The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

AGENDA: 05:02 Anthropic's $10 Billion Fundraise 07:54 Has Claude Code Beaten Cursor Already 15:54 OpenAI Could Still Go to Zero 26:33 Andreessen Horowitz's $15 Billion Fundraise 45:16 The Middle is Dead: Boutique vs. Large Platforms in Venture 50:01 The Future of Venture Capital 01:08:06 The Impact of Wealth Taxes on the Industry

Alex Rampell is a General Partner at Andressen Horowitz, where he leads their $1.7BN apps fund. Just last week, a16z announced they had raised $15BN for their latest funds, over 20% of all capital raised by venture firms. At a16z, Alex has led deals into Plaid, Mercury and OpenDoor to name a few. AGENDA: 04:55 How to Do 5x on a $15BN Fund Pool? 09:21 What Two Groups of Funds Will Win the Next Decade in VC? 14:39 What Three Things Are the Best Founders Able to Do? 19:22 The Best Companies Have Hostages, Not Customers 31:37 The Two Types of Deals You Want To Do In VC 38:52 The Importance of Founder/Capital Fit 40:34 Multiple Successive Rounds Are Dangerous… Here is Why? 42:13 Challenges of High Valuations 45:27 The Importance of Ownership in Deals 52:47 Is Triple, Triple, Double, Double Dead 58:33 Advice on Selling Companies 01:11:55 What is the Future of Venture Capital

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 a $6.6B valuation. Previously, Luke held roles at PostHog and Microsoft, and is also an angel investor supporting startups like Lovable and Runna. AGENDA: The $6.6B Growth Engine Behind ElevenLabs Why Luke Said "No" to Investing in ElevenLabs (and Why He Was Wrong) How ElevenLabs Makes a Horizontal Product Strategy Work How to Build Sharded Growth Teams That Actually Scale The 7-Part Launch Playbook That Gets 700K+ Views Per Product The Truth About CAC, Payback, and Performance Marketing in AI SEO Isn't Dead: The Mini-Tool Strategy You Should Steal Kill Your Inbound SDRs—The Case for Voice AI in Sales Why You Don't Need PMs and the Rise of Growth-Led Product Teams

Chad Peets is one of the great sales leaders of our time. Previously, he was the sales saviour at Snowflake and was an advisor to the CEO there. He was also an MD at Sutter Hill where he sat on the board of companies like Sigma Computing and Augment Code. AGENDA: 04:53 How to Recruit the Best Sales Talent Today 06:27 Why Europe is a Nightmare for Recruitment in Sales 11:29 How to Evaluate Sales Talent: Green and Red Flags 21:58 Why Remote Work is BS and You Have to be in Office 23:43 How to Improve Sales Team Performance in Just 24 Hours 27:45 When to Fire vs When to Give More Time 32:10 How to Set Sales Quotas Effectively 34:39 Adjusting Compensation Plans for Better Performance 37:50 Why Work Life Balance is Total BS 41:08 Biggest Lessons on Leading Sales Teams 50:37 What is The Future of Enterprise Sales with AI 58:40 Quick Fire Questions and Final Thoughts

AGENDA: 04:30 Groq Acquired by NVIDIA for $20BN: The Breakdown 17:13 Meta's $2BN Acquisition of Manus: Did They Sell Too Early 36:04 OpenAI's Stock-Based Compensation Strategy 47:42 Will AI Replace Venture Capitalists 56:13 Navan Trading at 4x ARR: Who is Good Enough to Go Public? 01:09:46 The Rise of Invisible Unemployment 01:14:21 The Future of Work and Education in an AI-Driven World

I have interviewed 1,000 entrepreneurs over 10 years. Nik Storonsky and our guest today are the two best that I have interviewed. Joining the show today; Alan Chang, Co-Founder and CEO of Fuse Energy. Alan has scaled Fuse Energy from $2M in revenue in the first year, to $20M the second year to now $400M in the third year. Like Netflix beat incumbents to own media, Revolut beat incumbents to own banking, Fuse will beat incumbents to own energy. Prior to founding Fuse, Alan was one of the first three hires at Revolut where he played a crucial role alongside Nik (Founder) in scaling the company to over $75BN valuation. AGENDA: 00:04:00 — The interview process that led to the $150M pay packet 00:05:05 — The moment I knew Revolut was going to be a $TRN company 00:06:10 — How Revolut drove speed and urgency in their teams 00:07:35 — Biggest lesson from Nik Storonsky @ Revolut 00:09:40 — If you want to build a generational company, you cannot have work-life balance 00:11:40 — What I disagreed with Nik @ Revolut on most 00:13:35 — Is Nik right that Revolut should have got a banking licence earlier? 00:15:05 — The green movement and the idea of "using less" is BS 00:22:55 — Why China is the shining light for regulation to follow 00:33:00 — What Nik at Revolut taught me about ownership and excuses 00:34:50 — The signs of truly top performing people in a team 00:36:55 — We do not have enough ambitious founders — we need to do more, not focus 00:39:55 — You need to work weekends to win 00:43:50 — Every single year we 10x revenue — now at ~$400M 00:44:35 — Why Eastern European engineers are the best Items Mentioned in Today's Show: Try NEXOS.AI for yourself with a 14-day free trial: https://nexos.ai/20vc

