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.

In Today's Show with Alex Wang We Discuss:

1. Foundation Models: Diminishing Returns:

• What are the three core pillars that can meaningfully improve foundation models performance?
• Why is data the single largest bottleneck to the performance of models today?
• What data do we need to capture that we do not currently, that will have the biggest impact on model performance moving forward?
• Will we see the largest companies in the world revert back to on-prem with the increasing security challenges of migrating all customer data to foundation models?

2. AI: A Military Asset in Global Conflict: China + Russia

• Why does Alex believe that AI has the potential to be an even more powerful military asset than nuclear weapons?
• If this is the case, should we have open systems? Do we not have to have closed systems?
• Why does Alex believe that the CCP's approach to industrial policy is better than anyone else's?
• How does Alex evaluate the rise of Chinese EV car manufacturers in the last few years?
• Does Alex really believe that China is two years behind the US in the AI race?

3. "I Get Fairer Treatment in Congress than in the Press":

• Why does Alex believe that the best PR is no PR?
• Why does Alex believe that he got fairer treatment in congress than he does in the media?
• Why does Alex believe that all founders should look to own their own distribution channels today?

4. Alex Wang: AMA:

• What are some of Alex's biggest lessons from Patrick Collison on the impact that a hot company brand has on the ability for that company to hire the best?
• Does Alex think Trump is going to win? What would be the impact if he were to?
• Why does Alex believe that enterprise software will be changed forever in the next few years?
• What question is Alex never asked that he thinks he should be asked?

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.

In Today's Show with Reid Hoffman We Discuss:

1. Foundation Models: Commoditisation, Business Models, Incumbents:

• Does Reid believe we are seeing the commoditization of foundation models?
• Is it too late for new foundation models to be born today? Are they VC backable?
• How will foundation models eventually make money? What will be the sustainable business model?
• Does Reid believe that foundation models will be acquired by large cloud providers? Who goes first?

2. Inflection & Microsoft: What Went Down:

• How did the Microsoft and Inflection deal go down? Did Satya call up one day and make it happen?
• With the decay rate of models, Microsoft did not do it for the models, so why did they do it?
• Was Inflection a sustainable business in it's own right?
• Does this not prove that to win at this game, you have to be an incumbent with incumbent cash?

3. OpenAI: Board, Lessons and Management:

• What are 1-2 of Reid's biggest lessons from being on the OpenAI board with Sam?
• Why did Sam ask Reid in front of the whole company if Reid would fire him if he did not perform?
• Scarlett Johannsen, super alignment team quitting, NDAs tied to equity, this is a lot in a short amount of time, how does Reid analyse this?

4. Trump is the Biggest Threat to Democracy: What Lies Ahead?

• Why does Reid believe that Trump is a threat to democracy and evil?
• What were Reid's biggest takeaways from a two hour lunch with Joe Biden?
• How does a Trump administration change the world of AI, technology and startups?

5. The Future of TikTok:

• Is TikTok a threat to US democracy? Should it be banned?
• What will be the outcome of the current judicial process? Will they sell to a US entity?
• How could Trump impact the future of TikTok in the US?

6. Reid Hoffman: AMA:

• What are Peter Thiel's biggest strengths and weaknesses?
• I believe Mark Zuckerberg is one of the most unappreciated public market CEOs, what are the core components that Reid believes makes Mark so special?
• How did Reid miss out on investing in SpaceX's first round? What did he not see that he should have seen?
• What do we think is crazy today but will be a no brainer and very normal in 10 years?

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:

1. 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?

2. 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?

3. 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?

4. 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:

1. 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?

2. 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?

3. 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?

4. 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.

In Our First Ever Episode of This Week in SaaS

1. PluralSight Goes to Zero:

• WTF happened to PluralSight? How did it go from $3.5BN to $0?
• Will this have a wider impact on the willingness of PE to buy tech companies?
• Who are the next contenders to go from hero to zero? Zendesk? Anaplan?
• Will this generation of PE funds be let off by their LPs for a poor vintage?

2. Salesforce's Worst Stock Market Drop Since 2004 + Mongo Takes a 23% Hit:

• Why did Salesforce lose $50BN of market cap in a single day?
• Is the same true for MongoDB taking a 23% hit in one day?
• What does it mean when the new normal is these once hyper-growth companies now growing only 6% per annum?

3. The Settlers into Slow Growth:

• Why does Jason believe that Dropbox and Box have both settled into a world of slow growth?
• What happens to Twilio from here in a world post Jeff Lawson?
• What happens to Retool from this point on?
• Would Jason be a buyer of Notion at $10BN?

4. Venture Capital is Broken:

• Why does Jason believe that we need to see a relation of public multiples for the math in venture capital to work again?
• Why does Jason believe that the way we mark portfolios with TVPI leads to corrupt and bad behaviour?
• How does Jason think we will solve the problem of liquidity with IPOs being shut, M&A being out of the window and now PE being a doubt as the source of buyers?

