Founders Fund

Scott Galloway sits down with TBPN creators John Coogan and Jordi Hays to unpack how they turned a daily tech show into one of the fastest-growing businesses in media — and ultimately, OpenAI’s first acquisition. They discuss why most podcasts get advertising wrong, how a small but influential audience can be worth more than mass reach, and why they built TBPN like a startup. Plus, they debate OpenAI vs. Anthropic and what Mark Zuckerberg’s obsession with the next big thing reveals about the future of tech. Want to listen to this and other episodes ad-free? You can, if you subscribe at profgmedia.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

John Coogan

Co-Founder

TBPNFounders FundSoylentLucy Goods

Jordi Hays

Co-Founder

TBPN

SaaStr 865: The Agents #008: Agents Are Merging, Not Multiplying. Plus, Sam Blond on Why Outbound Isn't Dead. Everyone told you the future is 100 specialized agents, one for every job. That's not what's happening at SaaStr AI. Their AI VP of Finance didn't get its own app. It moved in with the AI VP of Marketing. The agents are collapsing into each other, sharing knowledge, sharing context, going deeper together. In this episode, Amelia and Jason do a live breakdown of their AI VP of Finance: how they wired Bill.com, QuickBooks, Brex, and PandaDoc into one agent, what the agent found on day one that their human finance team never did, and why contract close to invoice now takes 30 seconds instead of a day. Then Sam Blond, founder and CEO of Monaco and one of the most respected sales minds in SaaS, joins to talk about why outbound still works, what brand and message market fit actually mean for AI agents in the field, and why Monaco is building toward one GTM platform that does everything. You'll learn: Why SaaStr's agents are merging, not multiplying, and what the "monorepo" model means for your own AI stack The exact integrations that power their AI VP of Finance (and which ones took 10 minutes vs. an hour) How the agent surfaced collections problems and automations the human team never knew existed Why "set it and forget it" is a myth, and what happened when Qualified was still selling 2026 tickets weeks after the event ended Sam Blond on brand, message market fit, and what actually makes AI outbound work for companies that aren't SaaStr Why FDE relationships are now more valuable than any AE, and what that means for how you buy and sell software This is for you if: You're a founder or operator wondering whether to build a separate finance agent or fold it into what you already have You run outbound and keep hearing it's dead (it's not) You're evaluating your GTM stack and wondering if you need five agents or one You want a real, unfiltered look at what it takes to run AI agents in production, including the failures

Sam Blond

Former CRO

BrexFounders FundMonaco

Sam Blond is the Co-founder and CEO of Monaco, the revenue engine for startups. Sam is one of the best sales operators in tech. He spent four years as CRO at Brex, where he helped scale it to a ~$12B valuation, ran sales at Zenefits before that, and got his start at EchoSign. If there’s a modern GTM playbook, Sam helped write it. Our conversation walks through how AI has rewritten a big chunk of it. But most importantly, we talk about what hasn’t changed. We get into the sales work AI is now better at than humans, and why Sam thinks 90% of startups misdiagnose their bottleneck as conversion when it’s really demand gen. He explains why he doesn’t measure early brand marketing at all and trusts anecdotes over attribution, walks through the full Monaco launch playbook including the Super Bowl box-truck story, and shares a rev-ops insight from Brex, including how they figured out a specific ICP converted at 4x the rate of another. Thank you to Numeral, Flex, Amplitude, and Merge for supporting this episode. Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com Flex: Get premium banking and a net 60 day credit card at 0% APY https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com Merge: Every modal. One API. Total control. Check out Merge’s Agent Handler. merge.dev/turner Timestamps: (0:00) Scaling Brex to $12B (1:14) How AI speeds up prospecting and TAM building (5:19) Using AI to get more leverage (9:15) Incubating Monaco at Founders Fund (12:56) Innovator’s dilemma in AI (15:57) Why AI companies build full platforms, not wedge products (23:30) Revenue is just a math equation (27:18) Two ways AI increases conversion rates (36:56) AI will never replace spending time with customers (39:46) Don’t measure the impact of brand marketing (49:03) Your marketing must be different (and hard) (58:39) Customer discovery calls and working with design partners (1:03:03) The zero to 100 launch (1:11:00) Monaco’s launch playbook (1:19:00) Send gifts that are unique and social (1:22:17) Naming your company (1:28:04) Founders should send early outbound (1:32:38) How multi-channel augments AI outbound (1:39:42) Using intent signals and outreach timing to increase conversions (1:43:28) Two common ways founders mess up when scaling revenue (1:50:22) Monaco’s Forward Deployed AE's Referenced Try Monaco: https://www.monaco.com/ Careers at Monaco: https://jobs.ashbyhq.com/monaco Sam’s launch post: https://x.com/samdblond/status/2026420015793320129?s=20 Follow Sam Twitter: https://x.com/samdblond LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-blond-791026b/ Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Sam Blond

Former CRO

BrexFounders FundMonaco

Founder quality becomes more important as startups become easier to build. Trae Stephens, co-founder of Anduril and partner at Founders Fund, has spent years backing founders with strong conviction, including most recently at Roadrunner. He shares why too much capital too early can hurt startups, and why the best companies are built by teams with complementary strengths. Guest: Trae Stephens, co-founder, Anduril and Partner, Founders Fund Connect with Trae Stephens X LinkedIn Connect with Joubin: X LinkedIn Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com Follow Grit on LinkedIn Follow Grit on X ​ Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Trae Stephens

Co-Founder & Executive Chairman

Anduril IndustriesFounders FundAnduril

Scott Nolan spent 12 years at Founders Fund looking for the most important problems that no one else was funding. Then he found a problem so critical, and so ignored, that he couldn't find a company to back. So he started one. General Matter is rebuilding US uranium enrichment. The United States was the world leader in enrichment through the 1980s and then stopped entirely. Today roughly a quarter of US enriched uranium comes from Russia, a ban on those imports takes full effect in 2028, and the advanced reactors everyone is counting on to power the next wave of data centers have no reliable domestic fuel source. Scott believes enrichment is the single bottleneck to a nuclear future, and that the window to solve it is narrow. The conversation covers how Peter Thiel influenced him, why being in love with an idea is dangerous for investors but required for founders, and what it actually takes to rebuild an industrial capability the country let atrophy for 40 years. Please enjoy my conversation with Scott Nolan. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.  ----- Become a Colossus member to get our quarterly print magazine and private audio experience, including exclusive profiles and early access to select episodes. Subscribe at ⁠colossus.com/subscribe⁠. ----- ⁠Ramp’s⁠ mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Go to⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ramp.com/invest⁠⁠ to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. ----- Trusted by thousands of businesses, ⁠Vanta⁠ continuously monitors your security posture and streamlines audits so you can win enterprise deals and build customer trust without the traditional overhead. Visit ⁠vanta.com/invest⁠.  ----- ⁠WorkOS⁠ is a developer platform that enables SaaS companies to quickly add enterprise features to their applications. Visit⁠⁠ ⁠WorkOS.com⁠⁠⁠ to transform your application into an enterprise-ready solution in minutes, not months. ----- Rogo is the AI platform for finance. They're building agents for Wall Street that are trained to understand how bankers and investors actually do work: from diligence and modeling, to turning analysis into deliverables. To learn more, visit rogo.ai/invest. ----- ⁠Ridgeline⁠ has built a complete, real-time, modern operating system for investment managers. It handles trading, portfolio management, compliance, customer reporting, and much more through an all-in-one real-time cloud platform. Visit⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ridgelineapps.com⁠. ----- Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://thepodcastconsultant.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠). Timestamps: (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like The Best (00:02:45) Guest Intro: Scott Nolan (00:03:36) SpaceX, Founders Fund & General Matter (00:08:04) What Scott learned from Peter Thiel (00:10:05) The "Avoid Trends" Concept (00:10:55) Finding Important Problems No One Is Working On (00:17:32) Gut v. Intuition (00:18:49) Valuation, Competition & Capital Intensity (00:20:20) Founders Fund Strategy (00:21:06) The Steeper the Up Round, the Greater the Undervaluation (00:21:41) Being in Love with the Problem (00:26:07) Governments, Technology & History (00:28:54) Lessons from SpaceX and Elon (00:29:42) Vertical Integration (00:33:07) The Role of Energy in Civilization (00:37:36) State & Direction of US Energy (00:38:58) Why Nuclear? (00:42:20) Taxonomy of Advanced Reactors (00:45:33) The BYOE Concept (00:46:50) What Could Make Advanced Reactors Fail? (00:48:04) General Matter: Product, Business & Company (00:50:12) Enrichment & Weapons-Grade Uranium (00:56:45) North Star Metric (01:01:05) Building a Great Enduring Company (01:04:01) How Scott Runs the Company (01:06:11) Overcoming Irrational Fears About Nuclear (01:08:25) Why Aren't There More Founders Funds? (01:10:03) Operating vs. Investing (01:11:56) Kindest Thing

