0:01 Jason previews today's Ask Jason & drops some hints about the Super Secret TWiST Slack room 2:29 Aaron asks how investors view no-code startups 6:33 Andrii asks if an economic crisis is a good time to start a company 9:52 Jesse asks if he should start trying to raise a round of funding now, or wait until this crisis passes 14:48 Juan asks how he can leverage his first committed angel investor to attract more 19:11 Marcel asks how he can use a "startup mentality" to effectively run his s...
Apr 10, 2020•56 min
0:01 Jason thanks the sponsors, guests, listeners & the team for Angel Season 4! 4:38 Jason intros Menlo Ventures' Shawn Carolan 7:26 Thoughts on the market's reaction to COVID-19, when will it get back to normal? 11:51 What advice is Shawn giving to his portfolio founders? 19:07 How has the job of a VC changed with the influx of hundreds of new funds, and what impact has the large amount of dry powder done to the industry? How has Shawn adjusted his approach in response to this? 26:07 Why p...
Apr 10, 2020•1 hr 36 min
0:54 Jason intros Roy Bahat & Zach Coelius, and they discuss their current quarantine situations 6:04 What is the timeline looking like for going back to work? What needs to happen before we can get back to normal? 14:51 Has government & media failed the public? How is tech (both big tech & startups) helping during the crisis? 28:33 How should startups approach taking PPP, EIDL & other SMB loans? Should startups begin working more closely with the government? 37:14 When should co...
Apr 07, 2020•1 hr 25 min
0:55 Jason intros Balaji Srinivasan and tees up his incident with Recode's piece: “No handshakes, please”: The tech industry is terrified of the coronavirus 4:28 Balaji shares his experience with the story and his issues with corporate journalism 15:16 Balaji explains why he reacted the way he did to Shirin Ghaffary's request for an interview 19:52 History of techlash: 1995-2020, when things turned from positivity to overwhelming negativity 26:26 Balaji brings up a sentiment analysis chart publi...
Apr 03, 2020•1 hr 52 min
0:51 Jason gives some thoughts on quarantine & intros GGV's Jeff Richards 5:11 What will this crisis look like on the other side? Benefits of having a levelheaded approach 11:38 What has Jeff seen from his seasoned portfolio founders who went through the 2008 crisis? 16:21 What advice does Jeff give to first-time founders in his portfolio? 22:22 Investor panic & differences in opinion between independent & investor board members 25:50 What could inexperienced board advice be in a tim...
Apr 01, 2020•1 hr 13 min
0:52 Jason intros Eric Ries and they discuss how things have been since shelter-in-place started 8:33 What good will come out of this? Will UBI proponents like Andrew Yang be proven right? 10:12 Eric's advice to today's founders after living through the 2008 recession & the dot-com bust 15:53 Eric describes the obligations of leaders during a crisis of this magnitude, what the test-and-trace method is and how it's effective 25:02 Do authoritarian countries have an advantage in handling outbr...
Apr 01, 2020•1 hr 19 min
1:00 Jason intros Figma’s Dylan Field & Dylan explains why WebGL was crucial to Figma’s creation 7:09 Why ChromeOS is flourishing in schools 11:28 Who are Figma’s competitors & how do they compare 14:12 How does multiplayer mode work on Figma? 17:29 What does Figma charge, Dylan’s thoughts on charging for SaaS: bottom-up or top-down? 30:26 Is SaaS burnout real? Active-user pricing vs. Passive-user pricing & the importance of increasing pricing transparency 34:41 Becoming a Thiel Fell...
Mar 27, 2020•1 hr 22 min
0:52 Jason intros Greylock's Sarah Guo 3:37 How did Sarah wind up at Greylock? 5:45 Sarah explains Greylock's "Zero to One" thesis & typical term commitment of a VC 11:53 How does Sarah measure her personal performance and her portfolio's performance? What are her biggest strengths as an investor? 16:12 How does she sharpen her decision-making skills? 17:53 Ranking her investment criteria: People, Markets & Product 20:26 Balancing intensity & life outside of work, the commitment of e...
