The Peel with Turner Novak

Turner Novak

Exploring the world’s greatest startup stories. Get a behind the scenes look into the founding stories of your favorite companies. Learn how the industries they operate in actually work, and learn playbooks and tactics you can use to launch and scale your own business.

  1. Inside the First Quant-Driven VC Fund | Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Chamaeleon

    37m ago

    Inside the First Quant-Driven VC Fund | Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Chamaeleon

    Nuno Goncalves Pedro is the Founder and Managing Partner at Chamaeleon. He won't describe it this way, but I'd call Chamaeleon something like "The RenTech of VC." Chamaeleon is built around its proprietary data platform, Mantis, which borrows tools like factor analysis from public-market investors and operates more like a quant hedge fund than a traditional venture firm. We talk through a bunch of data points from Mantis that cut against the common narrative in venture and startups, including why repeat founders aren't always the safer bet, why sub-$100m funds catch the majority of fund-returning deals, and why 10x might be a better target than 100x. Thank you to Numeral, Flex, Amplitude, and Merge for supporting this episode. Timestamps: (1:00) When 1st time founders outperform serial entrepreneurs (8:05) Mantis: factor-driven quant model for VC (18:33) Why most VC’s are not data-driven (22:28) Top 1% VC fund performance (27:41) Early customer sentiment stronger success indicator than PMF or Team (34:09) Importance of co-investors on performance (39:42) Sub-$100M funds capture 70% of fund-returning deals each year (43:53) The Neolab AI bubble (52:16) Marketing games that VC’s play (55:22) Most investors are not high conviction (56:43) Startups not raising for at least 3 years are 5x less likely to succeed. 10x less likely at 5 years. (1:00:19) Emerging managers have lowest LP interest in the last 15 years (1:11:19) LP capital is much less concentrated than in 2011 (1:16:28) The importance of remaining relevant (1:21:01) You must lean into your unique edge as an investor (1:23:18) Pros/Cons of an alumni network venture strategy (1:28:29) Specialist funds outperform generalists (with a catch) (1:35:22) The data says go for 10x, not 100x returns (1:41:41) Should you start or join a VC firm today? (1:48:07) Nuno’s collection of 270+ phones (1:53:16) Racing cars (and winning championships) Referenced Chamaeleon: https://www.chamaeleon.vc/ Tech Deciphered Podcast https://decipheredshow.com/ Say It With Charts: https://www.amazon.com/Say-Charts-Executives-Visual-Communication/dp/007136997X How To Lie With Charts: https://www.amazon.com/How-Charts-Gerald-Everett-Jones/dp/1419651439 Redmagic Phone: https://redmagic.gg/ ASUS Rog phone: https://rog.asus.com/phones/rog-phone-model/ Follow Nuno LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ngpedro/ Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

