The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
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20VC: Scott Galloway on Are Billionaires Happy & The Impact of Money on Psychology and Self-Worth | Becoming a Better Father & Husband | Why We Should Drink More and Not Work From Home | The Tinder Effect & How it Makes Young Men Radical
7 juli 2025 · 1 uur 11 min
Scott Galloway is a Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern, where he's taught for over two decades. He's the founder of several successful companies, including L2 (acquired by Gartner for over $150M), Red Envelope, and Prophet. He's a New York Times bestselling author of four books on business and tech, and co-hosts the award-winning Pivot podcast. Galloway also serves on the boards of The New York Times Company and Panera, and his public talks have been viewed tens of millions of times globally. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
02:00 – How to Win in a New Economy of AI
06:00 – Should We Break Up Big Tech?
08:00 – Why Young People Have a Right to Be Angry?
11:00 – Why the Tax Code Is Rigged Against the Young
13:00 – Tax Changes That Would Make Young People Rich Again
17:00 – The Tinder Effect: Why Men Are Angry
20:00 – The Loneliness Epidemic in Men
23:00 – Remote Work & The Case for Alcohol
26:00 – Why Richer Families are Happier Families
30:00 – The Truth About Kids and Career
34:00 – Are Billionaires Happy?
38:00 – Becoming a Better Son, Father, Partner
46:00 – Behind the Persona: Who Scott Galloway Really Is
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20VC: Figma's IPO: The Full Breakdown | Index Returns $3.5BN on Two Deals | Why Melio's $2.5BN Acquisition is "Discouraging" | Asana's New CEO and the Great Founder Exodus | Oracle's $30BN AI Deal and What it Means for Incumbents
3 juli 2025 · 1 uur 11 min
AGENDA: Lees meer
00:00 – $400B in AI CapEx: Rational Investment or Madness?
05:00 – Figma's IPO: Rule of 80, $1.5B in cash, 40% margins. Unreal.
08:00 – Adobe Screwed the Deal—Should They Have Just Bought Canva?
16:00 – Pay-to-Play Deals: Heroic Hail Mary or Guaranteed Write-Off?
21:30 – How Index Is Returning $3.5B on 2 Deals
24:00 – Melio's $2.5B Exit: Insane Growth… So Why Did They Sell?!
35:00 – Massive Penthouses and the Death of Focus: AI Founders Beware
39:00 – Chime, Anthropic, Menlo & The Art of Selling LPs the Future
41:00 – Couchbase Acquired: PE Buyers Are Back… Or Are They?
44:00 – Why No One's Buying These 9-Figure SaaS Zombies
48:00 – If You Didn't Grow from AI By June 30, You're Already Dead
53:00 – Superhuman vs The AI-Natives: Who Wins the Replatforming War?
54:30 – Oracle's $30B AI Deal: Larry Did It Before You Even Started
56:00 – Scale Is Dead. Long Live Surge. The AI Data War Gets Bloody.
01:01:00 – Asana CEO Move & the Great Founder Exodus of 2025
01:06:00 – Will Cluely's Founder Be a Billionaire by 2029? Place Your Bets
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20VC: Inside KKR's Monster $8BN European Fund | The $500M Turkey Gamble That Went Wrong | Do Andreessen & General Catalyst Scare KKR? | Will AI Kill the PE Model? | Can The PE Model Survive without IPOs and Where is the Liquidity with Philip Freise
30 juni 2025 · 1 uur 2 min
Philipp Freise is Co-Head of European Private Equity at KKR, where he manages the largest private fund in Europe with $8BN in the latest fund. Philip has led KKR's investments in FGS Global, Superstruct, Axel Springer SE, BMG Rights Management, Fotolia, GetYourGuide, GfK SE, Leonine, Mediawan SAS, Scout24 Switzerland and Trainline. Previously, Philip worked at McKinsey & Company in and co-founded Berlin-based VC firm Venturepark, Europe's first pan-European incubator. Lees meer
Agenda:
00:00 – "We Lost $500M in Turkey. Here's Why We'll Never Do It Again."
01:40 – Inside Europe's Biggest PE Fund: $8B of Pure Firepower
03:55 – The $100M Dot-Com Failure That Changed My Career
06:45 – Why Picking the Wrong VC Will Destroy Your Company
10:20 – KKR's $500M COVID Gamble: Genius or Insane?
12:35 – Why We Ignored the Market & Deployed 40% of Our Fund
15:55 – KKR's Ruthless Portfolio Discipline: Love Doesn't Matter
17:10 – Do Power Laws Apply in PE? Freise Destroys the Myth
18:45 – The Truth About Capital Intensity in the Age of AI
20:10 – Can AI Kill the PE Model? Here's What Philipp Says
26:00 – The Secret to Great Investment Decisions at KKR
32:40 – Why There's a $3T Liquidity Time Bomb in Venture
34:25 – The Death of IPOs? How KKR Exits Without Going Public
40:05 – Will KKR Europe Hit $20B? Freise's Bold Prediction
43:45 – Helsing, Space, and Defense: The New Age of DeepTech Bets
45:30 – Tariffs, China, and the Future of the German Car Empire
47:00 – Freise vs. Bitcoin: Will USD Still Rule in 10 Years?
48:15 – 4 Global Shocks Happening Right Now That You Need to Know
51:30 – KKR Missed Spotify AND Alibaba?! The Painful Stories
53:00 – Do Andreessen & General Catalyst Scare KKR? Freise Responds
54:30 – The One Metric That Will Define KKR's Next Decade
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20Sales: How to Layer Enterprise Sales on PLG | How to Sell AI Tools To Enterprises That Are Scared | Should Reps Own Their Own Pipeline | Mistakes All Founders Make When Moving From Founder-Led to Rep-Led Sales with Kim Graves
27 juni 2025 · 1 uur 17 min
Kim Graves is GM, Americas at Notion, where she oversees all Sales and Customer Success efforts across the region. She brings extensive experience in building and scaling high-performing sales organizations, most notably at Slack where she helped grow revenue from $6M to over $1.5B. In addition to her operational role, Kim serves as a founding partner at 20SALES, a GTM-focused VC firm, where she advises early-stage companies on scaling revenue and optimizing sales processes. Lees meer
Agenda:
07:00 – The Secret to Winning a Discount Conversation
09:30 – Notion's Wild New Sales Method: Mindsets Over Stages
12:00 – Why Great Sellers Never Talk Product Too Soon
14:00 – How Slack Avoided the Biggest PLG Trap of All
17:00 – The Fatal Mistake Founders Make Layering Sales on PLG
20:00 – The "Renaissance Reps" That Build Billion-Dollar Motions
23:00 – How to Spot True Grit in a Sales Hire (Without Asking Directly)
26:00 – The Case Study Test That Filters Out Bullshitters
30:00 – The Real Reason Most Reps Fail Onboarding
33:00 – Should Reps Own Their Own Pipeline? Kim's Take Is Clear
36:00 – Why Cold Calling Works in 2025 (And Nobody Does It)
39:00 – The Sales Team Audit: The REKS Framework That Changes Everything
43:00 – How to Avoid Hiring the Wrong Rep Under Pressure
45:00 – When Sales Feels Second Class: PLG vs Enterprise Tension
47:00 – The One Thing Reps Still Do That AI Will Obliterate
50:00 – AI Sales Tools: Why Every Startup Is Failing to Get It Right
53:00 – Will We Have More or Fewer Reps in 5 Years?
56:00 – Enterprises Are Scared of AI – Here's How You Break In Anyway
59:00 – Kim's Secret for Getting Past Gatekeepers and Fake Champions
1:09:00 – Kim's Hardest Phase at Slack and How She Survived It
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20VC: Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross Bought with Zuck's $100BN AI Budget | Navan Files to Go Public and Canva Pulls the Brakes: Why and What Happens | Why Larry Ellison is the Smartest Man in Tech | Substance or Sizzle: What is Real and What is BS in AI
26 juni 2025 · 1 uur 14 min
Agenda: Lees meer
04:21 - The Meta Acquisition Bombshell: Nat Friedman & Daniel Gross Join Facebook?!
06:00 - Facebook's $100 Billion Gamble: Can Zuck Buy the Future?
09:27 - The "Magic Room" Theory: Why Only Insiders Get Billion-Dollar Paydays
11:27 - Is Loyalty Dead in Silicon Valley? The Great Talent Exodus
16:00 - Harvey's $5 Billion Valuation: Genius or Bubble?
19:00 - The AI Gold Rush: Can Software Really Eat Human Labor?
22:00 - The B2B Unicorn Dilemma: Are There Enough $100B Companies?
25:00 - IPO Mania: Why Navan, Canva, and Circle Are Shaking Up the Markets
29:00 - Meme Stocks & Market Madness: The Circle Rollercoaster
32:00 - Canva's Billion-Dollar Question: Why Stay Private?
36:00 - Larry Ellison's Power Play: How to Buy Back Your Own Empire
39:00 - The Sales Tech Revolution: Why "Cheating" Tools Are the Next Big Thing
42:00 - Slack Lockdown: Is B2B Software About to Get Ugly?
45:00 - The Ultimate Quickfire: Will Trump Launch a Smartphone? Will the US Seize AI?
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20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide
23 juni 2025 · 1 uur 17 min
Johannes Reck is the Founder and CEO of GetYourGuide, the $2BN company that started with a holiday to China and nothing to do. For the first two years, GetYourGuide received only 5 bookings. Today the platform is worth $2BN. They have raised from some of the best, including an amazing story with Masa Son and Softbank. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
01:45 – "I Regret Our Series A — Too Much Dilution"
03:50 – US vs Europe: Why European Founders Are Tougher
06:10 – "Germany Spends €100B on Pensions, €7B on VC – It's Insane"
08:40 – Why Europe Fails to Build $10B Startups
10:25 – 90% of Our Team in Berlin Aren't German. Here's Why.
