Gina Gotthilf is a Co-Founder and COO at Latitud, an a16z-backed platform supporting the next generation of iconic tech startups in Latin America through digital products, a community and fund. Previously, Gina led growth and marketing at Duolingo from 3 to 200 million users via organic strategies and was part of the executive team. She also worked on the Mike Bloomberg presidential campaign, helping oversee the creation of digital ad campaigns at a historical budget, and led growth and community for Tumblr in Latin America.

In Today's Discussion with Gina Gotthilf We Discuss:

Entry into the World of Growth:

• How Gina went from working on a farm to leading growth for Tumblr in LATAM?
• What are 1-2 of Gina's biggest takeaways from her time leading growth for Duolingo?
• What does Gina know now that she wishes she had known when she entered the world of growth?

15 Top Tips and Secrets to Being Featured in the Best Publications:

• What is the best way to get in touch with journalists? What mistakes do founders have when they reach out to journalists?
• Should founders get in touch with more than one journalist at a publication?
• Should founders be explicit about the embargos they have on a story? Should they stick to them?
• Should founders be more wary of being published in a publication with a paywall?
• What materials should they send to journalists to get their attention?
• Should founders send press releases in early messages to journalists?
• How can founders control in some way what the journalist will ultimately publish?
• How long before the company wants the piece to come out, should they reach out to journalists?
• How can founders create FOMO when trying to get journalists to write their story?
• How can founders create social validity with journalists, when they are a small company?
• Once published, what should the distribution strategy look like?
• How can you get people you know to like and share content you are featured in?
• What are the top tips and tricks to get people to share content with you in?
• Should PR and Comms be an ongoing effort or static projects with news stories?
• What are the single biggest mistakes founders make in getting their company in the press?

Alex Lebrun is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nabla, an AI assistant for doctors. Prior to Nabla, he led engineering at Facebook AI Research. Alex founded Wit.ai, an AI platform that makes it easy to build apps that understand natural human language. Wit.ai was acquired by Facebook in 2015. Prior to Wit, Alex was the Founder and CEO of VirtuOz, the world pioneer in customer service chatbots, acquired by Nuance Communications in 2013.

In Today's Episode with Alex Lebrun We Discuss:

1. Third Time Lucky and Lessons from Zuckerberg:

• How did Alex make his way into the world of startups with the founding of his first company?
• What worked with Alex's prior companies that he has taken with him to Nabla? What did not work that he has left behind?
• What were the single biggest takeaways for Alex from working with Mark Zuckerberg? How does Mark prepare for meetings? How does Mark negotiate so well?

2. Open vs Closed:

• Why does Alex believe the winning AI models will always be open?
• Why are open models not as transparent as people think they are?
• What are the biggest downsides to both open and closed models?
• Does Alex agree with Emad @ Stability that we will have "national data sets"?

3. Incumbent vs Startup:

• Who wins in the AI race; startups or incumbents?
• How important is access to proprietary data in winning in AI today?
• How does Alex respond to many VCs who suggest so many AI startups are merely "a thin layer on top of a foundational model"? Is that a fair critique?
• Which startups are best placed to challenge incumbents? Which incumbents have been most impressive in adopting AI into existing product suites?

4. Models 101: Size, Quality, Switching Costs:

• Why will the best companies switch the models that they use often?
• Will any models in action today be used in a year?
• How important is the size of the model? How will this change with time?
• In what way is new EU regulation around models going to harm European AI companies?

5. Location Matters: Who Wins:

• When looking at China, US and Europe, who is best placed to win the AI war?
• What are the biggest challenges Europe and China face?
• Why is the US best placed to win the AI race? What does it have to overcome first?
• If Alex were a politician, what would he do to ensure his country were best positioned?

Noah Weiss is the Chief Product Officer of Slack, overseeing the product team’s strategy and development. Over his seven years at Slack, Noah has led various parts of the product organization, including the self-service SMB business and product-led growth; the Virtual HQ team that launched huddles and clips; and the search and machine learning teams. Prior to Slack, Noah served as SVP of Product and Analytics at Foursquare. He started his career at Google leading the structured data search team and working on display ads.

In Today's Episode with Noah Weiss We Discuss:

1.) Entry into Product and Road to Slack CPO:

• How did Noah make his first foray into the world of product with Google?
• What are 1-2 of his single biggest takeaways from his time with Google and Foursquare?
• What model did Noah learn at Google that he applies to product today?

2.) Product 101: The Foundations:

• Is product more art or science? If Noah were to put a number on it what would it be?
• What are product principles? What makes good vs bad product principles?
• What are the biggest mistakes that founders make when instilling product principles?
• Does Noah believe with Gustav Soderstrom, "talk is cheap and so we should do more of it"?

3.) How to Master Product-Led-Growth:

• What are some of Noah's biggest lessons on how to master PLG?
• What are the biggest mistakes Noah sees early stage founders make today when going for the PLG approach? How does he advise them?
• When is the right time to move into enterprise? What needs to change?
• How do you change who you build product for? The buyer or the user?
• Why does Noah believe product speed will always be the most important thing in product?

4.) The Internals of Slack:

• How does Slack do post-mortems today? Who comes? Who sets the agenda? How has this changed in a world of remote? What does it take to do them well?
• How do Slack do product testing pre-launch of new products? Do they know when something is going to be a hit? What did they think would be a massive hit that turned into a flop?
• What does Noah believe is the biggest near death product experience for Slack? What happened? How did they get through it?
• Why do Slack buy other companies? How do they think through the decision of buy vs build?
• When do acquisitions work? When do they not work?

Rishi Sunak is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was previously appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer from 13 February 2020 to 5 July 2022. He was Chief Secretary to the Treasury from 24 July 2019 to 13 February 2020, and Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government from 9 January 2018 to 24 July 2019. Before entering the world of politics, Rishi co-founded an investment firm.

