The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

<p><strong>Special Guest: Nikesh Arora, CEO @ Palo Alto Networks. </strong></p> <p><span style= "text-decoration: underline;"><strong>AGENDA:</strong></span></p> <p>04:50 Airtable Sold to Bending Spoons for $1.285B <br data-start="154" data-end="157" /> 17:00 Leo Aschenbrenner's Situational Awareness Blows Up as Citadel Buys His $16BN Book<br data-start="243" data-end="246" /> 22:30 Anthropic's AI Models Breach Three Companies as Cyber Threat Accelerates<br data-start="324" data-end="327" /> 33:35 Moonshot AI Raises $3.5B at $35B as Chinese Models Crush AI Prices<br data-start="399" data-end="402" /> 38:05 Valar Atomics Triples to $6B as Sequoia Bets on Nuclear Power for AI<br data-start="476" data-end="479" /> 42:50 OpenAI and Anthropic Could Trigger a Massive Public-Market Dislocation<br data-start="555" data-end="558" /> 52:55 Big Tech and Palantir Earnings Ignite the Next Phase of the AI Gold Rush<br data-start="636" data-end="639" /> 1:04:30 Procore Buys DroneDeploy for $900M in a High-Stakes 12x Revenue Bet<br data-start="714" data-end="717" /> 1:10:55 Scale AI Hits $1.5B ARR After the Meta Deal Left It for Dead</p> <p> </p>

<p dir="ltr">Anastasios Angelopoulos is the co-founder and CEO of Arena, the real-world evaluation platform that has become a leading referee of the global AI model race. Arena has raised $250 million, with the latest round valuing the company at $1.7BN. <a href= "https://news.lmarena.ai/series-a/?utm_source=chatgpt.com"></a>Arena recently surpassed $100M ARR just eight months after launching its enterprise offering, powered by more than 30 million monthly users.</p> <p dir="ltr">AGENDA:</p> <p dir="ltr">00:00 – Intro: "Kimi beat every American model": What Nobody Wants to Admit…</p> <p dir="ltr">05:20 – Is this the true commoditization of models? Are they just a utility layer now?</p> <p dir="ltr">07:30 – Do Chinese open source models cannibalize the closed frontier labs?</p> <p dir="ltr">10:30 – Why has America's open source community lagged so badly behind China?</p> <p dir="ltr">17:20 – Will Chinese models be banned in the US — and does hosting locally really kill the backdoor risk?</p> <p dir="ltr">23:20 – Are enterprises really terrified of working with the frontier labs?</p> <p dir="ltr">27:20 – Why hasn't inference got cheaper — and what happens when Anthropic's "disgustingly high" margins go public?</p> <p dir="ltr">30:20 – Who should decide if a model is safe to release: the government, a neutral body, or nobody?</p> <p dir="ltr">33:10 – Are we about to see cyberattacks like we've never seen before? (The fake candidate who passed every interview)</p> <p dir="ltr">37:00 – 75 Neo labs: what separates the winners from the two-thirds worth nothing?</p> <p dir="ltr">40:45 – Is data actually a commodity — and can data providers be $100BN companies?</p> <p dir="ltr">48:00 – Can you be the referee when the players are paying you? (And Arena's real revenue)</p> <p dir="ltr">50:45 – Will the model providers eat the application layer? Are Harvey, Lagora and Figma in trouble?</p> <p dir="ltr">54:10 – Quickfire: Why hasn't NVIDIA bounced on the rise of open source, who hits $10 trillion first, and does the compute debt cycle end in insolvency?</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> <p> </p>