12:20 – Recruiting Netflix's Head of Growth Nearly Killed Me
16:20 – "We Had 5 Bookings in 2 Years. 3 Were My Mum."
18:00 – "I Asked My Parents to Remortgage Their House for a Pivot"
21:15 – The Vatican Tour That Changed Everything
23:30 – Why VCs Rejected GetYourGuide 100+ Times
28:30 – The $14M Series A That Nearly Killed the Company
31:00 – "I Hired All the Wrong People – Then Laid Off 30%"
36:30 – The $450M SoftBank Deal... Then COVID Hit
40:00 – "We Went to $0 in Revenue in 3 Weeks"
42:10 – The Sequoia Tree Mindset: Grow Through Fire
49:30 – What SoftBank's Masa Son Was Really Like in Person
52:00 – How He Thinks About Secondary, Wealth, and Not Losing His Soul
55:30 – "My Worst Hires Came from Listening to VCs Too Much"
58:30 – Angel Investing in Trade Republic and TravelPerk: My Lessons
01:01:00 – Do You Have to Work 7 Days a Week to Win?
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20Product: How Duolingo Build Product 10x Faster with AI | Duolingo's Biggest Lessons on Paywalls, Push Notifications and In-App Purchases | Why Small Teams are the Future of Product | Why PMs Will Become Extinct with Cem Kansu, CPO @ Duolingo
20 juni 2025 · 1 uur 19 min
Cem Kansu is the Chief Product Officer at Duolingo, where he leads product strategy for over 90 million monthly active learners. Since joining Duolingo, Cem has played a pivotal role in driving record user engagement, revenue growth, and product innovation, including the launch of Duolingo Math and the wildly successful Duolingo Music. Under his leadership, the company has consistently ranked as the #1 education app globally. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:12 – Cem's Origin Story: From Google Ads to Saving Duolingo's Business
06:45 – "Mini CEO" Myth: Why PMs Need to Ditch the Ego
08:55 – The Truth About Design Speed and Pixel Perfection
11:30 – The INSANE Story Behind Duolingo's Viral Chess Launch
14:42 – Why Smaller Teams Are the Future of Product
17:20 – Duolingo's AI Playbook: How They're Building 10x Faster
20:05 – Will Engineers Even Exist in 5 Years? Cem Gets Real
26:10 – Do AI Tools Have ANY Defensibility? Cem Doesn't Hold Back
29:00 – Why Duolingo Took So Long to Monetize (And What They Learned)
33:05 – Cem on Killing Ads, Tasteful Monetization, and Investor Doubt
38:30 – The Secret to Duolingo's Paywall Strategy (And What Not to Do)
42:05 – Cem's Weirdest Retention Hack? A Single Emoji…
46:25 – The Crazy Science Behind Push Notifications at Duolingo
50:00 – In-App Purchases Done Right: GEMS, Freeze, and the Psychology of Value
53:15 – Why Cem Thinks Daily Retention Is the King Metric
55:10 – The ONE Product Feature That Changed Duolingo Forever
57:45 – Will Duolingo Become the Disney of Gen Z?
01:00:00 – Dating on Duolingo?! Cem Reacts to Harry's Craziest Product Ideas
01:03:45 – Cem's Biggest Product Mistakes — And What He'd Kill Tomorrow
01:12:00 – The One Thing Every PM Must Do to Survive the AI Wave
01:14:00 – Duolingo in 20 Years: Cem's Wildest Vision Yet
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20VC: Scale's $14.8BN Acquisition: Is Scale a Dead Man Walking / What Did Meta Buy | Chime IPO: Are IPOs Hotter Than Ever | Ramp Hits $16BN Diluting Only 1% | Salesforce, Slack and Dropbox Falling Behind: Are Incumbents Losing Ground
19 juni 2025 · 1 uur 7 min
Agenda: Lees meer
00:00 – Meta's $14.8B Deal for Scale: The Analysis
05:40 – Will Scale Lose Their $800M ARR? Will All Customers Leave?
13:00 – Who is the Winner from All Scale Customers Leaving?
21:30 – Who Made the Most Money From Scale?
24:00 – LPs Just Got $14B Back. Are They Reinvesting?
26:45 – Chime IPO: The Breakdown
29:20 – Ramp Hits $16B Valuation: Are We Back in 2021?
31:10 – Ramp vs Brex vs Mercury: Who's the Real Winner?
34:00 – Gusto Going Public with $900M in ARR???
36:40 – Dropbox vs Glean: Can the Old Guard Survive the AI Wave?
38:50 – Is Slack Dead as a Platform? Salesforce Shutdown Slack API?
41:15 – Will China Dominate AI? The Bets Are In
43:00 – S&P Prediction, iPhone Assembly in the US, and Rory's Rants
Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.
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20VC: How We Made $800M on Coursera | We Lost Money on Uber and Made Money on Lyft | We Did 3x on Postmates in 18 Months | DPI is King, MOIC is BS | We Dodged Theranos and I Still Lost Millions with Larry Aschebrook @ G Squared
16 juni 2025 · 1 uur 35 min
Larry Aschebrook is the Founder and Managing Partner of G Squared in what is one of the wildest stories of venture capital. Larry started G Squared with nothing, dialling for dollars having personally invested in Twitter and Uber. In his first fund, Larry made sizable bets into SpaceX, Palantir, Alibaba and Twitter. Larry has also had mega losses along the way (discussed in the show) in Getir, 23andme and more. Today, Larry manages over $5BN and has invested in all the best from Wiz to Spotify to Revolut and Anthropic. Lees meer
Agenda:
00:00 – From Broke to Billion-Dollar Bets
03:40 – The $800M Coursera Windfall
06:10 – Lyft Made Millions, Uber Lost $50M
09:05 – "We Fcked Up": The Billion-Dollar Vintage
11:50 – How a $150M Spotify Bet Made a Billion
15:10 – The Gut Call That Dodged Theranos
18:00 – Vampires vs Zombies: The Coming Startup Purge
20:30 – When Success Almost Killed the Firm
24:20 – DPI Is King, MOIC Is Bullsht
27:40 – Why I'd Buy Anthropic at $61BN Today
30:05 – Losing $70M on 23andMe
32:10 – The Janitor of Venture Capital
34:00 – The Getir Deal That Nearly Broke Me
36:25 – Does Money Actually Make You Happy?
39:00 – What Cal Ripken Jr. Taught Me About Venture
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20VC: SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink: Elon's Empire After the Firestorm | Are Circle and Coreweave Meme Stocks: IPO Analysis | Anduril Raises $2.6BN & Becomes Founders Fund's 1st and 2nd Largest Check Ever | Cursor Now 20% of SaaS Spend and the SaaS Slowdown
12 juni 2025 · 1 uur 16 min
Agenda: Lees meer
00:03 – Circle's IPO: Investors Just Left $BNs on the Table
00:06 – CoreWeave & Circle: Are We Back to Meme Stock Madness?
00:11 – Should Stripe and Databricks Finally Go Public?
00:17 – US Stock Markets: How They DOMINATE the Global Game
00:21 – 50% of Unicorns Are DOOMED. What Happens Now?
00:25 – Founders Fund Just Dropped $1B on Anduril. Why?!
00:29 – What Would You Do If LPs Let You Go Wild?
00:36 – What Missing Out on Millions for Docusign Taught Rory
00:44 – Cursor is 20% of SaaS Spend: The Shocking Data Behind the SaaS Slowdown
00:47 – AI vs. SaaS: The Great Budget War Begins
00:48 – Can AI Take Budget from the Talent Budget or Will It Remain in Software Budgets?
00:56 – SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink: Elon's Empire After the Firestorm
Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.
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20VC: Fiverr CEO: 'If You're Not Adapting to AI, F* You. You're Done | Why "Time to Copy" is the Most Important Metric in Startups Today | Why 99% of AI Companies Today Will Die | Why Governments Will Take Control of AI with Micha Kauffman
9 juni 2025 · 1 uur 6 min
Micha Kaufman is the Founder and CEO of Fiverr, the leading online marketplace for freelance services. Fiverr has had an insane ride in the public markets, in 2019 the company went public with a $650M market cap, at their peak that hit over $8BN. Today, facing a wave of AI, the company has a market cap of $1.121BN on an estimated $430M EOY revenues. Prior to co-founding Fiverr, Micha successfully founded and led several startups over the last 30 years. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
00:00 – "Fuck you. It's not my job to make you better." Micha's viral internal email that sparked a company-wide awakening
05:00 – The real reason Micha thinks Fiverr is vulnerable to AI
07:00 – "Replace 100% of your job with AI": Micha's challenge to every employee
11:00 – The brutal truth about entitlement in the modern workforce
13:00 – Wake the f*** up: Micha on the crisis of work ethic and ambition
15:00 – "Too many startups, zero value": Why AI is the new dot-com bubble
17:00 – The time-to-clone has collapsed: Why your startup can be copied in 10 days
21:00 – Why distribution, not code, is the moat that matters now
23:00 – The new game of investing: Why backing "missionaries" is all that counts
25:00 – The seed investment Micha wrote off… that became his biggest win
38:00 – "Being a CEO today is like captaining a ship in a storm"
39:00 – Will governments take control of AI? The Manhattan Project analogy
42:00 – The rise of AI superpowers—and the brutal decline of everyone else
46:00 – The single-person unicorn: Is it real? Micha says yes
47:00 – Why Micha's hiring more engineers—not fewer
48:00 – Marketing is being disrupted faster than engineering. Here's how
54:00 – What cost Micha wants to cut—but can't
56:00 – Why Micha would tell his kid: "Don't go to university"
57:00 – The business Fiverr could have built before OnlyFans—and why they didn't
59:00 – How Micha decides every year whether he should still be CEO
01:00:00 – The ultimate metric: When meaning …
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20VC: The Science of Storytelling: Three Steps to Master the Perfect Story | From Near Death Experience to Unicorn Startup: The Untold Story of Omaze with Matt Pohlson
6 juni 2025 · 1 uur 26 min
Matt Pohlson is the co-founder and Chairman of Omaze, the most insane story in startups that you have never heard. From near death experience to working with Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney and The Pope. Omaze has raised over $200 million for charity by offering once-in-a-lifetime celebrity experiences and luxury house draws. He's a master storyteller, a purpose-driven builder, and one of the most creative entrepreneurs in modern philanthropy. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
00:00 — He Died for 4 Minutes… Then Built a $400M Startup
04:00 — The Magic Johnson Moment That Sparked Omaze
06:30 — From $780 to $1.7M: The Breaking Bad Campaign That Changed Everything
09:00 — Star Wars, Schwarzenegger, and Selling Dreams
13:00 — He Flatlined in Surgery… And Everything Changed
18:00 — How Near-Death Killed Fear and Transformed His Leadership
22:00 — Why Fear Isn't Real — And How to Beat It
24:00 — The $250K Bet That Changed Omaze's Business Forever
27:00 — Launching Houses: The Pivot to $100M+ Revenue
34:00 — The Science of Storytelling: Make the Customer the Hero
38:00 — Why TV Still Works: $35M Ad Spend Secrets
45:00 — How They Almost Went Out of Business—Twice
50:00 — The Deck That Saved Omaze Mid-COVID
53:00 — Loneliness, Therapy, and the CEO Mental Game
55:00 — From Self-Doubt to Self-Love: The Hoffman Process
58:00 — How to Lead With Story, Science, and Soul
1:02:00 — Should Omaze Go Public? Matt's Unfiltered Take
1:05:00 — Addiction, Ambition, and Why Fulfillment Can Kill Hunger
1:10:00 — Revenue Per Employee: $7M a Head!
