Latest Interviews
Showing 106–120 of 466 interview transcripts.
Clear all filtersCerebras CEO, Andrew Feldman on Why Raise $1BN and Delay the IPO & Why NVIDIA’s Worried About Growth
Andrew Feldman, Harry Stebbings
Cerebras Systems secured its largest-ever funding round led by Fidelity to accelerate wafer-scale chip manufacturing and expand US data center capacity ahead of a future IPO. The company leverages its unique hardware to address critical memory bandwidth bottlenecks while navigating an unpredictable global market characterized by exponential demand growth and intense talent competition. Despite significant infrastructure challenges and geopolitical headwinds, the firm reports substantial revenue from the UAE and maintains confidence that its technology will drive future productivity gains by reorganizing economic workflows rather than simply replacing existing tools.
Are Burn Multiples BS in an AI World? & Sam Altman Needs $1TRN of Energy
Sam Altman, Jason Lemkin, Rory O'Driscoll, Harry Stebbings
Venture capital strategy in 2025 has bifurcated into binary funding decisions driven by AI narratives or massive IPO potential, leaving non-AI growth companies struggling to secure capital despite strong fundamentals. As public market multiples face potential reversion, investors are increasingly favoring dominant market leaders while consolidating portfolio companies through M&A to create critical mass for public exits. Consequently, founders must navigate a high-stakes environment where traditional efficiency metrics are scrutinized for data honesty and political neutrality, forcing immediate acceptance of deals over valuation optimization.
Mercor CEO & Co-Founder, Brendan Foody: How They Grew from $1M to $500M in 17 Months
Brendan Foody, Harry Stebbings
Led by 22-year-old founder Brandon Foody, Macaw has achieved a $500 million revenue run rate by transitioning from low-cost crowdsourcing to a high-value expert network charging $95 per hour for premium AI training data. Following its acquisition by Scale AI, the company quadrupled revenue while maintaining positive margins, now operating with supply constraints as top-tier labs consolidate their spend to leverage Macaw's proprietary access to elite talent for complex reinforcement learning tasks. Despite a current valuation hovering between $200 and $250 million, the private entity plans to pursue further financing to signal market dominance, aiming for a $10 billion future as it refines the industry's shift toward high-quality human-in-the-loop data curation.
ElevenLabs CEO/Co-Founder, Mati Staniszewski:The Untold Story of Europe’s Fastest Growing AI Startup
Mati Staniszewski, Harry Stebbings
Eleven Labs has accelerated to $200 million in annual revenue and a 30x revenue multiple valuation by pivoting from a dubbing concept to a proprietary text-to-speech and voice cloning platform that now powers enterprise agentic solutions. The company distinguishes itself through a flat organizational structure, a custom infrastructure strategy that ensures faster execution, and a refusal to sell despite multiple acquisition offers. With a team of 250 distributed globally, the firm continues to close funding rounds quickly while advocating for regulatory alignment to sustain its leadership in voice AI.
Anthropic Raises $13BN & OpenAI Buys Statsig for $1.1BN All Stock
Jason Lemkin, Rory O'Driscoll, Cliff Obrecht, Harry Stebbings
This analysis examines a high-stakes AI investment landscape where Anthropic secured a $13 billion round at an $183 billion valuation while Canva accelerated toward an IPO with re-accelerating 40% growth. Market dynamics reveal significant inefficiencies, exemplified by Lovable's rapid valuation doubling and intense competition with Replit, alongside major corporate moves including OpenAI's StatSig acquisition and Meta's scrutinized Scale AI deal. Looking forward, industry leaders warn that while AI infrastructure investment targets a $3–4 trillion opportunity, sustainable success depends on companies navigating the critical transition from early-adopter hype to mainstream utility and managing rising compute costs.
Cohere Founder, Nick Frosst: How To Compete with OpenAI & Anthropic, and Sam Altman’s AI Disservice
Nick Frosst, Sam Altman, Harry Stebbings
Cohere founder Trevor Stuhldreher critiques industry alarmism over AGI while outlining the company's strategy of prioritizing enterprise utility and tool-use over consumer entertainment through its "North" agentic framework. The company recently valued at $6.8 billion differentiates itself by training efficient models on synthetic and high-quality data to handle repetitive labor tasks, with projections that such agentic workflows will replace entry-level roles by 2026. Stuhldreher further advocates for sovereign model infrastructure to protect national interests and warns that without careful policy, widespread AI adoption will exacerbate income inequality despite the inevitability of workforce displacement.
Anthropic's $10B Round, Klarna's IPO, Inside a16z's 72 Deal Seed Investment Machine ft. Marc Benioff
Marc Benioff, Rory O'Driscoll, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings
Mark Benioff of Salesforce asserts that current AI represents an architectural shift toward agentic capabilities rather than true AGI, driving a $1 billion revenue surge and a $41 billion valuation for the company's Data Cloud. This transformation has enabled Salesforce to replace 4,000 human support roles with automated agents while securing a major U.S. Army contract against competitor Palantir. The discussion further highlights broader market dynamics, including massive valuations for AI startups like Anthropic and Sequoia Capital's strategic retention of equity in Klarna, as investors grapple with scaling costs and capital allocation strategies.