In Today's Episode with Rishi Sunak We Discuss:

1. The United Kingdom: Open for AI: Open for Business

• Why does Rishi believe the UK is best placed to lead the way for innovation in AI?
• What can the government do to ensure the public and private sectors work together most efficiently?
• Why has Rishi created an entirely new division just for this? How does this change how decisions for AI and technology are made?

2. $100M Funding: The Largest Government Funding in the World:

• Why did Rishi decide to allocate the largest pool of capital of any nation toward AI safety?
• What is the strategy for the $100M? How will it be invested? Who will manage it?
• What are the challenges and opportunities in setting up this $100M funding program?

3. Education: Attracting the Best in the World:

• What has Rishi done to ensure the best talent in the world, wants to and can work in the UK?
• What new initiative has Rishi put in place to ensure the world's brightest students can freely move to and work in the UK?
• What can be done to ensure the UK continues to foster the same level of homegrown talent that we always have done? What can we do to improve our current education system for AI even further?
• Why does Rishi believe one of the greatest opportunities for AI lies in education and teaching?

4. Making Regulation Work Effectively:

• How does Rishi think about creating regulation which is both effective and not prohibitive?
• What can we do to create a government that moves at the speed of business?
• What does Rishi believe are the biggest mistakes made in regulatory provisions? What are we doing to avoid them with AI in the UK?

Larry Summers is the Former Treasury Secretary and one of America's leading economists. In addition to serving as 71st Secretary of  the Treasury in the Clinton Administration, Dr. Summers served as Director of the White House National Economic Council in the Obama Administration, as President of Harvard University, and as the Chief Economist of the World Bank. Huge thanks to Sarah Cannon for the intro to Larry today.

In Today's Episode with Larry Summers We Discuss:

1. The Journey to Being One of the World's Leading Economists:

• How Larry's mother and father both being economists shaped his early thinking as an economist?
• How did Larry's parenting teach his children economics at an early age?
• What does Larry know now that he wishes he had known when he entered the workforce?

2. How to Get the US Out of Debt:

• What would Larry do to save the US economy today?
• What can be done to increase revenues for the US economy?
• Why does Larry believe carried interest should be taxed as income tax?
• Why does Larry believe we need more billionaires? How would he tax them more efficiently?
• Why does Larry believe cutting taxes is indefensible?
• What can be done to reduce inflation without massively hurting the poorest in society?

3. The World Around Us:

• What does Larry mean when he says, "Europe is a museum, China is a jail and Bitcoin is an experiement"?
• Why does Larry believe the next 5 years will be difficult for China?
• Why does Larry believe the next 5 years will be challenging for Europe?
• Which nation is Larry most confident about when projecting forward for the next 5-10 years?

4. Politics and a Trump Administration:

• How does Larry reflect on the role of Biden on the US economy and state of inflation?
• Would a Trump administration be better or worse for the US economy?
• What are the chances of Trump beating Biden in the next election?
• What would Larry most like to change about the US political system?

Orlando Bravo is a Founder and Managing Partner of Thoma Bravo. He led Thoma Bravo’s early entry into software buyouts and built the firm into one of the top private equity firms in the world. 

Tobi Lütke is the CEO and Co-Founder of Shopify, the powerhouse company allowing anyone to start and grow their e-commerce business.

Dara Khosrowshahi is the CEO of Uber, where he has managed the company’s business in more than 70 countries around the world since 2017.

Parker Conrad is the Founder & CEO @ Rippling, the company that lets you easily manage your employees’ payroll, benefits, expenses, devices, apps & more—in one place.

Jamie Siminoff is the Founder and Chief Inventor @ Ring, with Ring Jamie, created the world’s first Wi-Fi video doorbell while working in his garage in 2011. The company sold to Amazon for $1BN.

Martín Escobari is Co-President, Managing Director and Head of General Atlantic’s business in Latin America. Martín is Chairman of the firm’s Investment Committee and also serves on the Management and Portfolio Committees.

Ariel Cohen is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Navan (formerly TripActions), the #1 travel management super-app used by over 8,000 companies.

Tarek Mansour is the Founder and CEO @ Kalshi, the first regulated exchange where you can trade directly on the outcome of events.

Brian Armstrong is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Coinbase, the easiest place to buy and sell cryptocurrency. Over the last 10 years, Brian has led Coinbase to today, a public company with over 3,500 employees and revenues of over $7.5BN in 2021.

Question of the Day:

What are the world's tech leaders running from?

Rich Liu is the CRO @ Everlaw and a unicorn GTM exec having scaled five multi-billion dollar tech unicorns across two IPOs, a successful acquisition, and numerous funding rounds. Prior to Everlaw, Rich architected the GTM motions for companies like Navan (TripActions), MuleSoft, and Meta (Facebook). As a result of his incredible success, Rich has been recognized as a 2021 Top 100 Global Sales Leader.

In Today's Episode with Rich Liu We Discuss:

1. Entry into the World of Sales:

• How Rich made his way from biochemistry into the world of sales?
• What is 1 takeaway from his time at Navan, Meta and Mulesoft that has shaped how he thinks about sales today?
• What does Rich know now that he wishes he had known when he entered the world of sales?

2. Sales Today: What is Happening?

• What are the biggest sales leaders saying today about price sensitivity and deal cycles?
• What has changed in the way companies buy software with the macro downturn?
• What do companies need to do to get deals over the line today?
• How do startups need to change the way they message to enterprises in order to sell today?
• How has the renewals process changed? What does this mean for customer success teams today?