1:15:00 — Matt's 10-Year Vision: Fortune 500. #1 in Charity.Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term …
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20VC: Is Chamath Right: Is DPI The Only Thing That Matters | Does OpenAI Even Matter | Mary Meekers AI Report: The Analysis| IPO Breakdown: Chime, Circle & Thoma Bravo's New Fund
5 juni 2025 · 1 uur 23 min
Agenda: Lees meer
00:00 – The Most Unfiltered Episode Ever Begins
03:30 – Does OpenAI Even Matter? Sam Lessin Says Maybe Not.
05:45 – TVPI Is Bullshit?
09:20 – Asset Gatherers vs Real Investors: Who Actually Wins?
12:15 – The Death of the Billion-Dollar VC Fund?
16:00 – Mid-Tier VC Funds Are Getting Annihilated
21:00 – Chime: Great Exit or Missed Opportunity?
27:00 – The War on Relevance: What Companies Truly Matter?
33:00 – If You're Not a Billion-Dollar Company, Do You Even Count?
37:10 – Mary Meeker's AI Report: What Everyone Missed
39:50 – $600B in AI CapEx—Where Is the Revenue?!
43:40 – What Could Trigger the First AI Crash?
51:10 – The Existential Dread Missing in Most B2B Startups
58:30 – Will AI Reduce Your Startup to Just a Pipe?
01:01:10 – IPO Market Is Back: What Actually Matters Now?
01:06:50 – YC Startups at $60M Valuations: How Should You Play It?
01:10:00 – Why 3% Ownership Could Still Work—Maybe
01:11:30 – Will Elon Still Be Tesla CEO by 2027? Place Your Bets
01:14:10 – Will Meta Release a Closed AI Model? And Does It Even Matter?
01:17:30 – The Real Challenge of Managing 11 Companies and 58 Kids
Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on …
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20VC: Windsurf Founder on Will Model Companies Own the App Layer | Why Moats Do Not Exist in a World of AI | Why the Notion of Single Person $BN Companies is BS | Lovable vs Bolt & Cursor vs Windsurf: How Does it All End with Varun Mohan
2 juni 2025 · 1 uur 6 min
Varun Mohan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Windsurf, the leading AI-native IDE, which has over a million users and generates over 50% of all committed software across thousands of companies. Prior to Windsurf, Varun graduated with a Master's in Computer Science from MIT and led a team at Nuro focused on large-scale deep learning infrastructure for autonomous vehicles. Lees meer
Today's Agenda:
[00:00] The $3B Startup That Only Happend on the Third Pivot
[05:12] When to Give Up vs When To Stick at It
[08:55] "Never Fall in Love With Your Idea" — Here's Why
[10:38] What Founders Get Wrong About Being First
[13:52] What Would Windsurf Do If They Had Unlimited Resources
[16:45] Will Lovable and Bolt Ultimately Compete with Windsurf and Cursor
[19:25] The Product Development Rule That Breaks All Startup Rules
[21:20] The Cold Truth About Moats in the AI Era
[24:30] The OpenAI Question You're Not Supposed to Ask
[32:50] Who Actually Counts as an Engineer in 5 Years?
[35:10] Will Product Managers Even Exist in 2030?
[37:30] Async Agents Are Coming—But Most Will Fail.. Why?
[41:00] The Truth About Agent-Only Workflows
[44:20] The One Area of Engineering That AI Will Eat Next
[46:12] What Cursor Got Right (That Windsurf Didn't)
[47:55] Are LLM APIs Already Commoditized?
[50:30] Why Anthropic Won't Win by Default
[52:10] Should Model Companies Own the App Layer?
[58:05] What Does Varun Want to be Remembered For?
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20Sales: From $2M ARR to $40M ARR: The Playbook | How to Use AI To Supercharge Your Sales Team | Why Pipeline Reviews are BS | The Sales Call Script that Closes 99% of Prospects and How to Hire the Best Sales Reps with Kyle Norton, CRO @ Owner
30 mei 2025 · 1 uur 19 min
Kyle Norton is the Chief Revenue Officer at Owner.com, where he scaled revenue from $2M to $40M ARR in under 3 years while selling to one of the toughest markets: SMB restaurants. Before Owner, Kyle led sales at Shopify, where he helped architect one of the most operationally elite GTM orgs in SaaS. Lees meer
Agenda:
00:00 – From Shopify to $40M ARR at Owner.com
06:40 – Why Founders Who Skip Sales Get Burned
11:50 – 90% Inbound, Then 70% Outbound — And Why Neither Is Enough
17:40 – How to Use AI in Sales to Massively Increase Outbound
24:30 – BDRs Don't Get Paid for Demos. Only Closed Revenue.
30:50 – The 3-Part Sales Scorecard That Replaced My Gut
36:20 – I Posted a Job on LinkedIn and Got 1,200 Applicants
42:15 – I Fired a Rep on Day 11. Here's Why.
49:40 – We Don't Do Pipeline Reviews. The Secret...
55:00 – The One Call Close Script That Wins in 99% of Cases
1:03:10 – Why YouTube Is Our Underrated Growth Weapon
1:14:30 – Sales Is a Personal Development Exercise Disguised as a Career
1:20:45 – The Night We Closed Until 1AM and Hit the Number
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20VC: OpenAI's $6BN Jony Ive Deal | YC Is Both Chanel and Walmart—and Has Officially Won | Builder.ai Implodes and Hinge IPOs: Who Wins & Who Loses | Seed Is Easy. Series A Is Brutal & The Dirty Truth About Late-Stage Venture
29 mei 2025 · 1 uur 20 min
Agenda: Lees meer
00:00 – Why "Fund Returners" Are a Myth in Late-Stage VC
05:02 – Builder.ai Implodes: $500M Gone & Fraud Allegations Begin
11:40 – The Dirty Truth About Late-Stage Venture Math
15:57 – The Hinge IPO: Who Won, Who Lost, and Why It's a Game Changer
23:03 – The Chime Bombshell: Late-Stage VCs Forced to Crystallize Huge Losses
27:14 – Why YC Is Both Chanel and Walmart—and Has Officially Won
33:41 – Seed Is Easy. Series A Is Brutal. Here's Why
39:50 – The Silent Killer: How Dilution Is Screwing VCs Without Them Realizing
46:04 – OpenAI's $6B Jony Ive Deal: Genius or Delusion?
50:47 – Does OpenAI Win the Hardware War
1:02:09 – Duolingo, Klarna, and the Truth About AI Layoffs
1:13:10 – Only 20% of Unicorns Are Real. The Other 80%? Zombies
1:15:44 – Why 2021 Had an IPO Every Day — And Why That Won't Return Soon
1:18:00 – Quickfire: AGI Dates, Half-Trillionaires, and Trump Tax Moves
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20VC: The Most Insane Story in Startups: Airwallex: The Angel That Turned $1M into $1BN | The Fund That Pulled a Term Sheet & Lost $1BN | Rejecting Stripe's $1.2BN Offer | Scaling to $1BN in Revenue & 100% YoY Growth for 8 Years with Jack Zhang
27 mei 2025 · 1 uur 27 min
Airwallex is the most insane story in startups: Lees meer
The best angel investment ever: The angel that turned $1M into $1BN.
One of the world's best VCs pulled a term sheet and lost $1BN.
The company turned down a $1.2BN offer from Stripe.
The company scaled to $1BN in transaction volume in 9 months.
The company has never not grown 100% in a year.
