E658 | Martin Scherrer, Redstone VC: CVC Secondaries Without Burning Bridges
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 KPIs, governance structures, and performance‑based fee models—to avoid the typical short‑life, “pet project” pitfalls. Scherrer also shares practical tactics such as spin‑outs, continued follow‑on funding during wind‑down, and ring‑fencing capital to keep corporate sponsors engaged while attracting third‑party LPs.
Future-Proofing Portfolios W/ Chris Rynning (AMYP Ventures) & Anulika Malomo (HarbourVest Global Private Equity)
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...
Season 14 Finale: The Mad Scientist, The Foxhole, and a $48M Power Move
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...
He Launched a Tiny Ice Cream Factory, Now It’s a National Brand Ft. Alec Jaffe
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...
PE10X - Lessons From $4.7B in Software Growth Equity with Maitlan Cramer, MD Bow River Capital
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...
The 2045 Superintelligence Timeline: Epoch AI’s Data-Driven Forecast
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...
She Sold Her Startup for $500 Million, Here’s Her Next Idea
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...
20VC: Base44's Maor Shlomo on How Vibe Coding Will Kill SaaS and Salesforce | Why It Is BS that Vibe...
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,...
Epstein Files Fallout, Nvidia Risks, Burry's Bad Bet, Google's Breakthrough, Tether's Boom
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...
The Hot Mic: Should You Start a Venture Fund?
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...
20VC: Max Altman on The New Seed War: Can Anyone Compete with Sequoia and A16z | Leaving $2BN on the...
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...
VC10X Micro - The Land of Crazy Startup IPOs
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...
How to Be 'Fearless' In the AI Age, with Fei-Fei Li and Reid Hoffman
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...
E654 | Adrian Locher, Merantix Capital: AI Studios & the Future of Venture Building
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...
Betting on Yourself: How Anne Mahlum Built a $100M Empire
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...
Retail’s Biggest Scam: Deductions Ft. Akash Raju
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...
VC10X - Building OLX, 350+ Exits, Top Marketplace Investor - Fabrice Grinda, Founding Partner, FJ Labs
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...
AI: The New Frontier for Mental Health Support?
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...
E652 | Lea Strumberger, KfW Capital: How Europe’s Largest Public LP Thinks About Opportunity Funds
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...
The First $100,000,000 ARR at Datadog: How Founder CEO Olivier Pomel Built a Customer-Centric Observability Giant
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...
Emmett Shear on Building AI That Actually Cares: Beyond Control and Steering
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...
Synthetic Data and the Future of AI | Cohere CEO Aidan Gomez
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...
20VC: Andrew NG on The Biggest Bottlenecks in AI | How LLMs Can Be Used as a Geopolitical Weapon |...
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...
The Brutal Truth About Biotech: Why $2B Per Drug Is Killing Innovation
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...
The Frontier of Spatial Intelligence with Fei-Fei Li
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...
VC10X Micro - The Big Short 2.0
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,...
The Future of Crypto, with Coinbase’s Emilie Choi
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...
E650 | Patrick Odier (Lombard Odier & Building Bridges) & Enrique, Chi Impact Capital: Three Systemic Plays to Underwrite Now
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...
20VC: Sequoia's Leadership Transition | Michael Burry Shorts NVIDIA and Palantir | Gamma Raises $100M at $2BN | Has Defensibility...
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...
Inside India’s $1 Trillion Venture Revolution W/ Kalaari Capital, General Catalyst, DM Gupta & Lightspeed India
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...
Rocket Mortgage CEO: Here’s How to Fix the Housing Crisis
In this episode, Alex Rampell and Rocket Mortgage CEO Varun Krishna dissect how asset inflation has turned homeownership into a wealth‑transfer mechanism, pushing the median first‑time buyer’s age from 30 to 38. They explain Rocket’s strategy of owning the entire...
#174 Investrio: QuickBooks for the People
In this episode, founders Joyce and Laura pitch Investrio, an AI‑driven bookkeeping platform designed to replace clunky finance tools like QuickBooks for solopreneurs. They explain how the product automates expense tracking, tax prep, and cash‑flow insights, and discuss early traction...
Lee Edwards of Root VC: "Let's Get Technical!" -- An Engineer Becomes a VC
In this episode, Lee Edwards, a former CTO and mechanical/software engineer turned General Partner at Root VC, shares how his hands‑on engineering background informs his seed‑stage investing in deep‑tech, AI, and devtools. He dives into the value of pair programming,...
Founder10x - From $500M Exit to Reinventing Software - Shay Levi, Co-Founder & CEO, Unframe
In this episode, Shay Levi recounts his journey from co‑founding Noname Security, which sold to Akamai for $500 million, to launching Unframe—a venture that promises to build custom software for free and charge only when it delivers measurable impact, leveraging AI...
How to Get Funded Now: VCs Reid Hoffman, Aileen Lee, and Stacy Brown-Philpot, with Van Jones
In this Masters of Scale session, Reid Hoffman, Aileen Lee, and Stacy Brown-Philpot discuss how venture capital strategies have shifted in 2025, emphasizing a more selective, founder‑centric approach amid rapid AI growth. They outline the key green‑lights—clear product‑market fit, defensible...