3. PLG vs Enterprise: When and How?

• Is it possible to do both PLG and enterprise at the same time?
• Is it easier to start with enterprise and move to PLG or visa versa?
• How does the type of sales leader you need change dependent on the motion?
• When is the right time to move from founder-led sales to sales team?
• How does one know whether to hire a junior jack of all trades or a senior sales leader?

4. How To Hire The Best in Sales:

• How does Rich structure the hiring process for all new reps today?
• Does he use case studies to determine their depth and ability? Is the case study of the company they are interviewing at or a fresh company?
• What questions does Rich ask every candidate for a new role?
• What are some of the biggest red and green flags in how candidates talk in interviews?

TJ Parker is the co-founder and former CEO of PillPack. TJ Raised over $100M in financing, grew the company to more than 1k employees, and successfully sold the business to Amazon for $1B in 2018. As of last week, TJ was announced as the newest Partner @ Matrix Partners where he will initially focus on health opportunities from concept to series A.

In Today's Episode with TJ Parker We Discuss:

1.) From Growing Up in Pharmacies to Selling to Amazon for $1BN:

• How did TJ seeing the pharmacy industry from his parents lead him to believe there was a $BN company to be built in the space?
• What does TJ know now that he wishes he had known when he started the company?
• What does TJ believe he is running from? How does that impact his own style of parenting?

2.) The Truth About Entrepreneurship:

• Why do the best founders have to get comfortable in an environment of uncertainty? What have been some of TJ's biggest lessons in how to do this?
• Why does TJ believe the role of the CEO is to set the vision and get out of the way? What roles can only the CEO do? How does TJ approach delegation? What have been some of his core lessons?
• Does TJ believe being naive is a superpower when starting a company? What do founders need to know vs what do they not need to know when starting a business?

3.) Speed of Execution and Decision-Making:

• How important does TJ believe speed of execution is for startups today?
• What can founders do to create a culture of rapid decision-making? What works? What does not?
• What does TJ believe are 1-2 of the single best and worst decisions he made with PillPack?
• What are some of the biggest mistakes TJ sees founders make both in speed of execution and then also in decision-making processes?

4.) The Crucible Moments: Lawsuits & Acquisitions:

• How did an incumbent come days away from shutting down PillPack?
• How did they save the company? How does TJ deal with those moments of intense stress?
• How did the Amazon acquisition come to be? Why and how did the prior acquisition fall through?
• Does TJ regret the sale to Amazon? How was life at Amazon post-acquisition?

One of the core questions in AI and investing today; who wins, startups or incumbents? Startups have speed and innovation but incumbents have scale, resources, and distribution?

Today we hear from 6 leading investors and founders discussing where they place their bets who has the advantage; startups or incumbents?

Emad Mostaque is CEO @ StabilityAI, the parent company of Stable Diffusion. To date, Emad has raised over $110M with Stability with the latest round reportedly pricing the company at $4BN. 

Yann LeCun is VP & Chief AI Scientist at Meta and Professor at NYU. He was the founding Director of FAIR and of the NYU Center for Data Science.

Clem Delangue is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Hugging Face, the AI community building the future. Clem has raised over $160M from the likes of Sequoia, Coatue, Addition and Lux Capital to name a few.

Sarah Guo is the Founding Partner @ Conviction Capital, a $100M first fund purpose-built to serve “Software 3.0” companies. Prior to founding Conviction, Sarah was a General Partner at Greylock.

Vince Hankes is a Partner @ Thrive Capital where he has led the firm’s investments in OpenAI, Melio, and Airplane.dev. Prior to Thrive, Vince learned the craft of venture from Lee Fixel @ Tiger.

Tomasz Tunguz is the Founder and General Partner @ Theory Ventures, a $230M fund that invests $1-25m in companies that leverage technology discontinuities into go-to-market advantages.

The Question of the Day:

• Who wins? Startups or Incumbents?

David Alleman is the Co-Founder and Co-Chairman @ On Running one of the fastest-growing global sports brands with over 17 million products sold in 60+ countries. In 2021, On went public on the NASDAQ and today has a market cap of $8.7BN. However, it all started with three friends in the mountains experimenting with making shoes with pieces of garden hose to create a running shoe with a totally different feel.

In Today's Episode with David Alleman We Discuss:

1. From the Swiss Mountains to NASDAQ IPO:

• What was the initial a-ha moment for David and his co-founders with On Running?
• How did they make the first shoes?
• What are some of the biggest lessons for David in V1 product build?
• What does David know now that he wishes he had known at the start? Is naivete always good?

2. The Launch: First Customers:

• How did On get their first customers?
• What can products and companies do to instill true customer love in those first customers?
• What was the hardest element of launching On to their first customers?
• How does David analyze and use customer feedback? What does he listen to vs not?

3. Retail: Expanding into Own Store vs Partnerships:

• What are some of David's biggest lessons in how to make retail partnerships successful?
• How can brands create amazing experiences for customers in retailers that are not their own?
• Why did On decide to also have their own stores? How did this change the business?
• What have been David's biggest learnings on what it takes to do retail well with own stores?

4. Roger Federer: Working with a Legend:

• How did the relationship with Roger begin? Where was the first meeting? What was it like?
• How did Roger come to invest in On Running? Why did On not want to do the traditional athlete endorsement deal?
• What role does Roger play in the company today? How does he impact product development?
• What have been some of the biggest lessons for David from working with Roger?
• How much of an impact has Roger had on On Running as a business?

5. Financing, IPOs, and Brand:

• Does David wish they had raised venture capital sooner?
• If they had more money sooner in their journey, what would David have invested in earlier?
• Why did they decide to go public when they did? How has the journey been post being a public company? What changes? What is the same?
• What brand does Davist most respect and admire? Why? What brand decisions does David most regret? What would he have done differently?

