Raman Malik is the Head of Growth at Perplexity where he is responsible for growth marketing, onboarding, activation, retention, and monetisation. Prior to Perplexity, Raman, was an early member of the growth team at Lyft and joined Perplexity earlier this year after his own startup journey.  In Today’s Episode with Perplexity’s Head of Growth:  1. Inside the Perplexity Growth Machine: What have been the single biggest needle movers in the growth of Perplexity? What has not worked? What have they learned from that? How have partnerships driven growth? Lessons on what makes a good vs bad partnership? Why does Raman think paid acquisition is a drug and Perplexity do not do it? How does Raman advise other founders when it comes to paid acquisition? 2. Acquisition, Retention, Churn: Mastering the Basics: Why does Raman think that brand marketing is BS? When does it become more important? What are the simplest things startups and product teams can do to drive retention up? How do Perplexity count an “engaged user”? What metric suggests they have a retained user? What is the good, the bad and the ugly when it comes to A/B tests? 3. How Perplexity Built a Growth Machine: Why does Raman advise all founders to hire more former founders? How does the way you manage founders turned employees differ from employees who have never been founders? What is the must under appreciated growth channel today that has worked for Perplexity? What growth channel has been the biggest flop for Perplexity? What did Raman learn from losing money on the channel?

Markus Villig is the Founder and CEO of Bolt, a global mobility platform with more than 200 million lifetime customers in more than 50 countries and 600 cities. Bolt has raised over €1 billion in funding from investors like Sequoia, D1 and G Squared, making Markus the youngest founder of a billion-dollar company in Europe. In Today’s Episode with Markus Villig: 1. Starting an $8BN Company: How did Markus come up with the idea for Bolt before Uber existed? How did Markus find his co-founder? Why did 30 people turn down the chance to co-found Bolt? What are Markus’ biggest tips on finding a co-founder? How did Markus use a $5K loan from his parents as the pre-seed round? How did Markus get the first riders for Bolt? What worked? What did not work? How did Markus get the first driver for Bolt? What worked? What did not work? 2. Expanding to be a Global Champion: How did Markus expand Bolt to $10M in ARR on just $1M of funding? What did the international expansion playbook look like? What worked? What did not work? How has it changed over time? What one simple change led to their becoming the leader in Africa? What was the best country to launch? What was the worst? What is the most profitable country today? What is the least? 3. The $8BN Company that no VC Wanted to Fund: Why did every large VC in Europe turn down Bolt early on? How did a real estate company in the Baltics save Bolt with lifeline funding? When did Sequoia come into the mix? Does Sequoia move the needle for your company when they invest? How do New York financially driven investors differ to the traditional VC ecosystem? What would Markus most like to change about the world of VC? 4. The Future: Micromobility, Self-Driving Cars, Uber: Will the rise of self-driving cars harm or help companies like Bolt and Uber? What is the future for micromobility? Does it cannibalise the core business for Bolt and Uber? What is Uber better at Bolt doing? What are Uber worse at than Bolt? How will that change moving forward? Waymo, buy or short? Why?  

Matt Grimm is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Anduril Industries, an American defense technology company that specializes in advanced autonomous systems. To date, Anduril has raised over $3.7BN with the latest round pricing the company at a whopping $14BN. Before Anduril, Matt was a Principal at Mithril Capital Management alongside Peter Thiel. Before Mithril, Matt was an early hire at Palantir, where he was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan to ensure U.S. forces had the best technology for the mission.                             In Today’s Episode with Matt Grimm We Discuss: 1. China/Taiwan, Ukraine/Russia & Israel/Gaza: How will a Trump administration change US foreign policy and approach to conflict? Will China invade Taiwan? What does Matt expect to see happen there? Will Trump put an end to the war in Ukraine? What will be the outcome? Is Israel wrong to defend itself in the way it has? How will the situation in Gaza be resolved? 2. The Future of War: What will war look like in the future? How is software and autonomy changing the world of war?  Why does the incentive structure of governments buying military equipment need to change around the world? Will we see a world of robodogs fighting on battlefields? What does weaponry of the future look like? 3. Are We In a Defence Bubble: With the massive increase in funding to defence companies, does Matt think we are in a defence bubble? What does Matt believe all investors should know about the defence industry before they make investments in the space? What should defence founders at the early stage know about building a defence company at scale? What changes? Who will be the buyer for the many defence companies that have raised early rounds of funding and go out of business?  4. Matt Grimm: AMA: Does money make you happy? What is the biggest luxury purchase you have made? Should TikTok be banned in the US? What would Matt do today if he knew he would not fail?

Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, one of the most important companies in history. OpenAI is on a mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. Prior to OpenAI, Sam was the President of Y Combinator and an angel investor in Stripe, Airbnb, Reddit and Instacart.                                           15 Questions with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: 1. Will the trajectory of model capability improvement keep going at the same rate as it has been? 2. When did Sam doubt the continuance of scaling laws most? What has been the hardest technical research challenge OpenAI have overcome? 3. How worried is Sam about semiconductor supply chains and international tensions around them?  4. What is Sam’s biggest worry today? How has it changed over the last 12 months and 5 years? 5. In what ways does Sam feel he was and is unprepared for the role of CEO of OpenAI? 6. Was Masa Son right to suggest that $9TRN of value will be created every year by AI? 7. Why does Sam disagree with Larry Ellison’s statement that it will cost $100BN to enter the foundation model race? 8. Was Keith Rabois right that the best way to build companies is to hire under 30s?  9. What unmade decision weighs on Sam’s mind most often? 10. What is Sam most grateful to Y Combinator for?  11. What would Sam build if he were a 23 year old starting today with the foundational AI technology that is already in place? 12. What should startups not try and build as OpenAI will steamroll them? What should they try and build where OpenAI will not go? 13. What does Sam believe is the most exciting use of agents that he has not seen created yet? 14. How does Sam believe that human potential is most wasted today? 15. Who does Sam most respect in the world of AI today? Why them?    

Vlad Tenev is a Co-Founder and CEO of Robinhood, the commission free stock trading and investing app with a market cap today of $20.7BN. Over the incredible 11 year journey Vlad has raised over $5BN from some of the world’s best investors including Sequoia, a16z, DST, Ribbit and Index. Before Robinhood, Vlad started two finance companies in New York City.  In Today’s Episode with Vlad Tenev We Discuss:  1. Surviving a Scandal: The Gamestop Saga: What was the single hardest element of the sage for Vlad? What did the sage teach Vlad about how to tell stories effectively? What did Vlad not do in the period that he wishes he had of done? What did he do that he wishes he had not done? What advice does Vlad have for any founder going into a crisis? 2. Founder Mode and The Biggest BS Myths of Leadership: How does Vlad analyse and assess Paul Graham’s “Founder Mode”? Where is Founder mode right? Where is it dangerous? What canonical leadership statements and lessons does Vlad most disagree with? How has Vlad changed most significantly as a leader? 3. 8x $100M Revenue Lines: Scaling a Juggernaut: What have been the single biggest challenges of scaling 8 lines of revenue each with over $100M in them? What have been Vlad’s biggest lessons on when and how to release new products? Why did Vlad decide to abandon the Europe launch? Was it right with the benefit of hindsight? What did Vlad not invest in with Robinhood that he wishes he had of done?  

Karri Saarinen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Linear. The company has raised from some of the best in the business including Sequoia and Accel. Before founding Linear, Karri was the principal designer at Airbnb and the founding designer at Coinbase.  10 Lessons with One of Silicon Valley’s Most In-Demand Founders: How to Become a Master Fundraiser: Why does Karri believe it is BS advice that founders should “always be raising”? What is Karri’s biggest advice to founders on minimising dilution? What do most founders think they know about fundraising but do not? What is the best way to put your VCs to work? How can you give them homework to do? What has been the single best VC meeting Karri has had? What has been the worst VC meeting? Product and Growth: What does Karri mean when he says “founder must focus on quality growth over hypergrowth?” How does Karri advise founders on how soon to release and monetise their first product? Wait for platform ready or ship more feature products and monetise? What have been the single biggest product lessons for Karri from Airbnb and Coinbase? What are the most commons ways that growth plateaus? What breaks first? Karri AMA: Brian Armstrong or Brian Chesky; who would you invest in first? Would you sell Linear today for $3BN in cash? What do you know now that you wish you had known when you started? What did you believe that you now no longer believe?  

