Libsyn Directory

20VC: Why Founder Mode is Dangerous & Could Encourage Bad Behaviour | Why Fundraising is a Waste of Time & OKRs are BS | Why Angel Investing is Bad for Founders to Do and the VC Model is on it's Last Legs with Zach Perret @ Plaid

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Release Date: 10/16/2024

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

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

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 NVIDIA: The Bubble Bursting? 48:54 Oracle Credit Default Swaps: The Risk is Increasing 01:07:22 Stripe Does Tender at All-Time High: Why the Best Companies Will Never IPO 01:19:18 Why Retail WIll Cause a Surge of Capital into VC Funds

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?

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Dr. Andrew Ng is a globally recognized leader in AI. He is Founder of , Executive Chairman of , General Partner at , Chairman and Co-Founder of . As a pioneer in machine learning Andrew has authored or co-authored over 200 research papers in machine learning, robotics and related fields. In 2023, he was named to the Time100 AI list of the most influential AI persons in the world. Agenda: 03:19 What are the Biggest Bottlenecks in AI Today? 08:51 How LLMs Can Be Used as a Geopolitical Weapon 15:48 Should AI Talent Really Be Paid Billions? 29:07 Why is the Application Layer the Most...

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

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

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 Shopify through its acquisition of Tictail, Carl was the co-founder and CEO of Tictail, the “Tumblr for e-commerce,” where he built one of the most beloved design-forward commerce platforms of its era. AGENDA: 05:05 Biggest Lessons from Selling My Company to Shopify 09:55 Where Does Shopify Suck at Product: Lessons from that? 17:37 What makes Truly Great product Design: The Five Pillars 31:02 The Future of Design in an AI-Driven World 36:00 Do...

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

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

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 32:34 Does Defensibility Exist Today When Copying is Easy 40:31 Should All Funds Be Way More Diversified 47:12 How to Run a Fundraising Process & What Not To Do 57:57 Datadog Surges 20% and Duolingo Crashes: What Happened

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

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

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 ($10BN valuation), Firework ($4BN valuation), Legora ($2Bn valuation) and Langchain ($1.4Bn valuation). To put this in multiples on invested capital, that is a 60x, two 30x and two 20x. Before Benchmark, Ev was a Partner @ Kleiner Perkins and before Kleiner, Ev was an investor at Founders Fund and Bond. AGENDA: 05:25 Biggest Investing Lessons from Peter Thiel, Mary Meeker and Mamoon Hamid 14:36 OpenAI Will Be a $TRN Company & OpenAI or...

20Sales: Why You Need a CRO Pre-Product | Why Remote Sales Teams Do Not Work | How Snowflake Built a Sales Machine with Chad Peets

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

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 Ventures. Chad has worked with the world's best CEOs and CROs to build world-class go-to-market organizations. Chad is currently a member of the Board of Directors for Lacework and Luminary Cloud and on the boards of Clumio and Sigma Computing. He previously served as a board member for Astronomer, Transposit, and others. He was an early-stage investor at Snowflake, Sigma, Observe, Lacework, and Clumio. In Today's Discussion with Chad Peet's We...

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?

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

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 Gerstner 41:25 Why GOOG is a Buy and Amazon is a Short 47:43 Meta Down 10%, Buy or Sell? 51:12 If You Have Not Accelerated with AI, You Are Dead 01:05:20 Why Now is the Best Time for Series A and Worst for Seed

20VC: Cohere's Chief AI Officer 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

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Joelle Pineau is the Chief AI Officer at Cohere, where she leads research on advancing large language models and practical AI systems. Before joining Cohere, she was VP of AI Research at Meta, where she founded and led Meta AI’s Montreal lab. A professor at McGill University, Joelle is renowned for her pioneering work in reinforcement learning, robotics, and responsible AI development. AGENDA: 00:00 Introduction to AI Scaling Laws 03:00 How Meta Shaped How I Think About AI Research 04:36 Challenges in Reinforcement Learning 10:00 Is It Possible to be Capital Efficient in AI 15:52 AI in...

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

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

🎧 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 Tim Ferriss Refused to Go All-In on YouTube” 09:00 – “You Don’t Need 10 Million Fans—You Need 1,000 True Believers.” 12:00 – “The Internet Is Not a Relevance Machine—It’s a Sensationalism Machine.” 15:00 – “Money Fixes Money Problems—And Nothing Else.” 22:30 – “When Did Tim Ferriss Feel Completely Lost?” 27:00 – “The Million-Dollar Mistake That Still Haunts Tim Ferriss.” 36:00 – “Why Tim Ferriss...

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

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

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 Valuation 43:08 Spray and Pray: Does it Work: Data Breakdown 47:04 The Role of Option Checks Venture Capital 48:36 The Three Ways to Win in VC Today 54:26 Why IRR is a BS Metric and What Matters More 01:08:47 Amazon's Struggles: How Do They Return to Greatness in AI

Zach Perret is the CEO and Co-Founder of Plaid, a technology platform reshaping financial services. To date, Zach has raised over $734M for Plaid from the likes of NEA, Spark, GV, Coatue and a16z, to name a few. Today, thousands of companies including the largest fintechs, several of the Fortune 500, and many of the largest banks use Plaid. In addition, Zach is also a Co-Founder of Mischief, an early-stage venture fund in San Francisco.

In Today’s Episode with Zach Perret We Discuss:

1. Founder Mode:

Why “Founder Mode” will be the most dangerous blog post written in the last decade for founders? What is most misleading about it?
What are “grinder problems”? Why does Zach believe that grinder problems are the best problems for startups to try and solve?
Why does Zach believe that OKRs are BS and should be removed? What should be used instead?

2. Lessons from Raising $734M for Plaid:

What is the worst advice that VCs give that most founders take?
Why does Zach believe that angel investing is more distracting than helpful for founders to do? What are the pros of investing alongside running a company?
Why does Zach encourage founders to raise money as infrequently as possible? What does this mean for the size and price of rounds Zach thinks we should see occur?

3. The $5BN Exit and the $13.4BN Round:

Why did Zach turn down the $5BN exit to Visa? Was it the right choice?
Does Zach regret raising at such a high price of $13.4BN when the exit did not happen?
Would Zach sell the company today for $13.4BN if offered it?
What did Zach not do that he wish he had done? What did he do that he wishes he had not done?