Adam Besvinick is the Founder of Looking Glass Capital, a pre-seed-focused firm started in 2020. Before starting Looking Glass, Adam spent about 5 years at Deep Fork Capital and Anchorage Capital Group investing in pre-seed through Series C. Adam's portfolio across funds includes the likes of BigID, Transfix, NomNom, and Hone Health, to name a few. 

In Today's Episode with Adam Besvinick We Discuss:

1. How Twitter Led to Founding a Venture Firm:

• How did Adam make his way into the world of venture through Twitter?
• What are 1-2 of his biggest lessons from working with the legend, Chris Sacca?
• What does Adam know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning of his time in VC?
• What do most young VCs misunderstand when it comes to reputation?

2. Raising Fund I: The Process:

• How many LP meetings did Adam have to close Fund I?
• What docs and materials did he have for the fundraise? How does he advise other managers on doing docs for fundraises?
• How do different LP profiles want different things in the managers they work with?
• How did Adam approach first vs final close? How does he advise others managers on closing?
• How did Adam instil a sense of urgency in LPs to move and commit to the fund?
• What are 1-2 of Adam's biggest pieces of advice to managers raising a first-time fund?

3. Looking Glass: The Very Disciplined Pre-Seed Strategy:

• How did Adam decide on the fund size? Why is it the optimal fund size?
• What is the desired ownership for Adam? What level of dilution does he expect across the lifecycle of the company?
• What is the average check size? What is the average entry price?
• How does Adam approach reserves and follow-on checks?
• How does Adam reflect on his own relationship to price?
• Why does Adam not like the majority of pre-seed micro-fund strategies?

4. The Market: Multi-Stage Firms Destroying Seed

• Does Adam agree that "multi-stage firms have destroyed seed rounds"?
• How does Adam advise founders when they have multi-stage offers and seed firm offers?
• Who will be the winners and losers in the next 10 years of venture?
• Why is it harder than ever to advise founders on fundraising rounds today?

Tomer Cohen is the CPO @ Linkedin. Since joining in 2012, Tomer has served in key leadership roles, helping launch and scale new innovative member and customer experiences. He previously led the growth and development of LinkedIn’s Marketing Solutions portfolio and LinkedIn's consumer and mobile products. Prior to LinkedIn, Tomer worked as an entrepreneur with Greylock Partners and founded a company in the personal CRM space.

In Today's Episode with Tomer Cohen We Discuss:

1.) From Israeli Military and Chip Design to CPO @ Linkedin:

• How did Tomer make his way from the Israeli military to being CPO @ Linkedin?
• What does Tomer know now that he wishes he had known when he became CPO?
• What have been some of his biggest lessons from working with Reid Hoffman?

2.) Product: Art or Science:

• How does Tomer determine whether product is art or science? If he were to put a number on it, what would it be?
• How does Tomer determine whether to go with his gut vs go with the data on product decisions?
• How is AI changing the role of product managers and product leaders?
• What do product leaders and PMs need to do to stay up to date with the latest changes in AI?

3.) Linkedin: Review of Current Products: Feed, Stories, Messenger

• How does Tomer analyse the success of "the feed" in Linkedin? What worked? What did not work?
• Why did "Stories" not work in Linkedin? What went wrong? What did they learn?
• What is Tomer doing to tackle the spam issue in Linkedin? What are the biggest challenges associated?
• Why does Linkedin still have such poor messaging service? Why is it a difficult problem to solve for?

4.) AI Changes Everything:

• Why does Tomer believe this wave of AI is the most significant technological shift in our lifetime?
• Who will win the race in AI; startups or incumbents?
• Which model will work most efficiently; open or closed?
• Will we see large enterprises prefer bundled AI options or unbundled with specialised providers?

Guy Podjarny is the Founder of Snyk, the leading Developer Security platform, helping developers secure as they build. Guy was previously CTO at Akamai, co-founded Blaze.io (acquired by Akamai), and was the product manager of AppScan, the first AppSec scanner, through Sanctum, Watchfire and IBM. Guy is a public speaker, O’Reilly author, and an active early stage angel investor.

In Today's Episode with Guy Podjarny We Discuss:

1.) From Israeli Military to Founding a $10BN Company:

• How Guy made his way into the world of startups from the Israeli military?
• What is Guy running away from? Why does he hate tribalism so much?
• Does Guy believe serial entrepreneurship is valuable or naivety of young founders is good?

2.) The Secret to Finding Product Market Fit:

• Why does Guy believe PMF is a poorly defined term? How does Guy define PMF?
• What are the single biggest mistakes founders make while searching for PMF?
• What are the most important elements on messaging when it comes to PMF?
• If you have a horizontal tool, how do you message and resonate with specific audiences?

3.) Defensibility and Being First to Market:

• Does Guy believe that being the first to market is really that valuable?
• Does Guy agree that investors expecting defensibility on day 1 is wrong?
• Why does Guy think market leadership is way more important than first to market?
• What are the true defensible moats that can be built early today?

4.) Lessons from 100 Angel Investments:

• What have been the single biggest lessons for Guy from his 100 angel investments?
• What are the biggest mistakes angels make when investing today?
• How should founders present their market size to investors? Where do they go wrong?
• Does Guy invest in both painkiller and vitamin businesses? How does he compare them?
• Why is Boldstart Guy's favorite venture capital firm?

Nico Wittenborn is the Founder of Adjacent, one of the best early-stage firms created over the last 5 years. Before starting Adjacent, Nico spent over 3 years at Insight Partners in New York and before that learned the craft of venture from some of the best in early-stage, Point Nine, where he spent over 4 years. Nico's portfolio across funds includes the likes of Revolut, Chainalysis, Oura, RevenueCat and PhotoRoom to name a few.