Matt Fitzpatrick is the CEO of Invisible Technologies, leading the company's mission to make AI work. Since joining as CEO in January 2025, he has raised $100M and accelerated AI adoption across industries from sports to consumer and government. Previously, Matt was a Senior Partner at McKinsey, where he led QuantumBlack Labs, the firm's AI R&D and software development arm. AGENDA: 04:40 Interview with Matt Fitzpatrick: Career Journey and Leadership 09:35 The Single Biggest Barriers to Enterprises Adopting AI 15:26 It is BS That Enterprises Can Adopt AI Without Forward-Deployed Engineers 28:05 Are AI Talent Marketplaces Dead? What is the best model? 46:33 How Does the Data Labelling Market Shake Out: Who Wins/ Who Loses 48:27 Are Revenue Numbers for Data Labelling Real Revenue? Or GMV? 51:20 Best Capital Allocation Decision? What did Matt Learn from it? 53:19 How Important is Brand for AI Companies Selling Into Enterprise? 01:05:59 Remote Work vs. In-Person Collaboration 01:17:06 What Does No-One Know About the Future of AI That Everyone Should Know

AGENDA: 03:48 Founder of the Year 2025 06:58 Product of the Year 10:05 Fund of the Year 20:52 Breakout Companies of 2025: Who Made the Biggest Impact? 26:57 Biggest Surprises of 2025 32:57 Predictions for 2026: Top Performing Tech Stocks of the Year 35:25 B2B Stocks to Watch 38:31 Why Salesforce Could Be the Buy of 2026 47:11 Google, Meta, Apple, NVIDIA, Microsoft: Buy One, Short One 55:38 IPO Speculations: Who Will Go Public in 2026 01:00:57 The Impact of AI on Employment

Gérald Marolf is the Chief Product Officer at On Running. Gérald oversees the full range of On's shoes, apparel and accessories to make sure each delivers performance, comfort and style. Before On, Gérald spent over a decade building consumer brands with collaborators such as Microsoft and Ferrari. AGENDA: 00:00 – Why Most "Great Products" Fail to Create Emotion 03:00 – How Perfume Taught Me Everything About Desire & Product 06:10 – The Brutal Reality of Building Physical vs Digital Products 16:00 – Why "Simple Design" Is Overrated and Dangerous 23:00 – Why Vuori is the Brand to Short in Consumer 28:30 – The Biggest Product Mistake: Listening to Customers Too Much 32:10 – On Only Do Tennis Because of Roger Federer 38:30 – Were We Too Late to Marathon Running? A Painful Admission 43:40 – The Most Controversial Product On Has Ever Launched 49:00 – Are Counterfeits Good or Bad in Fashion?

AGENDA: 03:32 Lightspeed's $9 Billion Fundraise 05:20 The Impact of Mega Funds on Seed VCs 10:09 The Supercycle of Growth and Late-Stage Investments 13:06 Disney Invests $1BN into OpenAI and What It Means 23:19 Oracle Hit Hard: Is Now the Time to Buy 28:34 Broadcom's Market Cap Drop and Anthropic's AI Chip Orders 35:04 Cursor Competes with Figma: The Convergence of Design and Coding Tools 46:20 The Biggest Danger for Incumbents: Being Maimed by AI 55:28 Boom Supersonic Raising $300M to… Power Data Centres… WTF 01:00:24 Will SpaceX IPO at $1.5TRN and The Elon Option Value

David George is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he leads the firm's Growth investing team. His team has backed many of the defining companies of this era, including Databricks, Figma, Stripe, SpaceX, Anduril, and OpenAI, and is now investing behind a new generation of AI startups like Cursor, Harvey, and Abridge. AGENDA: 03:05 – Why Everyone is Wrong: Mega Funds Does Not Reduce Returns 10:40 – Is Public Market Capital Actually Cheaper Than Private Capital? 18:55 – The Biggest Advantage of Staying Private for Longer 23:30 – The #1 Investing Rule for a16z: Always Invest in the Founder's Strength of Strengths 31:20 – Why Fear of Theoretical Competition Makes Investors Miss Great Companies 35:10 – Does Revenue Matter as Much in a World of AI? 44:10 – Does Kingmaking Still Exist in Venture Capital Today? 49:20 – Do Margins Matter Less Than Ever in an AI-First World? 53:50 – My Biggest Miss: Anthropic and What I Learn From it? 56:30 – Has OpenAI Won Consumer AI? Will Anthropic Win Enterprise? 59:45 – The Most Controversial Decision in Andreessen Horowitz History 1:01:30 – Why Did You Invest $300M into Adam Neumann and Flow?

Raaz Herberg is the Chief Marketing Officer and VP Product Strategy at Wiz, the fastest-growing cloud security company in history. As one of the first 10 employees, Raaz has helped scale the business from nothing to a multi-billion-dollar ARR business. Before Wiz, Raaz was a Senior PM working on Azure at Microsoft. AGENDA: 03:51 What No One Knows About The Early Wiz Days 09:08 Most Effective Marketing Wiz Ever Did? Lessons from it? 24:11 How Wiz Mastered Enterprise Sales and Product Development 39:12 The Value of Proof of Concept an Why Everyone Gets Them Wrong 44:23 Why The Best Leaders Give More Equity Than They Should 52:55 The Impact of COVID on Business Operations 01:01:33 What in AI is No One Talking About That Everyone Should Be? 01:07:29 Why Does Raaz Think Custom Tools Will Dominate the Enterprise?

AGENDA: 03:46 SpaceX's $800 Billion Valuation: A Deep Dive 09:18 IPO Market Predictions for 2026 18:18 Netflix's Bold Move: Acquiring Warner Brothers 27:43 Tiger's New Fund Strategy 33:02 Databricks' Head of AI $500 Million Seed Round 36:38 Harvey Raises $160M at an $8BN Valuation 48:22 Will LLMs Kill the App Layer 01:02:02 Google's AI Capabilities 01:06:58 Chinese Open Source Models in US Startups 01:08:57 Airwallex Raises $330M at an $8BN Valuation 01:23:50 Prediction Markets and Insider Trading

