Newcomer Pod

Journalist Nayeema Raza—host of Smart Girl Dumb Questions—joins Eric Newcomer to preview Deus Ex Medicina, their AI–health–longevity summit happening Tuesday, Sept 9 (San Francisco). They discuss the big themes going into the conference: how longevity went mainstream, why precision medicine and novel bio are finally feeling real, and who wins the race to own the patient. Eric and Nayeema get into the policy whiplash in D.C., HIPAA’s fraying edges in a wearables world, and whether or not AI will actually discover something novel, like a new drug or cure for Alzheimer's? Plus, what they’re most excited to ask on stage at Deus Ex Medicina.

Timecodes:

• 00:00 — The story behind the creation of Deus Ex Medicina
• 08:39 — Longevity goes mainstream (the GLP-1 moment)
• 12:42 — Precision medicine gets practical (targeted therapies & trials)
• 17:11 — Bundles, frenemies, and who owns the patient
• 22:31 — D.C. shake-ups, privacy stakes… and can AI invent a drug?

Former CIA officer and three-term Congressman Will Hurd joins Eric Newcomer, Tom Dotan, and Madeline Renbarger to break down Washington's defense tech boom and tackle the burning question: Is this all just hype? Hurd explains how Ukraine has changed the face of warfare and opened the door for new companies to break into the fold. However, it's one thing to build a prototype, but it's another to actually earn recurring revenue.We discuss how to really sell to the Pentagon, LA's role as a hub for the new defense tech wave, and Hurd's own Chaos Industries and their modular counter-drone systems.

00:00 — Meet Will Hurd from CIA to Congress to Chaos
06:00 — How Hurd would solve partisan redistricting
13:24 — The defense-tech moment
24:20 — Air superiority isn’t dead
36:32— How to sell to DoD

Is the AI bubble popping—or just catching its breath? Eric Newcomer and Tom Dotan spar over Nvidia jitters, Sam Altman’s “bubble” dinner, the MIT “95% fail” headline, app-vs-model margins (Cursor, Claude Code), and Chamath’s SPAC-as-casino shtick. Then Eric sits down with Vercel founder/CEO Guillermo Rauch for a fast, idea-dense jam: assistants → agents → multi-agent teams, why GPT-5’s real story is coding, “vibe coding” and code-last workflows, who gets paid in the era of AI factory-builders, whether to study CS, why taste beats code, and Guillermo’s six-month prediction for a breakout vertical agent.

00:00 Did the AI “bubble” pop? Altman dinner & sell-off vibes
01:16 MIT survey “95%” headline vs reality
09:04 Capitalism, incentives & Chamath’s SPAC “casino”
18:17 Interview starts — Guillermo Rauch (Vercel)
22:07 GPT-5 reality check & the “Einstein-in-a-box” test
37:37 Future of engineering + should you study CS?
48:36 6-month prediction: a breakout vertical agent; underestimating GPT-50

For this episode, we brought on Ed Zitron to make the bear case against large language models and walk us through his “Hater’s Guide To The AI Bubble.” In this fiery debate with Eric Newcomer, Tom Dotan, and Madeline Renbarger, we dig into whether generative AI is the next platform shift or a $500B mirage. From the viral TaskRabbit CAPTCHA myth to SoftBank’s high-stakes bets, we debate the hype, shaky economics, and media spin driving the AI boom.

GPT-5 has landed! Is it the leap forward OpenAI promised or just an incremental upgrade? Eric Newcomer and Tom Dotan discuss this, how AI capex might be propping up the entire economy, and what Apple’s golden gifts to Trump say about Big Tech’s political bets.

This week on the Newcomer Podcast, we're joined by a very special guest: Danny Rimer, seasoned investor and longtime partner at Index Ventures, for a timely conversation around Figma’s highly anticipated IPO.

Danny takes us behind the scenes of Index’s early bet on Figma and its visionary CEO Dylan Field, sharing how the deal came together and what made the design platform stand out in a crowded startup landscape. From there, we zoom out to talk about the current venture capital climate — what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and what the smartest investors are watching right now.