Scott Nolan

Founder

General MatterFounders Fund

Keith Rabois was an early executive at PayPal (part of the famous PayPal Mafia), COO at Square, VP of Corporate Development at LinkedIn, and an early investor in Stripe, DoorDash, Airbnb, YouTube, Ramp, and Palantir. Currently he’s managing director at Khosla Ventures. Also, he hasn’t touched a computer since September 2010 (he does everything from an iPad). In our in-depth conversation, Keith shares: 1. The barrels vs. ammunition hiring framework (and how to spot barrels) 2. Why talking to customers is actively harmful for consumer products 3. How to identify undiscovered talent 4. Why the PM role is dying 5. The three traits of the best-performing companies right now 6. The specific interview question he asks every senior candidate 7. Why CMOs (not engineers) are becoming the #1 consumer of tokens — Brought to you by: WorkOS—Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs Vanta—automate compliance, manage risk, and accelerate trust with AI — Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/hard-truths-about-building-in-the-ai-era — Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0 — Where to find Keith Rabois: • X: https://x.com/rabois • LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/keith • Website: https://www.khoslaventures.com — Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ — In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Introduction to Keith Rabois (01:59) Why Keith hasn’t used a computer since 2010 (04:52) The team you build is the company you build (07:40) How Keith learned to identify talent at PayPal (10:05) Tactics for getting better at hiring (15:31) The barrels vs. ammunition framework (18:52) What makes someone a barrel (22:36) How to attract the best talent (26:18) Building companies on undiscovered talent (27:53) Why better performance requires more pressure (32:36) Career advice in the age of AI (35:14) The future of the product triad (41:03) Why design and code are merging (49:35) What practicing law taught Keith about entrepreneurship (51:22) Contrarian takes on customer feedback (1:02:33) Identifying great AI opportunities (1:05:13) Advice for evaluating statrups  (1:12:36) Criticizing in public vs. private (1:15:05) Failure corner (1:17:29) Lightning round — Referenced: • Square: https://squareup.com • Jack Dorsey on X: https://x.com/jack • Head of Claude Code: What happens after coding is solved | Boris Cherny: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/head-of-claude-code-what-happens • Simon Willison’s Weblog: https://simonwillison.net • Vinod Khosla on X: https://x.com/vkhosla • Peter Thiel on X: https://x.com/peterthiel • Max Levchin on X: https://x.com/mlevchin • David Sacks on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidoliversacks • Tony Xu on X: https://x.com/t_xu • David Sze on X: https://x.com/davidsze • Faire: https://www.faire.com • Max Rhodes on X: https://x.com/MaxRhodesOK • Jeffrey Kolovson on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffreykolovson • Uncapped | Comparative Advantages w/ Keith Rabois: https://www.khoslaventures.com/posts/uncapped-comparative-advantages-w-keith-rabois • Lattice: https://lattice.com • Taylor Francis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-francis-4ba49640 • Building product at Stripe: craft, metrics, and customer obsession | Jeff Weinstein (Product lead): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-product-at-stripe-jeff-weinstein • The art of hiring: insights from Khosla Ventures, Airbnb, Ramp and Traba: https://ramp.com/velocity/the-art-of-hiring-insights • Eric Glyman: Seek out super individual contributors (ICs): https://ramp.com/velocity/the-art-of-hiring-insights#Eric-Glyman:-Seek-out-super-individual-contributors-(ICs) • Eric Glyman on X: https://x.com/eglyman • Mike Moore on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-moore-802223177 • Brian Chesky’s new playbook: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/brian-cheskys-contrarian-approach • Why you should work much harder RIGHT NOW: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/03/why-you-should-work-much-harder-right-now.html • Opendoor: https://www.opendoor.com • The Craft of Early Stage Venture | Peter Fenton, General Partner at Benchmark | Uncapped with Jack Altman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRiblwiXt-Q • Lovable: https://lovable.dev • The rise of the professional vibe coder (a new AI-era job) | Lazar Jovanovic (Professional Vibe Coder): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/getting-paid-to-vibe-code • Building Lovable: $10M ARR in 60 days with 15 people | Anton Osika (co-founder and CEO): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/building-lovable-anton-osika • Marc Andreessen: The real AI boom hasn’t even started yet: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/marc-andreessen-the-real-ai-boom • Jeremy Stoppelman on X: https://x.com/jeremys • The design process is dead. Here’s what’s replacing it. | Jenny Wen (head of design at Claude): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/the-design-process-is-dead • Andy Warhol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol • Curation and Algorithms: https://stratechery.com/2015/curation-and-algorithms • Ernest Hemingway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway • William Shakespeare: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare • Evan Moore on X: https://x.com/evancharles • Andrew Mason on X: https://x.com/andrewmason • Read Taylor Swift’s Full Viral Speech After Record-Breaking Awards Sweep: https://www.newsweek.com/entertainment/read-taylor-swift-full-acceptance-speech-record-breaking-awards-sweep-11745941 • The Chainsmokers: Stories Behind the Songs, AI’s Impact on Music, and Venture Investing | Uncapped with Jack Altman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GMSC-2pYnw&list=PLtpH7YnTL8ihy0nR2BV32n5VkRtqlDAS1&index=16 • How to spot a top 1% startup early: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-spot-a-top-1-startup-early • David Weiden on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidweiden • Alfred Lin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linalfred • Keith’s post about vertical integration on X: https://x.com/rabois/status/870673635375104000 • Jon Chu on X: https://x.com/jonchu • Kanu Gulati on X: https://x.com/KanuGulati • Rogo: https://rogo.ai • Profound: https://www.tryprofound.com • Basis: https://www.getbasis.ai • Spellbook: https://www.spellbook.legal • Roelof Botha on X: https://x.com/roelofbotha • Delian Asparouhov on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delian-asparouhov-87447742 • Lessons From Keith Rabois, Essay 1: How to become a Venture Capitalist: https://delian.io/lessons-1 • Velocity over everything: How Ramp became the fastest-growing SaaS startup of all time | Geoff Charles (VP of Product): https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/velocity-over-everything-how-ramp • Nuremberg on AppleTV+: https://tv.apple.com/us/movie/nuremberg/umc.cmc.3sg4y0382byupy76bfy7307k4 • Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com • “NO DAYS OFF”—Bill Belichick on X: https://x.com/SNFonNBC/status/829036279069364224 — Recommended books: • Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration: https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Inc-Overcoming-Unseen-Inspiration/dp/0812993012 • The Jordan Rules: The Inside Story of One Turbulent Season with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls: https://www.amazon.com/Jordan-Rules-Sam-Smith/dp/0671796666 • The Upside of Stress: Why Stress Is Good for You, and How to Get Good at It: https://www.amazon.com/Upside-Stress-Why-Good-You/dp/1101982934 — Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. — Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

