Greylock investor Seth Rosenberg talks with Espresso Systems COO Charles Lu and Chief Scientist Benedikt Bunz. Espresso, which just came out of stealth, is opening a new world of possibilities when it comes to scalability, decentralization, and configurable privacy for Web3. Greylock co-led the Series A with Electric Capital. You can read Seth's blog post about the investment and the transcript from this podcast here: https://greylock.com/portfolio-news/privacy-and-scalability-for-web3/ Learn mo...
Mar 08, 2022•29 min
YouTube chief product officer and Google senior vice president Neal Mohan talks with Greylock general partner David Thacker about the dynamics of building, scaling, and governing one of the world's most popular user-generated content platforms. Mohan began his internet career at DoubleClick in the ‘90s, where he was a pioneer of the now-widespread advertising business model. He arrived at Google via the company’s 2007 acquisition of DoubleClick, and was instrumental in expanding advertising tech...
Mar 02, 2022•54 min
Greylock investor Corinne Riley reads the essay she co-authored with Greylock general partner Sarah Guo entitled "BNPL for Businesses." In this essay, Riley and Guo describe the current state of B2B commerce, and the ways it lags behind the innovation in consumer commerce financing. The high friction associated with the use of checks and ACH that still dominate B2B payment methods – unstructured communication channels, high operational toil across multiple systems, and manual reconciliation – ha...
Mar 01, 2022•15 min
Greylock investor Christine Kim discusses the current Web3 landscape. Kim, who focuses on a range of consumer technology and marketplaces, sees a future where blockchain technology is the underlying infrastructure (and driving force of innovation) across nearly every industry. Kim is also the co-creator and co-host of the Web3-specific podcast Fungible Times with fellow Greylock investors Sarah Guo and Mike Duboe. You can read a transcript of this episode here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/th...
Feb 22, 2022•52 min
The audio version of Greylock general partner Asheem Chandna's column for Forbes, "The Long Game in Cybersecurity." As the underlying technology of cybersecurity advances, so, too, does the cyber threat. Chandna spoke with four cybersecurity experts about how things might play out in the coming years. While each expert brought a different lens, they are unified on one point: cybersecurity has never been more central and more complex. No one can afford to fall behind. This essay was read by Greyl...
Feb 17, 2022•11 min
A special guest broadcast of the new podcast Enterprise Software Innovators, created and co-hosted by Abnormal Security CEO and co-founder Evan Reiser and Greylock investor Saam Motamedi. ESI features exclusive conversations with the world's top technology executives, who share real world stories of the ways they are deploying disruptive software in their companies. The first episode of ESI features Michael Keithley, who is the CIO of United Talent Agency. Michael spoke about his vision for how ...
Feb 16, 2022•25 min
A special guest broadcast of the brand new podcast Fungible Times, created and hosted by Greylock investors Sarah Guo, Christine Kim, and Mike Duboe. Fungible Times shares stories from the builders at the forefront of Web 3.0. Tune in to learn about crypto, NFTs, DeFi, and the decentralized web. Not financial advice :) You can find Fungible Times on the following channels: fungibletimes.xyz https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fungible-times https://open.spotify.com/show/6b5z8pncf9sa6v5cMMnFUG ...
Feb 14, 2022•50 min
In today's work world where remote, hybrid, and otherwise distributed teams are the norm, how do businesses ensure their employees are engaged and feel a sense of cohesion with one another? Enter Mystery: is the easy button for team morale. They offer fully-managed virtual team events with essentially infinite variety, hosted by a network of vetted experience partners, from baristas, to rappers, to Dungeons & Dragons masters, to A-list celebrities. Greylock general partner Sarah Guo, who just le...
Feb 10, 2022•23 min
When it comes to innovation, Twilio CEO and co-founder Jeff Lawson has simple advice: "Build or die." Lawson straddles the line of software developer and CEO, giving him a rare perspective on the common ways the two sides misunderstand each other. It also gave him an early, deep understanding of developers’ needs in a software platform — which has been borne out in Twilio’s success. Lawson joined Greylock general partner Sarah Guo for Iconversations to discuss business trajectory, and what he se...
Feb 08, 2022•55 min
Greylock general partner Sarah Guo speaks with Aneel Bhusri, the chairman, co-CEO and co-founder of Workday. This interview is part of Greylock’s “Iconversations" series. Bhusri who is also a former managing partner at Greylock, is known for his laser focus on two things: product vision, and the ability to find and retain great people. He and his Workday day co-founder and co-ceo Dave Duffield actually interviewed the first 500 employees themselves, and they did so with the goal to find the peop...