<p dir="ltr">Joon Sung Park is the Founder and CEO of Simile, the AI simulation company building foundation models of human behaviour; allowing companies to test how real people may think, decide and act before making a decision in the real world. Simile has now raised $300 million in total, including a $200 million Series B announced last week at a $2 billion valuation, led by Greenoaks and Index Ventures.</p> <p dir="ltr">AGENDA:</p> <p dir="ltr">00:00 We Will Pay $100M for a Single Query on Some Models</p> <p dir="ltr">10:00 Why Stock Markets May Not Exist in 5 Years Time</p> <p dir="ltr">15:00 The Best Companies All Have Unique Data Acquisition Strategies</p> <p dir="ltr">19:00 The Best AI Companies Have Clear and Fast Reward Functions</p> <p dir="ltr">24:00 How We Sign Fortune 500 Companies for $10M Contracts in Weeks</p> <p dir="ltr">32:00 Does Similie Kill Kalshi and Polymarket? Prediction vs Changing the Future</p> <p dir="ltr">42:00 Inside Similie's $300M Raise; What Every Founder Needs to Know</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> <p> </p>

<p><span style= "text-decoration: underline;"><strong>AGENDA:</strong></span></p> <p>05:00 Jensen's Open-Weights Letter Puts Anthropic on an Island<br data-start="62" data-end="65" /> 10:00 OpenAI's Model Targets Hugging Face in a Cyber-Security Scare<br data-start="198" data-end="201" /> 18:00 America's Open-Model Push Accelerates as China Looms Large<br data-start="265" data-end="268" /> 30:00 Etched Raises $300M to Take on Nvidia<br data-start="311" data-end="314" /> 34:00 Google Cloud Grows 82%—So Why Did the Market Panic?<br data-start="371" data-end="374" /> 41:00 Travis Kalanick Raises $1.7B for Atoms and Physical AI<br data-start="434" data-end="437" /> 51:00 Francisco Partners Raises $21B: Can Private Equity Still Save SaaS?<br data-start="510" data-end="513" /> 1:00:00 Mark Pincus Says Quit When It's Too Hard—Jason Lemkin Erupts<br data-start="581" data-end="584" /> 1:07:00 Stripe vs Revolut: Which $100B+ Fintech Would You Own?</p> <p> </p> <p> </p>

<p>Matt Murphy is a Partner at Menlo Ventures, who just raised $3 billion in fresh capital, its largest pool ever. Matt's portfolio includes Anthropic, Lovable, Legora, OpenRouter, Chai Discovery, Axiom, OpenEvidence and more.</p> <p><span style= "text-decoration: underline;"><strong>AGENDA: </strong></span></p> <p>00:00 Why Menlo Broke All Its Investing Rules to Back Anthropic<br data-start="63" data-end="66" /> 09:00 Why Ownership Matters Less in an Outlier-Driven Venture Market<br data-start="134" data-end="137" /> 13:00 Do We Have an SPV Problem in Venture Today?<br data-start= "186" data-end="189" /> 20:00 Do Margins Still Matter in AI?<br data-start="225" data-end= "228" /> 23:00 Why Open Source Won't Derail Anthropic's Growth<br data-start="281" data-end="284" /> 26:00 Does Every Model Provider Need to Build Its Own Chips?<br data-start="344" data-end="347" /> 29:00 Why Anthropic Is Not a Threat to Legora<br data-start="392" data-end="395" /> 32:00 Why Series A Is the Hardest Place to Invest Today<br data-start="450" data-end="453" /> 36:00 Why Signalling Is B.S. and Every Fund Is Going Full Stack<br data-start="516" data-end="519" /> 42:00 Why Building a Company in Europe Is Hard Mode<br data-start= "570" data-end="573" /> 47:00 Why Triple-Triple-Double-Double Is No Longer Venture-Scale Growth</p> <p> </p>

