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

Harry Stebbings
  • 4.0 (39)
  • Investing
  • Updated Daily

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) interviews the world's greatest venture capitalists with prior guests including Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Once per week, 20VC Host, Harry Stebbings is also joined by one of the great founders of our time with prior founder episodes from Spotify's Daniel Ek, Linkedin's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman. If you would like to see more of The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), head to www.20vc.com for more information on the podcast, show notes, resources and more.

  1. 20VC: Wix's Founder on What Wall St Gets Wrong About AI and Wix | Will Base44 Win the Vibe Coding Wars | The Truth About the Economics of Vibe-Coding | The Buyback Disaster: Lessons Learned with Avishai Abrahami

    1 hr ago

    20VC: Wix's Founder on What Wall St Gets Wrong About AI and Wix | Will Base44 Win the Vibe Coding Wars | The Truth About the Economics of Vibe-Coding | The Buyback Disaster: Lessons Learned with Avishai Abrahami

    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. AGENDA: 00:00 The SaaS Apocalypse: What Does Wall Street Still Not Understand About Wix? 07:00 Is the Market Valuing Wix's Core Business at Less Than Zero? 12:55 Will AI Kill Wix... or Make Base44 Bigger Than the Entire Company? 19:15 "You Are NOT Going to Vibe Code Shopify" — Why Everyone Is Getting AI Wrong 23:00 Would You Really Pay $80M for a One-Person Startup? 24:15 The Buyback Disaster: Would Avishai Do It All Again? 31:00 Why Every AI Customer Support Startup Keeps Failing (According to Wix) 37:00 Should a 22-Year-Old Still Learn to Code in the Age of AI? 42:20 Has AI Been Overhyped? Avishai's Most Controversial Prediction Yet 49:00 The Hardest Lessons on Leadership, Marriage & Building Through Chaos

    57 min
  2. 20VC: Why OpenAI and Anthropic Won't Win the App Layer | Why Teams Will Get Bigger Not Smaller in a World of AI | Why AI Removes Incumbents Advantage of Bundling | China vs America: Who Wins the AI War with Arvind Jain, Co-Founder @ Glean

    2 days ago

    20VC: Why OpenAI and Anthropic Won't Win the App Layer | Why Teams Will Get Bigger Not Smaller in a World of AI | Why AI Removes Incumbents Advantage of Bundling | China vs America: Who Wins the AI War with Arvind Jain, Co-Founder @ Glean

    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. AGENDA: 00:00 – The Shocking Truth About Frontier AI: 90% Is Already a Commodity 02:04 – Can OpenAI & Anthropic Own Enterprise AI? The Battle for the Workplace Begins 10:18 – Will OpenAI and Anthropic Win the App Layer 18:03 – Microsoft Is the Real Enemy… Not OpenAI? 20:53 – "Where's the ROI?" Why Enterprises Are Starting to Question the AI Hype 26:00 – Will AI Replace Your Job? Harry & Arvind's Heated Clash Over the Future of Work 33:43 – The Billion-Dollar Mistake Every AI Company Is Making on Token Spend 39:20 – The AI Land Grab Is On: Why Founders Must Move Now or Lose Forever 42:20 – China vs America: Who Really Wins the AI Race? 47:20 – Rapid Fire: The Future of Computer Science, Hiring, Fundraising & AI's Biggest Winners

    55 min
  3. 20VC: Sam Altman Offers Trump 5% of OpenAI: Fool or Genius? | Alex Karp Sounds the Alarm: Enterprises Fear Frontier Models & Questionable ROI of AI | The Rise of Chinese Open Source: Deepseek Building Own Chips

    4 days ago

    20VC: Sam Altman Offers Trump 5% of OpenAI: Fool or Genius? | Alex Karp Sounds the Alarm: Enterprises Fear Frontier Models & Questionable ROI of AI | The Rise of Chinese Open Source: Deepseek Building Own Chips

