Escape Velocity

Latitude Capital
  • 5.0 (12)
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Escape Velocity is a podcast series with industry-leading founders. What too often looks like an overnight success, always starts with an idea and a founder looking to get to scale. This early part of building a company - the “0 to 1” journey - is often the most messy and least linear part of any successful company.  In these conversations, I ask the most successful founders and leaders to unpack key lessons from those early days before they became the household name we know today. Escape Velocity is hosted by Ansaf Kareem, a venture capitalist and founder of Latitude Capital. Visit Our Website: www.escape-velocity.io Follow Us On Twitter: @0to1podcast

Episodes

  1. Farooq Malik & Charles Yoo-Naut, Co-Founders of Rain

    12/03/2025

    Farooq Malik & Charles Yoo-Naut, Co-Founders of Rain

    Rain, a leading stablecoin infrastructure company, recently announced a $58M Series B round, but the journey began with a simple idea born from a dissatisfaction with traditional finance. Ansaf Kareem, who led Rain's initial seed round, unpacks the zero to one journey of Rain's co-founders as they detail how a quick weekend hack on a notary website revealed the massive opportunity in money movement and how their diverse backgrounds (from traditional finance to scaling products at Intuit) provided the perfect Founder-Product Fit to navigate crypto's regulatory and technical challenges. In this episode: (0:49) Introduction to Escape Velocity Podcast (1:40) Farooq’s Early Entrepreneurial Journey (5:08) From Stanford to Intuit: Charles’ Path to Entrepreneurship (12:04) Founder-Market-Fit: Why They Felt Uniquely Situated for this Problem (14:09) What Big Companies Taught Them (and What They Had to Unlearn) (20:29) Building Rain Cards and Finding Early Product–Market Fit (23:14) How Farooq & Charles Chose Partners for Their Financings (40:38) The Rain Platform Today & Customer Use Cases (48:49) Stablecoin Adoption, Regulation & Why Enterprises Should Care (55:23) Competing with a Technical Moat in a Crowded Market (1:16:31) How Their Roles Evolved as Rain Scaled (1:19:45) The People Who Shaped Them & Final Reflections Follow Escape Velocity: https://x.com/0to1podcast Host - Ansaf Kareem: https://x.com/AnsafK Farooq: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fhmalik Charles: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlesnaut/ Where to find Latitude Capital: • Twitter/X: https://x.com/LatitudeCapital • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/latitude-capital

    1h 21m
  2. Soham Mazumdar, CEO of WisdomAI

    11/11/2025

    Soham Mazumdar, CEO of WisdomAI

    Soham Mazumdar turned a knack for math into a role at Google, helped build the multi-billion-dollar company Rubrik, and is now pioneering the next wave of AI with Wisdom AI. Ansaf Kareem sits down with Soham Mazumdar, a three-time founder, including the massively successful, newly public Rubrik (NYSE: RBRK) to dive into the non-linear path of finding Product-Market Fit. Soham shares the hard-won lessons from his career, starting from early theoretical research to building a massive enterprise business and his pivot into Generative AI In this episode: (0:00) Introduction to Escape Velocity Podcast (0:43) Early Life, Math, and the Path to Technology/Engineering (1:46) Joining Google (2004) & The Importance of Search Infrastructure (3:28) The First Spark: Leaving Google to Start Tagtile (6:37) Biggest Lessons from First-Time Entrepreneurship (8:06) Jumping Back In: The Genesis of Rubrik (10:06) Key Learnings from Rubrik (14:42) Why Start Wisdom AI? (16:40) Why This Space Now? (17:57) Building the Team: High Bar for Talent and Co-Founders at Wisdom AI (20:38) Wisdom AI V1: The Core Problem Statement (22:48) New Muscle: Shifting from Infrastructure to Application (24:58) The Strategy of Building in Quiet (26:55) Philosophy on Early Fundraising and Seed Capital (28:29) Go-to-Market Strategy: Horizontal Platform & New Category (34:25) Defining a New Category: Telling the Wisdom AI Story to Enterprise Buyers (38:48) Defensibility, The AI Trough, and Future Vision (42:46) Scaling the GTM Team & The Role of Forward-Deployed Engineers (55:20) Personal Drive and Key Influencers Sign up for new podcasts: www.escape-velocity.io Follow Escape Velocity: https://x.com/0to1podcast Host - Ansaf Kareem: https://x.com/AnsafK Where to find Latitude Capital: • Twitter/X: https://x.com/LatitudeCapital • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/latitude-capital/