Tarek Mansour is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Kalshi, the leader in the world of prediction markets. Just last week, they announced their $1BN raise at an $11BN valuation. In total, they have raised $1.59BN from some of the best, including Sequoia, a16z, General Catalyst, IVP, Meritech, and more. They also last week announced exclusive partnerships with CNN and CNBC, marking their move into mainstream media and news. AGENDA: 03:28 Why Did Kalshi Need to Raise $1BN 10:35 Why is Kalshi vs Polymarket Such a Fierce Rivalry? 20:44 The Future of Prediction Markets 25:09 Why Does Kalshi Partner with CNN When They Could Replace Them? 26:27 Why Did Tarek Fight For the Rights of his Early Investors So Much? 27:25 What Makes Alfred Lin The Best? 29:19 Does Having Sequoia as an Investor Change the Game? 36:58 Are Teenage Founders Today Emotionally Ready to Lead Companies 38:30 Quick Fire Round: Celebrity Investors, Relationships with Parents

Bending Spoons is the acquisition machine of the tech world. They have acquired the likes of Evernote, Vimeo, Eventbrite, Streamyard and more. However, they never open their gates to the secrets behind Evernote's product machine. Today that changes with Federico Simionato joining 20Product. Fede has been a Product Lead at Bending Spoons for 8 years where he has led product teams at Evernote, WeTransfer and more. AGENDA: 03:02 From Dentist Games to $11BN Bending Spoons 04:54 Advice for Aspiring Product Managers 05:38 Building a Coveted Brand at Bending Spoons 07:43 Evaluating and Testing New Product Ideas 13:35 How Evernote has Mastered User Retention 25:24 The Impact of AI on Product Design and Prototyping 31:19 How Bending Spoons Does Product Launches and Lessons Learned 33:27 How Every Product Team Should Do Monthly Updates to Users 36:38 Recording and Transparency in Updates 38:06 Lessons from Failed Product Launches 45:14 Structuring Teams and Acquisitions 47:12 Monetization Strategies and Push Notifications 57:21 Quick Fire Round: Insights and Reflections

AGENDA: 04:20 Thrive and OpenAI Partnership 07:14 Databricks Raising $5BN at $134BN Valuation: Cheap or Not? 17:39 Eventbrite Acquired by Bending Spoons for $500M 21:39 Pagerduty's $1BN Market Cap, Just 2x Revenue 26:59 The TAM Trap: Why SaaS Is Like Japan 37:42 Lessons from Companies Hitting $100M ARR 44:57 The Future of Labour Markets is F****** 52:10 The Importance of Compounding in Investments 56:45 The Relevance Game in Venture Capital 01:05:01 Supabase at $5BN or Lovable at $6BN: Which One?

Jonathan Siddharth is Founder and CEO of Turing, one of the fastest-growing AI companies advancing frontier models. Jonathan has led the company to an astonishing $300M ARR with just $225M raised and a profitable company. A Stanford-trained AI scientist, Jonathan previously helped pioneer natural language search at Powerset, which was acquired by Microsoft. AGENDA: 03:35 Data, Compute, Algorithms: What is Most Abundant? What is Lacking Most? 09:18 What Does No One Know About AI's Data Requirements That Everyone Should? 17:05 The Biggest Challenges Enterprises Have with AI Adoption 20:38 Why Will 99% of Knowledge Work Will be Gone in 10 Years 27:12 How Will Data-Driven Feedback Loops Replace Technology as the Moat 36:08 Who Wins the Data Labelling Market? Who Loses? 38:23 Is Revenue BS in Data Labelling? Are Players Calling GMV Revenue? 45:20 Why is SaaS Dead in a World of AI? 51:23 Will the Phone be the Primary User Interface to an AI World? 57:07 Quickfire Round

John McMahon is widely regarded as one of the greatest enterprise-software sales leaders of all time. He's the only person to have served as Chief Revenue Officer at five public software companies: PTC, GeoTel, Ariba, BladeLogic and BMC Software. He helped scale BladeLogic from a startup into a public company — ultimately leading to its ~$880M sale to BMC — and drove GeoTel into a multi-billion dollar acquisition. Today he sits on the boards of top names such as Snowflake and MongoDB, while also mentoring and influencing a who's-who of modern SaaS sales leaders. AGENDA: 03:33 The Art and Science of Sales: Insights from a Veteran 04:29 Adapting Sales Strategies in the Age of AI and PLG 07:47 The Ultimate Framework to do Deal Qualification 14:13 How to Drive Urgency and Maintain Sales Process 20:06 How to Hire the Best Sales Reps 25:11 Step-by-Step Guide to Training Sales Reps 45:22 The Mindset of the Best Sales Reps 54:55 Single Most Important Skill to Win in Sales

AGENDA: 04:06 Anthropic's $30BN Investment from Microsoft and NVIDIA 07:01 Google vs. OpenAI: Sam Altman's "War Mode" Memo 15:27 NVIDIA's Customer Concentration: Bull or Bear 22:12 Is "War Mode" BS: Does Hyper-Aggressive Ever Work? 36:12 Sierra Hits $100M ARR: Justify $10BN Price? 46:14 Implementation is the Biggest Barrier to Enterprise AI Growth 01:04:04 Is LLM Search Optimisation (GEO) Selling Snake Oil? What AI is a Fraud vs Real? 01:14:27 Figma Market Cap: Is the IPO Market F****** for 2026

Maor Shlomo is the Founder and CEO of Base44, the AI building platform that Maor built from idea to $80M acquisition by Wix, in just 8 months. Today the company serves millions of users and will hit $50M ARR by the end of the year. Before Base44, Maor was the Co-Founder and CTO of Explorium. AGENDA: 00:05 – 00:10: How Vibe Coding is Going to Kill Salesforce and SaaS 00:13 – 00:15: Do Vibe Coding platforms have any defensibility? 00:22 – 00:24: I am not worried about Replit and Lovable, I am worried about Google… 00:28 – 00:29: Margins do not matter, the price of the models will go to zero 00:31 – 00:32: Speed to copy has never been lower; has the technical moat been eroded? 00:47 – 00:48: How does Base44 beat Cursor? 00:56 – 00:57: Do not pay attention to competition: focus on your business 00:57 – 00:58: How Base44 is helped, not hurt by not being in Silicon Valley? 00:58 – 00:59: What percent of code will be written by AI in 12 months? 01:01 – 01:02: OpenAI or Anthropic: Why Maor is Long Anthropic? 01:03 – 01:04: If I could have any board member in the world it would be Jack Dorsey

