#69 Canadian VC and Startups w/Lylan Masterman
Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
Release Date: 02/15/2017
Homebrew’s Hunter Walk and Satya Patel: The Power of a Partnership
Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
Homebrew is one of the great venture firm names. It hearkens back to the 1970s era computer hobbyist group that included people like Steve Jobs. Hunter Walk and Satya Patel are the partners who founded and built Homebrew (the venture capital firm). Nevertheless, if you say “Hunter and Satya” in Silicon Valley, people will know exactly who you are talking about. Hunter Walk came to homebrew with experience as a product leader at YouTube and Google. Meanwhile, Satya Patel's background was as a seasoned investor at Battery Ventures and product leader at Twitter. In...
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Atari’s founder Nolan Bushnell and Dr. Leah Hanes Have a (Better) Plan for Educating America
Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
Nolan Bushnell’s career is extraordinary. Nolan has ignited two entertainment revolutions: first with Atari, birthing the video game industry through classics like Pong, and later with Chuck E. Cheese, merging pizza and arcade games for family fun. A serial entrepreneur, he's founded over 20 companies, venturing into robotics, personal computers, and beyond, forever changing the landscape of leisure and inspiration. Nolan has turned his thoughts to the state of education in the US and has teamed up with Dr. Leah Hanes to form ExoDexa, a developer of educational games that seek to...
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Richard Socher: Exploring AI with the Visionary AI Scientist, Entrepreneur and Investor
Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
Richard Socher is a visionary computer scientist, entrepreneur, and AI researcher who has dedicated his career to pushing the boundaries of what's possible in AI. With a Ph.D. from Stanford University, Richard's groundbreaking work in deep learning, neural networks, and NLP has paved the way for remarkable advances in AI applications. It may seem like everyone is an AI expert these days: Richard Socher really is. Richarrd is founder of the AI-focused venture firm AIX, and founder of the AI-powered search engine You.com. He is the former Chief Scientist at Salesforce and founder of...
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Hadley Harris: Building Eniac Ventures with 3 Friends / Investing in AI
Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
What are the odds that 4 friends can start a VC firm, and still be firing on all cylinders years later? Hadley Harris, one of Eniac Ventures’ 4 co-founders has the answer. Before co-founding Eniac, Hadley was as a developer and engineering team lead at Pegasystems, and later took on roles as a product manager at Microsoft and strategist at Samsung. His time at Microsoft and Samsung taught Hadley one thing: Big companies were not for him. So, Hadley joined a couple of talented AI founders out of MIT at Vlingo where he ran a several aspects of the business across product, strategy,...
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Samir Kaji: Building Allocate; The State of the Venture Market; Banking Meltdown (SVB/FRB) Post-mortem
Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
Samir Kaji is the founder behind Allocate, a pioneering platform in the venture capital space. Samir has established himself as a key connector between venture capital firms and the “LPs” (Limited Partners) who invest in them. He is building Allocate to leverage his experience into a platform. After observing inefficiencies in the venture capital market – between venture firms and the LPs that fund them – he was inspired to create Allocate. Allocate is described as “a game-changing solution that empowers venture capital firms to streamline allocation processes,...
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Darian Shirazi, General Partner at Gradient Ventures (Google’s AI Fund): Unleashing AI's Investment Potential
Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
Darian Shirazi is a general partner at Gradient Ventures, Google’s AI fund. Gradient Ventures invests in companies that are “developing AI technologies that have the potential to make a significant impact on the world”. Darian is a serial entrepreneur and investor. He co-founded and served as CEO of Radius, a leading customer data platform, for over 7 years. Under his leadership, the company grew to over 100 employees, raised over $100 million in venture capital, and served dozens of Fortune 500 customers. Darian is also an early investor in many successful companies, including...
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Anthony Soohoo: Bringing the Entrepreneurial Mindset to Walmart
Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
Anthony Soohoo is a Venture Advisor at AI Fund. It is a role he took on after building a company (Dot & Bo) that was acquired. He went from buidling his own company to becoming a leader at -- Walmart. . In fact, Anthony became the head of Wal-Mart’s Home Division. It’s the largest US retailer for home goods, and one of six business units at Wal-Mart. Anthony discusses what it’s like going from a startup to operating at the scale of, essentially, a Fortune 500 CEO. Anthony also begins the “AI Series” – where we start discussing what is happening as...
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Nnamdi Okike on Building 645 Ventures, Bias in Fundraising, and Being a Boston Sports Fan in New York
Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
Nnamdi Okike is rapidly becoming a prominent figure in the venture capital industry. He is the co-founder of 645 Ventures, along with his partner Aaron Holiday. Recently, 645 Ventures successfully raised its fourth fund, of about $350 million. Nnamdi's background includes an education at Harvard, membership on the prestigious NVCA board (with former Something Ventured Guest Charles Hudson serving as the chair), and time at Insight Partners. We discuss Nnamdi's path to finding a partner and establishing 645 Ventures. He shares why he left Insight to start his own fund, how he determined...
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Coindesk’s David Z. Morris: The Wild Story of FTX and its CEO, Sam Bankman-Fried
Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
David Z. Morris is part of the Coindesk reporting team that was critical in bringing to light the (apparently) massive fraud at FTX, the now bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange. FTX Trading Ltd., commonly known as FTX, abruptly collapsed in 2022, after having grown to become the world’s third largest crypto exchange with over a million users. While still unfolding, the FTX story so far has more layers, complexities and characters than a spy novel. David provides a thoughtful, nuanced explanation of what is known so far. We discuss what happened at FTX, how the events unfolded, and...
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Elad Gil: “A Startup is An Act of Desperation” and Other Wisdom from one of Silicon Valley's Best Investors
Something Ventured -- Silicon Valley Podcast
It is not a stretch to call Elad Gil one of Silicon Valley’s best investors. In a world where one big hit can make a venture capitalists’ career, Elad has invested in…Well, here’s a partial list Airbnb, Airtable, Anduril, Brex, Checkr, Coinbase, Deel, Figma, Flexport, Gitlab, Gusto, Instacart, Notion, Opendoor, PagerDuty, Pinterest, Retool, Rippling, Samsara, Square, Stripe, TripActions, Wish. It seems almost impossible. But there it is. Elad’s career includes working at Google, founding a company acquired by Twitter, and founding Color Genomics (you probably heard...
info_outlineIn honor of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's visit to the US, we talk to Lylan Masterman about Canada Venture Capital and Startups. Lylan is an investor with White Star Capital which invests across the Atlantic. Canadian tech -- turns out it's a much bigger topic than one might imagine. After a botched podcast opening (he did work at aQuantive and went to Kellogg, not so much Merrill Lynch). The VC ecosystem in Waterloo, Toronto, Montreal etc. are discussed. Trends in VC and startups there, successful Canadian companies, and more. Also discussed are the impacts of changing immigration dynamics on tech talent in Canada.
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In the Something Ventured podcast Silicon Valley insider Kent Lindstrom explores the reality behind the Silicon Valley headlines as he sits down with the people who are changing the way we view the world online and beyond.