The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
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20VC: Lessons from Investing $2BN and Returning $8BN in Cash | Why Most Venture Partnerships are Broken | We Sold Salesforce Early and Lost Out on Billions | Are The Best Deals Always Expensive and Competitive with Jake Saper @ Emergence Capital
10 maart 2025 · 1 uur 29 min
Jake Saper is a General Partner @ Emergence Capital, one of the leading venture firms of the last 20 years. Their many wins include being early investors in Salesforce, Zoom, Veeva and more. In total, the firm has invested $2BN and returned an astonishing $8BN in cash with much more to come. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:45 The Zoom Investment Story
10:21 Founder, Market, Traction: Rank Them
26:37 Why Market Pull is the Most Important Thing and How to Know
27:23 Are the Best Deals Always Expensive?
28:25 What is the One Framework Emergence Use for Every Investment
29:08 Lessons from the 16x DPI Zoom Fund
30:44 Why Does Every Partner Do Reference Calls on Every Deal?
35:16 We Have Lied to SaaS Founders: The Revenue Rules Changed
37:53 Where Will Value Accrue in a World of AI?
41:37 Three Reasons Why AI Will Not Replace Vertical SaaS
46:38 Who Wins in AI: Startups or Incumbents?
50:09 Why Should Every Company Aim to Be a "Board Discussion"
55:12 Why is Jake Worried About AI's FTX Moment?
56:00 What Losing Billions on Salesforce Taught Us About Selling
01:00:07 Why Most VC Partnerships are Broken
01:03:07 Grok vs Anthropic vs OpenAI: Buy and Sell?
01:14:25 Quickfire Round: Insights and Reflections
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 o…
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20Sales: Everything You Know About Sales Playbooks is Wrong | How to Hire and Train Your First Sales Hires | How to Crush Pipeline and Deal Reviews as a Team | How to Structure Sales Teams and Sales Comp Plans with Julian Teixeira, CRO @ 1Password
7 maart 2025 · 52 min
Julian Teixeira is the Chief Revenue Officer at 1Password, where he has grown B2B revenue over 8x and scaled a team of more than 450 in go-to-market. 1Password set the record for the largest raise in Canadian history at the start of 2022 and has raised nearly $1B in capital throughout his time with the company. Prior to 1Password, Julian served as the head of global sales at Lightspeed Commerce, a company he helped scale from startup to IPO and through over 10 acquisitions throughout his decade-long tenure. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:27 Sales Lessons from Scaling to $1BN in ARR
05:20 How to Create and Master a Sales Playbook
07:53 Lessons on First Sales Hires
09:41 Setting Goals and Targets for Sales Teams
13:22 The Reality of Tech Sales Today
16:19 Evaluating and Managing Sales Reps
19:07 Outbound Prospecting and Pipeline Generation
22:22 Hunter vs. Farmer Sales Models
24:15 Compensation and Specialization in Sales Teams
28:56 Outbound vs Inbound Sales
32:47 Pipeline and Deal Reviews
37:37 Sales Tech Stack and Tools
38:40 Maintaining Sales Morale
44:55 Are Remote Sales Teams Less Effective
46:44 Final Thoughts and Advice
This episode is brought to you by:
Gong, the revenue AI platform centralising all your revenue workflows in a single unified platform.
Capchase, helping SaaS companies grow without dilution. Learn more at capchase.com/20vc
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20VC: Lovable on Hitting $17.5M in ARR in 3 Months | Adding $2.1M ARR Every Week | Hitting 85% Day 30 Retention: Better than ChatGPT | The Story of Europe's Fastest Scaling Company with Anton Osika
5 maart 2025 · 51 min
Anton Osika is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Lovable, the fastest growing startup in Europe. With Lovable, you can turn your idea into an app in seconds with just a prompt. After just 3 months, the company has scaled to $17.5M in ARR. They are adding $2M in net new revenue every single week. Even better, Lovable has 85% Day 30 retention rate, making it more retentive than ChatGPT. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
03:41 How a Side Project Turned into a $200M Company
05:39 Why Talent is 10x More Valuable Than Experience
08:57 How to Use a Waitlist Pre-Launch to 10x Growth
12:29 How to Master a Public Launch: $0 - $1M ARR in a Week
18:02 Why Raise a Large Seed Round
22:22 How Sustainable is Lovable and AI Revenue
25:22 What are Lovable's Biggest Threats: Incumbents or Open Source
27:00 Raising Series A: Should You Always Take the Money
27:46 How to Compete in the US from Europe
28:25 Is Europe as F****** as the World Thinks
29:02 Building in Europe vs. Silicon Valley
31:20 The Future of Foundation Models: Who Wins
33:47 Grok vs OpenAI vs Anthropic: Buy and Short
41:37 Quickfire Round: Insights and Reflections
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20VC: Anthropic CPO Mike Krieger: Where Will Value Be Created in a World of AI | Have Foundation Models Commoditized | When Do Model Providers Become Application Providers | What Anthropic Learned from Deepseek
3 maart 2025 · 1 uur 6 min
Mike Krieger is the Co-Founder of Instagram and now CPO @ Anthropic. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Mike Krieger We Discuss:
03:07 Where Will Value Be Created and Sustained in a World of AI?
04:59 Are Foundation Models Commoditised Today?
08:36 Should Founders Build for the Models of Today or Build for Models of the Future
12:19: Why Will Models Become More Different Than More Similar
16:38: Will Human or Synthetic Data Be More Prominent in the Future
19:28 Model Quality vs. Product UX
23:36 The Competitive Landscape of AI
32:27 Do We Underestimate China's AI Capabilities
33:59 What Did Anthropic Learn from Deepseek
34:07 Is Deepseek a Sustaining and Credible Threat?
37:04 Transitioning from Model Provider to Application Provider
38:26 Where Has Anthropic Chronically Under-Invested
39:08 Why Has Anthropic Been Slow On Consumer Product Development
43:50 What is the Role of a Software Developer in the Future
48:29 Balancing API and Consumer Products
51:09 Is Europe Stronger or Weaker in a World of AI
52:40 Quickfire Round: Insights and Reflections
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20Growth: Inside Ramp's Growth Engine: How Ramp Became the Fastest Growing SaaS Company Ever | What Worked & What Did Not Work | How to Hire for Growth | How to Find Alpha in Channels Where No One Else Can with George Bonaci
28 februari 2025 · 55 min
George Bonaci is the VP of Growth at Ramp, where he's helping one of the fastest-growing fintech companies scale even further. Prior to Ramp, George was VP of Growth at Gong. Before Gong, George was at Samsara where he helped grow revenue from <$100M to >$650M ARR, and played a pivotal role in the company's successful IPO. Lees meer
In Today's Growth Masterclass We Discuss:
03:57 How the Best Growth Teams Experiment
05:10 How to Allocate Bets and Resources for Growth
07:09 Velocity vs. Quality in Growth
15:05 The Role of Postmortems and How to Do Them
19:16 Growth Team Structure and Standalone or Not?
