We The Builders

Intro

Ben Kohlmann is the Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Manpower and Reserve Affairs, a former F/A-18 carrier pilot, venture investor and was a key figure in the reindustrialization movement. I first met him in-person judging a defense tech hackathon aboard the USS Hornet in Oakland. I wanted to ask what someone with that background does when the job is to improve how a large institution finds, develops, and retains people.

When Ben took over personnel policy for the Department of the Navy, he asked questions you’d expect any new leader to ask: Who’s where? Which roles are short-staffed? Are the people we most want to keep choosing to stay?

The answers were scattered across 164 HR systems. Ben’s team eventually pulled together spreadsheets, but the exercise showed why getting a reliable view of the workforce had been so difficult. Individual systems had solved problems for the people who built them. None could show the whole department where its talent was going.

One example we discussed was promotion. A pilot might have valuable language, cyber, or intelligence skills, yet the standard aviation career path may give them few ways to use those skills and still advance. And when a promotion board reads an officer’s fitness reports, phrases that sound almost identical to an outsider can carry very different signals. Ben explains where software can help reviewers make sense of those records while leaving the decision with people.

Each layer of a hierarchy has to decide what’s worth passing up. That keeps leaders from drowning in information, but it can also mean the best idea never reaches the person who can act on it. Ben’s question is one any growing organization can ask: How do you preserve clear responsibility while still hearing from the people closest to the problem?

In this episode

* The request for basic workforce numbers that exposed the cost of 164 separate HR systems.

* Why traditional promotion paths can overlook people with skills the Navy needs.

* What the Navy Innovation Unit could offer civilian specialists who want to serve for a period of time.

* What fighter pilots’ debriefs can teach civilian leaders about trust and useful feedback.

* Why asking to see an early draft can change what people are willing to bring you.

Watch the Full Conversation on YT:

Chapters

00:00 Intro 01:11 What the Assistant Secretary oversees 02:40 Why the Navy has 164 HR systems 04:47 What it takes to unify personnel data 06:59 What companies borrowed from military hierarchy 10:21 What the military can learn from Silicon Valley 12:14 Finding talent outside the standard career path 15:40 Fitness reports, AI, and promotion boards 18:00 What military performance reviews measure 21:03 How technology could help promotion boards 23:09 Retention and the case for faster promotion paths 28:14 Bringing civilian specialists into the reserves 32:50 How the Navy Innovation Unit is designed 37:06 From the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum to venture investing 42:04 How fighter pilots earn trust 45:01 Defining what winning looks like 46:25 Moving from annual reviews to quarterly feedback 50:38 Skip-level management and the chain of command 52:34 Why Ben wants to see the rough draft 55:49 Leadership lessons from Admiral Nelson and John Boyd 1:01:14 American initiative and improvisation 1:03:06 What a credential actually proves 1:06:18 How Ben would measure success in the role 1:08:15 Building for America

Brought to you by

Intangible: One of the missions of the show is to highlight frontier technologies and the builders, investors and policymakers at the heart of technological progress. Our sponsor Intangible lets you show it before you build it. Intangible is an AI 3D studio. Frontier technology builders turn ideas into scenes they can edit and film, in minutes. No VFX shop, no six-week render queue. Visualize your moonshot product at intangible.ai

The material presented by We The Builders & Suffiyan Malik, including on its website, podcast, social media channels, newsletters, events, and other content, reflects the opinions of the hosts, guests, and contributors and is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing presented by We The Builders should be construed as investment, financial, legal, tax, or other professional advice, nor as a recommendation, offer to sell, or solicitation of an offer to buy any security, investment product, company, strategy, or asset. Discussions of companies, investments, industries, technologies, markets, or other subjects may rely on information from public sources or information provided by guests and other third parties that we believe to be reliable. We The Builders does not represent or warrant that such information is accurate, complete, or current and should not be relied upon as such. Views and opinions expressed are those of the individual speaker at the time of publication and may change without notice. Guest appearances, discussions of companies, or references to investors or investments should not be interpreted as endorsements by We The Builders. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethebuilders.us

Intro

On November 9, Nominal announced a $240 million Series C at a $3 billion valuation, led by Lightspeed Venture Partners and co-led by Insight Partners. Previous investors include Founders Fund, XYZ Venture Capital, Lux Capital, General Catalyst and Redglass Ventures. I sat down with Cameron McCord, Cofounder and CEO of Nominal to discuss the origins of the company, lessons from his time in venture capital and what being underwater for over 400 days taught him about leadership.

A test can produce sensor readings, video, and logs. If those live in separate tools and the analysis runs on one engineer’s laptop, the rest of the team has to reconstruct what happened before it can decide what to try next. Nominal started by bringing that evidence together so engineers could compare runs and make decisions from the same data. Cameron and I talked about why he chose testing as the starting point, what happens when suppliers still exchange specs as PDFs, and where AI agents can help once the data is accessible.

Cameron spent 484 days underwater over the course of his Navy service. He told me that on a submarine, there’s no room to let a disagreement go unspoken: you live and work alongside the same people, and you still have a job to do together. That experience helps explain how he thinks about direct feedback at Nominal, and why he sometimes gets personally involved in a problem instead of creating a new process for it.

