Owner Mode

Gravy Wealth
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Entrepreneurship

There are two kinds of people on this planet: earners and owners. And it all starts with an identity shift. That's where Owner Mode comes in. Owner Mode is the series for high-earning professionals who've built real careers and income, only to discover they may be climbing the wrong mountain. Host Brandon William Jones, founder and CEO of Gravy Wealth, sits down with luminaries like Mellody Hobson, top VC partners like a16z's Chris Lyons, founders who've built businesses from the ground up or through acquisition, and professionals who've built ownership on the side and made the calculated leap. These are the conversations that usually happen behind closed doors, diving into the real pathways and journeys that took them to the other side. If you're ready to shift into Owner Mode, you're in the right place.

Episodes

  1. 2d ago

    From the Room to the Cap Table | Chris Lyons (a16z)

    Chris Lyons has spent over fifteen years inside Andreessen Horowitz watching who actually gets access to private markets, and his answer is not the one most people expect. He founded a16z's Cultural Leadership Fund, the vehicle that brought cultural leaders like Nas, Kevin Durant, and Jada Pinkett Smith into early equity in companies like Coinbase, Airbnb, and Instagram before they went public, and he later launched the firm's first $400M Seed Fund. In this Owner Mode conversation, Chris opens with a blunt premise: private markets are private for a reason, and pretending otherwise helps no one. He is honest about the gate. The Cultural Leadership Fund sits at the $5M+ investment tier, and the structures around the big funds exist to keep smaller checks out. From there he reframes the real barrier to the next wave as information rather than net worth. The turning point is the endorsement-to-equity gap. He uses DJ Khaled going viral on Snapchat and helping build a multibillion-dollar business while sitting nowhere on the cap table, the exact gap the Cultural Leadership Fund was built to close. He then reads what comes next: AI removing the technical co-founder wall, and crypto rebuilding the rails of ownership underneath the consumer layer. The throughline is that ownership starts before the investment. Own your taste, your network, your point of view, and your time, and the cap table follows your conviction. For anyone who has spent years consuming the companies that made other people wealthy, this is a clear map of how the access question is changing. Chapters: 00:07:39 Introduction: Chris Lyons and his path from Atlanta music to a16z 00:13:00 The network philosophy: pick-up-the-phone relationships 00:20:05 Private markets 101: why they're private and what it means 00:23:56 The Cultural Leadership Fund: shared genius 00:31:07 Endorsement vs. equity: why consumers were left off the cap table 00:42:48 Crypto as ownership layer: Web1 read, Web2 write, Web3 own 00:47:14 AI removes the technical barrier 00:53:29 Ownership as identity: taste, network, point of view, time Links: gravywealth.com/foundation gravywealth.com/memo gravywealth.com/podcast go.gravywealth.com/DNA The Owner Mode podcast is for educational purposes only and is not investment advice. References to specific investments are illustrative and not recommendations. Investment opportunities through Gravy Capital are offered only to accredited investors.

    47 min
  2. Welcome to Owner Mode

    Jun 7

    Welcome to Owner Mode

    Two kinds of people on this planet: earners and owners. Owner Mode is the series for high-earning professionals who've built real careers and income, only to discover they may be climbing the wrong mountain. Host Brandon William Jones, founder and CEO of Gravy Wealth, convenes luminaries like Mellody Hobson, top VC partners like a16z's Chris Lyons, and people building ownership on the side or all in, for the conversations that usually happen behind closed doors. Follow now and don't miss an episode.

    2 min

Trailer

About

There are two kinds of people on this planet: earners and owners. And it all starts with an identity shift. That's where Owner Mode comes in. Owner Mode is the series for high-earning professionals who've built real careers and income, only to discover they may be climbing the wrong mountain. Host Brandon William Jones, founder and CEO of Gravy Wealth, sits down with luminaries like Mellody Hobson, top VC partners like a16z's Chris Lyons, founders who've built businesses from the ground up or through acquisition, and professionals who've built ownership on the side and made the calculated leap. These are the conversations that usually happen behind closed doors, diving into the real pathways and journeys that took them to the other side. If you're ready to shift into Owner Mode, you're in the right place.

Information

  • Creator
    Gravy Wealth
  • Years Active
    2K
  • Episodes
    2
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Gravy Wealth