20:01 The Three Ways to Find Alpha in Growth
30:01 How to Hire for the Best Growth Hires
31:30 How to do Take-Home Assignments When Hiring for Growth
32:51 Common Pitfalls in Hiring Growth Talent
34:16 Investing in Management and Learning
42:43 How AI Changes Growth Products and Strategies
46:43 Quick Fire Round: Common Mistakes and Growth Channels
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20VC: The Insane Story of Glovo: Selling 30% of the Company for €100K | The McDonalds Deal That Saved Them | Running out of Money Three Times | Burning $1M Per Day | Being Acquired for $2.2BN with Oscar Pierre, Founder @ Glovo
26 februari 2025 · 1 uur 7 min
Oscar Pierre is the Founder and CEO @ Glovo, the food delivery site that will get you anything you want to your doorstep. This story is insane, the company was started by Oscar 11 years ago, in their pre-seed round they sold ⅓ of the company for €100K. The company was later saved by a deal they made with McDonald's. The company nearly ran out of money on several occasions, one time the funding round came from the CEO of Rakuten who Oscar met an FC Barcelona drinks. Today, they are a part of DeliveryHero who acquired them for $2.2BN, they have delivered 1BN orders and have almost 60M customers. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:27 Starting with Nothing
07:30 The First Funding Round: Selling ⅓ of the Company for €100K
09:23 Marketplace Dynamics and Expansion
15:34 The McDonald's Deal That Saved the Company
18:38 Running out of Money Three Times: Fundraising Hell
25:57 International Expansion: What Worked
29:25 Lessons from Failures: What Brazil Taught Us
31:36 How to Win in Emerging Markets
32:02 The Burn Rate (Burning $1M per day) and Investor Concerns
33:29 Scaling Challenges and Competitor Threats
34:29 The Biggest BS Elements of Company Values
35:40 How I Ruined the Culture of the Company
41:14 Layoffs and Talent Management
42:06 Biggest Lessons from M&A
44:41 The Future of Quick Commerce
45:38 Acquisition by Delivery Hero
48:56 Post-Acquisition Reflections
54:47 The CEO on Trial and Facing Prison
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20VC: Why Google Will Win the AI Arms Race & OpenAI Will Not | NVIDIA vs AMD: Who Wins and Why | The Future of Inference vs Training | The Economics of Compute & Why To Win You Must Have Product, Data & Compute with Steeve Morin @ ZML
24 februari 2025 · 1 uur 13 min
Steeve Morin is the Founder & CEO @ ZML, a next-generation inference engine enabling peak performance on a wide range of chips. Prior to founding ZML, Steeve was the VP Engineering at Zenly for 7 years leading eng to millions of users and an acquisition by Snap. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:17 How Will Inference Change and Evolve Over the Next 5 Years
09:17 Challenges and Innovations in AI Hardware
15:38 The Economics of AI Compute
18:01 Training vs. Inference: Infrastructure Needs
25:08 The Future of AI Chips and Market Dynamics
34:43 Nvidia's Market Position and Competitors
38:18 Challenges of Incremental Gains in the Market
39:12 The Zero Buy-In Strategy
39:34 Switching Between Compute Providers
40:40 The Importance of a Top-Down Strategy for Microsoft and Google
41:42 Microsoft's Strategy with AMD
45:50 Data Center Investments and Training
46:40 How to Succeed in AI: The Triangle of Products, Data, and Compute
48:25 Scaling Laws and Model Efficiency
49:52 Future of AI Models and Architectures
57:08 Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)
01:00:52 Why OpenAI's Position is Not as Strong as People Think
01:06:47 Challenges in AI Hardware Supply
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20VC Exclusive: Mercor Raises $100M at a $2BN Valuation: Scaling to $70M in ARR in 24 Months | 9-9-6: 9AM-9PM - 6 Days Per Week: The Most Intense Culture in Silicon Valley | The Future of Programming, Models and Data with Adarsh Hiremath
20 februari 2025 · 46 min
Adarsh Hiremath is the Co-Founder and CTO @ Mercor, an AI recruitment platform and one of the fastest-growing companies in technology. They have scaled to $70M in ARR in just 24 months. They are famed for working 6 days per week, 9AM to 9PM. All of their founders are Thiel fellows, they are also the youngest unicorn founders ever with the fundraise announced today raising $100M led by Felicis at a $2BN valuation. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:36 How Debating Makes The Best Founders
06:05 Do People Treat You Differently When a Unicorn Founder
10:58 Scaling to $70M ARR in 24 Months
13:42 How Culture Breaks When Scaling So Fast
23:49 The Future of Foundation Models
24:05 OpenAI vs Anthropic
24:32 Data: Synthetic vs Human
27:10 The Future of Programming and AI
28:15 The Impact of AI Tools on Software Development
28:51 Why Software Will Become Commoditised
29:55 Network Effects and Marketplaces
33:13 Raising From Benchmark After a Helicopter Ride
37:30 Quickfire Round: Insights and Reflections
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20VC: NVIDIA vs Groq: The Future of Training vs Inference | Meta, Google, and Microsoft's Data Center Investments: Who Wins | Data, Compute, Models: The Core Bottlenecks in AI & Where Value Will Distribute with Jonathan Ross, Founder @ Groq
17 februari 2025 · 1 uur 21 min
Jonathan Ross is the Founder & CEO of Groq, the creator of the world's first Language Processing Unit (LPUTM). Prior to Groq, Jonathan began what became Google's Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) as a 20% project where he designed and implemented the core elements of the first-generation TPU chip. Jonathan next joined Google X's Rapid Eval Team, the initial stage of the famed "Moonshots Factory", where he devised and incubated new Bets (Units) for Google's parent company, Alphabet. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:20 Interview with Jonathan Ross Begins
04:59 Scaling Laws and AI Model Training
06:22 Synthetic Data and Model Efficiency
12:01 Inference vs. Training Costs: Why NVIDIA Loses Inference
17:06 The Future of AI Inference: Efficiency and Cost
18:15 Chip Supply and Scaling Concerns
20:57 Energy Efficiency in AI Computation
25:40 Why Most Dollars Into Datacenters Will Be Lost
31:05 Meta, Google, and Microsoft's Data Center Investments
41:11 Distribution of Value in the AI Economy
42:10 Stages of Startup Success
43:17 The AI Investment Bubble
45:00 The Keynesian Beauty Contest in VC
48:40 NVIDIA's Role in the AI Ecosystem
53:39 China's AI Strategy and Global Implications
57:51 Europe's Potential in the AI Revolution
01:10:14 Future Predictions and AI's Impact on Society
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20VC: From Penniless Printing Shop Offices to Public Company and One of the Largest Entertainment Companies: The Story of LADbible | The Future of Content & Social Media | US vs Europe: Is Europe F****** with Solly Solomou
14 februari 2025 · 1 uur
Founder and CEO of LADbible Group, Solly Solomou has built one of the largest and most engaged digital media entertainment companies in the world. Under his leadership, LADbible has grown to reach two-thirds of 18-34-year-olds in the UK, with a global audience of over 494 million followers, including 141 million in the US. The company's content now has a total reach of over 1 billion people worldwide. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
From Printer Shop Office to Ringing the IPO Bell:
How did Solly start LADbible with no money and no experience?
How did a moment with Kevin Hart and Ice Cube show Solly that he had something special with LADbible?
In the expansion of the business, what new products did not work? What did Solly learn from the failures of products?
Why did Solly always want to build the business without an external funding?
What are the top 3 pieces of advice Solly gives to young entrepreneurs starting a business today?
The Future of Content and Social Media:
How does Solly see wearables changing the future of media and social?
Does Solly agree that the friendship graph has been eradicated by interest graphs?
Does Solly think TikTok should be banned?
Why does Solly think TikTok Shop is the most interesting product in social today?
Europe vs US: Is Europe F******:
What are the single biggest differences between doing business in the US vs Europe?
Why did Solly decide to go public in London on The London Stock Exchange?
How tough is it being a public company in London?
How important are local liquidity markets if Europe is to regain competitiveness?
If Solly were advising Keir Starmer on how to stimulate growth in the UK, what would he say and advise?
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20VC: Monzo: The Greatest Turnaround in Tech: From £40M Revenues, Layoffs, Downrounds and Low Employee NPS to $1BN in Revenue, Profitable and 10M Customers with TS Anil, CEO @ Monzo
13 februari 2025 · 56 min
TS Anil is the CEO @ Monzo, where he has been the mastermind behind the greatest turnaround in tech in the last 10 years. When TS took over at Monzo they had £40M in revenue, very little runway, had a 40% down round and had large layoffs and low employee NPS. Today they are at £1BN in revenue, profitable and the UK's largest digital bank with more than 10m customers. Lees meer
From $40M Revenues to $1BN Revenues and Profitable:
1. What are the most profitable elements of Monzo's business today? How will that change in time?
2. What did TS do with Monzo that he wishes he had not done? What did he not do that he wishes he had done?
3. How does TS approach expansion? How will he win Europe against the competition of Revolut?
4. Why have no European fintechs won when expanding into the US? What do they do wrong?
5. How does TS think about the decision to go public? Will he go public in London?
6. How does TS respond to the notion that Monzo has a "work life balance" culture in the face of the fierce culture of Revolut?
7. What have been TS' biggest lessons from raising $1BN for Monzo from the largest institutions in the world? What was the easiest round? What was the hardest?
8. What three core traits does TS believe all great leaders need to have? If you do not have them, how can you develop them most efficiently?
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20VC: The $5BN Company Built from the Belgian Countryside | The Story of Odoo: The Company with No Plans to Sell, IPO & Their Billionaire Founder Who Does Not Care About Money with Fabien Pinckaers, Founder & CEO @ Odoo
12 februari 2025 · 1 uur 16 min
Fabien Pinckaers is the Founder & CEO of Odoo, one of the most incredible businesses that you might not have heard of. Built from the countryside of Belgium, they do an astonishing $650M in ARR, they have over 5,000 employees and have over 50,000 companies as customers. Even better, Fabian openly does not ever want to sell the company, IPO, believes that titles in companies are total BS and most management is done completely wrong. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Fabien We Discuss:
1. Everything You Know About Management is Wrong:
Why is it BS to give people titles in a company?
How does Odoo hire people after only one interview?
Why does Odoo prefer to hire really young people under 30?
Why does Fabien think it is the worst to build a team in Silicon Valley?
2. The Billionaire Who Does Not Care About Money:
Why does Fabien literally not care about money and does not even own a house?
Why does Fabien refuse to ever sell or IPO Odoo?
How does Fabien plan to offer liquidity to investors if he never wants to sell or IPO?
3. Why Did Every VC Turn Down the $5BN Odoo:
What are Fabien's biggest lessons from being rejected by every VC for Odoo?
What did they not see that they should have seen?
Why did Fabien always want the price of the company on every funding round to be as low as possible?
How does Fabien advise founders on pitching VCs today, knowing all he knows?
4. Scaling to $650M in ARR: The Biggest Lessons:
Why does Fabien believe the biggest mistake companies make is they lose focus?
What did Fabien not do with Odoo that they should have done?
What did Fabien do and invest in, that with the benefit of hindsight they should not have done?
When did the business start to break with scale? What would Fabien have done differently knowing all he does know?
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20VC: Why Model Providers Will Kill Many Startups Moving into the Application Layer | Why Deepseek is not a Threat to OpenAI & Why OpenAI Beats Anthropic | Apps vs Models vs Infrastructure: Where is Value in AI with Sridhar Ramaswamy, Snowflake CEO
10 februari 2025 · 55 min
Sridhar Ramaswamy is the CEO @ Snowflake, the $60BN public company with $3.5BN in revenue growing 30% per year. Sridhar joined Snowflake following his company, Neeva, being acquired by them for $150M. Prior to founding Neeva, Ramaswamy spent 15 years at Google where he had an integral part in the growth of AdWords and Google's advertising business from $1.5 billion to over $100 billion. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
1. OpenAI vs Deepseek vs Anthropic:
Why will OpenAI beat Deepseek? What does no one see with Deepseek that they should see?
Why has OpenAI beaten Anthropic? What elements turn a model from a commodity into a sustaining product suite?
Will model providers become application providers?
Will OpenAI be the biggest killer of startups in the next 10 years?
2. Snowflake vs Nvidia & Databricks:
To what extent is Sridhar concerned NVIDIA will move into the data layer and compete with Snowflake?
How does Sridhar view the competition from Databricks? What have they done better than them? What have they done worse than them and lost on?
Does being private hurt or help Databricks in their fight against Snowflake?
If Sridhar could, would he take Snowflake private today?
3. Leadership, Parenting, Money:
Do richer leaders make better leaders? How does being rich change the mindset of a leader?
What are Sridhar's biggest lessons when it comes to parenting?