Keith Rabois

Managing Director, Khosla Ventures

Khosla VenturesFounders FundOpendoorOpenStore

(0:00) Friedberg Intros Palantir's Shyam Sankar and Anduril's Trae Stephens (0:56) Palantir Origins: CIA Analyst Joins 20-Person Startup (2:54) War, Deterrence & Silicon Valley's Defense Tech Taboo (8:39) US vs China: Drone Gap, Shipbuilding & 2027 Taiwan Threat (12:27) Anduril's Arsenal-1 Factory & Fixing US Munitions Supply Chain (41:48) Autonomous Weapons, AI Decision-Making & Future of War (47:15) Anthropic vs Pentagon: Ethics of AI in Combat (50:39) Palantir Surveillance State Claims (55:57) Anti-Defense Culture Origins: Vietnam, Snowden & Foreign Influence Axon.ai — AppLovin's AI advertising platform reaches over a billion daily active users across mobile games. Full-screen video ads with a 35-second median watch time. Advertisers are profitably spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a day and advertiser access is still in closed beta. The window is open at https://axon.ai/allin. Follow Trae: https://x.com/traestephens Follow Shyam: https://x.com/ssankar Follow the besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect

Shyam Sankar

Chief Technology Officer

Palantir TechnologiesPalantir

Trae Stephens

Co-Founder & Executive Chairman

Anduril IndustriesFounders FundAnduril

Get Shaan's 4 money rules that took him from broke to $25M by 30: https://clickhubspot.com/sfmc Episode 804: Sam Parr ( https://x.com/theSamParr ) and Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) team up with the TBPN boys John Coogan ( https://x.com/johncoogan ) and Jordi Hays ( https://x.com/jordihays ) to break down the companies that could make you a millionaire as an employee.  — Show Notes:  (0:00) How to make $1,000,000 (5:05) Zuru  (12:47) Varda Space Industries (19:33) Suno (28:19) TrueMed (37:32) HubSpot (45:13) SemiAnalysis (52:32) Harvey (1:00:01) SendCutSent (1:04:55) Column — Links: • ZURU - https://zurutoys.com/  • Varda -  ​​https://www.varda.com/  • Suno - https://suno.com/  • TrueMed - https://www.truemed.com/  • HubSpot - https://www.hubspot.com/  • SemiAnalysis - https://semianalysis.com/  • Harvey - https://www.harvey.ai/  • SendCutSend - https://sendcutsend.com/  • Column - https://column.com/  • TBPN - https://www.youtube.com/@TBPNLive  — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com  • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Need a bank for your company? Go check out Mercury (mercury.com). Shaan uses it for all of his companies! Mercury is a financial technology company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust, Members FDIC • I run all my newsletters on Beehiiv and you should too + we're giving away $10k to our favorite newsletter, check it out: beehiiv.com/mfm-challenge — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth • Sam’s List - http://samslist.co/ My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano /

John Coogan

Co-Founder

TBPNFounders FundSoylentLucy Goods

Jordi Hays

Co-Founder

TBPN

Kevin Hartz, Co-founder of A*, Eventbrite, Xoom, and Sauron. Kevin has been building and investing in technology companies for 30 years, and we talk about how the industry’s evolved, why he calls AI the Mother of All Bubbles, why we’re still early, and lessons today’s breakout AI companies can learn from those that survived the Dot Com Crash. Kevin is a big proponent of backing young founders. A significant percentage of his latest fund at A* is invested in teenagers, and he shares how he identifies outlier talent so early, from Seed investments in Airbnb, PayPal, and Pinterest, to many of today’s hottest AI companies. He also shares the insane story of investing 100% of the proceeds from his first startup into PayPal’s Seed round, how PayPal’s early fraud systems inspired Palantir, what he learned from the PayPal Mafia, from Peter Thiel, and what makes Founders Fund special. We also talk about how he and his wife recently had two babies, five months apart, using genome screening and surrogates. Thanks to Ramtin Naimi, Navya Gudimetla, and Bennett Siegel for helping brainstorm topics for the conversation. Try Numeral, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance: ⁠https://www.numeral.com⁠ Sign-up for Flex Elite with code TURNER, get $1,000: https://form.typeform.com/to/Rx9rTjFz Timestamps: (4:25) Power shift from VC’s to founders since the 90’s (9:08) AI is the mother of all bubbles (12:40) Why AI is still underhyped (14:10) What Kevin and A* are investing in today (16:02) Investing 100% of his first startups proceeds in PayPal’s Seed round (21:21) What made the PayPal Mafia special (23:37) Parallels between the 90’s and today (26:40) What makes Founders Fund special (35:07) How Palantir evolved from PayPal’s fraud models (39:06) Building Xoom on the PayPal API (43:38) Lessons between Kevin’s 1st and 2nd startups (46:52) Starting Eventbrite off early PayPal API app (51:51) Eventbrite’s hidden TAM challenge (53:49) Selling Eventbrite to Bending Spoons (54:59) Investing 20% of A* in teenage founders (1:02:33) Incubating Sauron, the home security company (1:08:44) Making breakfast for our kids (1:13:33) Having kids with genome screening and surrogates (1:20:31) Collecting art, how to get started Referenced https://www.a-star.co/ https://www.eventbrite.com/ https://www.xoom.com/ https://www.sauron.systems/ https://www.orchidhealth.com/ Setting the Table by Danny Meyer: https://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-Hospitality-Business/dp/0060742763 20% of fund in teenage founders: https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/18/this-top-vc-bet-close-to-20-of-his-fund-on-teenagers-heres-why/ https://nypost.com/2025/12/14/us-news/xu-bo-chinese-billionaire-reportedly-sires-more-than-100-kids/ Follow Kevin Twitter: https://x.com/kevinhartz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hartz Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Kevin Hartz

Co-founder & Chairman

EventbriteA*Founders Fund

Joey Krug (Founders Fund partner, former Pantera co-CIO, and Augur co-founder) returns to unpack whether the “crypto-native era” is fading as institutions and mainstream apps adopt crypto rails without adopting crypto culture. We dig into prediction markets’ breakout (and why Polymarket finally found product-market fit), the coming regulatory fights around market structure and “insider” edges, and what’s next for founders building in a post-cypherpunk, distribution-first phase of crypto. ------ 📣SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24 https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🔵COINBASE | ETH & BTC BACKED LOANS https://bankless.cc/coinbase-borrow 🪙FRAXNET | MINT, REDEEM, & EARN https://bankless.cc/fraxnet 🦄UNISWAP | CONTINUOUS CLEARING AUCTIONS https://bankless.cc/uniswap-cca 🛞MANTLE | GLOBAL HACKATHON 2025 https://bankless.cc/mantle-hackathon 💤EIGHT SLEEP | IMPROVE YOUR SLEEP https://bankless.cc/eight-sleep ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 5:45 Is Crypto-Native Dead? 16:37 Lessons From Augur 20:29 Prediction Market’s Success 25:24 Just Gambling? 27:50 Prediction Market Regulation 41:03 Founders Fund Polymarket Bet 44:37 FBI Raid 46:47 Founders Fund Crypto Investment Thesis 53:46 DATs 57:02 Layer1 Valuation 1:00:40 ETH Valuation 1:04:32 What Would Joey Build Today? 1:06:13 Crypto x AI 1:10:09 Frontier Tech x Crypto 1:14:26 4-Year Cycles 1:16:16 Less Upside in Crypto Now? 1:19:37 Crypto Privacy 1:20:41 Last & Next Decade 1:23:05 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Joey Krug https://x.com/joeykrug Augur https://augur.net/ Founders Fund https://foundersfund.com/ ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures⁠

