Chris Dixon is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with investments in Oculus (acquired by Facebook), Coinbase, and many more. Chris also founded and leads a16z crypto, a division of the firm that he has grown from $300 million in 2018 to more than $7 billion of committed capital. Due to his many successes, Chris was named #1 on the Forbes Midas List in 2022.
David Clark is the CIO of Vencap, one of the leading fund of funds in the venture landscape. David has been at Vencap for 32 years and has been an LP his entire career.
1. From Unemployed Student in Love to Leading LP:
2. Is Being an LP Harder than Ever Before:
3. What Makes the Best Performing Funds:
4. Five Things LPs Hate In Potential VC Investments:
5. Fund Sizes, Exits and Concentrating Returns:
Bryan Johnson is the founder of Blueprint, the man is at war with death and is mastering longevity. Bryan is on a mission aimed at enhancing human intelligence and being respected by people in the 25th century. Before starting Blueprint, Bryan also founded Braintree (acquired by PayPal for $800M) and OS Fund – a $100M venture capital fund investing in genomics, synthetic biology, and complex systems.
In Today’s Episode with Bryan Johnson We Discuss:
The Philosophy of Don’t Die
What does Bryan think is the biggest existential threat to humankind?
Why does Bryan believe humans are unfit to manage their own affairs?
Why does Bryan care about being liked by the 25th century?
Does Bryan think society is ready to adapt to immortality?
How to Process New Ideas
What 3 questions does Bryan ask to test new ideas?
How does Bryan combat against his own biases?
How does Bryan adapt to change? What has been his most painful experience?
Why does Bryan think religion is humanity’s most durable technology?
The Most Measured Human in the World
What did Bryan learn about himself as the most measured human in the world?
How does Bryan use algorithms to take care of himself?
What has been Bryan’s most expensive test?
How did Bryan use data to rejuvenate his sexual function?
How will tech & AI play a role in human longevity?
Health & Parenting Advice
How does Bryan raise his children?
How does Bryan get perfect sleep every night? What are his tips?
What is Bryan’s advice to people who think it’s too late to start becoming healthy?
What health advice does Bryan think is BS?
Jean-Michel Lemieux is one of the OGs of engineering and product having been the CTO at Shopify and the VP Engineering at Atlassian. Jean-Michel helped grow both Shopify and Atlassian from single-product to multi-product companies and led the building of their platforms.
In Today’s Episode with Jean-Michel Lemieux We Discuss:
From band class to Shopify CTO
How did Jean-Michel make his way into the world of product?
What were Jean-Michel’s biggest lessons from his time at Atlassian & Shopify?
How are Shopify & Atlassian the same? How are they different?
Why does Jean-Michel think Shopify could have been 10x bigger?
Building the Perfect Product
How does Atlassian & Shopify build movements instead of product?
What does Jean-Michel know now that he wishes he had known before he joined Atlassian & Shopify?
How does Jean-Michel balance between shipping speed vs. quality?
Why does JM think scrums and TDDs are BS? How did his last year at Shopify change his approach in product development?
What is a time horizon friction? And how does it impact teams?
How to Lead a Product Team:
What is micro alignment, and why does Jean-Michel think it is so important?
What 3 types of decisions every team makes?
What does Jean-Michel think are the most common reasons teams become average? How does he prevent it?
What do Jean-Michel think are the most common mistakes CEOs make today?
Hiring the Best Product Team:
How does Jean-Michel structure the interview process for new product hires?
What signals does Jean-Michel look out for when hiring? Why does he believe experience does not matter?
What are Jean-Michel’s biggest hiring mistakes? What were his lessons?
What are 2 of the most common mistakes founders make when hiring a product team?
Gili Raanan is the Founder of Cyberstarts and one of the most successful seed investors ever. In his 19 company portfolio, Gili has invested in a decacorn (Wiz), seven unicorns and had three others acquired. Prior to Cyberstarts, Gili spent over 15 years as a General Partner @ Sequoia Capital investing in some of the world's best cyber security companies.
1. From Founder to World's Best Seed Investor:
2. How to Find and Pick the Best Founders:
3. What it Takes to be the Best Seed Investor:
4. 2021 is Back: Pricing, Uprounds and more
Luca Ferrari is Co-Founder and CEO of Bending Spoons, one of the most incredible but untold success stories in startups. Luca has scaled Bending Spoons to 100M monthly active users, $380M in sales in 2023 and aiming to reach $500M in EBITDA by the end of 2026. The company’s products include Evernote, Meetup, Remini, and Splice and their products have now been downloaded more than 500M times.
