Latest Interviews

Scaling AI Rocketships: ElevenLabs’ Mati Staniszewski & Lovable’s Anton Osika

Mati Staniszewski, Anton Osika, Brian

In a discussion comparing 11 Labs and Lovable, founders Mati and Anton detail their rapid scaling of AI ventures from Europe to generate over $200 million in revenue while operating with lean, autonomous teams. The conversation outlines their "founder mode" management styles, which prioritize tight spans of control, deep technical involvement, and a hybrid hiring strategy to balance in-house growth with seasoned executives. By leveraging European talent density and agile product roadmaps, both leaders argue they can outmaneuver larger AI giants through superior focus, speed, and design sensibility.

World's Leading Habits Expert: Every Business Problem Is Really A People Problem | James Clear

James Clear

Drawing from the core principles of *Atomic Habits*, the event dissects the four-stage habit loop and the four laws of behavior change to demonstrate how systems, rather than goals, dictate long-term outcomes through identity reinforcement and compounding growth. It presents strategic implementation tactics such as habit stacking, the two-minute rule, and environmental design, illustrated by real-world case studies ranging from the St. Olaf soccer team to a record-breaking stockbroker. The presentation concludes by shifting the mindset from dissatisfaction-driven change to sustainable growth, emphasizing that resilience and consistency over intensity are the true drivers of success.

The US-China Tech Race

Mark Kennedy, Paul Triolo, Allison Nathan

The US-China technological rivalry spans four strategic arenas, with Washington retaining dominance in fundamental innovation and China leading in application, infrastructure deployment, and self-sufficiency efforts. While US export controls have stalled China's access to advanced EUV lithography and high-end GPUs, these restrictions are simultaneously accelerating Beijing's parallel development of domestic chip manufacturing and open-source AI models. This dynamic creates a potential future where the US owns core design standards while China controls physical hardware and global markets, though US leadership ultimately hinges on resolving domestic energy grid constraints and sustaining its talent pipelines.

How is Russia testing the West?

Gordon Corera, David Rennie

Russia currently perceives itself under a continuum of low-intensity conflict with the West, interpreting Ukrainian strikes as direct aggression while employing hybrid tactics to destabilize Western democracies and undermine the existing international order. While Moscow retains high risk tolerance born of this siege mentality, recent escalations appear tempered by the fear of triggering an all-out war that would contradict its strategic goal of dismantling Western dominance. Simultaneously, China maintains a cautious distance from Russian recklessness to preserve its own economic stability, creating a complex dynamic where global powers calibrate responses to deter adversary activities without sparking accidental escalation.

How The AI Fight Will Play Out | Dean Ball, author of America's AI plan

Dean Ball

Dean Ball projects an 80–90% probability of achieving human-level superintelligence within two decades while arguing that regulatory frameworks should target developer characteristics rather than arbitrary compute thresholds. He advocates for open-source deployment and entity-based supervision to prevent capital concentration, warning that historical transitions often reduce well-being metrics despite technological advances. Ball further suggests that US-China cooperation on governance is feasible and that AI safety concerns may align more naturally with political conservatism than the progressive left.

The Unicorn Founder Who Delegated Everything.

Jonathan Swanson, Erik Torenberg

Jonathan frames time as the most critical asset for founders, advocating for aggressive delegation through a "ladder of leverage" that transitions from human assistants to AI agents to compound ambition. His methodology combines specialized frameworks like algorithm-based task exports and voice-first communication with a rigorous hiring philosophy focused on weakness-based references and trial periods. These strategies enable leaders to reclaim bandwidth for high-value decisions while navigating existential risks through structured support systems and adaptive organizational structures.

From Pivot Hell To $1.4 Billion Unicorn

James Hawkins, Brad Flora

PostHog has secured a $75 million Series E round at a $1.4 billion valuation to fuel aggressive workforce expansion from 70 to 200 employees and accelerate its AI-driven shift toward automating customer data workflows. Under founders James Hawkins and his co-founder, the company abandoned traditional sales-led growth in favor of an open-source, product-first strategy that now serves 300,000 users with a suite of 17 products. This capital deployment enables PostHog to pursue an ambitious vision of an "automated product manager" while maintaining radical transparency and a polarizing brand identity built on building in public.

The Rise of Generative Media: fal's Bet on Video, Infrastructure, and Speed

Gorkem Yurtseven, Burkay Gur, Batuhan Taskaya, Sonya Huang

FAL's platform hosts over 600 generative models across 35 data centers, leveraging a custom distributed supercomputer to optimize video generation against the extreme compute demands of tasks like 4K rendering. By utilizing a dual-model strategy and specialized kernel optimizations, the infrastructure supports complex workflows where customers chain over 14 models to produce content for sectors ranging from education to high-production advertising. This technical approach addresses the rapid 30-day half-life of video AI models, enabling studios and enterprises to integrate real-time generative video into existing pipelines while bypassing the limitations of standard frameworks like PyTorch.

