Jiaona “JZ” Zhang is the Chief Product Officer at Linktree, the world’s leading link-in-bio platform empowering 45M+ creators, brands and SMBs. JZ joined Linktree from Webflow, where she served as SVP of Product. Before that, she spent four years at Airbnb where she built and led numerous teams on the host side. JZ’s also held leadership roles at the likes of Wework, Dropbox and teaches at Stanford University and Reforge.

In Today’s Episode with Jiaona Zhang We Discuss:

1. Entry into the World of Product

• How did JZ first fall in love with product?

• Why does JZ believe the best PMs have experience in the gaming industry?

• Does JZ think Linktree could be a $100BN business? How could Linktree become a $100BN business?

1. Mastering Product Metrics

• Why does JZ think product is the most chameleon role? Where does product start & end? 

• Why does JZ think every function should have tension with product?

• What is a KPI tree? How does JZ branch business & product metrics?

• When does JZ think startups should set up a metric infrastructure?

• What are the three levers of product? How does JZ determine which ones to trade off?

1. How to Run Product: Planning, Strategy, & Rituals

• Why does JZ think planning should not exist?

• What are strategy and rituals? When should founders do either?

• What are JZ’s three core rituals?

• What is the scorecard method? How do they help team transparency?

• What are product jams? When does it work? When does it not work?

1. Product Career Advice

• When does JZ think founders hire a product person? 

• What are the most common mistakes early stage founders make when hiring for product?

• Does JZ think domain expertise is important? What does she look for in product hires?

• What is JZ’s advice to PMs who want to get promoted today? 

• What is JZ’s advice to young people who want to get into product?

Dan Siroker is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Limitless, a personalized AI powered by what you’ve seen, said, or heard. For his latest funding round, Dan took an unusual approach resulting in 1,000 preliminary offers with valuations as high as $1BN — and resulted in a $350 million Series A valuation. Prior to founding Limitless, Dan was the Founder of Optimizely, scaling the company to $120M in ARR and raising from some of the best in the business including Peter Fenton @ Benchmark who led the Series A.

1. Serial Entrepreneurs are More Investable:

• Why would Dan always prefer to invest in serial entrepreneurs than first time founders?
• How do serial entrepreneurs approach team building and size of team differently?
• How do serial entrepreneurs approach focus and prioritisation differently?
• How do serial entrepreneurs approach pivoting differently to first time founders?
• What is Dan's advice from Elad Gil and YC's Dalton Caldwell on when to pivot?

2. The Secret to Fundraising: How to Speak VC

• Should founders always be raising?
• What is the right thing to respond to investors when they reach out to you outside of a round?
• What question are investors really asking when they ask, how much are you raising?
• How should founders approach valuation, what should they say when they are asked for it?
• How can founders create urgency in a funding round? What works? What does not?

3. How to Raise the Best Funding Round:

• Should founders engage with associates or only worth it with decision-makers?
• Why should founders always choose the investor who is on the early arc of their career?
• Why was Dan's first meeting with Peter Fenton the best meeting he has ever had with a VC?
• Why does Dan believe that taking the highest price is never the right answer?
• To what extent does having a true Tier 1 VC lead your round, change the game for your company?

4. Dan Siroker: AMA:

• How did becoming a father change the way that Dan operates?
• Why is Dan scared we might see technological progress stall for the next 20 years?
• Why did Dan not do YC the second time around with Limitless?
• What is the story of how Optimizely nearly bought Amplitude?

Tom Blomfield is a Group Partner at YC. Before YC, Tom founded two unicorns in the UK. He was co-founder of Monzo (most recently valued at $5BN), one of the first challenger banks in the UK. Monzo raised more than £1bn and counts 15% of the UK population as customers. Before Monzo, Tom founded GoCardless (YC S11), an online payments processor, most recently valued at $2.1BN.

1. From Founding Two Unicorns to YC Partner:

• Does Tom believe that all great founders show signs of exceptionalism early?
• What does Tom know now that he wishes he had known when he started his first company?
• Why did Tom decide now was the right time to switch from founder to investor with YC?

2. The YC Application Process: How it Works:

• How do the YC partners select which companies are accepted vs rejected?
• What specifically does Tom look for in the problem the company is looking to solve?
• In the interview, what are the signals of the highest quality founders?
• What questions does Tom always want to ask in YC interviews with founders?

3. The YC Batch: How it Works:

• How do the YC partners work with the 25 companies in their batch? What is the interaction?
• What are the single biggest mistakes companies make while in YC?
• What are the biggest pieces of advice YC gives founders on fundraising approaching demo day?
• How do the best YC founders fundraise and use demo day? How do the most nervous fundraise?
• How are YC partners measured in terms of their success and effectiveness?

