The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Episodes
20VC's Big Fat Quiz of the Year: Founder, Fund and Breakout Company of 2025 | Predictions for 2026: The Company to Buy, The Biggest Short | Why Salesforce Could Win 2026 and The Tailwinds NVIDIA Will Face
22 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 03:48 Founder of the Year 2025 06:58 Product of the Year 10:05 Fund of the Year 20:52 Breakout Companies of 2025: Who Made the Biggest Impact?...
20Product: On Running's CPO on How to Create Emotion Through Product | Why 99% of Products Fail and How to Create Cults Around Products | The Biggest Product Mistakes On Have Made & Lessons Learned with Gérald Marolf
19 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Gérald Marolf is the Chief Product Officer at On Running. Gérald oversees the full range of On's shoes, apparel and accessories to make sure each de...
20VC: Will SpaceX IPO at $1.5TRN | Will Cursor Kill Figma | Lightspeed Raises $9BN | OpenAI: $1BN from Disney, New CRO & #1 App in App Store | Oracle and Broadcom Hit: Now the Time to Buy?
18 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 03:32 Lightspeed's $9 Billion Fundraise 05:20 The Impact of Mega Funds on Seed VCs 10:09 The Supercycle of Growth and Late-Stage Investments 1...
20VC: a16z's David George on How $BN Funds Can 5×, Do Margins & Revenue Matter in AI & the Most Controversial Bet at a16z
15 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David George is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he leads the firm's Growth investing team. His team has backed many of the defining co...
20Growth: How Wiz Built a $30BN Brand in Enterprise | What Worked vs What Was a Mega Failure: Lessons Learned | Why Marketers Make the Worst CMOs & What To Look for in Growth with Raaz Herzberg
12 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Raaz Herberg is the Chief Marketing Officer and VP Product Strategy at Wiz, the fastest-growing cloud security company in history. As one of the first...
20VC OGs: SpaceX Valued at $800BN & Harvey Raises $160M at an $8BN Price | Airwallex Raises $330M and The Battle with Keith Rabois | Netflix Acquires Warner Brothers | IPO Market Predictions for 2026: Anthropic, Stripe, Databricks and SpaceX
11 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 03:46 SpaceX's $800 Billion Valuation: A Deep Dive 09:18 IPO Market Predictions for 2026 18:18 Netflix's Bold Move: Acquiring Warner Brothers ...
20VC: Kalshi's $1BN Raise, the Polymarket Feud, and the Battle to Replace Traditional Media
08 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Tarek Mansour is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Kalshi, the leader in the world of prediction markets. Just last week, they announced their $1BN raise at an...
20VC: Inside Bending Spoons Acquisition Machine: Evernote, Eventbrite, Vimeo | How Evernote Evaluates Acquisitions and New Product Ideas | How Evernote Mastered Product Launches, User Retention and Monetisation with Federico Simionato
05 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bending Spoons is the acquisition machine of the tech world. They have acquired the likes of Evernote, Vimeo, Eventbrite, Streamyard and more. However...
20VC: Thrive & OpenAI Partnership | Eventbrite Acquired for $500M | Databricks Raising $5BN at $134BN Valuation: Cheap or Not? | Why SaaS is Like Japan and The TAM Trap in Software
04 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 04:20 Thrive and OpenAI Partnership 07:14 Databricks Raising $5BN at $134BN Valuation: Cheap or Not? 17:39 Eventbrite Acquired by Bending Sp...
20VC: Scale, Surge, Turing, Mercor: Who Wins & Who Loses in Data Labelling | Is Revenue in Data Labelling Real or GMV? | Why 99% of Knowledge Work Will Go and What Happens Then? | Why SaaS is Dead in a World of AI with Jonathan Siddharth @ Turing
01 Dec 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Siddharth is Founder and CEO of Turing, one of the fastest-growing AI companies advancing frontier models. Jonathan has led the company to an...
20Sales: John McMahon on How to Hire, Train & Retain the Best Sales Reps | How Sales Changes in a World of AI | Sales Lessons from Snowflake and MongoDB | How to Create and Drive a Sales Process with Urgency
28 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
John McMahon is widely regarded as one of the greatest enterprise-software sales leaders of all time. He's the only person to have served as Chief Rev...
20VC: Anthropic Raises $30BN from Microsoft and NVIDIA | NVIDIA Core Business Threatened by TPU | Sam Altman's "War Mode" Analysed | Sierra Hits $100M ARR: Justifies $10BN Price? | Lovable Hits $200M ARR & Rumoured $6BN Round
27 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 04:06 Anthropic's $30BN Investment from Microsoft and NVIDIA 07:01 Google vs. OpenAI: Sam Altman's "War Mode" Memo 15:27 NVIDIA's Customer Con...
20VC: Base44's Maor Shlomo on How Vibe Coding Will Kill SaaS and Salesforce | Why it is BS that Vibe Coding Platforms Do Not Have Defensibility and Bad Margins | Why He Worries About Google, Not Replit and Lovable | Why Long Anthropic, Not OpenAI?
24 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Maor Shlomo is the Founder and CEO of Base44, the AI building platform that Maor built from idea to $80M acquisition by Wix, in just 8 months. Today t...