Matt Lerner is one of the OGs of growth having spent 11 years leading growth teams at PayPal. Post PayPal, Matt led the growth marketing program at 500 Startups. He is also the bestselling author of Growth Levers and How to Find Them. Today, Matt is the Co-Founder and CEO of SYSTM, an accelerator program helping startups find their growth drivers. 

In Today’s Episode with Matt Lerner We Discuss:

1. From Philosophy Student to PayPal Growth Leader:

• How did Matt make his way into the world of growth?

• What were Matt’s biggest lessons from 11 years at PayPal?

• What did Matt know now that he wished he’d known when he entered the world of growth?

2. How to Master Growth in a World of AI:

• What is growth to Matt? What is it not?

• Why does Matt think growth is more science than art?

• Does Matt Agee with Adam Gross @ Vimeo that paid acquisition below $100M ARR isn’t PLG?

• How does Matt think AI will change the world of growth today?

• What does Matt think are the most common growth mistakes founders make?

3. Optimizing Growth Channels: Dos & Don’ts

• Why does Matt believe there are only six types of growth channels?

• What is the “locksmith moment" & how do startups find channels that work for them?

• How does Matt pick a Northstar metric? 

• What are the most common mistakes founders make when picking North Star metrics? When is the right time to change them?

• How does Matt approach horizontal product messaging? What works? What doesn’t work?

4. How to Hire & Manage Growth Teams

• What does Matt look for in the first head of growth hire?

• What questions does Matt ask when interviewing?

• What were Matt’s biggest hiring mistakes? What did he learn?

• Why does Matt think the best growth hires have no marketing experience?

• What are Matt’s two steps to master onboarding?

• What are the 3 most common patterns in leaders according to Matt?

Mike Schroepfer (Schrep) is the Founder & Partner @ Gigascale Capital, a new kind of climate-focused investment firm. Prior to Gigascale, Mike was the CTO @ Meta where he scaled products to billions of users, shipped millions of units of consumer hardware, constructed tens of millions of sq ft of data centres, built teams of up to 35,000, and made breakthroughs in AI. Before Meta, Mike led engineering at Mozilla and founded a company acquired by Sun Microsystems.

In Today's Show with Mike Schroepfer We Discuss:

1. Lessons from Mark Zuckerberg and Meta:

• What are Schrep's biggest lessons from Zuck on truly effective leaders?
• Why does Schrep believe the best leaders are like music conductors?
• What does Schrep mean when he says, "building a company is a game of inches"?
• Why does Schrep believe "inertia is one of the most underappreciated forces in company building?"

2. The Future of Energy:

• Why does Schrep believe that the "availability of cheap, clean energy is the biggest rate limiter to human progress?"
• Does Schrep agree with Sam Altman that energy will be the currency of the next decade? Or does he believe Mustafa Suleyman is right and it will soon be free and abundant?
• How does Schrep predict the next five years for both fusion and nuclear?
• Why does Schrep believe the next few years will be "messy but with huge opportunity"?

3. Investing in Climate: It has to be Profitable:

• Why does Schrep believe that markets and not governments or philanthropy will solve the climate challenges we face?
• What leads Schrep to suggest that the climate change transition is a $10TRN opportunity for investors?
• What is the single hardest element of investing in climate change solutions today?
• Why do climate change solutions need to reshape how they market to consumers?
• How much capital does it take to build a defensible moat in climate?

4. Schrep: The Man Behind Whatsapp and Instagram: AMA:

• How does Schrep reflect on his own relationship to money? How has it changed?
• How does Schrep think about what it takes to be a great father?
• How did Schrep manage the physical stress and pressure of managing engineering for products that serve billions of people in WhatsApp and Instagram?

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.

In Today's Episode with Jason Lemkin We Discuss:

1. Growth Rates and Churn Rates: Average/Good/Great:

• What is a growth rate that would excite Jason in a SaaS company? What is average?
• What levels of churn would worry Jason to see? What would excite him to see?
• What does Jason never tolerate when it comes to either growth rate or retention?

2. What Founder Combination Always Wins:

• Why does Jason believe you cannot lose money on a CEO salesperson and a technical CTO founding partnership?
• Why does Jason always meet the CTO for a second meeting in the diligence process? What questions does he ask? What do the best CTOs do or say?
• Why does Jason always want to sell his shares when the founders want to sell?
• Why does Jason believe that a company is never the same when the founders leave?

3. WTF is Happening in the World of VC:

• Why does Jason believe that pricing is worse than it has ever been in venture?
• Why does Jason believe that traditional seed VC is systemically broken?
• Why are companies getting stuffed with more cash than ever before?
• What does Jason know now about dilution that he wishes he had known when he started?
• Why does Jason believe that you should always recycle everything?

4. WTF is Happening in PE and Later Stage Markets:

• What happens to all the overpriced acquisitions like Zendesk and Salesloft where private equity way overpaid for them, they have no growth and no product innovation?
• What happens to the generation of public companies like Box, Dropbox and Twilio, all with low growth and little product innovation in the single-digit market caps?
• Why does Jason believe that Klaviyo is the most undervalued public company today?
• What does Jason believe will happen to Anaplan with Pigment eating their lunch?

