Human Customer Service Creates Loyalty Corporate Advertising Can't Buy[00:17:30] – The Psychology of the Sale: Addressing Hopes, Fears & Structural Tension[00:18:30] – What Happens When the Giant Wakes Up? The 100X Rule[00:19:30] – Instacart vs. Amazon: Why a Trillion-Dollar Company Couldn't Pick the Right Avocado[00:20:30] – Cruise vs. Google: Beating a 10-Year Head Start by Seeking the Hardest Problems[00:21:30] – Full Playbook Summary & the Final Provocative Thought[00:23:00] – Submit Your Question & Wrap-UpCompanies & Stories Referenced: Qualcomm / Omnitracs, Justin.tv (Twitch), Shelby.tv, Maxim Integrated, Prego (Howard Moskowitz), Absolut Vodka, The Meatball Shop, Bonobos, Digi-Key, Zappos, Instacart vs. Amazon, Cruise vs. Google, Southwest vs. Hawaiian Airlines Submit Your Question:

En este episodio hablamos de las buenas primeras impresiones del iPhone Ultra plegable, el futuro iPhone de cristal por su 20.º aniversario, los nuevos dispositivos para el hogar que prepara Apple y el asistente de compras con IA que empieza a probar en su app. Además, recomendamos una interesante charla de Susan Kare en Y Combinator sobre diseño e interfaces.

Episode 441 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Assil Halimi, CEO & Co-Founder of Apollo Atomics. Today we are diving into a topic that is way outside my typical comfort zone: nuclear energy. While fossil fuels still account for roughly 85% of global energy, nuclear power offers incredible energy density, yet conventional reactors take over a decade and billions to build. Apollo Atomics is changing that. Through his research at MIT, Assil realized that existing designs for nuclear haven't evolved in decades and he set out to change that with a breakthrough approach. Apollo Atomics is an advanced reactor company developing compact pressurized water reactors designed to accelerate nuclear deployment. The company's core breakthrough is a proprietary compact steam supply system that delivers approximately an order of magnitude higher power density than conventional designs, allowing Apollo to dramatically shrink the reactor while maintaining the same power output. The key benefits for all of this is time and money. The resulting reactor platforms are designed to be factory built, transported by truck, and deployed in less than two years using commercially available fuel, established supply chains, and existing regulatory pathways. The company recently announced an oversubscribed $31 million seed round of funding led by FCVC, with participation from Y Combinator, Alumni Ventures, Robinhood Ventures, and notable angels including Paul Graham. In this episode, we cover: * Advice on how to shift from academic research to an entrepreneurial mindset, plus advice on pitching Hardtech startups. * Assil's background story and how his interest in nuclear power originated. * His time as an MIT Research Scientist and his process for working on this problem. * How he met his co-founder, Drew Walker, and the origin story of Apollo Atomics. * The breakthrough moment and all the details on how their technology works. * Why nuclear is the safest way of making electricity. * Their experience at Y Combinator, including a funny story about smoke in the parking lot. * And, so much more!

Pour ce 200ème épisode de SaaS Connection, je reçois Pierre-Louis Biojout, le fondateur de NanoCorp.NanoCorp permet de créer des entreprises autonomes pilotées par des agents IA. À partir d'une simple idée ou d'un prototype, ces entreprises peuvent construire leur produit, déployer leur site, gérer les paiements, prospecter ou encore lancer des campagnes publicitaires de manière autonome.Au cours de cet épisode, nous sommes revenus sur le parcours de Pierre-Louis, de sa première startup dans la robotique et son passage par Y Combinator, jusqu'au lancement de NanoCorp après une première expérimentation avec un agent autonome qui avait réussi à générer ses propres ventes en ligne.Nous avons beaucoup parlé de la manière dont NanoCorp est construit : les différentes “primitives” mises à disposition des agents, le choix des modèles, l'optimisation des coûts d'inférence et la boucle d'apprentissage créée grâce aux dizaines de milliers d'entreprises qui tournent sur la plateforme.Pierre-Louis nous explique également comment il fait fonctionner NanoCorp avec une équipe de seulement trois personnes, les mécanismes de viralité qui ont permis au produit de se développer rapidement et sa vision d'un futur dans lequel les entreprises autonomes pourraient devenir une nouvelle composante de l'économie.Enfin, nous avons évoqué ce que pourrait devenir cet écosystème : e-commerce, financement, acquisition et revente de NanoCorps ou encore émergence d'entreprises autonomes capables de générer des revenus significatifs.Vous pouvez suivre Pierre-Louis sur LinkedIn et sur X.Bonne écoute !Mentionnés pendant l'épisode :Andrej Karpathy et ses vidéos pour comprendre le fonctionnement des LLMUltra Intelligence d'Aymeric RouchetElon Musk, la biographie de Walter IsaacsonClaude CodeCodexOpenClawPour soutenir SaaS Connection en 1 minute⏱ (et 2 secondes) :Abonnez-vous à SaaS Connection sur votre plateforme préférée pour ne rater aucun épisode

Y Combinator alumnus Apollo Atomics is shrinking a key nuclear reactor part, which promises to slash the cost of electricity below natural gas. Also, Grounded has shifted from making van-life builds to custom outfitting vehicles for small businesses, all while the EV landscape in the US changed dramatically. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

3 Takeaways from my conversation with Rich White, CEO of Fathom AI: 1. Stop taking notes. Start having conversations. AI handles the details so you can focus on the people in the room. 2. The cost of a lost idea is greater than $15/month. One missed action item. One forgotten commitment. One misquoted client. Do the math. 3. Meetings should be great. The right people. The right agenda. The right tools. No excuses.   --- Richard White is the founder and CEO of Fathom.video, a free app that records, transcribes & highlights your calls so you can focus on the conversation instead of taking notes. Fathom was a part of the Y-Combinator W21 batch, is one of only 50 Zoom App Launch Partners, and is one of a small handful of companies Zoom has invested in directly via their Zoom Apps Fund. Prior to Fathom, Richard founded UserVoice, one of the leading platforms that technology companies, from startups to the Fortune 500, use for managing customer feedback and making strategic product decisions. UserVoice was notable for being the company that originally invented the Feedback tabs shown on the side of millions of websites around the world today. Richard previously worked on Kiko, a company in the first batch of Y-Combinator, with Justin Kan and Emmett Shear who subsequently went on to found Twitch. Richard is passionate about designing intuitive productivity tools with delightful user experiences. Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience/ Website: https://jondwoskin.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin/ Email: jon@jondwoskin.com Get Jon's Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big! Connect with Richard White: Website: https://www.fathom.ai/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fathomdotvideo/?hl=en oyRhCSzyTd LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rrwhite *E - explicit language may be used in this podcast.