Joey Krug

Partner

Founders FundPantera CapitalAugur

From politics to technology to real estate, Keith Rabois has bold predictions for America’s next decade. In this conversation with Erik Torenberg, Keith breaks down why he believes the U.S. is entering a new economic expansion driven by AI, productivity, and sovereign technology. They discuss how AI could lift GDP growth to 5%, why sovereign AI projects are inevitable, and why America can “grow its way out” of debt. Keith also shares his takes on Trump’s second term, the decline of legacy institutions, OpenAI’s dominance, the future of Google and Microsoft, and how startups like Ramp and Opendoor are rewriting the rules of fintech and housing.   Resources: Follow Keith on X: https://x.com/rabois Follow Alex on X: https://x.com/arampell   Stay Updated:  If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to like, subscribe, and share with your friends! Find a16z on X: https://x.com/a16z Find a16z on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/a16z Listen to the a16z Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5bC65RDvs3oxnLyqqvkUYX Listen to the a16z Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a16z-podcast/id842818711 Follow our host: https://x.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.   Stay Updated: Find a16z on YouTube: YouTube Find a16z on X Find a16z on LinkedIn Listen to the a16z Show on Spotify Listen to the a16z Show on Apple Podcasts Follow our host: https://twitter.com/eriktorenberg Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Keith Rabois

Managing Director, Khosla Ventures

Khosla VenturesFounders FundOpendoorOpenStore

When it comes to tech startups, you often hear about VCs making a ton of money, or founders experiencing life-changing exits. But something is changing in the world of AI. Now it's the engineers themselves getting pay packages that can be in the 9-figure range. Why is this? Why is it happening? How is it changing the culture of Silicon Valley and business more generally? On this episode, we speak with John Coogan and Jordi Hays, the co-hosts of TBPN, a daily show about technology, which covers the industry in a sports-like manner. We talk about the economics of these transactions, why they make sense, and who are the industry's top superstars. Read more:Meta Seizes Its Moment to Spend Aggressively in the AI RaceApple Rebound Looks Elusive as AI Woes Draw Investor Scrutiny Only http://Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Coogan

Co-Founder

TBPNFounders FundSoylentLucy Goods

Jordi Hays

Co-Founder

TBPN

(0:00) The Besties welcome Travis Kalanick and Keith Rabois! (3:02) Travis on Pony.ai / Uber rumors and the state of Cloud Kitchens (18:51) xAI launches Grok 4, learning "The Bitter Lesson" in AI (40:36) How Grok can catch ChatGPT in usage, OpenAI's product excellence (46:27) Perplexity and OpenAI building AI-native browsers and taking on Chrome (58:01) Elon's "America Party": is now the right time for a third party, and could he make an impact in 2026? (1:13:12) SCOTUS backs Trump over federal government RIF plans Follow Keith: https://x.com/rabois Follow Travis: https://x.com/travisk Get The Besties All-In Tequila: https://tequila.allin.com Join us at the All-In Summit: https://allin.com/summit Summit scholarship application: http://bit.ly/4kyZqFJ Follow the besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect Referenced in the show: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/technology/uber-travis-kalanick-self-driving-car-deal.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZW5fJikPmfM https://grok.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wTA90BYo30 https://techcrunch.com/2025/01/08/elon-musk-agrees-that-weve-exhausted-ai-training-data https://x.com/ArtificialAnlys/status/1943166841150644622 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1943192643439337753 http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html https://x.com/chamath/status/1943177837956968499 https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/09/perplexity-launches-comet-an-ai-powered-web-browser https://x.com/perplexity_ai/status/1942969263305671143 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1941584569523732930 https://polymarket.com/event/will-elon-register-the-america-party-by https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/presidential-approval/highslows https://news.gallup.com/poll/651278/support-third-political-party-dips.aspx https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/implementing-the-presidents-department-of-government-efficiency-workforce-optimization-initiative https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/07/supreme-court-allows-trump-administration-to-implement-plans-to-significantly-reduce-the-federal-workforce https://www.afge.org/article/summary-of-afge-lawsuits-against-trump--how-litigation-works https://cei.org/publication/10kc-2025-numbers-of-rules https://www.netflix.com/tudum/articles/american-manhunt-osama-bin-laden-release-date-news

Travis Kalanick

CEO, CloudKitchens (co-founder, Uber)

CloudKitchens

Keith Rabois

Managing Director, Khosla Ventures

Khosla VenturesFounders FundOpendoorOpenStore

This week, we’re bringing you a recent interview from “Interesting Times with Ross Douthat,” one of The New York Times’s newest podcasts. In this episode, Ross sits down with Peter Thiel, the co-founder of PayPal and Palantir and one of the most contrarian thinkers in tech. Together, they unpack Thiel’s theory that we’re living through an era of technological stagnation, and debate whether President Trump’s populism and the development of artificial intelligence will help us unlock new progress. Guest: Peter Thiel, co-founder of Paypal and Palantir. Additional Reading: Peter Thiel and the Antichrist   We want to hear from you. Email us at hardfork@nytimes.com. Find “Hard Fork” on YouTube and TikTok. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Peter Thiel

Co-founder

Palantir TechnologiesPayPalFounders Fund

Welcome to this classic episode. Classics are my favorite episodes from the past 10 years, published once a month. These are N of 1 conversations with N of 1 people. There aren't many people like Cyan Banister. Her life story is remarkable. She was homeless at a young age, dropped out of high school, and five years ago she suffered an extremely rare stroke. Yet, in spite of everything, she is one of the most optimistic and curious people you can hope to meet. Cyan is also one of the great angel investors of this era, having invested early in SpaceX, Uber, Postmates, and Deepmind to name a few winners. She became the first female investing partner at Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and now invests at Long Journey Ventures. Our conversation is as much about investing as it is about the essence of life and how connecting with that will help us in our professional pursuits. It is also full of awesome stories about people and companies like SpaceX and Bill Murray. Please enjoy this great conversation with Cyan Banister. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by ⁠WorkOS⁠. WorkOS is a developer platform that enables SaaS companies to quickly add enterprise features to their applications. With a single API, developers can implement essential enterprise capabilities that typically require months of engineering work. By handling the complex infrastructure of enterprise features, WorkOS allows developers to focus on their core product while meeting the security and compliance requirements of Fortune 500 companies. Visit ⁠WorkOS.com⁠ to Transform your application into an enterprise-ready solution in minutes, not months. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.  Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: [00:00:00] Welcome to Invest Like the Best [00:04:06] Contrarian Thinking in Investing [00:05:30] Joining Founders Fund and Learning from Peter Thiel [00:11:15] Investing in Companies that Change Lives [00:14:00] The Importance of Overcoming Adversity for Founders [00:16:02] Personal Journey and Choosing Hope [00:20:56] Embracing Curiosity and Wonder in the Face of Adversity [00:21:20] Reconnecting with Our Inner Child [00:24:46] The Interruption and Resumption of the Conversation [00:27:20] The Power of Intuition in Business Decisions [00:32:28] The Story Behind the Investment in Uber [00:38:46] Conclusion: Following the White Rabbit of Curiosity [00:39:08] Investing in Uber: The Beginning [00:41:50] The Impact of Success: Personal Wealth and Privacy [00:50:22] The Intersection of Spirituality and Investing [00:59:34] The Bill Murray Experience: A Lesson in Presence [01:09:54] The Violin Kid: A Tale of Curiosity and Generosity [01:12:43] The Evolution of Investing: A Personal Journey [01:16:34] The Philosophy of Giving: The Universe's Return [01:17:36] The Spirit of a Venture Firm: Founders Fund [01:23:09] The Power of Integral Family Systems [01:28:41] The Trillion Dollar Question: Disrupting Hollywood [01:36:05] The Future of Artistry: AI and Creativity [01:41:39] The Power of Kindness