Sam Altman is the CEO @ OpenAI, the company on a mission is to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. OpenAI is one of the fastest-scaling companies in history with a valuation of $90BN and $2BN+ in revenue.

Brad Lightcap is the COO @ OpenAI and the man responsible for the incredible scaling of sales, GTM, partnerships and business to today being over $2BN in revenue.

Arthur Mensch is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mistral AI. Since its inception in May 2023, Mistral has raised over $520M in funding from investors like Andreeseen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Microsoft with a current valuation of $2 billion. 

Des Traynor is a Co-Founder of Intercom, and has built and led many teams within the company, including Product, Marketing, and Customer Support. Today Des leads all of Intercom’s R&D efforts, and parts of Intercom’s marketing.

Tom Hulme is a Managing Partner of GV (Google Ventures), and leads the European team. Today, GV has over $10BN in AUM and Tom has led investments in Lemonade.com (IPO), Snyk, Secret Escapes, Blockchain.com, GoCardless, and Currency Cloud (exited to Visa).

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

Sarah Tavel is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful and renowned venture firms in the world. At Benchmark, Sarah has led rounds in Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Medely, Rekki, Glide, Cambly and more.

In Today's Episode We Discuss:

1. Will foundation models be commoditised?
2. What is the end state for the foundation model landscape in 10 years?
3. How will large cloud provider incumbents approach M&A with smaller foundation model providers?
4. When will we see marginal revenue exceed marginal cost in the foundation model business model?
5. Where is the value: the application layer or the infrastructure layer?
6. How can startups know whether they will be threatened by OpenAI?
7. What are good tests/questions to know if you are in the path of one of the large foundation models?
8. How does the business model of SaaS fundamentally change in a world of AI?
9. Will we see the end of per-seat pricing in a new world of AI?
10. What is the right way to approach pricing in a world of AI? Consumption? Tokens?

Aaron Levie is one of the OG founders of the last two decades as the Co-Founder and CEO of Box. Today, Box does over $1BN in revenue with a market cap of $3.85BN, and has raised over $560 million from the likes of DFJ, Andreesen Horowitz, and Coatue. 

In Today’s Episode with Aaron Levie We Discuss:

1. What You Need to Know Entering This AI Wave:

• Why does Aaron think we are currently in a transformative window in AI?

• What does Aaron think it takes to be successful in this next wave?

• Which areas does Aaron think founders should be focusing on today? Where should they not?

2. AI Adoption: Business Model, Implementation, Regulation.

• How does Aaron think AI will change how we work & run a business?

• What does Aaron think is the single biggest obstacle to AI adoption in large organizations?

• Does Aaron agree with Sarah Tavel @ Benchmark AI companies will be selling work not tools? 

• How does Aaron think AI will change the SaaS business model?

• Why is Aaron not as worried about AI regulation? What are his biggest concerns today?

3. The Next AI Breakthrough: AI Agents

• Why does Aaron believe the next big breakthrough in AI will be agents?

• How does Aaron think AI agents will change org structures?

• How does Aaron think agents will differ from RPA? How will RPA companies benefit from AI? 

• What does Aaron think AI agents will look like in five years?

4. Startups vs Incumbents: Who Wins?

• What is Aaron’s advice to startups today building against OpenAI?

• Does Aaron think startups have more advantage in foundational models or the application layer?

• What advantages do incumbents have? What are their biggest weaknesses?

• Who does Aaron think are the biggest winners in AI today? Who is underperforming?

• Why does Aaron think Apple isn’t losing the AI race?

Nikesh Arora is the CEO @ Palo Alto Networks, the leading cybersecurity company in the world with a market cap of $102BN. Before joining Palo Alto Networks, Nikesh was the President and COO of SoftBank Group. Before that, he spent ten years at Google as a senior exec, and President of Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Before that Nikesh was CMO for the T-Mobile International Division of Deutsche Telekom AG. Nikesh serves on the board of Compagnie Financière Richemont S.A. Previously, he served on the boards of SoftBank, Sprint, Colgate-Palmolive Inc., Yahoo! Japan and Tipping Point.

In Today's Episode with Nikesh Arora We Discuss:

1. From Investing with Masa @ Softbank to CEO of Largest Cyber Company:

• What are Nikesh's biggest lessons from working and investing with Masa @ Softbank?
• What are Nikesh's biggest takeaways from 10 years at Google and working with Eric Schmidt?
• What does Nikesh know now that he wishes he had known when he started his career?

2. What Makes the Most Valuable Businesses in the World:

• How does Nikesh think about competition and monopolies?
• How does Nikesh assess the idea of defensibility, moats and sustaining competitive advantages?
• What are the most common reasons why incumbents are overtaken?
• How have Palo Alto Networks been so successful in their M&A strategy?
• What has worked in M&A? What has not worked? What is their process?

3. What Makes the Best Leaders in the World:

• Does Nikesh agree that the best CEOs are the best resource allocators?
• How do the best leaders communicate with large teams at scale?
• How do the best leaders approach decision-making? What is Nikesh's framework?
• How does Nikesh approach the idea of delegation? What does he delegate vs what does he not?

