Founders and Builders

Joe Wear
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Founders & Builders is your go-to channel for in-depth conversations with the world's best startup founders and operators. Whether you’re an aspiring founder, a seasoned entrepreneur, or simply curious about the journey of building your own business, you'll find real-world experiences, and candid advice from successful entrepreneurs who have been in the trenches. Join us as we explore the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, uncover the secrets to startup success, and dive into the future of technology and business. Subscribe to be inspired, informed, and equipped to build something great!

  1. 3 DAYS AGO

    How to Start your Startup in 2026 (real learnings from $110 billion+ founders)

    If you’re thinking about starting a business in 2026, or you’ve had an idea sitting in the back of your mind that you haven’t acted on yet... this video is for you.Over the last six months, I’ve interviewed 30 founders and investors on the Founders & Builders podcast. Collectively, the companies they’ve built are worth over $110 billion... and after analysing those conversations, one clear pattern kept coming up.Every successful startup goes through the same five steps, and none of it is magic. You can totally do it too.In this episode, I’ll walk you through that playbook so you can see exactly where you are, and what actually matters at each stage:Chapters:00:00 - Why NOW is the time to start your business01:51 - Step 1: Finding your startup idea & co-founder06:30 - Step 2: Raising investment (and whether you should)09:34 - Step 3: Winning your first customers15:24 - Step 4: Scaling your company (adding fuel on the fire)19:41 - Step 5: Mastering your founder mindset23:09 - What's coming up in 2026Everything you’ll hear comes directly from founders who’ve built real companies, including the people behind Google Maps, Weights & Biases, Harvey AI, and investors from CRV, Hoxton Ventures, and B Capital.If you’ve ever felt late, behind, or unsure whether now is the right time — you’re not alone. And chances are, you’re probably earlier than you think.Don’t forget to subscribe 🔔 And after you've finished watching the video, get back to building ;)#startup #founder #venturecapital #technology #entrepreneur

    24 min

  2. 27/12/2025

    Henrik Djurestål | Founder of Vorker.ai - Slush 2025

    Henrik Djurestal is the founder of Vorker.ai - a deep AI coworker built specifically for the smallest businesses: one to ten-person teams who need leverage, not headcount. Fresh off raising a €700,000 pre-seed round, Henrik breaks down why deep AI agents will transform small business operations, and why the next entrepreneurial wave won’t be no-code, it will be AI co-workers running entire workflows end-to-end. From automating admin and outreach to drafting contracts, generating designs and handling integrations across thousands of tools, Vorker is building the future of how tiny teams operate. Henrik also shares candid lessons from raising as a solo founder, the challenges of selling a horizontal AI product, and why traction beats pitch decks every time. CHAPTERS: 00:18 – Introducing Vorker.ai and the €700k Pre-Seed Round 00:57 – What Vorker.ai Actually Does for 1–10 Person Businesses 01:39 – How Deep AI Agents Work Inside Vorker 02:26 – Using Off-the-Shelf Models vs Training Your Own 03:25 – The Future of AI Co-Workers for Small Businesses 05:14 – Real Tasks Vorker Can Automate Across a Business 06:50 – Hiring the Team and the Vorker “Secret Code” Challenge 09:06 – Lessons from Fundraising as a Solo Founder 11:29 – What Comes Next: Closed Beta, Open Beta and Seed Plans A huge thank you to Henrik for joining us live at Slush - a brilliant conversation with a founder building in one of the most explosive new categories in AI. #foundersandbuilders #henrikdjurestal #vorkerai #aicoworkers #startups #slush