<p class="PDq2pG_selectionAnchorContainer" data-start="0" data-end= "136">Osvald Nitski is the Chief Product Officer at Mercor, the AI-training and expert-data marketplace powering frontier-model development. Mercor last raised a $350 million Series C at a $10 billion valuation, and is reportedly in discussions for a new round at a $20 billion valuation. Mercor crossed $2BN in ARR in June; doubling from $1 billion in only four months.</p> <p><span style= "text-decoration: underline;"><strong>AGENDA: </strong></span></p> <p data-start="0" data-end="65">00:04:00 Will open-source models kill the data-provider business?</p> <p data-start="67" data-end="148">00:07:00 Are enterprises still terrified of working with frontier model companies?</p> <p data-start="150" data-end="219">00:09:00 Does every company end up with its own specialised AI model?</p> <p data-start="221" data-end="277">00:10:00 Do enterprises actually have an AI ROI problem?</p> <p data-start="279" data-end="361">00:11:00 How should founders balance AI performance against exploding token bills?</p> <p data-start="363" data-end="437">00:14:00 Does AI mean product teams build 10x more—or ruthlessly simplify?</p> <p data-start="439" data-end="522">00:15:00 What does it now take to be a great product manager in an AI-native world?</p> <p data-start="524" data-end="604">00:20:00 Is the boom in AI services and forward-deployed engineers here to stay?</p> <p data-start="606" data-end="689">00:37:00 Can Mercor escape its dependence on a handful of frontier-model customers?</p> <p data-start="691" data-end="769">00:47:00 Are AI-generated code and agents creating a cybersecurity arms race?</p> <p data-start="771" data-end="830" data-is-last-node="" data-is-only-node="">00:56:00 When will robotics have its real "ChatGPT moment"?</p> <p data-start="771" data-end="830" data-is-last-node="" data-is-only-node=""> </p>

<p><span style= "text-decoration: underline;"><strong>AGENDA:</strong></span></p> <p>00:04 China's Kimi and Qwen Put Frontier AI on Notice<span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong><br data-start="53" data-end="56" /></strong></span>00:08 Washington Debates Whether Chinese AI Models Should Be Banned<br data-start="123" data-end= "126" /> 00:17 Can America Build a Profitable Open-Weight AI Champion?<br data-start="187" data-end="190" /> 00:21 OpenRouter's Moment: Is This the Perfect Time to Sell?<br data-start="250" data-end="253" /> 00:31 Fireworks' $1.5B Raise Signals the Real AI Money Is in Infrastructure<br data-start="328" data-end="331" /> 00:39 Why Every Great AI App May Need to Build Its Own Model<br data-start="391" data-end="394" /> 00:50 Stripe's Bold Play to Buy PayPal<br data-start="432" data-end="435" /> 01:01 The AI Funding Frenzy: Why Late-Stage Venture Is Winning<br data-start="497" data-end="500" /> 01:12 Nuclear Startups Go Wild While Databricks and Stripe Stay Private<br data-start="571" data-end="574" /> 01:15 The AI Supply Chain War: TSMC, ASML, DRAM—and Nvidia's Next Move</p> <p> </p>

<p dir="ltr">Lin Qiao is the Co-Founder and CEO of Fireworks AI, the leading specialized intelligence and AI inference platform that last week raised $1.5BN at a whopping $17BN valuation. With just 200 people, the company has hit $1BN in ARR and expects to hit $2BN before the end of the year. Prior to Fireworks, Lin spent several years at Meta including on the founding team of PyTorch. </p> <p dir="ltr"><span style= "text-decoration: underline;"><strong>AGENDA:</strong></span></p> <p dir="ltr">00:07 — Why Did Fireworks Bet on Inference When Everyone Else Was Chasing Training?</p> <p dir="ltr">00:13 — Can Open-Source Models Turn AI Infrastructure into a Commodity?</p> <p dir="ltr">00:19 — Should Enterprises Trust Chinese Open Models With Their Most Sensitive Data?</p> <p dir="ltr">00:25 — Will Model Progress Keep Moving This Fast—or Are We Nearing a Plateau?</p> <p dir="ltr">00:28 — Will the Multi-Model World Create a $100BN Routing Layer?</p> <p dir="ltr">00:37 — How Much Will AI Token Usage Explode Over the Next Two Years?</p> <p dir="ltr">00:43 — Will Token Costs Fall 10x—and Unleash 100x More Demand?</p> <p dir="ltr">00:49 — Does Fireworks Eventually Have to Build Its Own Data Centres?</p> <p dir="ltr">01:02 — What Is the Real Bottleneck Holding Back the AI Economy?</p> <p> </p>