Want to know how AI is helping small business owners unlock millions in hidden value before they sell? Discover how Cory Hogan built Unbroker, an AI-native services firm that generated $13 billion in valuations in just six months.   In this episode of Born in Silicon Valley, host Jake Aaron Villarreal sits down with Cory Hogan to discuss the massive shift happening on Main Street. With 10 million small business owners preparing to transfer trillions of dollars in wealth over the next decade, Unbroker is stepping in to ensure they get exactly what their life's work is worth.   Cory shares his origin story, transitioning from a blue-collar background to scaling Y Combinator startups, and ultimately creating a conversational AI bot that values businesses in under 60 seconds. We explore the unit economics of bootstrapping a massive tech startup and why the human element is more critical than ever in an AI-driven world.   Whether you are a startup founder looking for sustainable growth strategies or a business owner planning your future exit, this conversation delivers actionable insights on leveraging artificial intelligence to scale efficiently and hire the right talent based on skill and will.   Chapters 00:00 Introduction and Background 05:55 The Birth of Unbroker 11:51 AI's Role in Business Valuation 17:56 Navigating the Selling Process 23:35 Startup Strategies and Team Dynamics 29:47 Hiring in the Age of AI 35:55 Future of Unbroker and Closing Thoughts   Host: Jake Aaron Villarreal leads the top AI recruitment firm in Silicon Valley, www.matchrelevant.com, uncovering stories of funded startups and going behind the scenes to tell their founders' journeys. If you are growing an AI startup or have a great story to tell, email us at: jake.villarreal@matchrelevant.com

This Week In Startups is made possible by: Vanta https://www.vanta.com/twist Agree https://agree.com YSecurity https://YSecurity.io/TWIST   Today's show: Frontier AI models can ace PhD-level exams, but it's still bad at tracking down the product you want in the style that suits you. Onton's Zach Hudson tell us that the problem is that models are a black box. His solution? A neurosymbolic model, Ontology 1, that learns about your taste and preferred aesthetic over time, then produces product searches tailored specifically to you, rather than just using keywords and relevant tags. How do neurosymbolic models work, and how does Onton understand your prompts and favorite design trends? And why aren't the frontier labs working on neurosymbolic models of their own? Zach joins Jason and Lon to discuss. PLUS, following a record-smashing SpaceX IPO, Ashi Dissanayake of Spacium makes the case that the real bottleneck in space isn't launching rockets off the ground any more. It's refueling in orbit. Guests Zach Hudson on X: ****https://x.com/nosduhz Onton: https://onton.com/ Spacium: https://spaceium.com/ Spacium on X: https://x.com/SpaceiumInc Relevant Links Poolside's journey to AGI: https://poolside.ai/vision/purpose Startup Archive: Sam Altman on the Paul Graham advice that saved OpenAI: https://www.startuparchive.org/p/sam-altman-on-the-paul-graham-advice-that-saved-open-ai-always-make-an-api Kelly Wearstler: https://www.kellywearstler.com/ Ennis House: https://franklloydwright.org/site/ennis-house/ Los Feliz Living: Ennis House profile: https://www.losfelizliving.com/los-feliz-historic-homes/ennis-house-los-feliz-hcm-149 Indiewire: Ennis-inspired "The Studio" offices: https://www.indiewire.com/features/craft/the-studio-production-design-interview-seth-rogen-1235114365/ Monocle Magazine: https://monocle.com/ Spaceium on Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/spaceium-inc Orbit Fab's RAFTI: https://www.orbitfab.com/rafti/ James Webb Space Telescope: https://science.nasa.gov/mission/webb/ Houzz: https://www.houzz.com/ Timestamps: 0:00 Zach Hudson joins: What is "neurosymbolic search" 4:03 Ontology 1 isn't a black box 6:31 Who is using Onton? 9:36 Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://www.vanta.com/twist 11:35 Could neurosymbolic models reach AGI? 13:19 Jason loves Wright's Ennis House 17:03 The shape of AI companies is changing 19:28 Agree.com - Stop chasing invoices and automate your entire contract-to-cash stack. Go to https://agree.com and tell them Jason sent you to get 50% off for life! 22:32 UGC as a data moat 26:03 The Dead Internet Theory 28:13 Ashi Dissanayake of Spacium joins 29:52 YSecurity - The on-demand security team for startups. Need enterprise-grade security without hiring a $400k CISO? YSecurity gives you 40+ expert engineers, matched to exactly what you need, by the hour, with your first six hours completely free. Go to https://YSecurity.io/TWIST 31:50 Storables vs. cryogenics: the zero-boil-off breakthrough 34:11 All kinds of propulsion requires refueling 36:09 Getting more value from LEO to GEO 38:28 Moving at rocket speed 44:54 Why demand is so acute 49:37 The investing climate for space, post-SpaceX Subscribe to the TWiST500 newsletter: https://ticker.thisweekinstartups.com Check out the TWIST500: https://www.twist500.com Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp   Follow Lon: X: https://x.com/lons   Follow Jason: X: https://twitter.com/Jason LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis   Check out all our partner offers: https://partners.launch.co/   Great TWIST interviews: Will Guidara, Eoghan McCabe, Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Bob Moesta, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland   Check out Jason's suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis   Follow TWiST: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com