4. Behind the CEO: Nikesh Arora: Husband and Father:

• How does Nikesh reflect on his own relationship to money today?
• What are Nikesh's biggest lessons in what it takes to bring children up in a world of affluence and ensure they have hunger and ambition?
• What are some of Nikesh's biggest lessons on parenting?
• How does Nikesh reflect on what it takes to have a great marriage?

Jiaona “JZ” Zhang is the Chief Product Officer at Linktree, the world’s leading link-in-bio platform empowering 45M+ creators, brands and SMBs. JZ joined Linktree from Webflow, where she served as SVP of Product. Before that, she spent four years at Airbnb where she built and led numerous teams on the host side. JZ’s also held leadership roles at the likes of Wework, Dropbox and teaches at Stanford University and Reforge.

In Today’s Episode with Jiaona Zhang We Discuss:

1. Entry into the World of Product

• How did JZ first fall in love with product?

• Why does JZ believe the best PMs have experience in the gaming industry?

• Does JZ think Linktree could be a $100BN business? How could Linktree become a $100BN business?

2. Mastering Product Metrics

• Why does JZ think product is the most chameleon role? Where does product start & end? 

• Why does JZ think every function should have tension with product?

• What is a KPI tree? How does JZ branch business & product metrics?

• When does JZ think startups should set up a metric infrastructure?

• What are the three levers of product? How does JZ determine which ones to trade off?

3. How to Run Product: Planning, Strategy, & Rituals

• Why does JZ think planning should not exist?

• What are strategy and rituals? When should founders do either?

• What are JZ’s three core rituals?

• What is the scorecard method? How do they help team transparency?

• What are product jams? When does it work? When does it not work?

4. Product Career Advice

• When does JZ think founders hire a product person? 

• What are the most common mistakes early stage founders make when hiring for product?

• Does JZ think domain expertise is important? What does she look for in product hires?

• What is JZ’s advice to PMs who want to get promoted today? 

• What is JZ’s advice to young people who want to get into product?

Dan Siroker is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Limitless, a personalized AI powered by what you’ve seen, said, or heard. For his latest funding round, Dan took an unusual approach resulting in 1,000 preliminary offers with valuations as high as $1BN — and resulted in a $350 million Series A valuation. Prior to founding Limitless, Dan was the Founder of Optimizely, scaling the company to $120M in ARR and raising from some of the best in the business including Peter Fenton @ Benchmark who led the Series A.

In Today's Episode with Dan Siroker We Discuss:

1. Serial Entrepreneurs are More Investable:

• Why would Dan always prefer to invest in serial entrepreneurs than first time founders?
• How do serial entrepreneurs approach team building and size of team differently?
• How do serial entrepreneurs approach focus and prioritisation differently?
• How do serial entrepreneurs approach pivoting differently to first time founders?
• What is Dan's advice from Elad Gil and YC's Dalton Caldwell on when to pivot?

2. The Secret to Fundraising: How to Speak VC

• Should founders always be raising?
• What is the right thing to respond to investors when they reach out to you outside of a round?
• What question are investors really asking when they ask, how much are you raising?
• How should founders approach valuation, what should they say when they are asked for it?
• How can founders create urgency in a funding round? What works? What does not?

3. How to Raise the Best Funding Round:

• Should founders engage with associates or only worth it with decision-makers?
• Why should founders always choose the investor who is on the early arc of their career?
• Why was Dan's first meeting with Peter Fenton the best meeting he has ever had with a VC?
• Why does Dan believe that taking the highest price is never the right answer?
• To what extent does having a true Tier 1 VC lead your round, change the game for your company?

4. Dan Siroker: AMA:

• How did becoming a father change the way that Dan operates?
• Why is Dan scared we might see technological progress stall for the next 20 years?
• Why did Dan not do YC the second time around with Limitless?
• What is the story of how Optimizely nearly bought Amplitude?

Tom Blomfield is a Group Partner at YC. Before YC, Tom founded two unicorns in the UK. He was co-founder of Monzo (most recently valued at $5BN), one of the first challenger banks in the UK. Monzo raised more than £1bn and counts 15% of the UK population as customers. Before Monzo, Tom founded GoCardless (YC S11), an online payments processor, most recently valued at $2.1BN.

In Today's Episode with Tom Blomfield We Discuss:

1. From Founding Two Unicorns to YC Partner:

• Does Tom believe that all great founders show signs of exceptionalism early?
• What does Tom know now that he wishes he had known when he started his first company?
• Why did Tom decide now was the right time to switch from founder to investor with YC?

2. The YC Application Process: How it Works:

• How do the YC partners select which companies are accepted vs rejected?
• What specifically does Tom look for in the problem the company is looking to solve?
• In the interview, what are the signals of the highest quality founders?
• What questions does Tom always want to ask in YC interviews with founders?

3. The YC Batch: How it Works:

• How do the YC partners work with the 25 companies in their batch? What is the interaction?
• What are the single biggest mistakes companies make while in YC?
• What are the biggest pieces of advice YC gives founders on fundraising approaching demo day?
• How do the best YC founders fundraise and use demo day? How do the most nervous fundraise?
• How are YC partners measured in terms of their success and effectiveness?