What we cover

* Why faster hardware development depends on learning more from each test.

* How Nominal used a narrow starting point and early design partners to build its product.

* What makes industrial software hard to adopt, from supplier PDFs to factories that can’t simply move to the cloud.

* How word of mouth and founder-led sales build trust in a market where customers know one another.

* What submarine service taught Cameron about handling disagreement and leading a growing team.

Watch on YouTube

Chapters

00:00 What submarines and startups have in common 00:34 Meet Cameron McCord 01:10 What Nominal does 04:06 Why hardware test data gets stuck on laptops 06:17 The PDFs that still run industrial supply chains 11:07 Why factories can’t simply move to the cloud 16:09 Starting with a narrow problem 18:52 Learning from the first design partners 23:19 Building for commercial and government customers 29:42 AI and the problem of passing on engineering knowledge 31:09 How Nominal built its brand 36:42 Getting engineers to spread the word 43:39 Making bets on different timelines 47:20 How culture changes as the team grows 50:47 When a founder should step in 54:48 What 484 days underwater taught Cameron 58:24 Why you have to surface disagreements 1:01:29 Choosing to become a founder 1:03:41 What Cameron learned at early Anduril 1:09:16 Why trust matters in enterprise sales 1:12:36 Where Cameron changed his mind about using AI

Follow on X: Cameron McCord · Nominal · Suffiyan Malik · We The Builders

Brought to you by

Intangible: One of the missions of the show is to highlight frontier technologies and the builders, investors and policymakers at the heart of technological progress. Our sponsor Intangible lets you show it before you build it. Intangible is an AI 3D studio. Frontier technology builders turn ideas into scenes they can edit and film, in minutes. No VFX shop, no six-week render queue. Visualize your moonshot product at intangible.ai

The material presented by We The Builders & Suffiyan Malik, including on its website, podcast, social media channels, newsletters, events, and other content, reflects the opinions of the hosts, guests, and contributors and is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing presented by We The Builders should be construed as investment, financial, legal, tax, or other professional advice, nor as a recommendation, offer to sell, or solicitation of an offer to buy any security, investment product, company, strategy, or asset. Discussions of companies, investments, industries, technologies, markets, or other subjects may rely on information from public sources or information provided by guests and other third parties that we believe to be reliable. We The Builders does not represent or warrant that such information is accurate, complete, or current and should not be relied upon as such. Views and opinions expressed are those of the individual speaker at the time of publication and may change without notice. Guest appearances, discussions of companies, or references to investors or investments should not be interpreted as endorsements by We The Builders. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethebuilders.us

Intro

My first conversation with Aaron Slodov, Cofounder of Atomic Industries and Reindustrialize, recorded at Reindustrialize in Detroit.

Aaron’s interest in manufacturing began with a frustrating experience trying to get a simple product made. Friends working in hardware told him to go to China. American suppliers were focused on customers with much larger production budgets.

He became fixated on the work behind the product: designing and building the mold that makes it possible to manufacture the part.

Much of that process depends on expertise accumulated over decades. Experienced toolmakers know what works, what will fail, and how to solve problems that aren’t written down. As those workers retire, the knowledge can disappear with them.

Atomic is working to capture that expertise in software, improve the design process, and use those capabilities to manufacture parts. We discuss how the company brings software engineers and tradespeople together, why engineers need to spend time on the factory floor, and the ambition to extend manufacturing knowledge upstream into product design.

We also get into the financing of industrial businesses, Detroit’s opportunity, and how Reindustrialize has developed into a gathering place for people building the next generation of American industry.

What we cover

• The manufacturing bottleneck: Why tool and die making matters, how molds get designed, and where software can improve a process built around experience and iteration.

• Preserving skills and building better jobs: Capturing trade knowledge, training new people, and why Aaron believes future factory work could become more productive, attractive, and better paid.

• Atomic’s master plan: Becoming exceptionally good at mold making, expanding production, and helping designers understand whether a part can be manufactured before it reaches the factory.

• Building an industrial business: Winning customer trust, supply-chain resilience, financing growth, and the distinction between a capital-intensive business and an inefficient one.

• The Reindustrialize movement: Bringing founders, investors, and manufacturers together in Detroit, measuring the relationships and deals that follow, and keeping the community useful as it grows.

There’s also a personal connection to this episode. Reindustrialize was part of what gave me the final push to launch We The Builders. We discuss some of the relationships and opportunities that have come out of those rooms since.

