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

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

Harry Stebbingswww.thetwentyminutevc.com
The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) interviews the world's greatest venture capitalists with prior guests including Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Once per week, 20VC Host, Harry Stebbings is also joined by one of the great founders of our time with prior founder episodes from Spotify's Daniel Ek, Linkedin's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman. If you would like to see more of The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), head to www.20vc.com for more information on the podcast, show notes, resources and more.

Episodes

20VC: Carvana: The Most Wild Story in Public Markets: From $60BN to $400M and Back to $40BN | The Biggest Opportunities, Mistakes and Challenges Ahead for One of the Public Market's Only 100x Investments

Carvana is one of the most wild stories in the public markets. The company IPO’d with a market cap of $2BN before skyrocketing to $60BN, only for the company to lose 99% of it’s value hitting a bottom of $400M market cap. Today the company is stronger than ever and with a market cap of $41BN. Joining us in the hotseat is Dan Gill, Carvana’s CPO, the man who oversees all technology functions, as well as strategic partnerships for the business. In Today’s Episode with Dan Gill We Discuss: From $60...

Jan 08, 20251 hr 3 min

20VC: How To Do a 10x Seed Fund in 2025 | Three Frameworks to Evaluate Startups an Founders | Lessons from Losing Billions Missing Airbnb and Pinterest & Investing Lessons from Charlie Munger with Mike Maples @ Floodgate

Mike Maples is one of the OG seed investors of the last two decades. As a co-founding Partner at Floodgate, Mike has been on the Forbes Midas List eight times in the last decade. Some of Mike’s investments include Twitter, Twitch.tv, Clover Health, Okta, Outreach, Chegg, Demandforce, and Applied Intuition. In Today’s Episode with Mike Maples We Discuss: 04:02 Does Seed Even Make Sense as an Asset Class? 05:16 Fund Size and Strategy: How to Do a 10x Fund? 08:12 Follow-On Investments: Are they BS?...

Jan 06, 20251 hr 10 min

20Sales: Rippling's CRO on Why Founders Should Not Create Sales Playbooks | Why Discounting is BS and How to Create Urgency in Deals | The Biggest Lessons on Pricing and How to Win the Pricing Game with Matt Plank

Matt Plank is Rippling's Chief Revenue Officer where he oversees all Sales and Account Management functions in the US and Internationally. Matt joined Rippling in the very early days when Parker Conrad (founder) was building V1 in a basement with $0 in revenue. Today the company is a market leader with 100s of $Ms in ARR. Prior to Rippling, Matt was a Sales Director @ Zenefits where he helped the company scale to $70M in ARR. In Today’s Show with Matt Plank We Discuss: 08:25 Challenges and Strat...

Dec 20, 20241 hr 10 min

20VC: UiPath's Daniel Dines on Why Agents Do Not Mean RPA is F***** | Why We Have Reached the Upper End of Scaling Laws | The Future of Work in an Agent World and What Everyone Misunderstands About Enterprise AI

Daniel Dines is the Founder & CEO @ UiPath , one of the most incredible journeys in startups. For 10 years, UiPath was a bootstrapped company that scaled to just $500K in revenue. Then it all changed, product market fit became obvious and the rest is history. The company went on to raise funding from Sequoia , Accel, Kleiner Perkins and more. Today, the company is worth over $10BN, listed on the NASDAQ and does $1BN+ in revenue. In Today’s Episode with Daniel Dines We Discuss: 1. The Future of L...

Dec 18, 202458 min

20VC: Reid Hoffman on The Trump Administration | Elon Musk and DOGE | The US Defence Budget, NATO and The War in Ukraine | China, Tariffs and TikTok | The Future of Chips, Nuclear Energy, Quantum Computing and Climate

Reid Hoffman is one of the most impactful people in technology and startups. As a Founder he founded Paypal and Linkedin before moving to the investing side where he has led deals in Facebook, Airbnb and more. In Today’s Episode with Reid Hoffman We Discuss: 1. China and Tariffs: Should the US ban Tiktok and other Chinese companies, given China banning US companies presence in their country? How does Reid evaluate the rise of the Chinese car industry? What are his concerns? How does Reid hope Tr...