What about the way that Sridhar was brought up, did he do deliberately differently with his kids?
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20Product: Product Secrets Behind Uber and Opendoor | How AI Changes the Role of the PM & The Product Development Process | How to Hire the Best Product Teams & What No One Does That Everyone Should Do with Brian Tolkin
7 februari 2025 · 45 min
Brian Tolkin is the Head of Product @ Opendoor where he has spent the last 6 years and is responsible for product strategy and product and design teams. Before Opendoor, Brian spent an incredible 5 years at Uber through their wildest growth periods. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Brian Tolkin:
03:53 Brian's Journey at Uber: Launching China Pool
05:07 Product Lessons from Uber's China Launch
08:22 The Role of a PM in a Pre vs. Post AI World
10:16 Product Development Process in an AI World
17:43 The Importance of Simplification in Product Management
19:21 OKRs and Prioritization in Product Management
23:12 The Importance of Feedback Loops in Product Development
23:38 Evaluating Product Changes: User Adaptation vs. Bad Decisions
25:00 Balancing Gut Instinct and Data in Product Leadership
25:38 The Role of Simplicity in Product Design
27:02 Consensus vs. Dictatorial Product Leadership
27:54 Hiring for the Best Product Teams
31:33 How to do Effective Sprint Management
38:39 Quickfire Round: Insights and Advice
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20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap
5 februari 2025 · 1 uur 2 min
Max Levchin is one of the great founders and technologists of our time. As the Founder and CEO of Affirm, he has built am $18.7BN monster in the buy no pay later space. Prior to Affirm he was one of the original co-founders of PayPal. Max is also the co-founder and Chairman of Glow, a data-driven fertility company. Max is also an immensely successful angel investor with a portfolio including the likes of Yelp, Pinterest and Evernote. Lees meer
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
04:19 How to Hire the Best People in the World
05:05 How to Manage Extreme Personalities
08:18 Biggest Lessons on Trust and What Happens When Lost
12:05 Is Grading Talent A and B Players Total BS?
15:31 How to Think About Calculated vs Uncalculated Risk
27:18 How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems: Step by Step
32:08 Why Every Person Must Write and How to Create a Writing Culture
36:01 Leadership Lessons from Layoffs
38:38 Is Affirm Losing or Beating Klarna in the US?
47:03 Peter Thiel or Elon Musk: Who Would Max Rather Start a New Company With?
48:37 Quickfire Round
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20VC: Lime's CEO on Going from Losing $3 on Every $1 to $90M in EBITDA | How Lime Built the Global Leader in Micromobility When Competitors Went Bust | Losing 90% of Revenues in COVID and The Uber Deal That Saved the Company with Wayne Ting
30 januari 2025 · 1 uur 6 min
Wayne Ting is CEO of Lime. The global leader in micromobility, the first to achieve a fully profitable year (2022). Last year, Lime did over $600M in gross bookings, $90M in EBITDA. Their 4-year top-line CAGR is 30%. Before joining Lime, Wayne spent four years at Uber in various roles, including Chief of Staff to CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, and General Manager of Uber's Northern California business. Wayne previously served as a Senior Policy Advisor on the White House's National Economic Council under President Obama. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Wayne Ting We Discuss:
Is Lime Really a Good Business:
How did Wayne turn Lime from losing $3 on every $1 to $90M in EBITDA?
What worked? What did not work?
What did Lime do that he wishes they had not done?
What did they not do that he wishes they had done?
The Moments that Changed Everything:
COVID: Lime lost 95% of their revenues overnight. What did Wayne and Lime do to save the business in such a short space of time?
Uber Deal: How did the Uber deal led by Uber CEO, Dara, save Lime as a business?
Battery Innovation: How did an innovation on the transportability of batteries and replacing them change the entire Lime business?
The Dangers of VC Funding and Capital Efficiency:
Why does Wayne believe that VC hype cycles are so damaging for companies and sectors?
How did the heat around micromobility damage Lime?
What did Wayne and Lime do to increase their capital efficiency so much? What worked? What did not?
AMA with the CEO of Lime:
What company did Lime not acquire that Wayne wishes they had?
How did having a stroke change the way that Wayne leads?
Which competitor does Wayne most respect and admire?
What were his biggest lessons from working with Dara @ Uber?
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20VC: Deepseek Special: Is Deepseek a Weapon of the CCP | How Should OpenAI and the US Government Respond | Why $500BN for Stargate is Not Enough | The Future of Inference, NVIDIA and Foundation Models with Jonathan Ross @ Groq
30 januari 2025 · 55 min
Jonathan Ross is the Co-Founder and CEO of Groq, providing fast AI inference. Prior to founding Groq, Jonathan started Google's TPU effort where he designed and implemented the core elements of the original chip. Jonathan then joined Google X's Rapid Eval Team, the initial stage of the famed "Moonshots factory," where he devised and incubated new Bets (Units) for Alphabet. Lees meer
The 10 Most Important Questions on Deepseek:
How did Deepseek innovate in a way that no other model provider has done?
Do we believe that they only spent $6M to train R1?
Should we doubt their claims on limited H100 usage? Is Josh Kushner right that this is a potential violation of US export laws?
Is Deepseek an instrument used by the CCP to acquire US consumer data?
How does Deepseek being open-source change the nature of this discussion?
What should OpenAI do now? What should they not do?
Does Deepseek hurt or help Meta who already have their open-source efforts with Lama?
Will this market follow Satya Nadella's suggestion of Jevon's Paradox?
How much more efficient will foundation models become?
What does this mean for the $500BN Stargate project announced last week?
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20Sales: Why Every Sales Rep Should Do Pipeline Generation & How to Teach Them | Verticalised Sales Playbooks: When and How | How the Best Sales Reps and Leaders Structure Their Time with Carlos Delatorre, CRO @ Harness
24 januari 2025 · 1 uur 8 min
Carlos Delatorre is one of the legendary go-to-market leaders of the last 20 years. Today, Carlos is the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) at Harness, where he oversees global sales and go-to-market (GTM) operations. Before Harness, Carlos was the CRO @ MongoDB and Navan. Carlos is also an investor with a portfolio including the likes of Modern Treasury and Starburst to name a few. Lees meer
In Today's Sales Masterclass We Discuss:
03:48 The Art and Science of Sales
04:42 How to Hire Sales Talent
06:26 How to Build a Sales Team
15:28 Why Every Sales Rep Should do Pipeline Generation
19:45 How the Best Reps to Pipeline Generation
21:34 Biggest challenges of Pipeline Generation
22:44 Pipeline Generation Success Stories
34:59 Sales Metrics and Conversion Rates
35:32 Customer Acquisition Strategies
37:17 Evaluating Sales Performance
39:14 Effective Sales Training
43:10 Pipeline Generation and Deal Reviews
45:05 Maintaining Sales Team Morale
46:20 Verticalized Sales Playbooks
48:37 Addressing SaaS Churn Rates
49:49 Discounting and Deal Slippage
52:02 Transitioning to CEO Role
54:15 Hiring Mistakes and Sales Rep Evolution
57:03 In-Person vs. Remote Sales Teams
57:55 Account Management Strategies
01:02:47 Creative Sales Tactics
01:04:12 Final Advice for Sales Leaders
01:04:46 Adapting Sales Strategies During Crisis
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20VC: Why All AI Companies Are Under-Valued | The Future of Foundation Models: Scaling Laws, Generalised vs Specialised, Commoditised? | From Unable to Afford Rent to Raising $130M From Index and Peter Thiel with George Sivulka @ Hebbia
22 januari 2025 · 1 uur 6 min
George Sivulka is the founder and CEO of Hebbia, is one of the fastest-growing gen AI companies and they recently raised a $130M series B. Investors include the company include hailed names such as a16z, Peter Thiel, Index, GV and others. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with George Sivulka We Discuss:
04:47 Three Traits The Best Founders All Share?
08:11 How Cold Calling NASA Changed My Life
12:01 From Stealing Food From Stanford to Pitching Peter Thiel
17:22 Lessons working with Peter Thiel
26:39 The Future of AI and Business Applications
33:03 The Future of Employment with AI
33:45 Debunking the Myths of AI Job Displacement
35:09 The Future of Models: Many specialised or few generalised?
35:56 Scaling at Inference: A New Frontier
38:10 The Impact of Scaling Laws on Foundation Models
40:40 The Future of AI and Enterprise Value
43:43 The Geopolitical Influence on AI
45:03 The Commoditization of AI Models
47:47 Why Foundation Models Will Not Follow the Same Path of Cloud
52:53 Why All Companies, Both AI and Non-AI Are Undervalued
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20VC: Why Large Seed Rounds Increase the Chances of Success | When to Sell in Venture | Why Multi-Stage Firms Do Not Do The Work | Is Europe Totally F****** and Why AI Means London Can Compete with the US with Hussein Kanji
20 januari 2025 · 1 uur 18 min
Hussein Kanji is the Founder and Managing Partner of Hoxton Ventures, one of Europe's leading early-stage firms with mega wins in the form of Darktrace and Deliveroo. Hussein cut his teeth in venture at Accel Partners in his early years. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Hussein Kanji We Discuss:
1. How to Raise a Fund:
What are Hussein's biggest lessons from his first fund taking 39 months to raise?
Why does Hussein believe you should fundraise for a set amount of time and not to achieve a certain amount of capital?
Does Hussein believe governments should be investing in venture funds?
What are the biggest mistakes Hussein sees emerging managers make when raising?
2. How to 10x a Fund:
What is Hussein's formula for knowing when to sell an investment?
How did Hussein miss out on making $400M in Darktrace? What did he learn from it?
How much money did Hoxton make from Deliveroo? How did doing 37x on Deliveroo impact how Hussein invests today?
3. How to Build a Team in Venture:
Why does Hussein believe the incentive mechanism for young VCs is broken? Why do they just want to get cash out the door and not worry about quality?
