Term Sheet

Can the U.S. replenish weapons stockpiles fast enough for modern conflicts? Fortune’s Allie Garfinkle sits down with Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf to discuss weapons production, the challenges of scaling manufacturing, and the testing needed to make complex systems reliable in the field. They also explore AI’s role in defense, lethal autonomous weapons, and why Schimpf says human commanders must remain accountable for decisions to use force.

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Soda is one of the hardest categories to break into, where a few legacy giants dominate shelf space. Yet Poppi, the prebiotic soda company, turned a Texas farmers' market side hustle into a $1.95 billion sale to PepsiCo. On Term Sheet, Fortune's Allie Garfinkle sits down with co-founder Allison Ellsworth to unpack how she cracked the Gen Z code, how she turned three-day TikTok trends into lasting demand, and why incumbents are still struggling to win over the next generation of soda drinkers.

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A hidden market for shares of the world's hottest private companies has quietly grown to an estimated $112 billion, and most of it happens off the books. As SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic edge toward going public, the investors who poured billions into pre-IPO shares may not actually know what they own. Larry Aschebrook founded G Squared in 2011, when trading secondaries made you a "bottom feeder" who got cease-and-desist letters. Today the firm manages north of $8 billion and holds stakes in SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Fortune's Allie Garfinkle sits down with Larry to talk about the shadow market behind the biggest names in tech, why layered SPVs could leave investors with nothing, and the reckoning he sees coming when these companies finally go public.

0:00 The $4 Trillion Problem Nobody's Talking About

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An automated assembly line inside a Wonder kitchen can churn out 500 customized burrito bowls with zero order errors. This is a system CEO Marc Lore views as merely the baseline for his $9 billion food-tech enterprise. Fresh off acquiring Sweetgreen’s robotic kitchen technology, Wonder told Fortune's Allie Garfinkle it might go public early next year. Listen to Term Sheet to find out more.

4:06 — The Biggest Risk Isn’t Taking a Risk

6:16 — Why NBA Teams Could Be the Ultimate Investment

10:40 — The Billion-Dollar Bet on the Future of Food

17:37 — Inside Wonder’s Radical New Management System

22:12 — AI Could Turn Anyone Into a Restaurant Owner

24:39 — The “Infinite Bowl Machine” Is Coming

26:06 — Millions of People Could Soon Own Their Own Restaurants

28:17 — The Future of Food Delivery Is Coming From the Sky

30:43 — The M&A Mistake That Can Cost Companies Millions

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Mentalist Max Major has spent decades hypnotizing people. Now, he says he's training a ChatGPT voice model to do it too. As people turn to AI for advice, therapy, companionship, and everyday decisions, a bigger question is emerging: Could AI become persuasive enough to shape human behavior? If AI can reliably influence our decisions, the implications stretch far beyond chatbots, affecting advertising, consumer spending, investing, and financial advice. Fortune's Allie Garfinkle sits down with Max Major to explore the emerging world of AI hypnosis, why he believes it works, and what it could mean for the future of business and human decision-making.

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Live shopping in China is a massive, multi-billion-dollar market, but for years, American platforms have struggled to crack the format. But in 2019, Grant LaFontaine and Logan Head started a live shopping marketplace for Funko Pops that not many investors believed in. Fast forward to today, Whatnot has transformed into a $11.5B valuation company, hitting 1 billion orders this year, overseeing transactions for everything from Pokémon cards to live seafood. It is now among the nation’s biggest shippers. Fortune’s Allie Garfinkle sits down with CEO Grant LaFontaine to talk about this unforeseen growth and the next steps for the company. 

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Over 3,000 venture capital firms are operating in the U.S. today. Lux Capital's co-founder Josh Wolfe thinks more than half of them won't survive the decade. He has spent 25 years making calls nobody else would make, backing Anduril before defense tech was a category and surgical robotics before it had a market. Now, fresh off a $1.5 billion fundraise, he's warning that the AI boom is headed for a crash that will wipe out trillions in market cap and take most of the venture industry with it. Fortune's Allie Garfinkle sits down with Wolfe to find out who survives the shakeout, where the defense tech bubble breaks, and the predictions he's making for 2027. 