4. AI: Consumer vs Enterprise/ Infrastructure vs Application Layer:

• Does Tom believe there is money to be made investing in infrastructure layer models today?
• Why is the commoditization of foundation models the best outcome for society?
• Why is Tom most excited about the application layer for the next wave of AI?
• What are the most exciting opportunities in consumer AI that are wide open today?

20VC: Behind the Scenes at Y Combinator: The Interview Process | What the Best & Worst Do in the Program | Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | Why the Value is in Application Layer AI with Tom Blomfield

Larry Shurtz is the Chief Sales Officer at Genesys where he oversees the company’s global go-to-market strategies, including commercial activities, field sales and partner ecosystem operations. Larry has nearly three decades of experience in the software industry, from leading Confluent to delivering more than 60% revenue growth and doubling customer count as Chief Revenue Officer, to scaling a 1,300-person team at Salesforce to $2.1 billion in revenue.

In Today’s Episode with Larry Shurtz We Discuss:

1. From Robotics Student to $2.1BN Sales Leader at Salesforce

• How did Larry lead 1300 people to $2.1 billion revenue at Salesforce? What were his takeaways?

• What did Larry learn about building vertical sales playbooks at Salesforce?

• Which framework did Larry learn at Salesforce that he still uses at Genesys?

2. Mastering Sales Leadership

• What are the biggest mistakes sales leaders make on prioritization today?

• What are Larry’s “3 Rs” to master prioritization?

• What does Larry think are the most common reasons fast-scaling teams break in sales?

• Has Larry ever caused bad culture in a sales team? What did he learn from the experience?

• Does Larry think sales is more art or science? How does Larry blend the two?

3. Building the Best Sales Team

• How does Larry structure the hiring process for a new sales hire?

• How big should your recruitment team be? 

• What are Larry’s most commonly asked questions when interviewing?

• What were Larry’s biggest hiring mistakes? What did he learn from them?

• How does Larry structure the comp? How does he get it right? What do most new hires care about today?

4. The Onboarding: The Dos & Don’ts

• How does Larry structure the onboarding process?

• Why does Larry onboard new hires with big customers? What is the buddy system?

• How does Larry tell if a new hire is bad? What are the biggest red flags to look out for?

• What does Larry mean when he says “You can make all the physical errors, you cannot make mental errors?”

• Does Larry agree with Max Levchin @ Affirm that “When there’s doubt, there’s no doubt?”

Tom Hulme is a Managing Partner of GV (Google Ventures), and leads the European team. Today, GV has over $10BN in AUM and Tom has led investments in Lemonade.com (IPO), Snyk, Secret Escapes, Blockchain.com, GoCardless, Blue Vision Labs (exited to Lyft), and Currency Cloud (exited to Visa). Prior to joining venture full-time, Tom was one of Europe's most successful angel investors with a 5x DPI track record and 20x+ TVPI.

In Today's Episode with Tom Hulme We Discuss:

1. Lessons from a 24x TVPI Angel Track Record:

• What are Tom's biggest lessons from his biggest winners angel investing?
• What are Tom's biggest takeaways from the 0's in his angel track record?
• What is the biggest advice Tom would give to angel investors starting out today?
• What are the single biggest mistakes Tom sees angel investors make today?

2. The Four Pillars of Venture Capital:

• What does Tom believe are the four key components of being successful as a VC?
• Why does Tom describe VC as "being a founder on anti-depressants"?
• How does Tom categorise the three different types of investors that exist?
• Sourcing, selecting, servicing: What is Tom best at and what is he worst at?

3. The Conventional Wisdom in Venture That is Not True:

• Why does Tom believe it is BS that you should never sell your winners?
• Why does Tom believe he has never had complete conviction in any of the companies he invests in?
• Why does Tom believe the "everything has to be a fund returner mindset" is BS?
• Why naivety doesn't lead to great founders? Why employees at rocketships are the best founders?

4. AI: Foundation Models, Generative AI, The Incumbents: Where Does the Value Go:

• Does Tom believe there is money to be made investing in foundation models?
• Why does Tom liken investing in foundation models to investing in power stations?
• Where does Tom believe there is value in the application layer?
• Why does Tom think that generative AI is largely a sustaining innovation?
• Why does Tom think Microsoft will win the next wave of AI? Who else is well-positioned?
• Why does Tom believe there is a correlation between those that fear monger around AGI and those that need funding for their businesses?

Sarah Tavel is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful and renowned venture firms in the world. At Benchmark, Sarah has led rounds in Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Medely, Rekki, Glide, Cambly and more. Prior to Benchmark, Sarah was a Partner at Greylock Partners. Before Greylock, Sarah was the first 30 employees at Pinterest. Sarah joined Pinterest in 2012 after co-leading the Series A investment while at Bessemer Venture Partners.

In Today's Episode with Sarah Tavel We Discuss:

1. Becoming a GP at The Most Renowned Firm in Venture:

• How did the process of Sarah joining Benchmark start? How did it progress? What was it that convinced her to leave Greylock and join Benchmark?
• What does Sarah believe makes Peter Fenton the world-class investor that he is?
• What does Sarah know now that she wishes she had known when she started in venture?