The best AI model in the world just scored 18.1%. On Zapier's own benchmark for real business work — the cross-app tasks any white-collar worker does every day — even the top frontier model completes them barely one time in five. That's the number Wade Foster keeps pointing at, and he runs an automation company that stands to gain from the hype. Instead, he makes the case for what actually works right now: not turning a model loose, but blending deterministic workflows with agents where each is strong.In this episode of Talking AI, Matt Paige sits down with Wade Foster, co-founder and CEO of Zapier, who built a scrappy Y Combinator startup into the $5 billion plumbing of the SaaS era on barely a million dollars raised. Foster called a company-wide “code red” the week GPT-4 launched, and he's spent the years since rewiring how Zapier — and its customers — actually use AI.The conversation covers why he shut the company down for a week in 2023, how AI habits actually stick, what Zapier's AutomationBench reveals about the gap between benchmark scores and real-world reliability, why coding models improve faster than knowledge-work models, how to tell a workflow from an agent, and the difference between individual AI and the institutional AI almost no company has cracked.In this episode, you'll hear about:The three things about GPT-4 that triggered Zapier's first-ever code redHow daily AI use jumped from 11% to over 50% in a single hackathon weekThe moves that make AI habits stick: show-and-tell, repeat hackathons, and “not yet”Why the best model on AutomationBench still scores only 18.1%Why coding is easy to verify — and subjective knowledge work isn'tThe power of hybrid setups that blend deterministic workflows with agentsWade's prediction: most tokens on open-source models, most spend on the frontierWhat actually makes a good eval — hard for models, easy for humans, private dataA plain-English definition of an “agent” versus a deterministic workflowThe daily recap workflow Wade thinks everyone is sleeping onFloor raisers vs. ceiling raisers — and why individual AI isn't enoughWhy the six-month product roadmap is deadKey Moments00:04:40 — Making AI habits stick: show-and-tell and repeat hackathons00:06:38 — Differentiation when AI is best at the thing you sell00:09:34 — AutomationBench: the best model scores just 18.1%00:11:31 — Why the top model stalls: verifiable code vs. subjective work00:14:19 — Getting squeezed on both sides: AI in the company and the product00:15:20 — Model efficiency, Coinbase, and the token-maxing debate00:17:18 — What makes a good eval00:19:30 — What actually counts as an “agent”00:23:12 — Iterating on workflows with your own mini-evals00:26:15 — The kind of worker thriving right now00:27:36 — Wade's favorite workflow: the daily recap00:30:44 — Floor raisers vs. ceiling raisers for AI adoption00:34:55 — From individual AI to institutional AI00:37:58 — Why the six-month roadmap is deadKey Links:ZapierConnect with Wade on LinkedInMentioned in this episode:AI Opportunity FinderFeeling overwhelmed by all the AI noise out there? The AI Opportunity Finder from HatchWorks cuts through the hype and gives you a clear starting point. In less than 5 minutes, you'll get tailored, high-impact AI use cases specific to your business—scored by ROI so you know exactly where to start. Whether you're looking to cut costs, automate tasks, or grow faster, this free tool gives you a personalized roadmap built for action.

On this episode of CoinDesk's Public Keys from the New York Stock Exchange, host Jennifer Sanasie is joined by Citizens' Devin Ryan to break down Securitize's first earnings report, its 26% selloff, and why he sees significant upside as tokenization grows. Pantera Capital General Partner Cosmo Jiang explains why AI and blockchain are converging, Solana's lead in AI agent activity, and the new S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index. Plus, a look at Bitcoin and Ethereum ETF flows and Robinhood's new fund giving retail investors access to early-stage Y Combinator startups. - Learn more at bullish.com. - Register now for CoinDesk's Policy and Regulation event on September 22, 2026: policy-regulation.coindesk.com. - To get market moving news delivered daily, download CoinDesk's mobile app: linktr.ee/coindeskapp. - Chapters/Timecodes: 00:00 Welcome to Public Keys 00:29 Securitize Stumbles in First Public Earnings Report 00:50 Citizens' Devin Ryan Joins Public Keys 02:07 From Speculation to Real Blockchain Usage 03:52 Securitize's 26% Selloff and a $15 Price Target 05:29 The Bull and Bear Case for SECZ 06:47 Will the SEC and CFTC Fill the Regulatory Gap? 09:58 What to Watch: BlackRock and Tokenized AUM 12:18 Bitcoin ETFs Post $390M in Weekly Outflows 12:46 13F Filings: Harvard Holds, JPMorgan and Tudor Add 13:06 Ethereum ETFs Snap Five-Week Inflow Streak 13:42 Pantera's Cosmo Jiang on the Market Outlook 16:59 Bitcoin's 42% Discount vs. AI Stocks' Premium 18:26 Blockchain and the Agentic Economy 20:17 Why Solana Leads on AI Agent Activity 21:15 Inside the S&P Pantera Digital Asset Index 25:07 Robinhood Ventures Fund II Debuts on NYSE 26:03 The Risk and Reward of Early-Stage Investing 28:32 How Daily Liquidity for Private Assets Works 30:38 Robinhood Chain, Tokenization and Yield 32:48 Crypto Fear & Greed Index at 31

Keach Hagey: Keach Hagey, author of The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future, explores the rise of Sam Altman and the founding of OpenAI, which launched in 2015 as a nonprofit research lab aimed at developing artificial general intelligence safely. Altman partnered with Greg Brockman and lead scientist Ilya Sutskever, securing initial billion-dollar commitments from major players such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. The narrative follows Altman's trajectory from a brilliant student at John Burroughs School to a Stanford dropout who founded the startup Loopt. Though Loopt was considered a relative failure, Altman's charismatic storytelling and investment prowess eventually led him to succeed Paul Graham as president of Y Combinator. As OpenAI's needs for computational power grew, the organization transitioned into a complex for-profit structure, leading to a power struggle that saw Musk depart. The account highlights a pivotal 2023 crisis in which the board fired Altman over concerns regarding his transparency, only for him to be reinstated after a massive staff revolt. Throughout, the book balances Altman's unwavering optimism for the future against stark warnings from AI godfathers about the potential existential risks of unaligned artificial intelligence. (1)

Robinhood CFO and Robinhood Ventures President Shiv Verma joins CoinDesk's Jennifer Sanasie from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on the day Robinhood Ventures Fund II began trading. Verma breaks down how the fund gives everyday investors access to early-stage Y Combinator companies at the ground floor. - Timecodes: 00:00 Robinhood Ventures Fund II Begins Trading on NYSE 00:42 Partnering With Y Combinator for Startup Access 01:11 How Robinhood Values Private Companies Using SAFEs 02:25 Fee Structure, Daily Liquidity, and No Accreditation Required 04:16 Why the Best Companies Are Staying Private Longer 06:13 Robinhood Chain, Tokenization, and the Next Bull Cycle