Cyan Banister

Angel Investor

Long Journey VenturesFounders Fund

Debate between Keith Rabois and Zach Weinberg on what tariffs are actually trying to accomplish. One core theme: Tariffs aren’t fully about “bringing back factories,” but rather a negotiation tool to eliminate foreign trade barriers - ultimately aiming to increase free trade, not restrict it. We also got into: - What each of them would do if they were in charge - Whether the trade deficit is a meaningful metric or just a misunderstood talking point - If tariffs could be part of an initiative to replace income tax — shifting toward a more consumption-based tax system - If tariffs could successfully be used as a non-military tool to reduce drug supply to the US - If there’s a major disconnect between the new administration’s rhetoric and the actual economic goals behind the policy One of the deepest economic conversations from the show’s recent history — and a rare debate where both sides had real logic behind their views. (00:00) Introduction and Host's Biases (00:46) Keith's Perspective on Tariffs (03:05) Zach's Perspective and Clarifying Questions (05:14) Debating Tariff Strategies (07:45) Economic Implications and Free Trade (13:31) Trump's Tariff Policies and Goals (16:57) Global Trade and Protectionism (25:52) Final Thoughts on Tariffs and Trade (29:16) Discussion on Trade Tariffs and Partners (30:17) Impact of Tariffs on GDP and Debt (31:20) Political Coalitions and Trade Policies (32:00) Tariffs as Consumer Taxes (33:30) Debate on Trade Deficit and Tariff Rates (36:53) Regulatory Reforms and Economic Policies (47:25) Fentanyl Crisis and Trade Negotiations (51:06) Closing Remarks and Future Topics Executive Producer: Rashad Assir Producer: Leah Clapper Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA 🎙 Listen to the show Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-logan-bartlett-show/id1606770839 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5WqBqDb4br3LlyVrdqOYYb?si=3076e6c1b5c94d63&nd=1 🎥 Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCugS0jD5IAdoqzjaNYzns7w?sub_confirmation=1 Follow on Socials 📸 Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/theloganbartlettshow 🐦 Twitter - https://twitter.com/loganbartshow 🎬 Clips on TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@theloganbartlettshow About the Show Logan Bartlett is a Software Investor at Redpoint Ventures - a Silicon Valley-based VC with $6B AUM and investments in Snowflake, DraftKings, Twilio, and Netflix. In each episode, Logan goes behind the scenes with world-class entrepreneurs and investors. If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every Friday for new episodes.

Keith Rabois

Managing Director, Khosla Ventures

Khosla VenturesFounders FundOpendoorOpenStore

Zach Weinberg

Co-Founder

Operator PartnersCurie.BioFlatiron Health

(0:00) Welcoming Cyan Banister and David Sacks! (3:23) Behind the scenes of the Besties in DC: White House, cabinet interviews, and more (33:00) How M&A will be unleashed, Google buys Wiz for $32B, Tim Walz on Tesla (49:09) Deep dive on Google/Wiz: breakup fee, impact on VC, ROIC, cloud advantage (1:00:28) Treasury vs Fed tension, Bond markets, consumers, deregulation (1:12:57) Space rescue, SpaceX vs China, lunar landing Thanks to our partners for making this happen: Hims: https://www.hims.com | https://www.forhers.com Gemini: https://www.gemini.com/allin iTrustCapital (use code allin): https://www.itrustcapital.com/allin Follow Cyan: https://x.com/cyantist Follow the besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect Referenced in the show: Bessent interview: https://youtu.be/lSma9suyp24 Lutnick interview: https://youtu.be/182ckTL2KBA https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/18/google-to-acquire-cloud-security-startup-wiz-for-32-billion.html https://x.com/Tim_Walz/status/1902197581586833643 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/democratic-party-hits-new-polling-lowvoters-want-fight-trump-harder-rcna196161 https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1519735033950470144 https://www.ft.com/content/e6f516e8-2262-44d2-a030-7071b62b0be7 https://x.com/thesamparr/status/1902385138308104685 https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/interest-rates-decision-federal-reserve-ed172223 https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/US10Y https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/10/technology/eric-schmidt-relativity-space.html https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/11/chinas-long-term-lunar-plans-now-depend-on-developing-its-own-starship https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/steve-kornacki-white-men-white-women-gap-gender-gap-rcna196791

Cyan Banister

Angel Investor

Long Journey VenturesFounders Fund

(0:00) The Besties welcome Cyan Banister! (9:16) Reacting to the LA wildfires: broken incentives, leadership failures, lessons learned (36:51) Insurance issues, rebuilding headwinds, reclaiming the government (59:44) Zuck goes full free speech, fires third-party fact-checkers, opts for Community Notes model (1:20:19) Nvidia goes consumer at CES: market cap impact, most interesting vertical (1:34:49) Why Trump wants Greenland (1:40:05) Conspiracy Corner: Who built the pyramids? Follow the Besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow Cyan Banister: https://x.com/cyantist Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect Referenced in the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SQ_myzmV_Q https://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/awipsProducts/RNORR4RSA.php https://x.com/JonVigliotti/status/1877020919475884110 https://x.com/FearedBuck/status/1877355797245514085 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKJ5WeBc7Us https://x.com/CrazyyHub/status/1823574726738092402 https://www.latimes.com/visuals/photography/la-me-fw-archives-the-1961-bel-air-brush-fire-20170419-story.html https://www.rainmaker.com https://www.ksbw.com/article/california-fire-evacuation-maps/63382651 https://x.com/shaunmmaguire/status/1877366727547433382 https://x.com/WorldTimesWT/status/1876887200526111017 https://x.com/ericabbenante/status/1877207054105886836 https://x.com/laurapowellesq/status/1877143625588682940 https://x.com/jeremykauffman/status/1877128641802285064 https://x.com/deb8rr/status/1877539354802876576 https://x.com/Jason/status/1877183155821494513 https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/PDFFiles/Mark-Zuckerberg-Letter-on-Govt-Censorship.pdf https://x.com/townhallcom/status/1876684277787873397 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/nvidia-ceo-pitches-robotics-cars-as-growth-areas-to-consumer-electronics-audience-68905f2d https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/project-digits https://polymarket.com/markets/creators/all-in