Chandra Narayanan is one of the growth and analytics OGs having spent 7 years at Facebook leading analytics for the Facebook App and for Instagram. After Facebook, Chandra became Chief Data Scientist @ Sequoia Capital, helping Sequoia, find, select and help the best entrepreneurs in the world. Today, Chandra is the Founder & CEO @ Sundial, building products to help builders make meaningful use of data to fulfill *their* mission.
1. From Working on the Weather to Leading Analytics at Facebook:
2. Growth and Analytics 101:
3. How to Hire the Best Growth Teams in the World:
4. Lessons from Leading Analytics at Facebook and Sequoia:
Joe Lonsdale is the Founder and Managing Partner at 8VC, an early-stage venture capital firm managing over $6 billion in capital. In 2003, he founded Palantir Technologies. Since then, he has founded over a dozen companies, including Addepar, a wealth management platform helping investors manage over $5 trillion, and OpenGov, recently sold for $1.8BN.
In Today’s Episode with Joe Lonsdale We Discuss:
The Making of a Multi-Unicorn Founder:
America’s New Dawn: Navigating Frontiers and Accountability
Woke Mind Virus
TikTok, China, Israel:
Investing Lessons: Wish, Palantir and more
Brendon Cassidy is one of the OG of enterprise sales of the last decade, having advised the likes of Gong.io, Pipedrive, Showpad. Previously Brendon was first Head of Sales at LinkedIn and VP of Sales at Talkdesk.
1. From Recruiter to Sales OG and Linkedin's First Head of Sales:
2. The Sales Playbook and Hiring The Team:
3. Why Discovery and Outbound Are Broken Today:
4. How to Master Onboarding and Increase Sales Performance:
Peter Wagner is a Founding Partner of Wing. Peter has led investments in dozens of early-stage companies including Snowflake, Gong, Pinecone, and many others which have gone on to complete IPO's or successful acquisitions. Prior to founding Wing, Peter spent an incredible 14 years at Accel, starting as an associate in 1996 and scaling to Managing Partner, before leaving to start Wing.
1. From Associate to Managing Partner to Founding Partner:
2. The Venture Market: What Happens Now:
3. Investing Lessons from 27 Years and Countless IPOs:
4. Building a Firm from Nothing:
Nicolai Tangen is the CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world with $1.55 Trn in assets, owning on average, 1.5% of every listed company. Tangen was previously Chief Executive Officer and Chief Investment Officer in AKO Capital, which he founded in 2005. Prior to this, Tangen was a partner and senior analyst at Egerton Capital and an equity analyst at Cazenove & Co.
From Religious Town in Norway to Leading the Largest Sovereign Wealth Fund:
The Top 10 Questions:
1. US Tech Firm Concentration: Is Nicolai concerned by the concentration of enterprise value in US tech firms? Have incumbents ever been as strong as they are today?
2. Impact of AI: What does Nicolai believe the impact of AI will be on society and productivity? What is his approach to investing in it moving forward?
3. Bitcoin: Why does Nicolai not want to hold Bitcoin? Why does he not understand it?
4. China: What would need to happen for China to be investable? How will the China situation play out?
5. Europe: Does Nicolai believe Europe is so far behind the US? Why? What can we do to improve?
6. Climate Change: How does Nicolai approach investing in climate? What works? What does not?
7. Sam Altman: Would Nicolai invest in Sam's new $7Trn project? What are some of Nicolai's biggest lessons from the time he has spent with Sam?
8. Investment Psychology: How does Nicolai retain a neutral investor psychology? How does he not get too up when doing well and too low when not doing well?
9. Investing Lessons: What are Nicolai's biggest investment hits and misses? What did he learn from them?
10. The Future: Why is Nicolai so optimistic about the future? What is he concerned about? How will we overcome our greatest challenges?
Frank Quattrone is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Qatalyst and served as its CEO from the Firm’s founding until January 2016. Over more than four decades, Frank and the teams he has led have advised on more than 600 mergers and acquisitions with an aggregate transaction value over $1 trillion and on more than 350 financings that raised over $65 billion for technology companies worldwide. Frank led the IPOs of Amazon.com, Cisco, Intuit, Netscape, among many others. He advised Apple on its $400 MM acquisition of NeXT (which led to Steve Jobs’ return to Apple); Concur on its $8.3B sale to SAP; LinkedIn on its $28.1B sale to Microsoft; Qualtrics on its $8B sale to SAP and Twitch on its $1B sale to Amazon.com.
