Pat Grady is one of the most successful growth investors of the last decade. As the Head of Sequoia's growth investing practice, Pat has invested in companies with a combined market cap exceeding $250BN. Among Pat's immense portfolio is Hubspot, Snowflake, ServiceNow, Okta, Amplitude, Zoom and Qualtrics. Pat is also one of the best acquirers of talent in venture hiring Andrew Reed, Matt Huang, Julien Bek.

1. The Sequoia Investment Process:

• What is the Sequoia investment process today? How has it changed over time?
• What could be improved about the process? Where is it weak?
• What is the biggest strength of the process?
• How do Sequoia remove politics from the investment decision-making process?
• Are the best deals "contrarian"? What does Pat mean when he says you do not "get extra points for being contrarian and right"?

2. What Sequoia Look for When Investing:

• What is Pat's framework for assessing founders? How does it differ when investing early vs late?
• Team, traction, TAM, how does Pat rank the three when investing?
• What have been Pat's biggest lessons on market sizing? Does Pat take market timing risk?
• How much weight does Pat place on "traction" when investing? How sustainable is PMF?

3. The Three Core Pillars of Venture:

• Sourcing: What does Pat rank Sequoia for sourcing? Who is the best at sourcing in the firm?
• Selecting: How does Pat rank Sequoia at picking? How has it changed over time? What could Sequoia do to improve their picking ability?
• Servicing: What does Pat give Sequoia for their "value add"? To what extent does Pat truly believe that venture investors do add value?

4. Pat Grady: AMA:

• Pat has hired some of the best in the next generation of venture investors; what are his biggest lessons in what he looks for when hiring investing talent?
• What is his single biggest takeaway from working with Alfred Lin, Roelof Botha and Doug Leone?
• What are his biggest takeaways from working with Hubspot, Snowflake and ServiceNow?

Avi Eyal is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Entrée Capital, an early-stage VC fund with a portfolio including the likes of Monday.com, Stripe, Coupang, PillPack, and Snap. From their $15M investment into Monday, Entrée distributed a whopping $1.5BN, one of their $45M funds is a whopping 37x DPI. Avi is one of the greatest venture investors you might not have heard about.

1. The Biggest BS "Rules" in Venture Capital:

• Why does Avi believe that it is BS for every deal to need to be a homerun and return the fund?
• Why does Avi believe that signalling is real and it is BS to suggest otherwise?
• Why does Avi believe that it is BS that ownership is crucial to make mega venture returns?
• Why does Avi believe that you do not have to win every deal to be one of the best in venture?
• Why should venture investors not manage the positions of their companies when they go public? Why is it BS to think they have asymmetric information when the company goes public?

2. What Makes the Best Founders:

• Does Avi prefer first or second time entrepreneurs? Why?
• Would Avi rather back a founder that is an expert in a market or one that is new to a market and has the naivety to not know what is hard?
• Are the best CEOs the best fundraisers?
• How does Avi rank the following when investing; team, market, traction and technology?
• When Avi has misread a founder, what was it that he missed?

3. The Biggest Hits and Biggest Misses:

• Monday: How did Entrée build such a large position in Monday over time? How did a Series A lead dropping out leading to a $1.5BN gain for Entree?
• Stripe: Entrée has now 50% of his Stripe position. Why? What is the three step process for Avi in selling positions? How does he know when to and what is the right amount?
• PillPack: Entrée made $15M from PillPack's exit. What did that teach Avi about ownership?
• Cazoo: How was Entrée the only one to make money from Cazoo? How did Entrée's sell strategy help him make millions when everyone else did not sell?

Matt Clifford is the Co-Founder of Entrepreneur First (EF), the leading global talent investor and incubator. EF has incubated startups worth over $10bn, including Cleo, Tractable and Aztec Protocol. Matt is also Chair of ARIA, the UK’s Advanced Research and Invention Agency, and advises the UK government on AI and in 2023 served as the Prime Minister’s Representative for the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park.

1. The Most Important Questions in AI:

• Are we seeing diminishing returns where more compute does not lead to a significant increase in performance?
• What is required to reach a new S curve? What do we need to see in GPT 5?
• Why does Matt believe that search is one of the biggest opportunities in AI today?