Daniel Khachab is the co-founder and CEO of Choco. Today, Choco’s AI platform facilitates half of all food traded in major cities like New York, Paris, London, and Berlin, cutting food waste and streamlining distribution. Since its founding in 2018, Choco has raised $330 million from Bessemer, Coatue (its first European investment), and Insight, reaching unicorn status within 2.5 years. Previously, Daniel was the youngest Managing Director at Rocket Internet, where he oversaw growth across Latin America, Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Middle East.                                     From Seed to $1BN in 30 Months: 1. We Killed a $BN SaaS Business to be AI First: Why does Daniel believe that SaaS is dead? What does an AI-first company mean?  Why does Daniel believe AI-first companies will win the next 10 years? What foundation models does Daniel and Choco use today? How has the cost of using different models changed? What categories are vulnerable to being attacked with vertical products from the foundation model providers? 2. Europe is F*******: Why and What To Do: Why does Daniel believe Europe is at a massive disadvantage in the next 10 years of AI? Chips: What can Europe do to encourage chip production and manufacturing to take place on European soil? Energy: What can European governments do to encourage energy providers and new forms of renewable energy to innovate to provide the energy AI needs? Talent: Why does Daniel believe AI talent is the hardest problem that Europe faces? What can governments in EU do to resolve this problem? 3. Lessons Scaling to $1BN in 30 Months: Does Daniel regret raising at a $1.1BN valuation?  Why did he throw a unicorn party with the round? Why does he regret it so much? What did Daniel spend money on that he wish he had not spent money on? What did Daniel not spend money on that with the benefit of hindsight, they should have spent money on? When your competition raises a lot of funding, does that mean you should also?  

Mark Goldberg is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Chemistry, a $350M fund announced just yesterday with the mission to lead the best seed and Series A rounds. Before Chemistry, Mark was a Partner at Index Ventures, where he led early stage investments in Plaid, Bridge, Pilot, Anrok and Persona. Prior to Index Ventures, Mark was one of the first business hires at Dropbox. In Today’s Episode with Mark Goldberg We Discuss: 1. The Truth About Multi-Stage Firms: Why are portfolio services there to help the investing partners and not the founders? What are the most broken elements within a multi-stage firm? How does decision-making break down in large partnerships? When is the right time to work with multi-stage firms? When is not? 2. From Boutique High Margins to Commoditised Low Margins:  With the immense amount of cash that has entered VC, will returns simply get worse? Who will be the winners in the next 10 years of venture? Who will be the losers? What can they do today to change this? What element of the future of venture are not enough people spending time on? 3. Lessons from Leading Unicorn Company Rounds: What happens to all the unicorns with insanely high prices they cannot grow into? What has been Mark’s biggest hit? What did he learn? What has been his biggest miss? How did that change his go-forward approach? Does Mark agree that 90% of VC do not add value?    

AJ Tennant is the Vice President of Sales & Success at Glean, Glean has more than 20x'd its revenue and 100x'd its user base in the just two and a half years he's been there. Before Glean, AJ had incredible runs at Slack and Facebook. At Slack, AJ helped grow revenue from $6 million to more than $1 billion.  In Today’s Episode with AJ Tennant We Discuss: 1. How to Sell AI Tools in 2024: Are we still in the experimental budget phase for AI? How does selling AI tools differ to selling traditional SaaS? What are enterprises biggest concerns when it comes to adopting AI tools? What buzzwords get enterprises most excited in the sales process? Will we see a massive churn problem when the first renewal cycle for many of these AI products comes? 2. Outbound, Discounting, Closing: Is outbound dead in 2024? What does no one do that everyone should do? How does AJ approach discounting? Biggest lessons and advice? What can sales teams do to create a sense of urgency in a sales cycle? How does AJ do deal reviews and post-mortems? What is the difference between good and bad post-mortems? 3. How to Master Customer Success: What are the biggest mistakes founders make today in managing their CS teams? Should CS be compensated for upsell? How should the comp structure of CS teams change? What can be done to create a good handoff experience for the customer when handing from AE to CS? What are the most common ways CS teams break over time? 4. Hiring the Best Sales Teams: How does AJ structure the hiring process for all new sales hires? What questions does AJ always need to ask when hiring sales reps? What are clear signs of outperformers when hiring new reps? Does AJ give candidates a take-home assignment? What does he want to see from them?    

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?    

Antoine Le Nel is the Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Revolut, one of the fastest growing fintechs on the planet. Prior to Revolut, Antoine spent an incredible 7 years at King (Makers of Candy Crush) overseeing continuous expansion of the world's most famous mobile game as VP of Growth.  10 Questions with Revolut’s Chief Growth Officer:  Why does Antoine believe that the best product and growth teams do not need to do A/B tests? Why does Antoine believe the best growth teams do not believe in anything? What growth tactics have worked best for Revolut? What did they learn? What have been the biggest growth flops? How did that change their approach?  Why does Antoine believe localisation in product is BS and overrated?  Why does CAC never come up at Revolut? Why do they not believe it is a metric to focus on? What metrics do they focus on instead? What does Antoine mean when he says “growth is a bidding war”? How does one win the “bidding war” today? Why does Antoine believe the best growth teams focus on optimisations and 1% gains not moving the needle for a company? What are the single biggest mistakes growth teams make today? What used to work that no longer works? What growth tactic is most effective but also most under-utilised? How can startups take advantage of this?  

Zach Perret is the CEO and Co-Founder of Plaid, a technology platform reshaping financial services. To date, Zach has raised over $734M for Plaid from the likes of NEA, Spark, GV, Coatue and a16z, to name a few. Today, thousands of companies including the largest fintechs, several of the Fortune 500, and many of the largest banks use Plaid. In addition, Zach is also a Co-Founder of Mischief, an early-stage venture fund in San Francisco.  In Today’s Episode with Zach Perret We Discuss: 1. Founder Mode: Why “Founder Mode” will be the most dangerous blog post written in the last decade for founders? What is most misleading about it? What are “grinder problems”? Why does Zach believe that grinder problems are the best problems for startups to try and solve? Why does Zach believe that OKRs are BS and should be removed? What should be used instead? 2. Lessons from Raising $734M for Plaid: What is the worst advice that VCs give that most founders take? Why does Zach believe that angel investing is more distracting than helpful for founders to do? What are the pros of investing alongside running a company? Why does Zach encourage founders to raise money as infrequently as possible? What does this mean for the size and price of rounds Zach thinks we should see occur? 3. The $5BN Exit and the $13.4BN Round: Why did Zach turn down the $5BN exit to Visa? Was it the right choice? Does Zach regret raising at such a high price of $13.4BN when the exit did not happen? Would Zach sell the company today for $13.4BN if offered it? What did Zach not do that he wish he had done? What did he do that he wishes he had not done?

David Frankel is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Founder Collective, one of the best seed firms of the last decade. David has led rounds in companies such as Suno, Coupang, SeatGeek and PillPack (sold to Amazon for ~$1B). Previously, David was Co-Founder and CEO of Internet Solutions (IS), the largest ISP in Africa, ultimately acquired by NTT Japan. David has been named to the Midas List six times. In 2023, he was #11 and in 2024, he appeared at #15 on the Midas List of the world's best venture capital investors and at #2 on the Midas list of seed investors.  10 Questions With One of the World’s Best Seed Investors: 1. Reserves: Why are reserves the hardest part of venture? What have been David’s biggest lessons in how to do them well? 2. Why does David believe that pro-rata is the original sin of VC?  3. Has DPI died in 2024? Is PE the salvation for the VC exit market and liquidity? 4. Why does David believe LPs are so pissed of with VCs right now? What will change that? 5. When will IPO markets open? Are M&A markets shut? What would cause them to open? 6. How does David reflect on price today? When will he pay up and break his rules? 7. Biggest lessons for David on knowing when is the right time to sell? Why does David believe you should never sell your winners? What has David sold that he regrets most? 8. What companies returned the most to Founder Collective Funds? Uber? Coupang? Airtable? The Trade Desk? What did he learn from those mega hits? 9. What have been David’s biggest losses? How did losing the company change his mindset and approach to investing? 10. What does David believe is the future of venture capital? How can seed funds play in a world of mega multi-stage funds? Who wins? Who loses?      

Eoghan McCabe is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Intercom, one of the largest private software companies in the valley with hundreds of millions in revenue and thousands of customers. To date, Eoghan has raised over $238M from Index, Kleiner Perkins, ICONIQ, GV, Bessemer and more incredible firms. Intercom’s goal is to reinvent customer service with AI agents replacing human agents over the next 10 years. 10 Questions with One of the Largest Private Company CEO’s: AI Investing: Why will most AI investments not do better than the S&P 500? Building SaaS Tools with AI: Why is it crazy for companies to follow Klarna and use AI to build their own tools? Going Public: Why is Bill Gurley wrong that more later stage companies should go public? Why did Intercom shelve plans to go public in 2022? Early-Stage is F*******: Why is the early-stage venture ecosystem as an asset class f******? Founder Mode: Why does Eoghan believe all of the best founders are unbalanced? What is the difference between Founder vs Manager mode?  Political Voice: Why did Eoghan decide he had to voice his political opinions now? The Danger of Harris: Why does Eoghan believe a Harris administration would rob the US of immense freedom, democracy and civil liberty? Why Vote Trump: Why does Eoghan believe that Trump will regain immense freedom for the sovereign individual? Freedom of Speech: How does Eoghan determine right vs wrong when freedom of speech leads to harm and injustice?  Middle East and Nuclear War: Why does Eoghan believe that nuclear war is much closer than we think? Will we see the Middle East descend into war?   