In Today's Show with Nico Wittenborn We Discuss:

1.) From Selling Mobile Phones to Leading Early-Stage Investor:

• How did Nico first make his way into the world of venture with Point Nine?
• What did Nico learn from his time with Point Nine and Insight? How did his time at each impact how he invests and runs Adjacent today?
• What does Nico know now that he wishes he had known when he started investing?

2.) Is Consumer Subscription Even a Good Place to Invest?

• With Calm ($2BN) and Duolingo ($6BN) as the market leaders and there only being two of them, is consumer subscription even a good place to invest?
• How does Nico pushback that retention for consumer subscription apps is so bad? What do many not see about consumer subscription retention numbers?
• How does Nico respond to the challenge of high customer acquisition cost and navigating challenging platform shifts in advertising, when investing in consumer subscription?
• What will the consumer subscription landscape look like in 5 years time?

3.) Adjacent: The Fund, The Strategy:

• Why does Nico believe if your fund model relies on $10BN outcomes, you are in trouble?
• How large is the latest Adjacent fund? What does the portfolio construction look like for the fund?
• How much diversification is the right level of diversification? How many companies per fund?
• How does Nico think about capital concentration on a per company basis?
• What are Nico's ownership requirements? How have they changed with funds?
• What is it about Nico's structure which enables him to be more collaborative than others?

4.) Nico: The Investor: Lessons:

• How does Nico reflect on his own relationship to price? When does he pay up? When does he not?
• What has been one of Nico's biggest misses? How has that changed his approach?
• Why does Nico not really compete with the large multi-stage funds?
• Why is Nico deliberately trying to reduce the amount of companies that he sees?

5.) The Future of Venture:

• How does Nico analyze the rise of solo GPs? What are the biggest pros and cons of the model?
• Why does Nico believe the large generalist funds are in trouble?
• Who is set to win and who is set to lose in the next 10 years of venture?
• Which seed firm would Nico invest in? Which Series A firm? Which growth firm?

Ryan Wiggins is the VP of Growth and Analytics at Mercury where he oversees a Growth team and founded the Analytics function. Prior to this, Ryan built Growth teams at WhatsApp, where he helped grow WhatsApp Business from 0->100M users, Workplace, and Facebook Ads. If that was not enough, Ryan is also an active angel investor.

In Today's Episode with Ryan Wiggins We Discuss:

1.) From US Department of Commerce to Leading Growth Teams:

• How Ryan made his initial foray into the world of growth with Facebook and Whatsapp?
• What does Ryan know now that he wishes he had known when he made the entry into growth?
• What advice does Ryan have for people who want to change their career but are not sure what they want to do?

2. ) Who and When: Building the Team:

• Should we hire a Head of Growth or a more junior growth hire first?
• What are the different profiles of growth hires? How do they change with business model?
• When is the right time to hire your first growth hire?
• What are the single biggest mistakes founders make on the timing of growth hires?

3.) How to Hire: The Process:

• Structurally, what is the right way to hire for a growth team? What does the interview process look like? What do you want to get out of each meeting?
• Should case studies be used, if so, should they be used for the company hiring or of the company where the candidate is from?
• What does the comp package look like for different growth hires?
• Who should be brought into the growth hiring process? What stage should they be involved?

4.) Onboarding: Setting Growth Up for Success:

• What is the ideal first 30,60 and 90 days for new growth hires?
• What can leaders do to ensure they are set up for the maximum chance of success?
• What are three of the biggest red flags bad growth hires show in the first 30 days?
• What are the biggest mistakes founders make in the onboarding process of growth hires?

Emad Mostaque is the Co-Founder and CEO @ StabilityAI, the parent company of Stable Diffusion. Stability are building the foundation to activate humanity's potential. To date, Emad has raised over $110M with Stability with the latest round reportedly pricing the company at $4BN. Investors include Coatue, Lightspeed, Sound Ventures, OSS Capital and Airstreet Capital, to name a few. Prior to Stability, Emad was in the world of hedge funds, that was until his son was diagnosed with autism and he left to make a difference in the space and help find treatments and solutions.

In Today's Episode with Emad Mostaque We Discuss:

1.) From Hedge Funds to Finding Treatments for Autism to Leading the World of AI:

• How Emad made his way from the world of hedge funds to founding one of the leading AI companies of our time?
• How did Emad find a solution to parts of his son's autism with a $6 drug?
• How does Emad believe we can use AI to solve the majority of medical problems today?
• What does the future of healthcare look like with AI at the centre?

2.) Models: What is Real? What is False?

• Why no models today will be used in a year?
• Why all models are biased and how do we solve for it?
• Why hallucinations are a feature and not a bug?
• Why the size of your model does not matter anymore?
• Why will there be national models specified to cultures and nations? How is this implemented?

3.) Who Wins: Startups or Incumbents:

• Why does Emad believe there will only be 5 really important AI companies? Which will they be?
• How does Emad review Google's AI strategy following their news last week? Was their integration of Google and Deepmind recently a success?
• How does Emad assess Meta's AI strategy? Why does Zuckerberg now acknowledge the metaverse play was a mistake?
• How does Emad evaluate the approach taken by Amazon? Why are they the dark horse in the race?
• What can startups do to get a meaningful edge on the large incumbents? How do they compete with their distribution?

4.) The Next 12 Months: What Happens:

• Why does Emad believe the .ai bubble will be bigger than the dot com bubble?
• Why does Emad believe that the biggest companies built-in AI in the next 12 months will be services-based companies? How does the ecosystem look if this is the case?
• Why will India and emerging markets embrace AI faster than anyone else? What happens to economies that have large segments reliant on freelance work that AI replaces?
• Why will we see the death of many large content publishers and media companies? What does Emad mean when he says we will see the rise of "AI first publishers"?