    12 min

  3. 20/12/2025

    Slush 2025 | Sam Sihvonen - CEO of Solu

    Sam Sihvonen is the CEO of Solu - a precision genomics platform helping hospitals and institutions detect, prevent and control infections before they spread.What began as a diagnostics-focused tool has rapidly expanded across major verticals from food safety and agriculture to pharma, industrial bio and research. Sam and the team believe Solu can become a company that reshapes how we identify and stop infectious threats in the real world.From the economics of drug development, to the global risk of antibiotic resistance, Sam explains why the world urgently needs better tools - and why Solu is already making a measurable impact.Chapters:00:00 Intro01:12 Big verticals in genomics01:42 Why this could become a massive company02:25 The Slush talk with Enveda03:10 Why biotech execution is so hard04:05 Why no $1T biotech exists (yet)04:50 Drug development timelines + costs05:32 The antibiotic crisis06:21 What success looks like for Solu08:02 Early customers + real-world usage08:45 Advice to early-stage founders09:18 Raising the ceiling on your ambition10:02 How Slush drives bigger thinkingHuge thanks to Sam for making the time!#foundersandbuilders #samsihvonen #solu

    10 min

  4. 17/12/2025

    How Google Maps Almost Failed After Launch (And the Fix That Changed Everything) - Lars Rasmussen

    Lars Rasmussen went from being a broke founder after the dot-com crash to co-founding Google Maps, one of the most important products on the modern internet. Today, billions of people use Google Maps every day without thinking twice.In this episode, Lars shares: • How Google Maps accidentally went viral before launch and nearly overwhelmed Google’s infrastructure • Why speed, not features, was the real unlock that changed everything• How a failed VC raise directly led to selling the company to Google • What it was like building on the web before smartphones, APIs or modern tooling • Why founders today have more leverage than ever, yet still feel late • His shift from builder to ecosystem builder and why he’s now creating Panathenea, a major founder conference in Athens Chapters: 01:30 - The Google Maps Story 07:36 - Larry Page Discussion 08:46 - How Widely Google Maps is Used 11:15 - Growth Challenges 15:28 - 10 Millions Users on Day One! 16:29 - Panathenea 28:00 - Advice To Young Founders ⭐ Listener Suggestion Of The Week – Canvahttps://www.canva.com/ 👍 Why subscribe?If you build companies, invest in startups, or care about technology shaping the future, this channel is for you. 🔔 Subscribe and turn notifications on so you never miss an episode. #GoogleMaps #LarsRasmussen #Startups #Founders #TechHistory #Entrepreneurship

    33 min

  5. 13/12/2025

    Ali Parsa | CEO of Quadrivia - Slush 2025

    Ali Parsa is the CEO of Quadrivia - an AI company creating real-time clinical agents that automate 20 to 30 percent of a clinician’s workload. The goal is simple: reduce the global shortage of medical expertise by turning routine, repetitive clinical tasks into safe, regulated AI services.Ali’s mission is shaped by decades of building at the frontier of healthcare. Before Quadrivia, he founded CIRCLE (now the UK’s largest hospital group) and Babylon, which served millions of patients globally and pioneered AI triage and digital-first care.A huge thank you to Ali for joining us at Slush - this was an honest & deeply inspiring discussion about the future of AI in global health.Chapters:00:18 – What Quadrivia Does Explained Simply01:23 – The Fundamental Problem in Global Healthcare02:33 – Building Safe, Real-Time Clinical AI04:27 – From Circle to Babylon to Quadrivia06:13 – Lessons From Failure and Europe’s Founder Culture08:00 – Ali’s Story: Becoming a Refugee at Sixteen09:41 – How Ali Uses AI and the Future of Clinical Agents11:17 – Reflections, Resilience and Advice to His Younger Self#quadrivia #aliparsa

    13 min

  6. 10/12/2025

    You’re One Cold Email Away From Everything You Want – Here’s How James Green Did It

    James Green went from a small industrial town in Redditch to becoming a General Partner at CRV, one of the oldest and most respected venture funds in the world.In this special episode filmed in San Francisco, we unpack the real story behind how he got there - and the philosophy that’s shaped the founders he backs.James doesn’t care about pedigrees. He cares about scrappiness, conviction and people who do exactly what they say they’ll do.James has built a career on backing the underdog – the founders everyone else underestimates.Chapters:(00:00) Venture Capitalists and Cyber Security(10:26) Future Challenges in Cyber Security(18:56) Early Startup Experience and Transition(25:40) The Power of Cold Emailing(30:50) Insightful Insights on Startup Investing(40:17) Venture Capital and Company Scaling(48:33) Optimizing Startup Funding Processes(57:18) San Francisco Tech Culture Insights(01:04:07) Life Lessons and Urgency⭐ Listener Suggestion Of The Week - Ramp - https://ramp.com/👍 Why subscribe?If you build, code, invest or care about the future of AI, startups or developer tools, this channel is for you.🔔 Tap the bell so you never miss new episodes.#coldemail #jamesgreen #venturecapital

    1h 8m

  7. 06/12/2025

    Mirko Novakovic | Dash0 CEO - Slush 2025

    Companies that win are the ones who master go-to-market faster than anyone else - even if it feels uncomfortable, risky or counterintuitive.Mirko Novakovic is the co-founder & CEO of Dash0 - the platform helping engineering teams ship faster by eliminating the complexity and noise around modern software observability.Before Dash0, Mirko built and scaled multiple high-growth companies. Today, he’s applying those lessons to a new category and teaching founders why revenue is the only real feedback that matters.From understanding sales math, to hiring ahead of growth, to pushing against the safety-first mindset many founders default to, Mirko breaks down why speed wins, how to be your own salesperson #1 and what it really takes to get to that first million in revenue.Chapters:00:00 Intro01:45 The sales math every founder must know03:10 Why you must hire 12 months ahead04:32 The burn + risk problem in high growth06:00 Why founders must sell early07:20 Conversations vs real revenue08:42 How to ask questions that close deals10:05 Getting to the first $1M in revenue11:32 When to hire sales and add fuel to the fire13:00 The mindset shift every technical founder needsHuge thanks to Mirko for making the time!#dash0 #mirkonovakovic

    16 min

  8. 03/12/2025

    Lessons From a $1.7B AI Acquisition | Lukas Biewald of Weights & Biases

    In this episode, Lukas opens up about the real story behind W&B’s $1.7B acquisition, what it was like inside early OpenAI, why most founders move far too slowly, and the surprising truth that you’re almost always earlier than you think. Lukas breaks down how W&B became the default toolset for the world’s best ML engineers, the strategy behind seeding researchers, why platforms often fail, and the singular advantage of being “in a rush”. He also shares lessons from Travis Kalanick, what founders consistently get wrong, and how becoming a parent changed his leadership.If you care about AI, startups, product craftsmanship or developer tools, this episode is a masterclass. Don’t forget to subscribe 🔔 Chapters: 00:00 Intro – The gold rush of AI 01:18 From CrowdFlower to OpenAI 02:54 The insight: data beats algorithms 04:47 Joining OpenAI as an unpaid intern 07:57 The origin story of Weights & Biases 09:03 Getting the first 100 users 11:00 “You think you're late, but you're probably early” 12:56 Fundraising: CrowdFlower vs W&B 16:45 Building for builders, not platforms 17:22 Why seeding researchers made W&B win 22:10 Advice most founders get wrong 37:15 Breaking through ‘paper walls’ 44:56 What it was all for ⭐ Listener Suggestion – CoreWeave - https://www.coreweave.com/ Why subscribe?If you build, code, invest or care about the future of AI, startups or developer tools, this channel is for you. 🔔 Tap the bell so you never miss new episodes. #AI #startups #wandb #founders #machinelearning #openai

    46 min
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About

Founders & Builders is your go-to channel for in-depth conversations with the world's best startup founders and operators. Whether you’re an aspiring founder, a seasoned entrepreneur, or simply curious about the journey of building your own business, you'll find real-world experiences, and candid advice from successful entrepreneurs who have been in the trenches. Join us as we explore the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, uncover the secrets to startup success, and dive into the future of technology and business. Subscribe to be inspired, informed, and equipped to build something great!

Information

  • Creator
    Joe Wear
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    44
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Joe Wear
  • Show Website
    Founders and Builders