Mar 25, 2020•1 hr 20 min
0:45 Jason intros Vincent Woo, who wrote "Lambda School's Misleading Promises" for New York Magazine 2:21 What drew Vincent to this story? What wrongdoings did he discover? 6:02 Vincent describes Lambda's ISAs and how they were sold 14:24 How Vincent approached Austen Allred as an investigative reporter & clip from Vincent's interview with Austen 16:19 What is Lambda's school actual placement rate? How does it compare with other coding bootcamps? 20:06 Getting Lambda's former Director of Stu...
Mar 24, 2020•1 hr 10 min
1:04 Jason intros Alex Wilhelm & Sarah Cannon 5:00 COVID-19: Where are we now? 10:12 Have would Obama have handled this situation? What are the proper next steps? 15:29 Sarah lays out her economic stimulus plan 20:29 How much has the political landscape changed over the last few months? 22:08 How would a stimulus plan work in practice? 24:36 What will change about the gig economy and healthcare coverage? 28:35 Will the average American citizen's perspective on the world change? 33:23 Alex sh...
Mar 21, 2020•1 hr 23 min
0:01 Jason & Chamath intro David and check in on each other's quarantines 2:26 Has the US overreacted or underreacted so far? David & Chamath give their opinions on new directives & statistics 13:15 Thoughts on potential treatment options & policy changes 22:25 Chamath explains the circumstances of recording a podcast while the Stock Market tanks in real-time 25:03 Should the US adopt Chinese & South Korean quarantine strategies? 29:53 What do the current market conditions me...
Mar 19, 2020•1 hr 31 min
0:53 Jason intros Bessemer's David Cowan 1:54 David explains how he got his start in Venture capital in 1992 4:22 What does Bessemer look for in a potential investor today? How has VC hiring and demographics have changed over time? 8:10 David gives an anecdote about understanding "sunk cost" 14:12 David explains how and why Bessemer started owning their anti-portfolio 16:03 Stories on passing on Facebook, Tesla, Google, PayPal, Napster & Youtube 19:13 What made Youtube standout from Napster ...
Mar 18, 2020•1 hr 14 min
0:38 Jason explains the LAUNCH Accelerator 5:39 BasicBlock CEO Taylor Monks details his journey through the LAUNCH Accelerator 14:58 BasicBlock CEO Taylor Monks' biggest takeaways from the Accelerator 27:35 DaoCloud CEO Max Coleman describes his journey into the LAUNCH Accelerator 37:34 How did Max grow throughout the Accelerator? 48:36 Lately CEO Kate Bradley-Chernis describes her experience at the l LAUNCH Accelerator 55:08 What were Kate's biggest takeaways from the Accelerator?...
Mar 17, 2020•1 hr 9 min
0:01 Jason intros Chamath and Episode 0 of All-In and they discuss their current self-quarantine 0:55 Jason intros David Friedberg 1:35 Chamath gives the inaugural (& potentially final) All-In ad read 2:17 As a Warriors owner, Chamath gives his reaction to the NBA postponing & uncoordinated actions of government & private sectors 4:37 Why was the US so slow to react on both an individual & governmental level? What did the OpenTable data show? 9:03 David explains the actions he wo...
Mar 15, 2020•1 hr 29 min
0:01 Jason intros today's topics 2:15 George calls in and asks Jason about social media interference in the 2020 election 11:13 Joey calls in and asks Jason for some tips on starting and growing a podcast 21:05 Dan asks Jason about which health-tech startup idea to pursue 26:49 Alex calls in and asks Jason about the types companies that will thrive in an economic downturn 34:35 Karen asks Jason about legendary founder & investor traits 44:11 Blaze calls in and asks Jason about when to join a...