2. Foundation Models: Is it All Going to Zero:

• Will foundation models be commoditised?
• Will 99% of the funding going to foundation models go to 0?
• How does Sarah view the future of open vs closed source?
• Why does Sarah believe that all frontier models of the future will be closed-source?
• Why does the business model of foundation models remind Sarah of the food delivery business?

3. Application Layer: Where $BN Companies Will Be Built:

• Why does Sarah believe that sustainable value-creating companies will be in the application layer?
• How does Sarah determine between a wrapper on top of ChatGPT and true product value?
• Are enterprises opening real budgets for AI today or are we still in experimental budgets?
• How does Sarah think about how AI companies differentiate when there are so many in the same space of customer service, sales team support etc etc?
• Why does Sarah believe that it is rational to pay more for these companies when investing in them?
• What does Sarah mean when she says the future is "selling the work and not the tools"?

4. Inside Benchmark: How the Best Do Venture:

• What is the one rule that Benchmark is willing to break when doing a deal?
• Why do Benchmark aim to be the best recruitment firm in the world?
• Why do Benchmark not agree with the concept of reserves?
• In a case where Benchmark have lost, why did they lose? How did they change their approach?

Eric Glyman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ramp, America's fastest growing corporate card and finance automation platform. Under Eric’s leadership, Ramp has raised more than $1 billion in financing, with a valuation of $8.1 billion. Prior to Ramp, Eric co-founded Paribus, a price-tracking app to help consumers save money (acquired by Capital One). Ramp recently raised another $150 million series D round co-led by Founders Fund and Khosla ventures, with a post-money valuation of $7.65 billion.

Keith Rabois is a Managing Director @ Khosla Ventures and one of the most respected venture investors of the last decade. Keith has led investments in Stripe, Faire, Ramp, Affirm and many more. Prior to Khosla Ventures, Keith was General Partner at Founders Fund, where he led investments for Ramp, Trade Republic, and Aven. 

In Today’s Episode with Eric Glyman and Keith Rabois We Discuss:

1. Behind Ramp’s Partnership with Founders Fund & Khosla Ventures

• How did the first Founders Fund deal come to be? How was the first meeting?

• What does Keith mean when he says Ramp has the “secret sauce” to be successful?

• What are 1-2 things Keith thinks Eric is world-class at? What are 1-2 things Eric thinks Keith is world-class at?

• How did the latest Khosla deal come to happen?

2. Ramp: The Fastest Executing Company on the Planet.

• How is Eric so good at executing at Ramp? What is his biggest advice to founders on speed of execution?

• What are Eric’s biggest challenges in the next 12 months at Ramp?

• Why does Keith believe momentum is crucial for early stage startups? What are some easy ways founders can build momentum?

• How does Eric think AI will accelerate Ramp and the world of finance?

3. Leadership Lessons From the Best Founders 

• What are Keith’s biggest lessons from Brian Chesky @ Airbnb?

• What did Keith learn from Jack Dorsey @ Square about leadership?

• What does Eric think founders today should build? What should they not build?

• What did Eric learn from Keith on how founders should measure time & progress?

4. Hiring & Team Management

• How did Ramp build a solid talent team? What did they do differently?

• Does Keith & Eric believe it is better to hire externally or promote internally? What is the right balance?

• Does Keith agree founders should hire & get out the way or micromanage?

• How many direct reports does Keith think is enough?

Mark Suster is a General Partner @ Upfront Ventures, one of LA's leading early-stage venture firms. Prior to leading Upfront, Mark was a serial entrepreneur having founded two software companies, selling both with the last selling to Salesforce.com. Mark is also a prolific writer and one of his favourite pieces, Lines Not Dots is one for the ages.

In Today's Episode With Mark Suster We Discuss:

1. From Serial Entrepreneur to Leading VC:

• How Mark made his way into the world of venture having sold two prior companies?
• What does Mark know now that he wishes he had known when he started in venture?
• What advice does Mark give to all young investors starting their career today?

2. How to Raise a Fund:

• What are Mark's single biggest lessons from 15 years of fundraising for funds?
• Should managers look to institutions or friends and family first?
• Are LPs sheep? Do institutions anchoring funds lead to many others jumping in?
• What is the right amount to do a first close on? What is the right way to message the first close?
• What are the single biggest mistakes Mark sees managers make when raising?

3. Exit Environments are F******: What Now:

• Why are IPOs not the liquidity events that everyone thinks they are?
• When does Mark believe IPO windows will open again?
• How does Mark evaluate the M&A landscape today?
• With little M&A and IPO activity, why does Mark believe private equity will step into their shoes?
• With the change to private equity being the buyer, what does that mean for the sale price of the assets? What does that mean for the future of venture returns?

4. Trump, The Woke Left and The World Around Us:

• Is Mark concerned about the potential of Trump winning the election?
• Would Mark rather a Biden administration as the alternative?
• Why is Mark so worried by the woke left?
• Does Mark always believe there has been this deep-seated anti-semitism in the US education system? What can be done to remove this from our education system?