Cyan Banister

Angel Investor

Long Journey VenturesFounders Fund

(0:00) The Besties welcome Keith Rabois! (4:01) Keith explains why he returned to Khosla Ventures, the differences between Founders Fund and Khosla, and his husband Jacob Helberg's role in Trump Admin (13:09) Business acumen of Trump's cabinet and appointees, diversity of opinion (25:59) Google's new quantum chip: potential impact on encryption, cryptography, and more (43:50) Apple developing new server chip for AI inference, iOS flop, why its product culture is failing (54:30) TikTok panics after appeals court upholds the "divest-or-ban" law, with a January 19th deadline (1:03:55) State of Venture Capital, why Stripe is still private, thoughts on crypto Follow the besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow Keith: https://x.com/rabois Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect Referenced in the show: https://www.tiktok.com/@frankielapenna/video/7010077215576575238 https://www.axios.com/2024/12/06/trump-billionaires-cabinet-elon-musk https://blog.google/technology/research/google-willow-quantum-chip https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08449-y https://research.google/blog/suppressing-quantum-errors-by-scaling-a-surface-code-logical-qubit https://quantumai.google/roadmap https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartmut_Neven https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-slit_experiment https://www.discovery.com/science/Double-Slit-Experiment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schr%C3%B6dinger%27s_cat https://www.theinformation.com/articles/apple-is-working-on-ai-chip-with-broadcom?rc=pxkrxo https://x.com/rabois/status/870673635375104000 https://www.amazon.com/Company-Giants-Conversations-Visionaries-Digital/dp/0070329656 https://www.cnn.com/2024/12/09/tech/bytedance-tiktok-halt-us-ban-intl/index.html https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-us-ban-sale-china-congress-de12b4d22aa8095e62cb0982a6e62235 https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-congress-bill-1c48466df82f3684bd6eb21e61ebcb8d https://pitchbook.com/news/reports/q3-2024-pitchbook-nvca-venture-monitor https://www.cnbc.com/2024/12/12/servicetitan-starts-trading-on-nasdaq-after-ipo.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/11/business/dealbook/ftc-trump-ferguson-khan.html https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2021/6/15/antitrust https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-12-05/convertible-bond-arbs-are-making-microstrategy-wall-street-s-hottest-trade

Keith Rabois

Managing Director, Khosla Ventures

Khosla VenturesFounders FundOpendoorOpenStore

Cyan Banister (@cyantist) is a general partner at Long Journey Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on early and new investments. Cyan was an early investor in Uber, SpaceX, DeepMind, Flexport, and Affirm and has invested in more than 100 companies. Prior to that, she was at Founders Fund, a top-tier fund in San Francisco. Subscribe to Cyan's Substack at uglyduckling.substack.com. Sponsors: Eight Sleep’s Pod 4 Ultra sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating: https://eightsleep.com/tim (save between $400 and $600 on the Pod 4 Ultra) AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement: https://DrinkAG1.com/Tim (1-year supply of Vitamin D (and 5 free AG1 travel packs) with your first subscription purchase.) Wealthfront high-yield cash account: https://Wealthfront.com/Tim (Start earning 3.75% Annual Percentage Yield (APY) from program banks on your short-term cash until you’re ready to invest. And when new clients open an account, they can get an extra fifty-dollar bonus with a deposit of five hundred dollars or more.) Terms & Conditions apply. The APY on cash deposits as of 09/26/25 is representative, subject to change, and requires no minimum. Tim Ferriss receives cash compensation from Wealthfront Brokerage LLC for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of Wealthfront Brokerage. See full disclosures here. Timestamps: [00:00] Start [06:16] Early life and education as a white minority on a Navajo reservation. [11:18] Strained family dynamics and a cycle of neglect. [18:20] The intervention of Officer Pratt and becoming a ward of the state at 15. [22:46] Crusty punk survival strategies and life on the streets. [32:02] The positive influence of Cyan's "second" mother. [34:17] Crass, Chris Collins, and computers. [38:03] An unorthodox path to angel investment beginning with Uber. [48:13] Niantic/Pokemon GO. [56:27] How stalking Garrett Langley led to a Flock Security investment. [01:00:07] GameCrush, activist investors, and lessons learned. [01:07:00] Sales lessons from the street. [01:10:08] A mindful approach to questioning narratives. [01:15:35] The pre-OnlyFans story of Zivity. [01:24:44] Views on sex and relationships. [01:28:47] Magic glasses, esoteric rabbit holes, and rolling the dice. [01:44:02] How Aleister Crowley and Bill Murray paved a path to ex-atheism. [02:02:21] Cyan's billboard. [02:04:41] Enduring a stroke and its aftermath. [02:08:31] Meditation, throat-singing, and philosophy. [02:17:50] The Boston spiritual experience and duck boat baptism. [02:40:53] A book in the works, the Ugly Duckling Substack, and parting thoughts. * For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast. For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books. Follow Tim: Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferriss Past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Margaret Atwood, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Dr. Gabor Maté, Anne Lamott, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, and many more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Cyan Banister

Angel Investor

Long Journey VenturesFounders Fund

Vapes like Elf bars seem to be everywhere now. Meanwhile, Zyn nicotine pouches have become a huge seller for Philip Morris and are in such demand that it's sometimes hard to find them in stores. So where are all these new nicotine products coming from? What's the regulatory approval process for these? And what is it like to launch a new nicotine product right now? In this episode, we speak with John Coogan, the former co-founder of dietary supplement Soylent and most recently the co-founder of Lucy Goods, which makes nicotine gum. We talk about the booming market for Zyn and other nicotine products, plus the byzantine ways in which some of these companies are structured. We also talk about the death of Juul and how we seem to have ended up with a very strange gray market for vapes. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

John Coogan

Co-Founder

TBPNFounders FundSoylentLucy Goods

Delian Asparouhov is a Partner at Founders Fund and Co-Founder and President of Varda Space Industries, which is building the world's first space factories. At Founders Fund Delian has led deals in the likes of Ramp ($7BN) and Sword Health ($3BN) among others. Before joining Founders Fund, he was a Principal at Khosla Ventures, Head of Growth at Teespring, and Founder of a healthcare company called Nightingale. In Today's Episode with Delian Asparouhov We Discuss: 1. Venture Capital: Winners, Losers and Everyone Else: Who are the Top 3 venture firms in the world today according to Delian? Why does Delian believe that Benchmark are not the firm they were? Who will be the winners in venture in the next 10 years? Who will be the losers in venture in the next 10 years? 2. Inside Founders Fund: What No One Sees: What are the most important and impactful elements of Founders Fund that no one knows about? What does Delian believe that the Founders Fund partnership will strongly disagree with him on? Why does Founders Fund believe the path of most resistance is the best way to make decisions? What single topic has Delian publicly disagreed with Peter Thiel on most? How did it go? 3. What Every Young VC Needs to Know: What are Delian's single biggest tips to young VCs looking to scale the VC ladder today? What are the five core pillars of venture according to Delian? What should young VCs focus on? Why does Delian disagree with Founders Fund partners that "the best founders do not need the help of their VCs?" Does Delian agree with Vinod Khosla that "90% of VCs do detract value?" What are the biggest ways that Delian believes VCs can and do detract value? 4. Europe Will Be Third World, Parenting and Marriage: Why does Delian believe that Western Europe will become like the third world? What are Delian's single biggest tips on finding a life partner? What have been the biggest changes to Delian since becoming a father? What question does no one ask Delian that someone should ask him?