5.) Open or Closed: What Wins:

• Why does Emad believe we must be open by default? Why does open win?
• Why does Emad side with Elon and believe we must pause the development of AI for 6 months?
• How does Emad evaluate the leaked memo from Google stating that neither Google nor OpenAI are ahead? What does this mean for the AI ecosystem?
• Where will the best AI talent concentrate? What do companies need to do to win the best talent?

Yann LeCun is VP & Chief AI Scientist at Meta and Silver Professor at NYU affiliated with the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences & the Center for Data Science. He was the founding Director of FAIR and of the NYU Center for Data Science. After a postdoc in Toronto he joined AT&T Bell Labs in 1988, and AT&T Labs in 1996 as Head of Image Processing Research. He joined NYU as a professor in 2003 and Meta/Facebook in 2013. He is the recipient of the 2018 ACM Turing Award for "conceptual and engineering breakthroughs that have made deep neural networks a critical component of computing". Huge thanks to David Marcus for helping to make this happen.

In Today's Episode with Yann LeCun:

1.) The Road to AI OG:

• How did Yann first hear about machine learning and make his foray into the world of AI?
• For 10 years plus, machine learning was in the shadows, how did Yan not get discouraged when the world did not appreciate the power of AI and ML?
• What does Yann know now that he wishes he had known when he started his career in machine learning?

2.) The Next Five Years of AI: Hope or Horror:

• Why does Yann believe it is nonsense that AI is dangerous?
• Why does Yann think it is crazy to assume that AI will even want to dominate humans?
• Why does Yann believe digital assistants will rule the world?
• If digital assistants do rule the world, what interface wins? Search? Chat? What happens to Google when digital assistants rule the world?

3.) Will Anyone Have Jobs in a World of AI:

• From speaking to many economists, why does Yann state "no economist thinks AI will replace jobs"?
• What jobs does Yann expect to be created in the next generation of the AI economy?
• What jobs does Yann believe are under more immediate threat/impact?
• Why does Yann expect the speed of transition to be much slower than people anticipate?
• Why does Yann believe Elon Musk is wrong to ask for the pausing of AI developments?

4.) Open or Closed: Who Wins:

• Why does Yann know that the open model will beat the closed model?
• Why is it superior for knowledge gathering and idea generation?
• What are some core historical precedents that have proved this to be true?
• What did Yann make of the leaked Google Memo last week?

5.) Startup vs Incumbent: Who Wins:

• Who does Yann believe will win the next 5 years of AI; startups or incumbents?
• How important are large models to winning in the next 12 months?
• In what ways does regulation and legal stop incumbents? How has he seen this at Meta?
• Has his role at Meta ever stopped him from being impartial? How does Yan deal with that?

Clem Delangue is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Hugging Face, the AI community building the future. To date, Clem has raised over $160M from the likes of Sequoia, Coatue, Addition and Lux Capital to name a few. Prior to Hugging Face, Clem was in product and marketing at two different startups both of which were acquired.

In Today's Episode with Clem Delangue:

1. From Tamagotchi to Leading the World of AI:

• How did a Tamagotchi startup turn into one of the hottest AI startups in the world?
• What does Clem know now that he wishes he had known when he started?
• What are Clem's biggest pieces of advice to founders on pivoting?

2. AI: Trend or Transformation:

• To what extent does Clem believe the current hype in AI is justified?
• What is overblown? What have been some true and groundbreaking developments?
• How far away does Clem believe AGI is?
• What is a massive misconception the public has that Clem wishes he could change?

3. Open vs Closed: Which Model Wins:

• Why does Clem believe the future of AI will be won by open-source?
• What is his reasoning to suggest closed is fundamentally a weaker model?
• Does Clem acknowledge that in the short term, enterprises will buy from a closed model with greater ease? How does he plan to tackle this?

4. Regulation: What Happens Now:

• What regulatory changes need to be made in the world of AI most urgently?
• Is Elon Musk right to suggest the immediate pausing of developments in AI?
• What does Clem believe to be the most likely scenario to AI regulation in the next 12 months?

5. Fundraising: Lessons and Reflection on Raising $160M:

• Do AI startups fundamentally cost more money than normal startups to build?
• Why does Clem not meet investors in between rounds?
• What does Clem believe is the most helpful thing an investor can do?
• What are Clem's spiciest takes on venture as a financing model?

Today's 20Sales is a special Mother's Day edition where we are joined by 6 of the best sales leaders who also happen to be rockstar mothers.

The Profiles

Maggie Hott is on the GTM Team (Go-To-Market) at OpenAI. Before OpenAI, Maggie was Director of Sales @ Webflow and before Webflow spent an incredible 6 years at Slack.

Stevie Case is the CRO @ Vanta. Prior to Vanta, Stevie spent an immensely successful 6 years at Twilio as VP of Mid-Market Sales.

Renu Gupta is an advisor and sales consultant to some of the fastest-growing SaaS companies today. Previously she has held sales leadership roles at Slack, Thrive and Dropbox.

Lauren Schwartz is the VP Enterprise Sales @ Fivetran. Before Fivetran, Lauren spent 4 years at Segment as Senior Director of Enterprise Sales leading to their acquisition by Twilio.

Julie Maresca is the Head of Global Accounts at Atlassian. Prior to Atlassian, Julie spent an immensely successful 6 years at Slack in numerous roles including Head of Enterprise Sales for North America.

Jessica Arnold is the VP of Global Sales Development @ Amplitude. Before Amplitude, Jessica was the Senior Director for Inside Sales North America at Dropbox for close to 6 years.

In Today's 20Sales Mothers Day Episode We Discuss:

1.) How have you navigated growing in your career at the same time, growing your family?