Arthur Mensch is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mistral AI. Since its inception in May 2023, Mistral has raised over $520M in funding from investors like Andreeseen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Microsoft with a current valuation of $2 billion. Before founding Mistral, Arthur was a research scientist at DeepMind, one of the leading AI institutions in the world.

In Today’s Episode with Arthur Mensch We Discuss:

1. From Models to Team Building: Arthur’s Greatest Lessons at DeepMind

• What were Arthur’s biggest lessons from his time at DeepMind?

• How did DeepMind shape how Arthur built Mistral?

• Why does Arthur believe smaller teams are better for AI?

• Why did Arthur decide to leave DeepMind and start Mistral?

2. Scaling Mistral to $2 Billion Valuation Within a Year

• What made Mistral 7B so successful? What did Arthur learn from the model release?

• What are the biggest barriers at Mistral today?

• How does Arthur balance the sales and research teams at Mistral?

• What does Arthur know now that he wishes he had known when he started Mistral?

3. How to Win in AI: Open Source, Cost, & Adoption

• Why did Arthur open-source some models? Why did he close some?

• How quickly will the cost of compute go down? Why does Arthur believe marginal costs will not go to zero?

• How will open-sourcing LLMs affect the marginal cost?

• Does Arthur think open source is ready for enterprise adoption?

• What questions should enterprises be asking about AI adoption today?

• What are the biggest challenges to AI adoption today?

4. The Future of LLMs

• What does Arthur think are the largest bottlenecks of model quality today?

• Does Arthur think future models will be more generalized or vertical-focused?

• What does Arthur think about the future of commoditization in models?

• Why is Arthur optimistic about the profitability of the application layer of AI?

• How should models differentiate themselves today?

Adam Gross is one of the masters of product-led growth (PLG). Most recently, Adam was Vimeo's interim CEO. Before Vimeo, Adam was CEO of Heroku, which he joined after selling his startup, Cloudconnect in 2013. Additionally, Adam has held executive leadership roles at Salesforce and Dropbox, and has been an active angel investor & advisor to companies, including Buildkite, Cribl, and Tailscale.

In Today’s Episode with Adam Gross We Discuss:

1. PLG Tactics from Dropbox, Heroku and Salesforce:

• What were Adam’s biggest takeaways from his time at Salesforce? How did it shape his growth mindset?

• What did Adam learn about customer acquisition at Dropbox?

• What would Adam most like to change about growth today?

2. Product-Led Growth: The Fundamentals:

• What is growth? What is it not? What do founders get wrong about growth?

• Why does Adam think PLG is not for everybody?

• What do most great PLG businesses have in common?

• How are value propositions segmented in PLG? How can startups transition from individual to enterprise clients?

• Why does Adam think startups doing paid acquisition sub $100M aren’t actually PLG?

3. The Secrets to Optimizing Growth Channels:

• What are the most common reasons fast-growing companies plateau?

• How does Adam advise founders on diversifying channels?

• What are the biggest mistakes founders make when scaling into enterprise?

• How should startups do effective product marketing in horizontal products?

• What is emotive & strategic marketing? How should startups balance both?

4. How Angel Investing Changes How You View Companies:

• What are Adam’s top 3 pieces of advice for founders?

• What does Adam mean when he says you are either hiring a poet or a librarian?

• What are the biggest mistakes founders make when hiring?

• What was Adam’s biggest investment miss? What did he learn from it?

Rujul Zaparde is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zip, the world’s leading Intake-to-Pay solution, adopted by leading enterprises and startups including Snowflake, Canva, Airtable, Webflow, and others. In 2023, Zip raised $100 million in a Series C round, valuing the company at $1.5 billion. Before founding Zip, Rujul was a Visiting Partner at Y Combinator and a product manager at Airbnb.

In Today’s Episode with Rujul Zaparde We Discuss:

1. From Airbnb PM to $1.5BN Founder

• How did Rujul’s first company fail? What were his lessons?

• What did Rujul learn from his time at Airbnb?

• How did Rujul come to co-found Zip? What was the aha moment?

• What did Rujul wish he’d known when he started Zip?

2. Standing Out in a Hyper-Competitive Market

• Why did Rujul pick such a competitive market? How did they stand out?

• Does Rujul think founders should focus on pain points or platform solutions on day one?

• What is Rujul’s advice to founders who are in the discovery process?

• Does Rujul agree with Trae Stephens @ Founders Fund that serial entrepreneurs doing B2B enterprise SaaS are wasting their talent?

3. The Biggest Lessons Scaling Zip to $1.5BN Valuation

• Which key moment caused Zip to accelerate?

• Why does Rujul think speed is the most important element in startups?

• Why does Rujul not believe in design partners?

• Why does Rujul believe repeatability is the most important thing when pitching?

• Does Rujul think AI will destroy outbound sales?

4. How to Hire & Manage Teams

• What was Rujul’s “rude awakening” building a sales team?

• What was Rujul’s biggest hiring mistake? What did he learn from it?

• How does Rujul decide where to focus his attention and resources?

• Why does Rujul believe younger managers are more creative?