Why is it hard to hire female partners today? What needs to happen for this to change?
What are the single biggest ways that venture partnerships break down? What went wrong between Hussein and his partner, Rob?
4. Is Europe Totally F*******:
Why does Hussein believe small seed rounds are a massive problem in the UK?
Why does Hussein believe the dire state of the London Stock Exchange is not a problem?
Why does Hussein advise companies that the best way to scale is in the US?
What advice would Hussein give to Keir Starmer on how to stimulate growth in the UK?
Why does AI mean that the UK can now compete with the US?
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20VC: Monday.com: Scaling from $6M to $120M in ARR in 3 Years | How Monday Have Built the Best Performance Marketing Engine in SaaS | Going Upmarket, International and Multi-Product; The Biggest Lessons and Mistakes with Eran Zinman
17 januari 2025 · 55 min
The story of Monday.com is insane, turned down by most VCs, then scaled from $6M to $120M ARR in just three years. Today the company is public with a market cap of $12BN. Joining us in the hotseat today is Monday's Co-Founder and CEO, Eran Zinman. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Eran Zinman We Discuss:
03:03 The Role of Video Games in Founders' Success
04:12 The Fail That Taught a $10BN Founder Everything
09:40 Pivoting to a $12BN Company: How, When and Advice on Pivots
14:15 Why 99% of Investors Turned Monday Down: Fundraising Lessons
17:05 Building a Performance Marketing Engine
21:25 How to Scale ACV and Move Upmarket
28:54 What Have Been the Most Effective Marketing Strategies
29:08 How Have Monday Been So Successful with Youtube Ads?
29:43 Biggest Challenges and Lessons in Channel Spend
30:50 Building a Multi-Product Strategy: The Rise of Monday CRM
34:37 Competing in the SaaS Market: Is Competition Good?
39:30 The IPO Journey: Why Then? Pros and Cons of Being Public?
42:38 How a Co-CEO Structure Works
43:55 How to Manage a Board
45:04 Quick-Fire Q&A
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20VC: Why Scaling Laws Will Not Continue | OpenAI vs Anthropic vs X.ai: Who Wins and Why | How Far Will Model Providers Go Into the Application Layer | The End State for Models: Many Specialised or Few Generalised with Victor Riparbelli @ Synthesia
15 januari 2025 · 1 uur 12 min
Victor Riparbelli is the CEO and Co-founder of Synthesia, the world's leading AI video communications platform for enterprises. To date, Victor has raised over $250M from Accel, GV, NEA, and more. More than 1,000,000 users and 55,000 businesses, including 60% of the Fortune 100, use it to communicate efficiently and share knowledge at scale using AI avatars. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Victor Riperbelli:
1. The Future of Models:
Are we seeing the commoditisation of models?
Will scaling laws continue to prove out?
How far into the application layer will model providers go?
Will we see a world of few large generalist models or many fragmented smaller models?
X.ai, Anthropic, or OpenAI? Which would Victor most want to invest in and why?
2. The Future of Content:
What will the future of content look like? In 5 years time will we have more AI or human made content?
What will be the future of distribution for content? Why is TikTok the future for content distribution?
How does Victor think about the future of identity verification? What is the right approach?
What does everyone think will happen in the future with content that will never happen?
3. Startup Rules That are BS:
Why does Victor believe it is total BS to say you have to be the first to a market?
Why does Victor believe the speed of execution religion is BS?
Why does Victor believe that London and Europe is a great place to start a startup?
Does Victor believe Americans work harder than Europeans? Why does Victor believe Europeans are more loyal to their companies?
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20VC: Shervin Pishevar on The Epic Uber War and What Really Happened in the Firing of Travis Kalanick | Raising $15BN to Win China | Why The Traditional Venture Capital Model is Dead | The Future of Quantum and How We Will Cure All Diseases in 10 Years
13 januari 2025 · 1 uur 13 min
Shervin Pishevar is a serial entrepreneur and investor. Shervin is famed for leading Uber's Series B at Menlo alongside leading Warby Parker's Series A and investing in Tumblr, all in just 18 months at Menlo. Following Menlo, Shervin co-founded Sherpa Capital and today Shervin is averaging over 73x on his investments. As an angel investor, Shervin made over 100 investments in the likes of Dollar Shave Club, Postmates, Facebook and more. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Shervin Pishevar:
08:09 Meeting Travis Kalanick: The Start of a Game-Changing Partnership
11:08 The Uber Series B: Securing a Billion-Dollar Deal
12:49 The Rise of Uber: Global Expansion and Strategic Moves
19:01 The Lyft Rivalry: Missed Opportunities and Lessons Learned
20:57 Recruiting Emil Michael: Building a Strong Leadership Team
24:29 Uber China: The Challenges and Triumphs
27:19 The $15 Billion Raise: Fueling Uber's Global Dominance
30:57 The Beginning of the End: Betrayal by Benchmark
35:33 Sam Altman's Coup and Lessons from the Past
36:22 The Uber War: Legal Battles and Boardroom Drama
37:36 Fusion GPS and Fabricated Reports
39:43 The Me Too Movement and Its Impact
40:51 The SoftBank Investment and Leadership Changes
41:29 The Downfall of Uber's Visionaries
51:09 The Future of Venture Capital
57:01 Quantum Computing and AI: The Next Frontier
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20VC: The Future of Foundation Models | The Future of AI Consumer Apps and Why OpenAI Did a Disservice to Them | The Future of Music: Spotify vs YouTube & Spotify vs TikTok: What Happens with Mikey Shulman @ Suno
10 januari 2025 · 58 min
Mikey Shulman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Suno, the leading music AI company. Suno lets everyone make and share music. Mikey has raised over $125M for the company from the likes of Lightspeed, Founder Collective and Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross. Prior to founding Suno, Mikey was the first machine learning engineer and head of machine learning at Kensho technologies, which was acquired by S&P Global for over $500 million. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Mikey Shulman:
1. The Future of Models:
Who wins the future of models? Anthropic, OpenAI or X?
Will we live in a world of many smaller models? When does it make sense for specialised vs generalised models?
Does Mikey believe we will continue to see the benefits of scaling laws?
2. The Future of UI and Consumer Apps:
Why does Mikey believe that OpenAI did AI consumer companies a massive disservice?
Why does Mikey believe consumers will not choose their model or pay for a superior model in the future?
Why does Mikey believe that good taste is more important than good skills?
Why does Mikey argue physicists and economists make the best ML engineers?
3. The Future of Music:
What is going on with Suno's lawsuit against some of the biggest labels in music?
How does Mikey see the future of music discovery?
How does Mikey see the battle between Spotify and YouTube playing out?
How does Mikey see the battle between TikTok and Spotify playing out?
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20VC: Carvana: The Most Wild Story in Public Markets: From $60BN to $400M and Back to $40BN | The Biggest Opportunities, Mistakes and Challenges Ahead for One of the Public Market's Only 100x Investments
8 januari 2025 · 1 uur 3 min
Carvana is one of the most wild stories in the public markets. The company IPO'd with a market cap of $2BN before skyrocketing to $60BN, only for the company to lose 99% of it's value hitting a bottom of $400M market cap. Today the company is stronger than ever and with a market cap of $41BN. Joining us in the hotseat is Dan Gill, Carvana's CPO, the man who oversees all technology functions, as well as strategic partnerships for the business. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Dan Gill We Discuss:
From $60BN to $400M Market Cap:
What did Carvana do that Dan wishes they had not done?
What did Carvana not do that Dan wishes they had done?
How do you maintain morale in a team when the company has lost 99% of it's value?
From $400M Back to $40BN Market Cap:
What have been the core needle movers in Carvana's market cap surging?
How does the Carvana business model benefit from economies of scale?
How does vertical integration of the different products Carvana sells change the margin structure of the business?
The Future of Carvana:
Why does Dan believe there is a massive market for Cavana in selling new cars?
Why does Dan want to move into the peer to peer market, a market where so many before have failed?
Why does Dan think Carvana should sell Chinese cars on the platform if American citizens want to buy them?
What revenue line does Carvana not have today that Dan believes will be the biggest in 10 years time?
Product Advice, North Star Metrics, Idea Selection:
What is the product advice that Dan gives more than any other?
How does Dan advise startup founders on how to know they have the right north star metric? What is his framework?
How does Dan advise founders on how to select the right idea to work on?
What is Dan's prioritisation framework for if an idea will have a larger enough impact and is therefore worthy of being worked on?
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20VC: How To Do a 10x Seed Fund in 2025 | Three Frameworks to Evaluate Startups an Founders | Lessons from Losing Billions Missing Airbnb and Pinterest & Investing Lessons from Charlie Munger with Mike Maples @ Floodgate
6 januari 2025 · 1 uur 10 min
Mike Maples is one of the OG seed investors of the last two decades. As a co-founding Partner at Floodgate, Mike has been on the Forbes Midas List eight times in the last decade. Some of Mike's investments include Twitter, Twitch.tv, Clover Health, Okta, Outreach, Chegg, Demandforce, and Applied Intuition. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Mike Maples We Discuss:
04:02 Does Seed Even Make Sense as an Asset Class?
05:16 Fund Size and Strategy: How to Do a 10x Fund?
08:12 Follow-On Investments: Are they BS?
16:41 Finding Inefficiencies in the Market
26:31 Exit Strategies and Liquidity Events: When to Sell?
