AI to AE's: Grit, Glean, and Kleiner Perkins' next Enterprise AI hit — Joubin Mirzadegan, Roadrunner
Glean started as a Kleiner Perkins incubation and is now a $7B, $200m ARR Enterprise AI leader. Now KP has tapped its own podcaster to lead it’s next big swing.
From building go-to-market the hard way in startups (and scaling Palo Alto Networks’ public cloud business) to joining Kleiner Perkins to help technical founders turn product edge into repeatable revenue, Joubin Mirzadegan has spent the last decade obsessing over one thing: distribution and how ideas actually spread, sell, and compound. That obsession took him from launching the CRO-only podcast Grit (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRiWZFltuYPF8A6UGm74K2q29UwU-Kk9k) as a hiring wedge, to working alongside breakout companies like Glean and Windsurf, to now incubating Roadrunner which is an AI-native rethink of CPQ and quoting workflows as pricing models collapse from “seats” into consumption, bundles, renewals, and SKU sprawl.
We sat down with Joubin to dig into the real mechanics of making conversations feel human (rolling early, never sending questions, temperature + lighting hacks), what Windsurf got right about “Google-class product and Salesforce-class distribution,” how to hire early sales leaders without getting fooled by shiny logos, why CPQ is quietly breaking the back of modern revenue teams, and his thesis for his new company and KP incubation Roadrunner (https://www.roadrunner.ai/): rebuild the data model from the ground up, co-develop with the hairiest design partners, and eventually use LLMs to recommend deal structures the way the best reps do without the Slack-channel chaos of deal desk.
We discuss:
* How to make guests instantly comfortable: rolling early, no “are you ready?”, temperature, lighting, and room dynamics
* Why Joubin refuses to send questions in advance (and when you might have to anyway)
* The origin of the CRO-only podcast: using media as a hiring wedge and relationship engine
* The “commit to 100 episodes” mindset: why most shows die before they find their voice
* Founder vs exec interviews: why CEOs can speak more freely (and what it unlocks in conversation)
* What Glean taught him about enterprise AI: permissions, trust, and overcoming “category is dead” skepticism
* Design partners as the real unlock: why early believers matter and how co-development actually works
* Windsurf’s breakout: what it means to be serious about “Google-class product + Salesforce-class distribution”
* Why technical founders struggle with GTM and how KP built a team around sales, customer access, and demand gen
* Hiring early sales leaders: anti-patterns (logos), what to screen for (motivation), and why stage-fit is everything
* The CPQ problem & Roadrunner’s thesis: rebuilding CPQ/quoting from the data model up for modern complexity
* How “rules + SKUs + approvals” create a brittle graph and what it takes to model it without tipping over
* The two-year window: incumbents rebuilding slowly vs startups out-sprinting with AI-native architecture
* Where AI actually helps: quote generation, policy enforcement, approval routing, and deal recommendation loops
—
Joubin
* X: https://x.com/Joubinmir
* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joubin-mirzadegan-66186854/
Where to find Latent Space
* X: https://x.com/latentspacepod
Full Video Episode
Timestamps
00:00:00 Introduction and the Zuck Interview Experience00:03:26 The Genesis of the Grit Podcast: Hiring CROs Through Content00:13:20 Podcast Philosophy: Creating Authentic Conversations00:15:44 Working with Arvind at Glean: The Enterprise Search Breakthrough00:26:20 Windsurf's Sales Machine: Google-Class Product Meets Salesforce-Class Distribution00:30:28 Hiring Sales Leaders: Anti-Patterns and First Principles00:39:02 The CPQ Problem: Why Salesforce and Legacy Tools Are Breaking00:43:40 Introducing Roadrunner: Solving Enterprise Pricing with AI00:49:19 Building Roadrunner: Team, Design Partners, and Data Model Challenges00:59:35 High Performance Philosophy: Working Out Every Day and Reducing Friction01:06:28 Defining Grit: Passion Plus Perseverance
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The Pull to Build: Joubin Mirzadegan on Grit and Starting Roadrunner
What does it take to go from advising founders to becoming one?
On this week’s special Reverse Grit episode, we flip the script and put our Grit podcast host Joubin Mirzadegan in the guest seat.
Joubin recently founded Roadrunner, where he is now co-founder & CEO. Roadrunner is building an AI‑native CPQ to modernize the quote‑to‑cash stack, drawing on years of conversations he’s had with enterprise revenue leaders.
Stepping into the host role, Mamoon Hamid joins Joubin to talk about his transition from sales leader to founder, how Roadrunner came together, and why it became our first incubation since Glean.
Roadrunner is hiring! Check them out: https://www.roadrunner.ai/
Guest: Joubin Mirzadegan, Partner, Kleiner Perkins
Connect with Mamoon
X
LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
X
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
20VC: Benchmark's Newest General Partner Ev Randle on Why Margins Matter Less in AI | Why Mega Funds Will Not Produce Good Returns | OpenAI vs Anthropic: What Happens and Who Wins Coding | Investing Lessons from Peter Thiel and Mamoon Hamid
Ev Randle is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the best funds in venture capital. In their latest fund, they have Mercor ($10BN valuation), Sierra ($10BN valuation), Firework ($4BN valuation), Legora ($2Bn valuation) and Langchain ($1.4Bn valuation). To put this in multiples on invested capital, that is a 60x, two 30x and two 20x. Before Benchmark, Ev was a Partner @ Kleiner Perkins and before Kleiner, Ev was an investor at Founders Fund and Bond.
AGENDA:
05:25 Biggest Investing Lessons from Peter Thiel, Mary Meeker and Mamoon Hamid
14:36 OpenAI Will Be a $TRN Company & OpenAI or Anthropic: Who Wins Coding?
22:27 Why We Should Not Focus on Margin But Gross Dollar Per Customer
30:25 Why AI Labs are the Biggest Threat to AI App Companies
44:26 Do Benchmark Fire Founders? If so… Truly the Best Partner?
54:38 People, Product, Market: Rank 1-3 and Why?
57:36 Why the Mega Funds Have Just Replaced Tiger
01:04:08 GC, Lightspeed and a16z Cannot Do 5x on Their Funds…
01:14:09 Single Biggest Threat to Benchmark
20VC Exclusive: Why Mega Platforms Will Win in VC | Why You Cannot Do VC If You Do Not Do Pre-Seed | Why Market Sizing is BS | Where Will Foundation Models Build/Buy Apps vs Where Will They Not with Bucky Moore
Bucky Moore is a Partner @ Lightspeed Venture Partners, announced exclusively in the show today on 20VC. Prior to Lightspeed, Bucky spent an incredibly successful 7 years at Kleiner Perkins working with Mamoon Hamid to build one of the most successful early stage firms of the last decade. Bucky has made investments in the likes of Prisma, Netlify, Browserbase and more.