2. The Biggest Opportunities in AI Today:

• How does Matt see the future for society with a world of autonomous agents?
• What is the single biggest opportunity around agents that no one has solved?
• Is society ready for agentic behaviours to replace the core of human labour?
• How does warfare change in a world of AI?
• Does AI favour states and good actors or criminals and bad actors more favourably when it comes to offence and defence?

3. China and the Race to Win the AI War:

• Does Matt believe that China are two years behind the US in terms of AI capability?
• What are Matt's biggest lessons from spending time with the CPP in China working on AI policy?
• In what way is the CCP more sophisticated in their thinking on AI than people think?
• What is the bull and the bear case for China in the race for AI?
• What is the core impact of US export controls on chips for China's ability to build in AI?
• Does a Trump vs a Biden election change the playing field with China?

4. What Makes Truly Great Founders:

• Does Matt agree that the best founders always start an entrepreneurial activity when they are young?
• What is more important the biggest strength of one of the founders or the combined skills of the founding team?
• What did EF believe about founders and founder chemistry that they no longer believe?
• Does Matt believe that everyone can be a founder? What are the two core traits required?

Samir Vasavada is the Co-Founder & CEO of Vise, a technology-powered asset manager. Samir and his co-founder, Runik founded Vise from the Midwest at 16 years old. They bootstrapped the company before dropping out of high school and raising $128M in just 6 months from some of the best including Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund. The company achieved unicorn status when the pair turned 20 years old, making them the youngest founders of a $BN company at the time.

1. The Biggest Hiring Mistakes That Broke Us:

• Why is hiring people who come with a playbook one of the most damaging things you can do?
• Why is it impossible to build a remote company that performs the same as in person?
• Why is it the worst thing to hire people who have a reputation they are obsessed with maintaining?
• Why do you never want to hire people who join because of who your investors are?
• Why does Samir regret not firing people faster? How much time is enough time to know?
• Why is hiring in a hot market one of the most dangerous things you can do?

2. Fundraising: 3 Rounds and $126M in 6 Months:

• Does Samir regret raising so much money so soon in the company life?
• What did Samir do that he regrets doing, having had so much money so early?
• How did the need for free food at an event lead to a term sheet and $50M from Sequoia?
• Did Samir feel that he could talk to investors when things were going really badly?
• Why does Samir believe that liquidation preference matters more than valuation?

3. The Depression, The Pressure and Wisdom From Jensen Huang:

• What did Jensen Huang teach Samir when it comes to wealth and leadership?
• How did Samir deal with the pressure of raising $126M in 6 months and being the youngest unicorn founder, ever at the time?
• Was Samir hurt when people he thought were his friends, no longer stuck with him when the company was no longer "hot"?
• What was Samir's darkest time? How did he overcome and get out of it?
• Does Samir blame his parents for the pressure they put on him from such a young age?

Andrew Bialecki is the Co-Founder and CEO of Klaviyo, the platform that powers smarter digital relationships for businesses and their data. To date, Klaviyo has raised over $778M from the likes of Accel, Summit Partners, Sands Capital, and Shopify, and raised an additional $700M after its IPO in September 2023. 

In Today’s Episode with Andrew Bialecki We Discuss:

1. Founding a $6.23BN Machine in Klaviyo: The Aha Moment

• What was the aha moment for Klaviyo?

• How important does Andrew think it is for founders to stick with their initial vision vs when is the right time to pivot?

• Does a great product sell itself? If you build it, will they come?

1. Bootstrapping Klaviyo: Would it Have Worked with More VC Cash Earlier?

• Why did Andrew decide to bootstrap & not take VC money with Klaviyo?

• Does Andrew think Klaviyo would have been successful if they raised a seed round? What would they have done differently?

• Why does Andrew believe companies should take their time to find product-market fit? What are the most common mistakes founders make?

• What is Andrew’s advice to founders on fundraising?

• When did Andrew decide to raise a seed round when he did? 

1. How to IPO in an IPO Winter: Advice & Lessons

• Why did Andrew decide to take Klaviyo public in a bad public market?

• How was the IPO roadshow process? What were Andrew’s lessons from it?

• How has Andrew’s role as CEO changed after taking Klaviyo public?

• Does Andrew think Klaviyo is undervalued today?

• What is Andrew’s advice to founders on secondaries?

1. Behind the Shopify Partnership

• How did Klaviyo’s partnership with Shopify happen? What were Andrew’s lessons working with Tobi Lütke & Harley Finklestein?

• How does Andrew define a win-win partnership? 

