The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Episodes
20VC: From Selling 75% of Trade Republic for €600K to Raising $1.3BN at a $5.3BN Valuation, The Biggest Fundraising Lessons Having Raised $1.3BN From the Best in the World; Trade Republic CEO, Christian Hecker and Creandum General Partner Johan Brenner
16 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Christian Hecker is the Founder and CEO of Trade Republic, the company making it easy and inexpensive for everyone with a smartphone to invest. To da...
20Growth: How to Master Product-Led-Growth, The Biggest Mistakes Startups Make When Scaling into Enterprise, How to Assess "Bets" in Growth; Which to Take and Which to Not with Gonto, Interim CMO @ Vercel
14 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Martin Gontovnikas, a.k.a Gonto, is a software engineer at heart who moved to the “dark side” to focus on Marketing. With this career transition,...
20VC: The Ultimate Guide to Scaling Marketplaces, Why Rule of 40 and EBITDA Optimisation is BS, How Founders & VCs Should Approach Market Sizing and Outcome Scenario Planning and Why Europe is Failing with Vinted CEO, Thomas Plantenga & Alex Taussig
12 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Thomas Plantenga is the CEO @ Vinted, one of the fastest-growing marketplaces in the world with a valuation of $4.5BN. Prior to becoming CEO, Thomas...
20VC: Doug Leone, Bill Ackman, Bill Gurley and Orlando Bravo on "Does Price Matter"; When to Pay Up vs When to Stay Disciplined, The Biggest Lessons on Price Discipline from 8 of the World's Best Investors
09 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Doug Leone is the Global Managing Partner @ Sequoia Capital, one of the world’s most renowned and successful venture firms with a portfolio inclu...
20VC: The Chess.com Memo: The Most Untold Story in Startups; Scaling to $100M Revenue, 150M Members and 700 People, All with Zero Venture Funding | Erik Allebest, CEO @ Chess.com
07 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Erik Allebest is the CEO @ Chess.com, the #1 online chess service on the planet with more than 150+ million members and 15+ million games played each...
20VC: The Biggest Misconceptions & Hardest Truths About Seed Investing Today; Why The Best Founders Don't Need You, Why Uncapped SAFEs Are Good, Why Reserves Are Bad, Why Signalling is BS, Why Price Doesn't Matter with David Tisch & Terrence Rohan
05 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
David Tisch is the Managing Partner of BoxGroup, one of the leading seed-stage investment firms of the last decade having invested in over 500 see...
20Product: Top Five Product Lessons from Creating Snapchat "Discover" and "Chat", How to Hire the Best Product Talent and Why Case Studies in Interviews are not Helpful & How AI Impacts the Future of Product Design with Will Wu, CTO @ Match Group
02 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Will Wu is the CTO @ Match Group, the owner and operator of the largest global portfolio of popular online dating services including Tinder, Match.co...
20VC: The Metrics That Matter in SaaS Today; Why CaC Payback is Flawed & CAC Ratio is Better, Why You Need to Hire Three Sales Reps at a Time, How to Forecast in 2024 & Biggest Mistakes Made Forecasting & How to Make Customer Success Sell More with Dave K
31 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dave Kellogg is one of the OGs of Saas. Among his many accomplishments, Dave was the CMO of Business Objects where he helped scale the business from ...
20VC: How MIT Selects Venture Managers to Invest in | The Three Categories of Check MIT Writes Into Funds | How MIT Builds Their Venture Fund Portfolio | How MIT Approach Direct Investing | Why Being an LP Has Never Been Harder with Ryan Akkina @ MIT
29 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ryan Akkina is a member of the Global Investment Team at the MIT Investment Management Company (MITIMCo), which is responsible for managing MIT's end...
20VC: Are the SEC Overreaching with its Approach to Crypto? Should Gensler Step Down? How do US Elections Impact Crypto Markets? How Did SBF and FTX Impact Crypto Long Term and more with Dave Ripley, CEO @ Kraken
26 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dave Ripley is the CEO @ Kraken, one of the world's largest cryptocurrency exchanges, valued in 2022 at a whopping $10.8BN. Prior to Kraken, Dave was...
20Sales: How to Scale Into Enterprise Effectively and the Biggest Mistakes Made When Making the Move From PLG to Enterprise, Why Discovery Today is F***** & The Biggest Lessons on How to Do Sales Team Compensation with Sean Murray, CRO @ Greenhouse
24 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Sean Murray is the CRO @ Greenhouse which is the fourth company Sean has scaled successfully into the enterprise. Sean's prior roles include revenue ...
20VC: Why Small Markets are Better Than Big Markets, The Biggest Delusion of Early Stage VC, Why AI Investing is like a Horserace and Why The Most Ambitious Companies Growing the Fastest are not the Best Investments with Adam Fisher, Partner @ Bessemer
22 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Fisher is a Partner @ Bessemer Venture Partners and one of the most successful investors in Israel over the last two decades with seed investmen...