Dec 16, 202459 min

20Growth: How to Scale to $30M ARR Bootstrapped through Content and Brand | The Ultimate Equation to Success in Sales and Why Most Founders Suck at Sales | Why You Should Overpay People and What That Means with Guillaume Moubeche @ Lempire

Guillaume Moubeche is the Founder of Lempire, a company he has bootstrapped in the most competitive market in technology and scaled to a staggering $30M in ARR. Guillaume has never raised primary funding for the business but sold $10M of secondary at a $150M valuation. Guillaume is also an angel investor and and best selling author. In Today’s Episode with Guillaume Moubeche: 1. How to Build a Sales Machine: What is the biggest mistake founders make when crafting their ideal customer profile? Wh...

Dec 13, 20241 hr 12 min

20VC: The Future of War: Are We Ready & What Needs to Be Done | China, Russia and Trump: What Happens Now | Raising $828M to Build the Defence Champion of Europe | Torsten Reil, Co-Founder @ Helsing

Torsten Reil is the Co-Founder and Co-CEO of Helsing, a new type of defence company providing artificial intelligence to protect our democracies. Torsten has raised over $825M from the likes of Prima Materia, Elad Gil, Accel and General Catalyst. Previously Torsten founded NaturalMotion, one of the UK's most successful games and technology start-ups. Torsten was named as one of MIT's Top 100 Innovators and is a member of the Munich Security Conference Innovation Board. In Today’s Episode with To...

Dec 11, 20241 hr 12 min

20VC: Salesforce Founder Marc Benioff on The Future of LLMs | The Future of Agents | The Future of Labour | Management Lessons from Steve Jobs

Marc Benioff is one of the iconic founders and visionaries of our time. From the founding of Salesforce 25 years ago, Marc has in many ways created an entire industry. He has scaled the company to a market cap of $346BN, $38BN in revenue and over 72,000 employees. Ask Me Anything with Marc Benioff: The Future of Models: Why does Marc believe we are at the upper end of LLMs and they are commoditising? Why does Marc believe the future of models is many smaller, verticalised models specialised in d...

Dec 09, 202444 min

20VC: From Unsexy Startup to $1.8BN Acquisition | Why VCs and Founders are Fundamentally Misaligned | Why Valuations and Fundraising are BS | Lessons from Josh Kushner and Marc Andreesen | Zac Bookman, OpenGov

Zachary Bookman is Co-Founder and CEO of OpenGov, the GovTech cloud software leader that was acquired for a staggering $1.8BN earlier this year. Prior to acquisition, Zac raised over $180M from some of the best of the best including Marc Andreesen, Josh Kushner, Joe Lonsdale and Founder Collective to name a few. Zac is also a successful angel investor with investments in Flexport, Flock Safety and Addepar. In Today’s Show with Zac Bookman We Discuss: 04:27 Navigating Enterprise Sales and Pricing...

Dec 06, 20241 hr 8 min

20VC: Revolut Founder Nik Storonsky on When and Where Revolut Will IPO & What Revolut Need to Do to Hit $100BN Valuation

Nik Storonsky is the Co-Founder and CEO of Revolut, one of the fastest-growing companies in the world with a $45BN valuation and 50M customers around the world. In July 2024, Revolut posted a whopping $2.2BN in revenue with $545M in pre-tax profit in 2023. To date, Nik has raised $1.8BN for the company from the likes of Index, Balderton, Ribbit, DST and TCV. In Today’s Show with Nik Storonsky We Discuss: 1. When & Where Will Revolut IPO: What does Revolut need to do or change before they are rea...

Dec 04, 202446 min

20VC: Grindr: The Most Insane Story in Startups | How the Chinese Bought and Lost Grindr | The Successful IPO with $300M Revenues and 40% EBITDA Margins | How Grindr Built a Free Cash Flow Machine

George Arison is the CEO of Grindr. The app that results in 40% of lesbian and gay marriages, the average user uses the app for 1 hour per day and sends more messages on Grindr than they do Whatsapp. The company will do over $300M in revenue in 2024 with a 40% EBITDA margin. One of the insane public company success stories. Prior to Grindr, George was the Founder and CEO of Shift, which he took public in 2020. In Today’s Episode with George Arison We Discuss: 1. Wild Story of How the Chinese Bou...

Dec 04, 202457 min

20Product: Is an AI Winter Approaching | The Future of AI Software Development: What is Real & What is BS | OpenAI: WTF is Going on & How Far Into Application Layer Do They Go | The Future Role of Software Engineers with Guy Podjarny

Guy Podjarny founded Tessl, Snyk and Blaze. Tessl is reimagining software development for the AI era and shaping AI Native Development. Snyk created and leads the Developer Security category, and is now a multi-billion dollar company with over 1,000 employees. Guy was previously CTO at Akamai (following its acquisition of Blaze), is an active angel investor, and co-hosts of the AI Native Dev podcast. In Today’s Episode with Guy Podjarny We Discuss: 03:02 Discussion on NVIDIA's Market Position 04...