<p dir="ltr">Fred Turner is the Founder and CEO @ Curative, one of the wildest stories in tech. Fred scaled a COVID testing business from $0 to $5BN in revenue and took the team from 7 to 7,000 employees in just 9 months. They did over 206,000 COVID tests in a single day and signed contracts in the 100s of $Ms with several of the largest states. Today, Curative is a unicorn health insurance business taking on the incumbents for one of the largest markets in healthcare. </p> <p dir="ltr">AGENDA:</p> <p dir="ltr">00:00 How Did a Spare-Time COVID Test Become a $5BN Business?</p> <p dir="ltr">07:00 How Do You Go From Testing Cows to STDs, Sepsis and COVID?</p> <p dir="ltr">21:00 When Did Fred Realise COVID Was Massive—and How Did Curative Scale to $5BN?</p> <p dir="ltr">36:00 Why Pivot Into Health Insurance—and What Is Broken About US Healthcare?</p> <p dir="ltr">40:00 How Is AI Rebuilding Curative—and Which Departments Go to Zero?</p> <p dir="ltr">45:00 Is SaaS Dead? Why Is Curative Cutting 80% of Its Software Spend?</p> <p dir="ltr">48:00 Are Legacy Insurers Screwed? What Will Anthropic Be Worth in Three Years?</p> <p dir="ltr">59:00 Will AI Make Companies Smaller? Which Jobs Will Survive?</p> <p dir="ltr">1:10:00 Why Nuclear—and Could Subcritical Become Bigger Than Curative?</p> <p dir="ltr">1:17:00 What Have Marriage and Fatherhood Taught Fred? What Has He Changed His Mind On?</p> <p> </p> <p> </p>

<p>AGENDA:</p> <ul> <li data-section-id="i3csvq" data-start="271" data-end="339">00:00 – Apple SUES OpenAI: Did They Steal Apple's Biggest Secrets?</li> <li data-section-id="vlt3fd" data-start="340" data-end="393">05:10 – Is OpenAI's $6BN Hardware Bet Already Dead?</li> <li data-section-id="y4hotb" data-start="394" data-end="452">12:50 – Zuckerberg Is Back: Meta Finally Takes On OpenAI</li> <li data-section-id="1j3tmnu" data-start="453" data-end="509">18:05 – The AI Spending Bubble Nobody Is Talking About</li> <li data-section-id="1nhh2i0" data-start="510" data-end="576">23:45 – Claude Is Coming for Designers, Product Managers & Figma</li> <li data-section-id="hpaun6" data-start="577" data-end="645">27:15 – Anthropic's $50BN Explosion: Have We Already Hit AI's TAM?</li> <li data-section-id="1secxhu" data-start="646" data-end="701">36:00 – The $26BN AI IPO Powering the Entire Industry</li> <li data-section-id="qkfj8u" data-start="702" data-end="768">40:00 – Seed Investing Is Dead? Jason Calacanis Changes Strategy</li> <li data-section-id="10uzlf9" data-start="769" data-end="832">57:00 – SaaS Is in Trouble: AI Is Accelerating Terminal Decay</li> <li data-section-id="rwwd13" data-start="833" data-end="895"> 01:15:00 – Why Greylock Said No to Billions of Extra Dollars</li> </ul> <p> </p>

<p dir="ltr">Avishai Abrahami is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wix, the NASDAQ-listed website creation platform serving millions of businesses worldwide. Today, Wix generates more than $2BN in ARR and has a market capitalization of approximately $2.1BN, after reaching a peak valuation of $17BN over the past two years. The company also acquired Base44, one of the fastest-growing AI application-building platforms, scaling it to $150M in ARR in record time.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span style= "text-decoration: underline;"><strong>AGENDA:</strong></span></p> <p dir="ltr">00:00 The SaaS Apocalypse: What Does Wall Street Still Not Understand About Wix?</p> <p dir="ltr">07:00 Is the Market Valuing Wix's Core Business at Less Than Zero?</p> <p dir="ltr">12:55 Will AI Kill Wix... or Make Base44 Bigger Than the Entire Company?</p> <p dir="ltr">19:15 "You Are NOT Going to Vibe Code Shopify" — Why Everyone Is Getting AI Wrong</p> <p dir="ltr">23:00 Would You Really Pay $80M for a One-Person Startup?</p> <p dir="ltr">24:15 The Buyback Disaster: Would Avishai Do It All Again?</p> <p dir="ltr">31:00 Why Every AI Customer Support Startup Keeps Failing (According to Wix)</p> <p dir="ltr">37:00 Should a 22-Year-Old Still Learn to Code in the Age of AI?</p> <p dir="ltr">42:20 Has AI Been Overhyped? Avishai's Most Controversial Prediction Yet</p> <p dir="ltr">49:00 The Hardest Lessons on Leadership, Marriage & Building Through Chaos</p> <p> </p>