Watch on YouTube

Follow on X / Twitter

Aaron Slodov: https://x.com/aphysicistAtomic Industries: https://x.com/atomic_incReindustrialize: https://x.com/reindsummitSuffiyan Malik: https://x.com/suffiyanmalikkWe The Builders: https://x.com/WeThe_Builders

Timestamps

00:00 Intro

00:36 The frustration that led to Atomic Industries

05:09 Bringing manufacturing expertise and software together

06:00 Tool and die making explained

08:25 Putting software in the driver’s seat

09:31 Preserving and scaling trade knowledge

11:02 Recruiting tradespeople into a technology company

13:27 Training talent and the future of factory jobs

15:26 Detroit, the Midwest, and attracting engineers

17:45 Getting software engineers onto the factory floor

18:31 Building culture around the mission

21:38 Scaling Atomic’s factories and team

23:23 The Atomic master plan

25:31 Bringing manufacturing knowledge into product design

27:45 Production as a service

29:33 Customers, sales, and proving reliability

32:29 Supply-chain resilience and proximity

32:51 Fundraising for industrial companies

35:48 Capital intensity versus capital efficiency

38:26 Building the Reindustrialize movement

41:19 Attracting people who want to tackle hard problems

44:00 Monopolies, innovation, and everyday consumers

46:16 Measuring Reindustrialize’s impact and what comes next

49:30 How Reindustrialize helped launch We The Builders

51:27 Closing

Brought to you by

Intangible: One of the missions of the show is to highlight frontier technologies and the builders, investors and policymakers at the heart of technological progress. Our sponsor Intangible lets you show it before you build it. Intangible is an AI 3D studio. Frontier technology builders turn ideas into scenes they can edit and film, in minutes. No VFX shop, no six-week render queue. Visualize your moonshot product at intangible.ai.

Subscribe to We The Builders for more conversations with the builders shaping our future through science, technology, and culture.

The material presented by We The Builders & Suffiyan Malik, including on its website, podcast, social media channels, newsletters, events, and other content, reflects the opinions of the hosts, guests, and contributors and is provided for informational and educational purposes only.

Nothing presented by We The Builders should be construed as investment, financial, legal, tax, or other professional advice, nor as a recommendation, offer to sell, or solicitation of an offer to buy any security, investment product, company, strategy, or asset. Discussions of companies, investments, industries, technologies, markets, or other subjects may rely on information from public sources or information provided by guests and other third parties that we believe to be reliable.

We The Builders does not represent or warrant that such information is accurate, complete, or current and should not be relied upon as such. Views and opinions expressed are those of the individual speaker at the time of publication and may change without notice. Guest appearances, discussions of companies, or references to investors or investments should not be interpreted as endorsements by We The Builders. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethebuilders.us

Intro

I sat down with Aydin Senkut, Founder and Managing Partner of Felicis. Before starting the firm, Aydin worked in product and international sales at Google. Felicis has backed companies including Shopify, Canva, Adyen, Notion, Supabase, and Runway.

We discuss how he finds companies before they become obvious, what he has learned from missing important investments, and how his approach has changed over two decades.

Aydin still has an email from Brian Chesky offering him the opportunity to invest in Airbnb at a $2.5 million valuation. He also passed on Uber. Rather than give up on the broader opportunity, he started looking for the infrastructure those businesses would need. That search led him to Adyen.

Another thread is the tension between expertise and curiosity. Aydin explains how consulting an experienced camera founder contributed to Felicis’s initial pass on Verkada, why he revisited the decision, and how being a generalist can help an investor see possibilities that an expert dismisses.

We also discuss what Felicis underestimated about OpenAI and Anthropic, its investments across the AI ecosystem, and the changes Aydin is making inside the firm to move faster without losing rigor.

What we cover

• Engineering serendipity: following small insights, discovering people outside your existing network, and connecting companies that don’t yet know they can help each other.

• Finding outliers before consensus: missing Airbnb and Uber, pursuing Adyen, and recognizing the opportunity in Canva and Notion.

• The generalist advantage: why technical expertise doesn’t guarantee investment insight, and how to avoid turning experience into assumptions you won’t revisit.

• Investing through the AI wave: what Aydin underestimated about the leading labs, and opportunities across models, databases, agent infrastructure, data, chips, and robotics.

• Building Felicis: portfolio construction, the most important thing an investor can do for a founder, faster deal teams, and the case for one-page investment memos.

Watch the full conversation

Follow on X / Twitter

Aydin Senkut: https://x.com/asenkutFelicis: https://x.com/felicisSuffiyan Malik: https://x.com/suffiyanmalikkWe The Builders: https://x.com/WeThe_Builders

Timestamps

00:00 Reviewing decisions and mistakes of omission01:51 Welcome and the portfolio construction question02:50 Why roughly 50 companies per fund?05:33 The most important thing an investor can do for a founder08:46 What Google sales taught Aydin about people10:21 Why your existing network isn’t enough14:29 Curiosity, deep reading, and following a thread19:13 Missing Airbnb and Uber—and finding Adyen22:45 Connecting Shopify and Rovio24:59 Hiring for motivation, resilience, and hunger27:45 Investing before growth becomes obvious29:52 Supabase, Runway, and looking beyond funding stages36:17 Resetting assumptions and the generalist advantage38:43 The initial pass on Verkada42:54 Building Felicis as an outsider47:55 Portfolio network effects and learning through repetition52:50 Google in Japan and joining Ron Conway’s network57:46 Confirmation bias and copying successful networks59:44 Investing globally and finding Canva1:04:05 Consumer opportunities, email, and strategic importance1:08:00 What made Canva and Notion different1:13:41 What Felicis could have done differently in AI1:16:26 Underestimating OpenAI and Anthropic1:19:31 Unprecedented growth at scale1:20:36 Investing across the AI ecosystem1:24:39 Reinventing Felicis across technology waves1:26:53 Data science, community, scouts, and fund investments1:29:37 Moving beyond unanimous investment decisions1:32:11 The prepared mind and the outlier map1:34:55 Deal teams and moving faster1:37:54 Why the investment case should fit on one page1:40:03 Skild AI, robotics, and Fractile1:43:26 Favorite food and Gladiator1:45:04 Antifragile and Clear Thinking1:47:49 Closing