Nov 29, 202446 min

20VC: Why Price Sensitivity is BS | Why "Portfolios" are Merely a Construct to Make LPs Happy | Why the Best Investment Never Happen in "Fundraising Rounds" | What Europe Needs to do to Become a Superpower Again | Klaus Hommels, Lakestar

Klaus Hommels is one of Europe’s leading start investors of the last decade with a portfolio including the likes of Spotify, Airbnb, Facebook, Coinbase, Revolut and more. Among his many responsibilities, Klaus is the Founder of Lakestar, his own venture fund and chairs the board of directors of the NATO Innovation Fund. In Today’s Episode with Klaus Hommels We Discuss: 1. The Investing Rules that are BS: Why does Klaus totally reject the idea of price sensitivity? Why does Klaus hate the idea of...

Nov 27, 20241 hr 10 min

20VC: Discord's Jason Citron on Why Everything We are Taught About Hiring & Management is BS | Do Richer Founders & Gamer Founders Make Better Founders? | Never Before Told Moments Behind Scaling to 200M Users

Jason Citron is the Co-Founder and CEO of Discord, a voice, video and text platform for friends playing games. Jason has raised $1BN for the company and was able to scale to 200M users. Prior to co-founding Discord, Jason founded OpenFeint, the biggest social mobile gaming platform, which sold to GREE in 2011 for $104 million. In Today’s Episode with Jason Citron We Discuss: 1. Leadership Lessons That are Total BS: Hiring: Why does Jason believe hiring experienced executives is the worst thing y...

Nov 25, 202451 min

20Sales: What I Learned Scaling Datadog from $60M to $1BN in ARR | How to do Outbound in 2024 | Why Discounting is Dangerous and Contract Sizes are Misleading with Dan Fougere

Dan Fougere is one of the most successful sales leaders of the last decade. Most recently, Dan was Chief Revenue Officer for Datadog, growing revenues from $60 million to $1BN ARR. Before Datadog, Dan was Head of Global Sales at Medallia where he created the Mediallia sales playbook. In addition, Dan is also a minority owner of the New York Yankees. In Today’s Episode with Dan Fougere: 1. Lessons Scaling Sales to $1BN in ARR at Datadog: What did Datadog not do that Dan wishes they had of done? W...

Nov 22, 20241 hr 10 min

20VC: Turning $16.5M into $2.1BN; Lessons from the Greatest Venture Investment in European History: UiPath | Why VC is Not Being Commoditised | Why Price Does Not Matter | Lessons on Loss Ratio, Selling and Signalling with Cem Sertoglu

Cem Sertoglu is one of the great venture investors of the last decade. Cem is famed for writing the first check into UiPath and over several rounds turning $16.5M into $2.1BN. Cem recently started Bek Ventures, a $250M fund that was 3x oversubscribed. In Today’s Show with Cem Sertoglu We Discuss: 1. Has Venture Capital Been Commoditised: Why does Cem believe that VC has not been commoditised? Why does Cem believe many VCs today are not even VCs anymore? How does Cem advise founders who have offe...

Nov 20, 20241 hr 3 min

20VC Alain De Botton on Why Companies Are Not Families | Why Status is Making You Miserable | Why Parents Want Their Kids to Fail | Why We Are Richer Yet More Anxious Than Ever & Why You Should Not Always "Be Yourself"

Alain De Botton is one of the greatest philosophers of our time. His work has had a profound impact on me more than any other. I have wanted to do this episode for the last 8 years. In Today’s Episode with Alain De Botton We Discuss: 1. Why Status is Making You Miserable: Why are we richer yet more anxious than ever? What is the right way to define status? Why do we want it so much? Is it bad to want status? What are some non-obvious signs that you are seeking status when you do not realise it? ...