Daniel Dines is the Co-Founder @ UiPath, one of the most incredible journeys in startups. For 10 years, UiPath was a bootstrapped company that scaled to just $500K in revenue. Then it all changed, product market fit became obvious and the rest is history. The company went on to raise funding from Sequoia, Accel, Kleiner Perkins and more. Today, the company is worth over $10BN, listed on the NASDAQ and does $1BN+ in revenue.

In Today's Episode with Daniel Dines We Discuss:

1. From a Dollar a Day to Romania's Richest Man:

• How would Daniel's parents and teachers have described the young Daniel?
• How did Daniel first learn to code? Why was his first programming job on $300 per month the best?
• How did Daniel learn English by playing bridge with his friends?
• What was the a-ha moment for Daniel with UiPath?

2. Becoming a Billionaire: The Mental Journey:

• What does Daniel mean when he says everyone is a prisoner of their own mind?
• How does Daniel reflect on his own relationship to money?
• How did having absolutely nothing impact Daniel's relationship to risk?
• Why does Daniel think that he does not really experience or feel happiness?

3. 10 Years to $500K ARR: The Miracle Bootstrapping Journey:

• After 10 years, UiPath had just $500K in ARR, what was the one single moment that changed everything in 2014?
• How did raising the seed round change everything for Daniel? How did it change his approach to operating?
• What was the impact of having Sequoia invest? Does it change the game? Why did Daniel say no to them the first time they tried for the Series B?

4. Journey to a $10BN Public Company: The Crucible Moments:

• How did the company almost go bust when it spent $400M against a plan of $150M in 2021?
• What is the single proudest moment Daniel has of the 19 year journey with UiPath?
• What have been Daniel's biggest management lessons in scaling UiPath to $1BN in ARR?
• Knowing all that Daniel does today, what would he have done differently about the UiPath journey?

Girish Mathrubootham is the founder and CEO of Freshworks, India’s first SaaS company to list on NASDAQ. Today, Freshworks has over $596M in ARR with a $5.27BN market cap, with investors like Accel Partners, Sequoia Capital, Tiger Global Management, and CapitalG. Girish is also a founding member of SaaSBOOMi, Asia’s largest community of founders and product builders, and has invested in over 60 startups. On top of that, Girish is also the Founder of Together Fund, a $150M fund focusing on Indian B2B companies going global from day 1.

In Today’s Episode with Girish Mathrubootham We Discuss:

1. From Online Forum to the Founding of a $5BN Company:

• How did a horrible customer service experience prompt Girish to start Freshworks? What was the aha moment?

• What were Girish’s biggest challenges founding Freshwork in 2010?

• How was building the first product? What worked? What didn’t work?

2. Biggest Lessons on Product, Pricing and People Scaling to $5.2BN:

• Why does Girish believe Indian companies have to win globally before winning India?

• What were Girish’s biggest mistakes scaling Freshworks? What were his lessons?

• Why does Girish believe starting high and going down never works in software?

• When does Girish think is the best time to build the second product?

• How did Freshworks lose against Slack? What did he learn from the experience?

3. The Biggest Lessons to Becoming the Best Leader:

• How has Girish’s leadership style changed over time?

• What were Girish’s biggest hiring mistakes?

• What was Girish’s biggest challenge in building culture during COVID?

• What is one piece of advice Girish believes every CEO should follow?

4. How India Will Become a Global Player in Tech, AI and Football:

• Why does Girish believe now is the time for India tech?

• What are the most common misconceptions of India tech?

• What traits does Girish look for in founders he invests in?

• What was Girish’s biggest investment mistake? What did he learn from it?

Vickie Peng is a Product Partner at Sequoia and the co-creator of Arc, their company-building immersion programme for pre-seed and seed stage founders. Prior to Sequoia, Vickie was a product manager at Polyvore (acquired by Yahoo for $200M) and Instagram, where she grew SMB advertising from $200M to $1BN.

In Today’s Episode with Vickie Peng We Discuss:

1. Lessons from 15 Years in Product

• How did Vickie make her way into the world of product?

• How did Vickie turn a small side business into a massive revenue machine at TrialPay?

• How did Vickie scale Instagram SMB ads to $1BN? What were her takeaways?

• What was Vickie’s business model at Polyvore that eventually led to the $200M acquisition by Yahoo?

2. Lessons from Scaling 100+ Companies in Sequoia

• What does Vickie believe are the biggest mistakes early stage founders make when telling stories?

• Which 2 components does Vickie believe every great product mission should include?

• How should pre-product-market fit founders set their north star metric?

3. Perfecting Product Strategy

• What was Vickie’s biggest product mistake? What were her lessons?

• Why does Vickie think the best product people build less product?

• What is Vickie’s advice to product leaders starting their first day on the job?

• What are the most common mistakes founders make when hiring product teams?

4. Product-Market Fit Masterclass

• Why does Vickie believe product-market fit is a journey not a destination?

• What are the biggest reasons founders fail to get product-market fit?

• What are the 3 types of product-market fit?

• How does Vickie advise founders to differentiate themselves in competitive markets?

• What is Vickie’s framework for competing against incumbents?