20VC: How Duolingo Scaled to 8M TikTok Followers, How to Create Viral Content, Why Most Companies Suck at Content Marketing and How to Change & Why You Should Not Work with Content Agencies with Zaria Parvez, Global Social Media Manager @ Duolingo
19 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Zaria Parvez is Duolingo’s Senior Global Social Media Manager where she is famed for scaling Duolingo's TikTok from 50K followers in September 2021...
20VC: Palantir CTO on The Broken Incentive Structure of How Governments Buy Defence, The Danger of Defence Spending at Historic Lows, How Elections and Wars Change Government Defence Buying & Why Budgets are Anti-Creative with Shyam Sankar
17 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Shyam Sankar is Chief Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Palantir Technologies in addition to the Chairman of Ginkgo Bioworks. Shyam ...
20VC: Hubspot Co-Founder Brian Halligan on Leadership Lessons Scaling Hubspot to a $28BN Market Cap | The Best Series A Investment in Venture History & What Makes Sequoia so Successful?
15 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Halligan is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairperson of HubSpot. Brian led the business as CEO for 15 years from Day 1 to a $30BN public compan...
20VC Exclusive: Keith Rabois on Rejoining Khosla Ventures
12 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Keith Rabois is a Managing Director @ Khosla Ventures and one of the most respected venture investors of the last decade. Keith has led investments i...
20VC: Did Figma Kill M&A Markets in 2024, The Three Biggest Mistakes Made in Growth Investing, The Three Requirements Companies Need to Go Public in 2024 with Ed Sim and Jamin Ball
10 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Jamin Ball is a Partner @ Altimeter Capital where he sits on the board of Airbyte, Clickhouse, dbt Labs, Prisma, Tabular. Jamin has also led investme...
20VC Crypto Roundtable: How Will US Elections Impact Crypto? Why Will Trump Lean Into Crypto in 2024? Should FTX Investors Have Known About SBF? Will Opensea Ever Be Worth $13BN Again? Will NFTs Come Back with Kyle Samani and Nick Tomaino
08 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Nick Tomaino is the Founder and General Partner @ 1confirmation, one of the leading seed firms fueling the decentralization of the web and society. T...
20VC: Predictions for 2024: What Happens to Early Stage VC Funding, Do a Load of Venture Funds Die, What do LPs Do in 2024, Does Figma Kill the M&A Market, Will IPOs Comeback & What Does a Trump Administration do for Startups with Jason Lemkin @ SaaStr
04 Jan 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Joining Harry in the hot seat today is Jason Lemkin, Founder @ SaaStr and one of the OG SaaS investors of the last decade. The discussion today is br...
20VC: From a $1.1M Acquisition to $1.4BN in Revenues; The Meteoric Rise of Hoka Running with Deckers CEO, Dave Powers
22 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dave Powers serves as President and CEO of Deckers Brands, a global footwear and apparel company where he focuses on the company’s five high-perfor...
20VC Roundtable: Spotify, Adobe & Linkedin CPOs on How AI Changes The Future of Product, Why AI is Now the Product, How TikTok Changed Product, Why Cost is the Biggest Barrier to LLM Usage & Why Incumbents Can Adopt AI Faster Than Any Prior Innovation Cyc
20 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gustav Söderström is the Co-President, CPO & CTO at Spotify. Gustav has been instrumental in taking Spotify from a 30-person operation in Sweden wh...
20VC: Why Now is the Best Time to Invest in Emerging Managers, Biggest Mistake Emerging Managers Make When Fundraising & Investing Lessons from Investing $1.5BN Per Year and Being Early Investors in Thrive, a16z and Founders Fund with Peter Lacaillade
18 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Peter Lacaillade is a Managing Director @ SCS Financial Services where he leads its private investment program where he oversees the firm’s activit...
20VC: Cotopaxi: From Selling $6M of Pool Tables to Scaling $150M in Revenues and Challenging Patagonia, Fundraising Lessons from 100+ Rejections & What Founders Do Not Understand About VC with Davis Smith, Founder @ Cotopaxi
15 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Davis Smith is the Founder and Chairman of Cotopaxi, an outdoor brand with a humanitarian mission. The company has assisted over 4 million people liv...
20Sales: How to Close Sales When Selling to CFOs, How to Guarantee You Win Every Renewal, Core Questions All CFOs Ask Today When Buying, Why Revenue Operations is the Most Important Role in a Company with Steve Goldberg, CRO @ Salesloft
13 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Steve Goldberg is the Chief Revenue Officer at Salesloft, the sales engagement platform that was acquired by Vista in 2022 for $2.3BN. Prior to Sales...
20VC: Why Founders Should Take as Many VC Meetings as Possible, Should Founders Meet Associates, How to Get Intros to the Best VCs, How To Extract the Most Value From Your Investors, Why Post IPO Operators Are the Best Angels with Sam Corcos @ Levels
11 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Corcos is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Levels, the company helping you see how food affects your health with data from biosensors like continuous glu...