Max Altman is Co‑Founder & Managing Partner at Saga Ventures, a US$125 M early‑stage fund. Before Saga Max was an investor with Apollo Projects, Hydrazine Capital and Altman Capital (where he helped deploy over US$500 M) into breakout names such as Rippling and Reddit. AGENDA: 03:55 – Venture Capital Is FULL of Tourists With Single-Digit IQs 06:20 – Inside the Madness of Parker Conrad: Genius, Chaos, and WTF Emails 10:35 – The Rippling Deal That Changed Everything 12:40 – Living in Sam Altman's Shadow: The Confession 17:30 – $200M Fund Mistakes: Max's Brutal Lessons From Hydrazine 22:05 – The $2B Reddit Return… and the $2B Left on the Table 25:00 – Why Climate Tech Is a Total VC Mirage 28:40 – The New Seed War: Can Anyone Survive Sequoia & Andreessen? 46:55 – Max's Boldest Predictions

AGENDA: 04:47 Cursor Raises $2.3BN at $29BN Valuation 11:36 What Gemini 3 Means for Lovable, Cursor and Replit 30:54 Peter Thiel and Softbank Sell NVIDIA: The Bubble Bursting? 48:54 Oracle Credit Default Swaps: The Risk is Increasing 01:07:22 Stripe Does Tender at All-Time High: Why the Best Companies Will Never IPO 01:19:18 Why Retail WIll Cause a Surge of Capital into VC Funds

Dr. Andrew Ng is a globally recognized leader in AI. He is Founder of DeepLearning.AI, Executive Chairman of LandingAI, General Partner at AI Fund, Chairman and Co-Founder of Coursera. As a pioneer in machine learning Andrew has authored or co-authored over 200 research papers in machine learning, robotics and related fields. In 2023, he was named to the Time100 AI list of the most influential AI persons in the world. Agenda: 03:19 What are the Biggest Bottlenecks in AI Today? 08:51 How LLMs Can Be Used as a Geopolitical Weapon 15:48 Should AI Talent Really Be Paid Billions? 29:07 Why is the Application Layer the Most Exciting Layer? 36:22 Do Margins Matter in a World of AI? 38:02 Is Defensibility Dead in a World of AI? 45:29 Will AI Deliver Masa Son's Predictions of 5% GDP Growth? 49:39 Are We in an AI Bubble? 57:31 Will Human Labour Budgets Shift to AI Spend?

Carl Rivera is the Chief Design Officer at Shopify, where he previously led both Merchant Services and the Shop App as VP of Product. Before joining Shopify through its acquisition of Tictail, Carl was the co-founder and CEO of Tictail, the "Tumblr for e-commerce," where he built one of the most beloved design-forward commerce platforms of its era. AGENDA: 05:05 Biggest Lessons from Selling My Company to Shopify 09:55 Where Does Shopify Suck at Product: Lessons from that? 17:37 What makes Truly Great product Design: The Five Pillars 31:02 The Future of Design in an AI-Driven World 36:00 Do We Skip the Design Phase in AI: Figma's Evolving Role in Design 40:09 Remote Work vs. In-Person Collaboration: Where Remote Loses? 42:43 What Happens to the Vibe Coding Market 47:06 Product Management and Team Dynamics 59:48 Does AI Favour Incumbents or Startups

AGENDA: 04:22 Sequoia's Leadership Transition 09:46 Michael Burry's Big Short on Nvidia and Palantir 17:41 Gamma Raises $100M at a $2BN Valuation 32:34 Does Defensibility Exist Today When Copying is Easy 40:31 Should All Funds Be Way More Diversified 47:12 How to Run a Fundraising Process & What Not To Do 57:57 Datadog Surges 20% and Duolingo Crashes: What Happened

Ev Randle is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the best funds in venture capital. In their latest fund, they have Mercor ($10BN valuation), Sierra ($10BN valuation), Firework ($4BN valuation), Legora ($2Bn valuation) and Langchain ($1.4Bn valuation). To put this in multiples on invested capital, that is a 60x, two 30x and two 20x. Before Benchmark, Ev was a Partner @ Kleiner Perkins and before Kleiner, Ev was an investor at Founders Fund and Bond. AGENDA: 05:25 Biggest Investing Lessons from Peter Thiel, Mary Meeker and Mamoon Hamid 14:36 OpenAI Will Be a $TRN Company & OpenAI or Anthropic: Who Wins Coding? 22:27 Why We Should Not Focus on Margin But Gross Dollar Per Customer 30:25 Why AI Labs are the Biggest Threat to AI App Companies 44:26 Do Benchmark Fire Founders? If so… Truly the Best Partner? 54:38 People, Product, Market: Rank 1-3 and Why? 57:36 Why the Mega Funds Have Just Replaced Tiger 01:04:08 GC, Lightspeed and a16z Cannot Do 5x on Their Funds… 01:14:09 Single Biggest Threat to Benchmark