<p>Arvind Jain is the Founder & CEO of Glean, the enterprise AI leader valued at $7.2 billion after raising more than $770 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins, DST Global, and more. Before Glean, Arvind co-founded Rubrik, helping build it into one of the world's leading cloud infrastructure companies before its successful IPO. Prior to that, he spent over a decade at Google as a Distinguished Engineer, working across Search, Maps, and YouTube.</p> <p><span style= "text-decoration: underline;"><strong>AGENDA:</strong></span></p> <p>00:00 – The Shocking Truth About Frontier AI: 90% Is Already a Commodity<br data-start="98" data-end="101" data-is-only-node="" /> 02:04 – Can OpenAI & Anthropic Own Enterprise AI? The Battle for the Workplace Begins<br data-start="190" data-end="193" /> 10:18 – Will OpenAI and Anthropic Win the App Layer<br data-start= "276" data-end="279" /> 18:03 – Microsoft Is the Real Enemy… Not OpenAI?<br data-start= "331" data-end="334" /> 20:53 – "Where's the ROI?" Why Enterprises Are Starting to Question the AI Hype<br data-start="417" data-end="420" /> 26:00 – Will AI Replace Your Job? Harry & Arvind's Heated Clash Over the Future of Work<br data-start="511" data-end="514" /> 33:43 – The Billion-Dollar Mistake Every AI Company Is Making on Token Spend<br data-start="594" data-end="597" /> 39:20 – The AI Land Grab Is On: Why Founders Must Move Now or Lose Forever<br data-start="675" data-end="678" /> 42:20 – China vs America: Who Really Wins the AI Race?<br data-start="736" data-end="739" /> 47:20 – Rapid Fire: The Future of Computer Science, Hiring, Fundraising & AI's Biggest Winners</p> <p> </p>

<p>AGENDA:</p> <p>05:00 Washington Just Put Frontier AI on a Leash<br data-start= "242" data-end="245" /> 06:30 Sam Altman's Wild 5% Government Stake Idea<br data-start= "293" data-end="296" /> 19:00 The AI Funding Bubble: Why Founders No Longer Fear Dilution<br data-start="361" data-end="364" /> 28:00 Alex Karp's Brutal Warning: Enterprises Don't Trust Frontier AI<br data-start="433" data-end="436" /> 33:00 Meta's Shock Pivot: Has Zuck Accidentally Built the Next CoreWeave?<br data-start="509" data-end="512" /> 41:00 Nvidia's Dangerous New Game: "Compute Now, Pay Later"<br data-start="571" data-end="574" /> 45:00 Anthropic & DeepSeek Go After Nvidia's Crown<br data-start="624" data-end="627" /> 48:00 Kling vs Sora: Did China Just Win AI Video?<br data-start= "676" data-end="679" /> 52:00 Is China Secretly Winning the Open Source AI War?<br data-start="734" data-end="737" /> 01:02:00 Microsoft & Amazon's $6B Bet: AI Still Needs Humans<br data-start="799" data-end="802" /> 01:11:00 Ashton Kutcher Walks Away From Sound Ventures<br data-start="856" data-end="859" /> 01:16:00 The New Startup Talent War: No Liquidity, No Chance<br data-start="919" data-end="922" /> 01:20:00 Final Thoughts: Who Wins the AI Endgame?</p>