20VC: $18BN Market Cap and $1BN in ARR in 8 Years; Samsara | How to Find Product Market Fit Reliably | How to Create a Multi-Product Company | The Pros and Cons of Serial Entrepreneurship with Sanjit Biswas, Founder & CEO @ Samsara
08 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sanjit Biswas is the Founder and CEO @ Samsara, allowing businesses that depend on physical operations to harness Internet of Things (IoT) data. Over...
20VC: Ramp's Product Playbook: How To Hire Product Teams, How to Run Sprints, How to Increase Product Velocity, When and How to Go Multi-Product with Geoff Charles, VP Product @ Ramp
06 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Geoff Charles is the VP of Product at Ramp, leading the product management, operations, and support teams. Prior to Ramp, Geoff helped spin off Missi...
20VC: From Construction Worker to Billionaire CEO; The 21-Year Epic Journey of Procore to an $8.6BN Company, Advice from Tobi at Shopify on Being a Great CEO & Why The Idea of "Becoming an Entrepreneur" is BS with Tooey Courtemanche
04 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tooey Courtemanche, Jr. is the Founder, CEO, President, and Chairman of the Board of Procore. He founded Procore in 2002 with a mission to connect ev...
20VC: HelloFresh CEO on Why When You Raise VC You Only Have Two Options, Why Your IPO Price is Irrelevant, Why Timing is So Important in Going Public & Why D2C is Not Dead with Dominik Richter
01 Dec 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dominik Richter is the Founder & CEO @ HelloFresh, one of the largest direct-to-consumer businesses of the last decade and the #1 recipe box delivery...
20Growth: The Golden Rule to $100M in ARR, Why CAC to LTV is BS Early On, Why Your First Growth Hire Should Be a Former Founder & How Ramp Does 200 Growth Experiments Per Quarter with Guillaume Cabane
29 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Guillaume Cabane is a growth advisor to high-growth SaaS Startups, including Ramp, Spot, Airbyte, G2, Gorgias, Metadata, Madkudu, and others. Guillau...
20VC: Keith Rabois and Mike Shebat on Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic, Why First-Time Founders are Better Than Serial Entrepreneurs, Why Remote Work Does Not Work, Why the Best Founders Always Start in their Teens & Why Companies are Cults?
27 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Keith Rabois is a General Partner @ Founders Fund, one of the world's best venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Facebook, SpaceX, An...
20VC: AI's Biggest Questions: The Commoditisation of LLMs, Open vs Closed: Who Wins, Model Size vs Data Quality, Why Google are Vulnerable and Apple are the Dark Horse
24 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Des Traynor is a Co-Founder of Intercom, and has built and led many teams within the company, including Product, Marketing, and Customer Support. ...
20VC: Why OpenAI Will Become an Infrastructure Play, Why Apple Will Win in an AI World, Why Google is the Most Vulnerable Incumbent, Will LLMs Be Commoditised, Which Startups Are Thin vs Thick Wrappers on Top of LLMs with Jeff Seibert, Founder @ Digits
22 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff Seibert is the Founder & CEO @ Digits, building the future of AI-powered accounting. Digits have raised funding from the likes of Peter Fenton @...
20VC: The Ultimate Hiring Playbook: Five Questions to Ask Every New Hire | What Makes Truly Great Leaders and How They Give Feedback | Do VCs Really Add Value; Lessons from Hard Fundraises with Matteo Franceschetti, Co-Founder @ Eight Sleep
20 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Matteo Franceschetti is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Eight Sleep, a company dedicated to fueling human potential through optimal sleep. To date, Matteo h...
20VC Will Seed Pricing Remain High | Where is the Funding Crunch? | Three Core Elements Required to Raise a Series B/C | Why AI is Like the Lottery Today | Why Now is the Best Time to be Investing in Crypto | Why Investors Do Not Want to Reprice Companies
17 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Rebecca Kaden is a Managing Partner @ Union Square Ventures, one of the leading early-stage firms of the last decade with investments in Twitter, Twi...
20VC: How to Survive and Thrive in a World of OpenAI, Are LLMs Being Commoditised, Where Does the Value Lie; Infrastructure or Application Layer, How Apple Could Win in a World of AI, How Amazon Could Threaten OpenAI and Why Google Struggle with Des Trayn
15 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Des Traynor is a Co-Founder of Intercom, and has built and led many teams within the company, including Product, Marketing, and Customer Support. Tod...
20VC: Flexport's Ryan Petersen: Reflections on Leadership from 13 Years Leading Flexport, Why Velocity not Speed is Most Important in Company Building, How Money Creates Inefficiencies in Scaling, The Future of Trade with China & Why Remote Work is so Cha
13 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ryan Petersen is Founder & CEO @ Flexport, a leader in global supply chain technology. In 2022, Flexport moved more than $26 billion of merchandise. ...
20Sales: Five Lessons Scaling Snowflake to $1BN ARR, Why Customer Success is BS and Should Be Removed, Why All Sales Reps Should Do Eight Calls Per Week & Why You Should Hire a Head of Sales Sooner Than You Think with Chris Degnan, CRO @ Snowflake
10 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Chris Degnan serves as Snowflake’s Chief Revenue Officer and has been with the company since 2013. Starting as employee #13 and Sales employee #1, ...