Jeff Wang is the Managing Partner of Sequoia Capital Global Equities (SCGE), a public/private crossover investment firm with investments spanning from late-stage private companies to public companies. As Managing Partner, Jeff has primarily focused on public growth technology companies but has also invested $3 billion in private companies including Bytedance, SpaceX, and Stripe. Prior SCGE private investments that have since gone public include Airbnb, Doordash, MongoDB, Nubank, and Snowflake. Before joining SCGE in 2010, Jeff also worked at TPG Capital and Silver Lake Partners where he focused on investments in technology buyouts. 10 Questions with the Leader of Sequoia’s $9BN Global Equities Fund: 1. Crossover Fund Opportunity: Why are crossover funds more attractive today than ever? Have the tourists gone? 2. Public Market Opportunity: Why is the opportunity in the public markets, not the private markets today? 3. IPO Markets: When will IPO markets open? What will cause them to open? 4. Breaking Hedge Fund Rules: What are the biggest ways that Sequoia break the traditional rules of hedge funds? 5. Google: Why does Jeff believe that Google’s cash cow of search is under threat? 6. Meta: Why does Jeff believe Meta will be the biggest competitor to Google? 7. NVIDIA: Why is NVIDIA’s price today reasonable? What is the bull and bear case? 8. China: Is there a recovery for China? How do Sequoia play China in this market? 9. AI in Public Markets: How are Sequoia playing the AI game in the public markets? 10. Investing Lessons: What have been Jeff’s biggest investing lessons from Mike Moritz, Doug Leone and Roelof Botha?  

Eiso Kant is the Co-Founder and CTO of Poolside.ai, building next-generation AI for software engineering. Just last week, Poolside announced their $500M Series B valuing the company at $3BN. Prior to Poolside, Eiso founded Athenian, a data-enabled engineering platform. Before that, he built source{d} - the world’s first company dedicated to applying AI to code and software. 1. Raising $600M to Compete in the AGI Race: What is Poolside? How does Poolside differentiate from other general-purpose LLMs? How much of Poolside’s latest raise will be spent on compute? How does Eiso feel about large corporates being a large part of startup LLM provider’s funding rounds?  Why did Poolside choose to only accept investment from Nvidia? Is $600M really enough to compete with the mega war chests of other LLMs? 2. The Big Questions in AI: Will scaling laws continue? Have we reached a stage of diminishing returns in model performance for LLMs? What is the biggest barrier to the continued improvement in model performance; data, algorithms or compute? To what extent will Nvidia’s Blackwell chip create a step function improvement in performance? What will OpenAI’s GPT5 need to have to be a gamechanger once again? 3. Compute, Chips and Cash: Does Eiso agree with Larry Ellison; “you need $100BN to play the foundation model game”? What does Eiso believe is the minimum entry price? Will we see the continuing monopoly of Nvidia? How does Eiso expect the compute landscape to evolve? Why are Amazon and Google best placed when it comes to reducing cost through their own chip manufacturing?  Does Eiso agree with David Cahn @ Sequoia, “you will never train a frontier model on the same data centre twice”?  Can the speed of data centre establishment and development keep up with the speed of foundation model development? 4. WTF Happens to The Model Layer: OpenAI and Anthropic… Does Eiso agree we are seeing foundation models become commoditised? What would Eiso do if he were Sam Altman today? Is $6.6BN really enough for OpenAI to compete against Google, Meta etc…? OpenAI at $150BN, Anthropic at $40BN and X.ai at $24BN. Which would Eiso choose to buy and why?  

Maria Angelidou is a seasoned product leader, having spent close to a decade at Meta where she was VP of Product and General Manager for some of the largest products such as Facebook Groups (2B+ users), Events, Profile, and Search. Before that, Maria led the Facebook App Monetization team, driving billions of dollars in revenue. Today, Maria is the Chief Product & Technology Officer at Personio, an HR tech company with an ambitious mission to unlock the power of people for SMEs. In Today's Episode with Maria Angelidou 1. How to Hire the Best Product Teams: What are the three different archetypes for PMs today? What non-obvious traits does Maria look for in new product hires? How does Maria structure the hiring process? What works? What does not? Does Maria do take home assignments? How has her approach changed here? What is Maria's biggest advice to candidates on both compensation and title? 2. How the Best Product Teams Do Product Reviews: What does every team get wrong in how they do product reviews? What are the four different type of product reviews? How often does Maria do a product review? Who is invited? Who sets the agenda? How is it structured? What makes good vs great product reviews? 3. Europe vs US: How Product Teams Differ: What is the single biggest difference when comparing product teams in the US vs EU? Does Maria agree that the work ethic is less in the EU? Which class of employee would Maria say is more entitled? What could Europe do to be more competitive with the US? What was the biggest surprise to Maria on returning to Europe from the US?  

Bret Taylor is CEO and Co-Founder of Sierra, a conversational AI platform for businesses. Previously, he served as Co-CEO of Salesforce. Prior to Salesforce, Bret founded Quip and was CTO of Facebook. He started his career at Google, where he co-created Google Maps. Bret serves on the board of OpenAI. In Today's Discussion with Bret Taylor: 1. The Biggest Misconceptions About AI Today: Does Bret believe we are in an AI bubble or not? Why does Bret believe it is BS that companies will all use AI to build their own software? What does no one realise about the cost of compute today in a world of AI? 2. Foundation Models: The Fastest Depreciating Asset in History? As a board member of OpenAI, does Bret agree that foundation models are the fastest depreciating asset in history? Will every application be subsumed by foundation models? What will be standalone? How does Bret think about the price dumping we are seeing in the foundation model landscape? Does Bret believe we will continue to see small foundation model companies (Character, Adept, Inflection) be acquired by larger incumbents? 3. The Biggest Opportunity in AI Today: The Death of the Phone + Website: What does Bret believe are the biggest opportunities in the application layer of AI today? Why does Bret put forward the case that we will continue to see the role of the phone reduce in consumer lives? How does AI make that happen? What does Bret mean when he says we are moving from a world of software rules to guardrails? What does AI mean for the future of websites? How does Bret expect consumers to interact with their favourite brands in 10 years? 4. Bret Taylor: Ask Me Anything: Zuck, Leadership, Fundraising: Bret has worked with Zuck, Tobi @ Shopify, Marc Benioff and more, what are his biggest lessons from each of them on great leadership? How did Bret come to choose Peter @ Benchmark to lead his first round? What advice does Bret have to other VCs on how to be a great VC? Bret is on the board of OpenAI, what have been his biggest lessons from OpenAI on what it takes to be a great board member?  

Donald Tang is the Executive Chairman of SHEIN, with oversight of public affairs, business strategy, corporate development, and finance. Donald began his career at Merrill Lynch & Co. He later joined Bear Stearns & Co. Inc. in Los Angeles as Senior Managing Director of Investment Banking. At Bear Sterns, Donald quickly rose to become the Vice Chairman of the firm, as well as Chairman and President of Bear Stearns International Holdings, Chairman and CEO of Bear Stearns Asia, Ltd, and a member of the board of directors at Bear Stearns & Co. In Today's Episode with Donald Tang We Discuss: 1. How SHEIN Became a Global Giant: As specifically as possible, what did you and the SHEIN team do that enabled you to be one of the fastest-growing companies on the planet? Real-Time Retail: What is this? How is it the core of SHEIN's growth and efficiency? Supply Chain Innovation: How did SHEIN innovate on the supply chain to give them such an advantage over the competition? Price King: How does Donald respond to the statement that SHEIN wins due to price, not quality? Social Media: What social media tactics allowed SHEIN to grow so fast? What did not work? Paid Media: How have SHEIN approached paid marketing? What works? What does not? 2. The Big Questions: IPOs, Impact on Climate and Worker Conditions: IPO: Why does SHEIN want to go public? Is London the right place for the company to go public? Climate: How does Donald respond to the common idea that "SHEIN is bad for the climate" and encourages fast fashion like never before? Tariffs: How does Donald respond to the common question around tariffs and SHEIN benefitting from being under a certain tariff threshold? 3. Marriage, Fatherhood and Happiness: Marriage: What have been Donald's biggest lessons on how to have a successful marriage? Fatherhood: What does being a great father mean to Donald? If he could call himself up the night before his first child was born, what would he advise himself? Happiness: How does Donald think about happiness today? What does everyone get wrong about happiness?  

