Erica Brescia has done it all in tech: she founded and sold Bitnami, served as COO of GitHub during the launch of Copilot, and is now a Managing Director at Redpoint Ventures, where she decides which startup founders get funded. 

In this episode of Founder Stories, Erica shares how she closed a $2.7M deal with Microsoft just days after giving birth, drove to her Y Combinator interview with a two-week-old, and the "chip on the shoulder" she now looks for in every founder she backs. It's an honest conversation about venture capital, ambition, motherhood, resilience, and learning to trust your gut when every decision is a one-way door. 

A must-listen for startup founders, aspiring investors, and anyone building something of their own. 

In this episode:

 - What VCs really look for in founders

 - Closing a major deal as a brand-new mom 

- Why "trust your gut" is the hardest lesson in investing

 - Balancing startup life and family 

- Hiring for EQ over IQ 

Guest: Erica Brescia (Redpoint Ventures, ex-GitHub, Bitnami) 

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Steve Ward has been a Coast Guard rescue swimmer, a Secret Service agent who ran one of the first computer-network wiretaps in U.S. history, the CISO of Home Depot, a partner at Insight Partners, and an early backer of Wiz,  Abnormal and a dozen others . Today he runs his own cyber venture fund, Bright Mind — named after his son. 

But this isn’t a victory lap. Steve talks openly about the engine underneath all of it: a relentless feeling that he doesn’t belong and doesn’t deserve what he’s achieved, and what that’s cost him. He shares why the Wiz money is going into a trust for his son with autism, the ego that pulled him away from his family, the mentor he’s spent two decades trying to find, what he looks for in founders, and how he now defines success — hint: it has nothing to do with the wire transfer. 

Honest, raw, and unexpectedly moving. As Steve put it: “It was like a free therapy session.” 

A conversation about cybersecurity, venture capital, and the cost of ambition — hosted by Ephraim.

Chapters: 

00:00 Intro 

01:00 The Wiz acquisition call — and why he posted it 

04:00 “The real heroes are the siblings.” 

05:30 Naming Bright Mind after his son 

10:00 Steve at 17: farms, dirt bikes, and a lost kid 

13:00 The Coast Guard and the roommate who taught him to learn 

24:00 Home Depot: “I chased my ego.” 

29:00 “A magnifying glass over an ant” — the CIO who humbled him 

42:00 Secret Service, hackers, and 41 arrests across 11 countries, Steve Ward 

43:00 The Wiz job he turned down 

47:00 Learning venture from 24-year-olds at Insight 

57:00 Why he started Bright Mind 

01:03:00 Trust vs. proficiency: building a Navy SEAL team 

01:08:00 “I don’t belong and I don’t deserve” 01:14:00 Paying off his brother’s mortgage 

01:21:00 What he looks for in founders 

01:23:00 What success actually means 

01:31:00 Advice to his younger self

Niv is the co-founder and CEO of Noma Security. He raised a $100M Series B and scaled from 20 to 100 employees in a year, as a first-time founder, in cybersecurity, in the middle of a war that started the day Noma launched.

In this conversation, Niv talks about what it actually takes to win: the four-day POC sprint with no product, the candidate they signed three days after he'd already signed with a competitor, the customers he turned away because the feature didn't justify a company, and the toll it takes when you're a founder who's "never full."

We also get into the stuff founders don't say on stage — the loneliness, the lost sleep, the stress that physically catches up with you, and the slow realization that the company you're building starts to look uncomfortably like you.

▬▬▬ CHAPTERS ▬▬▬ 

00:00 Cold open 

01:05 Intro 

01:30 What "winning mentality" actually means 

03:25 The 4-day POC with no product 

06:30 How Noma signed a candidate who'd already signed elsewhere 

08:45 How to cultivate culture at scale 

14:30 How fast to let someone go when culture doesn't fit 

18:30 Niv's childhood and where the competitiveness came from 

22:00 "I'm never full" — the founder hunger problem 

24:30 The day-to-day suffering of being a CEO 

28:20 The 5% empty glass mistake every founder makes 

32:30 Has anyone told you you're too transparent? 

36:30 Strong opinions, loosely held — the anti-blaming culture 

41:00 The hardest part of giving up control as you scale 

45:30 Loneliness, sleep, and the hidden cost 

46:30 What Niv got right as a first-time founder

 48:30 Why he told customers to buy from Palo, not Noma 

51:30 Did you have this vision on day one?

 53:30 Are you the same person you were 2 years ago? 

57:30 The biggest blind spot: social media and branding 

1:00:00 When Niv became the bottleneck 

1:03:30 The moment he realized Noma was something different 

1:07:00 Does he ever take a moment to appreciate it? 