4. AI: Consumer vs Enterprise/ Infrastructure vs Application Layer:

• Does Tom believe there is money to be made investing in infrastructure layer models today?
• Why is the commoditization of foundation models the best outcome for society?
• Why is Tom most excited about the application layer for the next wave of AI?
• What are the most exciting opportunities in consumer AI that are wide open today?

20VC: Behind the Scenes at Y Combinator: The Interview Process | What the Best & Worst Do in the Program | Do the Best All Raise Pre-Demo Day & YC's Fundraising Advice to Startups | Why the Value is in Application Layer AI with Tom Blomfield

Larry Shurtz is the Chief Sales Officer at Genesys where he oversees the company’s global go-to-market strategies, including commercial activities, field sales and partner ecosystem operations. Larry has nearly three decades of experience in the software industry, from leading Confluent to delivering more than 60% revenue growth and doubling customer count as Chief Revenue Officer, to scaling a 1,300-person team at Salesforce to $2.1 billion in revenue.

In Today’s Episode with Larry Shurtz We Discuss:

1. From Robotics Student to $2.1BN Sales Leader at Salesforce

• How did Larry lead 1300 people to $2.1 billion revenue at Salesforce? What were his takeaways?

• What did Larry learn about building vertical sales playbooks at Salesforce?

• Which framework did Larry learn at Salesforce that he still uses at Genesys?

1. Mastering Sales Leadership

• What are the biggest mistakes sales leaders make on prioritization today?

• What are Larry’s “3 Rs” to master prioritization?

• What does Larry think are the most common reasons fast-scaling teams break in sales?

• Has Larry ever caused bad culture in a sales team? What did he learn from the experience?

• Does Larry think sales is more art or science? How does Larry blend the two?

1. Building the Best Sales Team

• How does Larry structure the hiring process for a new sales hire?

• How big should your recruitment team be? 

• What are Larry’s most commonly asked questions when interviewing?

• What were Larry’s biggest hiring mistakes? What did he learn from them?

• How does Larry structure the comp? How does he get it right? What do most new hires care about today?

1. The Onboarding: The Dos & Don’ts

• How does Larry structure the onboarding process?

• Why does Larry onboard new hires with big customers? What is the buddy system?

• How does Larry tell if a new hire is bad? What are the biggest red flags to look out for?

• What does Larry mean when he says “You can make all the physical errors, you cannot make mental errors?”

• Does Larry agree with Max Levchin @ Affirm that “When there’s doubt, there’s no doubt?”

Tom Hulme is a Managing Partner of GV (Google Ventures), and leads the European team. Today, GV has over $10BN in AUM and Tom has led investments in Lemonade.com (IPO), Snyk, Secret Escapes, Blockchain.com, GoCardless, Blue Vision Labs (exited to Lyft), and Currency Cloud (exited to Visa). Prior to joining venture full-time, Tom was one of Europe's most successful angel investors with a 5x DPI track record and 20x+ TVPI.

1. Lessons from a 24x TVPI Angel Track Record:

• What are Tom's biggest lessons from his biggest winners angel investing?
• What are Tom's biggest takeaways from the 0's in his angel track record?
• What is the biggest advice Tom would give to angel investors starting out today?
• What are the single biggest mistakes Tom sees angel investors make today?

2. The Four Pillars of Venture Capital:

• What does Tom believe are the four key components of being successful as a VC?
• Why does Tom describe VC as "being a founder on anti-depressants"?
• How does Tom categorise the three different types of investors that exist?
• Sourcing, selecting, servicing: What is Tom best at and what is he worst at?

3. The Conventional Wisdom in Venture That is Not True:

• Why does Tom believe it is BS that you should never sell your winners?
• Why does Tom believe he has never had complete conviction in any of the companies he invests in?
• Why does Tom believe the "everything has to be a fund returner mindset" is BS?
• Why naivety doesn't lead to great founders? Why employees at rocketships are the best founders?

4. AI: Foundation Models, Generative AI, The Incumbents: Where Does the Value Go:

• Does Tom believe there is money to be made investing in foundation models?
• Why does Tom liken investing in foundation models to investing in power stations?
• Where does Tom believe there is value in the application layer?
• Why does Tom think that generative AI is largely a sustaining innovation?
• Why does Tom think Microsoft will win the next wave of AI? Who else is well-positioned?
• Why does Tom believe there is a correlation between those that fear monger around AGI and those that need funding for their businesses?