Brought to you by

Intangible: One of the missions of the show is to highlight frontier technologies and the builders, investors and policymakers at the heart of technological progress. Our sponsor Intangible lets you show it before you build it. Intangible is an AI 3D studio. Frontier technology builders turn ideas into scenes they can edit and film, in minutes. No VFX shop, no six-week render queue. Visualize your moonshot product at intangible.ai

The material presented by We The Builders & Suffiyan Malik, including on its website, podcast, social media channels, newsletters, events, and other content, reflects the opinions of the hosts, guests, and contributors and is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing presented by We The Builders should be construed as investment, financial, legal, tax, or other professional advice, nor as a recommendation, offer to sell, or solicitation of an offer to buy any security, investment product, company, strategy, or asset. Discussions of companies, investments, industries, technologies, markets, or other subjects may rely on information from public sources or information provided by guests and other third parties that we believe to be reliable. We The Builders does not represent or warrant that such information is accurate, complete, or current and should not be relied upon as such. Views and opinions expressed are those of the individual speaker at the time of publication and may change without notice. Guest appearances, discussions of companies, or references to investors or investments should not be interpreted as endorsements by We The Builders. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethebuilders.us

Intro

I sat down with Ritankar Das founder of Titan Holdings and cofounder of Prentis AI. Ritankar graduated from Berkeley at 18, studied at Oxford, and left his Cambridge PhD to build companies applying machine learning to real-world problems.

His early company was funded with money he earned consulting as a graduate student. We spent much of this conversation on what it takes to keep going through that uncertainty.

Ritankar approaches entrepreneurship as a series of hypotheses and experiments. Your starting idea can be wrong. What matters is how effectively you learn, how honestly you read the evidence, and whether you can use it to find a better direction.

We also discuss his relationships with his mentors Jim Simons and Roy Vagelos, why the people around you shape the quality of your thinking, and where he believes AI is headed as models learn to use computers. We finish with his interest in history, the rise and fall of empires, and the progress humanity could make through better cooperation.

What we cover

* Finding your gifts: Why exploration helps you discover what you enjoy, what you’re good at, and where those abilities meet something the world needs.

* The emotional work of entrepreneurship: Bootstrapping with personal savings, facing rejection, and holding on to optimism while being honest about difficult evidence.

* Learning from Jim Simons and Roy Vagelos: How researchers become company builders, the importance of mentorship, and the story behind “the epicycles pay the bills.”

* AI and the next wave of opportunity: Computer use, missing real-world training data, the limitations of synthetic environments, and how value moves from invention to the end customer.

* Building something contrarian and correct: Developing insights, cultivating deep relationships, testing ideas in the market, and paying attention to what customers actually do.

Watch on YouTube

Follow on X / Twitter

Ritankar Das: https://x.com/ritankardasSuffiyan Malik: https://x.com/suffiyanmalikkWe The Builders: https://x.com/WeThe_Builders

Timestamps

00:00 Intro03:05 Finding your gifts and defining success06:38 What the market will pay you for10:29 Hard work, luck, and controlling your choices18:28 Building companies with the scientific method20:49 Rats, hammocks, and the first office23:17 Naive optimism and the emotional journey26:26 Bootstrapping with consulting income29:34 Putting personal savings into the business33:29 Why company building can be slower than research37:50 Research, commercialization, and the AI boom41:41 Finding the first hospital customers46:40 Persistence, conviction, and missed alternatives50:07 Deep relationships and better environments56:05 Lessons from Roy Vagelos and Jim Simons1:00:39 Jim Simons and “the epicycles pay the bills”1:03:12 How the mentorship relationships began1:05:48 Who captures the value of new technology?1:09:48 AI’s next frontier: understanding computer use1:14:08 Real-world data and the limits of synthetic environments1:17:14 Different founder archetypes1:20:28 Contrarian insights and relationship building1:24:30 Turning insight and relationships into a business1:31:19 Finding the contrarian and correct idea1:33:33 Customer behavior versus investor signals1:37:12 Where the Pareto principle breaks down1:39:32 Research, philanthropy, and the next decade1:41:11 History, empires, and understanding the present1:46:39 War, cooperation, and humanity’s potential1:49:25 Closing

Brought to you by

Intangible: One of the missions of the show is to highlight frontier technologies and the builders, investors and policymakers at the heart of technological progress. Our sponsor Intangible lets you show it before you build it. Intangible is an AI 3D studio. Frontier technology builders turn ideas into scenes they can edit and film, in minutes. No VFX shop, no six-week render queue. Visualize your moonshot product at intangible.ai