35:14 How Floodgate Lost Billions Missing Airbnb and Pinterest
35:43 3 Frameworks for Evaluating Startups
36:23 Case Studies: Zoom and Okta
43:34 How to Truly Analyse Product-Market Fit
45:22 Challenges with Overfunding Startups
50:02 2024 in Review: Company and Fund of the Year
54:25 Predictions for 2025
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20Sales: Rippling's CRO on Why Founders Should Not Create Sales Playbooks | Why Discounting is BS and How to Create Urgency in Deals | The Biggest Lessons on Pricing and How to Win the Pricing Game with Matt Plank
20 december 2024 · 1 uur 10 min
Matt Plank is Rippling's Chief Revenue Officer where he oversees all Sales and Account Management functions in the US and Internationally. Matt joined Rippling in the very early days when Parker Conrad (founder) was building V1 in a basement with $0 in revenue. Today the company is a market leader with 100s of $Ms in ARR. Prior to Rippling, Matt was a Sales Director @ Zenefits where he helped the company scale to $70M in ARR. Lees meer
In Today's Show with Matt Plank We Discuss:
08:25 Challenges and Strategies in Outbound Sales
10:29 Building Effective Sales and Marketing Partnerships
13:37 Founders and Sales Playbooks: Who Should Create Them?
20:45 Pricing Strategies and Customer Success
24:43 Discounting and Urgency in Sales
33:57 Building Relationships for Successful Deals
34:22 Effective Deal Reviews: Asking the Right Questions
35:30 Pipeline Reviews: Frequency and Participants
35:59 Handling Deal Slippage: Acceptable vs. Non-Acceptable Reasons
39:17 Maintaining Morale in Volatile Times
42:14 Outbound Sales Strategy: Lessons Learned
46:03 Scaling Sales Teams: Hiring and Promoting
47:15 Challenges and Strategies in International Markets
01:00:45 Signs of Scaling Issues in Sales Leadership
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20VC: UiPath's Daniel Dines on Why Agents Do Not Mean RPA is F***** | Why We Have Reached the Upper End of Scaling Laws | The Future of Work in an Agent World and What Everyone Misunderstands About Enterprise AI
18 december 2024 · 58 min
Daniel Dines is the Founder & CEO @ UiPath, one of the most incredible journeys in startups. For 10 years, UiPath was a bootstrapped company that scaled to just $500K in revenue. Then it all changed, product market fit became obvious and the rest is history. The company went on to raise funding from Sequoia, Accel, Kleiner Perkins and more. Today, the company is worth over $10BN, listed on the NASDAQ and does $1BN+ in revenue. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Daniel Dines We Discuss:
1. The Future of LLMs:
Why does Daniel believe that we are at the upper end of scaling laws and more compute will not lead to increased performance?
Does Daniel believe we will see a world of many specialised models or fewer generalist models?
OpenAI, Anthropic, Xai. Which would Daniel most want to invest in? Why them?
2. Is RPA F******* in a World of Agents:
What is the core difference between RPA and agents? How do the tasks they complete differ?
Why must we have a neutral meta layer coordinating RPA processes and agents?
Why will siloed applications like Salesforce be unable to expand beyond their initial function?
Why does Daniel believe that agents will not complete tasks but make recommendations?
3. The Future of Work: WTF Happens with Agents:
How long will it be before agents are fully utilised in the enterprise?
What is the role of the human in a world of agents?
What are the single biggest concerns of enterprises considering implementing agents in their companies?
Why has GenAI not been successful in enterprise so far? Will this change?
4. Daniel Dines: The Billionaire Behind the Brand:
How does Daniel deal with the loneliness of being CEO?
What problem did Daniel struggle with for much of his twenties and thirties? How did he overcome it?
Why does Daniel fear that he is becoming more and more disconnected?
Why does Daniel believe 1-1s are BS?
What is Daniel's single biggest advice to a new parent today?
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20VC: Reid Hoffman on The Trump Administration | Elon Musk and DOGE | The US Defence Budget, NATO and The War in Ukraine | China, Tariffs and TikTok | The Future of Chips, Nuclear Energy, Quantum Computing and Climate
16 december 2024 · 59 min
Reid Hoffman is one of the most impactful people in technology and startups. As a Founder he founded Paypal and Linkedin before moving to the investing side where he has led deals in Facebook, Airbnb and more. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Reid Hoffman We Discuss:
1. China and Tariffs:
Should the US ban Tiktok and other Chinese companies, given China banning US companies presence in their country?
How does Reid evaluate the rise of the Chinese car industry? What are his concerns?
How does Reid hope Trump uses tariffs to advantage the US position?
What is Reid concerned about what Trump could do with tariffs? What would be bad?
2. Elon Musk and DOGE:
What impact will Elon Musk have on the future of AI in America?
Why does Reid believe that it is impossible for DOGE to achieve it's targets?
What should Elon must be given credit for? What does he not deserve credit for?
What are Elon's greatest strengths? What are his greatest weaknesses?
3. The US Defence Budget and Ukraine:
Why does Reid believe that the US should reduce their defence budget?
Does Reid believe the US should continue to finance the war in Ukraine?
Should the US continue to subsidise NATO's lack of defence spending?
4. NVIDIA and The Future of Chips:
Will NVIDIA be able to sustain their monopoly?
What is the biggest threat to their position?
Should both the US and Europe have their own chip sovereignty?
How does Reid evaluate potential conflict between China and Taiwan impacting chip supply?
5. Nuclear, Quantum and Climate:
Why does Reid believe nuclear fusion can solve climate change?
Does Reid believe that with the rise of global conflict and AI, the importance of climate change is reduced in the attention of the world?
Why does Reid believe that AI does more to help than harm climate change?
Why is Reid so excited for a future with quantum computing?
What are the biggest dangers of quantum that we need to be mindful of?
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20Growth: How to Scale to $30M ARR Bootstrapped through Content and Brand | The Ultimate Equation to Success in Sales and Why Most Founders Suck at Sales | Why You Should Overpay People and What That Means with Guillaume Moubeche @ Lempire
13 december 2024 · 1 uur 12 min
Guillaume Moubeche is the Founder of Lempire, a company he has bootstrapped in the most competitive market in technology and scaled to a staggering $30M in ARR. Guillaume has never raised primary funding for the business but sold $10M of secondary at a $150M valuation. Guillaume is also an angel investor and and best selling author. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Guillaume Moubeche:
1. How to Build a Sales Machine:
What is the biggest mistake founders make when crafting their ideal customer profile?
What are Guillaume's biggest lessons in scaling from $0-$1M in ARR?
Why are most founders afraid to sell? What can they do to overcome this?
What is the ultimate equation to success in sales?
2. How to Build a Content Machine:
How does Guillaume come up with ideas for new content?
How does he structure his content creation time?
How does Guillaume advise founders on which platform and content type they should focus on? What are the biggest mistakes they make?
How does Guillaume think about content repackaging and reposting? What have been some of the biggest lessons in how to get the max out of existing content?
3. How to Build a Hiring Machine:
Why does Guillaume think you should pay people well above market rate? What does it allow you to do as their employer?
Why does Guillaume think in 90% of times, more people equals more problems?
What have been Guillaume's biggest hiring mistakes? What did he learn?
4. Making $10M, Ironman and Family:
How does Guillaume reflect on his own relationship to money? How has it changed post making $10M?
Why does Guillaume believe that endurance sports makes for better entrepreneurs?
When asked if all the sacrifices were worth it, how does Guillaume respond? What does his life not have yet that he would most like?
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20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing
11 december 2024 · 1 uur 12 min
Torsten Reil is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Helsing, a new type of defence company providing artificial intelligence to protect our democracies. Torsten has raised over $825M from the likes of Prima Materia, Elad Gil, Accel and General Catalyst. Previously Torsten founded NaturalMotion, one of the UK's most successful games and technology start-ups. Torsten was named as one of MIT's Top 100 Innovators and is a member of the Munich Security Conference Innovation Board. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Torsten Reil We Discuss:
1. The World Around Us: China, Russia and Trump:
What will happen between China and Taiwan?
What will happen between Russia and Ukraine?
How will a Trump administration impact the US' commitment to fund European defence?
What conflict do people not pay enough attention to in the world today?
2. Are We Ready and What Needs to Be Done:
Are the west ready to fight against our adversaries as we stand today?
What do we need to do to equip ourselves?
What needs to change in our defence budgets? Where do they need to go?
How does the procurement process for defence need to change?
3. The Future of War:
Why does Torsten believe the future of war is contactless?
In the next wave of defence, what are the most important elements for allies to own? What elements concern Torsten the most?
What role does AI and autonomous play in the future of war?
4. Is Europe F********:
Why does Torsten believe that Europe's biggest problem is ambition not capital?
Why does Torsten believ that we put too much weight on the location in which companies are founded? Why does it not matter?
How does Torsten respond to the statement that we do not have the depth of experienced talent in Europe to recruit?
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20VC: Salesforce Founder Marc Benioff on The Future of LLMs | The Future of Agents | The Future of Labour | Management Lessons from Steve Jobs
9 december 2024 · 44 min
Marc Benioff is one of the iconic founders and visionaries of our time. From the founding of Salesforce 25 years ago, Marc has in many ways created an entire industry. He has scaled the company to a market cap of $346BN, $38BN in revenue and over 72,000 employees. Lees meer
Ask Me Anything with Marc Benioff:
The Future of Models:
Why does Marc believe we are at the upper end of LLMs and they are commoditising?
Why does Marc believe the future of models is many smaller, verticalised models specialised in different areas?
OpenAI vs Anthropic vs Xai. Which would Marc buy and which would he short?
What is the single biggest barrier to Salesforce winning the AI war in the next 10 years?
The Future of Agents:
What does Salesforce need to do to prevent becoming a database in the next generation of AI?
To what extent do agents hurt vs help Salesforce?
What do very few people understand about agents that is very important?
The Future of Labour:
Will Salesforce replace it's human labour with digital labour? Will Salesforce be bigger or smaller in 10 years time, people wise?
Why does Marc believe that layoffs are a crucial tool for CEOs to win?
How will a future of digital labour change the pricing model of SaaS tools today?
Management Lessons from Marc Benioff:
How did one meeting with Steve Jobs change how Marc views leadership?
How does Marc analyse the required mindset to win as a CEO today?
What has Marc changed his mind on most in the last 12 months?
