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

Harry Stebbings
  • 4.4 (515)
  • 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: Who Wins the Model War: OpenAI, Anthropic or Open-Source | Token Maxing, AI Hangovers & The Coming ROI Reckoning | Labour Displacement Fears are BS & Overblown | From Physicist to Sequoia Founder with Matan Grinberg, Founder @ Factory

    2h ago

    20VC: Who Wins the Model War: OpenAI, Anthropic or Open-Source | Token Maxing, AI Hangovers & The Coming ROI Reckoning | Labour Displacement Fears are BS & Overblown | From Physicist to Sequoia Founder with Matan Grinberg, Founder @ Factory

    Matan Grinberg is the Founder and CEO @ Factory, an AI research lab, bringing autonomy to software engineering. Matan has raised over $220M for the company from the likes of Sequoia, Khosla, NEA, Evantic and 20VC. Last round valued the company at a whopping $1.5BN.  AGENDA:  00:00 – Why AI Means Everyone Will Become a Builder 04:55 – Will AI Finally Break the 200-Year GDP Growth Ceiling? 06:45 – The Rise of the 100x Engineer & Load-Bearing Talent 08:00 – The New Executive Job: Allocating Tokens Like Capital 10:35 – Kirkland's $500M AI Bet: Brilliant or Delusional? 12:45 – The AI Value War: Models vs Applications vs Infrastructure 18:45 – Token Maxing, AI Hangovers & The Coming ROI Reckoning 22:00 – Why AI Spend Could Soon Exceed Developer Salaries 24:00 – Open Source Can Already Replace 80–90% of Frontier Model Work 28:00 – What Makes a Great Engineer in the Age of Agents? 35:00 – Jobs That Will Disappear First Because of AI 40:00 – Why Matan Isn't Worried About AI Taking Jobs Long-Term 46:00 – From String Theory to Startup Founder: The Sequoia Origin Story 52:00 – The Meeting That Led to Sequoia's First Check 58:00 – Why America's Lack of Frontier Open Models Is Embarrassing 1:08:00 – What Matan Looks for in Every New Employee 1:12:00 – Why Elite Companies Will Treat Employees Like NBA Athletes 1:16:00 – The Most Important Prediction Matan Has Changed His Mind On

    1h 21m
  2. 20VC: SpaceX Launches Largest Ever IPO | OpenAI Files to Go Public | Uber Cuts 23% of HR | Lovable Hits $500M ARR | Founders Revolt Against VCs: The Fundraising Horror Stories Going Viral

    2d ago

    20VC: SpaceX Launches Largest Ever IPO | OpenAI Files to Go Public | Uber Cuts 23% of HR | Lovable Hits $500M ARR | Founders Revolt Against VCs: The Fundraising Horror Stories Going Viral

    AGENDA: 00:00 – SpaceX Launches the Largest IPO Roadshow in History at $1.77T Valuation 05:00 – Did Elon Break the IPO Playbook? The High-Risk Pricing Strategy Explained 12:00 – Will SpaceX Create a New Generation of Venture Billionaires? 17:00 – OpenAI Files to Go Public as the AI IPO Race Officially Begins 19:00 – Sam Altman's Vision: Why AI Is Becoming Always-On Infrastructure 22:00 – Apple Admits Defeat on Siri and Turns to Google AI 25:00 – Uber Cuts 23% of HR as AI Reshapes White-Collar Work 31:00 – Founders Revolt Against VCs: The Fundraising Horror Stories Going Viral 38:00 – Lovable Hits $500M ARR: The Rise of the 100-Person Billion-Dollar Company 48:00 – Elon's Masterstroke: Why the Cursor Acquisition Could Be the Deal of the Year

    1h 13m
  3. 20VC: Nebius Co-Founder on AI Infrastructure Bubbles | The Real Impact of Open Source on OpenAI & Anthropic | How Price Elastic is Demand for Compute | Could Nebius Sell 10x More Compute If They Had It & more with Roman Chernin

    5d ago

    20VC: Nebius Co-Founder on AI Infrastructure Bubbles | The Real Impact of Open Source on OpenAI & Anthropic | How Price Elastic is Demand for Compute | Could Nebius Sell 10x More Compute If They Had It & more with Roman Chernin

    Roman Chernin is Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer of Nebius, one of the fastest-growing AI infrastructure companies in the world. Today, Nebius operates some of the largest AI compute clusters globally and serves leading AI labs, enterprises, and developers. Today, Nebius has a market cap of $57BN.  AGENDA:  00:00 — Why AI Infrastructure Is Not a Bubble 05:00 — The Real Impact of Open Source on OpenAI & Anthropic 11:00 — Jevons Paradox: Why Cheaper AI Creates More Demand 13:00 — The Four Layers of AI Infrastructure Explained 19:00 — If Nebius Had 10x More Capacity Tomorrow 26:00 — The Shift from Training to Inference and Agents 31:00 — How Token Factory Cuts AI Costs by 70% 44:00 — Sovereign AI, Europe, and the Future of Model Building 49:00 — Competing Against Hyperscalers with 10x More Capital 59:00 — The Biggest Threat to Nebius Isn't Competition—It's Consolidation