Jeetu Mahtani was an early member of the HubSpot team. Under his leadership and the sales organization, the business grew its non-US revenue from $3M ARR to close to $1B ARR. After running the International business as the global MD and Sales leader, he then moved to lead the customer success org which expanded to managing 1,500 people in customer success. In Today's Episode with Jeetu Mahtani We Discuss: 1. How to Go International for Startups: What are Jeetu's biggest lessons from Hubspot on what startups can do to make their international expansion a success? What were the biggest mistakes Hubspot made in their international expansion? How should every team in each new location be structured? What should the ramp time and onboarding process look like or each new team and expansion? 2. Scaling Sales from $3M to $1BN in ARR: What did Hubspot do so well to successfully scale to $1BN in international ARR? What were the biggest mistakes Jeetu made in the expansion of Hubspot's sales teams? What are the first things to break in sales teams? How do you handle them? Why does Jeetu hate discounting? Why does Jeetu not like customer references? 3. Scaling Customer Success to 1,500 CS Reps: When should founders make their first customer success hires? What are the biggest mistakes people make in the scaling of CS teams? Why should customer success be incentivised in the same comp plans that sales teams have? How do the best CS teams work with sales and product teams most effectively? 4. Hiring the Best and Ramping Them: What does Jeetu's hiring process look like for all new sales reps? What are the must ask questions for Jeetu in all candidate interviews? How fast do you know when you have made a mistake with a new hire? What is the secret to effective onboarding? What are the biggest mistakes people make in onboarding? 20Sales: Scaling Hubspot from $3M to $1BN in ARR | How to Hire and Ramp Sales Teams | How to Scale Customer Success Successfully | How and When to Go International and Crush It with Jeetu Mahtani

Eric Vishria is a General Partner @ Benchmark Capital, one of the world's leading venture firms. At Benchmark, Eric has served on over 10 boards including Confluent (CFLT), Amplitude (AMPL), Benchling, Contentful, Cerebras and several other private companies. Prior to joining Benchmark, Eric was the Co‐Founder and CEO of RockMelt, acquired by Yahoo in 2013. In Today's Episode with Eric Vishria We Discuss: 1. How to Make Money Investing in AI Today: How does Eric think through where value will accrue in the stack between chips, models and applications? Why does Eric believe foundation models are the fastest commoditising asset in history? Why does Eric believe that Nvidia will not be the only game in town in the next 3-5 years? 2. How to Invest in AI Application Layer Successfully: How does Eric analyse between a standalone and deep product vs a product that foundation model will commodities and incorporate into their feature set? How does Eric differentiate between the 10 different players all going after customer service, or sales tools or data analyst products etc? How does Eric analyse the quality of revenue of these AI application layer companies? What does he mean when he describes their revenue as "sugar high"? 3. How the Best VC Firm Makes Decisions: What is the decision-making process for all new deals in Benchmark? As specifically as possible, how does the voting process inside Benchmark work? What deal was the most contentious deal that went through? What did the partnership learn? How has the Benchmark decision-making process changed over 10 years? 4. Does AI Break Venture Capital Models: Does the price of AI deals and size of their rounds break the Benchmark model? Will foundation model companies all be acquired by the larger cloud providers? Unless multiples reflate in the public markets, does venture as an asset class have hope? Why does AI make paying ludicrously high prices potentially rational?  

Dmitry Gurski is the Co-Founder and CEO of Flo Health, the leading women's health app and the first European femtech unicorn. Launched in 2015, Flo Health has grown to over 70 million monthly active users and 5 million paid subscribers. The app is recognized as the #1 recommended tool for period and cycle tracking, and it recently achieved a valuation exceeding $1 billion. Beyond Flo, Dmitry is a partner at Palta, a co-founding company with a portfolio of successful startups including Simple App, MSQRD (acquired by Facebook), AIMatter (acquired by Google), and Wannaby (acquired by Farfetch). In Today's Episode with Dmitry Gurski We Discuss: 1. Why 99% of Startup Advice is BS: Why does Dmitry believe that speed is not the most important thing? Why does Dmitry believe that competition is actually a good thing? Why does Dmitry believe that craziness not intelligence is the most important trait in founders? Why does Dmitry believe that fundraising is simply a numbers game? What does no one understand about retention that everyone should know? 2. From Potato Farms to Billion Dollar Apps: What a childhood in potato farming taught Dmitry about leadership and technology? How mushroom farming taught Dmitry about diversification and focus? How does Dmitry advise people analyse the hardest moments in their life? Why Dmitry does not believe in talent? What else is there? 3. Scaling to Flo's First 1M Users: What were Dmitry's biggest lessons from two failed prior versions of Flo? What is the secret to success in consumer subscription? How did Flo acquire their first customers? What worked? What did not work? Why does Dmitry not believe in brand and PR? 4. Building a $200M Revenue Market Leader: What have been Dmitry's biggest lessons on monetisation? How does Dmitry think about retaining product simplicity with time? What are the first things to break in the scaling of a company? What did they do with Flo that he wishes they had not done?

Phil Carter is one of the best growth leaders of the last decade helping world-class companies like Faire, Quizlet, and Ibotta accelerate their growth. Today, Phil is a growth advisor and angel investor who helps Seed - Series C consumer subscription businesses define their growth strategy. In Today's Episode with Phil Carter We Discuss: The Seven Core Levers to Win at Consumer Subscription: How to Optimize Subscription Pricing and Packaging: Step: Single vs multiple subs tiers? Monthly, weekly or annually?  How often should it be revisited? Biggest mistakes companies make with pricing and packaging? How to deliver immediate value through new user onboarding? Target Metrics:  Best tactics for delivering value in the shortest amount of time? Biggest mistakes companies make in user onboarding? Thoughts on the very long surveys companies like Noom make people fill out pre getting access to the product? How to boost paid marketing efficiency by investing in desktop web flows? Target Metrics:  Why is now the time to be investing in desktop workflows? What are the most effective and specific tactics to do so? How to optimize paywall visibility and conversion? Target Metrics:  Why is paywall view rate so important?  What is good vs bad?  What are the most common places to trigger paywall? Thoughts on hard paywall vs consumer value first? Specific tactics to refine paywall design to maximize conversion? Single biggest mistakes companies make when it comes to paywall conversion? How to distinguish and emphasize premium value props? Target Metrics: What are the most effective ways to do this? Who does it best? Lessons from them? How to leverage motivation tactics (stats, streaks, badges, leaderboards, notifications)? Target Metrics: What is the most effective? Do we not have notification overload? What used to work but now does not work? Who does this best? Why them? How to leverage strategic discounts and promotions? Target Metrics: What are the most effective discounting methods used? What are the biggest mistakes companies make when using promos or discounts? Who does it best? What do they do?

Akshay Kothari is Co-Founder at Notion, one of the fastest-growing companies of the last decade. Akshay has run every function in the company from sales, to marketing to finance and even led their fundraising efforts raising $340M+ from Sequoia, Index and Coatue with the latest round pricing them at $10BN. Before Notion, Akshay was VP Product at Linkedin for 5+ years, leading all of their content efforts. He joined LinkedIn when his previous company, Pulse, was acquired by LinkedIn in 2013. In Today's Episode with Akshay Kothari We Discuss: 1. Founder Mode, Veto Powers and Focus: Does Akshay agree with "founder mode"? What are the biggest downsides to founder mode that not enough people are discussing? Why does Akshay believe that the single greatest power of a founder is their "veto power"? What is the biggest opportunity that Notion jumped on that they should not have done? What is the biggest opportunity that Notion did not jump on that they should have jumped on? 2. Raising $50M @ $2BN Valuation: Why did Ivan and Akshay decide to do this raise when they did not even need the money? How did the fundraising process for this round go? Why did they choose Coatue and Index? Why did Sequoia say no to this round? With the benefit of hindsight, what does Akshay wish that they had done differently? 3. Raising $270M @ $10BN Valuation: How did Sequoia come back into the frame with this round? Why did they say yes here when they did not before? Why does Akshay believe that of all the investor brands, Sequoia is the most powerful? In what way does having Sequoia as an investor change the trajectory of the company? Is Akshay concerned about how he will be able to scale into the $10BN valuation? How does Akshay address the challenge of bringing new team members in with stock options priced at $10BN? How much of a blocker is that? 4. Boards and Social Media are F*******: How is the way in which boards are constructed broken? How does Akshay believe that boards should be constructed? What roles should founders hire for in their board members? Why is Akshay most concerned about the "Tiktokification of everything"? Why does Akshay believe that social media has never been more concerning?  

Shardul Shah is a Partner at Index Ventures and one of the greatest cyber security investors of the last two decades. Among his many wins, Shardul has led rounds in Datadog, Wiz, Duo Security, Coalition and more. Shardul is also the only Partner investing at Index to have worked in every single Index office from London, to SF, to NYC to Geneva. Prior to Index, Shardul worked with Summit Partners, focusing on healthcare and internet technologies. In Today's Episode with Shardul Shah We Discuss: 1. Investing Lessons from Wiz and Datadog: Why does Shardul believe that TAM (total addressable market) is BS? Why does Shardul believe that every great deal will be expensive? How does Shardul evaluate when to double down and concentrate capital vs when to let someone else come in and lead a round in an existing company? How does Shardul think about when is the right time to sell a position in a company? 2. How the Best VCs Make Decisions: How does Shardul and Index create an environment of truth-seeking together, that is optimised for the best decision-making to take place? What are the biggest mistakes in how VCs make decisions today? Why does Shardul believe that all first meetings should be 30 mins not 60 mins? Why does Shardul believe it is so much harder to make investment decisions when partnerships are remote? What is better remote? 3. The Core Pillars of Venture: Sourcing, Selecting, Securing and Servicing: Which one does Shardul believe he is best at? What is he worst at? Does Shardul believe with the downturn we have moved into a world of selection and not just winning every new deal? Does Shardul believe that VCs provide any value? What are the biggest misnomers when it comes to "VC value add"? 4. Lessons from the Best Investors in the World: Who is the best board member that Shardul sits on a board with? What has Shardul learned from Gili Raanan and Doug Leone on being a good board member? What have been some of Shardul's biggest investing lessons from Danny Rimer? Why does Shardul hate benchmarks when it comes to investing?  