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20VC: From Unsexy Startup to $1.8BN Acquisition | Why VCs and Founders are Fundamentally Misaligned | Why Valuations and Fundraising are BS | Lessons from Josh Kushner and Marc Andreesen | Zac Bookman, OpenGov
6 december 2024 · 1 uur 8 min
Zachary Bookman is Co-Founder and CEO of OpenGov, the GovTech cloud software leader that was acquired for a staggering $1.8BN earlier this year. Prior to acquisition, Zac raised over $180M from some of the best of the best including Marc Andreesen, Josh Kushner, Joe Lonsdale and Founder Collective to name a few. Zac is also a successful angel investor with investments in Flexport, Flock Safety and Addepar. Lees meer
In Today's Show with Zac Bookman We Discuss:
04:27 Navigating Enterprise Sales and Pricing Strategies
07:49 The Importance of High Gross Retention in SaaS
11:03 Investor Relations and the Power Law in Venture Capital
14:32 WTF is Product Market Fit
18:14 What No One Knows About M&A
20:05 Fundraising Challenges and Lessons Learned
32:51 What Marc Andreesen Taught Me About Boards
34:18 Why Founders and Investors are Misaligned
35:29 The OpenGov Acquisition: Selling for $1.8BN
37:22 What Does It Feel Like to Sell for $1.8BN
43:58 Why Venture Capital is a S*** Asset Class
45:13 Investment Mistakes and Lessons
01:02:05 The Importance of In-Person Collaboration
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20VC: Revolut Founder Nik Storonsky on When and Where Revolut Will IPO & What Revolut Need to Do to Hit $100BN Valuation
4 december 2024 · 46 min
Nik Storonsky is the Co-Founder and CEO of Revolut, one of the fastest-growing companies in the world with a $45BN valuation and 50M customers around the world. In July 2024, Revolut posted a whopping $2.2BN in revenue with $545M in pre-tax profit in 2023. To date, Nik has raised $1.8BN for the company from the likes of Index, Balderton, Ribbit, DST and TCV. Lees meer
In Today's Show with Nik Storonsky We Discuss:
1. When & Where Will Revolut IPO:
What does Revolut need to do or change before they are ready to go public?
When would Nik like for Revolut to go public?
When they do go public, where would Nik list? Would it be in London?
How does Nik respond to claims that he has moved to Dubai for tax reasons?
2. What Revolut Needs to Achieve to Hit $100BN:
Why has no challenger bank won the US market yet?
What will Revolut do differently to allow them to win the US market?
What market share will Revolut have in Europe in 3 years time?
What line of the business that does not exist today, will be the biggest in 5 years time?
3. How to Build an Execution Machine:
Why does Nik believe the biggest mistake he made was hiring senior managers?
What have been Nik's biggest lessons on how to hire for roles you have never hired for before? What works? What does not?
How does Nik retain insane velocity of execution at scale?
How does Nik bucket people into three different buckets? What does each bucket mean for the type of work they do and the expectations placed on them?
4. How Revolut Tests New Products:
How does Revolut use a portfolio approach to test new product ideas?
How are teams for new ideas structured? What roles do they have?
How much time and resources are they given?
What is the tracking process to determine the success of new products?
What % of new products do succeed and progress to the core app?
Which product did Nik think would be massive but turned out to be a flop?
What did Nik not expect to be massive and turned out to be mega hit?
5. The UK …
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20VC: Grindr: The Most Insane Story in Startups | How the Chinese Bought and Lost Grindr | The Successful IPO with $300M Revenues and 40% EBITDA Margins | How Grindr Built a Free Cash Flow Machine
4 december 2024 · 57 min
George Arison is the CEO of Grindr. The app that results in 40% of lesbian and gay marriages, the average user uses the app for 1 hour per day and sends more messages on Grindr than they do Whatsapp. The company will do over $300M in revenue in 2024 with a 40% EBITDA margin. One of the insane public company success stories. Prior to Grindr, George was the Founder and CEO of Shift, which he took public in 2020. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with George Arison We Discuss:
1. Wild Story of How the Chinese Bought and Lost Grindr:
How did the Chinese come to buy Grindr and then fire the founder?
Why did the US government force the sale of the company from the Chinese?
What happened when the whole development team was in Taiwan and then resigned overnight?
George got the CEO role in Sept and the company went public in Oct. How did that all happen so fast?
2. How Grindr is a Free Cash Flow Machine:
What are the three core ways that Grindr is able to print money with a 40% EBITDA margin?
Why does Grindr not spend any money on marketing or customer acquisition?
Why does George think that most companies have way too many people?
Why does George believe that most startups are very badly managed?
What will Grindr do with the insane amount of free cash flow the company is producing?
3. Lessons Building Grindr to $300M in Revenue:
What has George done with Grindr that he wishes he had not done?
What has he not done that he wishes he had done?
Why does George not make political statements today? Does George think we have freedom of speech when CEOs face such repercussions for political views?
What does Wall St not understand about Grindr that it really should understand?
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20Product: Is an AI Winter Approaching | The Future of AI Software Development: What is Real & What is BS | OpenAI: WTF is Going on & How Far Into Application Layer Do They Go | The Future Role of Software Engineers with Guy Podjarny
29 november 2024 · 46 min
Guy Podjarny founded Tessl, Snyk and Blaze. Tessl is reimagining software development for the AI era and shaping AI Native Development. Snyk created and leads the Developer Security category, and is now a multi-billion dollar company with over 1,000 employees. Guy was previously CTO at Akamai (following its acquisition of Blaze), is an active angel investor, and co-hosts of the AI Native Dev podcast. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Guy Podjarny We Discuss:
03:02 Discussion on NVIDIA's Market Position
04:14 Will We See a Trough of Disillusionment in AI
07:36 The Future of AI Development and Specialized Models
10:17 Challenges and Opportunities in AI Dev Tools
17:41 Concerns About Closed vs. Open Development Platforms
21:27 Speculations on AI's Role in Application Layers
24:40 Google's Competitive Edge
25:28 IPO and M&A in the Trump Era
26:45 The Future Role of Software Developers
32:20 Security Challenges in AI Development
33:41 Spicy Questions and Charity Donations
36:05 Quickfire Round: Insights and Advice
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20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar
27 november 2024 · 1 uur 10 min
Klaus Hommels is one of Europe's leading start investors of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Spotify, Airbnb, Facebook, Coinbase, Revolut and more. Among his many responsibilities, Klaus is the Founder of Lakestar, his own venture fund and chairs the board of directors of the NATO Innovation Fund. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Klaus Hommels We Discuss:
1. The Investing Rules that are BS:
Why does Klaus totally reject the idea of price sensitivity?
Why does Klaus hate the idea of "building portfolios"?
Why does Klaus believe the best investments are made when there is not a fundraising round in motion?
Why does Klaus believe that capital concentration limits on a per company basis are BS? How concentrated is Klaus happy to be?
2. Europe: What The F*** is Going On:
Why is Europe underfinancing innovation by a factor of eight?
Why is Europe unable to send satellites into space for six years?
What should Europe do to become a global superpower once again? What needs to change?
Why should European pension funds be forced to invest in venture capital?
3. The Stories Behind the $BN Returns:
How did a dinner with Klaus' son lead to his investing in Revolut?
How did Klaus analysis of Friendster and MySpace lead to his buying Matt Cohler @ Benchmark's Facebook shares?
How did a small investment in a Swedish company, Stardoll, lead to Klaus investing in the seed round of Spotify?
How did a conversation with Madonna's manager lead to Klaus investing in Airbnb?
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20VC: Discord's Jason Citron on Why Everything We are Taught About Hiring & Management is BS | Do Richer Founders & Gamer Founders Make Better Founders? | Never Before Told Moments Behind Scaling to 200M Users
25 november 2024 · 51 min
Jason Citron is the Co-Founder and CEO of Discord, a voice, video and text platform for friends playing games. Jason has raised $1BN for the company and was able to scale to 200M users. Prior to co-founding Discord, Jason founded OpenFeint, the biggest social mobile gaming platform, which sold to GREE in 2011 for $104 million. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Jason Citron We Discuss:
1. Leadership Lessons That are Total BS:
Hiring: Why does Jason believe hiring experienced executives is the worst thing you can do for your company? What did he learn by doing it?
Culture: Why does Jason believe that empowerment and alignment are total BS? How does Jason empower people when they are told what to do vs choose what to do?
Strategy: What does Jason believe is the most effective way to drive and implement the strategy?
2. The Untold Moments Behind Scaling to 200M Users:
Why did Jason offer to give investors their money back at one point? What was the hardest round to raise and why?
Why did Jason turn down the chance to sell to Microsoft for $12BN?
What one single change in how Jason communicated with the first 100 users changed the trajectory of the entire company?
What do most founders think they know about product market fit that they do not?
3. The Makings of a Unicorn Founder:
Does Jason believe that richer founders make better founders?
Why does Jason believe that entrepreneurs who play video games have a higher chance of being successful in the future?
What single trait does Jason believe he has that has made him such a successful founder? Does Jason ever have imposter syndrome? When?
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20Sales: What I Learned Scaling Datadog from $60M to $1BN in ARR | How to do Outbound in 2024 | Why Discounting is Dangerous and Contract Sizes are Misleading with Dan Fougere
22 november 2024 · 1 uur 10 min
Dan Fougere is one of the most successful sales leaders of the last decade. Most recently, Dan was Chief Revenue Officer for Datadog, growing revenues from $60 million to $1BN ARR. Before Datadog, Dan was Head of Global Sales at Medallia where he created the Mediallia sales playbook. In addition, Dan is also a minority owner of the New York Yankees. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Dan Fougere:
1. Lessons Scaling Sales to $1BN in ARR at Datadog:
What did Datadog not do that Dan wishes they had of done?
What did they not do that Dan wishes they had done?
What does Dan know about scaling sales to $1BN in ARR that he wishes he had known at the beginning?