Delian Asparouhov

Partner

Founders FundVarda Space Industries

Kevin Hartz is a Co-Founder and General Partner at A*, an early-stage venture capital firm. Prior to founding A*, Kevin co-founded Eventbrite, a publicly traded company, and served as the CEO for the first 11 years of the company. Before Eventbrite, Kevin co-founded Xoom, a money remittance company that was acquired by PayPal in 2015 for over $1BN. Kevin is also a prolific angel investor having backed companies such as PayPal, Airbnb, Pinterest, Ramp, Trulia, and Anduril at the seed stage, and was an early investor in Uber, Palantir, SpaceX, Square, Gusto and many others. In Today's Episode with Kevin Hartz We Discuss: 1. What Makes the Best Founders: What questions does Kevin always ask founders in the investment process? Does Kevin prefer serial or first time founders? Why? Does Kevin prefer founders who are new to a problem or who are insiders and experts? When Kevin has gotten a founder bet wrong, what did he not see that he should have seen? 2. The Exploding Term Sheet That Cost $10BN: How did an exploding term sheet for the seed round of Airbnb cost Kevin $10BN? What did Kevin see in the seed round of Airbnb that so few other investors saw? Does Kevin agree that the best businesses often start off as ridiculous or toys? 3. From World's Greatest Angel to VC with $600M AUM: Why does Kevin think a barbell strategy of Seed and Series C is best today? Does Kevin agree that the Series B and growth stage is dead today? Why does Kevin strongly disagree that seed is the hardest stage of the market? Why does Kevin think that venture is less collaborative than ever? How does Kevin approach when to sell vs when to hold a position? What are his biggest lessons from seeding and holding Opensea? 4. Learning From the World's Best Investors: What have been Kevin's lessons from his relationship with Peter Thiel? What have been Kevin's biggest takeaways from investing alongside Roelof Botha in many deals? What have been Kevin's biggest lessons from watching and observing the great Pierre Lamond?

Kevin Hartz

Co-founder & Chairman

EventbriteA*Founders Fund

Is the U.S going to be ok? Mike Solana (no relation to Solana the chain, that’s his name),is the editor-in-chief of Pirate Wires and the guy who broke the Trump Memecoin news. We brought him on the show today to try to make sense of the current state of politics in the face of the upcoming election, and what it all means for crypto. Expect to learn why tech has pivoted right, why democrats are cracking down on crypto, why media in 2024 is fundamentally broken and much more. ------ 🎬 DEBRIEF | Ryan & David Unpacking the Episode: https://www.bankless.com/debrief-the-mike-solana-interview  ------ ✨ Mint the episode on Zora ✨ https://zora.co/collect/zora:0x0c294913a7596b427add7dcbd6d7bbfc7338d53f/27?referrer=0x077Fe9e96Aa9b20Bd36F1C6290f54F8717C5674E  ------ 📣 SPOTIFY PREMIUM RSS FEED | USE CODE: SPOTIFY24  https://bankless.cc/spotify-premium  ------ BANKLESS SPONSOR TOOLS: 🐙KRAKEN | MOST-TRUSTED CRYPTO EXCHANGE https://k.xyz/bankless-pod-q2    ⁠  🦄UNISWAP | BROWSER EXTENSION https://bankless.cc/uniswap  ⚡️ CARTESI | LINUX-POWERED ROLLUPS https://bankless.cc/CartesiGovernance  🛞MANTLE | MODULAR LAYER 2 NETWORK https://bankless.cc/Mantle    ⚖️ARBITRUM | SCALING ETHEREUM ⁠https://bankless.cc/Arbitrum  🗣️TOKU | CRYPTO EMPLOYMENT  https://bankless.cc/toku  ------ TIMESTAMPS 0:00 Intro 7:10 $DJT Memecoin 16:36 Crypto Politics 29:39 Mike’s Perspective on Crypto 34:12 Memetic Wars 37:58 Growth vs Degrowth 43:22 Information Wars 53:35 Social Media 1:01:52 Being Terminally Online 1:14:18 Media in 2024 1:26:30 2024 Election 1:31:15 Closing & Disclaimers ------ RESOURCES Mike Solana https://x.com/micsolana   Pirate Wires Daily https://get.piratewires.com/pw/daily   ------ Not financial or tax advice. See our investment disclosures here: https://www.bankless.com/disclosures ⁠

Mike Solana

Chief Marketing Officer & Editor-in-Chief

Founders FundPirate Wires

SaaStr 743: 9 Easy Sales Concepts So Many Get Wrong with Sam Blond, Former CRO Brex Sam Blond, the former CRO at Brex with 15 years in tech sales, took the stage at SaaStr Europa 2024 to share nine easy sales concepts that so many get wrong. Sam got his first job in tech sales as an SDR for Jason Lemkin's company, EchoSign, which later sold to Adobe and launched his career. These nine sales concepts, when done correctly, will greatly improve your sales and sales teams: Don't Outsource Recruiting Focus on Demand Until You Have Too Much Do Things That Stand Out Leverage Happy Customers to Generate New Ones Distribution Is As Important As The Announcement Be Prescriptive On How To Buy Your Product The Presumptive Close Meet Prospective Customers In Person Obsess Over Implementation -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SaaStr hosts the largest SaaS community events on the planet. Join us in 2024 at: SaaStr Annual: Sept. 10-12 in the SF Bay Area. Join 12,500 SaaS professionals, CEOs, revenue leaders and investors for the world's LARGEST SaaS community event of the year. Podcast listeners can grab a discount on tickets here: https://www.saastrannual2024.com/buy-tickets?promo=fave20 -------------- This episode is sponsored by: Northwest Registered Agent Get more when Northwest Registered Agent starts your business. They'll form your company fast and stand up your entire business identity in minutes. That means business free domain, business email, website, hosting, address, mail scanning, business phone app, all within minutes. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/saastr to get a 60 percent discount on your next LLC. This episode is sponsored by: Remote.com Are you overwhelmed with paperwork managing overseas contractors? Say hello to efficiency with Remote's Contractor Management solution! Seamlessly handle invoicing, fixed payments, and compliant, localized contracts. Kickstart your free trial today at Remote.com. This episode is sponsored by Pendo, the all-in-one product experience platform. Pendo helps your users do the things you really want them to do. You can try Pendo for free at Pendo.io/saastr and check out Mind The Product, the community for product people like… us.

Sam Blond

Former CRO

BrexFounders FundMonaco

Mike Solana is a writer, Vice President at Founders Fund, Editor-in-Chief at Pirate Wires and a podcaster. To no one’s surprise, the future of American media and politics is upside down. A pervasive lack of trust leaves everyone uncertain about the rest of the year. So what does the future have in store, and what facts can we be certain about in a time of turmoil and confusion? Expect to learn why the new app Fly Me Out is a fantastic inditement of modern dating culture, why the tide is turning against independent and mainstream media, whether the left vs right debate is officially dead, what the future of news and media will look like, whether American colleges are really a lost cause, how taboo subjects affect science and censorship in academia, Mike’s prediction for the first Trump vs. Biden debate and much more... Sponsors: See discounts for all the products I use and recommend: https://chriswillx.com/deals Get up to 20% discount on the best supplements from Momentous at https://livemomentous.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Get a Free Sample Pack of all LMNT Flavours with your first box at https://www.drinklmnt.com/modernwisdom (automatically applied at checkout) Timestamps: (00:00) The New App for Young, Hot People (08:13) Evolution of Internet Mimetic Warfare (18:21) The Culture War Shiny Object Cycle (26:30) What Mike Learned From Jack Dorsey (33:50) The Future of Media Companies (37:00) Are American Colleges a Lost Cause? (41:22) The Top 10 Taboo Topics (45:21) Why Conspiracies Are So Seductive (53:09) Will TikTok Get Banned? (59:32) The Existential Risks of AI (01:02:04) Will Biden & Trump Debate? (01:14:55) Where to Find Mike Extra Stuff: Get my free reading list of 100 books to read before you die: https://chriswillx.com/books Try my productivity energy drink Neutonic: https://neutonic.com/modernwisdom Episodes You Might Enjoy: This Is How To Master Your Life - David Goggins - #577: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Goggins⁠⁠⁠ How To Destroy Your Negative Beliefs - Dr Jordan Peterson - #712: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Peterson⁠⁠⁠ The Secret Tools To Hack Your Brain - Dr Andrew Huberman - #700: ⁠⁠⁠lnkfi.re/SN-Huberman⁠⁠ - Get In Touch: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/modernwisdompodcast Email: https://chriswillx.com/contact - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Solana