Mar 13, 2020•1 hr 3 min
0:53 Jason intros Nicole Quinn 1:59 Nicole & Jason describe their separate Calm investments, will it be the first mental health IPO? 8:00 Calm's I.C.E. celebrity engagement method & how it got them LeBron James 8:54 Investing in Sophia Amoruso & Girlboss: what is it about "Force of Nature" product people that attracts Nicole to invest? 16:03 Investing in Gwyneth Paltrow & Goop: what is Goop's business? What are the most profitable parts of their business? 19:42 Investing in Rothy...
Mar 11, 2020•1 hr
0:40 Jason intros Jeff Housenbold 2:16 What did Jeff do before joining the Vision Fund? How did he help scale eBay & Shutterfly? 4:15 How did he wind up at SoftBank? What was it like being recruited by Masayoshi Son? How did Masa pitch the Vision Fund to Jeff? 13:28 What was the timeframe for deploying the $100B Vision Fund? 18:10 How does SoftBank size their bets and how do they counsel founders to handle massive amounts of capital? 20:07 Coaching founders on using capital to create talent ...
Mar 10, 2020•1 hr 33 min
0:54 Jason intros Max Lobovsky 3:21 What is Max's business with Formlabs? What are people printing? Is it hitting scale with consumers yet? 10:52 Where does the majority of their business come from? 15:40 Is coronavirus impacting the supply-side of Formlabs? 20:16 Understanding the most lucrative use cases for 3D printing 21:58 What skill do you need to be a 3D modeler? 31:04 How did Max raise his first round of capital at Formlabs? 36:02 What was his experience at MIT's Media Lab? 39:54 Why did...
Mar 06, 2020•1 hr 9 min
0:51 Jason intros Bain Capital's Ajay Agarwal 3:17 Are we experiencing late-stage capitalism? Is capitalism broken? 8:22 Why is upward mobility stalling? 15:29 What is it about founders & startups that made him dedicate his life's work to? 18:46 What piece of knowledge got him in startups? Ajay describes gross margin & incremental costs 23:03 Two insights on why enterprise software is the best business 30:11 Mitt Romney at Bain Capital & issues with cultural appropriation 36:44 Ajay'...
Mar 04, 2020•1 hr 5 min
0:54 Want to see what it's like to be an Angel Investor in Jason's Syndicate? DM @thesyndicate415 to read Jason's last 3 deal memos 1:37 Jason intros Austen Allred & gets his side of the recent Lambda School controversy 6:22 Jason intros Katherine Boyle & gets her take on how she would have advised Austen on PR 7:58 Explaining Lambda School in simple terms 13:10 Setting up Lambda School as a counter to predatory loans 14:31 Jason explains late-stage journalism, Austen describes his board...
Mar 03, 2020•1 hr 7 min
0:42 Jason intros Jack Kramer & Nick Martell of Robinhood Snacks 1:06 Starting Market Snacks as a side hustle after rooming together in college 13:24 What Series of Robinhood were they acquired at? 14:11 Jason's origin story meeting Vlad & investing in Robinhood 18:38 Coronavirus impact on the public market... worrisome or no big deal? 30:16 Iger steps down as Disney CEO, will this hurt them long-term? 35:40 Star Wars movie rankings 37:00 Is $DIS a buy or sell? What about the next CEO? 4...
Feb 27, 2020•1 hr 30 min
0:50 Jason intros Benchmark's Sarah Tavel 1:20 Aside from Slack, what other companies grew like consumer-facing but charge like enterprise? 3:19 How was Sarah recruited to Benchmark? How is Benchmark different from other major VC firms? 12:04 Limited upside of talking to the press in 2020 17:30 Growing up in NYC and going to Harvard 21:30 Jason on becoming a "Don't touch the thermostat" dad 23:58 How did the offer from Peter Fenton go down? What drew Sarah to Benchmark? 28:36 Sarah's thoughts on...
Feb 26, 2020•1 hr 34 min
0:44 Jason shares some thoughts on hard work 1:52 Jason intros Anthemos Georgiades and they discuss how Zumper was launched at TechCrunch 4:02 How did Anthemos wind up as a founder after working in consulting 6:45 What is Zumper's origin story? How many iterations did they go through before coming up with an MVP? 15:34 How did Zumper monetize their marketplace? 18:30 Partnering with Facebook & diversifying revenue 27:12 Anthemos shares thoughts on growth vs. profitability, should Brandless e...