What stage of the scaling process was hardest? Why?
2. How to Hire the Best Sales Team:
What are the top signals of the best sales candidates?
How does Dan structure the interview process for new candidates?
How does Dan use tasks and take-home assignments to test candidates?
What does Dan think of hiring panels?
What are the biggest hiring mistakes Dan has made? What did he learn?
3. Discounting, Logos and Deal Reviews:
Is discounting always wrong? How should sales leaders use it?
How important is the quality of logo in the early days vs revenue in the door?
What is the right way to structure deal reviews? What makes good vs great?
Is outbound dead in 2024? Advice to founders on outbound?
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20VC: Turning $16.5M into $2.1BN; Lessons from the Greatest Venture Investment in European History: UiPath | Why VC is Not Being Commoditised | Why Price Does Not Matter | Lessons on Loss Ratio, Selling and Signalling with Cem Sertoglu
20 november 2024 · 1 uur 3 min
Cem Sertoglu is one of the great venture investors of the last decade. Cem is famed for writing the first check into UiPath and over several rounds turning $16.5M into $2.1BN. Cem recently started Bek Ventures, a $250M fund that was 3x oversubscribed. Lees meer
In Today's Show with Cem Sertoglu We Discuss:
1. Has Venture Capital Been Commoditised:
Why does Cem believe that VC has not been commoditised?
Why does Cem believe many VCs today are not even VCs anymore?
How does Cem advise founders who have offers from large multi-stage firms? What questions should they ask them pre-working with them?
How do the best founders select the VC they choose to work with?
2. Price, Reserves, Loss Ratios:
Why does Cem believe that price does not matter?
How does Cem approach reserves and reserves management?
What does Cem know now about reserves that he wishes he had known when he started investing?
Does Cem care about loss ratio? Does he do scenario planning when making investments?
3. Making $2.1BN on UiPath:
How did Cem meet Daniel for the first time? Was it obvious he was incredible?
Why did they only write a $1M check and not take the whole round with $1.5M?
Why did 40 of the best investors in Europe all turn down UiPath for the Series A?
What did doing the bridge round for UiPath teach Cem about reserves?
When was it obvious UiPath was going to be a mega hit?
How did they continue to concentrate capital with each round?
When did they first start to sell shares in UiPath?
What was their approach to the selldown of their position?
When the company IPO'd, how much of it did they have?
4. AMA with One of Europe's Best:
Does signalling exist? How does Cem advise founders on this?
What has been his biggest loss? How did that change his mindset?
What has been Cem's biggest miss? What did he not see?
Why does Cem always believe you should manufacture arguments with founders before investing?
Why does Cem believe a high GP commit can actually misalign the GP and the…
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20VC Alain De Botton on Why Companies Are Not Families | Why Status is Making You Miserable | Why Parents Want Their Kids to Fail | Why We Are Richer Yet More Anxious Than Ever & Why You Should Not Always "Be Yourself"
18 november 2024 · 1 uur 12 min
Alain De Botton is one of the greatest philosophers of our time. His work has had a profound impact on me more than any other. I have wanted to do this episode for the last 8 years. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Alain De Botton We Discuss:
1. Why Status is Making You Miserable:
Why are we richer yet more anxious than ever?
What is the right way to define status? Why do we want it so much?
Is it bad to want status? What are some non-obvious signs that you are seeking status when you do not realise it?
Does social media enhance the desire for status? How so?
Do the happiest people want status the least? What are Alain's biggest observations in how truly happy people think about status?
2. Why Parents Want You To Fail:
Why is the sign of good parenting when your child does not want to be famous?
Why do your parents sometimes want you to fail?
What should parents do if their child wants to chase an unachievable goal?
Why should parents encourage their children to start very early?
3. Why Meritocracy is a Fallacy & Meaningful Work:
Why does Alain believe a true meritocracy is an impossible dream?
Why is meritocracy a bad thing when taken to the extreme?
Why does Alain believe that companies are not families?
Why does Alain tell people that they should not bring their full selves to work?
4. WTF is "Meaningful Work":
What does it mean to do "meaningful work"?
Why do humans need to do "meaningful work" today in a way that we did not many years ago?
What are Alain's biggest pieces of advice to young people today, unsure of what they should do with their lives and careers?
Why does Alain believe the idea of a "calling" is BS?
5. Ambition, Achievement and Sacrifice:
What does Alain mean when he says "you have to tolerate your own averageness"?
What does Alain say to the young generation who want work/life balance?
What does Alain mean when he said you "cannot be at war with yourself"?
Does Alain agree that to achieve you must sacrifice?
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20Growth: Inside Perplexity's Growth Machine: What Worked, What Did Not Work | Why Paid Acquisition is a Drug and Brand Marketing is BS | The Good, Bad and Ugly of A/B Tests and Why Micro-Optimisations are Under-Rated with Raman Malik
15 november 2024 · 59 min
Raman Malik is the Head of Growth at Perplexity where he is responsible for growth marketing, onboarding, activation, retention, and monetisation. Prior to Perplexity, Raman, was an early member of the growth team at Lyft and joined Perplexity earlier this year after his own startup journey. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Perplexity's Head of Growth:
1. Inside the Perplexity Growth Machine:
What have been the single biggest needle movers in the growth of Perplexity?
What has not worked? What have they learned from that?
How have partnerships driven growth? Lessons on what makes a good vs bad partnership?
Why does Raman think paid acquisition is a drug and Perplexity do not do it? How does Raman advise other founders when it comes to paid acquisition?
2. Acquisition, Retention, Churn: Mastering the Basics:
Why does Raman think that brand marketing is BS? When does it become more important?
What are the simplest things startups and product teams can do to drive retention up?
How do Perplexity count an "engaged user"? What metric suggests they have a retained user?
What is the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to A/B tests?
3. How Perplexity Built a Growth Machine:
Why does Raman advise all founders to hire more former founders?
How does the way you manage founders turned employees differ from employees who have never been founders?
What is the must under appreciated growth channel today that has worked for Perplexity?
What growth channel has been the biggest flop for Perplexity? What did Raman learn from losing money on the channel?
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20VC: Bolt; The Most Insane Story in Startups | Turning a $5K Loan into an $8BN Company | Why Every VC Turned Down One of Europe's Biggest Winners | Competing with Uber & The Future of Micromobility and Self-Driving
13 november 2024 · 1 uur 29 min
Markus Villig is the Founder and CEO of Bolt, a global mobility platform with more than 200 million lifetime customers in more than 50 countries and 600 cities. Bolt has raised over €1 billion in funding from investors like Sequoia, D1 and G Squared, making Markus the youngest founder of a billion-dollar company in Europe. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Markus Villig:
1. Starting an $8BN Company:
How did Markus come up with the idea for Bolt before Uber existed?
How did Markus find his co-founder? Why did 30 people turn down the chance to co-found Bolt? What are Markus' biggest tips on finding a co-founder?
How did Markus use a $5K loan from his parents as the pre-seed round?
How did Markus get the first riders for Bolt? What worked? What did not work?
How did Markus get the first driver for Bolt? What worked? What did not work?
2. Expanding to be a Global Champion:
How did Markus expand Bolt to $10M in ARR on just $1M of funding?
What did the international expansion playbook look like? What worked? What did not work? How has it changed over time?
What one simple change led to their becoming the leader in Africa?
What was the best country to launch? What was the worst?
What is the most profitable country today? What is the least?
3. The $8BN Company that no VC Wanted to Fund:
Why did every large VC in Europe turn down Bolt early on?
How did a real estate company in the Baltics save Bolt with lifeline funding?
When did Sequoia come into the mix? Does Sequoia move the needle for your company when they invest?
How do New York financially driven investors differ to the traditional VC ecosystem?
What would Markus most like to change about the world of VC?
4. The Future: Micromobility, Self-Driving Cars, Uber:
Will the rise of self-driving cars harm or help companies like Bolt and Uber?
What is the future for micromobility? Does it cannibalise the core business for Bolt and Uber?
What is Uber better at Bolt doing? What are Uber worse at than Bolt? How wil…
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20VC: Anduril Co-Founder on How a Trump Administration Changes the Defence Industry | What Happens Between China vs Taiwan, Israel vs Palestine, Russia vs Ukraine | How Software Changes War & Why TikTok Should Be Banned with Matt Grimm
11 november 2024 · 1 uur 23 min
Matt Grimm is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Anduril Industries, an American defense technology company that specializes in advanced autonomous systems. To date, Anduril has raised over $3.7BN with the latest round pricing the company at a whopping $14BN. Before Anduril, Matt was a Principal at Mithril Capital Management alongside Peter Thiel. Before Mithril, Matt was an early hire at Palantir, where he was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan to ensure U.S. forces had the best technology for the mission. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Matt Grimm We Discuss:
1. China/Taiwan, Ukraine/Russia & Israel/Gaza:
How will a Trump administration change US foreign policy and approach to conflict?
Will China invade Taiwan? What does Matt expect to see happen there?
Will Trump put an end to the war in Ukraine? What will be the outcome?
Is Israel wrong to defend itself in the way it has? How will the situation in Gaza be resolved?
2. The Future of War:
What will war look like in the future?
How is software and autonomy changing the world of war?
Why does the incentive structure of governments buying military equipment need to change around the world?
Will we see a world of robodogs fighting on battlefields? What does weaponry of the future look like?
3. Are We In a Defence Bubble:
With the massive increase in funding to defence companies, does Matt think we are in a defence bubble?
What does Matt believe all investors should know about the defence industry before they make investments in the space?
What should defence founders at the early stage know about building a defence company at scale? What changes?
Who will be the buyer for the many defence companies that have raised early rounds of funding and go out of business?
4. Matt Grimm: AMA:
Does money make you happy?
What is the biggest luxury purchase you have made?
Should TikTok be banned in the US?
What would Matt do today if he knew he would not fail?