<p dir="ltr">Mike Mignano is a General Partner at Union Square Ventures, one of the most iconic venture firms in the world, whose investments include Coinbase, Stripe, Etsy, Twilio, Cloudflare. Before joining USV, Mike was a Partner at Lightspeed, where he backed breakout AI companies including Granola and Suno. Prior to investing, he co-founded Anchor, acquired by Spotify. </p> <p dir="ltr"><span style= "text-decoration: underline;"><strong>AGENDA:</strong></span></p> <p dir="ltr">00:00 Is Fear of Failure the Secret Weapon Behind Great Founders?</p> <p dir="ltr">07:20 Why Leave Lightspeed for USV — and Is Thesis-Driven Venture Still Alive?</p> <p dir="ltr">09:50 Is the Real AI Money Still in Infrastructure, or Are Apps Finally About to Explode?</p> <p dir="ltr">13:00 Who Wins the AI Model War: OpenAI, Anthropic, Open Source, or the "Rebel Alliance"?</p> <p dir="ltr">19:00 Are We About to Hand Our Entire Lives Over to AI Agents?</p> <p dir="ltr">21:00 Can Anthropic Keep Growing Like This — or Will Token Spend Break the Model?</p> <p dir="ltr">26:00 Can AI Routing Become a $50BN Company, or Is It Just a Commodity Pipe?</p> <p dir="ltr">30:00 Will the AI Energy Crisis Create the Next Monster Venture Outcomes?</p> <p dir="ltr">36:00 Can Startups Survive Microsoft, OpenAI, and the Brutal Power of Bundling?</p> <p dir="ltr">45:00 Should VCs Ignore Price When Backing Generational Companies?</p> <p dir="ltr">55:30 Is Traditional Media Dead — and Who Becomes the New Tech Kingmaker?</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> <p> </p>

<p dir="ltr">Clay Bavor is the Co-Founder of Sierra, one of the world's fastest-growing enterprise AI companies. Sierra is valued at approximately $15.8 billion, has raised more than $1.5BN from leading investors including Sequoia, Benchmark, Greenoaks, GV and Tiger Global, and today serves more than 40% of the Fortune 50. The company recently surpassed $150 ARR, making it one of the fastest-growing enterprise software businesses in history.</p> <p dir="ltr">AGENDA:</p> <p dir="ltr">00:00 – Why Frontier AI Demand Will Be Unlimited</p> <p dir="ltr">08:00 – Open Models vs Frontier Models: Who Actually Wins?</p> <p dir="ltr">17:00 – China's AI Advantage & The Distillation Debate</p> <p dir="ltr">20:30 – Inside Sierra: The AI Agents Running the Entire Company</p> <p dir="ltr">24:00 – The $100,000 Token Budget Every Engineer Will Soon Need</p> <p dir="ltr">29:00 – Building AI for 40% of the Fortune 50</p> <p dir="ltr">37:00 – Why Forward-Deployed Engineers Are the Future of Enterprise AI</p> <p dir="ltr">43:00 – Sierra's Unusual Board Meetings & Billion-Dollar Company Playbook</p> <p dir="ltr">48:00 – The Four Values Behind a $16B Startup: Craftsmanship, Intensity & Family</p> <p dir="ltr">56:00 – Clay Bavor's Hiring Philosophy, AI-First Teams & What's Coming Next</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p>

<p dir="ltr"><span style= "text-decoration: underline;"><strong>AGENDA:</strong></span></p> <p dir="ltr">00:00 Coinbase Slashes AI Spend 50%—Is the AI Token Bubble Bursting?</p> <p dir="ltr">12:55 Anthropic Warns Open Source Could Destroy the AI Business Model</p> <p dir="ltr">18:10 Dario Escalates the AI War with China & Open-Source</p> <p dir="ltr">22:00 Should the US Ban Chinese AI Models?</p> <p dir="ltr">33:15 Microsoft's AI Strategy Is Breaking Down</p> <p dir="ltr">38:00 Kalshi's $40B Valuation Signals a New Consumer Gold Rush</p> <p dir="ltr">41:15 Has SpaceX Frozen the AI IPO Market?</p> <p dir="ltr">43:20 Why Bending Spoons May Be the Smartest IPO of the Year</p> <p dir="ltr">46:00 The $100B Opportunity to Buy Broken SaaS Companies</p> <p dir="ltr">53:30 Which Software Companies Would Jason Buy Tomorrow?</p> <p dir="ltr">1:04:30 The Great AI Talent War Is About to Get Worse</p> <p dir="ltr">1:11:20 Every Company Is Becoming an AI Company—or Dying</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> <p> </p>