Jack Zhang is the Co-Founder and CEO of Airwallex, one of the world's fastest-growing global payments and financial infrastructure companies. Since founding the company in 2015, Jack has scaled Airwallex to over $130B in annual payment volume, $720M in ARR, and a global team of 1,800+ employees. Under his leadership, Airwallex has raised over $1.2BN from investors including Square Peg, Lone Pine, and Tencent.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
00:00 – The Best Angel Investment Ever: From $1M to $1BN
06:55 – From Lemon Factory and Petrol Station to Billionaire: The Early Days
15:20 – $5M side hustle while working full-time: how Jack did it
24:45 – Failing Three Times Before Product-Market-Fit
31:00 – The Term Sheet That Got Pulled and Lost Matrix $1BN
34:40 – Why We Rejected Stripe's $1.2BN Acquisition Offer
49:05 – 0-$1B transaction volume in 9 months: How Shein Saved Airwallex
1:03:40 – We F****** Up Scaling internationally... & Burnt $200M/year
1:08:00 – When COVID hit, they lost 50% of revenue overnight
1:11:45 – Why Jack raised at 6x revenue and is now buying back stock himself
1:15:00 – The truth about secondaries and how much is "enough"
1:18:00 – The hiring mistakes that almost broke the culture
1:20:15 – Why Jack is Taking Out a Line of Debt for $70M
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20VC: ElevenLabs Head of Growth on Why You Do Not Need PMs | The 7-Part Launch Playbook That Gets 700K+ Views Per Product | The Truth About CAC, Payback & Performance Marketing in AI with Luke Harries
23 mei 2025 · 1 uur 16 min
Luke Harries is Head of Growth at ElevenLabs, where he leads marketing, product, engineering, and developer experience. ElevenLabs has raised $281M with the latest round pricing the company at $3.3B valuation. Previously, Luke held roles at PostHog and Microsoft, and is also an angel investor supporting startups like Lovable and Runna. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
00:00 – The $3.3B Growth Engine Behind ElevenLabs
04:55 – Why Luke Said "No" to Investing in ElevenLabs (and Why He Was Wrong)
15:40 – How ElevenLabs Makes a Horizontal Product Strategy Work
20:15 – How to Build Sharded Growth Teams That Actually Scale
26:30 – The 7-Part Launch Playbook That Gets 700K+ Views Per Product
33:00 – The Truth About CAC, Payback, and Performance Marketing in AI
39:05 – SEO Isn't Dead: The Mini-Tool Strategy You Should Steal
44:10 – Kill Your Inbound SDRs—The Case for Voice AI in Sales
48:40 – Why You Don't Need PMs and the Rise of Growth-Led Product Teams
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20VC: Chime IPO: The Breakdown | Why Fund Returners Are Not Enough & Seed is for Suckers | Are IPOs Dead & The Future of the Late Stage Private Market | Rippling vs. Deel Lawsuit: WTF Happens Now?
22 mei 2025 · 1 uur 18 min
Agenda: Lees meer
04:34 Chime's IPO Announcement: Who Wins & Who Loses
06:28 The Lopphole That Means Chime Has a Better Business than JP Morgan
10:51 Why Investors Who Invested at $25BN Will Make Money When it IPOs at $12BN
18:59 Are IPOs Dead & The Future of the Late Stage Private Market
27:32 Exits are Larger Than Ever: So What? What Happens? Who Wins? Who Loses?
40:51 Is Europe Totally F*******
43:48 Challenges of Going Public & What Needs to Change?
46:12 OpenAI's Future and Predictions
49:45 Rippling vs. Deel Lawsuit: Is Deel Screwed?
59:28 Why So Many Companies Are About To Become Database Companies
01:08:07 The Future of Salesforce: Buy or Sell?
01:13:28 Quickfire Round
Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.
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20VC: Duolingo Co-Founder on Why $3M is Harder than $100M to Raise | Why You Should Always Take Tier 1 VCs Even at Worse Terms | Why Europe Can't Win Unless the US Screws Up | How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education with Severin Hacker
19 mei 2025 · 1 uur 32 min
Severin Hacker is the Co-Founder and CTO of Duolingo, the world's most downloaded education app with over 100 million monthly users. Since its 2021 IPO, Duolingo has reached a market cap of $20BN. The company has raised over $183M from top-tier investors including CapitalG, Kleiner Perkins, Union Square Ventures, NEA, Ashton Kutcher, and Tim Ferriss. Severin is also an active angel investor, with standout bets including Decagon, one of the fastest-growing AI-native dev shops globally. Lees meer
Items Mentioned In Today's Episode:
00:00 – Why It's Harder to Raise $3M Than $100M
02:10 – The Real Reason Duolingo Couldn't Have Started in Europe
04:40 – Duolingo's AI Pivot: What "AI-First" Actually Means
07:00 – The 12-Year Bottleneck Duolingo Crushed with AI
11:40 – How Duolingo Uses AI Internally (and Why They Love Cursor)
13:30 – Where AI Still Sucks (Especially in Engineering)
16:00 – Will AI Kill the CS Degree? Severin's Surprising Take
18:00 – The End of Work? UBI, Purpose, and the Future of Labor
25:20 – OpenAI vs Duolingo: Are They Coming for Language Learning?
29:20 – Duolingo's Biggest Mistake: "We Waited Too Long on This…"
39:30 – Duolingo's Secret Sauce: What Investors Always Get Wrong
45:00 – Would You Go Public Today? Severin's Surprising Answer
49:00 – Best and Worst Parts of Going Public—A Rare Honest Take
51:00 – Should Europe Give Up? Severin's Unfiltered Opinion
56:00 – Harsh Truth: "Europe Can't Win Unless the U.S. Screws Up"
59:10 – Why Founders Have to Move to the US to Optimise Their Chance of Success
1:01:00 – Why Union Square Was the Only VC to Say Yes
1:03:00 – The Real Value of Tier 1 VCs (Even at Worse Terms)
1:05:00 – From PhD Student to Billionaire: Does Money Buy Happiness?
1:09:00 – Why Severin Sometimes Lies About His Job
1:10:20 – Founder Marriage Advice: "Write a Contract"
1:11:50 – How to Pick a Life Partner – Severin's Tuesday Night Test
20VC: Duolingo Co-Founder on The Doomed Future of Europe, Reflections on Money, Mar…
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20Product: Figma CPO on How Figma Builds Products: What Works, What Does Not | How Figma Does Testing and Product Reviews | The Future of Design, Engineering and Product with Yuhki Yamashita
16 mei 2025 · 1 uur 2 min
Yuhki Yamashita is the Chief Product Officer at Figma, where he leads the development of one of the world's most beloved design platforms. Previously, he was Head of Product at Uber, overseeing the core rider experience used by millions globally. A master of product storytelling and team-building, Yuhki has redefined how world-class digital products are built and scaled. Lees meer
Items Mentioned in Today's Episode:
04:30 – "Simple is Lazy?" — Yuhki Challenges Product Dogma
07:45 – The Secret Behind Figma's New Product Ideas (Hint: Users Hack It First)
09:00 – From Hack Week to Roadmap: How New Figma Products Are Born
10:00 – Are PRDs Dead? Yuhki's Spicy Take on the Death of Specs
12:30 – The 'Screenshot Test': Can Your Product Explain Itself in 1 Frame?
14:15 – Code Layers and 'Living Designs'—This Demo Blew Everyone's Mind
15:30 – Designers vs Coders: Who Really Owns the Future of Product?
17:45 – The Most Controversial Product Decision Inside Figma
19:00 – Why Figma's Org Structure Could Kill the PM Role (For Real)
21:00 – Should Everyone Be a Designer and a Builder Now?
23:15 – Will Figma Have Fewer Engineers in 5 Years?
24:00 – Cursor, Windsurf & AI Coding Tools—What Figma Engineers Really Use
25:30 – AI's Dual Power: Lowering the Floor, Raising the Ceiling
27:00 – Figma's Biggest Product Flop? Yuhki Owns It
29:30 – The Magic of Product Storytelling—Even for Boring Compliance Tools
31:00 – Why Joy Must Be in the Product (and How Figma Bakes It In)
33:00 – Does Product Market Fit Even Mean Anything in 2025?
35:30 – Is Great Design Enough? Or Is It ALL About Distribution?
37:15 – Dylan's Secret to Early Growth: Hacking Design Twitter
39:00 – Community Mistakes Startups Keep Making
41:00 – The One Thing Yuhki Wishes He Could Change at Figma
43:00 – Should They Have Launched 4 Products at Once? Time Will Tell
45:00 – When Do You Know a New Product Is Doomed?
46:30 – Why Designers Still Don't Ship What They Design (and How to Fix It)
48:00 – From Ub…
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20VC: Tiger Global Saved by OpenAI | Coatue's New Fund: Hype or Substance | Why SBF is the Greatest Investor of the Last 5 Years | Why Big Funds are Investing in Perplexity
15 mei 2025 · 1 uur 15 min
Items Mentioned in Today's Episode: Lees meer
04:11 Owner's New $120M Round at $1BN
06:05 Why Series A is F****** Today
14:55 Could Tiger Global Be Saved by OpenAI and Scale
22:43 Why SBF is the Greatest Investor of the Last Decade
31:34 Why No Individuals Should Invest in Venture Funds
36:27 Why Microsoft Laying 3% of Their Workforce Off is not Enough
41:38 OpenAI's New CEO: Non-Technical CEOs Running OpenAI
44:48 Why Big Funds are Investing in Perplexity
54:43 Why Clay Should Raise a Warchest and Go to War
01:00:05 The Impact of AI on Marketing and Sales
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20VC Exclusive: Mercury Founder Launches First $26M Fund | Why Founders Should Take the Highest Price | Why Serial Entrepreneurs are Better | Why AI Is So Overhyped | The Future of Venture Capital with Immad Akhund
12 mei 2025 · 1 uur 2 min
Immad Akhund is the CEO of Mercury. Launched in 2019, Mercury has raised $500M in funding from Sequoia, Coatue, CRV, Andreessen Horowitz and others. He is a former part-time partner at Y Combinator and is an active angel investor, with more than 350 investments in startups including Rippling, AirTable, Rappi, Applied Intuition, and Substack. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:38 Exclusive News: New Fund Announcement
05:15 Lessons from 350 Angel Investments
12:27 Why Founders Should Always Push for the Highest Price
14:40 Biggest Wins and Misses in Angel Investing
22:56 How Sequoia Came to Lead the Series C for Mercury
31:32 Why Move From Angel to VC
33:41 Is It Wrong For Founders to Also Have Funds with LP Capital?