Feb 25, 2020•1 hr 9 min
0:36 Jason intros Monique & Wade 8:29 Tech Journalists vs. Founders/VCs 14:48 Is link-baiting press a systemic, societal issue? 19:21 Future of Founders/VCs controlling their own voice via podcasts, email newsletters, etc. 23:59 SpaceX sending passengers into space in late 2021, early 2022 28:02 Kickstarter employees vote to Unionize 41:28 Gray New World - how lucrative is the growing elderly demographic? 49:37 Twitter combatting fake/misleading news with potential new features 58:01 Blue Ap...
Feb 22, 2020•1 hr 26 min
0:50 Jason intros CRV's George Zachary 2:20 Passing on Google at MDV and coming to peace with the anti-portfolio 5:51 Differences between leadership & management, where Steve Jobs, Larry & Sergey fell on that scale 10:27 Why 1990's VC was sales & marketing-driven instead of product-driven as it is now 12:52 What shifted the philosophy to product-driven businesses? 18:00 Meeting Elon Musk in the 1990's and backing Zip2 21:59 What were Seed investors like in the '90s? Origins of Sand H...
Feb 19, 2020•2 hr 4 min
0:56 Jason intros David Heinemeier Hansson (@DHH) and asks about the work-from-home paradigm shift 5:28 Measuring programming success via budgets instead of estimates, quantifying creativity 9:57 Are incentive systems inherently bad? 13:01 How terrible commutes turned the tides for remote work in Silicon Valley, why do executives subject themselves to horrible working conditions? 17:59 What is the optimal amount of work hours per week? 19:58 Benefits of higher minimum wage 23:28 How can America ...
Feb 18, 2020•2 hr 17 min
0:41 Jason intros "Edge" Author Laura Huang 3:00 How do Harvard MBA students compare with Stanford MBA students? 7:17 Why did Laura write "Edge" at this time? 8:55 Overcoming disadvantages based on race, ethnicity & gender 14:56 Laura's experience reading her own audiobook 17:23 What does her research show about structural bias against Female entrepreneurs? 23:33 How can a founder turn adversity into an advantage when asked a question with a negative bias? 28:01 How being underestimated inhi...
Feb 14, 2020•1 hr 15 min
0:50 Jason intros Coatue Management's Dan Rose 1:52 Dan takes Jason through getting his internship at Amazon in 1999 and meeting Jeff Bezos 6:55 What was Amazon's core business in 1999? What was it like incubating the Kindle in the mid-2000s? 10:04 How did Bezos grow as a leader and businessman during Dan's tenure at Amazon? 18:21 How does Bezos' ability to turn Amazon around in the eyes of public investors relate to Uber, Lyft and other large & unprofitable companies? How does Bezos inspire...
Feb 12, 2020•1 hr 30 min
0:46 Jason intros Dr. Brian Moore 3:39 What does Orreco do and how do they help elite athletes? 4:46 Do they sample blood? 6:33 What teams do they work with? 7:50 What is a bio-marker? 9:05 Why has inflammation monitoring become so popular? 15:01 Brian demos the Orreco app 22:56 What are the top reasons for elite athletes to use Orreco? 28:06 How did Brian get into this business? 30:34 How does blood differ in elite athletes? Is it regional? 36:25 What does Orreco have the biggest impact on? 43:...
Feb 11, 2020•1 hr 17 min
0:57 Jason intros Alex & Sachin 4:46 When and why did they start Cocoon? 6:40 Why did Facebook keep changing their developer tools platform? 9:22 What is the vision for Cocoon and who is it made for? 14:58 How did they get the cocoon.com domain name and why do strong domain names breed trust? 16:57 What are they doing with customer data and how will they monetize? 20:20 Cocoon demo and Alex takes us through some key features 29:45 How difficult was raising money going up against Facebook, iM...
Feb 07, 2020•56 min