<p dir="ltr">KR Sridhar is the Founder and CEO of Bloom Energy, the distributed power company powering the AI revolution. Under his leadership, Bloom has grown to a market cap of approximately $93 billion, with revenue surpassing $2 billion as demand from AI data centres has surged. Over the last 12–18 months, Bloom has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI infrastructure boom. It's also the largest position in Leo Aschenbrenner's investment portfolio, making up around 16% of his fund.</p> <p dir="ltr"><span style= "text-decoration: underline;"><strong>AGENDA:</strong></span></p> <p dir="ltr">00:00 Why Failure Is Never an Option: The Mindset That Built a $90B Company</p> <p dir="ltr">05:20 The 25-Year Bet: Why Bloom Never Doubted AI Would Need Its Technology</p> <p dir="ltr">12:10 Andy Grove's Brutal Leadership Lesson That Changed Everything</p> <p dir="ltr">18:40 AI Isn't a Bubble—It's a "Hockey Stick on a Hockey Stick"</p> <p dir="ltr">25:30 Why Electricity, Not AI Models, Will Decide the Winners of the AI Race</p> <p dir="ltr">34:20 The Radical Vision: Why Power Must Move to the Edge of the Grid</p> <p dir="ltr">40:40 How Bloom Beat Everyone to Power Oracle's AI Data Centres in Just 55 Days</p> <p dir="ltr">50:00 The Future of Cities, Energy Sovereignty & Why AI Will Democratise Power</p> <p dir="ltr">52:10 Parenting, Purpose & the One Belief KR Thinks Everyone Gets Wrong About AI</p> <p dir="ltr">55:00 The Next 10 Years: Why AI Could Create Global Energy Abundance</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> <p> </p>

<p dir="ltr">Paul Erlanger is the Co-Founder and CEO of FOMO, the social-first trading platform building the future of on-chain investing. Since founding the company in 2025, Paul has raised approximately $94 million, including a $17 million Series A led by Benchmark and a $75 million Series B led by Index Ventures with participation from USV, valuing the company at $550 million. Today, FOMO has grown to 600,000 users, processed over $4 billion in trading volume, and is adding thousands of new users every day—all with a team of just 17 people.</p> <p dir="ltr">AGENDA: </p> <p dir="ltr">00:00 – Building a $550M Company with No Salaries, No Managers & No 1:1s</p> <p dir="ltr">03:58 – Why Traditional Brokerages Will Lose in the Next 10 Years</p> <p dir="ltr">09:30 – Why Robinhood's Strategy Is Wrong; The End of the Financial Super App? </p> <p dir="ltr">13:05 – "Markets Aren't a Casino" — The Case for Retail Investors Fighting Wall Street</p> <p dir="ltr">16:45 – The Radical Hiring Bet: Giving Employees Founder-Level Equity</p> <p dir="ltr">23:40 – AI Kills Org Charts: Why FOMO Will Stay Under 25 Employees</p> <p dir="ltr">29:30 – Why Taste Beats AI & The Biggest Mistake Most Consumer Startups Make</p> <p dir="ltr">33:10 – The Social Media Playbook That Every Startup Gets Wrong</p> <p dir="ltr">39:20 – How Benchmark, Index & USV Won the Deal—and the VC Advice Founders Need to Hear</p> <p dir="ltr">46:10 – The Future of Investing: Social Trading, Creator Economies & Financial Networks</p> <p> </p>