    AGENDA: 05:00 Washington Just Put Frontier AI on a Leash 06:30 Sam Altman's Wild 5% Government Stake Idea 19:00 The AI Funding Bubble: Why Founders No Longer Fear Dilution 28:00 Alex Karp's Brutal Warning: Enterprises Don't Trust Frontier AI 33:00 Meta's Shock Pivot: Has Zuck Accidentally Built the Next CoreWeave? 41:00 Nvidia's Dangerous New Game: "Compute Now, Pay Later" 45:00 Anthropic & DeepSeek Go After Nvidia's Crown 48:00 Kling vs Sora: Did China Just Win AI Video? 52:00 Is China Secretly Winning the Open Source AI War? 01:02:00 Microsoft & Amazon's $6B Bet: AI Still Needs Humans 01:11:00 Ashton Kutcher Walks Away From Sound Ventures 01:16:00 The New Startup Talent War: No Liquidity, No Chance 01:20:00 Final Thoughts: Who Wins the AI Endgame?

    1hr 24min
  4. 20VC: Why Now is the Time for the Application Layer | Why OpenAI & Anthropic Won't Win the App Layer | Why Startups Should be TokenMaxxing | Why VCs Should Reduce Weighting on Price & Ownership in an Age of AI with Mike Mignano, USV

    6 July

    20VC: Why Now is the Time for the Application Layer | Why OpenAI & Anthropic Won't Win the App Layer | Why Startups Should be TokenMaxxing | Why VCs Should Reduce Weighting on Price & Ownership in an Age of AI with Mike Mignano, USV

    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.  AGENDA: 00:00 Is Fear of Failure the Secret Weapon Behind Great Founders? 07:20 Why Leave Lightspeed for USV — and Is Thesis-Driven Venture Still Alive? 09:50 Is the Real AI Money Still in Infrastructure, or Are Apps Finally About to Explode? 13:00 Who Wins the AI Model War: OpenAI, Anthropic, Open Source, or the "Rebel Alliance"? 19:00 Are We About to Hand Our Entire Lives Over to AI Agents? 21:00 Can Anthropic Keep Growing Like This — or Will Token Spend Break the Model? 26:00 Can AI Routing Become a $50BN Company, or Is It Just a Commodity Pipe? 30:00 Will the AI Energy Crisis Create the Next Monster Venture Outcomes? 36:00 Can Startups Survive Microsoft, OpenAI, and the Brutal Power of Bundling? 45:00 Should VCs Ignore Price When Backing Generational Companies? 55:30 Is Traditional Media Dead — and Who Becomes the New Tech Kingmaker?

    1hr 9min
  5. 20VC: Open Models vs Frontier Models: Who Actually Wins? | The $100,000 Token Budget Every Engineer Will Need | Why Forward-Deployed Engineers Are the Future of Enterprise AI with Clay Bavor, Co-Founder of Sierra

    4 July

    20VC: Open Models vs Frontier Models: Who Actually Wins? | The $100,000 Token Budget Every Engineer Will Need | Why Forward-Deployed Engineers Are the Future of Enterprise AI with Clay Bavor, Co-Founder of Sierra

    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. AGENDA: 00:00 – Why Frontier AI Demand Will Be Unlimited 08:00 – Open Models vs Frontier Models: Who Actually Wins? 17:00 – China's AI Advantage & The Distillation Debate 20:30 – Inside Sierra: The AI Agents Running the Entire Company 24:00 – The $100,000 Token Budget Every Engineer Will Soon Need 29:00 – Building AI for 40% of the Fortune 50 37:00 – Why Forward-Deployed Engineers Are the Future of Enterprise AI 43:00 – Sierra's Unusual Board Meetings & Billion-Dollar Company Playbook 48:00 – The Four Values Behind a $16B Startup: Craftsmanship, Intensity & Family 56:00 – Clay Bavor's Hiring Philosophy, AI-First Teams & What's Coming Next