36:28 AI Investments: Overhyped or Worthwhile?
41:14 Raising a First Time Fund: Challenges & Surprises
49:47 The Future of Venture Capital
54:36 Quickfire Questions and Reflections
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20VC: Four Traits of the Most Successful Founders | How to Hunt and Close Talent Like a Pro and Where All Founders Go Wrong | Lessons Raising $397M From the Best Investors in the World with Eléonore Crespo @ Pigment
9 mei 2025 · 1 uur 10 min
Eléonore Crespo is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Pigment, one of Europe's fastest-growing companies. With Pigment, Eleonore has raised over $397M from the best in the world including ICONIQ, Greenoaks and IVP to name a few. Prior to Pigment, Eléonore was on the other side of the table as an investor with Index Ventures. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
[04:10] "I had 3 surgeries. That's when I knew I had to become a founder."
[06:50] Why Index Ventures isn't on her cap table
[08:40] Eleonore's CIA-style co-founder hunt (she literally made a target list)
[11:50] Co-CEOs: "We talk 3x a day. That's our superpower."
[13:30] The boutique coffee metaphor for product excellence
[15:40] Yuri Milner's 4 traits of legendary founders (one is shocking)
[17:30] "Hiring is everything. I hunt talent like a football scout."
[19:00] Wild Olympic Games story → led to hiring a top CFO
[24:50] How she filters out title-chasers and political hires
[29:30] "Too much process? I make teams list the dumbest ones."
[33:00] Her blunt answer on whether Europe can produce scale execs
[35:00] Why she raised so much money… even when they didn't need it
[38:50] Board power is real: "They can fire you. I've seen it."
[43:30] Rob Ward's counter-cyclical advice: double down during a downturn
[44:50] "We closed a massive US deal… at 2am… while drenched in rain."
[47:10] Selling into the US as a European founder—her full playbook
[50:20] The hardest part of being a CEO no one talks about
[54:00] "Children remind you what happiness is."
[56:30] "I don't fast. That would make me unhappy." On longevity culture
[59:20] Why her husband knows nothing about Pigment
[01:04:20] "Forget $50B. I want to build a $200B company."
Follow Eleonore Crespo
LinkedIn: Eleonore Crespo
Pigment: pigment.com
Subscribe to 20VC for more conversations with the world's best founders and investors.
Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mo…
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20VC: Benchmark vs a16z: Why Stage Specific Firms Win | Windsurf Sells For $3BN | Decagon Raises at 100x ARR | Do Mega Funds Win the Future of VC | What Does Harvard's Losing Their For-Profit Status Mean for VC
7 mei 2025 · 1 uur 12 min
Today's Topics: Lees meer
04:44 Analysis of $3 Billion Windsurf Acquisition
12:39 Will Mega Funds Win the Future of Venture Capital
18:39 Does Every Fund Have to do Pre-Seed to Win Series A and B Today
27:53 Why AI Will Create Massive Unemployment
31:06 The $100,000 Bet on the Future of Work
35:52 Why Venture Has Become a Bundled Good
37:52 Why Stage Specific Firms Will Win: a16z vs Benchmark
40:16 What Does Harvard Losing It's For Profit Status Mean for Venture
42:57 Why AI is Maiming and Not Killing Growth Companies on the Path to IPO
45:41 Decagon Raises 100x ARR: The Breakdown
52:50 Why VCs Are Upside Junkies and What That Means Today
01:03:37 Olo Looking to Sell: What Happens When Public Companies Want to Sell
Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.
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20VC Exclusive: Why Mega Platforms Will Win in VC | Why You Cannot Do VC If You Do Not Do Pre-Seed | Why Market Sizing is BS | Where Will Foundation Models Build/Buy Apps vs Where Will They Not with Bucky Moore
5 mei 2025 · 1 uur 5 min
Bucky Moore is a Partner @ Lightspeed Venture Partners, announced exclusively in the show today on 20VC. Prior to Lightspeed, Bucky spent an incredibly successful 7 years at Kleiner Perkins working with Mamoon Hamid to build one of the most successful early stage firms of the last decade. Bucky has made investments in the likes of Prisma, Netlify, Browserbase and more. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
03:07 Big News: Joining Lightspeed Venture Partners
04:09 Why Mega Platforms Will Win the Next 10 Years of VC
09:33 Are Foundation Model Companies Good Venture Investments
16:04 What Applications Will Model Providers Buy/Build? What Will They Not?
22:03 How to Approach Price Sensitivity in a World of AI
28:25 Why is it BS to do Market Sizing When Making Investments in AI
34:03 Is the Future of VC Domain Specialization
38:38 How to Know What Company Wins in Super Competitive Markets
41:06 Why Every Firm Has to do Pre-Seed To Win in VC Today?
44:43 The Risks of Multi-Stage Investing: Is Signalling Risk Real?
48:53 Investing Lessons from Leading Rounds in Glean and Windsurf
56:54 Quick Fire Round: Lessons from Mamoon, Fave CEO, Next 10 Years
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20Sales: Sierra: Inside Silicon Valley's Fastest Growing Sales Machine & How to Prospect, Outbound and Close Enterprise Deals in AI
2 mei 2025 · 1 uur 7 min
Reggie Marable is the Head of Global Sales at Sierra, a conversational AI platform for businesses. Sierra enables companies like ADT, Sonos, SiriusXM, and WeightWatchers to build AI agents that transform customer experiences. The company has rapidly become a hypergrowth leader in Silicon Valley, recently securing a funding round that values it at $4.5 billion. Before joining Sierra, Reggie was the Head of Sales in North America at Slack and the Area Vice President of Enterprise Sales at Salesforce. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
02:50 "What I Learned from Failing Early as a CRO"
06:06 The Most Effective Sales Strategy and the BS Sales Methodology
06:55 How to Build Sales Processes from Scratch
12:28 When and How to do Verticalised Sales Teams
14:15 How to Become World Class as Sales Prospecting and Outbound
17:21 How to Use Proof of Concepts to Win Enterprise Deals
22:04 Enterprise vs. Self-Serve: Both or One and How
30:09 Building a Sales Team from Scratch
37:39 Structuring the Hiring Process
41:14 How Founders F*** Up Hiring in Sales
46:25 Handling Salary and Title Expectations
51:36 How to Run Effective Deal Cycles
57:06:07 How to do Onboarding for New Sales Hires
59:07:48 How to do Post Mortems in Sales Processes
01:04:24 Negotiating Enterprise Deals
01:08:04 Quick Fire Round: Sales Tactics and Strategies
This episode is brought to you by Capchase, helping software and hardware companies close deals while accessing TCV upfront. Learn more at capchase.com/20vc.
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20VC: Why Fund Returners Are Not Enough Anymore | Why Sequoia Had the Best Strategy at the Worst Time | What it Takes to Be Good at Series A and B Today | Benchmark Leads Manus Round: Should US Funds Invest in Chinese AI
1 mei 2025 · 1 uur 25 min
In Today's Episode We Discuss: Lees meer
03:56 Why The Risk Lever Has Been Turned Higher than Ever in VC
06:04 Why IRR is the Hardest Thing to Control
09:36 Is Lack of Liquidity Short Term Temporary or Long Term Structural
12:17 Why Fund Returners Are Not Good Enough Anymore
16:03 Sequoia: The Best Strategy at the Worst Time
26:30 What it Takes to be Good at Series A and B Today
34:14 Only Three Company Types Survive AI
41:35 ServiceNow: 25% Pop, WTF Happened
45:29 Palantir and SAP Ripping: Do Incumbents Win AI
49:43 Are Benchmark Wrong to Invest in Chinese Made Manus
01:00:52 Geopolitical Risks in Investments
01:11:36 European vs. US Tech Culture
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20VC: VCs are Spreadsheet Monkeys and are Commoditised | Why Fees and Carry Misalign GPs and LPs | Why Founders Will Realise Multi-Stage Funds Damage Seed Rounds | Why We Need European Sovereignty More Than Ever with Taavet Hinrikus
28 april 2025 · 58 min
Taavet Hinrikus is a Partner at Plural, the early-stage fund that backs the most ambitious founders on a mission to change the world through technology. He co-founded Wise in 2010, where he was CEO and later Chairman, which went public in the first-ever direct listing in Europe in 2021. Prior to that, Taavet was Skype's Director of Strategy until 2008, having joined as its first employee. He's been an active investor for more than a decade,with personal investments in the likes of Bolt and Synthesia. Lees meer
In Today's Show We Discuss:
04:08 VCs are Spreadsheet Monkeys
05:41 Why Banker European VCs Suck More Than The Others
11:20 Why Serial Entrepreneurs Are Better
14:48 Why the 2:20 Fee and Carry Model in VC is Broken
18:01 What are the Biggest Ways VC Investment Decision-Making is Broken
28:26 Why is it BS when VC Firms Need Every Partner to Meet the Founder
31:24 When and Why Will Founders Realise Multi-Stage Firms are Bad Early Investors
34:35 Why Does Europe Need to Build it's Own Tech Now More Than Ever
37:24 Will Putin Invade More European Countries
39:29 What are the Dangers of Having US Made Tech in Europe
47:12 How Does the Change in Relationship Between the US and Europe Impact How We Build Our Tech Ecosystem?
