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

Satya Nadella is the CEO of Microsoft and one of the greatest CEOs of our time. Satya has been at the company for an astonishing 34 years. When he joined, Microsoft had a market cap of $23.5BN. 22 years later, the company was worth $300BN. At this point, Satya took the reins as CEO. Under his leadership, he has taken it from $300BN to $3.9TRN. AGENDA: 03:08 Should We Assume Every AI Model Is Compromised? 04:13 How Do We Stop AI Agents From Causing Harm? 06:15 Can We Trust an AI Model's Chain of Thought? 07:05 Is China's Lead in Open-Source AI a Safety Risk? 08:28 Will Open or Closed Models Win the Next Two Years? 10:08 Why Should Every Company Own Its Intelligence? 12:12 Will Every Company Become AI Native? 13:22 Are We Entering an AI Implementation Economy? 15:10 Do You Need to Own the Entire AI Stack to Win? 16:49 Can the World Support $100 Billion AI Training Runs? 18:34 Can AI Radically Accelerate Global Economic Growth? 19:39 Will AI Transform Sales, Finance and Marketing Like Coding? Quickfire round What have you changed your mind on most in the last 12 months? What looks crazy today but will be incredibly common in 5 years? What's the exercise routine given the travel schedule? Favorite cheat meal on a rest day? What are you most excited for in the next 10 years?

AGENDA: 04:20 Billion-Dollar Bets or Nothing: Why VCs Are Rejecting Fast-Growing Startups 13:20 CoreWeave Sell-Off Sparks Fears of Cracks in AI Boom 18:50 Anthropic's IPO Valuation Could Fall From $2 TRN to $1.5 TRN 32:10 Modal Raises $750M at a $15.75B Valuation as Inference Booms 35:50 Town at $1B, Anduril at $90B: Have Startup Valuations Lost Touch? 42:15 Berkshire Hathaway Doubles Down on Bending Spoons 45:05 37signals' Profit Machine Challenges the Venture Capital Model 49:20 General Atlantic Eyes an IPO; Harvard's Endowment Hits $68B 54:15 Elon's Flying Roadster and $10B SpaceX Share Giveaway

Harrison Chase is the co-founder and CEO of LangChain, which helps developers build, test and deploy AI agents. Backed by Sequoia Capital, Benchmark and IVP, LangChain has announced approximately $160 million in funding with the last round at a $1.25BN valuation. The company works with 35% of the Fortune 500, has surpassed one billion open-source downloads and processes over one billion events daily through LangSmith. AGENDA: 04:10 Why Is It Still So Hard to Build AI Agents? 08:50 Will the Model Labs Eat the Agent Stack? 16:25 Is Model Routing a Real Business or a Commodity? 25:45 Why Has No One Solved AI Memory? 35:45 Why Are AI Bills Exploding as Tokens Get Cheaper? 43:25 Should Companies Be Afraid of Chinese AI Models? 46:20 Where Would Harrison Not Be Investing Today? 53:05 Should Founders Take a Discount for Benchmark and Sequoia? 57:35 OpenAI at $1.5T or Anthropic at $2T: Which Would You Buy?

Mike Cannon-Brookes is the Co-Founder and CEO of Atlassian, the company behind Jira, Confluence, Trello and Loom. Atlassian generated $6.5BN in ARR in 2026, and serves more than 350,000 customers, including over 85% of the Fortune 500. Today, Mike is leading its expansion into enterprise AI through Rovo and the Teamwork Graph, connecting company knowledge with AI agents. AGENDA: 03:00 Do AI Agents Turn Traditional Software Into Just Databases? 16:00 Will Enterprises Ever Trust Chinese AI Models? 20:00 Is Building Your Own AI Model a Losing Bet? 24:00 Can AI Startups Survive When They Finally Have to Care About Costs? 30:00 What Happens When AI Gets Cheaper Than Anyone Expects? 35:00 Is Company Context the Real Moat in Enterprise AI? 41:00 What Happens When OpenAI and Anthropic Come for Your Customers? 44:00 Why Are Young Founders Cashing Out More Than Ever? 49:00 What Does Nobody Tell You About Getting Rich?