The material presented by We The Builders & Suffiyan Malik, including on its website, podcast, social media channels, newsletters, events, and other content, reflects the opinions of the hosts, guests, and contributors and is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing presented by We The Builders should be construed as investment, financial, legal, tax, or other professional advice, nor as a recommendation, offer to sell, or solicitation of an offer to buy any security, investment product, company, strategy, or asset. Discussions of companies, investments, industries, technologies, markets, or other subjects may rely on information from public sources or information provided by guests and other third parties that we believe to be reliable. We The Builders does not represent or warrant that such information is accurate, complete, or current and should not be relied upon as such. Views and opinions expressed are those of the individual speaker at the time of publication and may change without notice. Guest appearances, discussions of companies, or references to investors or investments should not be interpreted as endorsements by We The Builders. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethebuilders.us

Intro

This is my first conversation with Sal Churi, Founder and Managing Partner at Trust Ventures. Before starting the firm, Sal practiced at Kirkland & Ellis and taught law at the University of Chicago. Trust Ventures was the first investor in Base Power and an early investor in Oklo, and its portfolio includes Antora and Physical Intelligence.

One detail from our conversation stayed with me: in the early days of Base Power, Sal rented his house to the founders. By the end, they had 50-plus people working out of his three-bedroom house, and they had yanked out his washing machine to bolt a giant inverter to the wall.

We discuss why the biggest markets in the world are also the most regulated, how Trust Ventures helps companies overcome regulatory hurdles after investing, and why building more energy infrastructure matters so much in the AI era.

What we cover:

* Monopolies are like piggy banks: how watching Ryan Graves help build Uber and working on a campaign to legalize street vending in Chicago led Sal to invest in regulated markets.

* Energy as the input to everything: why US generation capacity has been flat since 2000, nuclear’s “fences around fences around fences,” and backing Oklo when nobody was interested in nuclear.

* Killing mosquitoes, not slaying dragons: being the first investor in Base Power, helping pass a law that removed local permitting for home batteries, and living in Base’s offices for a month.

* Building Trust Ventures: how Chase Koch and Brian Hooks wrote Sal’s first check when people thought the thesis was nuts, putting an hour where a dollar is, chasing a 10X fund, and how a referral from Base’s CEO led to Physical Intelligence.

Follow the guest and host:

Sal Churi: https://www.linkedin.com/in/salenchuri/Suffiyan Malik: https://x.com/suffiyanmalikkWe The Builders: https://x.com/WeThe_Builders

Watch on YouTube

Timestamps

00:00 Intro 01:45 Founding Trust Ventures04:04 Monopolies are like piggy banks05:39 Legalizing street vending in Chicago08:05 The biggest markets are the most regulated09:09 Why law firms are not built for startups10:55 Oklo, Base Power, Antora, and the energy thesis11:31 China has 10X'd generation capacity. We are flat.14:51 Nuclear and fences around fences15:36 Backing Oklo before nuclear was exciting17:24 Investing in regulated markets in 201718:44 Not can we do it, but are we allowed?20:08 First investor in Base Power21:31 Base Power moves into Sal's house24:43 Passing a law for Base25:32 Kill mosquitoes, not dragons29:11 How Chase Koch and Brian Hooks took a shot on the thesis30:00 A venture team of legal nerds30:49 Running a concentrated strategy31:46 Can I return my fund at this price?33:15 Product, market, team, and the regulatory threshold37:18 How Physical Intelligence came through Base's CEO39:24 The worst case is I look like everyone else on your cap table40:48 Chasing a 10X fund42:58 Building a remote team from day one45:48 Pounding the table47:38 The black magic after the check51:46 What Trust Ventures won't invest in53:22 Brilliant generalists over specialists58:37 Bad laws stay forever59:40 From crazy idea to cliche1:01:22 The first check that put Trust Ventures in business1:04:21 Can you beat natural gas in the Permian?1:06:06 The great American deflation fund1:09:06 Robotics and the future of manufacturing1:11:22 Standing in an industrial revolution1:15:51 Overbuild, crash, build more1:18:40 Deflation and status competition1:20:02 Sal's book recommendations

Brought to you by

Intangible: One of the missions of the show is to highlight frontier technologies and the builders, investors and policymakers at the heart of technological progress. Our sponsor Intangible lets you show it before you build it. Intangible is an AI 3D studio. Frontier technology builders turn ideas into scenes they can edit and film, in minutes. No VFX shop, no six-week render queue. Visualize your moonshot product at intangible.ai

The material presented by We The Builders & Suffiyan Malik, including on its website, podcast, social media channels, newsletters, events, and other content, reflects the opinions of the hosts, guests, and contributors and is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing presented by We The Builders should be construed as investment, financial, legal, tax, or other professional advice, nor as a recommendation, offer to sell, or solicitation of an offer to buy any security, investment product, company, strategy, or asset. Discussions of companies, investments, industries, technologies, markets, or other subjects may rely on information from public sources or information provided by guests and other third parties that we believe to be reliable. We The Builders does not represent or warrant that such information is accurate, complete, or current and should not be relied upon as such. Views and opinions expressed are those of the individual speaker at the time of publication and may change without notice. Guest appearances, discussions of companies, or references to investors or investments should not be interpreted as endorsements by We The Builders. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethebuilders.us

Intro

I sat down with Ross Fubini, Founder and Managing Partner at XYZ Ventures. Ross has been a venture capitalist for 15 years, cofounded Village Global, and was an early investor in Anduril. XYZ now manages billions in AUM and has over 140 companies in its portfolio, 42 of them founded by ex-Palantir people.

