In this episode, TechCrunch's editor-in-chief, Connie Loizos, sits down with Kevin Hartz, the serial entrepreneur behind Zoom and Eventbrite who's now managing partner of A-Star Capital, a $300 million generalist fund. Recorded live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, Kevin shares his unique perspective as a founder, investor, and LP—discussing why staying in the market matters even when two-month-old companies are raising at $60 million valuations. The two explore the dramatic rise in teenage founders, with Kevin revealing that 20% of his recent investments now include teams with a teenage founder, up from just 5% two years ago. Kevin also discusses A-Star's approach to differentiated deal flow through company incubations, including Sauron, his autonomous drone security startup applying self-driving car technology to home security. They dive into the controversial question of whether venture capital is truly an asset class, the lessons learned from taking companies public through both traditional IPOs and SPACs, and why the abundance of private capital is keeping quality companies out of the public markets indefinitely.

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This week we're sharing an interview from our friends over at Equity.

After a small startup exit and being turned down by every VC firm he applied to, Tim Chen began angel investing and eventually stumbled into raising his own fund.  

Now, as the solo investor behind Essence VC, he just closed his ⁠fourth fund at $41 million⁠ "without even trying." Chen's secret weapon? Being technical enough to debate PhD founders on implementation details while understanding the market dynamics that turn scrappy startups into category leaders. 

Today on TechCrunch's ⁠Equity⁠ podcast, Julie Bort sat down with Tim Chen to explore the rise of solo VCs and who's rewriting the traditional venture playbook. 

Listen to the full episode to hear about: 

Subscribe to Equity on⁠ Apple Podcasts⁠,⁠ Overcast⁠,⁠ Spotify⁠ and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on⁠ X⁠ and⁠ Threads⁠, at @EquityPod.  

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TechCrunch’s editor-in-chief, Connie Loizos, sits down with Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at Alphabet’s X, to explore what it takes to build a factory for truly radical innovation. Astro reveals the three components that define a true moonshot—a huge problem, a science fiction-sounding solution, and a glimmer of breakthrough technology—and why X deliberately kills 98% of its ideas early. Teller also explains why X keeps teams incredibly small, how it decides between spinning companies out independently versus keeping them as Alphabet “other bets” like Waymo and Wing, and his take on AI hype—why we should stop treating it like magic and start treating it like electricity.

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 In this episode, TechCrunch’s editor-in-chief, Connie Loizos, and StrictlyVC’s Alex Gove, sit down with Winston Weinberg, co-founder and CEO of Harvey, the legal AI startup that’s quietly become one of the most talked-about companies in Silicon Valley. Winston shares the origin story of how a first-year associate at O’Melveny used GPT-3 for Dungeons & Dragons before realizing it could transform legal work—leading to a cold email to Sam Altman on July 4, 2022, that changed everything. The three discuss Harvey’s rapid growth to more than $100 million in ARR, why 33% of the startup’s revenue now comes from corporates rather than just law firms, and the technical challenges of building a truly multiplayer platform that navigates complex ethical walls and permissioning across 63 countries. Winston also addresses the “ChatGPT wrapper” criticism — and he explains why he believes professional services will be less disrupted than people think.

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In this episode recorded live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, TechCrunch's editor-in-chief, Connie Loizos, talks with Vinod Khosla about entrepreneurship in the age of AI and the massive disruptions ahead. They discuss why Khosla believes every profession represents a startup opportunity, his investment thesis of building AI workers rather than tools, and why he asks entrepreneurs to envision their company in 2030 before anything else. Khosla also shares his prediction that Fortune 500 extinction rates will triple by 2035, his controversial idea for sharing corporate wealth through a national pool, and why he thinks we'll have a hugely deflationary economy with free healthcare, education, and legal services. They also cover his early bet on OpenAI, the collision course between AI and climate (which he disputes), his investments in fusion and super-hot geothermal energy, and why the Trump administration's immigration policies represent "the worst damage possible" for American innovation.