Joinin the trio today we have Dev Ittycheria, CEO @ MongoDB. AGENDA: 04:00 OpenAI Nears $70B Run Rate—Anthropic's Lead Under Threat 12:00 Factory vs Cognition: Silicon Valley's Talent War Turns Ugly 23:00 Vinod Khosla Blasts His Own Portfolio Company 25:00 Reflection Launches Beam: America Strikes Back in Open-Source AI 34:00 ElevenLabs Doubles Its Valuation to $22B 37:00 Salesforce Buys Listen Labs for $2B—Sequoia Cashes In 46:00 Vercel Hits $600M ARR as Agents Drive Half Its New Business 55:00 Former Groq Engineers Sue Over Nvidia's $17B Deal 01:01:00 Meta's Muse Steals the Show as OpenAI's Dots Underwhelms 01:05:00 Oura Pulls Its IPO Despite 74% Growth—A Warning for VC

Chase Lochmiller is the Co-founder and CEO of Crusoe. Crusoe builds and powers the data centres that companies use to train and run AI. It has raised approximately $6.4 billion in equity, including its latest $3.9 billion Series F at a $30.9 billion valuation. Its backers include NVIDIA, Founders Fund, Gavin Baker's Atreides Management, Mubadala Capital and Valor Equity Partners. AGENDA: 04:40 What Does Climbing Everest Teach You About Building a Company? 17:40 What's Really Stopping Us From Building Enough AI Data Centres? 25:50 Are Data Centres Really Driving Up Your Energy Bills? 28:05 Will Half of Planned AI Data Centres Never Get Built? 32:10 How Quickly Can a GPU Pay for Itself? 38:35 Will Your GPUs Become Obsolete Before You've Paid Them Off? 44:20 What Does It Take to Produce the Cheapest Intelligence? 49:50 Will Companies Building Their Own Models Eat Into OpenAI's Business? 51:55 Can You Build a $30B Company and Still Be a Great Dad?

Alex Mashrabov is the Founder and CEO of Higgsfield, the third fastest scaling company to $1BN in ARR behind OpenAI and Anthropic. Reports suggest their latest funding round could place an $8BN valuation on the company. Prior to Higgsfield, Alex sold his prior company to Snap Inc for $166M. Alex was a competitive programmer as a kid, reaching third best in the world. AGENDA: 00:00 The Programming Prodigy Who Sold to Snap for $166M 09:00 Burning $10M: The Pivot That Saved Higgsfield 12:00 A $1B Revenue Run Rate in 18 Months; How Real Is It? 16:00 Will OpenAI and Google Wipe Out $20 AI Subscriptions? 21:00 Are AI Labs Gaming the Benchmarks? 28:00 Spending $4M a Month on AI; Genius or Insanity? 36:00 Are AI Moats Bullshit? The Great "Wrapper" Debate 43:00 One Full Day With His Son in Three Months: The Cost of Ambition 54:00 Quickfire: Is Snap Broken—and Will HubSpot Survive AI? 01:02:00 $10B in the Next 12 Months? Alex's Audacious Growth Bet

AGENDA: 04:35 Anthropic's $2 Trillion IPO Delayed. Cracks in the AI Boom? 10:30 OpenAI Faces $278 Billion Cash Burn. Out of Money by 2028? 12:55 Meta's Muse Hits No. 1. ChatGPT Finally Has a Rival? 17:05 Amazon Blocks AI Shopping Agents. Shopify Welcomes Them. 24:10 ChatGPT Inventor Launches Jev. Vercel's Fastest Launch Ever. 34:15 A $40 Million Seed Round. Is Traditional Seed Investing Dead? 39:00 Menlo Sounds the AI Bubble Alarm. Harry Calls BS. 54:00 Factory Triples Its Valuation to $5 Billion. Coding Is the Mother Lode. 1:00:20 Legora Hits $200 Million ARR. Is $11 Billion Too Rich? 1:03:50 Crusoe's $3.9 Billion Round. Is the Data Centre Trade Overheating? 1:08:55 Keith Rabois vs Airwallex. Fintech's Feud Escalates. 1:16:40 Sydney Sweeney for Airwallex? Lemkin's Wild PR Plan.

Thomas Sohmers is the co-founder and chairman of Positron AI, building chips to make running AI dramatically cheaper and more energy-efficient. The company recently announced an $875 million Series C at a $5 billion valuation, backed by investors including Gavin Baker's Atreides Management, NEA, Valor Equity Partners and Netscape co-founder Jim Clark. AGENDA: 04:30 Why Does AI Inference Need Different Hardware from Training? 10:25 What Is Nobody Telling You About AI's Token Economics? 13:10 Should We Really Slow Down the AI Frontier? 16:55 What Happens If America Slows Down—and China Doesn't? 19:30 Should We Restrict China's Access to AI Chips? 20:15 Why Aren't Zuckerberg and Jensen Backing an AI Slowdown? 21:25 Are We Being Misled About Data Centers? 23:25 Can the West Beat China While Drowning in Regulation? 26:20 How Many Planned Data Centers Will Actually Get Built? 27:15 Data Centers in Space: Real Opportunity or Elon Hype? 28:10 Is Energy AI's Biggest Bottleneck? 29:55 Could the Debt Boom Derail AI? 31:25 What Is KV Caching—and Why Does It Change AI Economics? 35:25 Does Compressing AI's Memory Make It Less Intelligent? 41:05 How Do We Solve AI's Exploding Memory Demands? 43:45 Will Every Company Own Its Own AI Model? 47:10 Why Bet on Ever-Bigger Models? 48:20 If We Already Have AGI, What Comes Next? 53:25 What Happens When Every AI Lab Builds Its Own Chips? 57:30 If DeepSeek Can Slash Costs with Software, Why Build New Hardware? 59:50 How Cheap Will AI Tokens Be by 2028? 1:03:15 What Would Be the First Warning Sign of an AI Bust? 1:03:55 Could Open Models Break OpenAI and Anthropic's Growth? 1:05:55 Could Mercor and Surge Become $200 Billion Companies?