Mike Hudack is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sling, a peer-to-peer payments app whose vision is to simplify the way the world connects financially. Previously, he held roles at Monzo Bank as Chief Product Officer, Deliveroo as Chief Product and Technology Officer, and Facebook where he led ads product and sharing product. In Today's Episode with Mike Hudack We Discuss: 1. Product: Art vs Science: What is the true art of product? What makes the great product leaders and PMs? Is simple always better in product? How do you retain product simplicity with time? When should data be used over intuition in product building? 2. Lessons from Leading Ads at Facebook: What are Mike's single biggest product lessons from building the ads product at Facebook? How did a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg discussing a product change, alter how Mike thinks about product today? What makes Zuck so special on product? What are the biggest mistakes that Facebook made when it came to the ads product? What did they not do that he wishes they had done? 3. Leading Product at Deliveroo: What I Learned: What are Mike's biggest takeaways from his time at Deliveroo on how to make consumer products? What did Deliveroo do from a product perspective that worked so well? What did he learn? What were the single biggest product mistakes that Deliveroo made? What did he learn? How fast do you know when a consumer app is working or not working? When do you go against data and follow your intuition? 4. Building the Biggest Bank in Britain with Monzo: What are Mike's biggest lessons on product building from his time at Monzo? What did Monzo not do that he wishes they had done? Why does Mike think the US is crucial for Monzo? How did Monzo change how Mike thinks about competition? What do you do when your competitor, Revolut, is outshipping you at such a speed?  

David Schneider is a General Partner @ Coatue and one of the great operators of the last 20 years. Prior to Coatue, David was instrumental in ServiceNow’s growth to over $100B+ public market value. David led the growth of the company from $100M to $5BN in revenue. Before joining ServiceNow, David held senior positions at Data Domain, the company he joined at $0 in revenue and scaled to $1BN in revenue and an IPO and acquisition. In Today's Episode with David Schneider We Discuss: ServiceNow: Secrets to Scaling to $5BN in ARR: What are David's biggest lessons from scaling ServiceNow to $5BN ARR? What worked? What did not work? What are the most common reasons companies plateau? How did ServiceNow roll out so many different products so effectively? How did David hire and ramp 180 people in 90 days? 2. From OG Operator to Newbie Investor: What have been the single most challenging elements of making the transition to VC? What advice did David get from the biggest names on entering venture? How long did it take David to do his first deal? What advice does he give other operators entering? How does doing deals in 2024 compare to when David started doing deals in 2021? 3. VC Value: Do 90% of VCs Really Damage Companies: Does David agree that 90% of VCs actually detract value? What does David mean when he says that the worst VCs are "seagull VCs"? What are David's biggest tips to founders on how to get the most out of their board? What is enough ownership for David to really give the time needed to a company? 4. Lessons from the Greats: Doug Leone, Bill McDermott, Frank Slootman: Doug Leone: What has David learned from Doug on what it takes to be a great investor and board member? Frank Slootman: What has David learned from Bill on how to be the best leader of a mega company? Bill McDermott: What has David learned from Frank about decision-making and execution.  

Sean Rad is the Founder and former CEO of Tinder. Sean has made more romantic connections between humans than anyone in history with Tinder having matched 50BN different people. Sean is also the Founder of Rad Fund which has made over 100 investments in companies and funds. In Today's Episode with Sean Rad We Discuss: 1. Lessons Scaling Tinder to the Fastest Consumer Social App: Starting: How did the idea for Tinder come to Sean in a restaurant in LA? Scaling: What are Sean's biggest lessons for consumer apps scaling to their first 10,000 users? User Acquisition: How did a party change the entire user acquisition strategy for dinner? What did Tinder not do that Sean wishes they had done? What did Tinder do that with the benefit of hindsight, they should not have done? 2. Leadership Lessons from Tinder CEOship: Annual Product Redesign: Why does Sean believe that every consumer company should have a complete redesign of the app every year? What are the benefits? Detachment: How does Sean advise founders when it comes to detaching their happiness from the performance of the company? What works? What does not work? Common Mistakes: What are the most common mistakes that Sean sees early-stage founders make when it comes to leadership? 3. Money, Wealth and Creating a Family Office: How does Sean analyse his own relationship to money? How has it changed over time? At what stage of wealth does Sean believe you have true financial freedom? What is the single best investment Sean has made? What did he learn? What is the worst investment he has made? What did he learn? What have been the single hardest and most surprising elements of creating a family office? 4. Love, Death, Marriage: In what ways does Sean think love has changed with time? How do we deal with the loneliness pandemic? What does Sean believe are the most non-obvious but important secrets to a happy marriage? How does Sean approach and think about his own spirituality today? Why does he not fear death?  

Nick Chirls is the Founder of Asylum Ventures, a new venture firm dedicated to the creative act of building companies; treating founders like artists, not assets. Asylum raised $55 million to invest $1-2 million in early-stage founders practising the art of making startups. Prior to Asylum, Nick co-founded Notation Capital, one of NYC's most successful pre-seed firms. In Today's Episode with Nick Chirls We Discuss: 1. Why Venture Capital is Broken Today: Why is VC a ponzi scheme today? Why are most VCs sheep and have lost all creativity? Why are most investors today incentivised to get dollars out of the door and not to make great investments? Why are services functions within VC firms total BS? Why do no VCs provide significant enough value to a company that it is needle-moving? 2. How to Make Money in VC in 2024: What are the two ways to make money at seed in 2024? Why do founders in unloved markets care more than those in hot markets? Why will large institutions lose a ton of money investing in the large firms of today? Why does Nick believe VCs should always sell when their founders sell shares? 3. Lessons from 3xing a Fund on One Check: Why does Nick think about not purchasing preferred shares and only buying common shares? Why does Nick believe that investing in competitive markets is stupid? What does Nick believe are the conditions you must accept if you are doing a $5M on $25M seed?  

Zico Colter is a Professor and the Director of the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University.  His research spans several topics in AI and machine learning, including work in AI safety and robustness, LLM security, the impact of data on models, implicit models, and more.  He also serves on the Board of OpenAI, as a Chief Expert for Bosch, and as Chief Technical Advisor to Gray Swan, a startup in the AI safety space. In Today's Episode with Zico Colter We Discuss: 1. Model Performance: What are the Bottlenecks: Data: To what extent have we leveraged all available data? How can we get more value from the data that we have to improve model performance? Compute: Have we reached a stage of diminishing returns where more data does not lead to an increased level of performance? Algorithms: What are the biggest problems with current algorithms? How will they change in the next 12 months to improve model performance? 2. Sam Altman, Sequoia and Frontier Models on Data Centres: Sam Altman: Does Zico agree with Sam Altman's statement that "compute will be the currency of the future?" Where is he right? Where is he wrong? David Cahn @ Sequoia: Does Zico agree with David's statement; "we will never train a frontier model on the same data centre twice?" 3. AI Safety: What People Think They Know But Do Not: What are people not concerned about today which is a massive concern with AI? What are people concerned about which is not a true concern for the future? Does Zico share Arvind Narayanan's concern, "the biggest danger is not that people will believe what they see, it is that they will not believe what they see"? Why does Zico believe the analogy of AI to nuclear weapons is wrong and inaccurate?  

Scott Gorlick was employee #99 at Uber. Over 6 years, Scott built Uber in Atlanta and helped the company scale from 10 cities to $10B in revenue. Scott is also a prolific angel investor having written early checks into Lime and Standard Cognition to name a few. In Today's Episode with Scott Gorlick We Discuss: 1. The Driver Acquisition Playbook: Scaling to 1M Drivers How did Uber acquire 1M drivers? What was the playbook? What worked? What did not work? How much of a role did driver-to-driver referral payments have in driver acquisition? What did Lyft do on the driver acquisition side that Uber should have done? What did the retention look like for drivers on a 30, 60 and 90 day period? 2. The City Expansion Playbook: What was the expansion playbook that Uber used for new cities? What worked in ramping demand in a new city? What did not work? How much of a role did promotions and discounting play? Lessons from them? Why did Uber often let Lyft launch in a new market first? What was the benefit of this? How did Scott see the maturation rate change with new markets opening? How fast did each subsequent market reach profitability? 3. Travis Kalanick and What Uber Could Have Been: How would Uber be different today if Travis was still in charge? What are the biggest mistakes that Dara has made with their M&A strategy? What are some of Scott's biggest leadership lessons from working with Travis? How did Travis create such strong followership and cult around him? What were the single biggest management mistakes made by Travis?  