BVP Partner, Byron Deeter: The Future of Venture - Why Chanel vs Walmart is BS
Bessemer Venture Partner Byron Deeter outlines a transformative AI cycle defined by unprecedented capital concentration, where top-tier companies like Anthropic and OpenAI are projected to raise $100 billion collectively while redefining growth timelines from years to mere months. To capture these "supernova" opportunities, Bessemer is shifting from strict value investing to paying market-clearing prices and expanding liquidity strategies to accommodate a predicted IPO rebound in late 2024. The session further highlights how AI is displacing traditional labor budgets, enabling micro-businesses to reach billion-dollar valuations and forcing incumbents to compete with agile, data-driven startups.
Lovable CEO, Anton Osika: The State of Foundation Models, Grok vs OpenAI, and Replit vs Bolt
Lovable founder Anton reflects on the company's rapid ascent to $100M ARR, attributing success to an aggressive "build mode" culture and a strategy of hiring adaptable generalists to serve as technical co-founders. He outlines a competitive investment thesis favoring Grok over OpenAI while warning of China's terrifyingly fast model distination, positioning Lovable to abstract model complexity for users in both consumer and enterprise markets. Despite the high risk of AI-enabled warfare and job displacement, Anton maintains that the company will achieve generational scale by 2026 through its agentic workflow and commitment to rapid execution.
Index Ventures Partner, Martin Mignot: Figma, Scale, Wiz: Inside Index’s Decacorn Factory
Martin Mignot, Harry Stebbings
Index Ventures' Martin discusses a capital strategy spanning $11.5 billion deployed over three decades, emphasizing that massive returns derive from a small cluster of winners rather than broad portfolio diversity. The firm prioritizes founders exhibiting first-principles thinking and global market potential, rejecting early-stage price sensitivity while maintaining a disciplined "qualified majority" voting system for investment decisions. Key case studies like Revolut, Figma, and Cohere illustrate the firm's conviction in backing high-impact companies despite low initial margins, with a current focus on AI sovereignty and the structural necessity of scale to serve founders through full lifecycle growth.
Figma's 250% Pop - The Greatest IPO Mispricing Ever? Meta & Microsoft Blowout Quarters: Broken Down
Brian Halligan, Rory O'Driscoll, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings
The Figma IPO achieved a historic 250% price pop driven by limited supply and high demand, while founder Dylan Field's performance-based equity triggered immediate vesting upon the surge. The discussion further explores critical divergences between public and private market dynamics, noting how Canva is preparing for an offering despite liquidity constraints and how AI capital expenditure currently outpaces application revenue. Finally, the analysis critiques venture capital structures, highlighting acquisition strategies that prioritize technology over talent and advocating for performance-based compensation models that align with tangible operational growth.
Why Apple Needs a Management Overhaul & Why Google is Catching Up with Hyperscalers
Rory O'Driscoll, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings
The event analyzes the current AI competitive landscape where Google leads execution while incumbents like Microsoft and Meta struggle to catch up to agile new entrants. Simultaneously, the venture capital ecosystem is shifting toward solo funds and massive check sizes, evidenced by the rising dominance of Anthropic and OpenAI in a market where traditional diversification rules are being overridden by proven winners. Finally, the discussion evaluates macroeconomic risks surrounding rapid AI infrastructure depreciation and the emerging convergence between design tools like Figma and autonomous coding agents.
a16z GP, Martin Casado: Anthropic vs OpenAI & Why Open Source is a National Security Risk with China
Martin Casado, Harry Stebbings
Martin Casado characterizes the current AI investment landscape as a "super cycle" where zero-sum thinking is the only failure mode, noting that brand recognition currently drives market share expansion across all stack layers while distinct model "flavors" emerge for specialized tasks. He warns that national security risks posed by China's lead in open-source development necessitate increased US government funding for open models, even as the market shifts from monolithic expectations toward an oligopoly where generalist leaders coexist with niche startups. Ultimately, the ecosystem is defined by a paradox where massive capital inputs drive rapid winner-take-all outcomes, yet fundamental system trade-offs and domain expertise remain essential for application differentiation and long-term viability.
How Do All Providers Deal with Anthropic Dependency Risk & Figma IPO Breakdown: Where Does it Price?
Rory O'Driscoll, Jason Lemkin, Harry Stebbings
Jason Calacanis and guests analyze the severe security risks of "vibe coding," where AI agents inadvertently corrupt production data by merging distinct environments, driving a new $40M market for guardrail tools. The discussion contrasts investment theses for Lovable against Cursor by evaluating architectural defensibility and model agnosticism while highlighting Anthropic's rapid growth in enterprise coding versus OpenAI's consumer focus. Broader industry dynamics include Perplexity's valuation surge driven by real-time search capabilities, strategic IPO positioning for Figma, and the compressing viability of traditional seed funds against dominant accelerators.
Surge CEO & Co-Founder, Edwin Chen: Scaling to $1BN+ in Revenue with NO Funding
Founded in 2020 by a former Twitter employee who rejected corporate bureaucracy, Surge distinguishes itself as a profitable technology firm that prioritizes high-quality human data over speed or fundraising to solve critical AI bottlenecks. The company leverages a small, high-density team of elite experts to deliver superior training data for models like GPT-3, explicitly refusing to scale through external capital or compromise on quality standards. Operating with a long-term vision to achieve AGI by 2028, Surge remains independently owned and poised for a 10x productivity increase without any intention of selling, even for amounts exceeding $100 billion.