Anish Acharya is joined by Garry Tan, President and CEO of Y Combinator, for a conversation about how AI is rewriting the startup playbook, why founders should be more ambitious than ever, and what two decades of Silicon Valley booms, busts, and missed opportunities have taught Garry about building what's next. Garry reflects on turning down an early opportunity to join Palantir, why chasing what's "hot" is often the wrong strategy, and why the best ideas tend to begin with people pursuing strange, earnest obsessions outside the mainstream. They also explore how AI changes the economics of company building, why traditional SaaS may be losing its advantage, and how tiny teams equipped with hundreds of agents can build businesses at a scale that once required entire organizations. The conversation goes deeper into agentic companies, taste and agency, why "a markdown file is an employee," and how AI could remove layers of bureaucracy that have historically limited organizations. Garry and Anish also discuss the future of consumer AI, the coming "harness wars," why AI adoption may take longer than Silicon Valley expects, and what the next generation of founders can build with intelligence that was unimaginable just a few years ago.   Resources: Follow Garry Tan on X: https://x.com/garrytan Follow Anish Acharya on X: https://x.com/illscience Follow Y Combinator on X: https://x.com/ycombinator Stay Updated:Find a16z on YouTube: YouTubeFind a16z on XFind a16z on LinkedInListen to the a16z Show on SpotifyListen to the a16z Show on Apple PodcastsFollow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Airbnb stock had its best day ever Friday… because of car rentals, luggage storage, & Gigagedon.Robinhood is IPO-ing a VC fund with Y Combinator companies… it's super seedy (in a good way).Boxed wine sales rose 144% in the last 12 months… Luxury labels are slapping-the-bag.Plus, LinkedIn wants you to snitch on your buddies using AI… it's an Anti-Slop Button.$ABNB $HOOD $STZGrab your Tickets to the IPO Tour: Our In-Person OfferingSan Francisco 9/23: https://www.ticketmaster.com/event/1C0064AFB5F688BDBoston 10/14: https://tickets.citywinery.com/event/tboy-the-ipo-tour-in-person-offering-8cdhupSeattle 11/4 (21+): https://www.axs.com/events/1446394/the-best-one-yet-ticketsNEWSLETTER:https://tboypod.com/newsletter OUR 2ND SHOW:Want more business storytelling from us? Check our weekly deepdive show, The Best Idea Yet: The untold origin story of the products you're obsessed with. Listen for free to The Best Idea Yet: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/NEW LISTENERSFill out our 2 minute survey: https://qualtricsxm88y5r986q.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_dp1FDYiJgt6lHy6GET ON THE POD: Submit a shoutout or fact: https://tboypod.com/shoutouts SOCIALS:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tboypod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@tboypodYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tboypod Linkedin (Nick): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicolas-martell/Linkedin (Jack): https://www.linkedin.com/in/jack-crivici-kramer/Anything else: https://tboypod.com/ About Us: The daily pop-biz news show making today's top stories your business. Formerly known as Robinhood Snacks, The Best One Yet is hosted by Jack Crivici-Kramer & Nick Martell. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tickets for our live show in New York are now on sale! Get yours here. Garry Tan is the President and CEO of Y Combinator, a tech incubator that invests millions of dollars into new startups every year. Garry describes himself as “AI-pilled,” saying that he's seen first-hand how the technology is transforming what startups can build. Ryan Knutson interviews Tan about how he remains optimistic despite AI's risks, how AI is impacting the workforce and how we should all be having more parties. Further Listening: - The Vanishing of an Anti-AI Activist - Chinese AI Is Spooking Silicon Valley  Sign up for WSJ's free What's News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episode 439 of The VentureFizz Podcast features Ben Katz, CEO & Co-Founder of HYBRD. Did you know that Y Combinator originated right here in Boston back in 2005? It was a legendary cohort with names like Sam Altman, Alexis Ohanian (yes, Reddit started in Boston), and Justin Kan all working on startups in Cambridge for the summer. While the accelerator decided to keep the program exclusive to Silicon Valley long ago, Ben Katz and his team at HYBRD are proving that Boston founders can still break through YC's ultra-competitive admissions process and leverage that momentum, learnings, and network to build a high-growth startup in Boston. Ben is a WHOOP alum and a lifelong athlete who realized that existing fitness apps were limited and didn't tell the full picture. To solve this, he co-founded HYBRD, an AI-powered fitness coach that integrates with your wearable devices and apps like Apple, WHOOP, Garmin, and many others. It takes the data from all these sources to create personalized, adaptive training plans that automatically adjust around your life, recovery, and daily schedule. In this episode, we cover: 00:00 Introduction to Ben Katz and HYBRD 03:35 Quick Details on HYBRD 04:43 Applying and Getting into Y Combinator 09:25 What the YC Experience Was Like 11:47 Ben's Background & Early Career 16:54 Working at WHOOP 17:45 Building Fitness Apps at Appex 20:22 The Founding Story of HYBRD 24:28 How HYBRD is Different in the Fitness Category 26:56 Boston's Fitness Tech Ecosystem 28:45 All the Details about HYBRD & How it Works 33:28 HYBRD's Acquisition Strategy 37:05 HYBRD Funding Details 38:07 Details on the HYBRD Team 38:47 Advice for Building a Consumer Company 39:45 What Makes a Great Product Manager 40:47 The Importance of Building a Personal Brand & Voice 44:09 Ben's LinkedIn Strategy 44:45 Building in Boston vs. San Francisco 47:42 Favorite Apps and Recommendations 48:32 Book / Podcast Recommendations 50:26 Hobbies Outside of Work

Send us Fan MailJoin hosts Ben Kornell and Alex Sarlin as they break down the biggest stories shaping AI, edtech investment, philanthropy, the future of work, and AI-powered learning.✨ Episode Highlights:[00:02:33] Bridges AI Summit brings district leaders together to discuss AI adoption, pilots, and edtech purchasing[00:05:19] Imagi raises $4.5M with backing from OpenAI, Lovable, Will.i.am, Kahoot!, and ElevenLabs[00:09:18] AI, cross-sector platforms, and portfolio consolidation drive edtech investment trends[00:10:40] Gates Foundation leadership shakeup signals a new chapter for education philanthropy[00:15:45] Gates Foundation and the future of philanthropy in an era of AI wealth[00:20:30] OpenAI report explores how AI is expanding workers' roles beyond traditional job boundaries[00:21:00] OpenAI launches a campus leaders program to build student communities around AI tools[00:31:00] Y Combinator calls for startups building personalized AI tutors[00:37:35] Coursera invests $100M in a new AI-native learning company founded by Andrew Ng[00:41:15] Time's top edtech companies list sparks debate over how the industry is rankedPlus, special guests:[00:44:39] Kavitta Ghai, CEO and Co-founder of Nectir, on AI in higher ed and K–12, student outcomes, and privacy[01:00:13] Aidan McDowell, Founder and CEO of UniqLearn, on personalized learning, career exploration, and student curiosity