1:08:30 The sticky-note values exercise that defined the company 

1:10:30 Inside the $100M Series B decision 

1:13:30 What success actually means to Niv 

1:14:30 Is Noma your full identity? 

1:16:30 Legacy

1:18:30 What people misunderstand about him 

1:21:00 Closing

If you want the producer notes, the clips, or to get in touch with the show: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ephraimyarmak/

Raj grew up in a town in India with two traffic lights. He's now the CEO of Jetstream, a cybersecurity startup he founded after leaving CrowdStrike, which then turned around and invested in his company.

In this conversation: his mother's anything less than #1 pressure, the failures behind the successes (a WhatsApp competitor he didn't build, Cylance's missteps), the July 19th CrowdStrike outage and what it taught him about leadership, why he believes older founders have the real edge, and the five core values (CRUSH) he built Jetstream around.

A masterclass on differentiation, conviction, and starting a company in your late forties.

Shachar Hirschberg, Co-founder & CEO of Artemis Security, on building a cybersecurity company with thirty employees, one manager, and no traditional titles, only "Builders."

We get into the flat-org experiment, why he thinks AI-era product velocity makes traditional hierarchies obsolete, the hiring process that gets candidates an offer in 24 hours (sometimes 3), the decade-long career plan that led to founding Artemis, and what competitive tennis taught him about surviving the founder rollercoaster.

Plus: how they raised a $15M seed and a $70M Series A, the five values set before the first employee joined, and the first customer who asked to pay before being pitched.

A useful one for anyone building, hiring, or rethinking how to run a team in 2026.

In this episode, I sit down with Dean Shahar to discuss the reality of venture capital decision-making.

Investors often have to make high-stakes decisions with incomplete information, especially when startups are reaching critical inflection points.

Topics include:

• The hardest part of venture capital

• When startups transition from early customers to enterprise

• How investors evaluate risk

• Why hindsight makes investing look easier than it actually is

A must-listen for founders, investors, and anyone curious about how venture capital really works.

Lia Cromwell, Partner at UpWest, joins us for a candid conversation about venture capital, founder psychology, and the signals most entrepreneurs misread during fundraising.

We discuss:

– What VCs really think after your pitch

Lia also shares the personal story behind turning down a job, moving to Tel Aviv in 30 days, and building her career in early-stage investing.

This episode blends tactical advice with personal conviction for founders who want to build the right way.

In this powerful conversation, We sit down with Shay Sandler, co-founder of Vega, to unpack how grit, identity, and discipline shaped his journey from immigrant kid to elite operator to cybersecurity founder.

Shay shares raw lessons from his upbringing, the mental battle of running marathons, and how those experiences shaped the way he builds companies and leads teams. They dive deep into what’s broken in modern security, why “more alerts” don’t equal safety, and how Vega is giving security teams real leverage instead of more noise.

You’ll also hear how radical transparency, relentless consistency, and a sales-first mindset became the backbone of Vega’s culture and growth.

Whether you’re a founder, CISO, investor, or aspiring operator, this episode is a masterclass in mindset, endurance, and building with intention.

Key themes:
• Immigrant mindset & resilience
• Marathon mentality for founders
• From sales to startup founder
• Why cybersecurity is broken
• Building culture through transparency
• How elite performers think

🎙 Hosted by Ephraim Yarmak
🚀 Guest: Shay Sandler (Vega)

Rom Carmel, CEO & Co-Founder of Apono, shares a deeply personal founder story from running his first business at age seven in Nigeria to leading a $54M, post-Series B cybersecurity company today.

In this conversation, Rom reflects on how growing up in Lagos shaped his adaptability, how Israeli intelligence changed his leadership style, and how he evolved from perfectionist founder to empowering CEO.

He also reveals the story behind meeting his co-founder Ofir, getting stuck together in Seychelles during COVID, and spending nine months speaking with 100 CISOs before building Apono.

This is a masterclass in founder psychology, co-founder alignment, and what it really takes to scale a company without losing yourself.

🎙 Founder Storiez. Conversations that reveal what really makes great founders. 

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📌 Leave a comment with your biggest takeaway

In this episode, we sit down with Ori Barzilay, Partner at Team8, to explore what truly drives exceptional founders and investors.

Ori shares his journey from elite military service and competitive sports to becoming one of the youngest partners at a tier-1 venture firm. We discuss winning mentality, humility, intuition in investing, founder-team dynamics, execution as a moat, and why Israel’s tech ecosystem continues to defy the odds.

A thoughtful conversation on leadership, grit, and building long-term success—inside and outside venture capital.