• What does Andrew mean by “Partnerships are like a tug of war?”

• What does Andrew think are the most common reasons partnerships go sideways?

David Luan is the CEO and Co-Founder at Adept, a company building AI agents for knowledge workers. To date, David has raised over $400M for the company from Greylock, Andrej Karpathy, Scott Belsky, Nvidia, ServiceNow and WorkDay. Previously, he was VP of Engineering at OpenAI, overseeing research on language, supercomputing, RL, safety, and policy and where his teams shipped GPT, CLIP, and DALL-E. He led Google's giant model efforts as a co-lead of Google Brain.

1. The Biggest Lessons from OpenAI and Google Brain:

• What did OpenAI realise that no one else did that allowed them to steal the show with ChatGPT?
• Why did it take 6 years post the introduction of transformers for ChatGPT to be released?
• What are 1-2 of David's biggest lessons from his time leading teams at OpenAI and Google Brain?

2. Foundation Models: The Hard Truths:

• Why does David strongly disagree that the performance of foundation models is at a stage of diminishing returns?
• Why does David believe there will only be 5-7 foundation model providers? What will separate those who win vs those who do not?
• Does David believe we are seeing the commoditization of foundation models?
• How and when will we solve core problems of both reasoning and memory for foundation models?

3. Bunding vs Unbundling: Why Chips Are Coming for Models:

• Why does David believe that Jensen and Nvidia have to move into the model layer to sustain their competitive advantage?
• Why does David believe that the largest model providers have to make their own chips to make their business model sustainable?
• What does David believe is the future of the chip and infrastructure layer?

4. The Application Layer: Why Everyone Will Have an Agent:

• What is the difference between traditional RPA vs agents?
• Why is agents a 1,000x larger business than RPA?
• In a world where everyone has an agent, what does the future of work look like?
• Why does David disagree with the notion of "selling the work" and not the tool?
• What is the business model for the next generation of application layer AI companies?

Val Scholz is the former Head of Growth @ Revolut, where he led the company to their first 10M users. Post Revolut, Val played a crucial role in scaling several high-growth companies including VEED, Simple & Busuu (exited for $400M). Today, Val is the Head of Growth at Kittl, an intuitive design platform empowering graphic designers.

In Today’s Episode with Val Scholz We Discuss:

1. Lessons from Scaling Revolut to 10M Users

• What were Val’s biggest takeaways during his time at Revolut?

• What does Val consider the secret sauce behind Revolut’s success?

• What did Val think Revolut understood about customers that no other bank did?

1. The Secrets to Revolut’s Growth Playbook

• What was Val’s best growth decision? What was his worst?

• Why does Val think most companies don’t do referrals well?

• What made Revolut’s signup strategy so successful?

• What are Val’s two ways to master content marketing?

• Does Val think it’s good to diversify growth channels? When should founders diversify?

• What are Val’s strategies to make Youtube influencers successful?

1. Product Marketing 101:

• Why does Val think traditional marketing methods are outdated?

• If traditional marketing methods are outdated, what should startups do instead?

• What does Val think is the most dangerous myth around product-led growth?

• What does Val believe are the most common mistakes founders make on optimizing products?

1. Growth Hires: Who, What, When & How

• When does Val think is the best time to hire a head of growth?

• What is the profile Val looks for in a growth hire? What traits does he look for?

• What are the most common reasons founders fail at hiring?

• What does Val think are the biggest red flags to look out for in a CV?

• How does Val define good culture? Did Revolut have a good culture?

Michael Eisenberg is a Co-Founder and General Partner @ Aleph, one of Israel's leading venture firms with a portfolio including the likes of Wix, Lemonade, Empathy, Honeybook and more. Before leading Aleph, Michael was a General Partner @ Benchmark.

1. The State of AI Investing:

• Why does Michael believe that "foundation models are the fastest depreciating asset in history"?
• Are we in an AI bubble today? As an investor, what is the right way to approach this market?
• Who will be the biggest losers in this AI investing phase?
• Where will the biggest value accrual be? What lessons does Michael have from the dot com for this?

2. Where Is the Liquidity Coming From?

• Why does Michael believe that it is BS that private equity will come in and buy a load of software companies and be the primary exit destination?
• Why does Michael believe that IPO windows are always open? Should founders go out now? What is good enough revenue numbers to go out into the public markets?
• Why does Michael believe that Lina Kahn is a threat to capitalism? How does Michael predict the next 12-24 months for the M&A market?

