ORIGINS

Dylan Patel is the founder of SemiAnalysis, the leading research and consulting firm for AI infrastructure and buildouts. Their publication is broadly respected, and they sell data to many hyperscalers and AI labs. In this episode, almost all of what we discussed has never been said publicly. We cover Dylan’s small-town upbringing, a stretch where he felt lost in life & traveled the world, the start of SemiAnalysis, and many other stories.

Brian Distelburger co-founded Yext, which he helped grow from a small startup into a public company valued at over $1 billion. He is also on the board of Tech NYC. In this episode, we dive into Brian’s early years and the formative lessons that shaped his entrepreneurial mindset. We talk about his first ventures, building Yext, navigating the company’s growth, going public on the NYSE, and more.

Chad Byers co-founded Susa Ventures, now managing over $1 Billion. He’s the seed investor in many unicorns, most notably Robinhood, turning his first investment of $250K into $400M. In this episode, we start by discussing his early years and timeless principles instilled by his dad, Brook Byers, who co-founded the legendary Kleiner Perkins. We then discuss selling on Ebay in his teenage years, his time in college at Colorado, the path to founding Susa in his 20s, and much more. S

Kevin Hartz co-founded Eventbrite (NYSE: EB), Xoom (IPO & acq. PayPal), and A*, an early-stage venture firm managing hundreds of millions of dollars. Recently, he also co-founded Sauron, a high-end home security company. Kevin has been an early angel investor in PayPal, Airbnb, Uber, SpaceX, Pinterest, Palantir, Anduril, and many more companies worth tens of billions. In this episode, we start by discussing his early upbringing in the East Bay of San Francisco, some of which he spent building bombs. We then discuss his explorative time at Stanford & Oxford, growing close to the likes of Thiel and the PayPal mafia, revenue wars with Airbnb, and co-founding / investing in many notable companies worth billions of dollars.

Episode #12 of Yesterday:

This week, we cover the life story of Dwarkesh Patel, host of The Dwarkesh Podcast.

Dwarkesh grew up in India until the age of eight, when his family moved to the United States for his father's medical career. His childhood was marked by frequent moves across the country, from Bismarck, North Dakota, to West Virginia and West Texas.

While in college, he became deeply interested in intellectual ideas, which led him to start his podcast by sending a cold email to his first guest, economist Bryan Caplan.

The podcast was nearly a short-lived experiment. As Patel was about to graduate with no job lined up, he received a cold email from Anil Varanasi offering him $10,000 to keep the project alive for six more months. Soon after, a blog post he wrote earned a public comment from Jeff Bezos, who told him to "please keep it up," cementing his decision to pursue it full-time.

Today, The Dwarkesh Podcast is one of the top interview shows in the world, where Patel speaks with leaders in tech and science—including Mark Zuckerberg, Ilya Sutskever, and Patrick Collison—to develop a better model of the world.

Sponsors:

• SemiAnalysis is the leading research and consulting firm for AI infrastructure and buildouts.

  They work closely with many hyperscalers, AI labs, hedge funds, and semiconductor companies that you know and respect.

  From tracking the inference economics of model deployments to every data center and the supply chains for fabs, servers, electrical equipment, and more, SemiAnalysis is an expert on the topic.

  If you want to learn more or work in the industry, visit semianalysis.com to see their research and purchase their models.
  

• The Cannon Project (TCP) builds founding go-to-market and engineering teams for venture-backed startups in San Francisco and New York.

  They’ve built founding teams at Ramp, Cursor, Decagon, Rogo, and many more — while selectively investing through their flagship venture fund.

  With over a decade of experience and trusted partnerships across the top 15 U.S.-based venture firms, TCP is the premier talent partner for high-slope opportunities in early-stage technology.

  To learn more, get in touch, or explore roles across a curated list of breakout startups, visit thecannonproject.com.

Episode #11 of Yesterday:

This week, we cover the life story of Guillermo Rauch, the founder and CEO of Vercel.

Rauch grew up in Lanús, a working-class neighborhood in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He taught himself to code and by 11, he was freelancing online for clients abroad. In his teens, he became well-known for creating several influential open-source projects, including Socket.IO and Mootools.

Rauch then dropped out of high school to work in Switzerland, and after a stint there, he moved to San Francisco. Around 2015, he founded Vercel (originally called ZEIT) out of Dogpatch Labs with the vision of radically simplifying frontend deployment through tools like Next.js, which his team also maintains.

Today, Vercel powers the websites of Netflix, MrBeast, Supreme, and many more — and is valued in the multiple billions of dollars.

Sponsor:

• The Cannon Project (TCP) builds founding go-to-market and engineering teams for venture-backed startups in San Francisco and New York.

  
  

  They’ve built founding teams at Ramp, Cursor, Decagon, Rogo, and many more — while selectively investing through their flagship venture fund.

  
  

  With over a decade of experience and trusted partnerships across the top 15 U.S.-based venture firms, TCP is the premier talent partner for high-slope opportunities in early-stage technology.

  
  

  To learn more, get in touch, or explore roles across a curated list of breakout startups, visit thecannonproject.com.

Episode #10 of Yesterday:

This week, we cover the life story of John Andrew Entwistle.

He was once a Formula race car driver, during which he broke his back multiple times, and he even threw a house party that shut down his entire town.

Amidst similar teenage years, John Andrew was sued by Microsoft, where he subsequently cc’d his dad on the email — a famed lawyer who did the Bernie Madoff and FTX cases.