52:36 Quick Fire Questions and Reflections
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20Growth: Inside Kraken's $1.5BN Growth Playbook: What Works, What Doesn't and What No Founders Understand About Growth That Will Change Their Company with Mayur Gupta
25 april 2025 · 53 min
Mayur Gupta is currently the CMO at Kraken, one of the largest crypto platforms in the world. Prior to that, he lead Marketing, Business Transformation and Growth at Gannett - USA Today Network, led Growth at Spotify and was the CMO at Freshly which eventually got acquired by Nestle. He was the first ever Chief Marketing Technologist at Kimberly Clark. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
03:25 Biggest Growth Lessons from Spotify
08:21 Role of Marketing in Product-Led Companies
13:35 How to Build a Growth Engine
20:40 Organic vs. Paid Growth Strategies
27:36 The Branding Dilemma: Performance vs. Brand Marketing
28:37 Creating Demand: The Role of Upper Funnel Marketing
29:35 Balancing Investment: Immediate vs Long Term Bets
30:03 Channel Saturation and Experimentation
31:42 Growth Strategies and Performance Metrics
34:54 Growth: Big Swings or Moving % Points
40:04 Successful Growth Experiments and Tactics
44:56 Quick Fire Questions and Final Thoughts
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20VC: OpenAI's $3BN Acquisition of Windsurf: The Breakdown | Are Endowment Funds F******* & How LP Deployment to Venture Will Change in 2025 | Why Revenue Multiples are BS, The Rise of AI Rollups and Multi-Stage Funds Destroying Seed Investing
24 april 2025 · 1 uur 26 min
In Today's Show We Discuss: Lees meer
04:49 Breaking Down the $3BN Windsurf Acquisition
06:18 Why Sam Altman is Playing a Master Game
12:40 Why Multi-Stage Funds are Destroying Seed Managers
21:52 Are Endowment Funds F******
27:38 What Would Rory Do If He Was CFO of an Ivy League Endowment Fund
43:38 The Denominator Effect and It's Impact on Venture Allocations
49:36 Why Revenue Multiple is BS & What You Need to Know
51:34 The Rise of AI Rollup Plays & Are They Good Businesses
55:29 Competitive Markets: How to Make Money in Them?
01:02:58 Why If You Can Guarantee 5x, You Should Always Do the Deal
01:11:56 Is SF The Only Place to Be Building Today
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20VC: Do Rich Founders Make Better Founders | The Best Performing Fund Would Only Back YC Founders on Their Second Time | Why SPACs Will Come Back | Why Short Sellers Should Be Banned | Is Trump Better for Business than Biden with Jason Wilk @ Dave
21 april 2025 · 59 min
Jason Wilk is the Founder and CEO of Dave, the greatest turnaround in the public markets of the last 12 months. Dave went public with a market cap of $4BN, just months later the company had a market cap of $50M. Today, they are back with a market cap of $1.1BN. In 2024, CNBC named Dave the best-performing financial stock in the country, achieving 900% growth. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:09 Do Rich Founders Make Better Founders
07:45 The Best Performing Fund Would Only Invest in YC Founders on Their Second Time
11:25 "We Went Public Too Late, It Was a Big Mistake"
17:53 Why Did Jason Choose to SPAC?
24:21 Why Does Jason Believe SPACs are Unfairly Demonised and Will Comeback?
29:47 How Does AI Change the Margin Structure of the Next Generation of Companies
33:14 Is Trump Better for Business than a Biden Administration?
38:35 Are We Heading into a Recession? Predictions for Next 12 Months?
46:26 Why Have No Neobanks Reached the Heights of Revolut in the US?
48:08 Why is the Opportunity in Low Income Banking Not High Income in the US?
50:07 Why Short Sellers Should Be Stopped and How Immoral They Are
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20VC: Foundation Models: Who Wins & Who Loses | How Economies and Labour Markets Need to Change in a World of AI | China vs the US in an AI Race: What You Need to Know | Rich Socher, Founder @ You.com
18 april 2025 · 1 uur 4 min
Rich Socher is the Founder and CEO of You.com. Richard previously served as the Chief Scientist and EVP at Salesforce. Before that, Richard was the CEO/CTO of the AI startup MetaMind, which Salesforce acquired in 2016. He is widely recognised as having brought neural networks into the field of natural language processing, inventing the most widely used word vectors, contextual vectors and prompt engineering. He has over 150,000 citations and served as an adjunct professor in the computer science department at Stanford. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:10 Winners & Losers: OpenAI, Gemini, Claude
08:59 How Partnerships Could Decide the Winners in AI
12:42 China vs US: Who Wins the War for AI
25:50 How Society and Economics Needs to Change in a World of AI
34:04 What Jobs Will Be Replaced, What Will Not
36:04 How Europe Needs to Change It's Approach to AI
41:06 How AI Will Change Health and Longevity
43:10 AI in Consumer and Enterprise Markets
49:30 Quantum Computing and AI Misconceptions
56:57 Longevity, Personal Reflections, and Future Outlook
Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.
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20VC: Why Seed is for Suckers | a16z's $20BN Fund & Founders Fund's $4.6BN: What Makes Them So Good | Why Josh Kushner Is the Master of Venture Capital Strategy | Why Extended Private Markets Screw US Citizens with Jason Lemkin and Rory O'Driscoll
17 april 2025 · 1 uur 29 min
Jason Lemkin is one of the leading SaaS investors of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Algolia, Talkdesk, Owner, RevenueCat, Saleloft and more. Lees meer
Rory O'Driscoll is a General Partner @ Scale where he has led investments in category leaders such as Bill.com (BILL), Box (BOX), DocuSign (DOCU), and WalkMe (WKME), among others.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:23 What is Wrong with Billionaires on Twitter: Are They Depressed?
08:49 Why Does product Market Fit Mean Less Than Ever
11:50 Why is Venture Capital More Risky Than Ever and No One is Discussing It
16:17 Will Private Equity Save a Generation of SaaS Companies and VCs
23:53 a16z's $20BN Fund: Seriously?
31:29 Why Josh Kushner and Thrive Capital are Masters of the World
38:21 Why is Seed Investing for Suckers
45:49 Why Are $50 Million Seed Funds Useless
46:21 Founders Fund Raises $4.6BN: Analysis
52:00 How WIll LPs Change Their Approach to Venture in the Next Five Years
59:53 When Will IPOs Comeback?
01:09:15 Why Does it Not Make Sense for the Best Companies to IPO
01:09:51 Lost Ethics and Morals in Founder Secondaries and Term Sheets
01:22:58 Quickfire: OpenAI, Cursor, Deel vs Rippling
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20VC: Benchmark's Victor Lazarte on Why Portfolio Construction is BS| Why SaaS Spreadsheet Investing is Dead | Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US | Three Traits All the Best Founders Have & The Lie All Big Tech Companies Have Been Telling
14 april 2025 · 1 uur 7 min
Victor Lazarte is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the mot renowned venture firms in the world. At Benchmark, Victor has led deals into the likes of HeyGen and Mercor. As an angel, he was the first investor and board member of Brex, and as a Founder he scaled Wildlife Studios, bootstrapping into the largest gaming company in LatAm, with about 4 billion downloads. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:10 Lessons Scaling Wildlife Studios to 4BN Downloads
04:49 Why Predicting the Future is Wrong When Starting a Company
07:11 Three Different Categories of Company in an AI World: Who Wins & Loses?
09:25 Why You Should Always Ask What a Founder Does in Their Free Time?
17:30 Two Traits That All the Best Founders Have?
23:17 Why If You Start a Company in SF You are 1,000x More Likely to be Successful?
35:30 Why Spreadsheet SaaS Investing is Dead
36:10 Why Replacing Humans is the Most Exciting Opportunity in AI
37:02 Why Knowledge Work Will Be Destroyed and What Happens Then?
37:30 Why China is a Stabilising Force for the US
38:59 China vs. US: The AI Race
42:33 Why All Students Today Should Study Computer Science
44:38 Why Portfolio Construction is BS
47:04 What Makes Peter Fenton One of the Best Ever
51:31 Why Duolingo Will Be One of the Most Valuable Companies in the World
01:00:17 Quick Fire Round: Insights and Predictions
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20Product: How Scale AI and Harvey Build Product | Why PMs Are Wrong: They are not the CEOs of the Product | How to do Pre and Post Mortems Effectively and How to Nail PRDs | The Future of Product Management in a World of AI with Aatish Nayak
11 april 2025 · 1 uur 5 min
Aatish Nayak is the Head of Product at Harvey where he oversees product vision, strategy, design, analytics, marketing, and support. This is his third hypergrowth AI unicorn having previously held product leadership roles at Scale AI from 40 to 800 people, and Shield AI from 20 to 100 people. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:21 Biggest Product Lessons from Scale AI
7:18 Why Product Managers Are Wrong: They are not the CEO of the Product
12:28 Why Market Selection is More Important than Anything Else
16:40 If Distribution is King then Product is President
22:06 Effective Product Strategy and Execution
26:24 How to Write the Best PRDs
31:01 Balancing New Features and Technical Debt
33:17 Analysing Retrospectives and Postmortems
33:55 Introduction to Pre-mortems
38:25 Biggest Product Mistakes and Lessons Learned
41:40 Evaluating AI Models and Lessons Learned
45:03 The Future of AI in Product Management
55:21 What Should Product People Learn to Win in a World of AI
59:37 The AI Talent War in San Francisco
01:01:26 Quickfire Round
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20VC: How to Fix the UK Tech Ecosystem | Why We Need to Flood the UK with Venture Capital | What the UK Can Learn From Sequoia, Stripe and Norway | Why Now is the Time to be Bullish on China & Lessons from Jensen Huang with Tom Hulme & Stan Boland
10 april 2025 · 1 uur 25 min
Tom Hulme is a General Partner @ GV and leads GV's European investing. He has led rounds in Monzo, Nothing, GoCardless, Lemonade, Snyk and is widely considered one of the best investors in Europe. Lees meer
Stan Boland is one of the most successful and respected entrepreneurs in the UK. In 1999, he co-founded Element 14 which was acquired by Broadcom in 2000 for $640 million. Following this, Boland co-founded Icera Inc. in 2002, a fabless semiconductor company which he sold to Nvidia for $367 million.