Victor Penev, Founder and CEO of Edamam LLC, is on a mission to help people make healthier food choices by organizing the world’s food knowledge, while building a Zero-Spend Marketing Engine that fuels sustainable growth through a proprietary semantic food database. By combining food science, nutrition expertise, and AI-powered technology, Victor has built Edamam into a trusted food intelligence platform that enables businesses to develop innovative health, wellness, and nutrition applications while making reliable food data accessible at scale. In this conversation, Victor introduces The Democratic Decisions Framework—No Pre-Judgement, Freedom to Speak Up, Intellectual Environment, Robust Discussion, and Work Towards Consensus. He explains why removing preconceived opinions encourages better ideas, how open dialogue and diverse perspectives lead to stronger decisions, and why working toward consensus builds lasting commitment across teams. Victor also shares how partnerships, referrals, and search authority fueled Edamam’s sustainable growth, and why proprietary data and continuous human refinement remain the company’s competitive advantage in the age of AI. — Zero-Spend Marketing Engine with Victor Penev  Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. Today, my guest is Victor Penev, the Founder and CEO of Edamam LLC. Edamam is helping people eat better by making daily food choices simple and easy, eventually organizing all the food knowledge in the world. To that end, the company has built a proprietary semantic food knowledge base and is creating, on top of it, a range of consumer and business applications to solve real-world, everyday problems. Wow. Victor, welcome to the show.  Thank you. Good to be here. I’m very excited.  So I was shocked to learn that you’ve got 900,000 foods in the system and 2.3 million recipes. I mean, I don’t know who is even able to create so many recipes. So how did that whole thing come about? How did you come up with this idea? Are you a foodie?  I am a foodie. Yeah, that’s kind of the origin story. I’m a serial entrepreneur. I’ve done a few startups. I had a successful exit about 15 years ago. A friend of mine and I built Bulgaria’s largest internet company. Then I started looking for what to do next. I was actually going to start a news organization, but then I realized one day, on a beach in Thailand, that I think about food five hours a day, and I cook every day.  So I might as well do something around food that helps people. I married my passion for food with my passion for technology and built a company.Share on X The problem we set out to solve back then is still a very valid problem. People need the right information, just in time, to make the right food choices. The data is always inconsistent, incomplete, and lacking. So we set out to organize the world’s food knowledge so we can help people make the right food choices.  Wow, this is fascinating. So what is your personal ‘Why’ that you’re manifesting in this business?  So, in terms of philosophy—and my philosophy changes. Everybody’s personal philosophy changes over time. But where I am right now, I think there are a couple of things that really matter if you want to live what one would call the good life—a meaningful life. One is to be really present in the moment. You know, be here now. The other is to help people. I think my business falls into…Share on X For us, the measure of success is not revenue or profit.  It’s how many people we ultimately reach through our data. It’s worth noting that we’re a business-to-business company, so we don’t reach people directly. But we have partnerships with companies like Nestlé, Microsoft, Amazon, and Food Network. Through those partnerships, we think we reach at least a billion people. For us, that’s the real measure of success.  Helping everybody eat better and live longer, healthier lives. My vision is that everybody can live to 120 without chronic illness or mental conditions. A big part of that is food. So we're trying to help people. That's my 'Why'.Share on X  Yeah, I love it. Obviously, eating healthy is a big thing. You know, garbage in, garbage out. This is fascinating. Do you find that certain cultures have better eating habits than others? And what drives it?  I think history and geography, to some extent. Everybody knows about the Mediterranean diet. And it’s not only the countries around the Mediterranean. Vietnamese and Japanese cuisine are Mediterranean in the composition of the food. A lot of it comes from being close to water, living in a certain climate, and having a huge variety of fruits, vegetables, and fish. But I think the biggest change over the last hundred years hasn’t been culture. It’s been technology—quote-unquote—and the processing of food so it’s shelf-stable, can be shipped, and sold at a lower price.  I think that’s the biggest problem. It’s changing eating habits everywhere in the world. It’s very well known in the United States and, to some extent, in Western Europe. But even places like Japan are starting to eat a lot more processed food. Mexico is starting to eat a lot more processed food. This is more technology-driven than anything else. If I had to say one thing that would help people, it would be this: Go back to your roots. Get food directly from the soil. Cook it at home. It's a question of time and effort, but if you value your health, that's one of the best investments you…Share on X  Yeah, as we’re getting busier and busier, the opportunity cost of cooking our own meals is becoming higher. And that’s the real problem.  It is a problem. I mean, it’s a question of priority. I cook every day. I’m very busy, but for me, it’s an important enough thing. Food, apart from nourishment and nutrition, is also a very social thing. People connect through food and spend time together, and that’s another thing that correlates very well with longevity and a well-lived life. So there’s a lot more to be said about having good food.  Yeah, I think Woody Allen said in one of his movies that eating together is the second sexiest thing to do, or something like that.  Yeah, there you go. I’m not going to ask what the first one is.  Yeah. That’s awesome. So let’s talk about frameworks. This podcast is all about frameworks. What’s a framework that you’ve discovered along the way that helps you think about your business, create outcomes in your business, help other people be productive, or whatever it is that’s driving results in your business?  A couple of things come to mind. I’ll start with the non-obvious one. Some people speak about it, but I’ve practiced it, and I think going slow gets you further. You know, the hare and the tortoise. I am definitely against growth for growth’s sake. That drives a lot of decisions: who you raise money from, how you run your business, and so on. Over the years—and I’ve been an entrepreneur for probably close to 40 years—I’ve discovered that every successful product has its timing and its soul.  You just have to let it come to fruition. Sometimes that means slowing down instead of rushing forward. For me, being deliberate about the end goal without having time constraints is a framework that’s always helped me. It’s not for everyone. Definitely not for the modern world, where VC money is trying to get you to grow very fast, and everybody competes based on how fast their revenue or customer base has grown.  But I find that this does not lead to lasting results in terms of impacting humanity and having a meaningful life—both for yourself and for everybody in the company. So that’s one framework. The other, which is also very simple, though not too many people execute it, is just: treat people like people. This means there’s no hierarchy in my company. I’m super proud to say that in my last company, I never had an employee leave. And that was over 15 years.  It’s because I treat people as people. Going back to the Latin origin of the word companion, companio, which means “to break bread together.” We are a band of people breaking bread together on a journey. That’s how it works. That means doing things that are not intuitive in business. For example, having no advance notice requirement for vacations. If you want to take a vacation, take it now. Giving responsibility to people and treating them well. Those are the two frameworks that I think have helped me. In addition, making decisions democratically, which is a very contentious thing in business. Okay.  So how do you do that?  There is always, ultimately, an arbiter, which is oftentimes me or some kind of board. But that means having a robust discussion around a topic without preconceived notions of what the end decision or result should be. Creating a culture where everybody can speak up, argue, and tell you they disagree with you. Having that freedom creates an intellectual environment where people really debate.Share on X  At the end, more often than not, the obvious decision emerges. It takes a long time, but the reality is that once a decision is made, everybody has bought into it, and it’s usually the right decision. So I don’t make wrong turns. Now, there are times when it’s a coin flip. There are two equally good—or equally bad—options, and somebody has to make the call. Then it falls to me. But for the most part, it’s democratic decision-making.  So how do you cultivate that? How do you foster it? How do you make sure people contribute to it?  I’ve had the luxury of starting a company from scratch. It’s a lot easier to do when you start from scratch because you establish the culture with the first hire. It’s a lot harder to change a culture and instill new values. For me, it's been a very deliberate choice about what I want the company to be. People working together toward a common goal. People who don't get overworked. People who always have something exciting to do and an amazing group of people to work…Share on X  So it’s about hiring people who are reliable, self-sufficient, and want to move things forward. Then really showing that any conversation and any intellectual argument is absolutely allowed. There is no hierarchy where you can say something and I’ll just shut you down because I’m the boss. You have to demonstrate that in practice. You have to actively solicit everything a person has to say. After the first couple of hires, it becomes easier with the next ones because they see what’s going on. That’s how you do it. It’s a deliberate choice to build the culture through day-to-day interactions. There’s no easier way, unfortunately.  So how scalable is this flat, democratic culture? Does it impact scalability in any way?  It is scalable. My current company is small, but my previous company had about 150 people. Even when we sold the company and had to find a replacement CEO, the candidates had about 50 interviews each. At the end, the whole company voted on who the CEO would be. It is scalable. It slows down the decision-making process, but it speeds up the progress of the company.  An individual, even the smartest individual, is more likely to make mistakes than the crowd. Now, there are exceptions. I’m pretty sure Steve Jobs would have done it differently. But for the most part, I think people make fewer errors through a democratic process than by making decisions on their own. So yes, I think it’s scalable. It’s really a matter of deciding which decisions belong at which level. You don’t have the entire company of, say, 10,000 people voting on one thing. For a particular problem, there might be 10 people who are the relevant decision-makers. They get together and sort it out, and everybody else accepts what those people decide.  So it’s more of an approach to tapping into the minds of the people who can potentially bring diverse opinions.  Yeah. Diversity of opinion. They all have a different angle from which to look at the issue that needs to be resolved. So different angles. Because they’re all impacted, everybody can contribute. There’s respect in listening to everybody else. It’s not that one person establishes the ground truth and everybody else has to agree. There is actual debate.  Yeah. Interesting. By the way, I just want to comment on this bootstrapping aspect. I saw your post on bootstrapping. You spoke at a recent conference on it. So what are your thoughts on bootstrapping? What are the critical ingredients there?  So bootstrapping is the way business has been run for a very long time. It’s only recently—in historical terms—that the venture capital industry emerged and allowed businesses the luxury of building without thinking too much about the bottom line. But I think the disciplining effect of constantly thinking about the bottom line is super important. To some extent, it takes a certain kind of individual to do it, which I call the true entrepreneur. Those are the people who are risk-takers and can live with a very high degree of ambiguity.  When you don’t have money in the bank to cover next month’s expenses, you have to be comfortable with that. To me, that’s the right entrepreneur. It has become too easy for people to become “entrepreneurs” by raising tens of millions of dollars. That’s not to say they might not be brilliant people who execute very well and create amazing companies. I think those are probably one in a thousand. The majority get the money, spend it in two years, and they’re gone. So for me, bootstrapping is the proof in the pudding. If you do it day in and day out and keep moving forward, you're actually building something that's valuable.Share on X  Yeah, I agree. Some people say it’s akin to being an employee when you raise money and just have to get to the next fundraising round, and then the next fundraising round. It’s almost like executing the business plan your board has given you.  Exactly.  Worst case, you go take a job somewhere else if things don’t work out. But you’re not losing your livelihood, and your family isn’t going to starve, right?  It is a certain type of personality, and I don’t think it’s for everyone. But my personal belief is that if you’re going to build a business, you’re better off building it with a little bit of hunger. Not always having enough. Having just enough so you can keep moving forward.  Yeah. Necessity is the mother of invention, right? If you don’t have too many resources, that’s a constraint you can push against and come up with better ideas. It’s a forcing function.  Correct.  There you go. So, Victor, what drives growth in your business?  Like I said, I’m not pro-growth per se. This was also a deliberate choice for the company. Just as a parenthesis, the last business I ran before this was a media business. We sold advertising. I personally don’t believe that spending money on advertising is a good idea. So I built a business with the explicit desire not to spend any money on marketing. That meant I had to build mechanisms for referrals, inbound traffic, and so on.  A lot of our early customers—including companies like The New York Times and Food Network—received very high discounts, but with the requirement to display “Powered by Edamam,” linking back to us. Search engines like that. It builds authority and so on. Over the years, we’ve built enough authority that most of our traffic now comes from search engines and chatbots. That’s what’s driving our growth.  The other thing is that we try to stay nimble. We build technological assets and products, but the market changes. Who needs the data? For what use cases? It’s important to stay aware of the market and adjust to wherever the opportunity is. That’s how I’ve built the business. I’ve built it to generate lots of inbound traffic and then adjust very quickly if the market changes. The rest is we’re almost like a spider waiting for the flies to come in.  So you say you’re not pro-growth. Do you mean you don’t want to make this a bigger company?  No. I’m not for growth just for the sake of growth. Let’s grow 300% this year in top-line revenue. For me, as I said, what drives the business is how many people we reach with our data. That’s the metric I’d like to grow as much as possible. If possible, I’d like to reach every person on the planet. That’s the aspiration. When I say I’m not for growth, I mean that  sometimes growth becomes its own incentive. You grow without asking, “What’s the ultimate goal here?” Why do you have to grow?  Oftentimes, the answer is because you want to sell the company at a big profit. That’s why VCs put money into your company. You’re feeding the VC business model. But if you’re not feeding the VC business model, why do you have to grow the company? What’s the point? You may have investors, but you have patient capital, and they’re aligned with you. Eventually they’ll get their money back, but it doesn’t have to come at the expense of the company’s mission. When I talk about growth, I mean the pressure to constantly grow top-line revenue, which has become very popular over the last couple of decades.  So when you say you eventually want to organize all the food knowledge in the world, it sounds a little like Google organizing the world’s information—just for food. Isn’t that a big vision that requires growth?  No. Again, I don’t think growth is necessary to execute that vision. I think you can organize the world’s food knowledge, and we’re already well along the way. There’s always more to do. Even with very limited resources, we’ve been able to do it. I think that having more customers and more revenue would probably help, but only on the margin. It’s not a prerequisite.  The prerequisite is having the right technology and the right setup to constantly ingest new information about food, pass it through our pipeline, clean it, verify it’s accurate, structure it, organize it, and link it to other data. Food is a relatively limited universe. You started by asking whether people really create 2.3 million recipes. There are only so many ways to combine food items into something people eat. So it’s a limited universe. What’s exciting is the depth of food.  There are macronutrients, micronutrients, allergies, diets—we all know about those. But there’s much more. There are many more molecules in food. Eventually, even the soil it was grown in and the amount of sun exposure could become valuable data. There’s always more work to do, but we focus on what’s actually doable right now.  So do you envisage that the growth of technology, especially AI, means you can keep the company the same size as it is and accomplish your ultimate mission?  I think so. Similar size. To some extent, AI is helping us because it’s bringing a lot more customers. People are building all kinds of applications with large language models and agents, and they need accurate, deep data, so they come to us. We are also using AI to build tools and meet the demand, so our engineers are becoming more effective. So, to some extent, that helps keep the team small.  That being said, in terms of the speed with which AI moves, it’d be nice to have a few extra people. That doesn’t mean doubling the size of the company. I think it’s probably having 20 to 30% more people would be sufficient to actually leverage the technology—which is AI—to the best effect. So that’s kind of my view now. Ask me in two months, I may have a different view.  So what is one thing that you’re actively trying to figure out in this business right now?  Well, AI is throwing a wrench into everything, so it is a very fast-moving environment. Our clients are constantly changing their demands. The profile of our clients is changing. There’s a lot more new health, wellness, prevention, and weight-loss companies that are showing up and starting because they can now build with AI. So all of that makes for a very choppy sea. We can’t figure out exactly where the wind is blowing from and where we should head.  So for me, it’s kind of like having the North Star of, “Okay, we are a data company. We leverage our data asset, and we just keep doing that. Then we’ll innovate on the technologies that we need to offer, but stay there, as opposed to trying to change what the company does.” That’s kind of what’s keeping me steady. But again, it’s a very choppy sea, so I don’t know what’s going to happen. One big worry is whether Anthropic or OpenAI are eventually going to replicate everything that we’ve done. I don’t know. I don’t think so. But artificial superintelligence is something that nobody knows about.  Yeah. So the technology evolves very fast. So how do you avoid being commoditized by AI? I think the data—our moat is the data, right? It’s taken us so much time to actually clean, organize, and structure the data, and that’s not a process you can do easily just by throwing people or AI at it. We’ve used what used to be called AI since the beginning of the company: machine learning, natural language processing, and so on. Now we use generative AI. But we’ve used that, plus super-smart engineers, food experts, nutritionists, and week in, week out, we’ve been improving the data, improving the algorithms, refining it, and so on. That is not something you can just throw resources at.  It requires that constant iteration between humans and technology in order to get there. So for us, I think that’s an important moat because if somebody wants to build it and commoditize us, they’ll have to replicate that. I think the more likely scenario is they may end up buying us. Like I said, artificial superintelligence could be a completely different ballgame. But with the technology that exists right now, with large language models, I don’t think that’s replicable. We know it because enough people have tried.  Yeah. Would you be okay with someone buying you? Is this your…  Sure.  Yeah?  Yeah. The way I think of companies is the following. They’re like children. At some point, children become 18-year-olds. They can earn their own bread. They can walk on their own two feet. You kind of have to let them go. I think this company has gotten to that stage. It’s a teenager that can walk on its own. It doesn’t need me. And I have ideas for 10 more businesses. Who knows? If I’m healthy, I think I could probably build another four or five businesses in the next 40 or 50 years. Why not?  Yeah. I love it. So who do you want to connect with you, go on your website, check things out, and what’s the best way to engage with what Edamam is doing?  Two categories of people or entities. One is companies that are building something around diet management, nutrition, health, or food. I think they’ll find that we have valuable resources that can speed up whatever they’re developing. So that’s one category. The other is like-minded individuals. They could be investors, but they could also just be people who really care about healthy eating and the prosperity of humanity.  Those are the types of people I’d like to talk to because aligned minds often come up with new ideas. It’s kind of the Y Combinator thing—lateral thinking. If we have an aligned goal and we come from different fields, we may come up with something new.  Okay. So that’s a way for you to find people worth brainstorming with, I guess, who have the same ideas: healthy eating, helping people live longer—to 120 years. And other companies that could be using the data you’re processing and organizing. So if you’re out there and you’re in the food business or the healthy living business, then definitely pay attention.  Check out Edamam LLC‘s website. Talk to Victor Penev on LinkedIn. So, Victor, thank you for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom. And if you enjoyed this conversation, stay tuned because we have wonderful entrepreneurs like Victor every week. Anything else, Victor, you want to share? Any famous last words?  Yeah. I just want to say thank you. I appreciate the opportunity. Keep up the good work. I really enjoyed the conversation.  Thank you, Victor. And thanks for listening. Important Links: Victor's LinkedIn Victor's  website