Chief Marketing Officer & Editor-in-Chief

Founders FundPirate Wires

This Week in Startups is brought to you by… OpenPhone. Create business phone numbers for you and your team that work through an app on your smartphone or desktop. TWiST listeners can get an extra 20% off any plan for your first 6 months at https://www.openphone.com/twist⁠ Coda. A new doc that brings words, tables and teams together. All your valuable data, plans, objectives, and strategies in one place. Go to https://www.coda.io/twist to get a $1,000 credit! Northwest Registered Agent. Northwest Registered Agent will form your business quickly and easily. In just 10 clicks and 10 minutes, set up your entire business identity—name, address, mail service, phone, email, website, and domain. For just $39 plus state fees, Northwest will handle your complete business identity. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today. * Todays show: David Weisburd hosts Mel Williams, Delian Asparouhov, and Jason Calacanis to discuss discuss crypto regulation (17:05), AI spending (27:21), and immigration's role in startups (55:43). * Timestamps: (0:00) David Weisburd intros Mel Williams, Delian Asparouhov, and Jason Calacanis (3:46) WSJ reports that top crypto funds are back in the market (9:38) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://www.openphone.com/twist⁠ (10:54) Jason's proposal for a "sophisticated investor test" for crypto investments (17:05) The limitations of current SEC regulations and the potential political impact of crypto regulation (26:03) Coda - Get a $1,000 startup credit at https://coda.io/twist (27:21) AI spend is up across the board in 2024 (39:42) Northwest Registered Agent - For just $39 plus state fees, Northwest will handle your complete business identity. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today. (41:01) GPT-4o demos and the rapid commoditization of AI technology (48:29) The impact of AI on the economy (55:43) Immigration and its impact on the startup ecosystem (1:06:11) Self-censorship and the importance of a free society * Follow Mel: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mel-williams-00584a5 Check Out: https://truebridgecapital.com * Follow Delian: X: https://x.com/zebulgar LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delian-asparouhov-87447742 Check out: https://foundersfund.com https://www.varda.com * Follow David: X: ⁠https://twitter.com/DWeisburd⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/dweisburd⁠ Check out: ⁠https://10xcapital.com * Follow Jason: X: ⁠https://twitter.com/jason⁠ Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/jason⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis * Thank you to our partners: (9:38) OpenPhone - Get 20% off your first six months at https://www.openphone.com/twist⁠ (26:03) Coda - Get a $1,000 startup credit at https://coda.io/twist (39:42) Northwest Registered Agent - For just $39 plus state fees, Northwest will handle your complete business identity. Visit https://www.northwestregisteredagent.com/twist today. * Check out the Launch Accelerator: https://launchaccelerator.co * Check out Founder University: https://www.founder.university * Subscribe to This Week in Startups on Apple: https://rb.gy/v19fcp * Great 2023 interviews: Steve Huffman, Brian Chesky, Aaron Levie, Sophia Amoruso, Reid Hoffman, Frank Slootman, Billy McFarland * Check out Jason’s suite of newsletters: https://substack.com/@calacanis * Follow TWiST: Substack: https://twistartups.substack.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/TWiStartups YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/thisweekin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisweekinstartups TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thisweekinstartups * Subscribe to the Founder University Podcast: https://www.founder.university/podcast

Delian Asparouhov

Partner

Founders FundVarda Space Industries

Mel Williams

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: 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? 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? 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? 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?

Eric Glyman

Co-founder and CEO

RampParibus

Keith Rabois

Managing Director, Khosla Ventures

Khosla VenturesFounders FundOpendoorOpenStore

Sam Blond is the former CRO at Brex, where he led the company from near $0-$400M in ARR and a $12.5B valuation. Before Brex, Sam was VP of Sales at Zenefits, where he led the company from $0-$70M ARR in 2 years and a $4.5B valuation. Sam joined Founders Fund as a Partner in 2022 and recently left to focus more on operating. In Today's Episode with Sam Blond We Discuss: 1. Lessons From Scaling Brex to $400M ARR & Zenefits to $70M ARR: What are the secrets that very few people know, that led to the success of Brex and Zenefits? What was the single worst sales investment Brex made? What was the best? What are Sam's biggest tips to people picking the rocketship they will join? 2. Who, What and When to Hire: When is the right time to hire your first sales rep? Should the founder be the one to create the sales playbook? What is the right profile for the first sales hire? Does it matter if the new hire has domain experience? Why does Sam always advocate to hire through network and not recruiters? 3. How to Hire the Best Sales Reps: What are the questions Sam always asks in interviews with sales hires? Does Sam do case studies with candidates? What is he looking for? What are the biggest green and red flags a candidate can show in an interview process? What are the biggest mistakes founders make when hiring sales teams? 4. How to Have the Best Performing Sales Team: What are the three ways to measure the success of a rep in the first 30-60 days? Why does Sam believe most startups are doing outbound wrong? What should they change? Why does Sam believe demand gen is the bottleneck for all companies? What can be done to solve the demand gen challenge? How does outbound change in a world of AI?

Sam Blond

Former CRO

BrexFounders FundMonaco

Trae Stephens is a Partner at Founders Fund, one of the world's leading funds where he has worked with some of the best and backed the likes of Palmer Luckey with Oculus and Ryan Peterson @ Flexport since the very early days. Trae is also Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Anduril Industries, a defense technology company focused on autonomous systems, and Co-founder of Sol, a next-generation wearable e-reader. Previously, Trae was an early employee at Palantir Technologies, where he was also an integral part of the product team, leading the design and strategy for new product offerings. In Today's Episode with Trae Stephens We Discuss: 1. From Hustling into Georgetown to Peter Thiel Ushering You into VC: What is Trae's story of how he got into Georgetown University, despite being rejected the first time? How did Trae make his way into the world of VC? How did Peter Thiel recruit him to Founders Fund? What advice did Brian Singerman give Trae in his first week in VC? Why is it so important? 2. How the Best Venture Firm in the World Invests: Decision-Making Process: Why do Founders Fund not have partner meetings? What is the investment decision-making process? Why does more process lead to mediocre outcomes? Competitive Deals: Why does Trae believe the most competitive deals are always the worst? What do Founders Fund do to specifically avoid the "herd mentality"? Upside Maximisation: Why does no one at Founders Fund care about "downside protection"? How do the team approach scenario planning and upside maximisation? 3. Do VCs Really Add Value: Why does Trae think putting VCs on a board for "value add" is total BS? Are there any cases in which Trae believes the VC can really move the needle for a company? Why does Trae believe venture would be better if it were just operator investors? Why does Trae believe platform approaches to VC value add is BS? 4. The Future of VC: Who and How to Win: How did being an operator at the same time as investing, make Trae a better investor? Why does Trae believe that vertical investing is BS and generalised is better? How does Trae favour; market, product and people? Will Trae back a founder when he hates the idea? What have been Trae's biggest lessons from his biggest hits and biggest misses in 10 years?

Trae Stephens

Co-Founder & Executive Chairman

Anduril IndustriesFounders FundAnduril