1. Has Regulation Killed M&A:
2. When Will the IPO Window Re-Open:
3. M&A: How Do Companies Get Bought:
4. IPOing Amazing, Selling Linkedin and Qualtrics:
Sami Inkinen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Virta Health, the company reversing type 2 diabetes. Before Virta, Sami was the Co-Founder of Trulia, steering the company to a successful IPO and its eventual sale to Zillow Group. Outside of the boardroom, he launched Fat Chance Row, a daring venture to row 2,750 miles across the Pacific, unsupported with his wife, rowing 18 hours straight per day.
1. From Farm in Finland to IPO Founder: Relationship to Money
2. The Secret to Marriage: Rowing 2,750 Miles Together:
3. The Secret to Parenting: The Regret of Delegation:
4. Relationship to Identity:
Justin is the Founder and Managing Partner of one of the nation’s best-performing private equity firms, Shore Capital Partners (“Shore”). Since the firm’s inception in 2009, Shore has grown from 4 to over 140 team members managing over $6 billion in AUM, representing 900+ acquired companies and more than 33,000 employees. Shore is also one of the most active private equity firm in the world by deal volume according to PitchBook while continuing to achieve return profiles that rank Shore among the top 1% of private equity firms. Justin is an avid sports fan/investor and is the Alternate Governor for the Phoenix Suns (NBA), Phoenix Mercury (WNBA) and Nashville SC (MLS).
1. From Law Student to Founding Shore Capital:
2. How to Make Top 1% PE Returns:
3. Building World-Class Investing Teams:
4. Justin Ishbia: The Family Man and Husband:
Scott Williamson was most recently Chief Product Officer for GitLab, where he led a team of 65 in Product Management, Product Operations, Growth, Pricing, and Corporate Development functions. Before GitLab, Scott was VP of Product for SendGrid for over six years, where helped lead the company to a successful IPO and $3B acquisition by Twilio.
1. From Sales to Product Leader:
2. What, Who, When: How to Build a Product Team:
3. Hiring the Best Product People:
4. The Best Product Teams are the Best Writers:
Roger Ehrenberg is a legend of the venture industry as the Founder of IA Ventures, among the most successful seed-stage venture firms of this generation, having seeded companies including Datadog (NASDAQ: DDOG), Digital Ocean (NYSE: DOCN), The Trade Desk (NASDAQ: TTD) and Wise (LSE: WISE.L). Today Roger is the Founder and Managing Partner of Eberg Capital, a pioneer in bridging the gap among sports franchises, sports betting, media and entertainment. Roger’s current sports investments include stakes in the Miami Marlins, Real Salt Lake, Alpine Racing, Betr, Commonwealth, Kero Sports, Simplebet, SlamBall, Smarkets and WagerWire.
1. The Commoditisation of Venture and Worsening Returns:
2. The New LPs and The Broken Existing LP World:
3. Where Does the Liquidity Come From:
4. When to Sell and When to Hold:
5. Relationship to Money:
6. The Secrets to Parenthood and Marriage:
Christian Hecker is the Founder and CEO of Trade Republic, the company making it easy and inexpensive for everyone with a smartphone to invest. To date, Christian has raised over $1.3BN for the company from the likes of Sequoia, Founders Fund, Accel and Creandum to name a few. Previously, Christian worked in Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Investment Banking department.
Johan Brenner is a General Partner at Creandum. Johan has led Creandum’s investments in iZettle (acquired by PayPal for $2.2bn in 2018), Trade Republic, Klarna, Pleo, Neo4J, Vivino and more. Johan was previously a repeat entrepreneur, founding one of the first online brokers in Europe in 1997 (sold to E*TRADE in the US), then JobLine (sold to Monster), Bookatable (Michelin) and Tradera (Ebay).
1. Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600,000:
2. Raising $1.3BN From the Best Investors in the World:
3. Scaling into Europe's Next Decacorn:
4. Europe: A Hub for Innovation or a Retirement Home:
Martin Gontovnikas, a.k.a Gonto, is a software engineer at heart who moved to the “dark side” to focus on Marketing. With this career transition, he found a way to combine his 2 passions by applying his “engineering thinking” model to Marketing. He is now a B2B SaaS Advisor to Vercel and Airbyte among others and Co-Founder & GP of Hypergrowth Partners. Previously, he was SVP of Marketing and Growth at Auth0.
1. From No Idea to Growth Leader:
2. Growth: What, When and Who:
3. Mastering PLG and Enterprise:
4. Data vs Intuition: Art vs Science:
Thomas Plantenga is the CEO @ Vinted, one of the fastest-growing marketplaces in the world with a valuation of $4.5BN. Prior to becoming CEO, Thomas worked with a range of organisations including Bookaboat, OLX, Sellit/Wallapop and FJLabs.