20VC: Max Altman on The New Seed War: Can Anyone Compete with Sequoia and a16z | Leaving $2BN on the Table with Reddit | Lessons from Backing Rippling at $25M Post | Why Climate Tech is a Mirage and Disaster
21 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Max Altman is Co‑Founder & Managing Partner at Saga Ventures, a US$125 M early‑stage fund. Before Saga Max was an investor with Apollo Proj...
20VC: Cursor Raises $2.3BN: Who Wins the Coding War | Peter Thiel and Softbank Sell NVIDIA: Analysed | Why Venture Capital Will Hit $1TRN and the Opening of Retail | Why Stripe and the Best Companies Will Never Go Public
20 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 04:47 Cursor Raises $2.3BN at $29BN Valuation 11:36 What Gemini 3 Means for Lovable, Cursor and Replit 30:54 Peter Thiel and Softbank Sell NVI...
20VC: Andrew NG on The Biggest Bottlenecks in AI | How LLMs Can Be Used as a Geopolitical Weapon | Do Margins Matter in a World of AI? | Is Defensibility Dead in a World of AI? | Will AI Deliver Masa Son's Predictions of 5% GDP Growth?
17 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Andrew Ng is a globally recognized leader in AI. He is Founder of DeepLearning.AI, Executive Chairman of LandingAI, General Partner at AI Fund, Ch...
20Product: How AI Changes Product Design | Does the Design Phase Become Irrelevant in a World of Vibe Coding | The Five Pillars of Truly Great Product Design with Carl Rivera, Chief Design Officer at Shopify
14 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Carl Rivera is the Chief Design Officer at Shopify, where he previously led both Merchant Services and the Shop App as VP of Product. Before joining S...
20VC: Sequoia's Leadership Transition | Michael Burry Shorts NVIDIA and Palantir | Gamma Raises $100M at $2BN | Has Defensibility Died in a World of AI | Datadog Surges as Duolingo Plummets: What is Happening
13 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 04:22 Sequoia's Leadership Transition 09:46 Michael Burry's Big Short on Nvidia and Palantir 17:41 Gamma Raises $100M at a $2BN Valuation 32:3...
20VC: Benchmark's Newest General Partner Ev Randle on Why Margins Matter Less in AI | Why Mega Funds Will Not Produce Good Returns | OpenAI vs Anthropic: What Happens and Who Wins Coding | Investing Lessons from Peter Thiel and Mamoon Hamid
10 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ev Randle is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the best funds in venture capital. In their latest fund, they have Mercor ($10BN valuation), Sierra...
20Sales: Why You Need a CRO Pre-Product | Why Remote Sales Teams Do Not Work | How Snowflake Built a Sales Machine with Chad Peets
07 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
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 Ve...
20VC: Navan IPO: Winners, Losers and is a $4.5BN Exit Enough in VC Today | Harvey Raises $150M at $8BN Price | Why Google is a Buy and Amazon is a Sell | Meta Down 10%, Is Zuck Struggling?
06 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 04:27 Navan's IPO: Winners, Losers and 20% Crater 12:55 Harvey Raises $150M at an $8BN Valuation 35:36 Was Sam Altman Wrong to Snap at Brad Ge...
20VC: Cohere's Chief Scientist on Why Scaling Laws Will Continue | Whether You Can Buy Success in AI with Talent Acquisitions | The Future of Synthetic Data & What It Means for Models | Why AI Coding is Akin to Image Generation in 2015 with Joelle Pineau
03 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Joelle Pineau is the Chief Scientist at Cohere, where she leads research on advancing large language models and practical AI systems. Before joining C...
20VC: Tim Ferriss: Why I Walked Away From Angel Investing After Uber | How I Accidentally Lost $150 Million | Money Fixed My Problems—Then Made Me Miserable
31 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
🎧 20VC x Tim Ferriss — Full Episode Timeline 00:00 – "How Do You Stay True to Yourself When You Have to Perform for the World?" 06:00 – "Why ...
20VC: a16z Raises $10BN in New Funds | Mercor Raises $350M at a $10BN Valuation | OpenAI Restructuring: Who Wins and Who Loses | Why IRR is a BS Metric and Three Ways to Win in VC Today
30 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 05:17 OpenAI's Restructuring: Winners and Losers 17:17 Andreessen Horowitz's Raise $10BN in New Funds 26:38 Mercor Raises $350M at a $10BN Val...
20VC: Sequoia's David Cahn on The Winners and Losers in AI | The $0-$100M Revenue Club: Is Triple, Triple, Double, Double Dead? | The Future of Defence: Who Wins and Who Loses | How to Analyse Margins and Growth Rates in a World of AI
27 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
David Cahn is a Partner at Sequoia Capital and one of the world’s leading AI investors. At Sequoia David has led investments in Clay, Juicebox, Sesa...
20Growth: How to Build a Paid Marketing Machine: ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) 101 | The Rise of User Generared Content and How to Use It | TikTok Ads: Expectations vs. Reality | Hiring for Growth: When and Who with Sandy Diao
24 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Sandy Diao is one of the most exceptional growth leaders of the last decade. Sandy has scaled products to over 200M+ users and led growth teams at Des...