Why Syria might face another uprising

Gareth Browne, Rosie Blau

President Ahmad al-Shara has secured significant international diplomatic gains and sanctions relief while simultaneously centralizing power through shadow institutions that marginalize the Alawite and Druze communities. This governance strategy has exacerbated sectarian tensions, triggering over 1,500 deaths in recent violence and driving 25,000 former regime affiliates to flee as they organize new insurgencies. Despite restoring civil liberties and dismantling the Assad-era secret police, the administration's failure to provide transitional justice or economic stability threatens to destabilize the state and negate its diplomatic achievements.

Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour on Raising $1BN, CNN and CNBC Deals & the Polymarket Feud

Tarek Mansour, Harry Stebbings, Alfred Lin

Kalshi, founded by Dave Tarek, has secured a $1 billion valuation at $11 billion following three years of regulatory litigation that resulted in a federal victory for the 2024 election markets. The company now directs this capital toward scaling its global brand, securing exclusive media partnerships with CNN and CNBC, and competing against rivals like Polymarket while maintaining profitability with over 100 employees. Tarek emphasizes that this regulated approach distinguishes the platform from offshore exchanges and positions prediction markets as a sustainable vehicle for democratizing financial access through cultural and political events.

The Chip That Could Unlock AGI.

Naveen Rao, Matt Bornstein

Former Databricks AI head Naveen Rao founded Unconventional AI at NeurIPS to develop first-principles hardware that utilizes physical circuit dynamics rather than traditional digital logic, aiming to resolve the impending 400-gigawatt energy shortfall in data centers. Partnering with TSMC for manufacturing, the startup targets the creation of large-scale analog chips optimized for time-dynamic workloads like diffusion and energy-based models to accelerate the path toward Artificial General Intelligence. This initiative seeks to replace the binary computing paradigm with substrates capable of replicating biological efficiency, positioning Rao's team to bridge the gap between theoretical dynamical systems and scalable engineering.

Passive Income Expert: How To Make $10k Per Month In 90 Days!

CHRIS KOERNER, Steven

Chris Kerner, an entrepreneur who has launched over 80 businesses generating hundreds of millions in revenue, advocates for replicating proven models rather than seeking innovation to solve the 95% of problems that are already understood. He outlines actionable strategies for rapid validation, including AI-driven automation and specific side-hustle frameworks across $500 to $5,000 budgets, while warning against the risks of premature innovation and 50-50 equity splits. The discussion further reframes market rejection as statistical data, emphasizes the importance of trading active sweat for future passive income, and highlights how demographic shifts and AI arbitrage create current opportunities for scaling legacy industries.

OpenAI's Code Red, Sacks vs New York Times, New Poverty Line?

David Sacks

OpenAI has issued a "Code Red" directive requiring full-time office presence to address a sharp drop in market share from over 90% to 68% amid intensifying competition from Google's Gemini, Anthropic's Claude, and xAI's Grok. Simultaneously, the episode scrutinizes David Sacks' ethics controversy after New York Times allegations of conflicts of interest were dismissed by the Office of Government Ethics, with critics labeling the report a political hit job. The discussion further analyzes shifting economic dynamics, including state-level fiscal risks from wealth taxes and a predicted pivot toward multimodal, agentic AI models that threaten traditional subscription revenue models.

Why doesn’t the UK become closer to the EU?

Zanny Minton Beddoes, Edward Carr

Analysts predict Prime Minister Starmer will gradually pivot to a pro-EU stance by 2028–2029, driven by strong public support for closer ties that has outlasted the domestic political trauma of Brexit. Concurrently, the government has successfully reduced net migration to approximately 200,000 annually through stricter visa rules, though rising asylum claims continue to fuel a public perception of failing border control. This stabilization of migration figures may enable a political shift toward accepting free movement with the EU within three years, provided internal European instability does not undermine cooperation.

Finding Opportunity in Outdated Rules

Emerging companies frequently capitalize on legal ambiguities, such as OpenAI's copyright challenges or Lyft's initial fear of criminal liability, to launch disruptive models before regulations adapt. These ventures often succeed because legal frameworks evolve post-launch to accommodate high-value consumer innovations, creating a window where outdated statutes fail to align with modern technological realities. Consequently, identifying and exploiting these gray areas becomes a strategic pathway for market entry, as the substantial value delivered to consumers eventually forces the superseding of obsolete laws.