Sponsored by Blocks: Save at least 20% on your AWS costs with AI-powered optimization and enterprise discounts. Get your free Cloud Check at https://blocks.cloud/alphalist?utm_source=alphalist&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=blocks-podcast-2026 Aike Hillbrands co-founded and killed two companies before Kombo, now a Y Combinator-backed HR integration platform with $10M+ ARR and a $25M Series A. Along the way, his team built something almost by accident: a company-wide AI brain made of a GitHub repo, a Cursor agent, and a Slack channel, built in two hours, that replaced how the whole company gets answers. In this episode, Aike explains why files and grep beat MCP tools and vector search for agent reliability, walks through Simon Willison's "lethal trifecta" of AI security risks and how a public Slack channel acts as a guardrail against it, and makes the case for why AI won't commoditize enterprise HR integrations anytime soon, despite that being Kombo's own bet. Topics covered: - How Kombo went from Notion AI to a Git-based company brain - Why files and grep beat MCP tools and vector search for agent reliability - The architecture: per-customer summary files, cross-linked support tickets, BigQuery CLI, Slack integration - Simon Willison's "lethal trifecta" and practical mitigations - Why a public Slack channel works as a security guardrail - The buy-vs-build question for internal AI tooling - Why enterprise HR API integrations resist commoditization by AI