When Anduril went to raise its A round, Ross couldn’t get firms to take a meeting. Investors were confident you couldn’t make money building products for the government.

We discuss why this moment feels like the dot com era, how AI could change where value is captured in software, what it took to back Anduril before defense was popular, and why Ross believes networks and intimacy with founders are the durable advantages in venture.

What we cover:

* Venture risk at every stage: why the pace at which dollars become relevant and irrelevant reminds Ross of the dot-com days, and what the market is now willing to believe about outcomes.

* AI and the value of software: Ross’s mom self-publishing children’s books with OpenAI, and whether AGI in software engineering means value accrues to the models.

* Backing Anduril early: knowing Palantir from the inside, why firms like Sequoia and Greylock passed on the A round, and what changed across the defense ecosystem.

* Building XYZ: why the first fund was hard to raise, finding LPs who back new firms, dollar concentration, and building compounding excellence inside a firm.

* Networks and builder DNA: asking founders who you wish you could hire, networks of networks, what Ross learned from Reid Hoffman, and what makes his partner Chauncey a builder.

Other WTB guests who are in the XYZ portfolio include Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz, Cofounder of Chapter, Ian Cinnamon, Cofounder of Apex Space and Cameron McCord, Cofounder of Nominal.

Follow on X/Twitter:

Ross Fubini: https://x.com/fubiniSuffiyan Malik: https://x.com/suffiyanmalikkWe The Builders: https://x.com/WeThe_Builders

Watch on YouTube:

Timestamps

00:00 Intro01:37 Starting out at Netscape04:59 How technology beats shift05:35 From Village Global to nine years of XYZ06:37 How venture and company building are changing09:50 How Ross's approach to venture has evolved12:25 Venture risk priced in at every stage14:35 Exit outcomes and what the market is willing to believe17:35 AI and the changing pace of creative work19:23 Ross's mom, OpenAI, and self-published children's books21:57 If software engineering gets AGI, who captures the value?24:42 Is this what verticalization looks like?27:08 Merging code and the near-term bottlenecks28:55 Government, drones, and Turbine One29:10 Backing Anduril alongside Founders Fund30:07 Ahoy Capital and the first LP31:50 Getting close to early Palantir33:18 140 companies, 42 founded by ex-Palantir people34:31 Why Anduril struggled to get access to capital37:44 What changed in the defense ecosystem41:35 Village Global, XYZ, and raising a first fund45:45 Dollar concentration and the high side of every opportunity46:55 The 10-year plan for XYZ47:22 Joy and compounding excellence in firm building51:12 Spending time with the portfolio54:49 Asking your network who you wish you could hire57:24 Learning from Reid Hoffman about networks59:15 Curiosity, empathy, and understanding people1:07:53 Chauncey and the early days of the firm1:10:59 What builder DNA looks like1:13:12 A big-fund counterexample1:17:46 Networks of networks1:21:49 A company Reid passed on1:23:26 Going deep on a thesis1:29:59 Robotics, manufacturing, and software1:32:02 Backing companies raising at high valuations1:34:56 Being intimate to founders as they scale1:36:59 Venture as a maturing asset class1:39:16 Favorite food1:40:01 Book recommendation: A Gentleman in Moscow1:43:17 What Ross is watching on HBO and Apple TV

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Intangible: One of the missions of the show is to highlight frontier technologies and the builders, investors and policymakers at the heart of technological progress. Our sponsor Intangible lets you show it before you build it. Intangible is an AI 3D studio. Frontier technology builders turn ideas into scenes they can edit and film, in minutes. No VFX shop, no six-week render queue. Visualize your moonshot product at intangible.ai

The material presented by We The Builders & Suffiyan Malik, including on its website, podcast, social media channels, newsletters, events, and other content, reflects the opinions of the hosts, guests, and contributors and is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing presented by We The Builders should be construed as investment, financial, legal, tax, or other professional advice, nor as a recommendation, offer to sell, or solicitation of an offer to buy any security, investment product, company, strategy, or asset. Discussions of companies, investments, industries, technologies, markets, or other subjects may rely on information from public sources or information provided by guests and other third parties that we believe to be reliable. We The Builders does not represent or warrant that such information is accurate, complete, or current and should not be relied upon as such. Views and opinions expressed are those of the individual speaker at the time of publication and may change without notice. Guest appearances, discussions of companies, or references to investors or investments should not be interpreted as endorsements by We The Builders. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethebuilders.us

Intro

Every product we use depends on businesses coordinating behind the scenes. A shipment moves because someone calls a carrier, confirms an appointment, checks inventory, or follows up on an email. Those small interactions add up to an enormous amount of work.

I sat down with Harish Abbott, Cofounder and CEO of Augment. He previously cofounded Deliverr, which Shopify acquired for $2.5 billion, and spent part of his early career at Amazon. He is now building AI teammates for the people who keep goods moving.

One detail from our conversation stayed with me: Harish and his cofounder spent their first 60 days on the road, shadowing customers, before writing a single line of code. Understanding an operator’s day, the interruptions, relationships, and problems that follow them home, shaped what they chose to build.