Later on, John Andrew became a Thiel Fellow and then sold his first company — Coder.com. From there, he started Wander.com a luxury home rental company that’s now worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

John Andrew has some of the most unique life stories and is a sheer force to compete with. Hope you enjoy!

Sponsors:

• SemiAnalysis is the leading research and consulting firm for AI infrastructure and buildouts.

  They work closely with many hyperscalers, AI labs, hedge funds, and semiconductor companies that you know and respect.

  From tracking the inference economics of model deployments to every data center and the supply chains for fabs, servers, electrical equipment, and more, SemiAnalysis is an expert on the topic.

  If you want to learn more or work in the industry, visit semianalysis.com to see their research and purchase their models.

• The Cannon Project (TCP) builds founding go-to-market and engineering teams for venture-backed startups in San Francisco and New York.

  They’ve built founding teams at Ramp, Cursor, Decagon, Rogo, and many more — while selectively investing through their flagship venture fund.

  With over a decade of experience and trusted partnerships across the top 15 U.S.-based venture firms, TCP is the premier talent partner for high-slope opportunities in early-stage technology.

  To learn more, get in touch, or explore roles across a curated list of breakout startups, visit thecannonproject.com.

Episode #9 of Yesterday:

Jessica Mah is the founder of inDinero and Mahway, a venture studio backing companies in aerospace, legaltech, and biotech.

We discussed growing up in Westchester to immigrant parents, teaching herself to code at 10, and burning out from her first startup by 14. At 15, she dropped out of high school, enrolled in college, and later founded inDinero through Y Combinator at just 19 — at the time, the youngest female founder accepted.

We covered her early struggles with retention, laying off most of her team, and rebuilding inDinero from the ground up. In her early 20s, she was on the cover of Inc. magazine and deemed the “female Mark Zuckerberg”.

Later, Jessica stepped down as CEO after realizing she was miserable despite the company’s success. That shift led her to start Mahway — her “dream job”.

Today, she lives radically transparently, races cars, flies planes, and redefines what it means to play the long game.

Sponsors:

• SemiAnalysis is the leading research and consulting firm for AI infrastructure and buildouts.

  They work closely with many hyperscalers, AI labs, hedge funds, and semiconductor companies that you know and respect.

  From tracking the inference economics of model deployments to every data center and the supply chains for fabs, servers, electrical equipment, and more, SemiAnalysis is an expert on the topic.

  If you want to learn more or work in the industry, visit semianalysis.com to see their research and purchase their models.

• The Cannon Project (TCP) builds founding go-to-market and engineering teams for venture-backed startups in San Francisco and New York.

  They’ve built founding teams at Ramp, Cursor, Decagon, Rogo, and many more — while selectively investing through their flagship venture fund.

  With over a decade of experience and trusted partnerships across the top 15 U.S.-based venture firms, TCP is the premier talent partner for high-slope opportunities in early-stage technology.

  To learn more, get in touch, or explore roles across a curated list of breakout startups, visit thecannonproject.com.

Episode #8 of Yesterday:

Joshua Browder is the founder of DoNotPay, a legal tech company that automates consumer rights protection.

We discuss the Russian mafia stalking his family, interviewing Warren Buffett at 18, building DoNotPay to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and much more.

Josh is also a Thiel Fellow, Stanford dropout, and prominent early-stage investor.

Sponsors:

• SemiAnalysis
is the leading research and consulting firm for AI infrastructure and buildouts.

They work closely with many hyperscalers, AI labs, hedge funds, and semiconductor companies that you know and respect.

From tracking the inference economics of model deployments to every data center and the supply chains for fabs, servers, electrical equipment, and more, SemiAnalysis is an expert on the topic.

If you want to learn more or work in the industry, visit semianalysis.com to see their research and purchase their models.

• The Cannon Project (TCP)
builds founding go-to-market and engineering teams for venture-backed startups in San Francisco and New York.

They’ve built founding teams at Ramp, Cursor, Decagon, Rogo, and many more — while selectively investing through their flagship venture fund.

With over a decade of experience and trusted partnerships across the top 15 U.S.-based venture firms, TCP is the premier talent partner for high-slope opportunities in early-stage technology.

To learn more, get in touch, or explore roles across a curated list of breakout startups, visit thecannonproject.com.

Episode #7 of Yesterday:

Jack Altman is the founder of Lattice, a now multi-billion dollar company. He recently launched Alt Capital, a 150M early-stage venture fund.

We discuss Jack’s suburban upbringing and going from Princeton to quitting investment banking in his first year. This led to a start in venture capital, followed by a tenure at Teespring, the fastest-growing YC company at the time, and the eventual origins of Lattice.

Sponsors:

• SemiAnalysis
is the leading research and consulting firm for AI infrastructure and buildouts.

They work closely with many hyperscalers, AI labs, hedge funds, and semiconductor companies that you know and respect.

From tracking the inference economics of model deployments to every data center and the supply chains for fabs, servers, electrical equipment, and more, SemiAnalysis is an expert on the topic.

If you want to learn more or work in the industry, visit semianalysis.com to see their research and purchase their models.

• The Cannon Project (TCP)
builds founding go-to-market and engineering teams for venture-backed startups in San Francisco and New York.

They’ve built founding teams at Ramp, Cursor, Decagon, Rogo, and many more — while selectively investing through their flagship venture fund.

With over a decade of experience and trusted partnerships across the top 15 U.S.-based venture firms, TCP is the premier talent partner for high-slope opportunities in early-stage technology.

To learn more, get in touch, or explore roles across a curated list of breakout startups, visit thecannonproject.com.