    2h 2m
  2. 15 Hot Takes on VC and AI from the 2026 Allocate Beyond Summit

    May 29

    15 Hot Takes on VC and AI from the 2026 Allocate Beyond Summit

    I just attended Allocate’s Beyond Summit in Deer Valley Utah. It was a peek into what the top VC's and LP’s are thinking about right now. Allocate asked me to record an episode of the show, live from the conference. So I asked everyone “What’s your hottest take on the VC market today?” Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episode Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com Flex: Get premium banking and a net 60 day credit card at 0% APY https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com Timestamps: (1:22) Seed investing is dead (Tripp Jones, Uncork) (5:56) Seed is not dead (Bryan Rosenblatt, Sandlot) (13:19) Most consensus era of VC ever (Nate Williams, Union) (18:02) Taking the Power Law Pill (Pratyush Buddiga, Susa Ventures) (29:15) The 2nd-time founder premium is dead (Matt Cohen, Ripple Ventures) (32:46) AI will crush intelligence labor (Clark Cheng, Merrimac) (42:25) New deep tech investors will lose their shirts (Sunil Nagaraj, Ubiquity Ventures) (46:39) ChatGPT for robotics is still 15 years away (Sungjoon Cho, Fortitude Ventures) (52:07) The app layer ARR reckoning (Josh Christensen, Mercato) (58:30) The AI bubble will pop in Q2/Q3 (Amias Gerety, QED) (1:08:22) Most individuals do VC wrong (Jon Oberheide) (1:15:25) Allocators have become too allocator-y (Dan Feder, University of Michigan) (1:20:55) LP’s should value information, not just returns (Ben Ivey, Marshall Street) (1:24:09) Upcoming litigation of Russian doll SPVs (Asher Siddiqui, Song United) (1:30:13) Why retail needs private market access (Sarah Pinto Peyronel, Robinhood Ventures) Referenced https://beyondsummit.allocate.co/ Tripp Jones, Uncork Capital Twitter: https://x.com/thistrippjones Bryan Rosenblatt, Sandlot Twitter: https://x.com/BRosenblatt4 Nate Williams, Union Twitter: https://x.com/naywilliams Pratyush Buddiga, Susa Ventures Twitter: https://x.com/pratyushbuddiga Matt Cohen, Ripple Ventures Twitter: https://x.com/mattybcohen Clark Cheng, Merrimac LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clark-cheng-cfa-frm-caia-a411535 Sunil Nagaraj, Ubiquity Ventures Twitter: https://x.com/sunilnagaraj Sungjoon Cho, Fortitude Ventures Twitter: https://x.com/josungjoon Josh Christensen, Mercato LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshjdmba/ Amias Gerety, QED Twitter: https://x.com/amiasmg Jon Oberheide Twitter: https://x.com/jonoberheide Dan Feder, Michigan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danfeder Ben Ivey, Marshall Street LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benivey Asher Siddiqui, Song United LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashersiddiqui Sarah Pinto Peyronel, Robinhood Ventures Twitter: https://x.com/SPintoPeyronel *This podcast is produced by Allocate for informational and educational purposes only and is intended for institutional, accredited, and qualified investors. Nothing discussed constitutes an offer to sell or solicitation to purchase any security or advisory service, and nothing should be construed as legal, tax, or investment advice. Any offering will be made only pursuant to applicable confidential offering documents. Views expressed by participants are their own and subject to change. Any discussion of target returns, projected outcomes, IRRs, MOICs, or other performance metrics is hypothetical and illustrative only and should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance. Investments in private funds are speculative, illiquid, and involve substantial risk, including possible loss of the entire investment. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Certain guests may have financial or other interests in the opportunities discussed. Allocate Management Company, LLC is an SEC-registered investment adviser. Registration does not imply any level of skill, training, or SEC endorsement. Please consult your own advisors before making any investment decision.*

    1h 37m
  3. Building Got Easy. This Startup Solves What to Build | Alfred Wahlforss, Listen Labs

    May 24

    Building Got Easy. This Startup Solves What to Build | Alfred Wahlforss, Listen Labs

    Alfred Wallforss is the Co-founder of Listen Labs, the AI customer research company. Companies like Microsoft use Listen to run AI-powered customer interviews, and Alfred talks about how they first landed them as a customer at a pitch competition. We talk why startups should pursue enterprise customers early on, why 85% of survey answers are random clicks, how AI is changing the $140B market research industry, leveraging VC’s for customer intros, how to stand out when recruiting as a startup, and hiring for obsession. Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episode Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com Flex: Get premium banking and a net 60 day credit card at 0% APY https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com Timestamps: (0:14) Listen: AI customer research tool (7:30) Fraud is a big problem in customer research (9:06) The $140B customer survey industry (12:08) Why running customer surveys is so hard (16:03) AGI will never replace humans (18:25) Surveys vs interviews (21:13) Importance of emotion in data collection (22:54) Using AI interviews to get product feedback (26:15) Building digital twins creates better data (32:22) Outperforming generic AI tools (34:17) Sweetgreen’s Max Protein Bowl (36:09) Jevon’s Paradox in customer research (40:37) Quantitative vs qualitative (42:38) Landing Microsoft as an early customer (44:50) Targeting enterprise customers from day 1 (48:05) Building a VC customer intro leaderboard (51:53) Recruiting with billboard games (57:20) Hiring for obsession (1:02:07) Alfred’s favorite movies (1:03:53) Listen’s custom agent harness (1:06:24) Velocity Fellowship for Swedes moving to SF (1:08:34) Growing up with entrepreneurial older brother (1:09:46) No shoes in the office Referenced Try Listen: https://listenlabs.ai/ Careers at Listen: https://listenlabs.ai/careers Sweetgreen protein bowls: https://listenlabs.ai/case-studies/sweetgreen Toni Erdmann: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4048272/ Episode with Erik @ Modal: https://www.thespl.it/p/building-ai-native-infrastructure Follow Alfred Twitter: https://x.com/itsalfredw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wahlforss Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