We discuss the opportunity for AI in logistics and what it takes to earn a place inside a customer’s business. We also get into fundraising, the Shopify acquisition, storytelling, and why Harish puts so much weight on curiosity and a willingness to act when hiring.

What we cover:

* The coordination tax: why moving everyday goods requires so many calls, emails, and decisions and where AI can help.

* AI as a teammate: how humans and software share information, divide responsibilities, and build trust.

* Learning the customer’s world: why Harish starts with observation and a single painful task before expanding.

* From customers to capital: building before fundraising, explaining your business through customer stories, and the path to Deliverr’s acquisition.

* Building a team that keeps improving: rewarding impact, learning quickly from failure, and adapting Amazon’s bar raiser approach.

Follow on X:

Harish Abbott on X: @habbottSuffiyan Malik on X: @suffiyanmalikkWe The Builders on X: @WeThe_Builders

Watch on YouTube

Timestamps

00:00 Intro 01:21 The hidden supply chain behind everyday goods 04:49 How wholesalers and distributors work 09:26 Why trucking is harder than ordering an Uber 14:47 How AI reduces the coordination tax 20:29 Why logistics is a multiplayer problem 24:19 Getting humans and AI to work in sync 29:00 AI coding and the verification bottleneck 32:42 Relationships, trust, and selling outcomes 37:40 Shadowing customers before writing code 40:42 Earning operators’ trust, one task at a time 45:22 How founders build culture in difficult moments 48:49 Build before you raise: advice for founders 54:08 Why attention is scarcer than capital 59:19 Storytelling and the customer who inspired Augie 1:03:30 How Shopify came to acquire Deliverr 1:07:31 Expanding into B2B distribution 1:10:10 Rewarding impact and learning from failure 1:12:49 Hiring for curiosity and a bias for action 1:15:40 Bringing Amazon’s bar raiser approach to hiring 1:19:11 Books, history, and influences 1:23:09 Why logistics shapes wars and civilizations

Brought to you by

Intangible: One of the missions of the show is to highlight frontier technologies and the builders, investors and policymakers at the heart of technological progress. Our sponsor Intangible lets you show it before you build it. Intangible is an AI 3D studio. Frontier technology builders turn ideas into scenes they can edit and film, in minutes. No VFX shop, no six-week render queue. Visualize your moonshot product at intangible.ai

The material presented by We The Builders & Suffiyan Malik, including on its website, podcast, social media channels, newsletters, events, and other content, reflects the opinions of the hosts, guests, and contributors and is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing presented by We The Builders should be construed as investment, financial, legal, tax, or other professional advice, nor as a recommendation, offer to sell, or solicitation of an offer to buy any security, investment product, company, strategy, or asset. Discussions of companies, investments, industries, technologies, markets, or other subjects may rely on information from public sources or information provided by guests and other third parties that we believe to be reliable. We The Builders does not represent or warrant that such information is accurate, complete, or current and should not be relied upon as such. Views and opinions expressed are those of the individual speaker at the time of publication and may change without notice. Guest appearances, discussions of companies, or references to investors or investments should not be interpreted as endorsements by We The Builders. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethebuilders.us

Intro

This is my first conversation with Chris Buskirk, Cofounder and Chief Investment Officer at 1789 Capital and author of America and the Art of the Possible. We explore his investment thesis for American renewal: backing technological innovation, rebuilding industry, and creating the conditions for a thriving middle class. We discuss defense tech, China, political conviction, charter cities, and what the people at the top of society owe the country.

What we cover:

• Inside 1789 Capital: the ambition to build a multi-strategy asset manager and why Chris backed defense technology before it became a popular investment category.• Reindustrializing America: critical minerals, dependence on China, and why rebuilding manufacturing requires capital and supportive policy.• Politics and investing: whether alignment with an administration creates risk, and why Chris believes key parts of reindustrialization have bipartisan support.• Charter cities, aristocracy, and oligarchy: why Chris thinks building a new city may not be ambitious enough, and what distinguishes public-minded leadership from extraction.• The cultural conditions for progress: resisting excessive risk aversion, preserving the freedom to fail, and bringing people together around a meaningful purpose.

Follow on X/Twitter:

Chris Buskirk: https://x.com/thechrisbuskirkSuffiyan Malik: https://x.com/suffiyanmalikkWe The Builders: https://x.com/WeThe_Builders

Watch on YouTube

Timestamps

00:00 Introducing Chris Buskirk00:52 One project: renewing America02:55 Why the middle class is the measure of national health05:08 The master plan for 1789 Capital06:35 A generational shift in asset management08:45 Technological stagnation and the search for fundamental innovation12:46 Investing in defense tech before it was popular15:07 Rebuilding America’s manufacturing capacity16:10 China, trade, and American industrial policy19:12 Tariffs, critical minerals, and forcing China’s hand20:32 Why reindustrialization needs more than venture capital22:23 The risks of mixing politics and investing25:38 Political conviction versus hedging your bets26:15 Can reindustrialization survive a change in administration?30:20 Deregulation and letting builders build32:13 The case for charter cities33:56 Why charter cities may not be ambitious enough36:06 Brasília and the challenges of building new cities39:05 Why cities need an economic reason to exist41:34 Singapore and the modern city-state42:25 Aristocracy versus oligarchy: who should lead?45:28 Identifying talent and encouraging public responsibility47:40 How stagnation creates a scarcity mindset49:11 Exporting the American dream53:26 Innovation, concentrated power, and national decline56:25 Meritocracy, gatekeeping, and the cities that attract talent58:44 How AI brought talent back to San Francisco59:49 “Sociopathic risk aversion” and the freedom to fail1:03:20 Rockbridge and the art of convening people1:06:00 Why a gathering needs a meaningful purpose1:08:14 Rituals, community, and serving the people you bring together1:10:43 Chris’s favorite meal and fasting routine