Sarah Tavel is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful and renowned venture firms in the world. At Benchmark, Sarah has led rounds in Chainalysis, Hipcamp, Medely, Rekki, Glide, Cambly and more. Prior to Benchmark, Sarah was a Partner at Greylock Partners. Before Greylock, Sarah was the first 30 employees at Pinterest. Sarah joined Pinterest in 2012 after co-leading the Series A investment while at Bessemer Venture Partners.

1. Becoming a GP at The Most Renowned Firm in Venture:

• How did the process of Sarah joining Benchmark start? How did it progress? What was it that convinced her to leave Greylock and join Benchmark?
• What does Sarah believe makes Peter Fenton the world-class investor that he is?
• What does Sarah know now that she wishes she had known when she started in venture?

2. Foundation Models: Is it All Going to Zero:

• Will foundation models be commoditised?
• Will 99% of the funding going to foundation models go to 0?
• How does Sarah view the future of open vs closed source?
• Why does Sarah believe that all frontier models of the future will be closed-source?
• Why does the business model of foundation models remind Sarah of the food delivery business?

3. Application Layer: Where $BN Companies Will Be Built:

• Why does Sarah believe that sustainable value-creating companies will be in the application layer?
• How does Sarah determine between a wrapper on top of ChatGPT and true product value?
• Are enterprises opening real budgets for AI today or are we still in experimental budgets?
• How does Sarah think about how AI companies differentiate when there are so many in the same space of customer service, sales team support etc etc?
• Why does Sarah believe that it is rational to pay more for these companies when investing in them?
• What does Sarah mean when she says the future is "selling the work and not the tools"?

4. Inside Benchmark: How the Best Do Venture:

• What is the one rule that Benchmark is willing to break when doing a deal?
• Why do Benchmark aim to be the best recruitment firm in the world?
• Why do Benchmark not agree with the concept of reserves?
• In a case where Benchmark have lost, why did they lose? How did they change their approach?

Eric Glyman is the Co-Founder and CEO of Ramp, America's fastest growing corporate card and finance automation platform. Under Eric’s leadership, Ramp has raised more than $1 billion in financing, with a valuation of $8.1 billion. Prior to Ramp, Eric co-founded Paribus, a price-tracking app to help consumers save money (acquired by Capital One). Ramp recently raised another $150 million series D round co-led by Founders Fund and Khosla ventures, with a post-money valuation of $7.65 billion.

Keith Rabois is a Managing Director @ Khosla Ventures and one of the most respected venture investors of the last decade. Keith has led investments in Stripe, Faire, Ramp, Affirm and many more. Prior to Khosla Ventures, Keith was General Partner at Founders Fund, where he led investments for Ramp, Trade Republic, and Aven. 

In Today’s Episode with Eric Glyman and Keith Rabois We Discuss:

1. Behind Ramp’s Partnership with Founders Fund & Khosla Ventures

• How did the first Founders Fund deal come to be? How was the first meeting?

• What does Keith mean when he says Ramp has the “secret sauce” to be successful?

• What are 1-2 things Keith thinks Eric is world-class at? What are 1-2 things Eric thinks Keith is world-class at?

• How did the latest Khosla deal come to happen?

1. Ramp: The Fastest Executing Company on the Planet.

• How is Eric so good at executing at Ramp? What is his biggest advice to founders on speed of execution?

• What are Eric’s biggest challenges in the next 12 months at Ramp?

• Why does Keith believe momentum is crucial for early stage startups? What are some easy ways founders can build momentum?

• How does Eric think AI will accelerate Ramp and the world of finance?

1. Leadership Lessons From the Best Founders 

• What are Keith’s biggest lessons from Brian Chesky @ Airbnb?

• What did Keith learn from Jack Dorsey @ Square about leadership?

• What does Eric think founders today should build? What should they not build?

• What did Eric learn from Keith on how founders should measure time & progress?

1. Hiring & Team Management

• How did Ramp build a solid talent team? What did they do differently?

• Does Keith & Eric believe it is better to hire externally or promote internally? What is the right balance?

• Does Keith agree founders should hire & get out the way or micromanage?

• How many direct reports does Keith think is enough?

Mark Suster is a General Partner @ Upfront Ventures, one of LA's leading early-stage venture firms. Prior to leading Upfront, Mark was a serial entrepreneur having founded two software companies, selling both with the last selling to Salesforce.com. Mark is also a prolific writer and one of his favourite pieces, Lines Not Dots is one for the ages.

1. From Serial Entrepreneur to Leading VC:

• How Mark made his way into the world of venture having sold two prior companies?
• What does Mark know now that he wishes he had known when he started in venture?
• What advice does Mark give to all young investors starting their career today?

