Uncapped with Jack Altman

Alt Capital

Conversations with people I admire about things I’m genuinely interested in

  1. Uncapped #26 | Ali Rowghani

    قبل ١٩ ساعة

    Uncapped #26 | Ali Rowghani

    Ali Rowghani is the founder of First Harmonic, a go-to-market program purpose-built for seed stage founders. Ali has had a long, distinguished career in tech. He worked with Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull at Pixar for nine years holding various roles including CFO and SVP of Strategic Planning, took Twitter from $0 in revenue through IPO as the CFO and COO, and most recently was the founding Managing Director of Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund where he led investments in DoorDash, Stripe, Coinbase, Zapier, among many others. Ali has also invested as an early angel in several breakout AI companies, including Mercor, Decagon, and Cursor. He’s seen the arc from inception to IPO many times and recognizes what separates winning startups from the pack. We covered: Pixar’s golden age Exceptional leadership Working with Steve Jobs Twitter going from $0 to $2B Operating beliefs in venture --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:53) Pixar’s miracle factory (6:28) Working with Steve Jobs (13:23) Ed Catmull and John Lasseter (16:28) Crazy years at Twitter (18:30) Getting monetization right (19:56) Learnings in hindsight (22:37) Elon Musk observations (24:03) Beginning of YC’s growth fund (29:31) Between pre and post traction (33:23) The second job of a CEO (34:35) First Harmonic (35:31) Beliefs in venture --- More on Ali: https://www.firstharmonic.com/ https://x.com/ROWGHANI More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- Link to Ali’s referenced blog post: https://www.ycombinator.com/library/3k-the-second-job-of-a-startup-ceo --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com

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  2. Uncapped #25 | Lulu Cheng Meservey

    ٢٤ سبتمبر

    Uncapped #25 | Lulu Cheng Meservey

    Lulu Cheng Meservey is the leading voice in the new age of PR and comms and is the founder of Rostra, an advisory firm helping founders go direct. Lulu has been a trusted voice for founders like Palmer Luckey at Anduril, Eric Glyman at Ramp, and Brian Armstrong at Coinbase. She previously ran corporate affairs and communications for Activision Blizzard and was the head of comms for Substack. Lulu writes an acclaimed newsletter called Flack, where she proposes her new playbook for communications and shares tactical advice for how to help win over the people who matter, without wasting time or inducing cringe. A few memorable moments: Aura is code for good communicator People like to have assumptions for the level of celebration you deserve The correct version of this company has him in it Words that mean the same thing aren’t perceived the same way Comms is the last thing to be uniquely human --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:50) Comms having a moment (3:43) Breaking through the noise (6:30) What makes a great story (9:58) Creating story arcs (17:29) Flow and stock (20:29) All press is good press (23:25) Leaning into authenticity (28:10) Word choice (35:09) Impact on recruiting (42:48) The business of comms (45:48) Comms predictions (48:18) Tech & media relationship --- More on Lulu: https://x.com/lulumeservey https://www.getflack.com/ https://rostra.co/ More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com

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  3. Uncapped #24 | Balaji Srinivasan

    ١٨ سبتمبر

    Uncapped #24 | Balaji Srinivasan

    Balaji Srinivasan is an angel investor, tech founder, and WSJ bestselling author of The Network State. He is currently the founder of The Network School, a frontier community for techno-optimists. Formerly the CTO of Coinbase and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, he is an early investor in many successful tech companies, including Anduril, Perplexity, OpenSea, Alchemy, StarkWare, Dapper Labs, Benchling, and Polymarket to name a few. Balaji also led the launch of USDC as Coinbase CTO, and was an early investor in many important crypto protocols including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana among others. In this conversation, we discuss the evolving political landscape, emphasizing the disruptions caused by technology and the internet. Balaji outlines the four factions in the current political climate: the internet, Blue America, Red America, and China. We also explore the implications of tariffs, the rise of AI, and the future of network states. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:19) The Network School (1:24) Mapping the political landscape (3:38) Tech and the media (6:19) China and the trade war (11:32) Tariffs and economic strategy (24:30) Global economic shifts (27:41) Rise of the global anti-woke coalition (31:11) Unholy alliances that might form (37:18) Class warfare instead of race warfare (41:21) The answer may not be in America (46:56) The Network State --- More on Balaji: https://x.com/balajis https://ns.com/ https://thenetworkstate.com/ More on Jack: https://x.com/jaltma https://www.altcap.com/ --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com

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  4. Uncapped #23 | Martin Casado from a16z

    ٣ سبتمبر

    Uncapped #23 | Martin Casado from a16z

    Martin Casado is a general partner at a16z, where he leads the firm’s $1.25 billion infrastructure practice. Martin has led investments in Cursor, dbt Labs, and Fivetran to name a few. Prior to joining a16z in 2016, he was the co-founder and CTO of Nicira, which was acquired by VMware for $1.26B. While at VMware, Martin was the SVP and GM of network and security, which he scaled to a $600 million run-rate business. Martin started his career at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where he worked on large-scale simulations for the Department of Defense before moving over to work with the intelligence community on networking and cybersecurity. We covered: What necessitates specialization The conflicts dynamic Infra vs app companies Importance of open source The only sin in VC --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:27) Importance of media for VC (3:50) Evolution of a16z (7:00) Specialization (10:32) Value of distribution (13:16) Staying power in infra (19:49) The conflicts dynamic (26:32) State of play in AI (30:48) The future of coding (34:58) Significance of open source (39:48) Marc Andreessen’s leadership (44:02) The only sin in VC (48:37) Scaling a lot of board seats --- More on Martin: https://a16z.com/author/martin-casado/ https://x.com/martin_casado More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com

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  5. Uncapped #22 | Greg Rosen from BoxGroup

    ٢٠ أغسطس

    Uncapped #22 | Greg Rosen from BoxGroup

    Greg Rosen is a Partner at BoxGroup. Greg was the first hire at BoxGroup outside of the founders, David Tisch and Adam Rothenberg. After moving to the West Coast to work with Benchmark and Bedrock, Greg rejoined BoxGroup and currently invests out of their San Francisco office. An engineer by training, Greg built iOS games in high school before dropping out of college at 19 to join Jim Pallotta's venture fund in New York City. BoxGroup is an NYC-based seed stage venture capital firm that has invested in over 500 seed-stage startups over the last 15 years, including Plaid, Ro, Ramp, Clay, Scopely, Warp, Cursor, PillPack, Amplitude, Flatiron Health, Stripe, Warby Parker, Harry’s, Oscar, Flexport, Classpass, Vine, GroupMe, Airtable and more. We covered: Being collaborative at scale Avoiding adverse selection Getting to a yes instead of no Venture calendar audits Running the right strategy --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:47) The collaborative venture model (5:47) Adverse selection vs coverage (11:59) How to see a ton of companies (14:44) Getting to founders early (21:10) Helping teammates get to a yes (23:25) Why there aren’t more BoxGroups (27:57) What’s learnable about picking (31:46) Calendar auditing (34:39) Focusing on where you’re outlier (37:25) Depth vs breadth of network (41:03) The future of code (44:00) Brain computers --- More on Greg: https://www.boxgroup.com/ https://x.com/grosen More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com

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  6. Uncapped #21 | Brian Armstrong from Coinbase

    ١٣ أغسطس

    Uncapped #21 | Brian Armstrong from Coinbase

    Brian Armstrong is the co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency company that provides exchange, brokerage, and custody services to 100M+ verified users in over 100 countries. Founded in 2012, Coinbase went public in 2021 on the NASDAQ under the ticker COIN and as of August 2025 has a market cap of $83 billion. Brian is also the co-founder of New Limit, a longevity biotech company on a mission to significantly extend human lifespan that recently raised a $130M Series B led by Kleiner Perkins and angels including John and Patrick Collison, Elad Gil, and Joshua Kushner, among others. We covered: Working with the government When to jump to the hot new thing Choosing what frontiers to prioritize The inner game of being contrarian --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:26) Becoming the everything chain (4:20) Story behind the GENIUS Act (5:33) Working with regulators (10:45) The future of crypto and the government (17:10) When to jump to the hot new thing (23:03) Choosing what frontiers to prioritize (29:59) Brain-computer interface tech (34:48) Inside the mind of a contrarian (43:52) Creating a sustainable lifestyle --- More on Brian: https://www.coinbase.com/ https://www.newlimit.com/ https://x.com/brian_armstrong More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com

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  7. Uncapped #20 | Guillermo Rauch from Vercel

    ٦ أغسطس

    Uncapped #20 | Guillermo Rauch from Vercel

    Guillermo Rauch is the founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 which is one of the most popular AI app building tools that’s helping power the online presence of companies like Porsche, Under Armour and Nintendo. In May 2024, Vercel completed a $250M Series E at a $3.25B valuation and was recently named to the Forbes Cloud 100. Originally from Argentina, Guillermo became a self-taught developer at the age of ten, and has been a passionate contributor to the open-source community ever since. He is the mind behind foundational JavaScript frameworks like Next.js and Socket.io, and has built tools that power some of the internet’s most innovative products, including Midjourney, Grok, and Notion. We covered: Vercel’s early insights State of affairs for codegen Implications of AI for developers Skills of the future Product building taste --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:28) Prequel to Vercel (4:32) Vercel’s early insights (8:13) State of affairs for codegen (17:18) Codegen evolution (19:37) Perceived vs realized productivity (27:53) Fault attribution (31:56) Internet being a house of cards (35:33) When codegen will be exceptional (40:18) What kids should be learning (47:42) Chasing the dragon vs listening to customers (50:46) The next internet (51:58) Reverse engineering success (55:50) Making it work as a dad and CEO (58:14) Taste in building product --- More on Guillermo: https://vercel.com/ https://x.com/rauchg More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com

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  8. Uncapped #19 | Dwarkesh Patel

    ٣٠ يوليو

    Uncapped #19 | Dwarkesh Patel

    In his early twenties, Dwarkesh Patel has become one of the leading podcasters with nearly 1 million YouTube subscribers excited to consume his deeply-researched interviews. Dwarkesh has caught the attention of influential figures such as Jeff Bezos, Noah Smith, Nat Friedman, and Tyler Cohen, who have all praised his interviews – the latter describing him as “highly rated but still underrated.” In 2024, he was included in TIME’s 100 most influential people in AI alongside the likes of Ilya Sutskever, Andrew Yao, and Albert Gu. Dwarkesh’s interviews span far beyond AI, his North Star being his curiosity and preparation.  We covered: Digital minds leading huge companies AI making us smarter vs rotting our brain His approach to learning as his job Best in class interview preparation  --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:23) Skepticism around the timing of AGI (6:07) Confidence in AI researchers (7:17) Future utility of superintelligence (11:23) Impact of scaling digital minds (15:41) Driven by increases in compute (17:17) Is AI making us smarter? (21:03) AI’s impact on biology (23:54) Interests outside of AI (26:18) Chronology of his interests (31:10) His approach to learning (33:43) New thinking on human evolution (40:44) Learning and the media (45:52) Podcasting success (48:53) Best in class interview preparation --- More on Dwarkesh: https://www.dwarkesh.com/ https://x.com/dwarkesh_sp More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com

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Conversations with people I admire about things I’m genuinely interested in

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