    1h 7m
  4. 20Product: Inside Legora's Tech Stack: Why Token Maxing is Failing Enterprise Startups with Jacob Lauritzen, CTO @ Legora

    Jun 6

    20Product: Inside Legora's Tech Stack: Why Token Maxing is Failing Enterprise Startups with Jacob Lauritzen, CTO @ Legora

    Jacob Lauritzen serves as the CTO at Legora, the fastest growing B2B enterprise company in history; hitting $100 million in ARR in just 18 months . Legora boasts a valuation of $5.6BN and has raised a total of $866 million in funding. Legora's investors include the likes of Accel, Benchmark, and Bessemer Venture Partners, alongside strategic tech giants NVIDIA (NVentures) and Salesforce Ventures. AGENDA:  05:01 - How to Hire the Best Product Talent in 2026 06:21 - The New Product Bottleneck: Shifting Beyond Code Creation 09:24 - System Design vs. Code Creation: The Future Role of the Engineer 14:04 - The Evolving Software Development Lifecycle & The Death of the Design Phase 22:23 - Will Product and Engineering Fully Converge? 29:16 - Scalability and UX: Designing for 10x vs. 100x Spikes 38:15 - Scaling the Organization: What Breaks with a 250 Person Product Team 47:05 - Quick-Fire Round: Hyper-Growth Tactics & Out-Working the Giants

    55 min
  5. 20VC: Anthropic Files to Go Public | Token Budgeting Panic Hits Corporate America | Cognition Raises $1BN at $26BN Valuation | Apollo Warns PE Software Returns Will be Disastrous | The 9-9-6 Work Ethic: Performative Theatre or Startup Reality?

    Jun 4

    20VC: Anthropic Files to Go Public | Token Budgeting Panic Hits Corporate America | Cognition Raises $1BN at $26BN Valuation | Apollo Warns PE Software Returns Will be Disastrous | The 9-9-6 Work Ethic: Performative Theatre or Startup Reality?

    AGENDA: 00:00:00 — Private Markets Are "F***ing Done" & The Shift to Heavy CapEx 00:00:46 — Anthropic Files to Go Public  00:04:59 — Will the Anthropic IPO Break the Startup Ecosystem? 00:06:22 — The "Billion-Dollar Position" Era: VCs Reset Their Expectations 00:18:11 — The Trillion-Dollar Cash Grab: Google, SpaceX, and OpenAI Rush the Queue 00:23:15 — Is the SaaS Apocalypse Over? Bouncing Off the Bottom 00:25:34 — The Death of Human Per-Seat Licenses as Multiples Shift 00:27:18 — Winners vs. Losers: How Agentic Focused Products Captured the Market 00:30:26 — Cognition Raises $1 Billion at a $26 Billion Valuation 00:33:04 — Token Budgeting Panic Hits Corporate America 00:35:46 — Multi-Model Workflows and the Future of Cost Containment 00:41:20 — Choosing Tokens Over Humans: The 2027 Engineering Reality Check 00:46:42 — Can Large Companies Survive Slashing One-Third of Their Engineering Talent? 00:57:40 — Big Law Flex: Kirkland & Ellis Pledges $500 Million to Build In-House AI 01:01:21 — Giving Away the Crown Jewels: Will Firms Trust Claude? 01:08:44 — Robinhood's AI Move: Automating Financial Planning vs. Beating the Market 01:16:15 — Apollo Warns PE Software Returns Are About to Be Disastrous 01:19:15 — $10 Billion Carry Pools: Will VC Winners Quit the Game? 01:24:10 — The 9-9-6 Work Ethic: Performative Theatre or Startup Reality? 01:30:10 — The Great Valley Contradiction: Working 24/7 to Automate White-Collar Work

    1h 34m
  6. 20VC: Mercor CEO on Why Application Layer Companies Have No Defensibility, The Model is the Product | Token Spend Will Exceed Headcount Spend in 5 Years | The True Cost of Hiring AI Researchers in the Valley Today with Brendan Foody

    Jun 1

    20VC: Mercor CEO on Why Application Layer Companies Have No Defensibility, The Model is the Product | Token Spend Will Exceed Headcount Spend in 5 Years | The True Cost of Hiring AI Researchers in the Valley Today with Brendan Foody

    Brendan Foody is the Founder and CEO @ Mercor, one of the leading data providers to the largest labs on the planet including OpenAI. In the last two years, Brendan has scaled the company to $1.5BN in ARR and a valuation of $10BN.  AGENDA:  True or False: Mercor lost Meta and OpenAI as a customer with the hack? Mercor has been poaching competitor talent, paying them millions?  Mercor revenue is not real revenue and is only GMV? 12:56 Would Brendan sell Mercor for $30 billion?  14:23 Why everyone is wrong that AI will lead to labor displacement? 15:59 We will create many new jobs that do not exist with AI.  16:59 Why training agents will be a massive labor category that does not exist today  19:51 Will we see the data provider market unbundle and specialize into verticals?  22:24 Is the stated revenue really revenue or is it really GMV?  27:55 How a 1 million ARR company secured one of the best investors in the world with a helicopter ride  29:41 How Felicis secured the deal of the decade with a race track and a set of Ferraris  32:59 Which investment round felt like the highest price to grow into?  34:49 Why will value accrue to the infrastructure layer, not the application layer, in the next 12 months?  35:46 Why the model is the product and why application layer companies should be scared as a result  37:22 Why network effects will be the determinant of value creation  38:46 Why the forward-deployed motion, not the GTM motion, will determine true value creation.  41:59 Why token spend within organizations is going to continue to increase  43:54 Why agent evaluation to commoditize the model layer will be a massive business for enterprises?  51:13 Why we should have increased capital gains tax  01:01:31 How to compete with $20 million a year from Meta?  01:08:49 Will Mercor go public and when?

    1h 15m
  7. 20VC: Corgi Insurance: The Most Intense Workplace Culture in America: 7 Days Per Week, Founder Sleeps in Office, Corgi Cafe Open 24 Hours a Day, 60% of First 30 Employees Have Corgi Tattoos | The Journey from $0 to $2.6BN Valuation in Just 2 Years

    May 30

    20VC: Corgi Insurance: The Most Intense Workplace Culture in America: 7 Days Per Week, Founder Sleeps in Office, Corgi Cafe Open 24 Hours a Day, 60% of First 30 Employees Have Corgi Tattoos | The Journey from $0 to $2.6BN Valuation in Just 2 Years

    Nico Laqua is the Co-Founder and CEO of Corgi Insurance, an AI-native insurance carrier built for startups. Corgi is the most intense workplace culture in America. The team works 7 days per week. The founder sleeps in the office. ⅔ of the first 30 team members have a Corgi tattoo. This week, Corgi raised $106M, valuing the company at a whopping $2.6BN.  AGENDA:  06:35 Why going to university was a massive waste of time  09:42 Why we work seven days a week  11:58 Why we do work trials and how that is a test of people's stamina  18:41 Why we created a cafe in the biggest annoyance with San Francisco  22:00 Why I am so bullish on London  23:49 Why I haven't sold a single secondary  24:19 Why people who found companies in New York prioritise dating over their company  30:46 Biggest lessons on cash comp and equity  31:13 Team members can be split into three separate groups  34:59 Biggest lesson from Brian Chesky on price  35:44 What is the right amount of time to be fundraising for?  36:47 Good companies get deals done and what makes the best venture investors?  40:34 Why AI makes sales and marketing more valuable  43:12 Why I don't like boards and I don't think they're effective  46:19 What I would like to see more of from venture funds  48:05 Who was Corgi's first believer?

    53 min
  8. 20VC: OpenAI & SpaceX S1 Drops | NVIDIA's $81BN Revenue Quarter | Cloudflare and ClickUp Do Controversial Layoffs | Exa, OpenRouter and Polsia Raise Mega Rounds | Uber and Microsoft Declare AI ROI for Developers is Questionable

    May 28

    20VC: OpenAI & SpaceX S1 Drops | NVIDIA's $81BN Revenue Quarter | Cloudflare and ClickUp Do Controversial Layoffs | Exa, OpenRouter and Polsia Raise Mega Rounds | Uber and Microsoft Declare AI ROI for Developers is Questionable

    AGENDA:  05:16 Nvidia Blowout Quarter: $81BN Revenues and Stock… Flat!  10:39 Uber and Microsoft Declare Productivity Gains Questionable from AI 25:26 The Layoffs Continue: ClickUp and Cloudflare 34:39 OpenAI S1: Is it a Race? How Will it be Received? 38:28 Do Anthropic Rush Out Their IPO Also? 45:49 SpaceX S-1: "Why I Would Never Invest" 48:06 Why Colossus is a Stroke of Genius By Elon 51:31 Data Centers In Space is BS and Will Not Be Core to SpaceX 58:04 Polsia Raises $30M at $250M Price: Is this the Peak?  01:06:08 Exa Raises at $2.2BN to Build Search for Agents 01:14:34 Is Replacing Your CRM with Vibe Coding Always Ragebait

    1h 25m
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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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