E649 | Mariette Roesink, Curie Capital: Backing Life Sciences, Unicorns & Zero Bankruptcies
Mariette Roesink, co‑founder of Curie Capital, explains the firm’s biotech‑focused VC model that seeks both outsized financial returns and meaningful patient outcomes. She showcases a track record of two unicorn exits, €200 M raised in a single year, and zero bankruptcies...
From Yext to Roam: Howard Lerman’s Second Act
In this episode, Howard Lerman reflects on the challenges of launching a second venture after Yext’s success, describing how he founded Roam as an AI‑augmented "Office of the Future" that lets people work from anywhere. He discusses the solitude that...
20VC: Benchmark's Newest General Partner Ev Randle on Why Margins Matter Less in AI | Why Mega Funds Will Not...
In this episode, Benchmark GP Ev Randle argues that traditional profit margins matter less for AI startups, emphasizing growth, data advantage, and network effects over short‑term profitability. He warns that mega‑funds will struggle to deliver strong returns because capital scarcity...
Collection: Curate People
In this episode, Naval and host Nivi argue that recruiting is the founder's most critical, non‑outsourcable function, shaping a startup's DNA and ensuring a high‑performing, low‑ego team that can execute the product vision. They stress that early hires must match...
20Sales: Why You Need a CRO Pre-Product | Why Remote Sales Teams Do Not Work | How Snowflake Built a...
In this episode, host Harry Stebbings and sales veteran Chad Peets explore why SaaS startups should appoint a Chief Revenue Officer before product launch, argue that fully remote sales teams often fail without strong structure, and dissect how Snowflake engineered...
Mark Zuckerberg & Priscilla Chan: How AI Will Cure All Disease
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan explain how the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is creating AI‑driven computational tools—like the open‑source Cell Atlas and virtual cell models—to accelerate discovery, test high‑risk hypotheses in silico, and ultimately cure, prevent, and manage all disease by...
VC10X Micro - The Reason Behind 100,000 Layoffs in 2025 - VC10X Micro
In this micro‑episode, Prashant Choubey explains why even profit‑rich giants like Meta and Amazon are cutting thousands of jobs in 2025, attributing the wave to three forces: the "Great AI Re‑allocation" that shifts talent to automation, a newly permanent "Year...
From Billion-Dollar Brand to Blank Slate: Bobbi Brown’s Comeback
In this episode, Bobbi Brown recounts how she grew Bobbi Brown Cosmetics into a billion‑dollar powerhouse and the fraught split with Estée Lauder that forced her to choose between retirement and reinvention. She shares hard‑won lessons on scaling a brand, navigating...
Seeing The Future From AI Companions to Personal Software
In this episode, Eugenia Kuyda, the founder of Replika and CEO of Wabi, discusses how AI‑driven personal software will shift from a developer‑only tool to a creative medium accessible to anyone, likening command‑line AI interfaces to the early days of...
#173 STAG: The Tesla of Construction Equipment?!
In this episode, founders Adam and Patrik pitch STAG, an electric mini skid‑steer they describe as the "Tesla of construction equipment," highlighting its multi‑function design, Made‑in‑USA manufacturing, and early traction with major dealers like Bobcat. They explain the market opportunity...
E646 | Alper, Agave Games & Enis Hulli, E2vc: Pivoting Models & Building Global Gaming Success From Turkey
In this episode Alper Oner, co‑founder of Agave Games, and VC Enis Hulli discuss Agave’s evolution from a publisher to an in‑house studio that struck global success with the hidden‑object hit “Find the Cat” and is now scaling its next...
ElevenLabs CEO: Why Voice Is the Next AI Interface
In this episode, ElevenLabs CEO Mati Staniszewski explains how his small, autonomous, globally‑hired team ships research‑grade AI—text‑to‑speech, licensed AI music, and real‑time voice agents—at lightning speed, arguing that voice will become the primary human‑computer interface. He details the Voice Marketplace’s creator‑centric...
The Startup Building Edible Insulation to Tackle a 1.4 Gigaton CO2 Problem
In this episode, host Tom Britton talks with Theresa Hoffmann, founder of Nanoplume, about their bio‑aerogel insulation that is three times more effective and 60% thinner than conventional materials, a non‑toxic product so safe she even eats it during demos....
VC10X - What Is A Continuum Fund? - Michelle Urben, Managing & General Partner, Synergos Fund
In this episode, Michelle Urben explains Synergos Fund’s "continuum fund" model, which provides patient, evergreen capital to companies from seed through commercialization, rejecting the traditional exit‑focused VC mindset. She highlights how the fund aligns with conscious capitalism, offering flexible, transparent...
David Sacks: AI, Crypto, China, Dems, and SF
In this episode, White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks joins Marc, Ben, and Erik to dissect the Trump administration’s approach to AI and crypto, highlighting a regulatory capture strategy by major AI firms. He argues that open‑source technology...