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In this episode recorded live at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025, TechCrunch’s editor-in-chief, Connie Loizos, talks with Roelof Botha about Sequoia’s approach to finding and backing outlier companies — just days before he announced he was stepping down. They discuss why he thinks venture capital isn’t really an asset class, how Sequoia’s partners make investment decisions through fierce debates and consensus voting, and what the firm looks for in its Scout program. Botha also shares his perspective on the current AI boom—whether we’re in a bubble, how quickly winners are emerging in different verticals, and why founders should be careful about raising successive rounds at skyrocketing valuations.

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This week on Strictly VC Download, Connie Loizos sits down with Lee Roberts, Chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, to discuss his ambitious plan to make AI the university’s “north star” amid a tumultuous year. Roberts walks through his decision to merge UNC’s School of Data Science and Society with its School of Information and Library Science, explaining why breaking down academic silos is essential when the technology moves faster than universities typically can. He addresses the $38 million in terminated federal research grants—concentrated in areas like public health—and why he’s less concerned about funding cuts than he was at the start of the year. Roberts also defends his $10 million annual commitment to Bill Belichick despite the team’s rocky start, explaining why football revenue is essential to supporting UNC’s 28 sports programs.

Chapters:

0:00 - Introduction

1:46 - AI as UNC's North Star: Research, Operations, and Instruction

5:10 - Incentivizing Faculty Without Top-Down Mandates

6:41 - The Google Gemini Partnership and Avoiding Exclusivity

8:21 - Merging Two Schools: Breaking Down Academic Silos for AI

9:49 - Addressing Student Concerns About the Library Science Merger

11:38 - The $38 Million in Federal Funding Cuts: Impact and Outlook

13:18 - Concentrated Cuts in Public Health and Underserved Populations

14:19 - Diversifying Beyond Federal Research Funding

16:31 - The Bill Belichick Investment: Why Football Drives Athletics Revenue

18:48 - Dysfunction Allegations and Staying the Course

20:31 - The 900-Person Petition and the Search Process

22:30 - Leading Without Traditional Academic Credentials

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This week's episode of StrictlyVC Download features Hans Swildens, founder of Industry Ventures, discussing his firm's transaction with Goldman Sachs that comes during Industry Ventures' 25th anniversary year. Swildens walks through the 20-year evolution of the Goldman relationship—from LP investor to wealth platform partner to minority stakeholder in 2019—and explains why the firm decided now was the right time to fully join Goldman's external investing group. He discusses how secondaries have become "the new IPO" for venture-backed companies, shares insights from managing one of the world's largest portfolios of seed-stage venture funds with over 150 firms, and explains why the predicted wave of fund failures hasn't materialized in their portfolio. Swildens also explores the future of venture liquidity structures, from continuation funds to NAV loans, and why products that have been successful in private equity haven't yet crossed over to venture capital.

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This week’s episode of StrictlyVC Download was recorded live at the Elevate Festival in Toronto. TechCrunch editor-in-chief Connie Loizos sat down with Chris Lehane, OpenAI’s Chief Global Affairs Officer, to discuss the company’s newly launched video generation tool Sora, the complexities of copyright and fair use in AI training, and the massive infrastructure buildout required to keep pace with China. Lehane also explained OpenAI’s approach to iterative deployment, why the company believes it will need a gigawatt of energy per week in the near future, and what keeps waking him up at 3 AM.

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This week on StrictlyVC Download, TechCrunch Editor-in-Chief Connie Loizos speaks with Kara Nortman, co-founder of Monarch Collective, the first fund dedicated exclusively to women’s sports. Nortman launched this $250 million fund in 2023—right before women’s sports exploded into the mainstream. But she didn’t just get lucky: she helped create the market by co-founding Angel City Football Club, which went from zero to $30 million in revenue and proved you could pack stadiums for women’s soccer. The two discuss Monarch’s unusual approach, wherein the team makes highly concentrated bets, then invests time that most PE firms would not. They also discuss into whether the numbers work, where the revenue actually comes from (merchandise, sponsorships, ticket sales, media deals), and whether this boom is sustainable.

00:00 - Introduction

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