2.) How do you balance your career and being a mother - when do you lean in and out?

3.) What are some specific strategies or tools that have helped you maintain a work-life balance? 

4.) How do you prioritize your mental health and wellbeing while juggling your responsibilities at work and at home?

5.) How do you handle the guilt that many working mothers experience when they have to focus on their career?

6.) What are the unique challenges and advantages of being a mother in a sales leadership role?

7.) How has your experience as a mother influenced your leadership style and decision-making?

8.) How have you navigated going out on maternity leave without it having an impact on your career?

9.) America has one of the worst parental leaves of any country in the world. How can you advocate for parental leave if the existing policy isn’t up to par?

10.) What are some ways that companies can create a more inclusive and supportive environment for working mothers in sales leadership roles?

Chris Paik is a General Partner @ Pace Capital, an early-stage venture firm in NYC. Pace's first fund was $150M and their second was $250M. Before co-founding Pace, Chris was a General Partner at Thrive Capital where he spent an incredible 8 years having joined the firm when they were on their first $10M Fund.

In Today's Episode with Chris Paik We Discuss:

1. From Hipster to One of NYC's Best VCs:

• How Chris made his way from not knowing about venture capital to being one of the most prominent in NYC?
• What are 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from his 8 years at Thrive? How did they impact how he thinks about building Pace today?
• What are Chris' biggest lessons from working with Josh Kushner? What did Josh do to spot young talent in a way like no one else did?

2. The Core Pillars of Successful Venture Investing:

• "Invest in companies that can be described in a single sentence". What does Chris mean by this? How does that impact the type of companies he looks to invest in?
• "Business Model Fit is as important as PMF". What does Chris mean by this? How does he determine where a company has business model fit?
• How does Chris analyze his relationship to market sizing? How does Chris think about how willing he is to take a bet on market timing?
• Why does Chris believe that the more "virtuous" a company is, the less enterprise value it will have?

3. What is Wrong with Venture Capital: The Misalignments:

• What does Chris believe are the single biggest misalignments between VCs and Founders?
• What does Chris see as the biggest misalignments between VCs and LPs?
• Why does Chris believe we should scrap capital gains tax and all be taxed as an income tax?
• Why do acquisitions allow investors to be screwed over by the acquiring company?

4. The Future of Social and User Generated Content Platforms:

• How does Chris analyze consumer businesses according to "The Seven Deadly Sins"? Why does he call them, "The Seven Deadly Motivators"?
• What does Chris believe is the future for Substack? Why does it not have Business Model Fit?
• What are 1-2 of his biggest lessons from being on the Twitch board? How did that experience impact his mindset and approach to what good is in UGC and social?
• What does Chris believe is the number one thing to look for in a potential consumer social investment? What do so many miss?

Alex Rodriguez is a businessman and the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of A-Rod Corp, a broad-based investment firm that bets on world-class startups and partners with leading global companies across the real estate, health and wellness, technology, and sports & entertainment industries. While best known as one of the world’s greatest athletes (a 14x MLB All-Star and a 2009 World Series Champion with the New York Yankees), for more than 25 years, Alex leads a team of experts building high-growth businesses and is co-owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves.

In Today's Episode with Alex Rodriguez

1.) From MLB to Business MVP:

• How Alex made his transition from one of the world's greatest athletes to the world of business?
• What does Alex know now that he wishes he had known at the start of his business career?
• What is Alex running away from? How do his insecurities drive him?

2.) Lessons from Magic Johnson and Warren Buffet:

• What are some of the single biggest lessons Alex has learned from his time with Warren Buffet?
• How did Magic Johnson impact Alex's approach to business?
• What is Magic Johnson's framework? How can others use it as a blueprint for their career?

3.) Alex Rodriguez: The Business Builder and Investor:

• What has been Alex's single biggest investing hit? What did he learn from it?
• What has been Alex's single worst investment decision? How did that change his approach?
• Why is Alex not buying real estate currently? How does he view the future of real estate buying?

4.) Alex Rodriguez: The Father and Son:

• How did having two daughters impact Alex's approach to business and life?
• What have been Alex's single biggest lessons from seeing his single mother operate?
• How does Alex reflect on his own relationship to money? How has it changed?

Vince Hankes is a Partner @ Thrive Capital where he has led the firm’s investments in OpenAI, Melio, and Airplane.dev. He currently sits on the board of Airtable, Benchling, Lattice, and Melio. Prior to joining Thrive, Vince was an investor at Tiger Global where he learned the craft of venture from the legend that is Lee Fixel.

In Today's Episode with Vince Hankes We Discuss:

1. From Tiger Global to Partner @ Thrive Capital:

• How Vince made his way into the world of investing with Tiger Global?
• What are 1-2 of his biggest takeaways from working alongside the legendary Lee Fixel?
• Why did Vince make the move from Tiger to Thrive? How do the two firms differ?

2. The OpenAI Investment: The Memo:

• How did the OpenAI deal come to be? What were the round dynamics?
• Market Evaluation: How did Vince and the team analyze the market top down?
• Competition: Who did Vince identify as the core competitors to OpenAI?
• Defensibility: How did Vince think through the long-term defensibility of OpenAI's model? Does Vince believe these models will become commoditised?
• Price: How did Vince and the team get comfortable with the $29BN price?

3. AI: Hype or Generational Defining Transformation:

• Trend or Transformation: Why does Vince believe AI will be the defining technology of our generation?
• Startup vs Incumbent: Does Vince think the value will accrue to the incumbent or the startup?
• Open or Closed: Does Vince think we will operate in a closed (one model rules them all) environment or an open-source environment with many models?
• AI Talent: Where does Vince think the majority of the best AI talent will concentrate?
• Speed: Why would Vince be scared if he were a startup today looking at the incumbents?