Arvind Narayanan is a professor of Computer Science at Princeton and the director of the Center for Information Technology Policy. He is a co-author of the book AI Snake Oil and a big proponent of the AI scaling myths around the importance of just adding more compute. He is also the lead author of a textbook on the computer science of cryptocurrencies which has been used in over 150 courses around the world, and an accompanying Coursera course that has had over 700,000 learners. In Today's Episode with Arvind Narayanan We Discuss: 1. Compute, Data, Algorithms: What is the Bottleneck: Why does Arvind disagree with the commonly held notion that more compute will result in an equal and continuous level of model performance improvement? Will we continue to see players move into the compute layer in the need to internalise the margin? What does that mean for Nvidia? Why does Arvind not believe that data is the bottleneck? How does Arvind analyse the future of synthetic data? Where is it useful? Where is it not? 2. The Future of Models: Does Arvind agree that this is the fastest commoditization of a technology he has seen? How does Arvind analyse the future of the model landscape? Will we see a world of few very large models or a world of many unbundled and verticalised models? Where does Arvind believe the most value will accrue in the model layer? Is it possible for smaller companies or university research institutions to even play in the model space given the intense cash needed to fund model development? 3. Education, Healthcare and Misinformation: When AI Goes Wrong: What are the single biggest dangers that AI poses to society today? To what extent does Arvind believe misinformation through generative AI is going to be a massive problem in democracies and misinformation? How does Arvind analyse AI impacting the future of education? What does he believe everyone gets wrong about AI and education? Does Arvind agree that AI will be able to put a doctor in everyone's pocket? Where does he believe this theory is weak and falls down?  

Imran Khan is the OG of IPOs having taken some of the biggest companies public including Alibaba, Snap, Box, Weibo and more. Today, Imran is the founder and Chief Investment Officer of Proem Asset Management. Prior to co-founding Proem, Imran served as Snap Inc.’s Chief Strategy Officer. Under his leadership, Snap’s annual revenue run rate increased to $1.6 billion from zero in less than four years. Previously, Imran was a Managing Director and Head of Global Internet Investment Banking at Credit Suisse where he advised on more than $45 billion-worth of Internet M&A and financing transactions. In Today's Episode with Imran Khan We Discuss: 1. The IPO Market: When Does it Open: How does Imran assess the state of the IPO market today? Can companies really go out with $100-$200M in revenue? Will we see revenue multiples reflate? Can venture continue as an asset class if they do not? When does Imran expect the IPO market to really open? 2. Is M&A F******: How does Imran assess the state of the M&A market today? How do founders need to change how they think about M&A? Why are they to blame for the lack of M&A activity we have today? To what extent can we blame Lina Khan for the lack of M&A? Why would a company go do an M&A process today when it is unlikely to be approved by the SEC? Why does Imran believe in the case of Wiz, it was a mistake for the company not to do the M&A? 3. AI's $600BN Question: Capex Spend: How does Imran analyse the insane capex spend we are seeing from Meta, Google and Amazon? How does Zuck not having his cash cow as the cloud business change how he can act? How does this compare to Google's capex spend 20 years ago? What can we learn from that? 4. Going Public: The Process, The Players and Jack Ma & Jamie Dimon: What is the literal process to take a company public? Who sets the price? What do large institutions want in companies going public? What are some of Imran's biggest lessons from taking Snap and Alibaba public? What are some of Imran's biggest lessons from Jack Ma, Jamie Dimon and Evan Spiegel?  

Chad Peets is one of the greatest sales leaders and recruiters of the last 25 years. From 2018 to 2023, Chad was a Managing Director at Sutter Hill Ventures. Chad has worked with the world's best CEOs and CROs to build world-class go-to-market organizations. Chad is currently a member of the Board of Directors for Lacework and Luminary Cloud and on the boards of Clumio and Sigma Computing. He previously served as a board member for Astronomer, Transposit, and others. He was an early-stage investor at Snowflake, Sigma, Observe, Lacework, and Clumio. In Today's Discussion with Chad Peet's We Discuss: 1. You Need a CRO Pre-Product: Why does Chad believe that SaaS companies need a CRO pre-product? Should the founder not be the right person to create the sales playbook? What should the founder look for in their first CRO hire? Does any great CRO really want to go back to an early startup and do it again? 2. What Everyone Gets Wrong in Building Sales Teams: Why are most sales reps not performing? How long does it take for sales teams to ramp? How does this change with PLG and enterprise? What are the benchmarks of good vs great for average sales reps? How do founders and VCs most often hurt their sales teams and performance? 3. How to Build a Hiring Machine: What are the single biggest mistakes people make when hiring sales reps and teams? Are sales people money motivated? How to create comp plans that incentivise and align? Why does Chad believe that any sales rep that does not want to be in the office, is not putting their career and development first? Why is it harder than ever to recruit great sales leaders today? 4. Lessons from Scaling Sales at Snowflake: What are the single biggest lessons of what worked from scaling Snowflake's sales team? What did not work? What would he do differently with the team again? What did Snowflake teach Chad about success and culture and how they interplay together?  

Aman Narang is the Co-Founder and CEO of Toast, one of the best-in-class vertical SaaS companies of our time with a market cap today of $13.5BN. Five astonishing stats that show the quality of the Toast business today: $1.2bn in ARR with 48.4% from payments. Toast Capital has reached $1bn in annualised loans originated. 875k restaurants in the US (Toast has 112k: 13% market share) 75% of locations are coming from inbound channels The first investor in the company invested $500K at a $3M price In Today's Episode with Aman Narang We Discuss: 1. The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make: Why does Aman believe that founders should spend more time fundraising and with investors early? Why does Aman believe founders should hire managers before they think they need them? Why does Aman believe that founders do not give up control early enough? 2. Lessons Scaling to a $14BN Market Cap: What did Aman and Toast do so successfully that allowed them to scale to $14BN market cap in 12 years? What worked? What are the single biggest mistakes Toast made that hindered their growth most? What are the first things to break in hyperscaling companies? What opportunity did Aman and Toast not take that with the benefit of hindsight, he wishes they had taken? 3. Crucible Moment Decisions: Expansion: How did Aman and Toast know when was the right time to release a second product? What has enabled Toast Capital to scale to $1BN in loans so efficiently? How did Aman and Toast scale so successfully into both enterprise and SMB? What are the biggest lessons from doing so? What did not work? How do Aman and Toast approach geographic expansion? How do they choose which countries to expand into?  

Aidan Gomez is the Co-founder & CEO at Cohere, the leading AI platform for enterprise, having raised over $1BN from some of the best with their last round pricing the company at a whopping $5.5BN. Prior to Cohere, Aidan co-authored the paper “Attention is All You Need,” which introduced the groundbreaking Transformer architecture. He also collaborated with a number of AI luminaries, including Geoffrey Hinton and Jeff Dean, during his time at Google Brain, where the team focused their efforts on large-scale machine learning. In Today's Episode with Aidan Gomez We Discuss: 1. Compute vs Data: What is the Bottleneck: Does Aidan believe that more compute will result in an equal increase in performance?   How much longer do we have before it becomes a case of diminishing returns?   What does Aidan mean when he says "he has changed his mind massively on the role of data"? What did he believe? How has it changed? 2. The Value of the Model: Given the demand for chips, the consumer need for applications, how does Aidan think about the inherent value of models today? Will any value accrue at the model layer? How does Aidan analyze the price dumping that OpenAI are doing? Is it a race to the bottom on price? Why does Aidan believe that "there is no value in last year's model"? Given all of this, is it possible to be an independent model provider without being owned by an incumbent who has a cloud business that acts as a cash cow for the model business? 3. Enterprise AI: It is Changing So Fast: What are the biggest concerns for the world's largest enterprises on adopting AI? Are we still in the experimental budget phase for enterprises? What is causing them to move from experimental budget to core budget today? Are we going to see a mass transition back from Cloud to On Prem with the largest enterprises not willing to let independent companies train with their data in the cloud? What does AI not do today that will be a gamechanger for the enterprise in 3-5 years? 4. The Wider World: Remote Work, Downfall of Europe and Relationships: Given humans spending more and more time talking to models, how does Aidan reflect on the idea of his children spending more time with models than people? Does he want that world? Why does Aidan believe that Europe is challenged immensely? How does the UK differ to Europe? Why does Aidan believe that remote work is just not nearly as productive as in person?  