David Morehead is one of the most respected CIOs in the endowment fund world as Chief Investment Officer at Baylor University, overseeing its $2.6BN endowment. Before joining Baylor in 2011, he was a senior portfolio manager at several Chicago hedge funds, investing across corporate securities, distressed debt and public and private energy. AGENDA: 04:00 The Portfolio Construction of a $2.6 Billion University Endowment? 09:00 Why We Spend More Time on Porfolio Construction Than Manager Selection? 14:00 Should LPs Back VC's Biggest Names or Find the Next Breakout Manager? 21:00 How Baylor Made Millions in the SaaSpocalypse? 26:00 Are Public Markets a Casino or Are Private Valuations the Real Fiction? 34:00 How Do You Buy a Market Crash Without Catching a Falling Knife? 49:00 Would You Fire a Fund Manager Who's Making You Money? 57:00 Could the Backlash Against Data Centres Derail the AI Boom? 01:02:00 Which Asset Class Is Overhyped—and Where Is the Next Big Opportunity?

AGENDA: 00:00 Jensen Huang Declares AGI Has Arrived 04:05 Instinct and GrokBot Ignite the AI Assistant War 13:32 OpenAI's GPT Astra Redefines What AGI Means 26:00 GPT Astra and Fable 5.1 Accelerate the Model Race 30:38 OpenAI's Chief Scientist Calls for Enforced AI Safety Limits 40:50 Tesla Launches Cybercabs as Travis Kalanick Returns to Robotaxis 45:55 Index Pulls Out of Town Deal Following Instinct Conflict 49:45 Anthropic Abandons $6BN Descartes Acquisition After Due Diligence 56:18 Robinhood Earns First Underwriting Role in Oura IPO 01:00:28 Wonderful Doubles to $5BN and Approves $170M in Secondaries 01:09:02 Thinking Machines Targets $40BN Valuation in $6BN Funding Round

Cliff Weitzman is the co-founder and CEO of Speechify, the world's leading AI voice and text-to-speech platform, used by more than 60 million people globally. Diagnosed with dyslexia as a child, Cliff first built Speechify at Brown University to help him consume written material through audio. AGENDA: 00:00 Cliff Weitzman Reveals His Biggest-Ever Strategic Mistake 03:08 Why Speechify Is Paying Millions to Build Their Own Data Centres 09:59 What No One Knows About Buying Chips That Everyone Should Know? 20:19 The AI Data Gold Rush Has a Brutal Business-Model Problem 23:42 How ElevenLabs Leapfrogged Speechify—and Why It Was Cliff's Fault 31:00 The $15M AI Talent War: Can Startups Still Compete for the Best Talent? 36:57 The New 10X Engineer: Ten Killer Decisions Every Day 46:12 The Voice-AI Bloodbath: Who Survives Commoditisation? 53:21 The Screen Is Dying—and Voice Will Replace It 57:58 How Cliff Plans to Use AI to Cure His Brother's Disease

Aaron Katz is the Co-Founder and CEO of ClickHouse, the real-time analytics database powering companies including OpenAI, Anthropic, Tesla and Microsoft. ClickHouse just surpassed $350M in ARR and raised over $1B from investors including Dragoneer, Khosla Ventures, Coatue, 20VC and Benchmark. Previously, Aaron was CRO at Elastic, where he helped scale revenue from approximately $5M to $500M and led the company through its IPO. Before Elastic, he spent 12 years at Salesforce, working alongside Marc Benioff and helping transform it from a 200-person startup into a global software giant. AGENDA: 4:05 Are we in an AI bubble? 13:40 How does software change when agents—not humans—make buying decisions? 22:28 Will 90% of tokens flow through open models; can enterprises trust them? 31:09 Why did ClickHouse sponsor Fulham; and could sports teams become $20B assets? 35:49 When will ClickHouse hit $1B ARR? 38:31 Can startups still win elite talent from OpenAI? Biggest remote work mistake? 44:54 Is zero-to-$100M ARR now table stakes; or is durable growth what matters? 48:51 Is college still worth it; which jobs will survive AI? 57:58 When will ClickHouse go public; and why not next year?