Chad Peets is one of the greatest sales leaders and recruiters of the last 25 years. From 2018 to 2023, Chad was a Managing Director at Sutter Hill Ventures. Chad has worked with the world's best CEOs and CROs to build world-class go-to-market organizations. Chad is currently a member of the Board of Directors for Lacework and Luminary Cloud and on the boards of Clumio and Sigma Computing. He previously served as a board member for Astronomer, Transposit, and others. He was an early-stage investor at Snowflake, Sigma, Observe, Lacework, and Clumio. In Today's Discussion with Chad Peet's We Discuss: 1. You Need a CRO Pre-Product: Why does Chad believe that SaaS companies need a CRO pre-product? Should the founder not be the right person to create the sales playbook? What should the founder look for in their first CRO hire? Does any great CRO really want to go back to an early startup and do it again? 2. What Everyone Gets Wrong in Building Sales Teams: Why are most sales reps not performing? How long does it take for sales teams to ramp? How does this change with PLG and enterprise? What are the benchmarks of good vs great for average sales reps? How do founders and VCs most often hurt their sales teams and performance? 3. How to Build a Hiring Machine: What are the single biggest mistakes people make when hiring sales reps and teams? Are sales people money motivated? How to create comp plans that incentivise and align? Why does Chad believe that any sales rep that does not want to be in the office, is not putting their career and development first? Why is it harder than ever to recruit great sales leaders today? 4. Lessons from Scaling Sales at Snowflake: What are the single biggest lessons of what worked from scaling Snowflake's sales team? What did not work? What would he do differently with the team again? What did Snowflake teach Chad about success and culture and how they interplay together?

AGENDA: 04:27 Navan's IPO: Winners, Losers and 20% Crater 12:55 Harvey Raises $150M at an $8BN Valuation 35:36 Was Sam Altman Wrong to Snap at Brad Gerstner 41:25 Why GOOG is a Buy and Amazon is a Short 47:43 Meta Down 10%, Buy or Sell? 51:12 If You Have Not Accelerated with AI, You Are Dead 01:05:20 Why Now is the Best Time for Series A and Worst for Seed

Joelle Pineau is the Chief AI Officer at Cohere, where she leads research on advancing large language models and practical AI systems. Before joining Cohere, she was VP of AI Research at Meta, where she founded and led Meta AI's Montreal lab. A professor at McGill University, Joelle is renowned for her pioneering work in reinforcement learning, robotics, and responsible AI development. AGENDA: 00:00 Introduction to AI Scaling Laws 03:00 How Meta Shaped How I Think About AI Research 04:36 Challenges in Reinforcement Learning 10:00 Is It Possible to be Capital Efficient in AI 15:52 AI in Enterprise: Efficiency and Adoption 22:15 Security Concerns with AI Agents 28:34 Can Zuck Win By Buying the Galacticos of AI 32:15 The Rising Cost of Data 35:28 Synthetic Data and Model Degradation 37:22 Why AI Coding is Akin to Image Generation in 2015 48:46 If Joelle Was a VC Where Would She Invest? 52:17 Quickfire: Lessons from Zuck, Biggest Mindset Shift

🎧 20VC x Tim Ferriss — Full Episode Timeline 00:00 – "How Do You Stay True to Yourself When You Have to Perform for the World?" 06:00 – "Why Tim Ferriss Refused to Go All-In on YouTube" 09:00 – "You Don't Need 10 Million Fans—You Need 1,000 True Believers." 12:00 – "The Internet Is Not a Relevance Machine—It's a Sensationalism Machine." 15:00 – "Money Fixes Money Problems—And Nothing Else." 22:30 – "When Did Tim Ferriss Feel Completely Lost?" 27:00 – "The Million-Dollar Mistake That Still Haunts Tim Ferriss." 36:00 – "Why Tim Ferriss Never Raised a Fund—Even Though He Could Have." 45:00 – "The Truth About Uber, Duolingo, and the Power of Relationship Investing." 54:00 – "Why Tim Ferriss Stopped Angel Investing at His Peak." 1:04:00 – "The Podcast That Changed Everything." 1:15:00 – "The Real Cost of Love: Is Efficiency Killing Connection?" 1:31:00 – "What Tim Ferriss Has Changed His Mind About Most." 1:36:00 – "Erections Matter."

AGENDA: 05:17 OpenAI's Restructuring: Winners and Losers 17:17 Andreessen Horowitz's Raise $10BN in New Funds 26:38 Mercor Raises $350M at a $10BN Valuation 43:08 Spray and Pray: Does it Work: Data Breakdown 47:04 The Role of Option Checks Venture Capital 48:36 The Three Ways to Win in VC Today 54:26 Why IRR is a BS Metric and What Matters More 01:08:47 Amazon's Struggles: How Do They Return to Greatness in AI

David Cahn is a Partner at Sequoia Capital and one of the world's leading AI investors. At Sequoia David has led investments in Clay, Juicebox, Sesame, Kela, Stark, etc.. Before Sequoia, David was a General Partner @ Coatue where he led investments in Notion and Hugging Face. AGENDA: 00:00 We Are in an AI Bubble 05:04 Why Building Physical Data Centres is a Moat 13:58 Winners and Losers in a World of AI 19:13 The Role of Big Tech and Monopolies 23:37 Breaking Down Circular Deals in AI: The Truth No One Sees? 38:19 Why Kingmaking is BS and VCs Do Not Make or Break Companies 41:30 The Importance of Margins in AI Investments 43:41 The Required Growth Rates in AI to Get Funded by Sequoia 45:30 The $0-$100M Revenue Club: Is Triple, Triple, Double, Double Dead? 51:53 Why the Most Important Hire for Startups Today is 23 Year Olds 01:01:19 The Future of Defence: Who Wins and Who Loses 01:10:15 Quickfire: Biggest Miss, Parenting Advice, Doug Leone Advice