Feb 01, 2022•49 min
Audio version of Greylock general partner Asheem Chandna's Forbes column, "Want to Win? Create the Right Early GTM Strategy," read by Greylock marketing partner Elisa Schreiber. Chandna provides guidance to early stage founders in the transition phase where many startups fail: the period after their initial success when they must move to a rigorous go-to-market architecture that enables year-over-year growth. You can read the essay here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/asheem-chandna-gtm-taking-...
Jan 27, 2022•12 min
Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman and his Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh examine the current development of Web3, focusing on how basic human nature is driving some of the innovation. This discussion was sparked in part by an article by Bloomberg reporter Joshua Brustein, who interviewed Hoffman about his recent essay on his experience as a Web 2.0 entrepreneur and investor. In that essay, Hoffman described the ways the “wild idealism” of the era led to major advances that both positively ...
Jan 25, 2022•39 min
Greylock welcomes Mustafa Suleyman as the firm's newest venture partner. Suleyman is known for his pioneering work in the field of artificial intelligence, and joins the firm from Google, where he was Vice President of AI Product Management and AI Policy. Before that he co-founded DeepMind, the world’s leading artificial intelligence company, which was acquired by Google in 2014 for $650M. Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman and Suleyman discuss the current AI landscape, the pivotal advances t...
Jan 20, 2022•38 min
On the day of their public market debut, Sonder CEO and founder Francis Davidson talks with Greylock general partner Josh McFarland about the hospitality company's wild journey from a side gig started during college to a modern, tech-enabled, design-forward accommodation platform serving travelers in 35 countries around the world. Davidson recounts the company's swift traction of the first few years, the dark days of early 2020 when the Covid-19 pandemic struck and upended travel overnight, and ...
Jan 19, 2022•36 min
In March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic forced nearly every aspect of life online. Suddenly, everything was happening on Zoom. To the everyday consumer, Zoom might have seemed like an overnight success story. But Zoom CEO and founder Eric Yuan, who was founded the company in 2011 as an enterprise service, said they were able to meet the sudden surge in demand thanks to the company's longstanding, unwavering focus on making virtual human interaction easy and accessible for anyone regardless of locat...
Jan 11, 2022•42 min
A re-broadcast of Reid Hoffman's discussion with his Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh on the pros and cons of two different courses of study: the standard business school MBA, or a degree in philosophy. Hoffman, who holds a philosophy degree from Oxford, shares why he generally views pursuing an MBA as an adverse signal for entrepreneurship. This episode is the second in a two-part series on philosophy and entrepreneurship. You can read an essay from this podcast here:https://greylock.com/greyma...
Jan 04, 2022•32 min
A re-broadcast of Reid Hoffman's discussion with his Blitzscaling co-author Chris Yeh on the ways a philosophy degree can impact entrepreneurship. This conversation is the first in a two-part series on the subject. You can read an essay based on this podcast here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/the-philosopher-entrepreneur/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 28, 2021•34 min
Members of Greylock's investing and specialist teams reflect on the past year, and look forward to the year ahead. They weigh in on the main startup trends, discuss sectors they are planning to spend more time on, and share personal stories about lessons learned, and plans for the coming year. You can read a transcript of this episode here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/year-in-review/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 20, 2021•28 min
Greylock general partner David Thacker talks with Eden Chen, the CEO and co-founder of backend game engine platform Pragma. As live service gaming has become a massive industry, powering that ecosystem has become increasingly complex. Like every other technology sector, there are too few software developers around to keep up with the demands of constant game development and iteration. Pragma was built to relieve that bottleneck. Along the way, the company aims to help developers focus more on th...
Dec 14, 2021•33 min
After a brief period of hiring freezes and mass layoffs early in the pandemic, business has come roaring back, and competition for talent is now higher than ever. Demand for highly-skilled employees outstrips supply, and most CEOs and hiring managers say that finding, hiring and retaining great team members is among the top concerns that keep them up at night. Greylock Talent Partner Glen Evans and Abnormal Security CEO and co-founder Evan Reiser share strategies and insights from building start...