In Today's Discussion We Cover:
04:26 Is The UK's Biggest Problem a Talent Problem
09:50 Why We Need to Flood the UK With Venture Capital
10:38 What Europe Can Learn from Stripe and the Collisons
15:21 How the UK Can Use Visas to Retain the Best Talent
16:46 Why the Government Needs to Put 10x More Cash Into Fund of Funds
24:32 Is the London Stock Exchange F****** and Does it Matter?
34:38 What The UK Can Learn From Sequoia and the Norwegian Sovereign Wealth Fund
40:42 What is a "National Goal for Wealth Creation" & How Do We Implement It?
48:10 What are the Most Broken Elements of the UK Tax Regime
52:11 Is It Stupid to Remove the Non-Dom Tax Status
53:15 Why is Now the Time to Be Bullish on China
01:00:19 Biggest Lessons from Working with Jensen Huang
01:08:04 Quick Fire Round: Insights and Predictions
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20VC: Carvana CEO on Buiding a $50B Company, Losing 99% and Coming Back | Ernest Garcia: Inside the Mind of the Most Misunderstood CEO in America
7 april 2025 · 1 uur 7 min
Ernest Garcia is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Carvana. Under Ernie's leadership, Carvana went from a back-of-the-napkin idea to a $50+ billion public company, became the fastest-growing online used car retailer in U.S. history, and landed on the Fortune 500 in under 10 years. However, it was not all up and to the right, in 2022, the stock plummeted 99% to a market cap of just $400M. Today they are back with a market cap of $35BN, that is a 100x in the public markets and selling 400,000 cars sold annually, with a logistics network that rivals Amazon. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Ernie Garcia We Discuss:
04:12 Are all great founders just "stubborn egomaniacs"?
06:55 How Carvana Almost Died on Several Occasions
08:46 Is Carvana's Inability to get VC Funding a Sign the VC Model is Broken?
11:58 Operators vs. Strategists: What Hires Can Make or Break a Company?
21:46 Billionaire's Biggest Lessons on Parenting
26:52 Is Life About Happiness or Achieving
32:21 The Reality of Being a Public Company CEO
39:07 Why Companies Should Go Public
43:55 Why You Should Price Your IPO to Perfection with No Pop
50:50 "What I Wish I Had Known About Debt in Building Carvana"
52:32 Quick Fire Round: Favourite CEO, Marriage Advice, Carvana in 10 Years
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20VC: Why To Win in AI, Investors Need to Change Their Approach | Why VC is Run by Principals and Associates and is a Broken System | The Bull Case for Anthropic & Whether Deepseek Changes Their Strategy with Nabeel Hyatt @ Spark Capital
4 april 2025 · 1 uur 15 min
Nabeel Hyatt is a General Partner @ Spark Capital, one of the leading firms of the last decade with portfolio companies including Twitter, Anthropic, Coinbase, Affirm, Discord, Deel and more. Lees meer
In Todays Show with Nabeel Hyatt We Discuss:
1. The Rules of Investing:
What have been Nabeel's biggest lessons on price sensitivity? When did he not pay up and with the benefit of hindsight, wish he had of paid up?
How important is ownership to Nabeel and Spark? How does Nabeel think about reserve investing and doubling down?
Why does Nabeel not engage in secondary markets? How does Nabeel think about when is the right time to sell?
Why does Nabeel think the majority of market sizing is total BS?
2. The Venture Landscape: Run by Principles and Broken:
Why does Nabeel believe this generation of AI investing will require a different mindset to the one that made VCs successful over the last decade?
Why does Nabeel believe that venture is currently run by principals and associates? Why is that such a problem?
Why does Nabeel believe that the majority of venture firms today are dead but do not know it yet?
What does Nabeel believe happens to the mega multi-stage firms who have raised billions and billions?
3. How to Win the VC Game in a World of AI:
Infrastructure, models, apps: where does Nabeel believe the most value will accrue in the next decade of AI investing?
What does Nabeel mean when he says there are three categories of AI apps today? Where does Nabeel believe the most valuable will be built?
Does Nabeel believe Deepseek hurt or helped the future for Anthropic? How could Anthropic be a $100BN company from this point?
What does no one see about the next 10 years of AI that everyone should see?
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20Sales: How the Best Sales Teams Use AI to Win Enterprise Deals | Sales Teams Will Be Dramatically Smaller | How to Ramps Sales Reps Way Faster | Why Unpaid Design Partners are BS | Why this Generation of Sales is Soft with Ishan Mukherjee @ Rox
4 april 2025 · 1 uur 9 min
Ishan Mukherjee is the Co-Founder/CEO of Rox, a Sequoia-backed AI-powered sales productivity platform. Before Rox, he was the Chief Growth Officer at New Relic where he scaled the self-serve business from $0-$100M in ARR. Prior to New Relic, Ishan founded Pixie Labs (acq by New Relic). Before that he led product at Siri Knowledge Graph at Apple, Lattice Data (acquired by Apple), Premise Data, and Amazon Robotics. Ishan was also an early engineer in Kiva (acquired by Amazon) where he joined after graduating from MIT. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:50 Biggest Lessons Scaling New Relic's PLG to $100M in ARR
05:59 How to Do PLG and Enterprise at the Same Time
07:00 How to do Content in a PLG World
08:50 Performance Marketing or Organic Content: What Works for PLG
10:27 Why You Should Stop Marketing at Events
11:47 Why SEM is a Cartel
14:15 Why Unpaid Design Partners are BS
17:17 How AI Changes the World of Enterprise Sales: Commit-Based vs. Usage-Based
20:49 How to do Sales Compensation Plans
24:44 How to Ramp New Sales Reps
25:03 The Impact of AI on Sales Research
29:18 How to do Deep Customer Research in an AI World
35:56 Changing Spending Patterns in SaaS
41:41 Retention and Churn in Enterprise AI
43:31 The Future of Sales Teams with AI
44:45 Hiring and Scaling Sales Teams
54:28 Quickfire
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20VC: The Daily Deal: Coreweave IPO | Scale Hits $25BN on $2BN EOY Revenue | Sequoia's 25x Return on Wiz | Tech Stocks Tank with Tariffs | Cursor: Defensible or Dangerous Example of Lost Moats in Tech
3 april 2025 · 1 uur 27 min
Welcome to The Daily Deal — the new show with Harry Stebbings and Jason Lemkin, where we break down the biggest stories in tech, venture, and B2B. From market meltdowns to billion-dollar raises, wild valuations, and the drama behind the deals. We're covering it all! Plus, we'll be joined by some incredible guests to go deeper on the moves shaping the future of our industry. Lees meer
Today we discuss:
Tech stocks were hammered in late trading today in response to the Trump administration's plans to levy tariffs of between 10% and 49% on imported goods, with Apple shares falling more than 6%.
Rippling Deal: Illegal or Hustle?
Emergence Raises $1B for B2B Investments
Cursor, Replit, Windsurf: Who Wins?
Lots of gen AI startups are crossing into the $100M ARR club. The latest entrant is talent marketplace Mercor, last valued at $2B. Is triple triple double double dead?
ScaleAI at $25B: Pricey or Potential?
Discussion with Bhavin Shah @ Moveworks:
ServiceNow Acquires Moveworks for $2.5B: AI Craze Continues
Sequoia Makes 25x on Wiz: Is M&A Open Again?
USD Stablecoin issuer Circle has filed to go public. The company, which has raised $1.2 billion in VC money, reported $1.7 billion in 2024 revenue, with $155.7 million in net income.
Oracle Cloud Revenue Up 23%: Old Guard Wins in AI?
Salesforce Customers Love AgentForce, But Will They Pay?
Dustin Moskovitz Retires from Asana: Is SaaS Too Tough?
Discussion with Andrew Feldman @ Cerebras:
Coreweave's Redemption Provision: A Time Bomb for Coatue?
Can OpenAI's $12B Deal Save Coreweave from $5B Loss?
OpenAI Won't Profit Until $127B in Annual Revenue
A lot of young founders raising big in chips; bullish or bullshit?
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20VC: Microsoft CTO on Where Value Accrues in an AI World | Why Scaling Laws are BS | An Evaluation of Deepseek and How We Underestimate the Chinese | The Future of Software Development and The Future of Agents with Kevin Scott
31 maart 2025 · 45 min
Kevin Scott is the CTO of Microsoft, where he leads the company's AI and technology strategy at global scale and played a pivotal role in Microsoft's partnership with OpenAI. Prior to Microsoft, Kevin spent six years at Linkedin as SVP of Engineering. Kevin has also enjoyed advisory positions with Pinterest, Box, Code.org and more. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:10 Where is Enduring Value in a World of AI
10:53 Why Scaling Laws are BS
12:26 What is the Bottleneck Today: Data, Compute or Algorithms
15:38: In 10 Years Time: What % of Data Usage will be Synthetic
20:04 How Will AI Agents Evolve Over the Next Five Years
23:34: Deepseek Evalution: Do We Underestimate China
28:34 The Future of Software Development
31:53 The Thing That Most Excites Me in AI is Tech Debt
35:01 Leadership Lessons from Satya Nadella
41:13 Quickfire Round
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20VC: Will Revolut and Monzo List in the UK | How Does London Compete Against the US To Win The Best UK IPOs | Are UK Public Companies Punished on Price for Listing in London | The Myths and the Reality of The London Stock Exchange with CEO, Julia Hoggett
28 maart 2025 · 50 min
Dame Julia Hoggett is the CEO of the London Stock Exchange. Julia previously worked at the UK's Financial Conduct Authority as Director of Market Oversight and Head of Wholesale Banking Supervision. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:25 How to Become CEO of a National Stock Exchange
05:36 Why The Domestic Economy is F***** Despite the Boom in Financial Services
06:45 How Pension Fund Reform Dmaaged the UK Economy
09:31 Should the UK Copy the Canadian Pension Fund Structure
16:30 Will the Best Companies Like Revolut and Monzo List in London
24:17 Why Are Revolut Wrong to Want to List in the US
27:32 Are Companies Priced Lower in the UK vs US
32:05 Why is Stamp Duty a Perversity We Have to Change
35:46 Why is the Way the UK Thinks About Financial Services So Wrong
40:31 Quick Fire Round: Insights and Reflections
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20VC: Why Traditional VC is Broken: How VCs Learned Nothing from 2021 | Why LPs are More Important than Founders & Advice to Emerging Managers | Bull Case for Bytedance & Why TikTok's Ban Doesn't Matter with Mitchell Green, Lead Edge Capital
28 maart 2025 · 1 uur 19 min
Mitchell Green is the Founder and Managing Partner of Lead Edge Capital. Mitchell has led or co-led investments in companies including Alibaba, Asana, Benchling, ByteDance, Duo Security, Grafana, Mindbody, and Xamarin, among several others. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:31 How Bessemer Taught Me The One Golden Rule of Investing
06:48 Why AI Infrastrcture is the Worst Investment to Make
08:51 Why it is Comical to think there will be $BN one person companies?