Sandy Diao is one of the most exceptional growth leaders of the last decade. Sandy has scaled products to over 200M+ users and led growth teams at Descript, Meta and Pinterest. She is also a prolific writer all on things growth here. AGENDA: 03:59 Biggest Growth Lessons from Pinterest 08:01 What is a Good vs a Bad Growth Hypothesis 11:11 Common Mistakes in Growth Strategies 14:57 Channel Fit: When You Have It & What To Do 25:43 Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) 101: How to Build a Paid Marketing Machine 30:08 How to Do SEO and Long-Term Growth Investments 33:22 Doubling Down on Successful Channels 36:31 The Unchanging Foundations of SEO 37:52 Generative AI Engines vs. Traditional Search Engines 41:12 Paid Marketing Channels: What's Overrated? 43:42 The Rise of User-Generated Content (UGC) 46:34 TikTok Ads: Expectations vs. Reality 49:55 Brand Marketing: What is Real vs What is BS? 53:33 The Importance of Feature Launches 01:01:50 Hiring for Growth: When and Who? 01:08:55 Quick Fire Round: Onboarding, Notifications, and Growth Channels

AGENDA: 04:50 Benchmark's New Partner: Everett Randall 10:19 Revolut Raises $3BN at a $75BN Valuation: Another Loss for Public Markets? 28:39 Why Today is as Bad as the Hype of COVID in 2021 32:10 Why Vertical SaaS is a Bad VC Investment Today 36:14 Why Everyone Investing in Legal SaaS Will Lose Money 44:16 Why King Making is More Real Than Ever 55:23 Why Your Smallest Customers Need to Pay $10K Minimum 01:01:37 Why VC is a S*** Asset Class 01:09:29 Why Today is Harder Than It Has Ever Been in VC 01:25:18 Closing Thoughts and Reflections

Alex Bouaziz is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Deel, the $17BN global payroll juggernaut that just last week announced their latest $300M fundraise led by Ribbit, a16z and Coatue. Deel has been on the most insane journey, they do $1BN+ in ARR, they just had their first $100M revenue month and they have been profitable for over 3 years. AGENDA: 03:38 Announcing $300M Fundraise at a $17BN Valuation 06:24 Rippling vs Deel: WTF is Going On? Where is the Lawsuit? 14:01 Why 1-1s Are BS and Leaders Should Stop Doing Them 17:31 Do Rich Leaders Make Better Leaders 28:33 Biggest Lesson from Ben Horowitz? Why Most CMOs Are Bad? 34:48 Lessons from Nik @ Revolut and Why Companies Need to Make Their Own Software 42:23 Deel's Acquisition Playbook: Lessons from 13 Acquisitions 45:17 How to Price Acquisitions? How to Align Incentives with Founders? 55:45 Deel is Profitable and Growing Fast: When is the IPO? 01:01:35 Best Acquisition Ever + Worst Ever: What Did We Learn?

Zach Lloyd is the Founder and CEO of Warp, the next-generation developer terminal reinventing how engineers build and collaborate. Warp has raised over $70M from top-tier investors including Sequoia Capital, GV, Dylan Field, and Elad Gil. Before founding Warp, Zach was Principal Engineer at Google, where he led development of Google Docs, and later served as CTO at Time. He's one of the most respected engineering minds redefining the future of developer tools. AGENDA: 04:14 Biggest Product Lessons from Rewriting Google Sheets 07:10 Why I Would Short Google: Leadership and AI Strategy 09:55 Comparing AI Models: GPT, Claude, and Gemini: Who Wins and Loses 17:04 Do Margins Matter in AI? 24:57 Adding $1M in ARR Every Week: Is Triple, Triple, Double, Double Dead? 33:58 How to Build Defensibility in a World of AI? 43:05 OpenAI vs Anthropic: Who Wins and Why? 44:25 Biggest Fundraising Lessons Raising from Sequoia, Elad Gil and GV 50:56 Why Sequoia are the Best VC 53:51 What Every Founder Gets Wrong in Fundraising 01:01:30 Quick Fire Questions and Final Thoughts

AGENDA: 03:44 Rory Is So Old He Worked with Arthur Rock!!! 07:28 Goldman Sachs Acquires Industry Ventures for $665M 16:37 Thinking Machines Co-Founder Raises $2BN and Then Leaves for Meta 29:36 SoftBank Goes for $5BN Leverage Against ARM Stock To Buy More OpenAI 39:35 More Data Centres Than Offices: Are We In a Bubble 43:28 Where is the Alpha in Venture in 2025 51:48 What 90% of Managers Get Wrong About Portfolio Management

Mike Cannon-Brookes is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Atlassian, the $50BN software giant behind products like Jira, Confluence, and Trello. Since founding the company in 2002, he has scaled it to over 300,000 customers globally, generating more than $5BN in annual revenue. Atlassian now employs over 10,000 people across 13 countries and is one of the most successful bootstrapped-to-IPO stories in tech history. Mike is also a leading climate investor and co-owner of several major sports teams. AGENDA: 00:00 Why Unreasonable Men Win in Startups 07:22 How to Make Co-CEOs Work 13:22 Are We in an AI Bubble? Is Everything Overvalued? 26:46 The Future of Software Development: More or Less Devs 32:53 Do Margins Matter in a World of AI 34:02 The Future of Vibe Coding… 36:35 Does Defensibility Exist in a World of AI 42:09 Is Per Seat Pricing Dead in a World of AI 49:01 The Founder Journey and Leadership 54:28 Quick Fire Round: Parenting Advice, Relationship to Money

Chris Degnan is the former Chief Revenue Officer at Snowflake, where he was instrumental in scaling the company from less than $1M in ARR to over $3B in annual revenue. He joined as the first sales hires and built Snowflake's go-to-market engine from scratch, growing the team from to more than 6,000 globally. Under his leadership, Snowflake became one of the fastest-growing enterprise software companies in history, achieving a record-breaking IPO in 2020. AGENDA: 04:34 How to Build a Sales Team from Scratch 07:49 How to Hire and Evaluate Sales Leaders 15:23 Four Big Lessons Scaling Snowflake to $3BN ARR 31:30 Comparing Snowflake and Databricks: What Databricks Did Better? 35:26 How to Manage Sales Team Morale in Competitive Markets 43:53 Why Customer Success is BS and What To Do With It 48:31 How Every Sales Leader Needs to Change in An AI World 49:37 Biggest Reflections on Sales Leadership 54:38 Quick Fire Questions and Final Thoughts 20Sales: Scaling Snowflake from $0-$3BN in ARR | Snowflake vs Databricks: My Biggest Lessons | Why Customer Success is BS and What Replaces It with Chris Chris Degnan