Nov 18, 20241 hr 12 min

20Growth: Inside Perplexity's Growth Machine: What Worked, What Did Not Work | Why Paid Acquisition is a Drug and Brand Marketing is BS | The Good, Bad and Ugly of A/B Tests and Why Micro-Optimisations are Under-Rated with Raman Malik

Raman Malik is the Head of Growth at Perplexity where he is responsible for growth marketing, onboarding, activation, retention, and monetisation. Prior to Perplexity, Raman, was an early member of the growth team at Lyft and joined Perplexity earlier this year after his own startup journey. In Today’s Episode with Perplexity’s Head of Growth: 1. Inside the Perplexity Growth Machine: What have been the single biggest needle movers in the growth of Perplexity? What has not worked? What have they ...

Nov 15, 202459 min

20VC: Bolt; The Most Insane Story in Startups | Turning a $5K Loan into an $8BN Company | Why Every VC Turned Down One of Europe's Biggest Winners | Competing with Uber & The Future of Micromobility and Self-Driving

Markus Villig is the Founder and CEO of Bolt, a global mobility platform with more than 200 million lifetime customers in more than 50 countries and 600 cities. Bolt has raised over €1 billion in funding from investors like Sequoia, D1 and G Squared, making Markus the youngest founder of a billion-dollar company in Europe. In Today’s Episode with Markus Villig: 1. Starting an $8BN Company: How did Markus come up with the idea for Bolt before Uber existed? How did Markus find his co-founder? Why ...

Nov 13, 20241 hr 29 min

20VC: Anduril Co-Founder on How a Trump Administration Changes the Defence Industry | What Happens Between China vs Taiwan, Israel vs Palestine, Russia vs Ukraine | How Software Changes War & Why TikTok Should Be Banned with Matt Grimm

Matt Grimm is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Anduril Industries, an American defense technology company that specializes in advanced autonomous systems. To date, Anduril has raised over $3.7BN with the latest round pricing the company at a whopping $14BN. Before Anduril, Matt was a Principal at Mithril Capital Management alongside Peter Thiel. Before Mithril, Matt was an early hire at Palantir, where he was deployed to both Iraq and Afghanistan to ensure U.S. forces had the best t...

Nov 11, 20241 hr 23 min

20VC: Sam Altman on The Trajectory of Model Capability Improvements: Will Scaling Laws Continue | Semi-Conductor Supply Chains | What Startups Will be Steamrolled by OpenAI and Where is Opportunity

Sam Altman is the CEO of OpenAI, one of the most important companies in history. OpenAI is on a mission to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity. Prior to OpenAI, Sam was the President of Y Combinator and an angel investor in Stripe, Airbnb, Reddit and Instacart. 15 Questions with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: 1. Will the trajectory of model capability improvement keep going at the same rate as it has been? 2. When did Sam doubt the continuance of scaling laws most? What ...

Nov 04, 202440 min

20VC: Robinhood's Vlad Tenev on Founder Mode | Building 8x $100M Revenue Lines | Lessons from Raising $5BN and the Gamestop Saga | The Future of Artificial Intelligence, Wealth Management and Home Ownership

Vlad Tenev is a Co-Founder and CEO of Robinhood, the commission free stock trading and investing app with a market cap today of $20.7BN. Over the incredible 11 year journey Vlad has raised over $5BN from some of the world’s best investors including Sequoia, a16z, DST, Ribbit and Index. Before Robinhood, Vlad started two finance companies in New York City. In Today’s Episode with Vlad Tenev We Discuss: 1. Surviving a Scandal: The Gamestop Saga: What was the single hardest element of the sage for ...

Nov 01, 202452 min

20VC: Linear's Karri Saarinen How to be Grow Capital Efficiently in a World of BS Growth | How to Fundraise with Leverage | How to Select Investors and How to Give Them Homework in the Raise Process & Growth Lessons from Airbnb and Coinbase

Karri Saarinen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Linear. The company has raised from some of the best in the business including Sequoia and Accel. Before founding Linear, Karri was the principal designer at Airbnb and the founding designer at Coinbase. 10 Lessons with One of Silicon Valley’s Most In-Demand Founders: How to Become a Master Fundraiser: Why does Karri believe it is BS advice that founders should “always be raising”? What is Karri’s biggest advice to founders on minimising dilution? What...

Oct 30, 202448 min

20VC: Why SaaS is Dead | Why AI First Companies Will Win | We are in the Middle of a Cold War for AI Talent | Why Europe is F******* and We Need to Stop Whining with Daniel Khachab, Co-Founder @ Choco

Daniel Khachab is the co-founder and CEO of Choco. Today, Choco’s AI platform facilitates half of all food traded in major cities like New York, Paris, London, and Berlin, cutting food waste and streamlining distribution. Since its founding in 2018, Choco has raised $330 million from Bessemer, Coatue (its first European investment), and Insight, reaching unicorn status within 2.5 years. Previously, Daniel was the youngest Managing Director at Rocket Internet, where he oversaw growth across Latin...

