Samir Vasavada is the Co-Founder & CEO of Vise, a technology-powered asset manager. Samir and his co-founder, Runik founded Vise from the Midwest at 16 years old. They bootstrapped the company before dropping out of high school and raising $128M in just 6 months from some of the best including Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund. The company achieved unicorn status when the pair turned 20 years old, making them the youngest founders of a $BN company at the time.
1. The Biggest Hiring Mistakes That Broke Us:
2. Fundraising: 3 Rounds and $126M in 6 Months:
3. The Depression, The Pressure and Wisdom From Jensen Huang:
Andrew Bialecki is the Co-Founder and CEO of Klaviyo, the platform that powers smarter digital relationships for businesses and their data. To date, Klaviyo has raised over $778M from the likes of Accel, Summit Partners, Sands Capital, and Shopify, and raised an additional $700M after its IPO in September 2023.
In Today’s Episode with Andrew Bialecki We Discuss:
Founding a $6.23BN Machine in Klaviyo: The Aha Moment
What was the aha moment for Klaviyo?
How important does Andrew think it is for founders to stick with their initial vision vs when is the right time to pivot?
Does a great product sell itself? If you build it, will they come?
Bootstrapping Klaviyo: Would it Have Worked with More VC Cash Earlier?
Why did Andrew decide to bootstrap & not take VC money with Klaviyo?
Does Andrew think Klaviyo would have been successful if they raised a seed round? What would they have done differently?
Why does Andrew believe companies should take their time to find product-market fit? What are the most common mistakes founders make?
What is Andrew’s advice to founders on fundraising?
When did Andrew decide to raise a seed round when he did?
How to IPO in an IPO Winter: Advice & Lessons
Why did Andrew decide to take Klaviyo public in a bad public market?
How was the IPO roadshow process? What were Andrew’s lessons from it?
How has Andrew’s role as CEO changed after taking Klaviyo public?
Does Andrew think Klaviyo is undervalued today?
What is Andrew’s advice to founders on secondaries?
Behind the Shopify Partnership
How did Klaviyo’s partnership with Shopify happen? What were Andrew’s lessons working with Tobi Lütke & Harley Finklestein?
How does Andrew define a win-win partnership?
What does Andrew mean by “Partnerships are like a tug of war?”
What does Andrew think are the most common reasons partnerships go sideways?
David Luan is the CEO and Co-Founder at Adept, a company building AI agents for knowledge workers. To date, David has raised over $400M for the company from Greylock, Andrej Karpathy, Scott Belsky, Nvidia, ServiceNow and WorkDay. Previously, he was VP of Engineering at OpenAI, overseeing research on language, supercomputing, RL, safety, and policy and where his teams shipped GPT, CLIP, and DALL-E. He led Google's giant model efforts as a co-lead of Google Brain.
1. The Biggest Lessons from OpenAI and Google Brain:
2. Foundation Models: The Hard Truths:
3. Bunding vs Unbundling: Why Chips Are Coming for Models:
4. The Application Layer: Why Everyone Will Have an Agent:
Val Scholz is the former Head of Growth @ Revolut, where he led the company to their first 10M users. Post Revolut, Val played a crucial role in scaling several high-growth companies including VEED, Simple & Busuu (exited for $400M). Today, Val is the Head of Growth at Kittl, an intuitive design platform empowering graphic designers.
In Today’s Episode with Val Scholz We Discuss:
Lessons from Scaling Revolut to 10M Users
What were Val’s biggest takeaways during his time at Revolut?
What does Val consider the secret sauce behind Revolut’s success?
What did Val think Revolut understood about customers that no other bank did?
The Secrets to Revolut’s Growth Playbook
What was Val’s best growth decision? What was his worst?
Why does Val think most companies don’t do referrals well?
What made Revolut’s signup strategy so successful?
What are Val’s two ways to master content marketing?
Does Val think it’s good to diversify growth channels? When should founders diversify?
What are Val’s strategies to make Youtube influencers successful?
Product Marketing 101:
Why does Val think traditional marketing methods are outdated?
If traditional marketing methods are outdated, what should startups do instead?
What does Val think is the most dangerous myth around product-led growth?
What does Val believe are the most common mistakes founders make on optimizing products?
Growth Hires: Who, What, When & How
When does Val think is the best time to hire a head of growth?
What is the profile Val looks for in a growth hire? What traits does he look for?
What are the most common reasons founders fail at hiring?
What does Val think are the biggest red flags to look out for in a CV?
How does Val define good culture? Did Revolut have a good culture?
Michael Eisenberg is a Co-Founder and General Partner @ Aleph, one of Israel's leading venture firms with a portfolio including the likes of Wix, Lemonade, Empathy, Honeybook and more. Before leading Aleph, Michael was a General Partner @ Benchmark.
1. The State of AI Investing:
2. Where Is the Liquidity Coming From?
3. AI as a Weapon: Who Wins: China or the US:
4. Venture 101: Reserves, Selling Positions and Fund Dying:
Danny Rimer is a Partner @ Index Ventures and one of the most prominent VCs of the last two decades. Danny has led Index to be one of the top global firms on both sides of the Atlantic. Among Danny's incredible portfolio, he has led or been involved with Figma, Discord, Dream Games, Etsy, Glossier and Patreon.
1. The Biggest Lessons from Missing Snap, Airbnb, Spotify and Facebook:
2. The Biggest BS Rules in Venture: Market Sizing, Valuations and Signalling
3. Lessons from the Biggest Wins and Losses:
4. Lessons from Two Decades Building Index into a Premier Firm:
Janie Lee is the Head of Product and the owner of the Self-Serve business at Loom. Janie previously worked at Rippling, leading the Identity Management and Hardware teams. Prior to that, she worked at Opendoor launching markets and developing pricing algorithms. During this time, Opendoor scaled from 2 to 20+ markets, $5B+ revenue, and 1500+ employees.