    1h 14m
  4. Inside the AI Sprint, Understanding Anthropic's Strategy | Tomasz Tunguz, Theory Ventures

    May 15

    Inside the AI Sprint, Understanding Anthropic's Strategy | Tomasz Tunguz, Theory Ventures

    Tomasz Tunguz is the Founder and General Partner of Theory Ventures. We talk about today’s “all out sprint” in AI, Anthropic’s strategy, the three layers of AI business models, how AI compares to prior technologies, where to invest in AI today, and what Theory looks for in new investments. Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episode Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com Flex: Get premium banking and a net 60 day credit card at 0% APY https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com Timestamps: (0:42) The “all out sprint” in AI today (1:40) Why GPU prices are up 116% in six weeks (6:34) AI infra end-state: “We’ll over build” (9:12) Tokenmaxxing, and why AI needs to get more efficient (15:48) AI models will resemble pharma more than software (19:52) Why Anthropic still trades at a discount (25:42) Anthropic’s strategy: commoditize the compliments (30:29) Why OpenClaw is so strategic for OpenAI (34:08) The three layers of AI business models (38:18) Where to invest in AI today (45:49) Who will survive SaaSpocalypse? (52:15) Comparing AI’s impact to historical technology cycles (57:34) How new technology historically impacts jobs (1:05:58) Where AI is underrated today (1:10:41) How people are actually buying AI products (1:14:06) Why Theory’s investing in ads, inference, and email (1:16:24) 2026 IPO pipeline, how VC has changed over 20 years (1:20:56) What Theory looks for in new investments (1:22:32) Starting Theory Ventures in 2022 (1:25:39) Running a monte carlo analysis to determine portfolio construction (1:27:54) Tomasz personal AI projects Referenced Theory Ventures: https://theoryvc.com/ Tomasz Blog: https://tomtunguz.com/ Follow Tomasz Twitter: https://x.com/ttunguz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasztunguz Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

    1h 32m
  5. Cursor + Kalshi Seed Investor on Spotting Outlier Talent | Ali Partovi, Neo

    May 7

    Cursor + Kalshi Seed Investor on Spotting Outlier Talent | Ali Partovi, Neo

    Ali Partovi is the Co-founder and CEO of Neo. Neo started in 2017 as a network for the top college students. Neo is a “people-first” investor, a thesis it developed missing out on early investments in PayPal and Google at three employees. Neo has since invested in the Seed rounds of Cursor and Kalshi, and Ali shares everything he’s learned about spotting outlier talent, how to hire the best people, how computer science is the best business education, and why the best entrepreneurs start young. Special thanks to Hadi Partovi, Fuzzy Khosrowshahi, Alan Shusterman, and Claire Shorall for their help brainstorming topics for Ali. Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episode Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com Flex: Get premium banking and a net 60 day credit card at 0% APY https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com Timestamps: (0:09) Neo’s two 10x funds (2:19) Missing PayPal led to Neo (9:32) Not investing in Google at 3 employees (11:31) Backing Facebook despite the idea (13:01) Starting Neo to help top college students (17:21) How to identify outlier talent (24:38) Neo’s coding test (27:41) Bootstrapping the first cohort of Neo Scholars (34:58) How Cognition President Russel Kaplan changed Neo forever (39:21) Starting Neo after talking to Steph Curry (46:42) Launching [Code.org](http://Code.org) to teach 20M kids to code (59:38) Is coding still relevant in 2026? (1:03:43) How to hire outlier talent (1:07:25) Why you should aggressively apply for one job (1:11:09) Neo Residency: $750k uncapped (1:19:51) Growing up in Iran during the revolution (1:26:03) Impact of the immigrant mentality (1:29:15) Most entrepreneurial roots start very young (1:39:18) Lessons investing in Cursor + Kalshi seed rounds (1:50:27) Confession: a podcast about failure (1:52:36) F*****g up a $50m deal by lying to Steve Jobs Referenced Neo: https://neo.com/ Neo Scholars Application: https://neo.com/scholars Neo Residency: https://neo.com/residency Code.org: https://code.org/ Lying to Steve Jobs: https://x.com/apartovi/status/1447251334814523392 Losing a deal with Yahoo: https://x.com/apartovi/status/1449856639331340289 Follow Ali Twitter: https://x.com/apartovi LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apartovi/ Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