Dec 07, 2021•42 min
As software and data management systems have evolved, so too have the cybersecurity threats targeting them. How can companies, government agencies, and individuals keep their data secure when risk is at an all-time high? Greylock general partner Asheem Chandna, New York Times cybersecurity reporter Nicole Perlroth, and Rubrik CEO and co-founder Bipul Sinha discuss the current world of cybersecurity, ransomware, and the need for everyone to adopt a "zero-trust" strategy to protect their data. You...
Nov 30, 2021•32 min
A re-broadcast of our episode featuring Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky. Chesky joined Greylock partner Reid Hoffman on Greylock's Iconversations speaker series to talk about how he guided Airbnb from an 80% loss within the first two months of the pandemic to a record-breaking IPO by the end of 2020; why Silicon Valley needs to redefine how it measures growth; how Chesky’s design background informs Airbnb’s business strategy; and, ultimately, the importance of putting people first. You ca...
Nov 23, 2021•50 min
Executive search firm Daversa Partners is working to change the reality of underrepresentation in tech. The firm has focused on increasing overall diverse representation for years, and is now launching a new program called Dreamscape that is dedicated solely to ensuring there is Black leadership on the boards and executive teams of the most important companies and investing firms in technology today. Dreamscape partners with tech companies such as Robinhood, Brex, and AppLovin, and venture capit...
Nov 16, 2021•22 min
Audio version of Greylock general partner Reid Hoffman's essay, "Human Nature in Vices and Virtues: An Adam Smith Approach to Building Internet Ecosystems and Communities," published on the Knight Foundation's website. Hoffman discusses how some of the most popular websites leverage some of humankind's less desirable attributes(e.g. "the 7 deadly sins"), and how entrepreneurs and investors can think about building based on virtuous traits. Read by Greylock marketing partner Elisa Schreiber. You ...
Nov 10, 2021•21 min
On the day of Nextdoor's public debut, Greylock general partner David Sze looks back on his experience working with the social networking startup. Sze knew Nextdoor co-founders Nirav Tolia, Sarah Leary, and Prakash Janakiraman before the company was formed in 2008. While he did not invest in their original concept called Fanbase, Sze was among the first investors after the company’s pivot in 2011 into what it is today. Greylock first invested in Nextdoor in March 2012, led a $21.6 million invest...
Nov 08, 2021•19 min
Greylock marketing partner Elisa Schreiber reads general parter Asheem Chandna's latest column for Forbes. In this column, Chandna discusses the changing dynamics of recruiting, hiring, and retaining talent in one of the most competitive labor markets of our time. You can read this essay at https://www.forbes.com/sites/asheemchandna/2021/10/28/how-to-win-the-startup-war-for-talent/?sh=42ce2ac352b3 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 04, 2021•10 min
As autonomous driving startup Aurora goes public via SPAC with Reinvent Technology Partners, Greylock general partner and Reinvent investor Reid Hoffman reflects on his experience working with the company as an investor and advisor. Hoffman joined the company's board when he co-led Greylock's Series A investment into Aurora in 2018. You can read the essay here: https://greylock.com/portfolio-news/congrats-aurora/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 04, 2021•24 min
Salesforce President and COO Bret Taylor talks with Greylock general partner Sarah Guo on Greylock's Iconversations series. During this discussion, Bret talks about lessons learned from his career as a product developer, two-time startup founder, and an operations leader within several large tech companies. He also talks about the high-profile acquisitions he has led at Salesforce, and lays out his vision for the future of the all-digital, work-anywhere world. You can read a transcript of this i...
Oct 26, 2021•51 min
WarnerMedia CEO Jason Kilar has an instinct for disruption. He first cut his teeth at Disney, helped transform Amazon in its early days, and was the founding CEO of Hulu. In aggregate, his experience represents a clear knack for jumping at opportunities to transform media right at the moment when people are receptive to tide-turning change. Kilar spoke with Greylock general partner David Sze as part of Greylock's Iconversations series. They discussed Kilar's 30 years in the media industry; the l...
Oct 19, 2021•50 min
This episode is the audio version of the essay "Open Source vs Cloud Castles", by Greylock general partner Jerry Chen. In this essay (which is read by Greylock's head of content and editorial Heather Mack), Jerry continues his discussion of strategies startups can explore to compete – and win – against the Big 3 Cloud providers. This essay is part of Greylock's Castles in the Cloud project. You can find the essay here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/open-source-vs-cloud-castles/ The entire Cast...
Oct 12, 2021•13 min