20VC: Why VC Today is Worse Than 2021 | Why Vertical SaaS is a Bad Investment Today | Why We Are Deluding Ourselves on Growth Expectations | Revolut Raises $3BN at a $75BN Valuation | Benchmark Adds Their Newest General Partner
23 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 04:50 Benchmark's New Partner: Everett Randall 10:19 Revolut Raises $3BN at a $75BN Valuation: Another Loss for Public Markets? 28:39 Why Toda...
20VC: Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz on Raising $300M+ at a $17BN Valuation | Deel vs Rippling: WTF is Going On | Management Lessons from Ben Horowitz and Nik Storonsky | Deel's M&A Playbook: Lessons from 13 Acquisitions: What Works & What Doesn't
20 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Bouaziz is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Deel, the $17BN global payroll juggernaut that just last week announced their latest $300M fundraise led by R...
20VC: The Startup Adding $1M ARR Every Week | Competing Against OpenAI's Codex and Claude Code: Who Wins | Why Gemini is Failing and GPT-5 Is Winning | Do Margins Matter in a World of AI | The Ugly Truth About AI Coding with Zach Lloyd, Warp
17 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Zach Lloyd is the Founder and CEO of Warp, the next-generation developer terminal reinventing how engineers build and collaborate. Warp has raised ove...
20VC: $3.5BN - The Price Zuck Paid for Thinking Machines Co-Founder | Goldman Sachs Acquires Industry Ventures for $665M | Softbank Borrows $5BN Against ARM Holding to Invest More Into OpenAI
16 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 03:44 Rory Is So Old He Worked with Arthur Rock!!! 07:28 Goldman Sachs Acquires Industry Ventures for $665M 16:37 Thinking Machines Co-Founder...
20VC: Atlassian CEO on Why Everything is Overvalued & Are We in an AI Bubble | Do Margins Matter & Does Defensibility Exist in an AI World | Is Per Seat Pricing Dead & The Future of Vibe Coding with Mike Cannon-Brookes
13 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mike Cannon-Brookes is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Atlassian, the $50BN software giant behind products like Jira, Confluence, and Trello. Since found...
20Sales: Scaling Snowflake from $0-$3BN in ARR | Snowflake vs Databricks: My Biggest Lessons | Why Customer Success is BS and What Replaces It with Chris Chris Degnan
10 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Degnan is the former Chief Revenue Officer at Snowflake, where he was instrumental in scaling the company from less than $1M in ARR to over $3B ...
20VC: OpenAI's Multi $BN Deal with AMD | Polymarket, Vercel and Supabase Raise Mega Rounds | Does King Making Really Work in Venture Capital: Harvey vs Legora | Chamath is Back: The SPAC is Back
09 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 03:29 OpenAI and AMD's Major Partnership 07:35 Microsoft Have F***** Up the OpenAI Partnership 17:08 OpenAI's Developer Day Announcements ...
20VC: Cerebras CEO on Why Raise $1BN and Delay the IPO | NVIDIA Showing Signs They Are Worried About Growth | Concentration of Value in Mag7: Will the AI Train Come to a Halt | Can the US Supply the Energy for AI with Andrew Feldman
06 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Feldman is Co-Founder & CEO of Cerebras, building the world's fastest AI inference and training. Cerebras recently closed a $1.1BN Series G rou...
20Growth: How to Use Influencers to Scale Growth Insanely Fast | How to Optimise User Onboaring for Growth | How the Best Growth Teams Create Organic Growth and Community | Why LTV/CAC Models are BS with Ketty Slonimsky
03 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ketty Slonimsky is Chief Growth Officer at Palta, the platform behind apps like Flo (the #1 female health app with 77M+ MAU), Simple, and Zing AI, whe...
20VC: Are Burn Multiples BS in an AI World | Sam Altman Needs $1TRN of Energy | Klarna, Figma, Stubhub, all Down: Are Public Markets Turning? | FiveTran and DBT: Is the Wave of Consolidation About to Begin?
02 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 03:58 Understanding Burn Multiples and Capital Efficiency in an AI World 11:54 What Metrics Founders Need to Focus on in a World of AI 19:31 T...
20VC: OpenAI and Anthropic Will Build Their Own Chips | NVIDIA Will Be Worth $10TRN | How to Solve the Energy Required for AI... Nuclear | Why China is Behind the US in the Race for AGI with Jonathan Ross, Groq Founder
29 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Ross is the Founder & CEO of Groq, the AI chip company redefining inference at scale. Under his leadership, Groq has raised over $3B from top...
20Product: Revolut Business $1BN Revenue: Five of the Biggest Product Lessons | How Revolut Structures Product and Design Teams | How Revolut Experiments and Invests in New Product Bets | How Revolut Ships Product So Fast with James Gibson
26 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
James Gibson is Head of Revolut Business. Under his leadership, Revolut Business now processes over $33 billion in monthly transaction volume and gene...
20VC: NVIDIA Invests $100BN Into OpenAI | Is Triple, Triple, Double, Double Dead | Navan Files to go Public & Notion Hits $500M ARR | The Impact of H1B Visas on Startups in the US
25 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 00:00 Why I am 100% Equities and 0% Cash 04:35 Nvidia's Massive $100BN Investment in OpenAI 08:39 Is Anthropic Negatively Positioned by OpenAI...
20VC: General Catalyst CEO Hemant Taneja on The Future of Venture Capital: Chanel vs Walmart | Lessons Scaling GC to $40BN in AUM | Investing $5BN+ Into Stripe Over 14 Rounds | Investing Hundreds of Millions into Anthropic at $60BN Valuation
22 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Hemant Taneja is the CEO and leader of General Catalyst, the firm he has scaled over the last decade into one of the largest with over $40BN in AUM. H...
20VC: Why 90% of Founders Build Startups Wrong | Why AI Growth Rates are Sustainable & Remote Work is BS and the AI Talent War | Competing with Brett Taylor and Sierra: Who Wins the Customer Service War with Jesse Zhang, Decagon
19 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jesse Zhang is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Decagon, the conversational AI platform for customer experience. As one of the fastest growing companies in th...
20VC: Opendoor's CEO on The Greatest Turnaround in Tech | OpenAI and Oracle: How Can Either Afford to Do This | How Anthropic Could Lose 50% of Their Revenue Overnight | Replit Raises at $3BN | Figure, Gemini & VIA IPOs Broken Down
18 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 00:00 Opendoor's Potential and Market Valuation 03:32 Why Did Kaz Leave $300M on the Table to Join Opendoor 04:44 Why Does Kaz Believe OPEN Ca...
20VC: Mercor: From $1M to $500M in 17 Months: The Fastest Growing Company in the World | How to Think About Margins and Revenue Sustainability in AI | Why Evaluation Benchmarks in AI are BS Today with Brendan Foody
15 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Brendan Foody is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Mercor, the fastest growing company in history. The company solves talent allocation in the AI economy and t...
20VC: Why AI SDRs are BS and Do Not Work | How to Use AI in Your Sales Team and Process to Win Today | What Skills Do All New Reps Need to Have in an AI First World with Amit Bendov, CEO @ Gong
12 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Amit Bendov is Co-Founder & CEO of Gong, the leading AI-sales platform. The company has raised about over $600 million from some of the best in the wo...
20VC: Musk's $TRN Pay Package Broken Down | Ramp Hits $1BN ARR and Brex Hits $700M: Who Wins | OpenAI's $10BN Secondary Sale | Atlassian Buys The Browser Company for $610M | ASML Lead Roun into Mistral at $14BN Valuation
11 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: [00:05] Musk’s $1 Trillion Pay Package: The Breakdown? [00:15] Scale, Windsurf: Are Founders Just Mercenaries Chasing Cash Today? [00:21] Ra...
20VC: ElevenLabs Hits $200M ARR: The Untold Story of Europe's Fastest Growing AI Startup | The Real Cost of AI from Talent to Data Centres | How US VCs are in a Different League to Europeans | The Future of Foundation Models with Mati Staniszewski
08 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Mati Staniszewski is the Co-Founder and CEO of ElevenLabs, the world’s leading AI voice platform. Since launching in 2022, ElevenLabs has raised ove...
20Growth: Meta CMO Alex Schultz on How All Founders Have to Change Their Marketing Playbook in a World of AI | Is AI Plateauing, What it Means if China Wins the AI Race and Why Zuck is a Generational Leader
05 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Schultz is the Chief Marketing Officer and VP of Analytics at Meta, where he has spent nearly two decades shaping the company’s growth and mark...
20VC: Anthropic Raises $13BN | Why Canva Will Not Direct List | OpenAI Buys Statsig for $1.1BN All Stock | Lovable Raising at $4BN + Vercel at $9BN: Justified or Not | Quarterly Results from SNOW, Mongo, ZOOM and more
04 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: 04:00 – Anthropic Raises $13BN: The Analysis? 19:00 – Is Zuck’s $14BN Scale bet the biggest blunder in AI? 27:00 – Lovable Raising at ...
20VC: Cohere Founder on How Cohere Compete with OpenAI and Anthropic $BNs | Why Counties Should Fund Their Own Models & the Need for Model Sovereignty | How Sam Altman Has Done a Disservice to AI with Nick Frosst
01 Sep 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Nick Frosst is a Canadian AI researcher and entrepreneur, best known as co-founder of Cohere, the enterprise-focused LLM. Cohere has raised over $900 ...
20Product: Why Most CPOs are Bad | Why You Do Not Need PMs in a World of AI | Why the Design Stage is Dead and How to Use Vibe Coding to Replace It | The Three Roles All Founders End Up Firing on Repeat with Jason James @ Tezi
29 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jason James is the Co-Founder of Tezi and one of the leading product minds in the valley. Prior to Tezi, Jason was the VP Product at Instacart and bef...
20VC: Anthropic's $10BN Round | Klarna's IPO Broken Down | Inside a16z's 72 Deal Seed Investment Machine | Martin Casado: Is Consensus Investing the Only Game | Why Satya is Chatting S*** on SaaS Apps Disappearing featuring Marc Benioff
28 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 00:00 – Marc Benioff vs Snowflake, Databricks & Palantir: Who Wins the Data Cloud War? 05:10 – Does Benioff Feel The Need to Buy AI ...
20VC: Do Margins Matter in AI? | Is Defensibility Gone For Good? | Is Vertical SaaS Dead in a World of AI | What SaaS Rules Are BS and No Longer Apply in a World of AI | The Future of Venture: Why Chanel vs Walmart is BS with Byron Deeter
25 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Byron Deeter is a Partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, and one of the most renowned SaaS investors. Byron has led 19 unicorn investments, including I...
20VC: Databricks at $100BN | Chamath’s SPAC Revival: Peak Mania? | OpenAI Staff Cash Out Billions & Sam Altman Will Spend Trillions | CoreWeave’s $11B Debt Bet & Nubank’s $2.5B Profit Shocker
21 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: 00:00 – Databricks hits $100B: Bubble or just the beginning? 03:15 – Is Databricks actually undervalued at 25x revenue? 07:40 – Are we o...
20VC: Lovable CEO Anton Osika on $120M in ARR in 7 Months | The Honest Truth About Defensibility and Unit Economics for AI Startups | The State of Foundation Models: Long Grok, Short OpenAI, Why | Replit vs Lovable vs Bolt: What Happens
18 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Anton Osika is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Lovable, the fastest growing company on the planet. In just 7 months, they have scaled from $0 to $120M in ARR...
20VC: 15 Term Sheets in 7 Days and Choosing Benchmark | Harvey vs Legora: Who Wins Legal and How to Play When You Have $600M Less Funding | Are AI Models Plateauing Today | Building a 9-9-6 Culture From Stockholm with Max Junestrand
15 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Max Junestrand is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Legora, the collaborative AI powering the next generation of lawyers. Now this is an insane story for many ...
20VC: GPT5: Sam Altman's Masterplan or a Gift To Anthropic | Palantir & Shopify Crush Earnings | Monday & Datadog Perform But Hit Hard by Wall St | Should Perplexity Buy Chrome for $34.5BN |
14 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 00:04 – Was GPT-5 the Biggest AI Letdown Yet? 00:17 – Is OpenAI’s Real Target Anthropic’s $6B Revenue? 00:22 – Why Anthropic Might S...
20VC: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index's Decacorn Factory | Decision-Making, Investment Process, Biggest Lessons, Biggest Misses | Why Gross Margin is a Fallacy at Seed | Never Turn Down a Deal on Price with Martin Mignot, Partner @ Index Ventures
11 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Martin Mignot is a Partner at Index Ventures, the best-performing fund in the world right now. In the last three months, they have sold Wiz for $ 32 b...
20VC: The $BN Greenoaks Backed Protein Bar | Hitting $100M Revenues in David's First Year: Lessons & Mistakes | $0 to $600M: The Untold RXBAR Story | Product-Market-Fit, Pricing, Branding: What Every Founder Gets Wrong Today with Peter Rahal
08 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Rahal is the Co‑Founder & CEO of David Protein, the highest protein‑to‑calorie ratio for any protein bar on the market. Peter has raised o...
20VC: Figma's 250% Pop - The Greatest IPO Mispricing Ever | Meta and Microsoft Blowout Quarters: Broken Down | Cognition Raises at $15BN and Ramp at $22BN | CRV Downsizing and What It Means for LPs and GPs
07 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: 00:00 – The Worst IPO Mis-Pricing Ever: What Really Happened at Figma 02:30 – Fidelity vs Founders: How Important is Fidelity When Going P...
20VC: Inside Carnegie Mellon's $4BN Endowment | Why 90% of LPs Shouldn't Invest in VC | The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds | The Hidden Math Behind DPI, TVPI, and Illiquidity with Miles Dieffenbach
04 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Miles Dieffenbach is Managing Director of Investments at Carnegie Mellon University, where he helps oversee a $4 billion endowment with a focus on ven...
20Sales: $0-$4BN: The Databricks CRO’s Playbook to Build the Fastest GTM Engine in SaaS History | How Databricks Beat Snowflake | How To Build a Sales Org of 5,000 and Close $190M Deals with Ron Gabrisko
01 Aug 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Ron Gabrisko is the Chief Revenue Officer at Databricks, where he joined in 2016. Under his leadership, Databricks has scaled from $0 to over $4BN in ...
20VC: Benchmark Loses Another Partner | Elad Gil Raises a Monster $1.5BN Solo GP Fund | Why Apple Need a Management Overhaul | Why Google is the Best Performing Hyperscaler | Will Cursor Hit $4BN ARR & Lovable $400M ARR by EOY 2026?
31 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: 00:00 - Why Benchmark Is Bleeding Partners (and Why That’s the New Normal) 04:57 - “I Wouldn’t Leave Benchmark… Unless I Had THIS” —...
20VC: a16z's Martin Casado on Anthropic vs OpenAI: Where Value Accrues | Cursor vs Replit vs Lovable: Who Wins and Who Loses | The One Sin in AI Investing | Why Open Source is a National Security Risk with China
28 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Martin Casado is a General Partner @ a16z where he leads the firms $1.25BN infrastructure fund. At a16z, Martin has led investments in companies like ...
20Product: Should We Kill the PM Role Entirely | How Does Product Design Change Most in a World of AI | How Do Monzo Build Product Today: What Works, What Does Not | Why Most Product Sucks and What Makes Truly Great Product
27 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Fernando Fanton is one of the most respected product leaders in Europe, having held Chief Product Officer roles at Monzo and Just Eat. He previously l...
20VC: Lovable Raises at $2BN & Hits $100M ARR | Is Cursor Worth $28BN at $1BN in ARR | How Do All Providers Deal with Anthropic Dependency Risk | Are Seed Funds F******: Have Mega Funds Won | Figma IPO Breakdown: Where Does it Price?
24 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: 00:00 – Did Jason Just Kill Replit? 03:45 – Why Claude Lies To You and Cannot Be Trusted 06:50 – You Cannot Trust Agents. Period. 10:2...
20VC: Scaling to $1BN+ in Revenue with No Funding: Surge AI | The Most Insane Scaling Story in Tech |
21 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Edwin Chen is the Founder and CEO of Surge. Founded in 2020, Surge has scaled to $1BN+ in revenue with zero external funding. At the same time, their ...
20VC: Cognition CEO Scott Wu on Acquiring Windsurf: The Process, The Deal, The Rationale | Did Google Overlook a Goldmine in the Core Asset and Did Founders Leave a Sinking Ship | How Cursor and Cognition Deal with Ever Increasing Reliance on Anthropic
18 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Scott Wu is the co-founder and CEO of Cognition, the company behind Devin, the world’s first AI software engineer. On Friday last week they pulled o...
20VC: Windsurf x Google x Cognition: Full Breakdown: Who Made Money, Who Did Not | Lovable vs Replit: Will These Be $100BN Businesses | Why Elon Could Beat Sam Altman with the New Grok | Why Every S&P 500 Company Will Buy Bitcoin?
17 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: 00:00 Windsurf was dead—then this deal changed everything 05:00 The Windsurf x Google x Cognition saga explained 09:00 The OpenAI deal colla...
20VC: Vlad Tenev on Robinhood’s $85BN Resurgence | Tokenizing SpaceX & OpenAI | Building Nine Revenue Lines Over $100M | Why Crypto Will Be Robinhood's Biggest Revenue Line | Why Stablecoins Will Replace Banking Rails
14 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Vlad Tenev is the Founder and CEO of Robinhood, the greatest story on Wall St of the last decade. In the previous 18 months, Robinhood has increased i...
20Growth: The Death of Growth Teams? | How Hubspot Use AI to Triple Email Conversion | The Future of AI SEO | Why Prompt Engineering is the New Coding | What Every CMO Needs to Know About AI in 2025
11 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kieran Flanagan is the CMO at HubSpot, where he’s led the transformation of their growth strategy from SEO-led to multi-channel and AI-powered. Form...
20VC: Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman: Acquired by Meta | OpenAI’s SBC Bombshell: More Stock Comp Than Revenue | Privat Equity is Back: Olo Bought for $2BN | Microsoft Lays Off 9,000 People: Is This Just the Start | Will Sequoia Part with Shaun Maguire
10 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: [00:00] The AI Talent Crisis No One’s Ready For [03:00] Daniel Gross and Nat Friedman: Why Two Legendary VCs Walked Away From $1B to Join Me...
20VC: Scott Galloway on Are Billionaires Happy & The Impact of Money on Psychology and Self-Worth | Becoming a Better Father & Husband | Why We Should Drink More and Not Work From Home | The Tinder Effect & How it Makes Young Men Radical
07 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Scott Galloway is a Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern, where he’s taught for over two decades. He’s the founder of several successful companies,...
20VC: Figma's IPO: The Full Breakdown | Index Returns $3.5BN on Two Deals | Why Melio's $2.5BN Acquisition is "Discouraging" | Asana's New CEO and the Great Founder Exodus | Oracle's $30BN AI Deal and What it Means for Incumbents
03 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
AGENDA: 00:00 – $400B in AI CapEx: Rational Investment or Madness? 05:00 – Figma's IPO: Rule of 80, $1.5B in cash, 40% margins. Unreal. 08:00 – ...
20VC: Inside KKR's Monster $8BN European Fund | The $500M Turkey Gamble That Went Wrong | Do Andreessen & General Catalyst Scare KKR? | Will AI Kill the PE Model? | Can The PE Model Survive without IPOs and Where is the Liquidity with Philip Freise
30 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Philipp Freise is Co-Head of European Private Equity at KKR, where he manages the largest private fund in Europe with $8BN in the latest fund. Philip ...
20Sales: How to Layer Enterprise Sales on PLG | How to Sell AI Tools To Enterprises That Are Scared | Should Reps Own Their Own Pipeline | Mistakes All Founders Make When Moving From Founder-Led to Rep-Led Sales with Kim Graves
27 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kim Graves is GM, Americas at Notion, where she oversees all Sales and Customer Success efforts across the region. She brings extensive experience in ...
20VC: Nat Friedman and Daniel Gross Bought with Zuck's $100BN AI Budget | Navan Files to Go Public and Canva Pulls the Brakes: Why and What Happens | Why Larry Ellison is the Smartest Man in Tech | Substance or Sizzle: What is Real and What is BS in AI
26 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: 04:21 - The Meta Acquisition Bombshell: Nat Friedman & Daniel Gross Join Facebook?! 06:00 - Facebook’s $100 Billion Gamble: Can Zuck Buy the...
20VC: The Wild Story Raising $450M From Masa and Softbank | Why My Biggest Mistakes Came From Listening to VCs | Why 100 VCs Turned Us Down | Why European Founders Are Tougher Than US Founders with Johannes Reck, GetYourGuide
23 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Johannes Reck is the Founder and CEO of GetYourGuide, the $2BN company that started with a holiday to China and nothing to do. For the first two years...
20Product: How Duolingo Build Product 10x Faster with AI | Duolingo's Biggest Lessons on Paywalls, Push Notifications and In-App Purchases | Why Small Teams are the Future of Product | Why PMs Will Become Extinct with Cem Kansu, CPO @ Duolingo
20 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Cem Kansu is the Chief Product Officer at Duolingo, where he leads product strategy for over 90 million monthly active learners. Since joining Duoling...
20VC: Scale's $14.8BN Acquisition: Is Scale a Dead Man Walking / What Did Meta Buy | Chime IPO: Are IPOs Hotter Than Ever | Ramp Hits $16BN Diluting Only 1% | Salesforce, Slack and Dropbox Falling Behind: Are Incumbents Losing Ground
19 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: 00:00 – Meta’s $14.8B Deal for Scale: The Analysis 05:40 – Will Scale Lose Their $800M ARR? Will All Customers Leave? 13:00 – Who is t...
20VC: How We Made $800M on Coursera | We Lost Money on Uber and Made Money on Lyft | We Did 3x on Postmates in 18 Months | DPI is King, MOIC is BS | We Dodged Theranos and I Still Lost Millions with Larry Aschebrook @ G Squared
16 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Larry Aschebrook is the Founder and Managing Partner of G Squared in what is one of the wildest stories of venture capital. Larry started G Squared wi...
20VC: SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink: Elon’s Empire After the Firestorm | Are Circle and Coreweave Meme Stocks: IPO Analysis | Anduril Raises $2.6BN & Becomes Founders Fund's 1st and 2nd Largest Check Ever | Cursor Now 20% of SaaS Spend and the SaaS Slowdown
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: 00:03 – Circle’s IPO: Investors Just Left $BNs on the Table 00:06 – CoreWeave & Circle: Are We Back to Meme Stock Madness? 00:11 – Sho...
20VC: Fiverr CEO: ‘If You’re Not Adapting to AI, F* You. You’re Done | Why "Time to Copy" is the Most Important Metric in Startups Today | Why 99% of AI Companies Today Will Die | Why Governments Will Take Control of AI with Micha Kauffman
09 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Micha Kaufman is the Founder and CEO of Fiverr, the leading online marketplace for freelance services. Fiverr has had an insane ride in the public mar...
20VC: The Science of Storytelling: Three Steps to Master the Perfect Story | From Near Death Experience to Unicorn Startup: The Untold Story of Omaze with Matt Pohlson
06 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Pohlson is the co-founder and Chairman of Omaze, the most insane story in startups that you have never heard. From near death experience to worki...
20VC: Is Chamath Right: Is DPI The Only Thing That Matters | Does OpenAI Even Matter | Mary Meekers AI Report: The Analysis| IPO Breakdown: Chime, Circle & Thoma Bravo's New Fund
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: 00:00 – The Most Unfiltered Episode Ever Begins 03:30 – Does OpenAI Even Matter? Sam Lessin Says Maybe Not. 05:45 – TVPI Is Bullshit? ...
20VC: Windsurf Founder on Will Model Companies Own the App Layer | Why Moats Do Not Exist in a World of AI | Why the Notion of Single Person $BN Companies is BS | Lovable vs Bolt & Cursor vs Windsurf: How Does it All End with Varun Mohan
02 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Varun Mohan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Windsurf, the leading AI-native IDE, which has over a million users and generates over 50% of all committed s...
20Sales: From $2M ARR to $40M ARR: The Playbook | How to Use AI To Supercharge Your Sales Team | Why Pipeline Reviews are BS | The Sales Call Script that Closes 99% of Prospects and How to Hire the Best Sales Reps with Kyle Norton, CRO @ Owner
30 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Kyle Norton is the Chief Revenue Officer at Owner.com, where he scaled revenue from $2M to $40M ARR in under 3 years while selling to one of the tough...
20VC: OpenAI's $6BN Jony Ive Deal | YC Is Both Chanel and Walmart—and Has Officially Won | Builder.ai Implodes and Hinge IPOs: Who Wins & Who Loses | Seed Is Easy. Series A Is Brutal & The Dirty Truth About Late-Stage Venture
29 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: 00:00 – Why “Fund Returners” Are a Myth in Late-Stage VC 05:02 – Builder.ai Implodes: $500M Gone & Fraud Allegations Begin 11:40 – T...
20VC: The Most Insane Story in Startups: Airwallex: The Angel That Turned $1M into $1BN | The Fund That Pulled a Term Sheet & Lost $1BN | Rejecting Stripe's $1.2BN Offer | Scaling to $1BN in Revenue & 100% YoY Growth for 8 Years with Jack Zhang
27 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Airwallex is the most insane story in startups: The best angel investment ever: The angel that turned $1M into $1BN. One of the world's best VCs pull...
20VC: ElevenLabs Head of Growth on Why You Do Not Need PMs | The 7-Part Launch Playbook That Gets 700K+ Views Per Product | The Truth About CAC, Payback & Performance Marketing in AI with Luke Harries
23 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Luke Harries is Head of Growth at ElevenLabs, where he leads marketing, product, engineering, and developer experience. ElevenLabs has raised $281M wi...
20VC: Chime IPO: The Breakdown | Why Fund Returners Are Not Enough & Seed is for Suckers | Are IPOs Dead & The Future of the Late Stage Private Market | Rippling vs. Deel Lawsuit: WTF Happens Now?
22 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Agenda: 04:34 Chime's IPO Announcement: Who Wins & Who Loses 06:28 The Lopphole That Means Chime Has a Better Business than JP Morgan 10:51 Why Inve...
20VC: Duolingo Co-Founder on Why $3M is Harder than $100M to Raise | Why You Should Always Take Tier 1 VCs Even at Worse Terms | Why Europe Can't Win Unless the US Screws Up | How AI Impacts the Future of Work and Education with Severin Hacker
19 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Severin Hacker is the Co-Founder and CTO of Duolingo, the world’s most downloaded education app with over 100 million monthly users. Since its 2021 ...
20Product: Figma CPO on How Figma Builds Products: What Works, What Does Not | How Figma Does Testing and Product Reviews | The Future of Design, Engineering and Product with Yuhki Yamashita
16 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Yuhki Yamashita is the Chief Product Officer at Figma, where he leads the development of one of the world’s most beloved design platforms. Previousl...
20VC: Tiger Global Saved by OpenAI | Coatue's New Fund: Hype or Substance | Why SBF is the Greatest Investor of the Last 5 Years | Why Big Funds are Investing in Perplexity
15 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Items Mentioned in Today’s Episode: 04:11 Owner’s New $120M Round at $1BN 06:05 Why Series A is F****** Today 14:55 Could Tiger Global Be Saved by...
20VC Exclusive: Mercury Founder Launches First $26M Fund | Why Founders Should Take the Highest Price | Why Serial Entrepreneurs are Better | Why AI Is So Overhyped | The Future of Venture Capital with Immad Akhund
12 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Immad Akhund is the CEO of Mercury. Launched in 2019, Mercury has raised $500M in funding from Sequoia, Coatue, CRV, Andreessen Horowitz and others. H...
20VC: Four Traits of the Most Successful Founders | How to Hunt and Close Talent Like a Pro and Where All Founders Go Wrong | Lessons Raising $397M From the Best Investors in the World with Eléonore Crespo @ Pigment
09 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Eléonore Crespo is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Pigment, one of Europe’s fastest-growing companies. With Pigment, Eleonore has raised over $397M from t...
20VC: Benchmark vs a16z: Why Stage Specific Firms Win | Windsurf Sells For $3BN | Decagon Raises at 100x ARR | Do Mega Funds Win the Future of VC | What Does Harvard's Losing Their For-Profit Status Mean for VC
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s Topics: 04:44 Analysis of $3 Billion Windsurf Acquisition 12:39 Will Mega Funds Win the Future of Venture Capital 18:39 Does Every Fund Have...
20VC Exclusive: Why Mega Platforms Will Win in VC | Why You Cannot Do VC If You Do Not Do Pre-Seed | Why Market Sizing is BS | Where Will Foundation Models Build/Buy Apps vs Where Will They Not with Bucky Moore
05 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Bucky Moore is a Partner @ Lightspeed Venture Partners, announced exclusively in the show today on 20VC. Prior to Lightspeed, Bucky spent an incredibl...
20Sales: Sierra: Inside Silicon Valley's Fastest Growing Sales Machine & How to Prospect, Outbound and Close Enterprise Deals in AI
02 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Reggie Marable is the Head of Global Sales at Sierra, a conversational AI platform for businesses. Sierra enables companies like ADT, Sonos, SiriusXM,...
20VC: Why Fund Returners Are Not Enough Anymore | Why Sequoia Had the Best Strategy at the Worst Time | What it Takes to Be Good at Series A and B Today | Benchmark Leads Manus Round: Should US Funds Invest in Chinese AI
01 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 03:56 Why The Risk Lever Has Been Turned Higher than Ever in VC 06:04 Why IRR is the Hardest Thing to Control 09:36 I...
20VC: VCs are Spreadsheet Monkeys and are Commoditised | Why Fees and Carry Misalign GPs and LPs | Why Founders Will Realise Multi-Stage Funds Damage Seed Rounds | Why We Need European Sovereignty More Than Ever with Taavet Hinrikus
28 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Taavet Hinrikus is a Partner at Plural, the early-stage fund that backs the most ambitious founders on a mission to change the world through technolog...