YC's Nemil Dalal joins to explain why he's never been more bullish as BitMEX winds down after 11 years, whether every failed crypto idea (TCRs, DAOs, creator coins) eventually works, why crypto is really about money, Base's consumer mea culpa, on-chain reputation and credit, and who pays in the x402 AI-agent era. Welcome to The Chopping Block – where crypto insiders Haseeb Qureshi, Tom Schmidt, Tarun Chitra, and Robert Leshner chop it up about the latest in crypto. This week they're joined by Nemil Dalal, Visiting Partner at Y Combinator and ex-Coinbase, where he led USDC and the Coinbase Developer Platform. He's here to explain why, with exchanges winding down left and right, he's somehow never been more bullish. The crew digs into the great contrast of the moment: BitMEX shutting down after 11 years (plus BitMart, Movement Labs, Balancer Labs) while the plumbing quietly prints, and whether Imran's viral 'everything that failed will eventually work' thesis is genius or toxic positivity. From there it's the question of whether crypto is really only about money (Jesse's Base mea culpa included), a war-memories tour through TCRs, on-chain reputation and why pure on-chain credit keeps faceplanting, and finally who actually pays in the x402 AI-agent era, and whether decentralization even survives contact with Google-shaped gravity. Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pods, Fountain, Podcast Addict, Pocket Casts, Amazon Music, or on your favorite podcast platform. Show highlights