Brought to you by

Intangible: One of the missions of the show is to highlight frontier technologies and the builders, investors and policymakers at the heart of technological progress. Our sponsor Intangible lets you show it before you build it. Intangible is an AI 3D studio. Frontier technology builders turn ideas into scenes they can edit and film, in minutes. No VFX shop, no six-week render queue. Visualize your moonshot product at intangible.ai

The material presented by We The Builders & Suffiyan Malik, including on its website, podcast, social media channels, newsletters, events, and other content, reflects the opinions of the hosts, guests, and contributors and is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing presented by We The Builders should be construed as investment, financial, legal, tax, or other professional advice, nor as a recommendation, offer to sell, or solicitation of an offer to buy any security, investment product, company, strategy, or asset. Discussions of companies, investments, industries, technologies, markets, or other subjects may rely on information from public sources or information provided by guests and other third parties that we believe to be reliable. We The Builders does not represent or warrant that such information is accurate, complete, or current and should not be relied upon as such. Views and opinions expressed are those of the individual speaker at the time of publication and may change without notice. Guest appearances, discussions of companies, or references to investors or investments should not be interpreted as endorsements by We The Builders. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethebuilders.us

Intro

This is my first conversation with Ali Tamaseb, General Partner at DCVC, a $5B AUM fund and author of Super Founders. Ali spent years studying billion dollar startups to understand what separates their founders from the rest. We discuss the myths around age, education, cofounders, and industry experience and what the data reveals about building exceptional companies.What we cover:

* The young founder myth: why age alone doesn’t predict success, and what Ali’s research reveals about billion-dollar founders.

* Why repeat founders have an advantage and the early signs of ambition, resourcefulness, and a drive to build.

* Inside the Super Founders Club: a network of 750 founders who become each other’s customers, cofounders, and investors.

* How successful startups enter crowded markets, differentiate their products, and start with a small niche before expanding.

* The myths around cofounders, technical backgrounds, and industry experience and why trust, customer understanding, and knowing when to pivot matter.

Follow the guest and host on X:Ali Tamaseb: https://x.com/alitamasebSuffiyan Malik: https://x.com/suffiyanmalikkWe The Builders: https://x.com/WeThe_Builders

Watch on YouTube:

Timestamps

00:00 Highlights00:40 Introducing Ali Tamaseb01:34 The young founder myth06:57 Why your investors matter10:34 Peter Thiel, competition, and crowded markets13:36 Start small, think big15:16 What creates a startup moat?18:58 Customer relationships as an advantage22:14 What makes a “Super Founder”?24:20 Why startup success isn’t random27:59 Venture capital is a network business33:07 Inside the Super Founders Club37:29 Building a community of exceptional founders45:57 How VCs compete for the best founders49:54 Do degrees and university brands matter?57:19 Do you really need a cofounder?1:00:00 Super founders in AI, defense, and deep tech1:03:02 Great founders versus great markets1:06:46 Finding your wedge in a massive market1:09:25 Technical versus nontechnical founders1:12:00 Does industry experience matter?1:16:56 Customer discovery and knowing when to pivot1:18:28 The risks of backing repeat founders1:23:38 Researching and writing Super Founders1:27:21 Selling a book through networks1:31:35 What bestseller lists get wrong1:34:49 Will AI change the founder playbook?1:36:13 Why quantum is a defense bet1:37:50 Book recommendation and Persian food

Brought to you by

Intangible: One of the missions of the show is to highlight frontier technologies and the builders, investors and policymakers at the heart of technological progress. Our sponsor Intangible lets you show it before you build it. Intangible is an AI 3D studio. Frontier technology builders turn ideas into scenes they can edit and film, in minutes. No VFX shop, no six-week render queue. Visualize your moonshot product at intangible.ai

The material presented by We The Builders & Suffiyan Malik, including on its website, podcast, social media channels, newsletters, events, and other content, reflects the opinions of the hosts, guests, and contributors and is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing presented by We The Builders should be construed as investment, financial, legal, tax, or other professional advice, nor as a recommendation, offer to sell, or solicitation of an offer to buy any security, investment product, company, strategy, or asset. Discussions of companies, investments, industries, technologies, markets, or other subjects may rely on information from public sources or information provided by guests and other third parties that we believe to be reliable. We The Builders does not represent or warrant that such information is accurate, complete, or current and should not be relied upon as such. Views and opinions expressed are those of the individual speaker at the time of publication and may change without notice. Guest appearances, discussions of companies, or references to investors or investments should not be interpreted as endorsements by We The Builders. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit wethebuilders.us