Laela Sturdy is Managing Partner of CapitalG, Alphabet’s $7 billion independent growth fund, where she has invested in Stripe, Duolingo (DUOL), Gusto, UiPath (PATH), Webflow and Whatnot. Laela joined CapitalG shortly after its inception in 2013 and was promoted to Managing Partner in 2023, making her one of few women to be promoted into the sole leadership role within an established multibillion-dollar venture firm. Before joining CapitalG, Laela served as Managing Director of emerging businesses at Google and held leadership roles on the YouTube and Google Search teams. In Today's Episode with Laela Sturdy We Discuss: 1. Lessons from 10 Years Investing: What does Laela know now that she wishes she had known when she entered VC? What is the biggest miss for Laela? How did it change her mindset and approach? What are Laela's biggest takeaways from Stripe and UiPath? How did they change what she looks for in companies today? What is Laela's biggest advice to all new entrants to venture today? 2. How to Build a $100BN Company: Market Timing, Sizing and Staging: What does Laela mean when she says she will never take a risk on a company being able to complete a "second act"? How does Laela approach market sizing? How does Laela think about the notion that the best companies will always expand their markets? Is Laela willing to take market timing risk? What have been her biggest lessons on timing? Does Laela prefer founders who are new to a market and have optimistic naivety? Or prefer an expert in a market who knows every element of it? 3. The Deal: Pricing, Sizing and Upside: How does Laela think about price today? When is she willing to pay up vs not? What price did Laela pay that at the time seemed super high but turned out to be super cheap? What price did Laela pay that seemed super cheap but turned out to be super high? What upside is Laela underwriting towards? What does she need to see in base and best case? 4. VC Value Add: Is it all BS: Does Laela believe that the best founders really need help from their VC? Who is the best board member Laela works with? Why are they so good? What are the core areas where the VC and the founder are misaligned? What would Laela most like to change about the relationship that founders and VCs have?  

Kaz Nejatian is Shopify’s VP of Product & Chief Operating Officer. Before Shopify, Kaz founded Kash, a payment technology company which was acquired in 2017 by one of the largest fintech companies in the U.S. Kaz then served as Product Lead for Payments and Billing at Facebook, reducing the barriers for businesses in cash-dependent markets to purchase digital ads without a credit card. In Today's Episode with Kaz Nejatian We Discuss: 1. Learnings From the Greats: Mark Zuckerberg: What are Kaz's biggest lessons from working with Zuck? Why does Kaz believe Zuck is massively under-appreciated? Keith Rabois: What are Kaz's biggest lessons from working with Keith? How did it change how he operates on a day to day basis? Tobi Lütke: What have been Kaz's biggest lessons from working with Tobi? What has he changed most significantly since working with Tobi? 2. Shopify: Why We Build Our Own Tools: Why does Kaz believe it is crucial for Shopify to build their own tools? When did he doubt this strategy most? What caused him to question it? Why does Kaz believe the Stripe Shopify partnership is the most important in business? What is the role of a PM at Shopify? Why do Shopify focus on how not what product is built? 3. Eight Truths The Startup World Gets Wrong: Why does Kaz believe "The Lean Startup" has done more damage than any other startup book? Why does Kaz believe that 90% of companies do not know what they want when they hire? Why does Kaz believe the way that companies pay their staff is totally wrong? Why does Kaz believe that most companies pick fights they do not need to pick? Why does Kaz believe that for 90% of companies remote work is a terrible idea? Why does Kaz believe that everyone in sales and marketing should be able to code? Why does Kaz believe that married people with kids are more, not less productive? Why does Kaz believe that we totally misunderstand divorce rates?  

Shaun Maguire is a Partner at Sequoia Capital. At Sequoia he led their investment into SpaceX, The Boring Co and X among many others. Before Sequoia he co-founded a cybersecurity company called Expanse which Palo Alto Networks acquired for $1B. Before Expanse, Shaun worked at DARPA and was deployed to Afghanistan. In Today's Episode with Shaun Maguire We Discuss: 1. Why Iran is the Greatest Evil in the World: What specifically makes Iran the greatest danger to the world today? How should the US respond to the threat posed by Iran? Does the US have to go to war with Iran knowing that they now have nuclear weapons? How did the Biden-Harris administration worsen relations both with Iran and Saudi? Is Trump the best chance we have of bringing peace and stability to the Middle East? 2. Russia, Ukraine, Gaza and Israel: What is the Right Next Step: Does Shaun believe that the US should remove funding from Ukraine? How would Trump change the US' relationship with Putin? What does Shaun believe is the right next step for the US in Gaza and Israel? What does Shaun mean when he says the public have no idea how much crazy s**** happens? 3. Freedom of Speech and DEI: Remnants of the Past: Does Shaun believe we live in a society with freedom of speech? How does it differ between the US and Europe? Is Shaun negative on the future of Europe? Does he agree with Larry Summers that "it is a museum"? How does Shaun evaluate the state of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)? Why does Shaun believe that wokeness and cancel culture is one of the greatest dangers to society? When does Shaun believe that transgender becomes a problem in children? Where is the line? 4. The Election: Who Wins and What Happens: Does Shaun agree that Kamala is pulling ahead and Trump is now chasing her? How does Shaun analyse the chances of Trump winning? To what extent is it a real threat that there will be civil unrest if Trump does not win? Why does Shaun argue that too much blame is placed on Trump for Jan 6th and he did nothing that Hilary Clinton had not done in disputing prior elections? How does Shaun evaluate the appointment of JD Vance? Does Shaun agree with the echoes from the crowd for Trump to remove him? 5. Elon Musk, US Selling All BTC & Inside Sequoia: What does Shaun believe are the three qualities that make Elon Musk one of the greatest entrepreneurs of all time? Why does Shaun believe that it is a massive mistake for the US to sell all BTC holdings? Who is the best picker in Sequoia? Who is the best at sourcing? Does Shaun get told off internally for his opinions being shared so freely externally? What have been Shaun's biggest lessons from working alongside Doug Leone? 20VC: Sequoia's Shaun Maguire on Will We See WW3 Shortly | Why DEI is a Cancer for Society | Why Iran is the World's Greatest Evil | Why Trump is the Only Hope for Peace in the Middle East | Trump vs Harris: Who Wins & What Happens 

Dax Dasilva is the Founder & CEO Lightspeed Commerce, one of the most incredible stories in startups. For 7 years they did not raise outside funding and ran a very profitable business. Ultimately they partnered with Accel and Innovia before going public on the Canadian Stock Exchange with just $70M in ARR. Lightspeed also undertook 9 acquisitions over the course of a four year period to consolidate the global market. Today they have a whopping $900M in ARR but are only valued at $2.6BN. Today we ask the question, is Lightspeed one of the public market's most misunderstood companies? In Today's Episode with Dax Dasilva We Discuss: 1. VC Funding is Distorting SaaS: Why did Dax decide not to raise money for Lightspeed in the early days? Does Dax believe Lightspeed would have been successful had they have raised a seed round like many do today in SaaS? Why does Dax believe venture funding is distorting a generation of SaaS companies today? How does Dax advise founders scaling their business today from $0-$1M in ARR? 2. What Went Wrong: The Founder Returns: Why did Dax feel he had to come back to the role of CEO in 2024? What was not working? What was the single biggest problem that the public markets had with Lightspeed? What were some of the biggest challenges that came with the intense amount of M&A? What would Dax most like to do that the public market will not allow? 3. What Makes a Great Leader: How it Changes: What required skills in leadership change with the changing scale of the company? What skill does Dax have that he is slightly ashamed of but has most contributed to his success? What did Dax not know when he founded Lightspeed that he wishes he had known? What question is Dax never asked that he should be asked more?

Alexis Ohanian is the Founder and General Partner of Seven Seven Six, an early-stage venture capital firm with $970M AUM. Prior to 776, Alexis was the Co-Founder of Initialized, one of the most successful early-stage firms in history with their first fund returning 56x DPI. Before Initialized, Alexis was a Partner at the world-famous Y Combinator and before that was one of the Co-Founders of Reddit. In Today's Discussion with Alexis Ohanian We Touch On: 1. $31M in Revenue: The P&L of a Sports Team: What are the core revenue drivers for Angel City Football Team? How did Alexis convince Tony @ Doordash to write the largest-ever brand sponsorship check to have the Doordash name on the Angel City shirt? How much money does Angel City make from ticket sales per year? What does the revenue from merchandise look like for Angel City? How has it changed with time? 2. How to Spend $31M Annually To Run a Team: What are the single biggest costs in running a sports team? Does Alexis believe that salary caps are good or bad for leagues? How much money is spent by clubs on content and software today? How should that change? 3. More Cash in Sports Than Ever: Prices for teams are at an all-time high. Are we in a bubble for sports assets? What remains under-priced and what is over-priced today? What are the pros and cons of private equity entering sports ownership in a meaningful way? Who is the worst sports team owner who despite his mismanagement, still made billions? 4. Alexis Ohanian: AMA: How did Alexis and Serena William's children become millionaires through sports team ownership? How did Alexis turn a $10,000 check into $17.1M? How did a $10,000 check into a shoe company make Alexis $7M? Why does Alexis believe that sports becomes even more valuable in a world of AI?  

David Cahn is a Partner @ Sequoia Capital, one of the great venture firms of the last 5 decades. Before joining the Sequoia partnership, David led Coatue's venture business as a General Partner and COO where he led investments in Hugging Face, Runway and Supabase. David also joined the boards of Weights & Biases and Replit. In Today's Episode with David Cahn We Discuss: 1. AI's $600BN Question: What is the $600BN question in AI today? Is it possible to believe "AI will change the world" and "Capex levels are too high" at the same time? Why do the cloud players have to act now? When does the Capex reduce for them? How does Meta not having a core cash cow in cloud change the way they can respond? Why is all the risk today being borne by the large incumbents? Why is that good for startups? How will we see Satya and Zuckerberg change their narrative towards their Capex spend to the public markets? 2. The Data Centre is the Most Important Asset: Why does David believe that data centre is the most important asset? What does he mean when he says "servers, steel and power" are the pillars of AI? What happens when the development of models outpaces the construction of data centres? Why does David believe no one will ever train a frontier model on the same data centre twice? 3. The Biggest Opportunities in AI: Why does David believe the biggest opportunity right now is in the build-out of data centres? What does the supply chain look like for the build-out of data centres? Who are the winners? Why does David believe the biggest opportunity in finance is in creating new debt instruments that will allow the largest incumbents in the world to move this data centre spend off balance sheet? Why does David believe that AI will drive more energy innovation than any policy has done? 4. The Secrets of Sequoia: Inside the Walls of the Greatest Firm in Venture: What does David and Sequoia believe is the one definition of success in venture? Who is the best at find companies in Sequoia? Who is the best at picking? Why does David believe conviction, not picking is the hardest part in venture? How do Sequoia want to shape and mould every investor in the firm? 20VC: Sequoia's David Cahn on AI's $600BN Question | Why the Data Centre is the Most Important Asset | Servers, Steel and Power: The Core Pillars Powering the Future of AI

Ben Fiechtner is Chief Revenue Officer at Clari, where he drives global go-to market & revenue operations. Ben previously served as SVP at UiPath, growing their key accounts and regulated industry verticals from $150m to $450m. Before UiPath, Ben was at Salesforce where he held multiple senior roles, achieving significant year-over-year growth and always on the bleeding edge of Vertical teams.  In Today's Episode with Ben Fiechtner We Discuss: 1. How to Close Deals Faster: What are the top 3 ways sales reps can increase urgency in a deal cycle? Should reps be discounting? If so, what level can be appropriate? What is the right way to ask prospects for their internal buy process? How do you know if you are dealing with a champion? What are the single biggest reasons that deals are delayed in closing? 2. SMB to Enterprise: How and When: When is the right time to move into the enterprise? What are the single biggest mistakes startups make when making the transition? How does Ben advise startups to do it but with minimal spend and investment? 3. Verticalisation: Why, When and How: Why is it important for founders to consider a verticalised sales strategy? What are the benefits? When is the right time to consider a verticalised approach? What is the right way to resource each sales team for a verticalised approach? What are the biggest mistakes companies make when verticalising sales teams? 4. How to Hire the Best Reps: What are the top signals that a candidate will make for an amazing sales rep? What question does Ben ask in every interview? What do the best answers have? What are the biggest mistakes founders make when hiring sales reps? How fast do you know when a hire is a good hire or not?  

Ethan Mollick is the Co-Director of the Generative AI Lab at Wharton, which builds prototypes and conducts research to discover how AI can help humans thrive while mitigating risks. Ethan is also an Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he studies and teaches innovation and entrepreneurship, and also examines the effects of artificial intelligence on work and education. His papers have been published in top journals and his book on AI, Co-Intelligence, is a New York Times bestseller.  In Today's Episode with Ethan Mollick We Discuss: 1. Models: Is More Compute the Answer: How has Ethan changed his mind on whether we have a lot of room to run in adding more compute to increase model performance? What will happen with models in the next 12 months that no one expects? Why will open models immediately be used by bad actors, what should happen as a result? Data, algorithms, compute, what is the biggest bottleneck and how will this change with time? 2. OpenAI: The Missed Opportunity, Product Roadmap and AGI: Why does Ethan believe that OpenAI is completely out of touch with creating products that consumers want to use? Which product did OpenAI shelve that will prove to be a massive mistake? How does Ethan analyse OpenAI's pursuit of AGI? Why did Ethan think Brad, COO @ OpenAI's heuristic of "startups should be threatened if they are not excited by a 100x improvement in model" is total BS? 3. VCs, Startups and AI Labs: What the World Does Not Understand: What do Big AI labs not understand about big companies? What are the biggest mistakes companies are making when implementing AI? Why are startups not being ambitious enough with AI today? What are the single biggest ways consumers can and should be using AI today?    

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?  

Nilan Peiris is Chief Product Officer at Wise, where he leads on growth across channels including product and platform. Prior to Wise, Nilan was VP Growth at HouseTrip, in charge of scaling the company’s growth in the European market. He’s also worked as Chief Marketing Technology Officer at Holiday Extras, where he was responsible for all areas of technology, marketing and customer acquisition. Nilan also advises a number of early-stage startups on growth and getting to traction. In Today's Episode With Nilan Peiris We Discuss: Lessons Scaling Transferwise to the First 1M Users: What growth tactics worked in scaling Wise to 1M users? What growth tactics did not work? What did they learn? What did Wise not do that Nilan wishes they had done? What single product change completely changed the trajectory of their growth? 2. How to Use Content to Crush Competition: What are the two different types of content that all companies must now make? What are the single biggest mistakes companies make with content today? What do you do when your competition can spend 7-8x more on marketing? Is SEO and SEM dead today or does it still play the same prominent role? 3. Wise's Framework on How to Win at Performance Marketing: What have been Nilan's single biggest lessons on how to win in performance marketing? What are the biggest mistakes companies make today in performance marketing? When is the right time to diversify and add new channels? What level of channel concentration would concern Nilan to see? 4. The Secret to Adding More Products: When is the right time to add a second product? How does Nilan define great product marketing today? How can one do amazing and targeted product marketing with several products aimed at different customers? What are the single biggest mistakes that companies make with brand marketing?  

Jason Lemkin is one of the OG SaaS investors with all of his first five investments turning into unicorns with Pipedrive, Algolia, Talkdesk, Salesloft and RevenueCat all in his portfolio. SaaStr is the largest global community in SaaS and he has taught a generation the fundamentals of SaaS on saastr.com. In Our Second Episode of This Week in SaaS: 1. Wiz Rejects Google's $23BN Acquisition Offer: How does Jason analyse the price of the offer? $23BN for a $500M ARR business growing 120% YoY? What is the reasoning for Google in pursuing the acquisition? If Wiz had of proceeded in the process, what are the chances it would have made it through regulators? Why did Wiz walk away from the offer? If Jason were on the board, what would he have done? Is there a correlation between the downfall of Crowdstrike and Wiz turning down the offer? What does this mean for the M&A market moving forward? Will there be a secondary round now in place for Wiz at $23BN? 2. Crowdstrike: WTF Happens from Here: Did Crowdstrike manage the crisis in the right way? What would Jason have done differently? What is the bull case for Crowdstrike moving forward from this point? What are the bear case for the company? Could this snowball and be the end? What will this do to company requirements on having single point of failure solutions? Where will the market cap of Crowdstrike be at the end of 2024? 3. LegalTech: Show Me the Money: $1BN in a Single Day: Clio announced a $900M round at a $3BN valuation. How does Jason analyse this? What does Jason make of Harvey's $100M raise at a $1.5BN valuation? Why does Jason think 2025 will be the year for AI parity? Why will we see the majority of SaaS features be commoditised in 2025? What is the single biggest regret that Jason has in his investing career?

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?  

Cameron Adams is Chief Product Officer and co-founder of Canva where he is responsible for heading up the design and product teams. Since launching in 2013, Canva’s global community has grown to over 185 million monthly users in over 190 countries. In 2021, Canva was valued at $40 billion, following a $200m funding round. This saw it become one of the most valuable private software companies in the world. Prior to joining Canva, Cameron found himself working closely with Lars and Jens Rasmussen (co-founders of Google Maps) to realise the design vision for Google Wave. In Today's Episode with Cameron Adams: 1. From Accidental Joining to Most Valuable Private Company: How did Cameron go from working on Google wave with Lars Rasmussen to co-founding Canva with Mel and Cliff? What was the single closest near-death experience in the life of Canva? Why did Canva fail as a social network? What did Cameron learn from that? 2. How to Create Users that Truly Love Your Products: What have been Canva's biggest lessons on what it takes to do world class onboarding? What is Cameron biggest advice to founders on how to create moments of delight in your product? Is simplicity always best in product? What, when made more complex, is better for the user? 3. Scaling Canva into the Enterprise: What are the biggest product changes that are required to move into enterprise? What does Cam know about moving up market that he wishes he had known when he started? What are the biggest product and design mistakes founders make when making the transition from PLG to enterprise sales? 4. AI Changes Everything: More Money or Better Products Only Who will win the foundation model layer landscape? What will it be in 10 years? Will companies actually make more revenue from having AI in products or will it just create better products? How does Canva's implementation of AI in their products impact the margins of their products?