How do you turn degraded farmland into an investable climate asset? Living Carbon has raised $76M in equity and unlocked $500M in project finance by combining reforestation, biomass, and long-term infrastructure thinking.Living Carbon restores degraded agricultural and mine lands through reforestation while developing biomass supply chains for industrial customers..Maddie Hall is the co-founder and CEO of Living Carbon. Before launching the company, she worked at OpenAI and Y Combinator.How to unlock project finance for climate startups — Why demonstrating repeatable execution, securing blue-chip customers, and reducing underwriting risk enabled Living Carbon to raise $500M beyond traditional venture capital.Why degraded land beats pristine forests — How abandoned farmland and former mine sites create stronger economics, lower land costs, and higher carbon additionality while avoiding competition with food production.Building two businesses within one company — Why Living Carbon separates its carbon credit business from its biomass platform, generating multiple revenue streams without relying entirely on voluntary carbon markets.Ignoring carbon market hype — Why Maddie focuses on building a business that will still matter in 2030 instead of chasing today's policy changes, pricing swings, or investor excitement.Leadership lessons from scaling startups — Why founders should catastrophize less, become comfortable with rejection, stop optimizing for being liked, and build routines that support long-term resilience.--1️⃣ Join our confidential CEO community.Private CEO group for VC/PE-backed climate tech founders navigating capital, strategy, and scale. Capped at 45 CEOs. → entrepreneursforimpact.com2️⃣ Join 40,000 professionals who get our newsletter.Climate tech finance, strategy, leadership. 2-min read. → entrepreneursforimpact.substack.com3️⃣ Leave a podcast review.If you got value, take 30 seconds and do the community a favor. It helps push more capital and talent toward scalable climate solutions.

As chief technology officer at Casetext, Ryan Walker helped build CoCounsel, one of the first and most consequential generative AI legal assistants — a product so significant it led to the company's $650 million acquisition by Thomson Reuters. But Walker came away unsatisfied. Although the legal tech tools kept getting better, he believed, clients were seeing no benefit. Billing rates kept climbing and the efficiency gains never reached them. That spurred him to pivot from building products to forming a practice — General Legal, an AI-native law firm he cofounded and leads as CEO, built on the premise that the fastest path to transforming legal services is not retrofitting AI onto traditional firms, but rebuilding the law firm from the ground up on an AI-forward foundation. Just six months out of Y Combinator, the firm has some 400 clients, a newly launched venture financing practice, and, in what may be a first for a law firm, an MCP server that lets clients' AI agents engage the firm directly. In this episode of LawNext, Walker — not a lawyer but a PhD mathematician — tells host Bob Ambrogi why he believes AI can now automate 95% of routine legal work, how the management services organization structure allows an investable technology company to operate alongside a law firm, and why an AI-native firm paradoxically depends on hiring highly experienced lawyers rather than supercharging junior ones. He also explains the "second brain" approach that lets the firm's work product reflect each client's strategy, what earlier failed innovators like Atrium and Clearspire got wrong, and why he thinks the real reckoning will come when major clients simply refuse to pay for work AI can do. Walker cofounded the firm along with two other Casetext colleagues, Javed Qadrud-Din, who was head of AI at Casetext and is now General Legal's chief technology officer, and J.P. Mohler, who was an LLM engineer at Casetext and is now chief product officer and managing partner. Their ultimate ambition, Walker says, is to make General Legal the biggest provider of legal services in the world and, along the way, to break the scarcity model that keeps legal help out of reach for the people and companies who need it.   Thank You To Our Sponsors This episode of LawNext is generously made possible by our sponsors. We appreciate their support and hope you will check them out. Paradigm, home to the practice management platforms PracticePanther, Bill4Time, MerusCase and LollyLaw; the e-payments platform Headnote; and the legal accounting software TrustBooks. Briefpoint, eliminating routine discovery response and request drafting tasks so you can focus on drafting what matters (or just make it home for dinner). CosmoLex, helping law firms manage their entire practice in one platform, from intake to payment. Try it free. Ajax, the AI timekeeper lawyers want to use.   If you enjoy listening to LawNext, please leave us a review wherever you listen to podcasts.  

Stanford, Loopt, and Y Combinator. Guest Author: Keach Hagey. Altman's career accelerated at Stanford, where he dropped out to co-found Loopt, a pioneering location-tracking startup. Although Loopt achieved visibility—including a famous appearance at an Apple event alongside Steve Jobs—it was financially a disappointment, selling for parts after the 2008 crisis. Following a period of global "backpacking" and self-reflection, Altman discovered his "superpower" in investing, mentored by Peter Thiel. By 2014, he became the president of Y Combinator, overseeing massive successes like Airbnb and Stripe. Influenced by a visit to SpaceX, Altman adopted Elon Musk's "missionary" approach, viewing startups as world-changing missions rather than mere businesses. During this time, he also championed radical social concepts like Georgism and Universal Basic Income (UBI), writing extensively on how mass AI equity could eventually be shared to restructure society. 3JANUARY 1941