20VC: From Leading the BBC to Leading Venture Capitalist, The Biggest Similarities and Differences Between the Best Founders and the Best Actors & The Future of Media; Legacy vs New, The Creator Economy, The Rise of TikTok and more with Danny Cohen
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Danny Cohen is the President of Access Entertainment, a division of Len Blavatnik's Access Industries. Access Entertainment’s corporate investment...
20VC: From $4.1BN to $142M Market Cap; Why Public Markets Have Written Allbirds Off, What Allbirds Need to Do to Get Profitable, Why Growth has Slowed and The Bull Case for Allbirds Next Five Years with Joey Zwillinger, Co-Founder @ Allbirds
06 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Joey Zwillinger is the Co-Founder & CEO @ Allbirds, the company behind the world's most comfortable shoe. In Nov 2021, Joey took the company public a...
20VC Roundtable: Why Early Stage Founders Should Not be Investing, Why Great Founders Have Low EQ, How the Structure of VC Firms Will Change, Will Founder-Led Funds Compete with Sequoia & Is Investing a Team Sport?
03 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jack Altman is the Founder and CEO @ Lattice, the #1 people management platform, last valued at $3BN. Jack is an investor through his founding of Jac...
20Product: Why You Should Not Go Into Product Management, Why the CEO is Always the CPO, How to Build the Best Product Teams & Why You Should Hire People Who Aren't In Product Already with Databricks SVP Product, David Meyer
01 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
David Meyer is the SVP Products at Databricks where he drives product strategy and execution. He previously ran Engineering and Product Management at...
20VC: Should Large Crypto Funds Give Money Back to LPs | What Will the Next Generation of Crypto Funds Look Like | What Should Happen with FTX; Who Should be Held to Account | The Future of NFTs & What Happens to Opensea w/ Nick Tomaino @ 1confirmation
30 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Nick Tomaino is the Founder and General Partner @ 1confirmation, one of the leading seed firms fueling the decentralization of the web and society. T...
20VC: The Three Types of Seed Round Today, Why Seed Has Never Been More Competitive, Why Pricing Has Never Been Higher, Why Boards at Pre-Seed Can Be Helpful & How Too Much Cash Too Soon Can Harm Companies with Ed Sim, Founder @ Boldstart
27 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ed Sim is one of the best seed round investors in venture as the Founder and Managing Partner @ Boldstart, Ed focuses specifically on developer, infr...
20Growth: Should Startups Hire Advisors? When is the Right Time? How Much Should They Be Paid? How Should Founders Approach the Hiring Process for Advisors? What Should They Expect From Them? What are the Biggest Mistakes Made and more with Ely Lerner
25 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ely Lerner is an EIR at Reforge and an advisor for startups transitioning from traction to hypergrowth. Previously he was Head of Consumer Product at...
20VC: Scaling to $50M ARR in 3 Years, Scaling to $20M ARR with Just $2M Invested; The Story of PhotoRoom, Is This YC's Most Capital Efficient Company with Matthieu Rouif, Co-Founder & CEO @ PhotoRoom
23 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Matthieu Rouif is the Co-Founder and CEO @ PhotoRoom, one of the fastest-growing YC companies having scaled to an astonishing $50M in ARR in just 3 y...
20VC: NEW FORMAT: Harry Stebbings on Why Seed Pricing is as High as Ever, Why Series A is the Best Place to Invest Today, Why Growth Founders Need to Reshape Expectations, Why M&A Windows Remain Shut and When Will IPO Windows Crack Open
20 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Harry Stebbings is the Founder of 20VC, building the next great financial institution at the intersection of media and venture capital. 20VC has reac...
20VC: Are LPs Open For Business? What Does it Take to Raise a Fund Today? How Has What LPs Want to See in Fund Investments Changed? Why Do LP Incentive Mechanisms Need to Change? Which Funds Will be Hit Hardest with Beezer Clarkson @ Sapphire Partners
18 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Beezer Clarkson leads Sapphire Partners‘ investments in venture funds domestically and internationally. Beezer has invested in some of the best fir...
20VC: The Two Biggest Mistakes Every Founder Makes, Why Founders Are Not Ambitious Enough Today, Why Having a Narrow Target Customer is Dangerous & The Three Possible Outcomes in Company Building with Matthew Prince, Co-Founder @ Cloudflare
16 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew Prince is the co-founder and CEO of Cloudflare, on a mission is to help build a better Internet. Matthew has scaled Cloudflare to over $1BN i...
20VC: Israeli Resilience From Tech and Beyond with Michael Eisenberg and Adi Levanon
12 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Eisenberg spent 15 years as a General Partner @ Benchmark working alongside Bill and the Benchmark partnership. Following Benchmark, Michael...
20VC Roundtable: Are IPOs Back? Is Growth Dead? What Does it Take to Raise a Growth Round Today? How Do VCs Solve The Liquidity Challenge? Will We See a Massive Resetting of Valuations? AI Hype Growth Rounds?
11 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Deven Parekh is a Managing Director at Insight Partners, one of the leading investing franchises of the last 25 years. Deven has made more than 90 ...
20VC: Atlassian Co-Founder Scott Farquhar on The Biggest Lessons Scaling Atlassian to $50BN Market Cap; The Four Roles of the CEO, The Funding Round That Net Accel $6BN, The Regrets of Omission and Commission & The Honeymoon Cut Short
09 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Scott Farquhar is the Co-Founder & Co-CEO @ Atlassian. Scott co-founded the company with his university friend, Mike Cannon-Brookes, in 2002 from Aus...
20VC: Why Great Companies are Defined by How Many Things They Say No To, Why Being First Does Not Matter & Why Market Over Traction or Team is the Most Important Thing with Guillermo Rauch, Founder & CEO @ Vercel
06 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Guillermo Rauch is the Founder and CEO @ Vercel, giving developers the frameworks, workflows, and infrastructure to build a faster, more personalized...
20Sales: Why the Founder Should Not Be the One to Create the Sales Playbook, Why You Should Hire a Sales Leader Before Sales Reps & Why You Should Not Hire Sales Leaders From Big Companies with Matt Rosenberg, CRO @ Grammarly
04 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Matt Rosenberg is Grammarly’s Chief Revenue Officer and Head of Grammarly Business. He leads all B2B revenue, operations, and growth for Grammarly ...
20VC: The Services Model of Venture Capital is Broken, The Best Founders Do Need Help, The Most Important Signals to Assess When Meeting Founders & Why Kids Bring Less Happiness and More Joy with Phin Barnes @ TheGP
02 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Phin Barnes is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of The General Partnership (TheGP), a venture capital firm that’s redefining what partnership me...
20Product: Why Product Memes Are More Important Than a Product Roadmap, Why Writing is the Essential Skill for Product People, How AI Changes The Role of Product, Big Mistakes Founders Make When Hiring Product Teams with Kevin Niparko, VP Product @ Twilio
29 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Niparko is the VP of Product @ Twilio. Kevin joined Twilio through the acquisition of Segment where he spent an incredible 8 years in numerous ...
20VC: "How Being a Founder Almost Killed Me"; We Have Lied to a Generation of Founders | The Hardest Truths About Being a Founder Revealed | Why AI Co-Pilot is BS, Seat Pricing is Over & User Interfaces are Stupid with Christian Lanng
27 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Christian Lanng is the Founder and Former CEO @ Tradeshift, a company he took from garage to unicorn raising over $900M for with a latest price of $2...
20VC: Marc Benioff on The Future of San Francisco and What He Would Do if in Charge? Marc Benioff's Five Step Process to Priorities and Why Money Does Not Make You Happy & Work From Home vs In-Person; How to Manage in Changing Worlds
25 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Marc Benioff is Chair, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Salesforce and a pioneer of cloud computing. Under Benioff's leadership, Salesforce...
20VC: Are Foundation Models Becoming Commoditised? Do OpenAI and Anthropic of the World Have a Sustaining Moat? Why Smaller Models May Work Better? Why Incumbents with Data Power Win the AI War with Christian Kleinerman, SVP Product @ Snowflake
22 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Christian Kleinerman is the SVP of Product @ Snowflake. Before Snowflake, Christian spent close to 5 years at Google as a Senior Director of Product ...
20VC Roundtable: Is the VC Model Broken? The Biggest Disconnect Ever Between TVPI & DPI, Why Market Size is Dangerous, Why "Go Fast" is Terrible Advice, The Dangers of Raising Large Rounds at High Prices & Why Next Year Will See the Biggest Hiring Spree i
20 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Eric Paley is the Managing Partner at Founder Collective, one of the world’s most successful seed funds with investments in the likes of Uber, T...
20VC: Benchmark General Partner, Miles Grimshaw on The Five Pillars of Venture Capital, Why Data Can Be a Trap When Early-Stage Investing, Investing Lessons from Missing Figma and Plaid & The New Business Model for AI & Why Co-Pilot is an Incumbent Strate
18 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Miles Grimshaw is a General Partner @ Benchmark, widely considered one of the best venture capital firms in history. Prior to joining the Benchmark P...
20VC: The Biggest AI Leaders on What Matters More; Model Size or Data Size & Where Does The Value in AI Accrue; to Startups or to Incumbents
15 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Socher is the founder and CEO of You.com. Richard previously served as the Chief Scientist and EVP at Salesforce. Douwe Kiela is the CEO o...
20VC: The Dubsmash Memo: Scaling to 43M Users in 10 Days, Why TikTok Was a Competitor Like Never Seen Before, Good vs Great Consumer Products and What Every Consumer Product Needs & The Future of Consumer Social with Suchit Dash
13 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Suchit Dash is the VP of Core Product Experience at Reddit, responsible for the surfaces that millions of users interact with daily. Prior to Reddit,...
20VC: Lessons Building Nubank to the Largest Neobank in the World, How AI Changes The Future of Finance, Leadership Lessons from Sequoia's Doug Leone & What European and US Fintech Can Learn From LATAM with David Velez, Founder @ Nubank
11 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
David Velez is the Founder and CEO of Nubank, one of the largest and fastest-growing financial institutions in the world. 1 in 2 people in Brazil alo...
20Sales: Why Everyone is Responsible for Demand Generation, How to do Great Sales Discovery, How to Reduce Sales Cycles and Create Urgency and Deal Reviews; Good and Bad Reasons to Lose a Deal with Doug Adamic, CRO @ Brex
08 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Doug Adamic is the CRO @ Brex and leads the company's revenue and growth strategy. Prior to Brex, Doug was most recently the Chief Revenue Officer at...
20VC: Why Small Funds Outperform Large Funds & AUM is a Vanity Metric | Why 99% of Investments in AI Startups Will Go To Zero | Being a "Traction First" VC & Investing Lessons from Investing in Canva and Missing Figma with Nikhil Basu-Trivedi
06 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Nikhil Basu Trivedi is Co-Founder & General Partner at Footwork, an early-stage focused venture firm investing its first fund. In his venture career,...
20VC: The $3.1BN Meeting That Led to an Uber Acquisition, The Battle With Uber; How to Outcompete When You Have 10x Less Cash & The Marketing Campaigns That Led to Pakistan MDs Fleeing and Elon Musk Fanboying with Mudassir Sheikha, CEO @ Careem
04 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Mudassir Sheikha is the CEO and Co-Founder of Careem. Over the last 11 years, Mudassir has scaled the service to more than 80 cities in 10 countries,...
20VC: Spending $2M to Train a Single AI Model: What Matters More; Model Size or Data Size | Hallucinations: Feature or Bug | Will Everyone Have an AI Friend in the Future & Raising $150M from a16z with Noam Shazeer, Co-Founder & CEO @ Character.ai
31 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Noam Shazeer is the co-founder and CEO of Character.AI, a full-stack AI computing platform that gives people access to their own flexible superintell...
20VC: Why AI Models are not a Moat, Where Does the Value in AI Accrue; Startups or Incumbents, What the World Has Got Wrong About AI, Why AI Needs a New Story and Who is the Right People to Tell it with Cris Valenzuela, Co-Founder & CEO @ Runway
28 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Cris Valenzuela is the CEO and co-founder of Runway, the company that trains and builds generative AI models for content creation. To date, Cris has ...
20Product: Enterprises are not Adopting AI Yet, When Will AI Break Into Enterprise, What are the Blockers, What Do Enterprises Need from AI & Why Services Companies Will Win in the Next 10 Years of AI Implementation with Howie Liu, Founder & CEO @ Airtabl
25 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Howie Liu is the Founder and CEO @ Airtable, the fastest way to build apps for your business. To date, Howie has raised over $1BN with Airtable with ...
20VC: NEW FORMAT: Mega Funds Will Come Back, Why Markups Have Corrupted VC, Why RIFs Should Always Be An Embarrassment To SaaS Founders and Why Pitching is BS and Fake with Jason Lemkin and Rick Zullo
23 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Lemkin is the Founder @ SaaStr one of the best-performing early-stage venture funds focused on SaaS. In the past, Jason has led investments i...
20VC: The Biggest Lies of Silicon Valley, Why Entrepreneurship is Not For Everyone, Why VCs are Out of Touch, Why Many Would Be Great Entrepreneurs Will Burn Out, Why You Should Let Your Children Suffer and Why You Will Choose The Wrong Partner with Nick
21 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Nick Huber is a serial entrepreneur, investor, and content creator focused on real estate and small business. In the last 9 months, Nick has co-foun...
20VC: Does Value Accrue to Incumbents or Startups in the AI Race, Why Model Size Matters More Than Data Size, Why Artificial General Intelligence is Far Away, Why Carpenters Will Be Paid More Than Software Engineers & Future of Jobs with Richard Socher
18 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Socher is the founder and CEO of You.com. Richard previously served as the Chief Scientist and EVP at Salesforce. Before that, Richard was th...
20Growth: Why Product-Market Fit is Not Enough, Revenue Does Not Create Usage, Metrics Must Be Before Strategy, Why it is Always Better to Concentrate than Diversify Marketing Channels and Secrets from Hubspot's Growth Engine with Brian Balfour @ Reforge
16 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Brian Balfour is the Founder and CEO of Reforge. Previously, he was the VP of Growth @ HubSpot. Prior to HubSpot, he was an EIR @ Trinity Ventures an...
20VC: Scaling Wait But Why to 600,000 Subs; Behind the Scenes on The Research Process, How to Learn Entirely New Topics Fast, The Writing Process and Building Good Habits & The Distribution Process and the Business Behind the Blog with Tim Urban
14 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Tim Urban is the writer/illustrator and co-founder of Wait But Why, a long-form, stick-figure-illustrated website with over 600,000 subscribers and a...
20VC Roundtable: NEW FORMAT: Why the Seed Investing Model is Broken, How to Make Money at Seed Moving Forward; Who Wins and Who Loses, Why Venture Value Add Platforms are BS and Failed and Why There Will be an IPO per Week in H2 2024
11 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sam Lessin is a Co-Founder and Partner @ Slow Ventures with a portfolio including the likes of Airtable, Robinhood, Slack, Solana, PillPack and many ...
20VC: The Memo: The State of the VC Market: Why Seed Funds Can't Invest in "Hot Startups" Anymore, Why Series A & B is Terrible, Why the IPO Market Will Explode in 2024 & Why VC DD is BS & Every VC Has More Fraud in their Portfolio with Jason Lemkin
09 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Lemkin is the Founder @ SaaStr one of the best-performing early-stage venture funds focused on SaaS. In the past, Jason has led investments in ...
20VC: Vinod Khosla on How AI Impacts The Future of Healthcare, Education, Income Equality, Geo-Politics, Music and Climate Change
07 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Vinod Khosla is the Founder of Khosla Ventures, one of the leading venture firms of the last decade with investments in OpenAI, Stripe, DoorDash, Com...
20VC: Why "Hire Great People and Get Out of the Way" is Total BS, Why Your Upbringing Can Make You a Worse Leader & A Bentley, Two Nissan Cubes and Becoming One of Macedonia's Largest Employers; The Story of Slice with Ilir Sela
04 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Ilir Sela is the Founder and CEO of Slice, the all-in-one ordering and marketing tech platform for local pizzerias. Through its partnerships, Slice h...
20Sales: Why The Founder Has To Be The One To Create The Sales Playbook, When To Hire Your First Rep, Why Junior is Better Than Senior, How to Manage Sales Rep Compensation, How To Onboard New Sales Reps and more with Lori Jimenez, CRO @ WorkRamp
02 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lori Jimenez is the Chief Revenue Officer at WorkRamp where she is responsible for sales, customer success, solutions engineering, sales development,...
20VC: Marcelo Claure & Shu Nyatta on Lessons from Investing $7.5BN at Softbank & Why Dumb Money has Gone, Why "LATAM is Under Construction" and the Next 10 Years Will Be the Best & Investing Lessons from Missing Nubank & OpenAI & Investing in FTX
31 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Marcelo Claure is the Founder & CEO of Claure Group, a multi-billion-dollar global investment firm. He is the Executive Chairman and Managing Partner...
20VC: Four Criteria to Assess Great Founders, Why and How the Best Leaders Make the Wrong Decisions 40% of the Time, Lessons Scaling King from 100 Employees to 2,400 and Making $1BN of EBITDA with Stephane Kurgan, Venture Partner @ Index Ventures
28 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Stephane Kurgan is widely considered one of the best operators in Europe. During his tenure as COO @ King, King went from $65m to $2.4B in bookings, ...
20Growth: Biggest Growth Lessons from Instacart and Opendoor, Why 70% of Growth Experiments Should Fail and How to Fail Fast, How to Hire a Growth Team; Secrets and Tips & Why Operator Investors WIll be the Best Investors in 10 Years with Sri Batchu @ Ram
26 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sri Batchu currently leads Growth at Ramp. He previously led Growth Strategy and Operations at Instacart where he also helped grow their Ads business...
20VC: Instagram CEO, Adam Mosseri on Threads: The Journey from 0-100M Users; What Worked, What Didn't and the Plans Ahead | Instagram: Biggest Mistakes, Successes, Misconceptions, TikTok Competition & The Future of Social Media; Interest Graph or Friend G
24 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Mosseri is the Head of Instagram, where he is responsible for overseeing the engineering, product, and business teams and leading Meta’s effor...
20VC: Why Hiring in Tech is Broken and Founders Need to be as Good at Firing as they are Hiring, Why Product Differentiation is Unsustainable & Why the Current Generation of Tech Employees are Entitled and What Needs to Change with Jean-Denis Greze @ Plai
21 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jean-Denis Greze is Chief Technology Officer at Plaid where oversees global product business units across North America and Europe. Prior to joining ...
20Product: The Secret to Successful Onboarding from Notion and Airtable, The Biggest Mistakes Startups Make in PLG Today& Why 90% of Onboarding Today is Done Poorly with Lauryn Isford, Head of Product Growth @ Notion
19 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Lauryn Isford is the Head of Product Growth at Notion, managing Notion's product-led growth engine and self-serve business. Before Notion, she led gr...
20VC: Top Three Lessons from Working with Jeff Bezos for 23 Years at Amazon, How the Best Leader Hire, Fire, Prioritise and Make Decisions & How to Be Responsible for 1M Employees and Be a Rockstar Husband and Father with Dave Clark @ Flexport
17 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Dave Clark is the CEO of Flexport, the global freight forwarder and logistics platform that has now raised over $2.5BN to build the category leader. ...
20VC: Why Fund Sizes Should Be Smaller, Should Founders Also Have Their Own Funds, Is Emerging Markets Investing Gone, Is Fintech Investing Dead & Who Will Be The Winners and Losers in VC in the Next 10 Years with Sheel Mohnot, Co-Founder @ BTV
14 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Sheel Mohnot is a Co-Founder and General Partner @ Better Tomorrow Ventures, a $225M fund that leads rounds in pre-seed and seed-stage fintech ...
20Sales: Slack, Atlassian, Dropbox: Five of the Biggest Lessons on Starting, Scaling and Managing Sales Teams from 25 Years Leading the Best with Kevin Egan, Global Head of Enterprise Sales at Atlassian
12 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin Egan is the Global Head of Enterprise Sales at Atlassian and brings more than 25 years of enterprise sales experience and leadership to the com...
20VC: Simon Sinek on Trust; How it is Gained and Lost | Why Millennials Avoid Conflict | How to Listen Effectively | What Makes The Best Feedback and How to Provide It | Why Humans Do Not Change & How To Find Out Who You Really Are
10 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Simon Sinek is an optimist and author, as we discuss in the show today. Simon is best known for his TED Talk on the concept of WHY (62M views), and ...
20VC: Why Data Size Matters More Than Model Size, Why The Google Employee Was Wrong; OpenAI and Google Have the Advantage & Why Open Source is Not Going to Win with Douwe Kiela, Co-Founder @ Contextual AI
30 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Douwe Kiela is the CEO of Contextual AI, building the contextual language model to power the future of businesses. Last month Contextual closed a $20...
20VC: The Rent the Runway Memo: How Paid Marketing & Growth Hacking Ruined a Generation of Companies, When Will Rent the Runway Be Profitable & How Does it Compare to Other Fashion Co's and Why "I Wish I Ran My Startup Like a Public Company"
28 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer Hyman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rent the Runway, the world’s first and largest shared designer closet. Under Jennifer’s leadership, R...
20VC: Eight Pieces of Startup Advice that are BS: Why You Do Not Have to Love Your Space, It Is Ok To Do It For The Money, Focus Is Not Everything, Speed Is Not The Most Important Thing with Akin Babayigit, Co-Founder @ Tripledot Studios
26 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Akin Babayigit is a serial entrepreneur and an active angel investor. He is currently the Founder and COO of Tripledot Studios, one of the fastest-gr...
20VC: How to Raise a Venture Fund from Deck to First Meetings to Final Close, Why Venture is a Young Person's Game and Why Multi-Stage Funds Have Not Ruined Seed with Rob Go, Co-Founder @ Nextview
23 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Rob Go is a co-founder and Partner at NextView, one of the leading seed firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Attentive, Devoted Health...
20Growth: How to Master PR and Comms, How to Get Your Startup Written About; Press Releases, Fundraising Announcements, Embargos etc & Lessons Scaling Duolingo from 3-200M Users with Gina Gotthilf, Co-Founder @ Latitud
21 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Gina Gotthilf is a Co-Founder and COO at Latitud, an a16z-backed platform supporting the next generation of iconic tech startups in Latin America thr...
20VC: Why No Models Today Will Be Used in a Year, Why Open Will Always Beat Closed in AI, Why Proprietary Data is Less Important Than Ever And Why EU AI Regulation is a Disaster with Alex Lebrun, Founder & CEO @ Nabla
19 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Lebrun is the Co-Founder and CEO of Nabla, an AI assistant for doctors. Prior to Nabla, he led engineering at Facebook AI Research. Alex founded...
20Product: Slack CPO Noah Weiss on How to Master Product-Led-Growth, The Biggest Mistakes Founders Make When Scaling Into Enterprise & What Needs to Change with your Product, Team and Processes when Scaling From PLG to Enterprise
16 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Noah Weiss is the Chief Product Officer of Slack, overseeing the product team’s strategy and development. Over his seven years at Slack, Noah has l...
20VC: UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak on Investing More in AI Safety Research Than Any Other Country in the World, How AI Changes the Future of Education, His Top 5 Priorities as Prime Minister Today & How to Make the UK the Centre of AI
14 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Rishi Sunak is the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. He was previously appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer from 13 February 2020 to 5 July 2022...
20VC: Larry Summers on How to Manage Inflation; Should We Increase Rates Even Higher, Why We Need To Change The US Tax System, Why Europe is a Museum, China is a Jail and Bitcoin is an Experiment & How a Trump Win Would Hurt the US Economy
12 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Larry Summers is the Former Treasury Secretary and one of America's leading economists. In addition to serving as 71st Secretary of the Treasury ...
20VC: What are the World's Tech Leaders Running From? Fear? Insecurity? Poverty? What Drives the Best with Orlando Bravo, Bill Ackman, Dara Khosrowshahi, Parker Conrad, Tobi Luttke, Brian Armstrong and more..
09 Jun 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Orlando Bravo is a Founder and Managing Partner of Thoma Bravo. He led Thoma Bravo’s early entry into software buyouts and built the firm into one...