    1hr 9min
  6. 20VC: Dario and Anthropic Declare War on Open-Source | Coinbase Slash AI Spend by 50% | Kalshi's $40BN Valuation and Impending IPO | Bending Spoons: Smartest IPO of 2026 and the Year for SaaS Roll-Ups

    2 July

    20VC: Dario and Anthropic Declare War on Open-Source | Coinbase Slash AI Spend by 50% | Kalshi's $40BN Valuation and Impending IPO | Bending Spoons: Smartest IPO of 2026 and the Year for SaaS Roll-Ups

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

    1hr 17min
  7. 20VC: Leo Aschenbrenner's Largest Holding: Inside the $90BN Bloom Energy | Why Electricity, Not AI Models, Will Decide the Winners of the AI Race | Why We Are Not in an AI Capex Bubble | Energy Sovereignty and The Future of Power with KR Sridhar

    29 June

    20VC: Leo Aschenbrenner's Largest Holding: Inside the $90BN Bloom Energy | Why Electricity, Not AI Models, Will Decide the Winners of the AI Race | Why We Are Not in an AI Capex Bubble | Energy Sovereignty and The Future of Power with KR Sridhar

    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. AGENDA: 00:00 Why Failure Is Never an Option: The Mindset That Built a $90B Company 05:20 The 25-Year Bet: Why Bloom Never Doubted AI Would Need Its Technology 12:10 Andy Grove's Brutal Leadership Lesson That Changed Everything 18:40 AI Isn't a Bubble—It's a "Hockey Stick on a Hockey Stick" 25:30 Why Electricity, Not AI Models, Will Decide the Winners of the AI Race 34:20 The Radical Vision: Why Power Must Move to the Edge of the Grid 40:40 How Bloom Beat Everyone to Power Oracle's AI Data Centres in Just 55 Days 50:00 The Future of Cities, Energy Sovereignty & Why AI Will Democratise Power 52:10 Parenting, Purpose & the One Belief KR Thinks Everyone Gets Wrong About AI 55:00 The Next 10 Years: Why AI Could Create Global Energy Abundance

    1hr 1min
  8. 20VC: How We Got Fred Wilson, Benchmark and Index to Invest $94M | Why Robinhood's Strategy is Wrong | Why 1-1s are BS and What Every Founder Gets Wrong About Equity | Why Taste Beats AI But How AI Kills Org Charts with Paul Erlanger, CEO @ fomo

    27 June

    20VC: How We Got Fred Wilson, Benchmark and Index to Invest $94M | Why Robinhood's Strategy is Wrong | Why 1-1s are BS and What Every Founder Gets Wrong About Equity | Why Taste Beats AI But How AI Kills Org Charts with Paul Erlanger, CEO @ fomo

    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. AGENDA:  00:00 – Building a $550M Company with No Salaries, No Managers & No 1:1s 03:58 – Why Traditional Brokerages Will Lose in the Next 10 Years 09:30 – Why Robinhood's Strategy Is Wrong; The End of the Financial Super App?  13:05 – "Markets Aren't a Casino" — The Case for Retail Investors Fighting Wall Street 16:45 – The Radical Hiring Bet: Giving Employees Founder-Level Equity 23:40 – AI Kills Org Charts: Why FOMO Will Stay Under 25 Employees 29:30 – Why Taste Beats AI & The Biggest Mistake Most Consumer Startups Make 33:10 – The Social Media Playbook That Every Startup Gets Wrong 39:20 – How Benchmark, Index & USV Won the Deal—and the VC Advice Founders Need to Hear 46:10 – The Future of Investing: Social Trading, Creator Economies & Financial Networks

    57 min
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The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) interviews the world's greatest venture capitalists with prior guests including Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Once per week, 20VC Host, Harry Stebbings is also joined by one of the great founders of our time with prior founder episodes from Spotify's Daniel Ek, Linkedin's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman. If you would like to see more of The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), head to www.20vc.com for more information on the podcast, show notes, resources and more.

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