20VC: Why Remote Work is White Collar Fraud | Why Revenge and Patriotism are the Best Founder Traits | Two Questions Every Founder Needs to Ask | The Wild Story of Raising $1BN from Masa Son in an Hour Long Meeting with Ryan Peterson, Founder @ Flexport
episode
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
1h 18m
3 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 3 months ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why does Ryan Peterson call remote work 'white collar fraud'?
I say it's white collar fraud. I have a three-year-old and a five-year-old. The idea that I could do any work at my house is like a total fantasy. Like, come on. You're kidding. I think the negotiation that we're going to have with Salesforce is going to be a lot different than the last one. I think selling SaaS to tech companies is going to be a tough business because we can build stuff ourselves. Revenge and patriotism is a great investment thesis.
Does having more money actually make you a better founder?
There's a lot of collusion in VC. Like I have a feeling that most VCs actually collude more with competitors than with their own partners.
This is 20 VC with me, Harry Stebbings.
When will Flexport IPO and what price would it go out at?
Now I've done 3000 shows. The best guests have two things. They have high IQ and they do not give a shit. Our guest today is a longtime friend of mine, Ryan Peterson, founder of Flexboard. He's been on many shows before. I don't think he's ever had a conversation as open and honest as this. I think the friendship allowed for a much more authentic and transparent discussion where we touched on everything from Chinese open source models, is the CCP a risk, why remote work is like white collar fraud, and so much more. Ryan was incredible, and this also goes to show why doing shows in person is 10x better than remote.
Can AI actually automate entire companies or is the productivity boom overhyped?
Ryan, in studio, this is one you cannot miss. But before we dive into the show today, meet Ava, the first autonomous AI BDR built by Artisan to run your entire outbound on autopilot.
Hey, Jason Lemkin from Sastr here.
Which jobs will exist in 5 years that don't exist today?
Artisan is S tier. We've replaced our entire outbound sales team with Artisan. I believe we've sent over 50,000 highly customized emails to Artisan. The open rate is twice what it was with humans and they close 100K deals day after day.
Ava's sources leads
Are Chinese open-source models a national security threat?
from over 250 million contacts, enriches every prospect with intense signals, then writes and sends personalized multi-channel outreach, self-optimizing over time. When a lead replies, she handles objections and books meetings straight into your AE's calendars without any human input. Artisan is backed by Y Combinator and has raised $36 million to build the first truly autonomous AI BDR.
What is the $500 million fundraising mistake Ryan wishes he never made?
Hire Ava, the AI BDR, and get $300 in credits when you sign up at artisan.co.uk. That's A-R-T-I-S-A-N.co.uk. While Artisan scales your outbound motion, Granola turns every call into clean notes. When I'm not recording the world's greatest fricking podcast, I'm probably in meetings. Pitch meetings, board meetings, LP meetings. I can't get enough of them. When all the meetings are over, I look at my notes and they make no sense to me. Illegible scribbles. That's why I use Granola. Granola is the AI notepad for people in back-to-back meetings. I say back-to-back because it makes me feel busy and special. So I jot down rough notes like many do. And in the background, Granola transcribes and turns them into really clear, useful notes immediately after the meeting ends.
And I've been using Granola for months and my favorite feature is chatting to my notes. No one else will chat to me these days and I can ask it anything and it trawls through every meeting I've ever had and finds the answer. What was the valuation of the startup that pitched me last week?
Why do most startup founders hire executives too early?
Who on my team said they would share the memo? And even coaching and tips like how can I ask founders better questions when they're pitching me? All the best operators I know use Granola to help them get more done. So if you're in a lot of meetings, trust me, this is a really good tool for you. It takes seconds to set up, connects to your calendar, works on any meeting platform. Head over to granola.ai forward slash 20VC and get three months free with the code 20VC. That's granola.ai slash 20VC with the code 20VC. That's 20VC. Once Granola turns the conversation into clear notes, Finn turns that clarity into better customer support. As AI agents become more common in customer experience, teams often end up juggling multiple siloed tools for every job.
Well, Finn was built to change that. It's a single unified agent that works across your entire customer experience, from service to sales to success and beyond.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why does Ryan Peterson call remote work 'white collar fraud'?
0:00–0:21
2
Does having more money actually make you a better founder?
0:21–0:29
3
When will Flexport IPO and what price would it go out at?
0:29–1:05
4
Can AI actually automate entire companies or is the productivity boom overhyped?
1:05–1:19
5
Which jobs will exist in 5 years that don't exist today?
1:19–1:32
6
Are Chinese open-source models a national security threat?
1:32–1:57
7
What is the $500 million fundraising mistake Ryan wishes he never made?
1:57–3:01
8
Why do most startup founders hire executives too early?
3:01–1:18:41
Speakers
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