AGENDA: 03:29 OpenAI and AMD's Major Partnership 07:35 Microsoft Have F***** Up the OpenAI Partnership 17:08 OpenAI's Developer Day Announcements 20:45 Why VC is the Most Forgiving Asset Class on Price and Valuation 29:10 What Does it Take to IPO in 2025: Why Snyk Will Not IPO 42:30 Four Strategies Companies Need to Take to Own Their Own Destiny 49:31 Vercel Raises $300M at $9BN: Suicide Round or Strategic 55:39 Does King Making Really Work in Venture Capital: Legora vs Harvey 01:08:11 Chamath Raises Latest SPAC: SPACs are Back 01:10:56 Polymarket Raises $2BN at a $9BN Valuation 01:14:53 Quick Fire Questions and Wrap-Up

Andrew Feldman is Co-Founder & CEO of Cerebras, building the world's fastest AI inference and training. Cerebras recently closed a $1.1BN Series G round at an $8.1 billion valuation, backed by top names including Fidelity, Atreides, Tiger Global, Valor Equity and 1789 Capital. Under his leadership, they've leapfrogged GPU limits in inference, operate at trillions of tokens per month, and are filing to go public soon. AGENDA: 02:43 Why We Did Not IPO and Raised $1BN From Fidelity 05:03 Analysis of Chip and Compute Landscape Today 07:14 NVIDIA Showing Signs They Are Running Out of Ideas 13:57 The Real Questions to Ask on Chip Depreciation 24:54 Energy Requirements for AI: Is it Feasible? 29:25 Mag7 Value Concentration: Feature or a Bug 31:57 Talent is the Bottleneck and Trump Makes it Worse 32:55 The War for Talent: Secrets No One Sees 34:22 Evaluating the Data Centre Economy: Many Will Lose Money 38:01 Three Changes the US Could Make to Beat China in AI 42:30 Why 80% of our Revenues are in the UAE 47:26 Quick Fire Questions 58:59 Why Work Life Balance is Total BS

Ketty Slonimsky is Chief Growth Officer at Palta, the platform behind apps like Flo (the #1 female health app with 77M+ MAU), Simple, and Zing AI, where she leads a centralized growth function across the portfolio. She was previously first VP Product & Growth at HeliosX (£900M+ ARR, bootstrapped D2C healthtech), has advised companies like SonderMind, Runna, Guardio, Cheddar, P&G Digital Ventures, and is a board advisor at HeliosX. AGENDA: 02:33 What is Growth and When to Hire For It 06:04 Three Profiles of Successful Growth Leaders 10:07 Challenges and Learnings from Failed Ventures 21:17 How to Optimise User Onboarding for Growth 26:14 Biggest Lessons on Retention 30:25 How to Artificially Create Organic Growth and Community Building 32:10 Why LTV Models are BS 37:35 How to Use Influencers to Grow Insanely Fast 47:07 The Metrics that Matter in Growth 49:48 Push Notifications and Engagement: What To Do vs What Not to Do? 51:57 Quick Fire Round

AGENDA: 03:58 Understanding Burn Multiples and Capital Efficiency in an AI World 11:54 What Metrics Founders Need to Focus on in a World of AI 19:31 The Role of Kingmakers in Venture Capital: Harvey, Abridge, Profound 33:42 Klarna, Figma, Stubhub, all Down: Are Public Markets Turning? 36:35 OpenAI Needs the Same Energy as Japan… WTF! 41:09 How Can We Fund the $1TRN Sam Altman Needs for Energy 52:39 FiveTran and DBT: Is the Wave of Consolidation About to Begin? 59:44 Does Private Equity Need to Change in a World of AI 01:06:23 Political Expression and Corporate Responsibility

Jonathan Ross is the Founder & CEO of Groq, the AI chip company redefining inference at scale. Under his leadership, Groq has raised over $3B from top investors. The company has reached a valuation of nearly $7B, positioning itself as one of NVIDIA's most formidable challengers. Previously at Google, Jonathan led the team that built the first Tensor Processing Unit (TPU), making him one of the leading architects of modern AI hardware. AGENDA: 00:00 The Future of AI and Compute 05:07 Why the Hyperscalers Have to Keep Spending Recklessly on AI 12:49 Why OpenAI and Anthropic Will Have to Build Their Own Chips 19:47 OpenAI and Anthropic Will be $5BN Companies: The Bull Case 29:50 Why China is Behind the US in AI and Deepseek is More Expensive to Run 33:55 How Europe Could Compete in AI and Why the US is More Risk Averse Than Europe 42:51 Why AI Will Lead to Too Many Not Too Few Jobs 43:19 Deflationary Pressures and New Job Markets 45:51 The Future of Vibe Coding 47:14 Why AI Companies Should Strive to Have Low Margins 49:31 Why We Have to Have Nuclear Energy and How to Bring it Back 56:55 How Permits are Ruining the Potential of AI 01:03:58 Why OpenAI and Anthropic are so Undervalued 01:16:53 Quickfire: Biggest Fear, Nvidia: $10TRN, Zuck Buying AI: Work or Not