4. The Changing Investor: Lessons from Good and Bad:

• How has Vince changed most significantly as an investor over time?
• What has been his single biggest investing mistake? How did he learn from it?
• What has been his biggest investing success? How did that change his mindset?
• What has Thrive done in their org structure to allow them to make bets very few other firms can do?

Mark Carney is the Vice Chair and Head of Transition Investing @ Brookfield Asset Management, one of the world's leading asset managers with over $800BN in AUM. Mark is also United Nations Special Envoy on Climate Action and Finance. He has also served as Finance Advisor to the British Prime Minister. In addition to this, Mark is on the board of Stripe, PIMCO and The World Economic Forum. In a previous life, Mark spent over a decade as a Central Banker, most recently as Governor of The Bank of England and before that as Governor of The Bank of Canada.

In Today's Episode with Mark Carney We Discuss:

1. Is The Banking Crisis Over? What Happened?

• Why does Mark not believe we are in a banking crisis?
• Why does he not believe the banking turmoil is over?
• Was SVB the fault of regulatory mistakes or management mistakes?
• Is FRB a damaged asset in it's own right or the result of contagion within the banking ecosystem?

2. The Impact of the Banking Turmoil: What Happens Now?

• What does Mark believe is the future of regional banks?
• Why does Mark believe we will see massive consolidation in banks coming soon?
• Should the Fed be guaranteeing all deposits automatically?

3. What Happens To The Macro Now?

• How does the banking turmoil impact growth rates? Will we definitely go into a recession now?
• What is the impact on monetary policy? Can the Fed raise rates even higher?
• What does this mean for the future of money? Why is it a silver bullet for stablecoins?
• If Mark could bet on China or the US for the next 10 years, who would it be?
• Does Mark believe the UK is in a weaker situation than ever? What about Europe?

4. The Future of Climate and Net Zero:

• Where are we at with Net Zero? Are we ever going to make progress?
• Is it possible to make progress without the cooperation of China?
• Why does Mark disagree and suggest China has done more than most to help the climate?
• Who is talking more than they are acting in the fight to save the climate?
• On the flip side, who is acting more than they are talking?

Sarah Guo is the Founding Partner @ Conviction Capital, a $100M first fund purpose-built to serve “Software 3.0” companies. Prior to founding Conviction, Sarah was a General Partner at Greylock where she made investments in the likes of Figma, Coda, Neeva and many more incredible companies. Sarah also hosts her own podcast, No Priors with the wonderful Elad Gil.

In Today's Episode with Sarah Guo We Discuss:

1. From Large Multi-Stage Firm to Founding Conviction:

• Why did Sarah decide to leave Greylock?
• What are 1-2 of her biggest lessons from her time at Greylock? How did they impact her mindset when building Conviction today?
• What does Sarah believe are the most surprising or hardest elements of firm building?

2. The Future for AI: The Opportunities and the Challenges:

• Why does Sarah believe AI is the most foundational technology of our lifetime?
• Why did Sarah decide to centre the entire fund around AI? Is AI not an enabling technology that will power all sectors in technology?
• Is Sarah concerned by the further wealth inequality that AI and billion dollar companies created by 10 people, will inevitably bring?
• How does Sarah think about the potential for malicious AI use? What can be done to prevent this?

3. Startup and VC Principles That Are BS:

• Why does Sarah believe that defensibility is BS?
• Why do Sarah and Harry both believe that reserves in venture funds are a suboptimal use of funds?
• "Great founder, bad market, market wins". Does Sarah agree? How does Sarah prioritize the centrality of founder vs market?

4. Sarah Guo: The Investor

• How has Sarah changed most significantly as an investor over the last 5 years?
• What is Sarah's biggest miss? How did it impact her mindset today?
• What is Sarah's biggest win? How did that alter her risk appetite?
• How does Sarah see the future of venture?
• If Sarah could invest in one multi-stage firm and one seed-stage firm, which would it be?

Jack Brody is the VP Product @ Snap. Jack joined Snap in 2014 as a Product Designer, and ultimately helped build out the design organization as the Head of Design before taking on his current role overseeing all of Product for the Snapchat application and Hardware. In his 9 years at Snap, he helped create Memories, the Snap Map, and AR Lenses like Face Swap.

In Today's Episode with Jack Brody We Discuss:

1. The Shortest Internship in Tech:

• How did Jack get an internship with Evan Spiegel and Snap while he was still at college?
• How did it turn into the shortest internship in tech history?
• What are the single biggest product lessons Jack has from working with Evan Spiegel?

2. Product 101: Art vs Science:

• Does Jack believe product is more art or science? If he were to assign numbers to them, what would they be?
• How does Jack define creativity? What can founders and product leaders do to ensure their teams are as creative as possible?
• What is the 3 step framework through which product leaders should prioritize product ideas?
• Does Jack believe that when the CEO is no longer the Head of Product, the company is dead?
• Does Jack agree with Gustav Soderstrom, "talk is cheap, so we should do more of it"?

3. The SNAP Hiring Process: What Works and What Does Not:

• What is the hiring process for the product team at SNAP?
• What questions are most revealing of 10x product people in the interview process?
• What case studies and tests does Jack use in the interview process?
• What other roles and functions does Jack bring into the interview process as part of the decision?
• What are the single biggest mistakes founders make in the hiring process for product?

4. SNAP, The Future, and The World Around Us:

• What do Jack and SNAP believe will be the future for augmented reality?
• What country is SNAP not big in today but will be in the next 5 years? Why that one?
• Why did SNAP tear down its android app and start again? What has been the impact?
• Were the SNAP glasses a success? What is their future?