0:00 The VC Extinction Has Already Started
0:50 Hot IPO Summer: SpaceX's $2 Trillion Debut
2:05 The VC Who Bets Against Everyone
2:26 Josh Wolfe: Half of VC Firms Are Going Extinct
5:24 Why Lux Plays the Middle
6:14 Turning Science Fiction Into Billions
6:43 Star Wars Inspired a Billion-Dollar Exit
8:41 Real-Life X-Men Is Already Here
9:41 How He Spots Fake Science in Seconds
11:19 Is Venture Capital Eating Itself?
13:59 The AI Crash: Trillions Wiped Out
16:55 Why a Fruit Fly Could Beat the Big AI Labs
17:21 Soon Everything You Say Is Recorded?
19:57 The Defense Bet Nobody Would Make
22:51 Kill Chains and Moral Precision
27:45 Wolfe's 2027 Prediction: A 15% Nasdaq Drop
30:41 Why He's Still Betting on the Future

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Gabe Stengel studied computer science at Princeton and started his career as an investment banking analyst at Lazard. Then he did something a lot of bankers think about but never do: he quit at 23 to build the AI that would automate his old job. After 30 VC passes and two grueling years, his company Rogo just raised $160 million at a $2 billion valuation, and 35,000 bankers at firms like JPMorgan, Bank of America, and his former employer Lazard now use it. Fortune's Allie Garfinkle sits down with Gabe to talk about the future of M&A, why some Wall Street workflows will never need a human again, and what AI means for the next generation of investment bankers.
0:00 The Banker Automating Wall Street
0:16 What "AI for Wall Street" Actually Means
3:13 Inside the Billion-Dollar Deal Rooms
6:07 Quitting Wall Street at 23
7:35 The Brutal Early Days & 30 Rejections
14:45 Meet Felix, the AI That Never Sleeps
19:55 Will AI Kill Banking Jobs?
25:52 Competing With OpenAI, Anthropic & Google 30:08 Why a Finance Legend Bet on Him
35:30 Does Wall Street Still Matter?

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Claire Zau spent six years in venture capital and became the youngest investor to make partner at GSV. Then she did something very few other VCs were doing: she started posting social media videos about AI to inform the general public. A year, 337,000 followers and 1.6 million likes later, Lightspeed Venture Partners hired her in a role that's never existed in venture before: New Media and Investor. Fortune’s Allie Garfinkle sits down with Claire to talk about the AI bubble, AI education, the gap between Silicon Valley and the general public, and why one in three Gen Zers say AI makes them angry.

0:00 — From VC to Viral: How a Lightspeed Partner Built an Audience on Short-Form

0:29 — The Algorithm Is a Feedback Loop and VCs Are Finally Using It

8:37 — Why Some People Are Being Left Out of the AI Story

17:21 — Promethean Fire: The Case for Techno-Optimism When Everyone's Scared

11:23 — AI Literacy Is Like Sex Ed — You Don't Have to Love It, But You Need to Know

13:54 — The Real Problem With How People Are Using AI (And How to Fix It)

23:53 — AI Gives You Leverage, but Only If You Know How to Use It

24:49 — Can You Actually Build a Moat in AI? A VC Answers Honestly

28:21 — Why Early-Stage Investing Is Still a Bet on People, Not Products

30:29 — Bits and Atoms: The New Investment Thesis for the AI Hardware Era

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Approximately nine out of every ten net new jobs in America come from small businesses, yet they shoulder over $81 billion a year in federal paperwork. As more Americans launch their own businesses, the back office is buckling under the weight.
In this episode, Josh Reeves, cofounder and CEO of Gusto, a payroll, benefits, and HR platform for small businesses, breaks down the contrarian bet that built a $9 billion company. He and Fortune's Allie Garfinkle discuss why small business tech is often overlooked, why he doesn't think AI labs like OpenAI and Anthropic will touch tax compliance, and how Gusto crossed $1 billion in revenue on its path to what Reeves believes is a trillion-dollar opportunity.

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