We also dig into AI’s evolving role in the startup ecosystem, the tension between hype and real value, and where Danny sees the next big opportunities emerging. Whether you're a founder, investor, or just love a good origin story, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.

Timecodes:

00:00 Introduction to Danny Rimer

02:29 How Rimer met Figma and the beginnings of design as a category

16:42 Figma's failed Adobe deal and comeback

25:39 How Index approaches AI deals

31:00 AI's iPhone moment and looking beyond the chatbot

39:10 Shifts in the venture capital industry

Tech leaders unveiled the American AI Action Plan on Wednesday and President Trump signed 3 executive orders with big handouts to AI companies. Madeline returns fresh off of a trip to Washington DC and gives Tom and Eric the lowdown on tech's victory lap at the nation's capital. Plus, even the altruists at Anthropic feel the need to raise Middle East money.Timecodes:01:45 - The All-In podcast might as well be state-run media05:16 - The vibes at the All-In Hill and Valley event08:50 - The coming AI abundance12:29 - Woke AI and the ministry of truth15:30 - America's strategic advantage is President Trump22:36 - The AI copyright kerfuffle32:36 - Dario faces the harsh reality of capitalism

Fresh back from London! In this episode, Eric Newcomer reunites with co-hosts James Wilsterman and Max Child of Volley to dive into the best moments from the Cerebral Valley AI Summit.

From buzzy startup founders to incumbent innovators, the London event showcased a rapidly evolving AI landscape. But what stood out most? Eric, James, and Max break down their favorite clips and debate the key questions driving the industry right now:

• Models vs. Applications: Are we back in a “models win” moment?
• The Uber Dilemma: Why did Uber spin off its self-driving technology instead of competing with Waymo? Dara Khosrowshahi’s reasoning sparks a heated debate about platform dynamics, marketplace power, and whether Uber made the right call.
• Figma’s IPO Moment: With their S-1 filing just days after the summit, Dylan Field defended Figma’s AI strategy and new product launches.
• The Science of Discovery: Can AI models trained on “boring rule followers” actually make Nobel Prize-worthy breakthroughs?
• The End of Reading?: Synthesia’s CEO made the boldest prediction yet — that kids won’t read anymore, and video will replace text entirely. The hosts wrestle with what this means for human intelligence and whether writing really is thinking.

The next Cerebral Valley AI Summit returns to San Francisco on November 12th!

Timestamps08:21 Uber’s Self-Driving Strategy and Market Positioning16:56 Figma’s IPO Bear and Bull case26:17 Harry Stebbings’ Interview Insights with Granola’s CEO32:11 Exploring AI’s Role in Scientific Discovery38:26 The Impact of AI on Reading and Writing

The Newcomer Podcast returns just in time to have Eric, Tom, and Madeline weigh in on Meta's audacious AI hiring spree. The tech giant has enticed researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic with huge paydays in the hopes it can bring its Llama models up to par with the competition. Next up, Ramp's report that companies have stopped purchasing AI tools made a lot of buzz this week, but it's still too early to call an AI peak.

Later on in the episode, Grok's offensive replies aren't enough to slow down xAI's latest model launch. We close out the episode rehashing Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire's latest inflammatory tweets over New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.

00:35 — Meta poaches top researchers to ail its flailing models

11:13 — XAI outperforms despite Grok's offensive replies

18:27 — It's too early to call the AI bubble

28:50 — Shaun Maguire's tweets bring attention to Sequoia

Today on the pod, we're bringing you two of the liveliest panels from the 2025 Cerebral Valley AI Summit, held this week in London.

Both panels — “The Autonomous Vehicle Rollout” and “Investing in 2030” — explore one of the major themes from the event: where AI is poised to show up next in our everyday lives, beyond the chatbot. Think voice, devices, and even your car.

First up, we'll hear from Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, and Alex Kendall, Co-founder and CEO of Wayve, who are teaming up to bring self-driving cars to the UK.

Then we turn to the investor perspective, with top European VCs — Philippe Botteri of Accel, Tom Hulme of Google Ventures, and Jan Hammer of Index Ventures — on where they see the biggest AI opportunities for founders in the years ahead.