Alex Taussig is a General Partner @ Lightspeed and co-leads the fund's Consumer investment team. Alex's portfolio includes the likes of All Day Kitchens, Archive Resale, Daily Harvest, Faire, Found, Frubana, Keychain, Kikoff, Vinted, YaySay, and Zola.
1. The CEO Who Did Not Want to be CEO:
2. The Mechanics of the Fastest Growing Marketplace:
3. The Biggest BS in Startups: Rule of 40 and EBITDA:
4. The Bull, Bear and Investor Approach to Vinted:
5. Europe: A Hub of Innovation or a Retirement Home:
Doug Leone is the Global Managing Partner @ Sequoia Capital, one of the world’s most renowned and successful venture firms with a portfolio including the likes of Google, Airbnb, Whatsapp, Stripe, Zoom and many more.
Marcelo Claure is the Founder & CEO of Claure Group, a multi-billion-dollar global investment firm. He is the Executive Chairman and Managing Partner of Bicycle Capital, a $500M Latin America-focused growth equity fund, and was appointed Chairman in Latin America of SHEIN, the global #1 on-demand fashion company in the world. Claure was also the CEO of SoftBank Group International where he launched SoftBank’s $8B Latin America Funds, and had direct oversight for SoftBank’s operating companies.
Geoff Lewis is a Founder and Managing Partner of Bedrock, one of the breakout and new venture firms of the last decade, famously in search of narrative violations. He serves or has served on the Board of Directors for companies including Lyft (NASDAQ: LYFT), Nubank (NYSE: NU), Epirus, and Vercel.
Bill Ackman is the CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, L.P., an SEC-registered investment adviser founded in 2003. Pershing Square is a concentrated research-intensive fundamental value investor in long and occasionally short investments in the public markets.
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.
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.
Erik Allebest is the CEO @ Chess.com, the #1 online chess service on the planet with more than 150+ million members and 15+ million games played each day. Erik has scaled the company to over 700 people and $100M+ in revenue with no venture funding.
1. From Unemployable to $100M+ Revenue Founder:
2. Scaling to $100M Revenue with No Venture Funding:
3. Hard Lessons Scaling to 150M Members:
4. Parenting, Marriage, Metrics and Money:
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David Tisch is the Managing Partner of BoxGroup, one of the leading seed-stage investment firms of the last decade having invested in over 500 seed-stage startups, including Plaid, Ro, Ramp, PillPack, Amplitude, Stripe, Warby Parker, Harry’s, Flexport, Classpass, Airtable and more.
Terrence Rohan is the Managing Director @ Otherwise Fund, a fund that discretely empowers a network of today's top founders to make multi-stage venture investments. Terrence has invested in the likes of Figma, Hugging Face, Vanta, Notion and Robinhood to name a few.
1. Is Seed Investing Now a Commoditised Asset Class:
2. The Biggest BS Elements of Venture Capital:
3. The World of LPs:
Will Wu is the CTO @ Match Group, the owner and operator of the largest global portfolio of popular online dating services including Tinder, Match.com, OkCupid, and Hinge to name a few. Prior to Match, Will was VP of Product at Snap Inc. As the 35th employee, Will spearheaded the creation of Snapchat’s “Discover” content platform. He also led the creation and growth of the “Chat” messaging feature, which today is a primary Snapchat engagement driver that connects hundreds of millions of people each day.
1. The Journey to Snap CPO:
2. How to Hire Product Teams:
3. How to Do Product Reviews Effectively:
4. Product: Art or Science?
Dave Kellogg is one of the OGs of Saas. Among his many accomplishments, Dave was the CMO of Business Objects where he helped scale the business from $30M to $1BN in revenue. Dave has also been a CEO twice, once scaling the business from $0 to $80M and the other business from $8M to $50M before selling it. Dave is also an advisor to some of the best including GainSight, Logickull, MongoDB, Pigment, Recorded Future, and Tableau.
1. What are the Metrics That Matter:
2. How to Build and Scale the Best Sales Teams:
3. Are CFOs Buying New Tech and How to Win Renewals:
4. Mastering Product Marketing, Customer Profiles and Crossing the Chasm:
Ryan Akkina is a member of the Global Investment Team at the MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCo), which is responsible for managing MIT's endowment and pension plans. Ryan has invested in the likes of Sequoia, Kleiner Perkins, a16z, Greenoaks and Initialized to name a few. Ryan also leads many of MITIMCo's direct co-investments including most notably into Coupang and Rippling. Prior to joining MITIMCo, Ryan was a consultant at McKinsey & Company.
1. From Engineer to LP with MIT:
2. The Manager Evaluation Process for MIT:
3. How MIT Builds Their Portfolio:
4. MIT: The Direct Investor:
5. LP Markets Today and Where We Go From Here: