Venture Capital

Felicis Founder: The Blueprint Behind 50+ Billion-Dollar Startups

Sep 8, 2026 · 1:06:05

Aydin Senkut, founder of Felicis Ventures, argues venture winners must be unconventional, crediting 50+ unicorns to outlier founders outside Silicon Valley like Shopify in Ottawa and Adyen. A former early Google employee, he recalls Larry Page saying 'no' 80% of the time and pushing 10X ideas like Gmail. He cites Felicis research: the top 1% of exits doubled in value every five years while the other 90% stagnated, making venture a needle-in-the-haystack search. He explains the 1% Founders Pledge, which funded coaching for 100+ founders, and his focus on space, defense, manufacturing and energy. He tells Ollie LPs' time-lens underwriting breaks as exits stretch, AI makes trust 10 to 100 times harder to earn, and emerging managers must prove themselves dozens of times to build a 'hit machine.'

Saul Klein: Europe Is Quietly Building the New Silicon Valley

Aug 19, 2026 · 57:23

Saul Klein, Phoenix Court co-founder, argues that Europe—London especially—is quietly becoming the world's next Silicon Valley, calling the UK the third-biggest innovation economy after the US and China. He recounts building LoveFilm from Netflix-like DVD rental into a £100M+ revenue business via partnerships with Tesco, ITV, and Odeon, and joining Skype as it grew 400,000 users a day through network effects. Klein says founders should not blindly go to the US, capital is a commodity, and most of the world's 20,000 VCs add little beyond money; only 28 have backed 11+ companies to $100M revenue at seed. He details Phoenix Court's structure: a company, carry for every employee, and a foundation as 30% shareholder; he names London, Paris, Berlin, Stockholm, and Amsterdam as leading hubs.

This Company Is Reinventing Venture Capital | Ben Miller CEO at Fundrise

Jun 28, 2026 · 50:44

Ben Miller, CEO of Fundrise, recounts how the 2008 crisis inspired him to democratize private markets, first through real estate and later venture capital (launched 2022), where they waited 12 months to deploy, investing in Vanta. He contrasts venture—regretting missed opportunities—with real estate—regretting bad deals—and argues that venture value-add is mostly overstated; team builds success. On AI, he says Anthropic is eating the application layer, making it hard for all but top labs, and predicts Mythos will unlock consumer apps; he notes upcoming IPOs of AI labs and SpaceX will reallocate $10 trillion, starving other sectors. He is bullish on longevity through his investment in Loyal, a dog longevity drug company, and sees human longevity within a decade. His admired AI leader is Dario Amodei for genuine concern about risks, and his personal trait is willingness to suffer.

How Many $10 Billion Startups Will There Be? | Eric Hippeau

May 13, 2026 · 57:21

Eric Hippeau, co-founder of Lerer Hippeau, argues that while AI is transforming tech faster than ever, startups must avoid being mere wrappers around foundational models, as they can be instantly disrupted. He explains that physical AI, combining hardware and AI in areas like robotics and defense, offers more defensible opportunities. Hippeau warns that the startup market is disconnected, with inflated seed valuations assuming many will reach $10B, but historically there's no market for hundreds of such companies. He discusses healthcare, where AI-driven diagnostics could make primary care nearly free, but political will is needed to overcome entrenched systems. On media, he shares lessons from building Huffington Post—keeping stories live and separating opinion—and predicts that AI could restore trust by providing verifiable facts. Hippeau also reveals he has rebuilt his firm's workflow around Anthropic's Claude, cites AR glasses as underrated, and notes that solo GPs must build teams to succeed.

We Ignored Silicon Valley Advice for 3 Years | Nicolas Sharp (Attio)

Apr 30, 2026 · 57:49

Nicolas Sharp, co-founder of Attio, explains why the CRM startup spent 1,000 days building in stealth—a deliberate counter to the 'ship fast' philosophy he learned from a previous venture—and how that architectural investment now powers Attio's AI-native platform. He argues that the half-life of product-market fit has collapsed, forcing companies to simultaneously iterate and scale, and that Attio's high-resolution data pipelines are critical for deploying AI agents. Sharp also details how Attio used manual waitlist onboarding to validate demand, how fundraising expectations have risen dramatically (Attio raised $52M at Series B with accelerating growth), and why Europe is having a breakout moment as an AI hub, citing talent from DeepMind and Palantir as catalysts.

A16Z Partner: Why "Just Capital" Is Not Enough Anymore (The Firm of 2030) | David Haber

Jan 25, 2026 · 56:58

David Haber, a16z general partner, argues most venture investors run funds but few build firms, and explains how a16z operates as a firm with compounding competitive advantage. The firm reinvests fees into a 600-person platform giving founders distribution, credibility, and leverage. Haber shares his founder story: Bond Street raised $900M in debt, sold to Goldman Sachs, teaching him inside a 40,000-person organization. On AI, he says software becomes labor, expanding TAM beyond IT spend—portfolio company Salient's voice agents achieve 50% better collection rates. He also highlights a16z's decentralized model with no single CIO, where specialist partners run divisions, making the firm more resilient than traditional funds.

He Built A $1.8B AI Company With No Experience | Max Junestrand

Dec 14, 2025 · 52:02

Max Junestrand, CEO of legal AI company Legora, explains how AI is rewiring the legal profession, arguing that not building in AI is the biggest career risk. Legora, which went through YC W25 and has raised $260M, doubles ARR every quarter by embedding with law firms to solve real problems. Junestrand details how AI adds a fourth step to the lawyer career ladder—junior associate, senior associate, partner, AI—pushing junior lawyers to focus on intelligence and client skills earlier. He describes Legora's shift from chat to large-scale document review and Word-native drafting, and predicts a move from billable hours to outcome-based pricing as AI automates more work. Junestrand also shares his fundraising approach: build a great business and investors come to you, with Legora's Series B closing in a week and Series C in a week and a half.

OUT NOW: Solana's Founding Story | Anatoly Yakovenko

Nov 10, 2025 · 1:06

Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder and CEO of Solana, tells the story of how his eureka moment—a calculation showing Solana could achieve 1,000 to 10,000 times more throughput than Ethereum or Bitcoin—led to a manic four days and eventually to a blockchain that processes in a single month as many transactions as Ethereum does in its lifetime. He details the brutal fundraising process, requiring 1,000 meetings to secure the first major check, and the near-catastrophic moment during Solana's biggest conference (1,600 developers, sold out) when FTX collapsed on the flight back, threatening the entire ecosystem. The episode explores Anatoly's vision for decentralized finance beyond speculation and the challenges of building a truly open on-chain financial system.

This Is How AI Will Reshape Startups Forever | Henry Ward, Co-Founder of Carta

Nov 2, 2025 · 47:52

Henry Ward, co-founder and CEO of Carta, explains how AI is reshaping startups and Carta itself — inverting the source of truth back from data to paper by using LLMs to reconstruct cap tables from legal documents. He shares the early hack that got Carta its first users: offering discounted 409(a) valuations through VC portfolio companies. Ward advises founders to diligence investors by talking to founders who exited with them, warns that seed investors often turn on founders in M&A, and notes the VC market is becoming bimodal — large funds get larger while small emerging managers exploit niches. Carta is now expanding into private equity and credit, which he says are 6–8x larger than venture, and opening offices globally. He also recounts meeting Marc Andreessen, who admitted his firm made a mistake passing on earlier Carta rounds, exemplifying the humility Ward admires.

Spotify’s Early Investor Shares His Blueprint for Outlier Founders | PJ Pärson (Northzone)

Oct 26, 2025 · 46:20

PJ Pärson, Northzone partner and early Spotify investor, argues outlier founders combine existential intensity with adaptability to AI disruptions and must hire smarter people. He recounts meeting Daniel Ek in high school and how Northzone insisted Ek become Spotify's CEO, producing Sweden's most valuable company. Pärson breaks AI into infrastructure, application tools, and a coming wave of AI-native businesses, explaining Northzone focuses on complex B2B bets like healthcare AI. He notes European startup hubs now have critical mass—Stockholm hosts 50–60 fast-growing AI companies—but Europe lacks later-stage capital and a deep IPO market. He warns US visa changes could redirect talent to Europe if Europe fixes retention issues.