<p>AGENDA:</p> <p class="PDq2pG_selectionAnchorContainer" data-start="0" data-end= "68">00:00 – Google Loses Two AI Legends as Anthropic Wins the Talent War</p> <p data-start="70" data-end="132">14:45 – China's $50B DeepSeek Bet Changes the AI Power Balance</p> <p data-start="134" data-end="206">27:15 – AI's Memory Crisis Has Begun — Apple Warns of a '100-Year Flood'</p> <p data-start="208" data-end="284">30:00 – Wall Street Finally Asks the $725 Billion Question: Who Pays for AI?</p> <p data-start="286" data-end="350">41:00 – We Built an AI Finance VP... and It's Better Than Humans</p> <p data-start="352" data-end="432">46:30 – The Death of Moats? Why Founders Should Stop Talking About Defensibility</p> <p data-start="434" data-end="494">58:30 – Databricks, ServiceNow & the New AI Software Winners</p> <p data-start="496" data-end="541">01:07:00 – The Seat-Based SaaS Model Is Dying</p> <p data-start="543" data-end="610">01:12:00 – OpenAI's Custom Models Could Rewrite Enterprise Software</p> <p data-start="612" data-end="708" data-is-last-node="" data-is-only-node="">01:17:00 – OpenAI's Biggest Threat Isn't Anthropic Anymore</p> <p data-start="612" data-end="708" data-is-last-node="" data-is-only-node=""> </p>

<p dir="ltr">Nikesh Arora is the Chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, the global cybersecurity leader. Since taking over in 2018, he has transformed the company from an $18 billion market cap business into one worth more than $225BN with more than 21,000 employees globally. Previously, Nikesh was President and COO of SoftBank, where he worked alongside Masayoshi Son and helped shape the firm's technology investment strategy. </p> <p dir="ltr">AGENDA:</p> <p dir="ltr">00:00 Why AI Token Prices Will Fall 90% — And Why That's Bullish for AI</p> <p dir="ltr">07:40 The Frontier Model Problem: Breadth vs Depth in AI</p> <p dir="ltr">11:30 Most Enterprises Are Using AI Completely Wrong</p> <p dir="ltr">13:10 Why AI Could Cut Marketing, HR & Finance Teams in Half</p> <p dir="ltr">16:00 AI Applications Will Have Opinions — SaaS Never Did</p> <p dir="ltr">20:00 OpenAI, Anthropic & The Most Important Valuation Question in Tech</p> <p dir="ltr">24:00 The Real Business Model of AI: Transaction Revenue Beats Advertising</p> <p dir="ltr">25:10 Why Token Prices Must Collapse</p> <p dir="ltr">28:20 Where Value Actually Accrues in AI: Models, Memory or Apps?</p> <p dir="ltr">29:00 Why Memory Becomes the Biggest Moat in AI</p> <p dir="ltr">32:00 Why Every Enterprise Should Be Scared Right Now</p> <p dir="ltr">33:15 Should Governments Regulate Frontier AI Models?</p> <p dir="ltr">37:10 Why Brian Armstrong's AI-First Playbook Doesn't Work Everywhere</p> <p dir="ltr">40:00 The Biggest AI Mistake CEOs Are Making Today</p> <p dir="ltr">42:00 How Nikesh Creates Darwinian Competition Inside Palo Alto</p> <p dir="ltr">43:00 Do AI Companies Really Need Forward-Deployed Engineers?</p> <p dir="ltr">45:00 Why Enterprise AI Products Still Aren't Ready</p> <p dir="ltr">52:00 Systems of Record vs Systems of Intelligence: The Future of Software</p> <p dir="ltr">54:00 Why AI Applications Will Replace Traditional SaaS Workflows</p> <p dir="ltr">58:00 What Nikesh Learned From Google That Still Matters Today</p> <p dir="ltr">1:04:00 From $200 and Two Suitcases to Running a $225B Company</p> <p dir="ltr">1:10:00 Happiness, Gratitude and Why Tomorrow Matters More Than Ten Years From Now</p> <p dir="ltr"> </p> <p> </p>