    1h 56m
  6. How a Hillbilly in Nevada Bootstrapped a $140M ARR Manufacturing Company | Jim Belosic, SendCutSend

    Apr 30

    How a Hillbilly in Nevada Bootstrapped a $140M ARR Manufacturing Company | Jim Belosic, SendCutSend

    Jim Belosic is the Co-founder and CEO of SendCutSend, a sheet metal manufacturing business he bootstrapped to a $140 million revenue run rate in eight years. We talk building a manufacturing business in the US, creative ways he financed the company early on, using speed and trust to compete with overseas competitors, lessons from restaurants, and why you can’t run a factory from a spreadsheet. Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episode Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com Flex: Sign-up for Flex Elite with code TURNER, get $1,000 https://form.typeform.com/to/Rx9rTjFz Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com Timestamps: (0:16) Automating sheet metal manufacturing (5:59) Zero to $140 million ARR in 8 years (7:58) Acquiring a $750k laser with $0 (13:38) Automating factories is like baking cookies (15:17) Being legible to capital (17:31) Unlocking custom, low order manufacturing with software (20:00) Building more factories instead of selling the software (24:50) Run your company like a lemonade stand (28:30) Raising an angel round in 2021 as a safety net (33:21) SendCutSend’s unique bottoms-up GTM (38:24) Fun coupons (40:12) Building a moat with speed and trust 45:55) How US factories can beat China (47:40) Gaslight product launches (52:05) Lessons from non-manufacturing businesses (55:19) You can’t run a factory from a spreadsheet (58:10) Using data in manufacturing (59:50) Lessons from Factorio (1:03:17) Unlocking a negative cash conversion cycle (1:06:14) You need to resist automating everything (1:13:51) Surviving COVID with six weeks of cash (1:15:47) Solving the US skilled labor shortage (1:26:17) Teaching kids about manufacturing Referenced SendCutSend: https://sendcutsend.com/ Careers at SendCutSend: https://sendcutsend.com/careers Sandy Kory: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandykory Horizon VC: https://www.horizon.vc/ Concrete Canoe Competitions: https://www.asce.org/communities/student-members/conferences/asce-concrete-canoe-competition Follow Jim Twitter: https://x.com/jimbelosic LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/belosic Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