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20VC: Sam Altman on The Trajectory of Model Capability Improvements: Will Scaling Laws Continue | Semi-Conductor Supply Chains | What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI and Where is Opportunity
4 november 2024 · 40 min
Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, one of the most important companies in history. OpenAI is on a mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. Prior to OpenAI, Sam was the President of Y Combinator and an angel investor in Stripe, Airbnb, Reddit and Instacart. Lees meer
15 Questions with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman:
1. Will the trajectory of model capability improvement keep going at the same rate as it has been?
2. When did Sam doubt the continuance of scaling laws most? What has been the hardest technical research challenge OpenAI have overcome?
3. How worried is Sam about semiconductor supply chains and international tensions around them?
4. What is Sam's biggest worry today? How has it changed over the last 12 months and 5 years?
5. In what ways does Sam feel he was and is unprepared for the role of CEO of OpenAI?
6. Was Masa Son right to suggest that $9TRN of value will be created every year by AI?
7. Why does Sam disagree with Larry Ellison's statement that it will cost $100BN to enter the foundation model race?
8. Was Keith Rabois right that the best way to build companies is to hire under 30s?
9. What unmade decision weighs on Sam's mind most often?
10. What is Sam most grateful to Y Combinator for?
11. What would Sam build if he were a 23 year old starting today with the foundational AI technology that is already in place?
12. What should startups not try and build as OpenAI will steamroll them? What should they try and build where OpenAI will not go?
13. What does Sam believe is the most exciting use of agents that he has not seen created yet?
14. How does Sam believe that human potential is most wasted today?
15. Who does Sam most respect in the world of AI today? Why them?
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20VC: Robinhood's Vlad Tenev on Founder Mode | Building 8x $100M Revenue Lines | Lessons from Raising $5BN and the Gamestop Saga | The Future of Artificial Intelligence, Wealth Management and Home Ownership
1 november 2024 · 52 min
Vlad Tenev is a Co-Founder and CEO of Robinhood, the commission free stock trading and investing app with a market cap today of $20.7BN. Over the incredible 11 year journey Vlad has raised over $5BN from some of the world's best investors including Sequoia, a16z, DST, Ribbit and Index. Before Robinhood, Vlad started two finance companies in New York City. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Vlad Tenev We Discuss:
1. Surviving a Scandal: The Gamestop Saga:
What was the single hardest element of the sage for Vlad?
What did the sage teach Vlad about how to tell stories effectively?
What did Vlad not do in the period that he wishes he had of done?
What did he do that he wishes he had not done?
What advice does Vlad have for any founder going into a crisis?
2. Founder Mode and The Biggest BS Myths of Leadership:
How does Vlad analyse and assess Paul Graham's "Founder Mode"?
Where is Founder mode right? Where is it dangerous?
What canonical leadership statements and lessons does Vlad most disagree with?
How has Vlad changed most significantly as a leader?
3. 8x $100M Revenue Lines: Scaling a Juggernaut:
What have been the single biggest challenges of scaling 8 lines of revenue each with over $100M in them?
What have been Vlad's biggest lessons on when and how to release new products?
Why did Vlad decide to abandon the Europe launch? Was it right with the benefit of hindsight?
What did Vlad not invest in with Robinhood that he wishes he had of done?
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20VC: Linear's Karri Saarinen How to be Grow Capital Efficiently in a World of BS Growth | How to Fundraise with Leverage | How to Select Investors and How to Give Them Homework in the Raise Process & Growth Lessons from Airbnb and Coinbase
30 oktober 2024 · 48 min
Karri Saarinen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Linear. The company has raised from some of the best in the business including Sequoia and Accel. Before founding Linear, Karri was the principal designer at Airbnb and the founding designer at Coinbase. Lees meer
10 Lessons with One of Silicon Valley's Most In-Demand Founders:
How to Become a Master Fundraiser:
Why does Karri believe it is BS advice that founders should "always be raising"?
What is Karri's biggest advice to founders on minimising dilution?
What do most founders think they know about fundraising but do not?
What is the best way to put your VCs to work? How can you give them homework to do?
What has been the single best VC meeting Karri has had?
What has been the worst VC meeting?
Product and Growth:
What does Karri mean when he says "founder must focus on quality growth over hypergrowth?"
How does Karri advise founders on how soon to release and monetise their first product? Wait for platform ready or ship more feature products and monetise?
What have been the single biggest product lessons for Karri from Airbnb and Coinbase?
What are the most commons ways that growth plateaus? What breaks first?
Karri AMA:
Brian Armstrong or Brian Chesky; who would you invest in first?
Would you sell Linear today for $3BN in cash?
What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started?
What did you believe that you now no longer believe?
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20VC: Why SaaS is Dead | Why AI First Companies Will Win | We are in the Middle of a Cold War for AI Talent | Why Europe is F******* and We Need to Stop Whining with Daniel Khachab, Co-Founder @ Choco
28 oktober 2024 · 1 uur 13 min
Daniel Khachab is the co-founder and CEO of Choco. Today, Choco's AI platform facilitates half of all food traded in major cities like New York, Paris, London, and Berlin, cutting food waste and streamlining distribution. Since its founding in 2018, Choco has raised $330 million from Bessemer, Coatue (its first European investment), and Insight, reaching unicorn status within 2.5 years. Previously, Daniel was the youngest Managing Director at Rocket Internet, where he oversaw growth across Latin America, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Middle East. Lees meer
From Seed to $1BN in 30 Months:
1. We Killed a $BN SaaS Business to be AI First:
Why does Daniel believe that SaaS is dead?
What does an AI-first company mean?
Why does Daniel believe AI-first companies will win the next 10 years?
What foundation models does Daniel and Choco use today?
How has the cost of using different models changed?
What categories are vulnerable to being attacked with vertical products from the foundation model providers?
2. Europe is F*******: Why and What To Do:
Why does Daniel believe Europe is at a massive disadvantage in the next 10 years of AI?
Chips: What can Europe do to encourage chip production and manufacturing to take place on European soil?
Energy: What can European governments do to encourage energy providers and new forms of renewable energy to innovate to provide the energy AI needs?
Talent: Why does Daniel believe AI talent is the hardest problem that Europe faces? What can governments in EU do to resolve this problem?
3. Lessons Scaling to $1BN in 30 Months:
Does Daniel regret raising at a $1.1BN valuation?
Why did he throw a unicorn party with the round? Why does he regret it so much?
What did Daniel spend money on that he wish he had not spent money on?
What did Daniel not spend money on that with the benefit of hindsight, they should have spent money on?
When your competition raises a lot of funding, does that mean you should also?
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20VC: The Truth About Multi-Stage Firms; Why Portfolio Services are for VCs not Founders | Why Politics is Rife & Decision-Making is Broken in Large VCs | Why Reserves are Bad for Founders & How Boutique Firms Will Win with Mark Goldberg @ Chemistry
25 oktober 2024 · 56 min
Mark Goldberg is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Chemistry, a $350M fund announced just yesterday with the mission to lead the best seed and Series A rounds. Before Chemistry, Mark was a Partner at Index Ventures, where he led early stage investments in Plaid, Bridge, Pilot, Anrok and Persona. Prior to Index Ventures, Mark was one of the first business hires at Dropbox. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with Mark Goldberg We Discuss:
1. The Truth About Multi-Stage Firms:
Why are portfolio services there to help the investing partners and not the founders?
What are the most broken elements within a multi-stage firm?
How does decision-making break down in large partnerships?
When is the right time to work with multi-stage firms? When is not?
2. From Boutique High Margins to Commoditised Low Margins:
With the immense amount of cash that has entered VC, will returns simply get worse?
Who will be the winners in the next 10 years of venture?
Who will be the losers? What can they do today to change this?
What element of the future of venture are not enough people spending time on?
3. Lessons from Leading Unicorn Company Rounds:
What happens to all the unicorns with insanely high prices they cannot grow into?
What has been Mark's biggest hit? What did he learn?
What has been his biggest miss? How did that change his go-forward approach?
Does Mark agree that 90% of VC do not add value?
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20Sales: Biggest Lessons Scaling Slack from $6M to $1BN in ARR | How to Build a Customer Success Machine and Where Most Go Wrong | The Framework to Hire All Sales Reps: Take-Home Assignments, Hiring Panels and more with AJ Tennant @ Glean
23 oktober 2024 · 1 uur 1 min
AJ Tennant is the Vice President of Sales & Success at Glean, Glean has more than 20x'd its revenue and 100x'd its user base in the just two and a half years he's been there. Before Glean, AJ had incredible runs at Slack and Facebook. At Slack, AJ helped grow revenue from $6 million to more than $1 billion. Lees meer
In Today's Episode with AJ Tennant We Discuss:
1. How to Sell AI Tools in 2024:
Are we still in the experimental budget phase for AI?
How does selling AI tools differ to selling traditional SaaS?
What are enterprises biggest concerns when it comes to adopting AI tools?
What buzzwords get enterprises most excited in the sales process?
Will we see a massive churn problem when the first renewal cycle for many of these AI products comes?
2. Outbound, Discounting, Closing:
Is outbound dead in 2024? What does no one do that everyone should do?
How does AJ approach discounting? Biggest lessons and advice?
What can sales teams do to create a sense of urgency in a sales cycle?
How does AJ do deal reviews and post-mortems? What is the difference between good and bad post-mortems?
3. How to Master Customer Success:
What are the biggest mistakes founders make today in managing their CS teams?
Should CS be compensated for upsell? How should the comp structure of CS teams change?
What can be done to create a good handoff experience for the customer when handing from AE to CS?
What are the most common ways CS teams break over time?
4. Hiring the Best Sales Teams:
How does AJ structure the hiring process for all new sales hires?
What questions does AJ always need to ask when hiring sales reps?
What are clear signs of outperformers when hiring new reps?
Does AJ give candidates a take-home assignment? What does he want to see from them?