09:26 WTF Happens To The Cohort of SaaS Companies With Slow Growth, Not Yet Profitable and $50M-$200M in Revenue
16:12 What is the Biggest Problem with the IPO Market
23:24 When is the Right Time to Sell in VC and How a Generation F******* it Up
27:37 Biggest Advice to Smaller Emerging Managers
40:13 The One Question That Tells You if a Business is Good
43:01 Why LPs are More Important than Founders
45:03 One Question Every LP Should Ask Their VCs
46:03 Why TikTok Does Not Matter to ByteDance and It Is a Screaming Buy
51:30 Why We Drastically Underestimate the Power of Chinese AI?
55:18 Why Social Media is the Most Dangerous Thing in Society
01:00:07 Quick Fire Questions
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20VC: The Insane Story of DeliveryHero: Losing $200M on a Gorillas Investment | Winning the Emerging Markets Delivery War with 35 Acquisitions | Competing with Uber and Doordash in a Capital Arms Race with Niklas Östberg
28 maart 2025 · 1 uur 1 min
Niklas Östberg is the Founder and CEO of Delivery Hero, a global juggernaut now present in over 70 countries across four continents. In Q4 2024, the company announced GMV of $49BN with $12.8BN in revenue and $750M in EBITDA. They have made an astonishing 35+ acquisitions including $2BN for Glovo. Before launching Delivery Hero, Niklas co-founded Pizza.nu, leading its expansion across Sweden, Poland, Finland, and Austria. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:09 How Skiing Prepared Me For Life As An Entrepreneur
10:12 Losing $200M on Gorillas Investment
17:58 Quick Commerce: Does the Business Model Work?
25:09 How to Master M&A: Lessons from 35 Acquisitions
31:45 Evaluating Acquisitions: The Glovo Example
32:39 Cohort Analysis: Lessons from $49BN in GMV
34:35 Growth Strategies: What Worked? What Did Not Work?
38:27 Competing Against Uber and Doordash
41:40 Is Cash a Weapon in the War for Food Delivery
44:29 Why Are Emerging Markets a Good Investment?
48:21 Why Are European Markets Broken? Are Regulators Killing Europe?
51:57 Quickfire Round: Insights and Reflections
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20VC: AI Chip Wars: How Cerebras Plans to Topple NVIDIA's Dominance | Why We Have Not Reached Scaling Laws in AI | What Happens to the Cost of Inference | How We Underestimate China and Shouldn't Sell To Them with Andrew Feldman
24 maart 2025 · 1 uur 3 min
Andrew Feldman is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Cerebras, the fastest AI inference + training platform in the world. In Sept 2024 the company filed to go public off the back of a rumoured $1BN deal with G42 in the UAE. Andrew is the leading expert for all things inference. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:23 Where Was AI Landscape in 2015 When Cerebras Founded
05:57 NVIDIA's Biggest Strength Has Become Their Biggest Weakness
07:09 What Happens to the Cost of Inference?
08:55 Why Are AI Algorithms So Inefficient?
20:30 Why is it Total BS That We Have Hit Scaling Laws?
23:07 What Will Be the Ratio of Synthetic to Human Data Used in 5 Years?
31:37 What Specifically Was So Impressive About Deepseek?
31:51 Why is Distillation Not Wrong and OpenAI Need to Look in the Mirror?
32:34 Where Will Value Accrue in a World of AI?
34:08 How Will NVIDIA's Market Position Change Over the Next Five Years?
39:59 Why is the CUDA Lockin for NVIDIA BS? What is Their Weakness?
40:46 Why is Trump Better for Business than Biden?
49:41 Do We Underestimate China in a World of AI?
52:33 What is the Most Underappreciated Segment of AI?
54:00 Quickfire Round
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20VC: Selling Drift for $1.2BN is the Biggest Failure: What No One Tells You About Selling Your Company | Why Incumbents Are Slower & Worse Than Ever | Why the Most Valuable Companies in a World of AI Will Not Have More Than 100 People with Elias Torres
21 maart 2025 · 1 uur 7 min
Elias Torres is the Co-Founder and CEO of Agency, the AI agent for customer success teams. Prior to Agency, Elias was the Co-Founder of Drift, a company he sold to Vista for $1.2BN Before that he started Performable, which he sold to Hubspot. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
03:50 Do Rich Founders Make Better Founders: How Backgrounds Shape You
06:23 Speed: Why are Incumbents Slower than Ever
10:00 Quality: Why are Incumbents Worse than Ever
25:34 Why Was Selling Drift For $1.2BN a Massive Failure
33:30 How Did a Cushy Culture Kill Drift
37:01 What They Never Tell You About Selling for $1.2BN
41:08 How to Hire F******* Rockstars
46:52 The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make in Hiring
54:52 Everything You Think You Know About Working Parents is Wrong
01:02:00 Quickfire
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20VC: The 10 Question Framework a $217BN Manager Uses to Make Investment Decisions | Lessons from Turning Down Stripe, Coinbase and Losing Money on Northvault | The Bull Case for Bytedance | How Anduril Could Be a $200BN Company with Peter Singlehurst
19 maart 2025 · 1 uur 12 min
Peter Singlehurst is the Head of Private Companies at Baillie Gifford. He has led research on a wide range of private investments including Epic Games, Bending Spoons, Anduril, Solugen, Scopely, and Grammarly, as well as a number of private holdings that have since transitioned to the public markets such as Airbnb, Affirm, Warby Parker, Wise and Tempus AI. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Peter We Discuss:
04:24 How I Accidentally Came to Manage One of the Largest Private Investment Firms in the World
07:29 What I Learned Losing 100s of $Ms
10:22 The 10 Questions Baillie Gifford Needs to Answer to Make an Investment
15:53 Why We Did Not Double Down in Stripe and Turned Down Coinbase
33:10 The ByteDance Investment Case
36:33 Why Would Any Good Company Go Public Today
39:19 Growth Stage Investing Trends
40:46 How Anduril Becomes a $200BN Company
45:39 Is 2024 Different to the Madness of 2021 and 2022
47:18 The Decision-Making Process Inside a $217BN Firm
49:00 How Does Re-Investment Decision-Making Differ from Original Investments
55:56 Future of Growth Equity Investing
58:12 Quick Fire Questions
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20VC: HubSpot CEO on Where Value Accrues in SaaS AI | How HubSpot Competes Against Salesforce | Why B2B Is Not a Winner Take All Market | How to Go From SMB to Enterprise an Win | How SEO Dying Changes HubSpot's Business with Yamini Rangan
18 maart 2025 · 55 min
Yamini Rangan is the CEO at HubSpot. The $32BN juggernaut that has revenues of $2.6BN, over 247,000 customers and 8,200 employees. Prior to Hubspot, Yamini served as Chief Customer Officer at Dropbox, and before Dropbox, she was VP of Sales Strategy and Operations at Workday. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:16 Taking Over the CEO Role from the Founders
07:58 Wartime vs Peacetime CEOship
11:18 How to Scale Into Enterprise: What Everyone Gets Wrong
22:20 Why is B2B Not Winner Take All
29:33 How Does HubSpot Compete Against Salesforce
33:26 Where Does Value Accrue in a World of AI
37:40 How Does Yamini Use AI Everyday
41:17 What Does HubSpot Do When It's Core SEO Channel Dies
44:10 Quickfire Round: Satya Nadella, Parenting Advice, Biggest Concern
51:35 Closing Thoughts and Reflections
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20Product: How to Design and Build Products in a World of Agents | Why AI Will Kill Many SaaS Products | What Products Will Thrive and Die in a World of 100M Developers with Matt Biilmann, Co-Founder and CEO @ Netlify
14 maart 2025 · 49 min
Matt Biilmann is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Netlify. Under his leadership, Netlify has become one of the fastest-growing platforms for modern web development. Matt recently introduced agent experience (AX), a new way of thinking about how software is built and experienced in the AI era. Matt is also known for coining Jamstack, a concept that redefined how developers build for the web. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
03:43 How Does the Design Process Change When Designing For Agents
06:27 How Does the Product Building Process Change When Building for Agents
12:52 Will AI Kill SaaS Tools
16:12 If Prototyping Becomes Phase 1: Does Figma Survive?
17:35 Is Chat the Best Interface for a World of AI
21:52 Why AI Services Will Be One of the Biggest Economies
27:24 Open vs. Closed Platforms in an Agent-First World
31:09 Specialization of Large Language Models
35:13 Shifting Labor Costs to Agent Spend
36:28 The Future of Stripe and What Happens with 100M Developers in the World
38:39 Quickfire Round: Insights and Predictions