3. AI as a Weapon: Who Wins: China or the US:

• Does Michael agree with the notion that China is 2 years behind the US in AI development?
• Does Michael agree that AI could be a more dangerous weapon in wars than nuclear weapons?
• Why does Michael suggest that for all founders in Europe, they should leave?
• US, China, Israel, Europe, how do they rank for innovating around data regulation for AI?

4. Venture 101: Reserves, Selling Positions and Fund Dying:

• Why does Michael only want to do reserves into his middle-performing companies?
• What framework does Michael use to determine whether he should sell a position?
• Which funds will be the first to die in this next wave of venture?
• Why does Michael not do sourcing anymore? Where is he weakest in venture?
• Why does Michael believe that no board meeting needs to be over 45 mins?

Danny Rimer is a Partner @ Index Ventures and one of the most prominent VCs of the last two decades. Danny has led Index to be one of the top global firms on both sides of the Atlantic. Among Danny's incredible portfolio, he has led or been involved with Figma, Discord, Dream Games, Etsy, Glossier and Patreon.

1. The Biggest Lessons from Missing Snap, Airbnb, Spotify and Facebook:

• How did Danny miss investing in Brian Chesky and Airbnb when Brian says "Index is the best investor that Airbnb never had"?
• What was Danny's biggest takeaway from turning down Daniel Ek and Spotify multiple times?
• Why did Danny turn down the chance to invest in Facebook at $10BN? What did he learn from this?
• Why did Index not lead Snapchat's Series B? How did that decision change Danny's mindset towards the concentration of positions in a fund?

2. The Biggest BS Rules in Venture: Market Sizing, Valuations and Signalling

• Why does Danny believe that "valuation is a mental trap"?
• Why does Danny believe that TAM is "noise" and should not be used to assess an investment?
• Why does Danny believe that stage, sector and geo-specific funds are BS?
• Why does Danny believe there are no IPO windows? Are IPO markets always open to the best?
• Why does Danny believe that signalling is BS and does not exist today?

3. Lessons from the Biggest Wins and Losses:

• What are Danny's biggest lessons from Index's $BN win in King (Candy Crush)?
• How did the Discord deal come to be? What are Danny's biggest takeaways from it?
• What are Danny's biggest reflections from losing 10s of millions on Nasty Gal?
• What is Danny's biggest advice to a new investor today?

4. Lessons from Two Decades Building Index into a Premier Firm:

• What specifically has Index done to enable them to do what no one else has done and win on both sides of the Atlantic?
• How did the Benchmark partnership shape much of how Danny has constructed Index today?
• Who does Danny view as Index's biggest competition? How has it changed with time?
• Why is Danny more bullish than ever on the UK despite Brexit?

Janie Lee is the Head of Product and the owner of the Self-Serve business at Loom. Janie previously worked at Rippling, leading the Identity Management and Hardware teams. Prior to that, she worked at Opendoor launching markets and developing pricing algorithms. During this time, Opendoor scaled from 2 to 20+ markets, $5B+ revenue, and 1500+ employees.

1. Inside the Product Building Machine of Rippling and Opendoor:

• What are Janie's single biggest product lessons from Rippling? How do they build so much product so fast? Can you have breadth and high quality?
• What are Janie's biggest lessons from Opendoor on talent and pricing?
• What does Janie know now that she wishes she had known when she started her product career?

2. What Makes a Truly Great PM:

• What core skills do the best PMs have? What is the difference between good vs great?
• Writing: What are Janie's biggest pieces of advice to PMs who want to write better?
• Communicate: How do the best PMs and product leaders communicate with their teams?
• Question Asking: How do the best PMs ask questions of their team and other orgs?

3. How to Find and Pick the Best PMs:

• How does Janie structure the interview process when hiring new PMs?
• What questions should one ask in every interview with a PM?
• Does Janie do a case study? What is she looking to achieve from it? How do the best do?
• What are Janie's biggest mistakes in hiring PMs? How did she change from it?

4. Onboarding PMs and Crushing Product Reviews:

• What do the first 30 days look like for new PMs?
• What are the biggest signs that a new PM is not going to work out?
• How does the product review process work at Loom?
• How does Janie prioritise when there is so much volume and data?
• How has AI changed the way Loom builds products today?