In Today's Episode We Discuss:
03:07 Big News: Joining Lightspeed Venture Partners
04:09 Why Mega Platforms Will Win the Next 10 Years of VC
09:33 Are Foundation Model Companies Good Venture Investments
16:04 What Applications Will Model Providers Buy/Build? What Will They Not?
22:03 How to Approach Price Sensitivity in a World of AI
28:25 Why is it BS to do Market Sizing When Making Investments in AI
34:03 Is the Future of VC Domain Specialization
38:38 How to Know What Company Wins in Super Competitive Markets
41:06 Why Every Firm Has to do Pre-Seed To Win in VC Today?
44:43 The Risks of Multi-Stage Investing: Is Signalling Risk Real?
48:53 Investing Lessons from Leading Rounds in Glean and Windsurf
56:54 Quick Fire Round: Lessons from Mamoon, Fave CEO, Next 10 Years
#231 CEO & Co-Founder Harvey, Winston Weinberg w/ Ilya Fushman: Worthy Sacrifices
Guests: Winston Weinberg, CEO & co-founder of Harvey; and Ilya Fushman, partner at Kleiner Perkins
“If you think about pretty much any job out there in the world, we will have some sort of [AI] copilot,” says Kleiner Perkins partner Ilya Fushman. “The question is, who are the right folks to build it, and what’s their vision?”
For Harvey CEO & co-founder Winston Weinberg, the vision is clear: Silicon Valley cannot and should not try to disrupt the legal profession by automating the job of lawyers. Instead, he says, they need to have “respect for the industry” before designing AI solutions that speed up specific tasks.
“These industries are incredibly complex,” Winston says. “Legal is one of the oldest professions known to man. There are firms that are over a hundred years old. There are firms that are hundreds of years old, and having a brand that says, ‘We are partnering with the industry to transform it’ versus ‘We are just going to steamroll the industry’ is really important for us.”
Chapters:
(01:16) - The zeitgeist switch
(02:58) - What is Harvey?
(06:10) - Chief Law Officers
(07:58) - Agentic workflows
(09:43) - Ilya’s investment thesis
(12:48) - Collaborating with AI
(16:05) - Task automation
(20:52) - Why is it called Harvey?
(23:14) - Respecting the legal industry
(26:43) - Winston’s past jobs
(28:47) - First steps
(32:13) - Scaling the company
(35:02) - Scaling yourself
(37:19) - Who works for Harvey
(40:50) - Making mistakes
(43:15) - Making sacrifices
(45:51) - Growing too fast
(50:50) - Setting priorities
(54:54) - Harvey’s competitors
(57:38) - Internal virality
(01:00:46) - Testing Harvey’s limits
(01:03:29) - Who Harvey is hiring
(01:04:01) - What “grit” means to Winston
Mentioned in this episode: ChatGPT, the Fortune 500, Microsoft Copilot, Gabe Pereyra, Activision, Excel, Counsel AI Corporation, Suits, Harvard University, Netflix, Dell, O'Melveny & Myers, Hueston Hennigan, Meta, Reddit, Jason Kwon, Anthropic, Marissa Mayer, Eric Schmidt, Google, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Glean.
Links:
Connect with Winston
Twitter
LinkedIn
Connect with Ilya
Twitter
LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
#229 Former CEO Activision Blizzard, Bobby Kotick w/ Bing Gordon: Change the Game
Guest: Bobby Kotick, former CEO of Activision Blizzard; and Bing Gordon, Advisor at Kleiner Perkins
In 2020, when President Trump signed the executive order that would ban TikTok in the U.S., Bobby Kotick called his old friend Steven Mnuchin. The former Secretary of the Treasury told him that, if TikTok’s U.S. operations were to be sold to an American company, Microsoft would be the only bidder.
A couple calls later, he reached ByteDance founder and CEO Zhang Yiming, who said he’d rather sell to Bobby than Microsoft. Concerned about his ability to get the deal done solo, Bobby called Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and offered to make a joint bid.
Nadella declined, but added, “ if the deal doesn't get done, we should sit down and talk about us buying Activision.” TikTok currently remains Chinese-owned, but three years later, Microsoft paid $75 billion for Activision Blizzard.
Chapters:
(01:16) - Forming Activision Blizzard
(04:19) - Good acquisitions
(09:21) - Electronic Arts and “Schedule C”
(15:08) - Nintendo and Mediagenic
(21:19) - Steve Wynn
(29:24) - Wynn cashes out
(35:14) - Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater
(40:38) - Blizzard’s many sales
(44:44) - World of Warcraft and Call of Duty
(47:59) - Jurassic Park
(50:40) - Chris Metzen
(55:06) - David Geffen
(58:11) - New competitors
(01:02:25) - The harassment lawsuits
(01:06:53) - Trying to buy TikTok
(01:08:51) - Hardware design
(01:12:52) - Polymarket, Donald Trump, and TikTok
(01:15:19) - The Call of Duty Endowment
(01:18:31) - Brian Stann and Hire Heroes USA
(01:21:49) - Steve Jobs and Pixar
(01:29:41) - The first Macintosh
(01:31:29) - The Wii demo
(01:33:42) - Nintendo 64, PlayStation and VR
(01:37:35) - The hardest year
(01:40:17) - Working with Brian Kelly
(01:41:26) - Satya Nadella and Microsoft
(01:44:39) - Xbox Game Pass
(01:49:35) - What “grit” means to Bobby
Mentioned in this episode: Vivendi, Bruce Hack and Arnaud de Puyfontaine, EA, Call of Duty, Bizarre Creations, Atari, Apple II, Commodore 64, Jean-Louis Gassée, Apple Lisa, Howard Lincoln, Philips, Magnavox Odyssey, Sutter Hill Ventures, Infocom and Zork, Toys-R-Us, Howard Hughes, E. Parry Thomas, Sun Valley, Thom Weisel, William Morris Endeavor, Guitar Hero, Davidson & Associates, Michael Morhaime, Allen Adham, World of Warcraft, Medal of Honor, Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, Chris Roberts, Overwatch, Tencent, Time Warner, Jeff Bewkes, Sheryl Sandberg, Lean In, Lina Khan, Samsung, Elon Musk, James L. Jones, UFC, E. Floyd Kvamme, Toy Story 2, Procter & Gamble, Ron Doornik, John Lasseter, Xerox PARC, Shigeru Miyamoto, Satoru Iwata, Goldeneye 007, James Bond, Barbara Broccoli, Oculus, Apple Vision Pro, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Sam Altman, Mustafa Suleyman, Spotify, Candy Crush Saga, Disney, Phil Spencer, Clarence Avant and Motown Records.
Links:
Connect with Bobby
Twitter
LinkedIn
Connect with Bing
Twitter
LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
#217 CEO & Co-Founder Codeium, Varun Mohan w/ Leigh Marie Braswell: Limitless
Guests: Varun Mohan, CEO & Co-Founder of Codeium; and Leigh Marie Braswell, partner at Kleiner Perkins
“A lot of people are really bad at knowing what good is,” says Codeium CEO Varun Mohan. Specifically, he’s thinking of startups that hire based on a “logo” — a well-known company on the résumé — rather than exceptional talent. Codeium is based in Mountain View, CA, and Varun believes that it’s incumbent on any new startup to hire in the San Francisco Bay Area, because of how exceptional talent is concentrated there.
“When you hire someone that’s 10x better,” he says, “you can’t replace them with 10 1x people. Because the the 10x person is going to be thinking of ideas that none of these 1x people are ever going to think of.”
Chapters:
(01:05) - Ludicrous growth
(03:54) - Seizing opportunity
(07:29) - Product-market fit
(13:05) - Scale AI & MIT
(17:42) - Coding efficiency
(22:58) - Larger companies
(25:20) - Varun and Leigh Marie’s working relationship
(29:51) - Pivoting to Codeium
(34:00) - Giving away the product
(37:01) - The code-gen landscape
(42:20) - Annual reinvention
(45:00) - Picking a problem
(47:07) - Bipul Sinha’s help
(50:43) - Ambition
(53:13) - Building in Silicon Valley
(55:11) - Spotting talent
(59:11) - Who Codeium is hiring
(59:43) - What “grit” means to Varun
Mentioned in this episode: Graham Moreno, Wiz, ChatGPT, Google, Nuro, Goldman Sachs, Waymo, the DARPA Challenge, Alex Wang, Douglas Chen, Safeway, Equinox, Carlos Delatorre and MongoDB, The Qualified Sales Leader by John McMahon, GitHub Copilot, Microsoft, Exafunction, Mamoon Hamid, Figma, JPMorgan Chase, Starlink, SpaceX, Rubrik, Michael Dell, Stripe, and John Doerr.
Links:
Connect with Varun
LinkedIn
Twitter
Connect with Leigh Marie
LinkedIn
Twitter
Connect with Joubin
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
#213 CEO & Co-Founder Loom Joe Thomas w/ Ilya Fushman: After the Exit
Guests: Joe Thomas, CEO and co-founder of Loom; and Ilya Fushman, partner at Kleiner Perkins
Loom CEO Joe Thomas had a lot of things to think about before he sold his company to Atlassian for $975 million: The impact an acquisition might have on the product, how to keep the Loom brand alive, the risk of remaining independent... but it wasn’t until after the deal was announced that he really understood what it meant for his team.
“I didn't know how emotional it'd be for me,” Joe says. “All of the Loom employees, current and former, that reached out when this was announced, they did their calculation and they're like, ‘Oh my God.’ That, to me, was the most emotionally transformative part of the process. I didn't fully recognize what that would be like, on the individual front.”
Chapters:
(01:34) - The Atlassian acquisition
(05:25) - The bittersweet moment
(08:15) - Transforming Loom
(13:30) - Ilya’s perspective
(18:04) - Life-changing
(22:55) - Doing it again
(25:00) - Loom’s early days
(28:26) - The Series A
(32:33) - Turning on monetization
(35:37) - The Series B
(37:05) - Loom AI
(43:13) - Revenue orientation
(48:18) - The acquisition landscape
(52:27) - Working inside Atlassian
(54:04) - Atlanta tech
(55:00) - Who Atlassian is hiring
(55:24) - What “grit” means to Joe
Mentioned in this episode: Wilson Sonsini, Vinay Hiremath, Andrew Reed and Sequoia Capital, Zoom, Mike Cannon-Brookes, Shahed Khan, COTU Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Scott Farquhar, the Lindy Effect, SVB, Google Chrome, Dropbox, Slack, Snapchat, HubSpot, the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter, Dylan Field and Figma, Atlassian Rovo, Palo Alto Networks, Salesforce, and Garrett Langley and Flock Safety.
Links:
Connect with Joe
LinkedIn
Twitter
Connect with Ilya
Twitter
LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on Investing Lessons from Leading Rounds in Figma, Slack and Rippling | Lessons Building a Generational Defining Firm with Kleiner Perkins | AI: Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws
Mamoon Hamid is a General Partner @ Kleiner Perkins and one of the greatest venture investors of our time. In the past, Mamoon has led rounds in Figma, Slack, Rippling, Intercom, Glean and Box. Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, Mamoon was a Co-Founder of Social Capital, and prior to that a Partner at U.S. Venture Partners (USVP).
In Today's Episode with Mamoon Hamid We Discuss:
1. The Greatest Venture Deal of All Time: Figma or Slack:
What is Mamoon's highest returning deal?
What did Mamoon see in Dylan and Figma when they had no revenue and very little user data?
What compelled Mamoon to write Stewart the check with Slack? What did he not see with Slack that he should have seen?
2. Taking Control of the Great Brand in Venture: Kleiner Perkins:
Is it true that Kleiner approached Mamoon and gave him the keys to the Kleiner kingdom? How did it go down?
Will Kleiner go back to having multiple products, large growth funds, international funds? What does Mamoon want Kleiner to be in 5 years?
What was the hardest element of the transition into Kleiner? What did Mamoon not know that he wishes he had known?
3. Becoming a Generational Defining Investor:
Market, founder, product, how does Mamoon rank them 1-3?
How has Mamoon changed most significantly as an investor?
What does he know now that he wishes he had known when he became a VC 19 years ago?
What is his biggest loss? How did it shape his mindset and go forward investing approach?
4. AI Supercycle: The Greatest Time to Invest
Where does Mamoon believe the value will accrue in this wave of AI?
Where are many investors spending a lot of time but Mamoon believes is not worthy of that time?
Will scaling laws continue?
Have we ever seen an incumbent set spend like this incumbent class? How does that change the game for VCs?
#210 CEO & Co-Founder Huntress Kyle Hanslovan w/ Ev Randle: Deep Roots
Guest: Kyle Hanslovan, CEO & co-founder of Huntress; and Ev Randle, partner at Kleiner Perkins
Talk is cheap, says Huntress CEO Kyle Hanslovan: “I learned real early on that integrity is like one of the very few things, if not the only thing, you can't buy.” En route to Huntress’ current status as a $1.5 billion firm with $100 million in ARR, he took a long time to hire new execs, or partner with VC firms.
Indeed, Kleiner Perkins partner Ev Randle recalls the deliberation Hanslovan underwent before signing KP’s term sheet. “It's pretty rare for a founder's diligence process on you to increase your conviction on them and the business that they're building,” he says. “You just saw that the effort extended across to so many different places and so many details that it's typically not.”
Chapters:
(01:03) - Learning how things work
(03:31) - Default trusting
(05:07) - Over-sharing
(10:50) - Kyle’s leadership style
(15:44) - Hiring for conflict
(19:24) - Scaling execs
(22:52) - Evaluating VCs
(28:55) - Pattern-matching
(32:13) - Why Huntress is worth $1.5 billion
(38:34) - Kyle’s childhood and early career
(42:00) - The 99 percent
(47:49) - Bootstrapping
(51:14) - Deep roots
(57:47) - Customer love
(01:01:14) - “Nothing will stop us”
(01:05:50) - Who Huntress is hiring
(01:07:22) - What “grit” means to Kyle
Mentioned in this episode: Sony, Sam Altman, Nike, Elad Gil and High Growth Handbook, Kim Scott and Radical Candor, JMI Equity, Vinod Khosla, Todd Park, Capterra, Reddit, FUBU, Rippling, the NSA, QuickBooks, Amazon AWS, and South Park.
Links:
Connect with Kyle
Twitter
LinkedIn
Connect with Ev
Twitter
LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
#200 CEO & Co-Founder Together AI, Vipul Ved Prakash w/ Bucky Moore: Super Cycle
Guests: Vipul Ved Prakash, CEO and co-founder of Together AI; and Bucky Moore, partner at Kleiner Perkins
No one knows for sure whether the future of AI will be driven more by research labs and AI-native companies, or by enterprises applying the technology to their own data sets. But one thing is for sure, says Together AI CEO and co-founder Vipul Ved Prakash: It’s going to be a lot bigger. “If you look at the next 10 years or the next 20 years, we are doing maybe 0.1 percent of [the] AI that we’ll be doing 10 years from now.”
In this episode, Vipul, Bucky, and Joubin discuss startup table stakes, Tri Dao, tentpole features, open-source AI, non-financial investors, Meta Llama, deep learning researchers, WeWork, “Attention is All You Need,” create vs. capture, Databricks, Docker, scaling laws, Ilya Sutskever, IRC, and Jordan Ritter and Napster.
Chapters:
(00:53) - Executive hiring
(04:40) - How Vipul and Bucky met
(06:54) - Six years at Apple
(08:19) - Together and the AI landscape
(12:47) - Apple’s deal with OpenAI
(14:27) - Open vs. closed AI
(17:32) - Nvidia GPUs and capital expenditures
(22:48) - Fame and reputation
(24:17) - Planning for an uncertain future
(27:00) - Stress and attention
(30:18) - AI research
(34:58) - Challenges for AI businesses
(39:02) - Frequent disagreements
(43:05) - Vipul’s first startups, Cloudmark and Topsy
(47:55) - Taking time off
(50:09) - The crypto-AI connection
(53:20) - Who Together AI is hiring
(54:37) - What “grit” means to Vipul
Links:
Connect with Vipul
Twitter
LinkedIn
Connect with Bucky
Twitter
LinkedIn
Connect with Joubin
Twitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
#188 CEO & Co-Founder Synthesia, Victor Riparbelli w/ Josh Coyne: Gorilla in the Room
Guests: Victor Riparbelli, CEO and co-founder of Synthesia; and Josh Coyne, partner at Kleiner Perkins
When Victor Riparbelli wants to learn something, he’ll start with a YouTube video or a podcast: “I maybe buy the book on Amazon as like the fifth step,” the Synthesia CEO says. His company is trying to change the text-first (or text-only) way information is conveyed at work, making AI avatar-narrated videos to replace documents like customer profiles and HR manuals. Victor says that as the technology improves over many years, it could replace text entirely. “I think for most people, if they had a choice, they would probably prefer to watch video and listen to audio.”
In this episode, Victor, Josh, and Joubin discuss Seedcamp, Annie Case, Rubik’s Cubes, AI video dubbing, Instagram filters, emotive avatars, Ilya Fushman, Atlassian, Grammarly, the Gutenberg Parenthesis, European startups, email responsiveness, acqui-hires, and being “lonely at the top.”
Chapters:
(01:33) - Loose screws
(02:45) - How Victor and Josh met
(04:35) - AI hype cycles
(06:57) - What Synthesia does
(08:22) - Copycats and competition
(14:34) - Winner take all
(16:38) - Synthesia’s origin story
(21:36) - Category creation
(23:41) - The next era of AI video
(28:51) - The uncanny valley
(30:07) - Watching videos at work
(33:17) - Scaling video and audio content
(37:45) - Emailing with Mark Cuban
(45:15) - Battle scars
(48:47) - Customer obsession
(50:54) - Pressure to succeed
(54:41) - Deep passion
(57:16) - Who Synthesia is hiring
Links:
Connect with VictorTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoshTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
Kleiner Perkins and Penn’s Endowment on India, loss ratios, and the rise of secondaries | E1919
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*
Todays show:
David Weisburd hosts Mamoon Hamid, Thomas Scriven, and Jason Calacanis to discuss India’s startup ecosystem (2:36), Carta’s 2018 startup class data (25:45), IPOs in the tech industry (41:18), and much more!
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Timestamps:
(0:00) David Weisburd intros Mamoon Hamid, Thomas Scriven, and Jason Calacanis
(2:36) India’s startup ecosystem
(8:16) Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at http://www.vanta.com/twist
(9:08) Traction and support for Indian startups
(17:29) Sovereign wealth funds and their place in the ecosystem today
(24:15) DevSquad - Get an entire product team for the cost of one US developer plus 10% off at http://devsquad.com/twist
(25:45) Deep dive into Carta’s 2018 startup class data, loss ratios, and investment strategies
(40:04) Gelt. It’s time to take control over your taxes. Visit https://joingelt.com/twist now.
(41:18) The future of M&A and IPOs in the tech industry
(49:51) The rise of the secondary market
(1:07:09) Rapid-fire segment on recent investments
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Mentioned on the show:
https://www.harvey.ai
https://codeium.com
https://www.ambiencehealthcare.com
https://www.glean.com
https://tolt.io
https://www.argyle.build
https://www.podengine.ai
*
Follow Mamoon:
X: https://twitter.com/mamoonha
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mamoonha
Check out: https://www.kleinerperkins.com/
*
Follow Thomas:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thomas-scriven-435281/
*
Follow David:
X: https://twitter.com/DWeisburd
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dweisburd
Check out: https://10xcapital.com
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Follow Jason:
X: https://twitter.com/jason
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#170 Chairman of Kleiner Perkins, John Doerr: Getting Into Trouble with Disruptors (Encore)
Guest: John Doerr, chairman of Kleiner Perkins
After Kleiner Perkins chairman John Doerr first invested in Google — $12.8 million for 13 percent of the company — he told co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin that they needed to hire a CEO to help them build the business. After they took meetings with a variety of successful tech execs, they came back to Doerr and told him “We’ve got some good news and some bad news.” The good news was that they agreed on the need for a CEO; the bad news, Doerr recalls, is that they believed there was only one person qualified for the role: The then-CEO of Pixar and interim CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs.
In this encore presentation of the 100th episode of Grit, John and Joubin discuss the urgent need to act on the climate crisis, getting turned down by Kleiner Perkins, CEOs as sales leaders, the microprocessor revolution, balancing between work and family, the opportunity of AI and sustainability, what makes Jeff Bezos special, Bing Gordon and the invention of Amazon Prime, the Google CEO search, how the iPhone nearly killed Apple, Steve Jobs’ greatest gift, Bill Gates’ philanthropy, and how Doerr divides his time.
In this episode, we cover:
John’s two books — Measure What Matters and Speed & Scale — and applying OKRs to the climate crisis (02:39)
How John got to Silicon Valley and what he learned from his entrepreneurial father, Lou (08:55)
“I didn’t want to be in venture capital” (16:27)
Joining Kleiner Perkins at the dawn of personal computing (20:03)
The internet, cloud computing, smartphones, and the next big tech wave: AI (24:41)
How John met Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (29:46)
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and teaming up with Mike Moritz from Sequoia (38:26)
John’s friendship with Steve Jobs and the creation of the $100 million iFund for iPhone apps (45:12)
“Family first” and setting personal OKRs (50:10)
Working with Bill Gates outside of Kleiner Perkins (52:51)
Brian Roberts, Comcast, and hustling to make at-home broadband nationwide (59:28)
Links:
Connect with JohnTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
#168 CEO & Founder Glean, Arvind Jain w/ Mamoon Hamid: New Playbook
Guest: Arvind Jain, Founder and CEO of Glean, and Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins
“I’m an engineer, so I have doubts about everything,” says Glean founder and CEO Arvind Jain. Well ... almost everything. Since launching Glean in 2019, he has held to the belief that “all of us are going to have really powerful AI assistants” in the future. With a several-year lead on generative AI tools like ChatGPT, Glean has built a growing club of CIO fans. With the broad acceptance of AI over the past year, Arvind says, “the level of confidence is higher than ever before.”
In this episode, Arvind, Mamoon, and Joubin discuss golfer hats, ideas vs. execution, X1, energy audits, small towns in India, IIT, proving yourself, Rubrik, rejecting product-led growth, “workplace assistants,” CIO fans, internet ’94, Parker Conrad, and work as a hobby.
In this episode, we cover:
Arvind’s newfound fame (01:08)
The state of the AI business (03:42)
“Why now?” (06:05)
Building great products (09:16)
Company-building (11:27)
Arvind’s childhood (14:37)
Competition and hard work (16:44)
Leaving Google (18:46)
Glean vs. Rubrik (20:53)
The future of work (27:22)
“Holy shit” moments (29:25)
Finding positivity (32:51)
AI hype (34:31)
How to pick a venture capitalist (38:55)
Turning off (42:24)
Hiring and the meaning of “grit” (44:41)
Links:
Connect with ArvindLinkedIn
Connect with MamoonTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
#162 CEO & Co-Founder Rippling, Parker Conrad w/ Mamoon Hamid: Compounding
Guests: Parker Conrad, CEO of Rippling, and Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins
How long did it take for Parker Conrad to stop wanting revenge? “I’ll let you know when it switches over,” the Rippling CEO and co-founder jokes. He resigned from his last company, the buzzy HR unicorn Zenefits, in 2016 and then quickly realized that the company’s new leaders would never return it to its former glory. He still loved the problems he had been trying to solve, and launched Rippling because “there was an opportunity there, [and] if it works ... it’s going to be fundamentally and foundationally better as a product.” It worked. As of March, Rippling has been valued at more than $11 billion, more than double Zenefits’ peak.
In this episode, Parker, Mamoon, and Joubin discuss what happened at Zenefits, avoiding press coverage, FOMO and expectations, Paul Graham, fixing corporate insurance, Ryan Peterson’s “revenge portfolio,” CEO coaches, Mike Vernal, approving expenses, anecdata, and the Costco of SaaS.
In this episode, we cover:
How Parker and Mamoon met (00:56)
The Zenefits Series B (06:29)
“Stuck in a nightmare” (09:20)
Entrepreneurship is “soul-destroying” (12:46)
Parker’s first company, SigFig (17:17)
Starting a company for the right reasons (21:02)
Starting over after Zenefits (27:06)
Avenging Zenefits (31:57)
Rippling’s unusual Series A (38:40)
What it does well (43:13)
“Go and see” (46:35)
The compound startup (51:44)
Who Rippling is hiring and what “grit” means to Parker (01:00:39)
Links:
Connect with ParkerTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
#150 CEO Box, Aaron Levie w/ Mamoon Hamid: Open For Business
Guest: Aaron Levie, CEO of Box, and Mamoon Hamid, partner at Kleiner Perkins
When he was a newly minted venture capitalist at USVP, Mamoon Hamid got a tip that he should meet a young entrepreneur named Aaron Levie, and fought for the right to invest in his cloud storage startup, Box. For years after that initial investment, the two men say, Box’s fate was precarious: “We could have died any day,” Mamoon says, and Aaron recalled several times he had to be talked “down from a ledge.” Today, they tell us how Box established itself as “open for business” — a concept Mamoon hounded Aaron with in the early years — and grew into success.
In this episode, Aaron, Mamoon, and Joubin discuss Box socks, authenticity at work, Josh Stein, living in the office, over-diligence, Google Platypus, the 2008 crash, nostalgia, everything is personal, the ten-person test, burnout, Dan Levin, ChatGPT, Parker Conrad, and Silicon Valley as “technology town.”
In this episode, we cover:
“Make mom proud, unless she’s evil” (01:59)
How Mamoon and Aaron met (04:38)
Mamoon’s first investment in Box (11:15)
Pausing the term sheet (16:08)
“We could have died any day” (19:01)
What is company-building? (23:23)
Open For Business (25:27)
Getting to cash flow positive (27:52)
Slow growth with no burn vs. fast growth, high burn (31:15)
Tough feedback (34:31)
Overcoming challenges around the Box IPO (36:31)
Growing as CEO (38:35)
The Apple Vision Pro and AI (44:15)
Investing in cutting-edge companies (49:15)
Using AI to re-juice growth (51:48)
How Aaron educates himself (54:22)
Business as a sport (57:14)
Who Box is hiring and what “grit” means to Aaron (01:00:44)
Links:
Connect with AaronTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with MamoonTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
#100 Chairman of Kleiner Perkins, John Doerr: Getting Into Trouble with Disruptors
After Kleiner Perkins chairman John Doerr first invested in Google — $12.8 million for 13 percent of the company — he told co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin that they needed to hire a CEO to help them build the business. After they took meetings with a variety of successful tech execs, they came back to Doerr and told him “We’ve got some good news and some bad news.” The good news was that they agreed on the need for a CEO; the bad news, Doerr recalls, is that they believed there was only one person qualified for the role: The then-CEO of Pixar and interim CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs.
In the 100th episode of Grit, John and Joubin discuss the urgent need to act on the climate crisis, getting turned down by Kleiner Perkins, CEOs as sales leaders, the microprocessor revolution, balancing between work and family, the opportunity of AI and sustainability, what makes Jeff Bezos special, Bing Gordon and the invention of Amazon Prime, the Google CEO search, how the iPhone nearly killed Apple, Steve Jobs’ greatest gift, Bill Gates’ philanthropy, and how Doerr divides his time.
In this episode, we cover:
John’s two books — Measure What Matters and Speed & Scale — and applying OKRs to the climate crisis (02:45)
How John got to Silicon Valley and what he learned from his entrepreneurial father, Lou (09:00)
“I didn’t want to be in venture capital” (16:28)
Joining Kleiner Perkins at the dawn of personal computing (20:05)
The internet, cloud computing, smartphones, and the next big tech wave: AI (24:53)
How John met Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (29:48)
Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and teaming up with Mike Moritz from Sequoia (38:29)
John’s friendship with Steve Jobs and the creation of the $100 million iFund for iPhone apps (45:20)
“Family first” and setting personal OKRs (50:14)
Working with Bill Gates outside of Kleiner Perkins (52:53)
Brian Roberts, Comcast, and hustling to make at-home broadband nationwide (59:30)
Links:
Connect with JohnTwitter
LinkedIn
Connect with JoubinTwitter
LinkedIn
Email: grit@kleinerperkins.com
Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
Rapid Response: How to decarbonize your business, w/John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins
“Go for the megatons.” That’s John Doerr’s recommendation for how we need to combat the existential threat of climate change. Doerr, a venture capitalist and author of the new book Speed and Scale, joins host Bob Safian to discuss our decarbonization efforts, what he calls “the greatest economic opportunity of the next century.” The book quantifies the specific societal needs, in six discrete areas, to achieve a carbon-neutral world. John isn’t arguing that we all need to be vegan ascetics, but rather, the need for collective action – and the critical role that business plays in advancing that movement.
Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com
Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins with Ryan Panchadsaram + VC Sunday School: cap table management | E1379
John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins joins to discuss his lessons from a career of investing and his new book "Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now," alongside his co-author Ryan Panchadsaram.
But first, Jason gives a 10-minute crash course on how to navigate messy cap tables in our latest VC Sunday School segment (1:54).
Then John and Ryan join Molly and Jason for a conversation (15:11). In this episode, you will learn:
1. The six objectives and four accelerants to reach zero emissions by 2050
2. Why Nuclear power is an important part of the plan, but cannot be the only solution
3. The biggest blockers to rapid climate progress and why "the climate crisis is under-hyped"
4. Hard-won lessons from funding solar companies
5. How John assesses founders and develops conviction to invest
6. Indications John saw that Jeff Bezos was an exceptional entrepreneur
7. Where investors should focus to drive the biggest output
(0:00) Jason and Molly intro the show, John Doerr, saving the climate and cap tables
(01:54) VC Sunday School - When is a Cap table too messy?
(07:29) Why VCs want founders to maintain more than 50% equity in the seed round
(10:02) Odoo - Get your first app free and a $1000 credit at https://odoo.com/twist
(11:08) What are the metrics for a red flag?
(15:11) Interview - John Doerr and Ryan Panchadsaram, on the path to zero emissions
(20:44) Bubble. Get one month free of a no-code plan at https://bubble.io/twist
(22:17) Six objectives to reach zero emissions
(30:22) The four accelerants needed to cut emissions in half by 2030 and hit the target by 2050
(31:28) Revelo - Get 20% off the first 3 months by mentioning TWIST at https://revelo.io/twist
(32:56) Where investors can focus to drive the biggest change, why the time for "individual action has passed" and we need collective action
(35:22) Why Nuclear power is an important part of the plan, but will not be deployed in time
(42:06) Identifying the biggest blockers to rapid progress
(47:37) Lessons from funding solar companies, why they require more capital and more intellectual rigor
(51:32) How Kleiner's early climate investment portfolio performed
(54:40) How Jason came to own the Roadster that KP Partner Ray Lane had ordered
(56:29) How Kleiner invests in Beyond Meat
(58:16) How John assesses founders and develops conviction to invest
(1:03:52) John spending time with Jeff Bezos, how Jeff actually knew how to pull his own revenue numbers with a UNIX grep command
(1:07:49) Why John thinks the Climate Crisis is under-hyped
(1:16:13) Where should investors focus?
Read Speed & Scale: https://speedandscale.com
FOLLOW John: https://twitter.com/johndoerr
FOLLOW Ryan: https://twitter.com/rypan
FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis
FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood
Rapid Response: How to decarbonize your business, w/John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins
“Go for the megatons.” That’s John Doerr’s recommendation for how we need to combat the existential threat of climate change. Doerr, a venture capitalist and author of the new book Speed and Scale, joins host Bob Safian to discuss our decarbonization efforts, what he calls “the greatest economic opportunity of the next century.” The book quantifies the specific societal needs, in six discrete areas, to achieve a carbon-neutral world. John isn’t arguing that we all need to be vegan ascetics, but rather, the need for collective action – and the critical role that business plays in advancing that movement.
Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com
Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
20VC: John Doerr on Buying 12% of Google for $12M, His Biggest Investing Lesson from 30 Years in Venture & The Climate Crisis: Why Governments are The Biggest Problem and Where the Biggest Opportunities Are in Climate Investing?
John Doerr is an engineer, venture capitalist, the chairman of Kleiner Perkins, and the author of the #1 New York Times best-seller Measure What Matters. For over 40 years, John has helped build some of the most generational defining companies of our generation. He was an original investor and board member at Google and Amazon, helping to create more than a million jobs. A pioneer of Silicon Valley's cleantech movement, John has invested in zero emissions technologies since 2006. Check out his latest book, Speed & Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now.
In Today's Episode with John Doerr You Will Learn:
1.) What was John's entry into climate change investing? Having backed the likes of Amazon and Google, why did John decide then was the right time to do a climate fund, a pandemic fund, an iPhone fund? How does John think about market timing risk today? How does John determine between risks he is vs is not willing to take?
2.) What was one of John's biggest lessons on risk and upside from working alongside Tom Perkins? How did the Google deal come together? Where did John first meet Larry and Serge? What convinced John to write them a $12M check for 12% of the company? Why was it a contested deal within the partnership? How did the discussion go internally?
3.) Why and how is climate innovating and investing different today than it was in 2008? What are the core OKR's laid out in the book, that we need to achieve as a society? Why does John believe that governments are the biggest problem to us achieving these objectives? What does John mean when he says, "I am hopeful but not optimistic"?
4.) What does truly great listening mean to John? How would John describe his style of board membership? What do the truly special board members do? What does John do that makes him often cited as one of the best at recruiting? What is John's biggest investing miss? How did it change his mindset and approach? What investment is John most proud of, that no one knows?
Item's Mentioned In Today's Episode with John Doerr
John's Favourite Book: How to Avoid a Climate Disaster: The Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need
An action plan for solving the climate crisis | John Doerr and Ryan Panchadsaram
"How much more damage do we have to endure before we realize that it's cheaper to save this planet than to ruin it?" asks engineer and investor John Doerr. In conversation with Countdown cofounder Lindsay Levin, Doerr and systems innovator Ryan Panchadsaram lay out six big objectives that -- if pursued with speed and scale -- could transform society and get us to net-zero emissions by 2050. An action plan to solve the world's climate crisis, backed up by a proven system for setting goals for success.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
#543: Legendary Investor John Doerr on Picking Winners — From Google in 1999 to Solving the Climate Crisis Now
Legendary Investor John Doerr on Picking Winners — From Google in 1999 to Solving the Climate Crisis Now | Brought to you by ShipStation shipping software; Allform premium, modular furniture; and Athletic Greens all-in-one nutritional supplement. More on all three below.
John Doerr (@johndoerr) is an engineer, venture capitalist, the chair of Kleiner Perkins, and the author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Measure What Matters. His new book is Speed and Scale: An Action Plan for Solving Our Climate Crisis Now.
John was an original investor and board member at Google and Amazon, helping to create more than half a million jobs. A pioneer of Silicon Valley’s cleantech movement, John has invested in zero-emission technologies since 2006. He’s passionate about encouraging leaders to reimagine the future, from transforming healthcare to advancing applications of machine learning.
Outside Kleiner Perkins, John works with social entrepreneurs who are tackling systemic issues across climate, public health, and education.
Please enjoy!
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How to decarbonize the grid and electrify everything | John Doerr and Hal Harvey
"The good news is it's now clearly cheaper to save the planet than to ruin it," says engineer and investor John Doerr. "The bad news is: we are fast running out of time." In this conversation with climate policy expert Hal Harvey, the two sustainability leaders discuss why humanity has to act globally, at speed and at scale, to meet the staggering challenge of decarbonizing the global economy (which has only ever increased emissions throughout history) -- and share helpful examples of promising energy solutions from around the world.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on The Strategy Behind The New $600m "Back To The Future" Fund, The Truth To Price Sensitivity at Series A & Why Venture Team Building Is Like Basketball Team Building
Mamoon Hamid is a Partner @ Kleiner Perkins, one of Silicon Valley's most prestigious venture firms counting Google, Airbnb, Amazon, Spotify, Square and many more $Bn companies among their portfolio. As for Mamoon, he has invested in and served on the boards of some of the most innovative software companies of recent times including Box, Figma, Intercom, Netskope, Slack and Yammer. Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, Mamoon was a Co-Founder and General Partner at Social Capital and before that Mamoon was a Partner at U.S. Venture Partners (USVP), where he spent six years.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How did Mamoon make the transition from electrical engineer to VC and how did that translate to his role today as Partner @ KPCB?
2.) With Kleiner's new $600m early stage fund, Mamoon had a blank canvas, how does Mamoon think about portfolio construction from a bottom-up perspective? Why is that strategy optimal? How important does Mamoon believe it is for VCs to have a sector focus today? What does he mean when he says, "VCs need to have both majors and minors"?
3.) In today's heated early stage ecosystem, how does Mamoon analyse and reflect on his own price sensitivity? What deal has changed the way he thought about price and he either regrets not paying it or is thrilled he did pay it? How does Mamoon feel about the compressed fundraising timelines we are seeing today? Is this a concern?
4.) How does KPCB think about reserve allocation with the new $600m fund? How do they approach the opportunity cost of dollar deployment in terms of when to stop following on? How does the investment decision-making process change when comparing initial to reserve investment?
5.) Where does Mamoon believe that founders need the most help from their venture investors? Where does Mamoon see the commonalities in founders struggles to scale themselves with their role? What are the biggest mistakes Mamoon sees being made when initial traction has been hit and they start to scale? How can founders avoid these?
6.) How does Mamoon think about and address what it takes to build the most successful and efficient venture partnership? How does Mamoon compare this to a basketball team? Is venture really a team sport today? what are some of the biggest challenges in scaling venture firms over time?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Mamoon's Fave Book: Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio
Mamoon's Most Recent Investment: Viz.ai
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Mamoon on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
Why the secret to success is setting the right goals | John Doerr
Our leaders and institutions are failing us, but it's not always because they're bad or unethical, says venture capitalist John Doerr -- often, it's simply because they're leading us toward the wrong objectives. In this practical talk, Doerr shows us how we can get back on track with "Objectives and Key Results," or OKRs -- a goal-setting system that's been employed by the likes of Google, Intel and Bono to set and execute on audacious goals. Learn more about how setting the right goals can mean the difference between success and failure -- and how we can use OKRs to hold our leaders and ourselves accountable.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The future of media, commerce, and what the west can learn from China
Today I'm at Kleiner Perkins in San Francisco's South Park neighborhood to talk to Eugene Wei and Eric Feng.
Eugene Wei has worked at Oculus, Flipboard, Amazon and Hulu. He actually left Amazon in the mid-2000s to attend film school before jumping back into tech. He’s also a prolific writer on his blog, Remains of the Day.
Eric Feng is co-founder of Packagd and General Partner at Kleiner Perkins. He has previously worked at Microsoft, Flipboard and Hulu, where he and Eugene worked together.
Fun fact: Eugene actually married Eric! (Eugene was the officiant at his wedding).
In this episode we talk about:
The uniqueness of video as a medium of communication and the future of how video will be created and consumed. Eric and Eugene worked together at Hulu and they talk about the background to the recent trend of tech moving in on Hollywood's turf.
Creating tighter feedback loops when you're trying to learn something new or change your behavior. Eugene tells the story of adding after-market sensors to his golf clubs that give him all kinds of information on the speed and length of his swing. He calls it a swing coach on your phone and talks about how the trend of sensors and immediate feedback could be used to improve peoples' overall health, not just their short game.
As some of the most plugged-in individuals in tech these days, they also discuss some of the trends they've been seeing in the tech industry and make some predictions about what they expect to see in the future. They discuss changes in how young people communicate these days, how the Chinese tech industry is different from the West's and why they expect to see the shift to e-commerce from advertising continue.
We also discuss some of their favorite products including sensors you can stick on your golf clubs to give you pro-level stats, a tech-enabled meat smoker, and a way to solve the perennial 'baby with a stuffy nose' problem.
We’ll be back next week so be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Breaker, Overcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. Also, big thanks to our sponsors, GE Ventures, Rally Rd, and AngelList for their support. 😸
Quotes from This Episode
“Post-Google and post-Facebook there was this huge shift to ad-supported monetization for everything. The entire world had moved to ads and that was the only way that you could build a company… but that pendulum has swung really far back over, because of this new paradigm shift of people being comfortable with e-commerce and now mobile facilitating that more. Commerce is now a much more interesting monetization model for startups than advertising.” — Eric
“VR/AR, if you lump it in with self-driving cars, cryptocurrency, generalized artificial intelligence, all of these things are going to take longer than people expect, and that’s fine. They’re going to require a lot of big hardware advances, finding the right use cases, all of that is just going to be slower. But they’re all going to change the world in huge ways.” — Eugene
“Take for example the shirt I’m wearing. It got made in some textile factory, the distribution was through a retail store, I paid in cash in-person and then I put it on. But in the era of technology two of those things have really fundamentally changed — the way it’s distributed and the way I purchase it. Now I buy it online and it’s sent to my home. But the way it’s created and the way it’s used are still the same, I’m still wearing it one sleeve at a time.” — Eric
“The history of Hollywood is one where the studios went from really being vertically integrated to just being financiers and marketers. The thing about SV vs Hollywood is that SV tech companies have a lot more cash than all the studios put together. They’re a lot more profitable because of all their other businesses.” — Eugene
Companies and Products Mentioned in This Episode
Blast — Sensors for sport.
Hulu — Live and on-demand TV.
Mindie (RIP) – 7-second music videos
Nosefrida — Stuffy nose solution for babies.
Reflect — AI-powered face swap.
Sandbox VR — In-person, social VR experiences.
Tik Tok — Creative music video clip maker.
Traeger — Tech-enabled smokers.
20VC: What John Doerr Taught Me About Great Investing, Why Not All A Rounds Are Post-Traction and Why Despite Overfunding, There Is Still Gaps In Venture Financing with Trae Vassallo, Founding Partner @ Defy.vc
Trae Vassallo is the Co-Founder and Managing Director @ Defy.VC, one of Silicon Valley's newest and most exciting Series A funds with the announcement of their debut $151m fund in Sept 2017. Prior to co-founding Defy, Trae was a general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers where she invested in a number of leading companies including eero, Nest Labs, Dropcam, Aggregate Knowledge, and Opower. Before Kleiner, Trae founded Kleiner portfolio company, Good Technology which was ultimately acquired by Blackberry in 2015 for $425m. Trae is also the co-author of the incredible study, "Elephant in the Valley", highlighting the underlying data around the experiences of women in technology.
In Today's Episode You Will Learn:
1.) How Trae made her way into the world of VC and Silicon Valley with a cold reach out to John Doerr and how that led to a role with Kleiner Perkins?
2.) What were Trae's biggest learnings from having John Doerr on her board, as a first-time founder? What were some of the most memorable moments working with him? What was it about him that made him such a special board member? What was the moment that Trae realized what type of board member she is?
3.) What does Trae mean when she says "Kleiner taught me what a great investment looks like"? How does that affect her investing philosophy today? How did Trae's investing learnings differ between John Doerr, Vinod Khosla, and Kevin Compton?
4.) Why does Trae believe that the venture industry is simply "overfunded"? If so, what was her reasoning for the founding of Defy? How does Trae see the expansion of multi-stage funds as presenting a market opportunity? Why are the larger players no longer incentivized to play at the Series A stage?
5.) How did Trae find the fundraising process? What were some of the core challenges in terms of the raise itself? Were there commonalities in the pushbacks that LPs had for Defy? How did Neil and Trae respond to the first time team question? How does Trae think about the infrastructure element of funds? Can it all be outsourced?
Items Mentioned In Today's Show:
Trae's Fave Book: Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys' Club of Silicon Valley
Trae's Most Recent Investment: Owl Car Cam: The First Security Camera For Your Car
As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Trae on Twitter here!
Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.
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Recode Decode: John Doerr
John Doerr, the chairman of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, talks with Recode's Kara Swisher and Teddy Schleifer about his new book, "Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs." Doerr credits two mentors, Andy Grove and Bill Campbell, with turning him on to that leadership strategy, which is short for Objectives and Key Results — or, in other words, communicating what you want to accomplish and how. Setting clear objectives and making them transparent to your entire company can help tech leaders succeed, but CEOs who don't commit or who build a cult of personality around themselves can put their businesses in jeopardy. Doerr also talks about the state of diversity in Silicon Valley, what he learned from the Ellen Pao trial and whether tech companies are taking privacy more seriously in the aftermath of the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal.
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