    1h 32m
  7. The $5B Venture Growth Buyout Playbook | Alex Israel, Metropolis

    Apr 24

    The $5B Venture Growth Buyout Playbook | Alex Israel, Metropolis

    Alex Israel is the Co-founder and CEO of Metropolis.He unpacks the unique strategy they used as a tech startup to rollup parking lots and become the largest parking operator in the world.Thank you to Will Quist, Yoni Rechtman, Adam Bain, and Jamie Siminoff for their help brainstorming topics for the conversation.Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episodeNumeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.comFlex: Sign-up for Flex Elite with code TURNER, get $1,000 https://form.typeform.com/to/Rx9rTjFzAmplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.comTimestamps:(1:10) Helping 50m Americans park(4:00) Building “Buy Now” for the physical world(9:02) Real-world checkout technology that works(16:07) Why parking never institutionalized as an asset class(18:34) Using tech to make parking assets more valuable(21:53) Parking lots as autonomous robotics hubs(29:07) Going to film school, working at MTV(30:55) Starting his first parking data company(33:47) Culture of pranking each other(36:27) A Fortune 500 CEO convinced him to start a 2nd parking company(42:55) Realizing they couldn’t sell to real estate operators(46:09) Acquiring a company 10x their size to jumpstart GTM(50:20) How to do a successful AI growth buyout(54:48) Revenue growth must be driven by technology(1:00:33) Why companies should do growth buyouts(1:03:55) Being legible to capital(1:09:16) You need creativity to take risks(1:13:30) AI is the first ever disruption to skilled labor(1:19:14) CEO challenges growing zero to 23,000 employees(1:24:31) Alex’ personal AI stackReferencedMetropolis: https://www.metropolis.io/Careers at Metropolis: https://www.metropolis.io/careersRoy Amara: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_AmaraFollow AlexTwitter: https://x.com/Alex__IsraelLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-israelFollow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSubscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

    1h 30m
  8. How Agentic AI is Reshaping Science, Education, and the Economy | Karthik Duraisamy at the University of Michigan

    Apr 17

    How Agentic AI is Reshaping Science, Education, and the Economy | Karthik Duraisamy at the University of Michigan

    Karthik Duraisamy is a professor at the University of Michigan. He is co-leading U of M's newly created Institute of Agentic Computing, the first of its kind. The institute will serve researchers and developers building agentic AI infrastructure to advance scientific discovery, engineering, and the knowledge economy. It will also be a central node for managing developers and maintainers of the OpenClaw platform. Karthik's research spans a broad spectrum of computational science and engineering, including new modeling approaches for complex physical systems, numerical methods, algorithms and uncertainty quantification. This is the first conversation Karthik’s had going deep on the institute. We talk about using AI to advance scientific research, two new discoveries announced yesterday, how universities work, how AI is impacting students and education, and his advice for young people. Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episode Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com](https://www.numeral.com/ Flex: Sign-up for Flex Elite with code TURNER, get $1,000 https://form.typeform.com/to/Rx9rTjFz Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com Timestamps: (0:25) The Institute for Agentic Computing (4:27) OpenClaw Foundation and Lobster Compute Company (8:19) How Universities actually work (12:33) ClawCon in Ann Arbor (15:24) Two scientific discoveries made with ScienceClaw (20:06) How AI is speeding up scientific discovery (25:42) Supporting AI and OpenClaw development (29:55) Why universities function like VC funds (34:29) How Universities get money from the government (40:55) Why some academics believe AI is a fad (46:17) Biggest bottlenecks in AI today (49:26) How AI will change the world (53:10) Karthik's Code Red advice for students (59:19) Separating learning and doing (1:03:10) Ways COVID and AI impacted college students (1:14:53) How the role of universities is changing (1:23:21) Why college classes suffered from grade inflation (1:26:05) How AI is actually impacting the job market (1:32:49) Karthik’s advice for students (1:39:16) Winning two NCAA basketball national championships (1:43:04) Almost dying in the Grand Teton National Park Referenced More on Karthik: https://aero.engin.umich.edu/people/duraisamy-karthik/ Institute for Agentic Computing: https://record.umich.edu/articles/u-m-launches-institute-for-agentic-computing/ ClawCon Announcement: OpenClaw: https://openclaw.ai/ ScienceClaw: http://scienceclaw.science/ MIT OpenCourseWare: https://ocw.mit.edu/ ASU iPhone video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqfk7-3iN-U Follow Karthik LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karthik-duraisamy-66705025 Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

    1h 49m
See All (144)

4.6
out of 5
11 Ratings

About

Exploring the world’s greatest startup stories. Get a behind the scenes look into the founding stories of your favorite companies. Learn how the industries they operate in actually work, and learn playbooks and tactics you can use to launch and scale your own business.

Information

  • Creator
    Turner Novak
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    144
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Turner Novak
  • Show Website
    The Peel with Turner Novak

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