Oct 28, 20241 hr 13 min

20VC: The Truth About Multi-Stage Firms; Why Portfolio Services are for VCs not Founders | Why Politics is Rife & Decision-Making is Broken in Large VCs | Why Reserves are Bad for Founders & How Boutique Firms Will Win with Mark Goldberg @ Chemistry

Mark Goldberg is a Managing Partner and Co-Founder at Chemistry, a $350M fund announced just yesterday with the mission to lead the best seed and Series A rounds. Before Chemistry, Mark was a Partner at Index Ventures, where he led early stage investments in Plaid, Bridge, Pilot, Anrok and Persona. Prior to Index Ventures, Mark was one of the first business hires at Dropbox. In Today’s Episode with Mark Goldberg We Discuss: 1. The Truth About Multi-Stage Firms: Why are portfolio services there t...

Oct 25, 202456 min

20Sales: Biggest Lessons Scaling Slack from $6M to $1BN in ARR | How to Build a Customer Success Machine and Where Most Go Wrong | The Framework to Hire All Sales Reps: Take-Home Assignments, Hiring Panels and more with AJ Tennant @ Glean

AJ Tennant is the Vice President of Sales & Success at Glean, Glean has more than 20x'd its revenue and 100x'd its user base in the just two and a half years he's been there. Before Glean, AJ had incredible runs at Slack and Facebook. At Slack, AJ helped grow revenue from $6 million to more than $1 billion. In Today’s Episode with AJ Tennant We Discuss: 1. How to Sell AI Tools in 2024: Are we still in the experimental budget phase for AI? How does selling AI tools differ to selling traditional S...

Oct 23, 20241 hr 1 min

20VC: Kleiner Perkins' Mamoon Hamid on Investing Lessons from Leading Rounds in Figma, Slack and Rippling | Lessons Building a Generational Defining Firm with Kleiner Perkins | AI: Where Value Accrues, Startups vs Incumbents & Scaling Laws

Mamoon Hamid is a General Partner @ Kleiner Perkins and one of the greatest venture investors of our time. In the past, Mamoon has led rounds in Figma, Slack, Rippling, Intercom, Glean and Box. Prior to joining Kleiner Perkins, Mamoon was a Co-Founder of Social Capital, and prior to that a Partner at U.S. Venture Partners (USVP). In Today’s Episode with Mamoon Hamid We Discuss: 1. The Greatest Venture Deal of All Time: Figma or Slack: What is Mamoon’s highest returning deal? What did Mamoon see ...

Oct 21, 202459 min

20Growth: Revolut's Chief Growth Officer on The Growth Playbook Revolut Used to Scale to $2.2BN in Revenue | How Revolut Launch and Grow Products | Why the Best PMs Don't Need A/B Tests & Why CAC is a BS Metric with Antoine Le Nel

Antoine Le Nel is the Chief Growth and Marketing Officer at Revolut, one of the fastest growing fintechs on the planet. Prior to Revolut, Antoine spent an incredible 7 years at King (Makers of Candy Crush) overseeing continuous expansion of the world's most famous mobile game as VP of Growth. 10 Questions with Revolut’s Chief Growth Officer: Why does Antoine believe that the best product and growth teams do not need to do A/B tests? Why does Antoine believe the best growth teams do not believe i...

Oct 18, 202457 min

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

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 ...

Oct 16, 202451 min

20VC: Investing Lessons from FC Seeding Uber, Airtable and Coupang | Why Pro Rata is the Original Sin in VC | Why Liquidity Has Died in 2024 | Why LPs are Pissed with VCs | The Hard Truth About Seed Fund Economics with David Frankel @ Founder Collective

David Frankel is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Founder Collective, one of the best seed firms of the last decade. David has led rounds in companies such as Suno, Coupang, SeatGeek and PillPack (sold to Amazon for ~$1B). Previously, David was Co-Founder and CEO of Internet Solutions (IS), the largest ISP in Africa, ultimately acquired by NTT Japan. David has been named to the Midas List six times. In 2023, he was #11 and in 2024, he appeared at #15 on the Midas List of the world's best v...

Oct 14, 20241 hr 27 min
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