2. How to Raise a Fund:

• What are Mark's single biggest lessons from 15 years of fundraising for funds?
• Should managers look to institutions or friends and family first?
• Are LPs sheep? Do institutions anchoring funds lead to many others jumping in?
• What is the right amount to do a first close on? What is the right way to message the first close?
• What are the single biggest mistakes Mark sees managers make when raising?

3. Exit Environments are F******: What Now:

• Why are IPOs not the liquidity events that everyone thinks they are?
• When does Mark believe IPO windows will open again?
• How does Mark evaluate the M&A landscape today?
• With little M&A and IPO activity, why does Mark believe private equity will step into their shoes?
• With the change to private equity being the buyer, what does that mean for the sale price of the assets? What does that mean for the future of venture returns?

4. Trump, The Woke Left and The World Around Us:

• Is Mark concerned about the potential of Trump winning the election?
• Would Mark rather a Biden administration as the alternative?
• Why is Mark so worried by the woke left?
• Does Mark always believe there has been this deep-seated anti-semitism in the US education system? What can be done to remove this from our education system?

Arthur Mensch is the Co-Founder and CEO of Mistral AI. Since its inception in May 2023, Mistral has raised over $520M in funding from investors like Andreeseen Horowitz, General Catalyst, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Microsoft with a current valuation of $2 billion. Before founding Mistral, Arthur was a research scientist at DeepMind, one of the leading AI institutions in the world.

In Today’s Episode with Arthur Mensch We Discuss:

1. From Models to Team Building: Arthur’s Greatest Lessons at DeepMind

• What were Arthur’s biggest lessons from his time at DeepMind?

• How did DeepMind shape how Arthur built Mistral?

• Why does Arthur believe smaller teams are better for AI?

• Why did Arthur decide to leave DeepMind and start Mistral?

1. Scaling Mistral to $2 Billion Valuation Within a Year

• What made Mistral 7B so successful? What did Arthur learn from the model release?

• What are the biggest barriers at Mistral today?

• How does Arthur balance the sales and research teams at Mistral?

• What does Arthur know now that he wishes he had known when he started Mistral?

1. How to Win in AI: Open Source, Cost, & Adoption

• Why did Arthur open-source some models? Why did he close some?

• How quickly will the cost of compute go down? Why does Arthur believe marginal costs will not go to zero?

• How will open-sourcing LLMs affect the marginal cost?

• Does Arthur think open source is ready for enterprise adoption?

• What questions should enterprises be asking about AI adoption today?

• What are the biggest challenges to AI adoption today?

1. The Future of LLMs

• What does Arthur think are the largest bottlenecks of model quality today?

• Does Arthur think future models will be more generalized or vertical-focused?

• What does Arthur think about the future of commoditization in models?

• Why is Arthur optimistic about the profitability of the application layer of AI?

• How should models differentiate themselves today?

Adam Gross is one of the masters of product-led growth (PLG). Most recently, Adam was Vimeo's interim CEO. Before Vimeo, Adam was CEO of Heroku, which he joined after selling his startup, Cloudconnect in 2013. Additionally, Adam has held executive leadership roles at Salesforce and Dropbox, and has been an active angel investor & advisor to companies, including Buildkite, Cribl, and Tailscale.

In Today’s Episode with Adam Gross We Discuss:

1. PLG Tactics from Dropbox, Heroku and Salesforce:

• What were Adam’s biggest takeaways from his time at Salesforce? How did it shape his growth mindset?

• What did Adam learn about customer acquisition at Dropbox?

• What would Adam most like to change about growth today?

1. Product-Led Growth: The Fundamentals:

• What is growth? What is it not? What do founders get wrong about growth?

• Why does Adam think PLG is not for everybody?

• What do most great PLG businesses have in common?

• How are value propositions segmented in PLG? How can startups transition from individual to enterprise clients?

• Why does Adam think startups doing paid acquisition sub $100M aren’t actually PLG?

1. The Secrets to Optimizing Growth Channels:

• What are the most common reasons fast-growing companies plateau?

• How does Adam advise founders on diversifying channels?

• What are the biggest mistakes founders make when scaling into enterprise?

• How should startups do effective product marketing in horizontal products?

• What is emotive & strategic marketing? How should startups balance both?

1. How Angel Investing Changes How You View Companies:

• What are Adam’s top 3 pieces of advice for founders?

• What does Adam mean when he says you are either hiring a poet or a librarian?

• What are the biggest mistakes founders make when hiring?

• What was Adam’s biggest investment miss? What did he learn from it?