1. Inside the Product Building Machine of Rippling and Opendoor:
2. What Makes a Truly Great PM:
3. How to Find and Pick the Best PMs:
4. Onboarding PMs and Crushing Product Reviews:
Alex Wang is the Founder and CEO @ Scale.ai, the company that allows you to make the best models with the best data. To date, Alex has raised $1.6BN for the company with a last reported valuation of $14BN earlier this year. Scale tripled their ARR in 2023 and is expected to hit $1.4BN in ARR by the end of 2024. Their investors include Accel, Index, Thrive, Founders Fund, Meta and Nvidia to name a few.
1. Foundation Models: Diminishing Returns:
2. AI: A Military Asset in Global Conflict: China + Russia
3. "I Get Fairer Treatment in Congress than in the Press":
4. Alex Wang: AMA:
Reid Hoffman has been one of the most impactful people in technology over the last two decades. He is the Co-Founder of Linkedin (acq by Microsoft for $26BN) and Co-Founder of Inflection.ai. As an investor, Reid has backed the likes of Facebook, Airbnb, Zynga and more. Reid is also a Board Member @ Microsoft and was on the board of OpenAI.
1. Foundation Models: Commoditisation, Business Models, Incumbents:
2. Inflection & Microsoft: What Went Down:
3. OpenAI: Board, Lessons and Management:
4. Trump is the Biggest Threat to Democracy: What Lies Ahead?
5. The Future of TikTok:
6. Reid Hoffman: AMA:
Ashley Kelly is the VP of Global Sales Development at Rippling, the all-in-one platform for HR, IT, and finance. Before Rippling, Ashley played a crucial role in scaling Brex’s outbound sales from $2M to over $300M in ARR, and has hired over 800 SDRs during her time in some of the best tech companies in Silicon Valley, including Lever and Zenefits.
In Today’s Episode with Ashley Kelly We Discuss:
From NASCAR to Silicon Valley SDR
How did Ashley make her way into the world of sales?
Why does Ashley think the best AEs and leaders start off as SDRs?
What is Ashley’s advice to new SDRs starting their jobs today?
Age of AI: Is SDR Outbound Dead?
Does Ashley agree that outbound is dead today? Is SDR dead?
How will AI change SDR? Why is Ashley hesitant to adopt AI?
Why does Ashley think founders should always build the first sales playbook?
What did Ashley mean by SDR is the 3rd pillar between sales and marketing?
What does Ashley think most companies get wrong about outbound?
SDR Hiring: Who, What, When & How
When does Ashley think founders should hire their first SDR?
How does Ashley structure the hiring process? What questions does she ask?
What profile does Ashley look for when hiring for an SDR?
How does Ashley structure the finance package? How is it different for each team?
Why did Ashley avoid hiring SDRs with SDR experience? Why has she changed her mind?
What was Ashley’s biggest hiring mistake? What were her takeaways?
Onboarding New SDR Hires
How does Ashley onboard new SDR hires? What is her onboarding timeline?
How does Ashley set targets for new hires? When should they be fully productive?
When does Ashley know if a new hire isn’t working?
What are common traits among Ashley’s most successful hires?
Aravind Srinivas is the Co-Founder & CEO of Perplexity, the conversational "answer engine" that provides precise, user-focused answers to queries. Aravind co-founded the company in 2022 after working as a research scientist at OpenAI, Google, and DeepMind. To date, Perplexity has raised over $100 million from investors including Jeff Bezos, Nat Friedman, Elad Gil, and Susan Wojciki.
In Today’s Episode with Aravind Srinivas We Discuss:
Biggest Lessons from DeepMind & OpenAI
What was the best career advice Sam Altman @ OpenAI gave Aravind?
What were Aravind’s biggest takeaways at DeepMind?
How did DeepMind shape how Aravind built Perplexity?
What did Aravind mean by “competition is for losers?” What did he learn about talent assembly at DeepMind?
The Next AI Breakthrough: Reasoning
Does Aravind think we are experiencing diminishing returns on compute & model performance?
Does Aravind agree reasoning will be the next big breakthrough for models?
What are the reasons Aravind thinks models suck at reasoning today?
What is the timeline for reasoning improvement according to Aravind?
What does Aravind think are the biggest misconceptions about AI today?
Will Foundation Models Commoditise?
Does Aravind think foundation models will commoditise? What will the end state of foundation models look like?
Why does Aravind think the second tier models will get commoditised?
Why does Aravind think the subscription model will not work for AI models with true reasoning?
Why does Aravind think the application layer companies will benefit from foundation models commoditising?
Why does Aravind think foundation models will not verticalize?
When does Aravind think is the right time to go enterprise? What is his strategy to differentiate Perplexity from its competitors?
AI Arms Race: Who Will Win?
Who does Aravind think will be the winners of foundation models?
What do AI companies need to do to win the model arms race?
How does Aravind think startups can compete against incumbents' infinite cash flow?
What are the reasons Aravind thinks Perplexity’s browsing is better than ChatGPT?
What is Aravind’s biggest challenge at Perplexity today?
Jason Lemkin is one of the OG SaaS investors with all of his first five investments turning into unicorns with Pipedrive, Algolia, Talkdesk, Salesloft and RevenueCat all in his portfolio. SaaStr is the largest global community in SaaS and he has taught a generation the fundamentals of SaaS on saastr.com.
1. PluralSight Goes to Zero:
2. Salesforce's Worst Stock Market Drop Since 2004 + Mongo Takes a 23% Hit:
3. The Settlers into Slow Growth:
4. Venture Capital is Broken: