
In this episode, Maxim and Pavel of FinSight Ventures explain their "secondary‑first" approach, using secondary market purchases from employees and liquidity‑seeking funds to secure stakes in high‑growth companies like Anthropic, SpaceX, Stripe and Palantir, and they unveil a $50 million Generative AI Index Fund that applies index‑style investing to private markets. They contrast their US secondary strategy with a fund‑of‑funds model for India and a focus on "local monopolies" and super‑apps in emerging markets such as Uzbekistan, highlighting how AI‑native startups can outpace incumbents. The conversation also covers how they assess revenue stickiness, gross margins, and market dynamics to find alpha in inefficient markets worldwide.

In this episode, Matthew Wilson of Jack & Jill and investor Peter Specht discuss how AI-driven recruiting agents are reshaping a broken talent market, highlighting the founding insight that voice‑based agents can create a high‑signal two‑sided marketplace. They explain Jack’s...

In this episode, Evan Spiegel discusses Snap's decision to reject a $3 billion Facebook acquisition to preserve its independent culture and vision, and outlines the company's strategic pivot toward augmented‑reality glasses as the next growth frontier. He emphasizes the need for...

In this episode the hosts detail how they replaced their human SDR team with over 20 AI agents, sending 60,000+ hyper‑personalized emails, booking 130+ meetings and generating 15% of SaaStr AI London ticket revenue by targeting low‑priority and ghosted leads....

In this episode, Raaz Herzberg, CMO and VP of Product Strategy at Wiz, recounts the company's rapid rise from a ten‑person startup to a $30 billion enterprise brand, highlighting the unconventional marketing tactics and product‑led growth strategies that fueled its success....

The episode explains why long‑term government bond yields are rising again in late 2025 despite central‑bank rate cuts, focusing on the 10‑year Treasury as a key benchmark. Higher yields increase the discount rate, pressuring valuations of long‑duration assets such as...

In this episode, Sergey Jakimov, co‑founder of LongeVC, explains the firm’s $1.6 trillion longevity market thesis, its AI‑enhanced deal sourcing, and the strong track record of Fund I (over 3x MOIC with zero write‑offs). He walks through three flagship investments—Insilico Medicine, Turn...

The episode explores SpaceX’s $800 billion valuation and its implications, followed by forward‑looking IPO market forecasts for 2026, including potential listings for Anthropic, Stripe, Databricks, and SpaceX. It examines Netflix’s strategic acquisition of Warner Brothers, highlights major fundraising rounds such as Harvey’s...

In this episode, Siobhan Nolan Mangini, Bob Kocher, and Bryan Roberts review their 2026 healthcare forecasts, highlighting where their AI predictions have already proven accurate and outlining upcoming challenges such as inflation pressures and the controversial "TrumpRx" policy. They assess...
In this episode, Charles Dunn and Ruth McKernan of SV Health Investors discuss their hybrid model of creating biotech companies and making later‑stage venture investments, highlighting how this structure diversifies risk for LPs and enables cross‑stage learning. They showcase recent successes,...
The panel dissects Europe’s tech landscape, starting with Bending Spoons’ aggressive roll‑up strategy and the broader valuation reset driven by debt‑fuelled M&A and Italy’s PE‑VC hybrid model. They debate Brexit’s lingering economic fallout, the erosion of German automotive dominance, and...
In this episode, Joubin Mirzadegan discusses how his relentless discipline and frustration with broken infrastructure drove him to leave Kleiner Perkins and become CEO of Roadrunner, now a $7.2 billion company. He shares lessons from an early startup failure, emphasizing that...
Fei‑Fei Li and her former student Justin Johnson discuss their new model Marble, which creates explorable 3D worlds from text or images, highlighting how spatial intelligence differs fundamentally from language and why current world models lack physics understanding. They argue...
In this episode, Federico Simionato, a product lead at Bending Spoons, walks through the company’s rapid growth from a small game studio to an $11 billion acquisition powerhouse, sharing how they evaluate and test new product ideas and build a coveted...
In this episode, a16z GP Anish Acharya explains why consumer tech is resurging, highlighting how AI now enables products to reach 100 million users at unprecedented speed. He outlines the distribution shifts and founder mindsets required for success through 2026, emphasizing...

In this episode, Mike Gelb talks with Alec Jaffe, founder and CEO of Alec’s Ice Cream, about creating a premium, gut‑friendly ice cream brand using A2 dairy and regenerative farming. Alec explains how he built a supply chain with family...

In this episode, Braughm Ricke of Aduro Advisors explains how venture capital fundraising has shifted from relationship‑driven to a volume‑based numbers game, driven by data from over 650 firms managing $131 B+. He highlights the growing polarization between well‑capitalized “haves” and...
In this episode, Russ Fradin and a16z General Partner Alex Rampell argue that the $700 billion AI productivity gap stems from a lack of robust measurement infrastructure, similar to what drove the internet ad boom. They explain how companies struggle to...
In this episode, co‑founder and President Michelle Zatlyn discusses Cloudflare’s long‑term vision for securing the internet and supporting creators in an AI‑driven landscape. She highlights how the company balances rapid growth with staying close to customer realities, and outlines strategies...

The episode dissects Europe’s tech climate, covering policy moves like EU child‑social‑media bans and UK startup‑friendly budget reforms, while highlighting regulatory friction exemplified by N26’s German battles and VAT compliance woes. Robin Haak provides insider perspective on Germany’s macro challenges—energy...
In this episode Martin Scherrer of Redstone VC explains how corporate venture arms can exit their investments through secondary sales or managed runoff without eroding value or relationships. He highlights the importance of treating CVCs as true portfolio managers—using proper...
Chris Rynning and Anulika Malomo discuss how LPs, family offices, and GPs can future‑proof portfolios for 2025 and beyond, focusing on AI risk, liquidity crunches, and the fallout from China’s DeepSeek shock. They highlight the growing reliance on secondaries, new...
The finale revisits four of the seven Napa pitches, providing deep‑dive updates on each founder’s progress and highlighting a dramatic $48 million acquisition that reshapes the competitive landscape. Listeners learn how one startup’s “mad scientist” approach to AI drove rapid product...

In this episode, Mike Gelb talks with Alec Jaffe, founder of Alec’s Ice Cream, about creating a premium, gut‑friendly ice cream brand using A2 dairy and regenerative sourcing. Alec explains how he built a farm‑to‑factory supply chain, differentiated real ice...

Maitlan Cramer, Managing Director at Bow River Capital, explains how their "Capital Plus" playbook scales B2B SaaS firms by taking majority-control positions and actively fixing broken processes rather than just providing capital. He stresses choosing a large, healthy market over...

Epoch AI researchers discuss a data‑driven timeline for superintelligence, arguing that Anthropic could build the first gigawatt‑scale AI datacenter and that breakthroughs like solving the Riemann hypothesis may arrive within five years. They challenge the notion of "energy bottlenecks," framing...

In this episode, Brynn Putnam discusses how her personal frustration with screen‑driven family disconnection inspired Board, a face‑to‑face gaming console designed to reunite families, and reflects on her previous ventures like Mirror that also emerged from personal needs. She emphasizes...

Maor Shlomo, founder of Base44, argues that AI‑driven "vibe coding" platforms will disrupt traditional SaaS and CRM tools like Salesforce by offering faster, low‑code development with superior user experience. He challenges the notion that these platforms lack defensibility or margins,...

The episode opens with a deep dive into the fallout from the Epstein files, focusing on the lingering questions about the source of his wealth. It then shifts to market dynamics, highlighting Tether's rapid growth, Michael Burry's contentious bet versus...

In this Hot Mic episode, three listeners pose their top questions to seasoned venture capitalists, who discuss whether starting a venture fund is advisable, the key criteria they use to evaluate pitches, and the one startup they wish they'd invested...

Max Altman discusses the intensifying "seed war" where only giants like Sequoia and a16z can dominate early rounds, highlighting how many founders leave billions on the table by undervaluing deals such as Reddit's. He shares behind‑the‑scenes stories from backing Rippling...

The episode dissects India's explosive startup IPO boom, highlighting how firms like Groww and PhysicsWallah achieve sky‑high valuations and even post‑IPO gains despite recent losses, often by timing profitability through accounting tweaks. It compares the Indian market’s low entry barriers...

Fei-Fei Li, the "Godmother of AI," discusses with Reid Hoffman the necessity of fearlessness for scientists and entrepreneurs navigating an uncertain AI-driven future. She emphasizes the importance of human‑centered AI and spatial intelligence, drawing on her experience founding Stanford's Human‑Centered...

In this episode Adrian Locher explains how Merantix Capital’s hybrid studio‑community‑consulting model builds AI‑first companies by demanding customer validation before any code is written, a discipline he says is crucial in the AI age. He contrasts deep‑tech AI with mere...

Anne Mahlum recounts her journey from a North Dakota upbringing marked by her father's gambling addiction to founding the nonprofit Back on My Feet and later bootstrapping the boutique fitness brand solidcore into a $100 M exit. She emphasizes the power...

In this episode, Mike Gelb talks with Akash Raju, CEO of Glimpse, about the hidden cost of retail deductions that can drain up to 5% of a CPG brand’s revenue. Akash explains how the complex deduction ecosystem works, why it’s...

In this episode, Fabrice Grinda, founding partner of FJ Labs and creator of OLX, recounts his leap from McKinsey to building a global classifieds empire, detailing the aggressive "spaghetti on the wall" rollout that took OLX to 100+ countries and...

In this episode, host Bob Safian discusses the contentious link between AI and mental health with Ellie Pavlick, director of Brown University's new AI‑mental health institute, and venture capitalist Soraya Darabi, an early backer of mental‑health AI startups. They examine...

Welcome back to another episode of the EUVC Podcast, where we bring together Europe’s venture family to share the stories, insights, and lessons that drive our ecosystem forward. Today we dive into one of the most under-discussed — yet increasingly important...

In this episode, Datadog founder‑CEO Olivier Pomel recounts how the company reached its first $100 million ARR by obsessively prioritizing genuine customer insight over sales or engineering shortcuts. He explains why closed alphas and annual contracts stifle learning, why enterprise SaaS...

In this episode, Emmett Shear—founder of Twitch and former OpenAI interim CEO— challenges the prevailing "control and steering" approach to AI alignment, arguing it’s fundamentally flawed and proposing an "organic alignment" model where AI genuinely cares about humans. He explains...

In this episode, Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez discusses how synthetic data has become essential for training AI models, enabling enterprises like Salesforce and Dell to scale intelligence securely across cloud environments. He explains Cohere's approach to building flexible, deployable AI...

In this episode, Andrew Ng identifies the biggest bottlenecks slowing AI progress—data quality, compute costs, and talent scarcity—while arguing that large language models can become geopolitical tools for influence and misinformation. He debates whether traditional profit margins still matter and...

In this episode, venture capitalists Elliot Hershberg and Lada Nuzhna examine how soaring drug development costs—now around $2.5 billion per approval—are stifling biotech innovation, identifying three key forces they call the "three horsemen" that drive expense. They contrast the U.S. model...

In this episode, a16z partner Martin Casado chats with AI pioneers Fei‑Fei Li and Justin Johnson about the evolution from early AI winters to deep learning breakthroughs like ImageNet, and how those advances paved the way for spatial intelligence and Large...

The episode dissects Michael Burry’s newly revealed 13F bet shorting Nvidia and Palantir, arguing it could signal an AI bubble as smart money like SoftBank pulls back, valuations soar, and spending outpaces profits. It outlines three warning signs Burry cites,...

In this Masters of Scale episode, Coinbase President and COO Emilie Choi discusses how the company navigated the crypto winter and the operating principles that enable hyper‑scaling in a volatile industry. She shares insights on the future of money, the...

In this episode, Patrick Odier, chairman of Lombard Odier and Building Bridges, outlines a pragmatic shift from risk‑avoidance to opportunity‑driven system redesign, highlighting circularity, energy electrification, nature‑based solutions, and materials as the core arenas for transition investing. He argues that private‑asset classes—especially...

The episode walks through Sequoia’s leadership transition and its strategic implications, then examines Michael Burry’s contrarian short on Nvidia and Palantir, highlighting his view that AI‑related valuations are overheated. It covers Gamma’s $100 million raise at a $2 billion valuation as a...

The episode examines India’s rapidly evolving venture ecosystem, highlighting how women investors and family offices are driving a shift toward a $1 trillion wealth era and reshaping where capital flows. Panelists Vani Kola, Priya Mohan, Aarti Gupta, and Shruvi Shrivastava discuss...