James Gibson is Head of Revolut Business. Under his leadership, Revolut Business now processes over $33 billion in monthly transaction volume and generates more than $1BN in annualised revenue. AGENDA: 04:10 Is Consulting the Worst Background for Aspiring PMs 07:09 How Revolut Hires for it's Product Team 17:21 How Revolut Sets Goals: What Works, What Does Not 19:37 How Revolut Structures Their Product Teams 22:13 How Revolut Structures Product Review Sessions 27:23 New Bets Process at Revolut 29:11 How Revolut Balances Super Users and General Customers 36:55 How Revolut Drives Product Velocity and Efficiency 39:26 Future of Product with AI 44:56 Quick Fire Questions and Reflections

AGENDA: 00:00 Why I am 100% Equities and 0% Cash 04:35 Nvidia's Massive $100BN Investment in OpenAI 08:39 Is Anthropic Negatively Positioned by OpenAI Gaining NVIDIA Investment 27:30 Is Triple, Triple, Double, Double Dead 44:00 Navan Files to Go Public at $8BN 49:31 Lockup Periods and Liquidity 50:35 Impact of H-1B Visa Changes on Startups 01:02:42: Notion Hits $500M ARR Re-Accelerating 01:09:42 Why Founder Friendly is Total BS Today

Hemant Taneja is the CEO and leader of General Catalyst, the firm he has scaled over the last decade into one of the largest with over $40BN in AUM. He has been one of the most influential investors of the past two decades, leading early bets in Stripe, Snap, Gusto, Samsara, Grammarly, and Canva. He also played a pivotal role in Livongo's $18.5B merger with Teladoc, one of the largest digital health deals in history. AGENDA: 00:00 Introduction 03:37 Is Hemant a CEO or an Investor? 05:42 With $40BN AUM Is General Catalyst Still a VC Firm? 12:11 Has Trump Done More to Hurt or Help the US? 13:25 No One is Talking About the True Impact of AI on Jobs 21:30 Is Hemant Concerned by the Concentration of Value in MAG 7? 27:30 Has Trump Done More to Hurt or Help the US? 30:27 GC's Anthropic Investment: Upside from a $60BN Price 37:06 Do Margins Matter in a World of AI 45:23 Does Revenue Growth Matter in a World of AI 49:39 Why it is BS to Turn Down a Company Based on Price 56:06 We Have Invested $5BN Into Stripe Over 14 Rounds 01:00:02 VC is About To Be Flooded with Retail Investment: What Does It Mean for VC 01:08:51 "What I Learned Losing the Series A of Snap, Stripe, Samsara" 01:11:25 Future of Venture Capital: Walmart vs Chanel

Jesse Zhang is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Decagon, the conversational AI platform for customer experience. As one of the fastest growing companies in the valley, they have raised over $230M at a last round price of $1.5BN. Prior to Decagon, Jesse founded Lowkey (acquired by Niantic), studied CS at Harvard, and worked at places like Google, HRT, Citadel, and Intel. AGENDA: 00:00 Introduction and Sponsor Messages 03:43 Olympiad Mathematician to Startup Founder 05:34 Selling to Niantic and What I Did Differently the Second Time 07:16 Why 90% of Founders Build Companies the Wrong Way 12:19 Scaling to $50M ARR in 15 Months 31:31 Is the AI Talent War Out of Hand: How To Compete with Meta Pay Packets 32:38 Why Remote Work is Total BS 34:06 Competitors in AI Customer Experience: Sierra, Intercom and more 37:34 AI Market Predictions 44:56 Embracing Stress and Winning Culture 50:13 Quick Fire Questions: Most Underrated AI Founder, Biggest Changed Opinion

AGENDA: 00:00 Opendoor's Potential and Market Valuation 03:32 Why Did Kaz Leave $300M on the Table to Join Opendoor 04:44 Why Does Kaz Believe OPEN Can Be a Good Business When the Market Doesn't 06:34 How does Kaz Feel About OPEN Becoming a Meme Stock? 17:25 Kaz's $0 Salary but $1BN Stock Based Compensation 23:41 Oracle and OpenAI Partnership: WTF is Going On? 42:21 Microsoft's Investment in OpenAI: A Financial Perspective & Who Has the Power 44:46 Why Sam Altman is the Greatest Politician of our Time 48:33 How Anthropic's Revenue Could Go to Zero Overnight? 50:12 Replit Raises $250M at $3BN Valuation and Higgsfield Raises $50M at $50M ARR 01:06:33 IPO Insights: Figure, Gemini, and Via All Go Public 01:11:26 Why Adobe Have Failed in an Age of AI and What Incumbents Have To Do? 01:13:20 Quick Fire Round: Adobe Up or Down by EOY? What Price Will OPEN Be EOY? Try NEXOS.AI for yourself with a 14-day free trial: https://nexos.ai/20vc

Brendan Foody is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Mercor, the fastest growing company in history. The company solves talent allocation in the AI economy and they have scaled from $1M to $500M in revenue in just 17 months. With a rumoured new funding round pricing the company at a whopping $10BN, the company has the likes of Benchmark, Felicis, Emergence, and of course, 20VC, all on their cap table. AGENDA: 04:34 Why My Mother Thought I Was Selling Drugs as a Kid 07:48 In The Time My Peers Graduated, I Created a $10BN Business; Is College Worth it? 10:27 Scale, Surge, Mercor, Turing: How Do Data Providers Differentiate 20:57 Scaling from $1M to $500M: We Quadrupled Since Scale was Acquired 33:43 Is There Too Much Cash in Private Markets? 34:55 Why Evaluation Benchmarks in AI are Total BS 35:44 Revenue Sustainability in AI Companies 36:48 Should Investors Give a S*** About Margins When Analysing AI Companies 40:46 The Future of AI Model Providers: Who Wins 45:58 You Cannot Create a $10BN Company without 9-9-6 Work Culture 48:56 We Literally Have Too Much Money, We Cannot Spend It… 52:36 Quick Fire Round: OpenAI vs Anthropic, Lessons from Peter Fenton and Jack Dorsey