    58 min
  3. Brian Long, CEO of Adaptive Security / Former CEO of Attentive

    07/20/2025

    Brian Long, CEO of Adaptive Security / Former CEO of Attentive

    Brian Long is the Co-Founder and CEO of Adaptive Security. Before Adaptive, Brian was Co-Founder and CEO of Attentive, last valued at ~$7B. (00:00) The Motivations and Path to Entrepreneurship (02:21) The Advantages and Challenges of Being a Second-Time Founder (05:01) Finding the Right Problem to Solve (06:34) Building a Founding Team (10:56) The Importance of Founder-Led Sales (16:29) Long-Term Thinking in Entrepreneurship (24:29) The Importance of Early Sales and Customer Interactions (26:44) Focusing on the Problem Before the Solution (29:19) Navigating Competition and Staying Focused (35:38) Transitioning as CEO and Building a Capable Team (37:22) The Challenges of Big Tech and Entrepreneurship (43:33) Tackling Big Problems and Making a Positive Impact Sign up for new podcasts: www.escape-velocity.io Follow Escape Velocity: @0to1podcast Host - Ansaf Kareem: @ansafk

    45 min
  4. Samar Abbas, CEO of Temporal

    07/08/2025

    Samar Abbas, CEO of Temporal

    Samar Abbas is the CEO and Co-founder of Temporal, developer of the leading open source system to make code more durable and reliable, valued most recently at $1.7B. (00:00) Introduction and Entrepreneurial Journey (03:09) The Importance of Working with Smart People and Building a Strong Company Culture (05:38) Finding the Right Co-Founder: Complementary Skill Sets and a Common Foundation (09:08) From Open-Source Project to Commercialization: The Temporal Journey (13:48) The Power of a Consumption-Based Business Model (24:07) Gaining the Trust of Enterprise Customers: Vision and Long-Term Strategy (26:13) Building a Developer-First Organization (26:51) Raising Series A and Finding the Right Partner (28:22) Leveraging Investors for Network and Recruiting (28:46) Transitioning from CTO to CEO (31:28) Envisioning the Future of Temporal (33:34) Leveraging AI Advancements for Developer Support (37:03) The Overhype and Long-Term Potential of AI (39:05) The Role of Open Source in AI Development Sign up for new podcasts: ⁠www.escape-velocity.io⁠ Follow Escape Velocity: @0to1podcast Host - Ansaf Kareem: @ansafk

    43 min
  5. Arvind Jain, CEO of Glean

    11/19/2024

    Arvind Jain, CEO of Glean

    Escape Velocity is a podcast series with industry-leading founders who have scaled their businesses to billion dollar companies or successful large exits. In this episode, we speak with Arvind Jain, CEO of Glean. Glean is a leading AI company most recently valued at $4.6B. We discuss: - The pain points Arvind saw that gave him the idea to start Glean - Why enterprise search had failed before, and why this time was different for Glean - How to approach building in the early days when you're creating a new market - Arvind's approach to fundraising - How do you sell the ROI on AI to enterprise customers - What has the AI moment unlocked for Glean - The future of Glean's product - What drives Arvind as an entrepreneur - And much more Escape Velocity is hosted by Ansaf Kareem, a venture capitalist and founder of Latitude Capital. Sign up for new podcasts: www.escape-velocity.io Follow Escape Velocity: @0to1podcast Host - Ansaf Kareem: @ansafk

    1 hr
  6. Jesse Zhang, CEO of Decagon

    10/30/2024

    Jesse Zhang, CEO of Decagon

    In this podcast, we speak with Jesse Zhang, CEO of Decagon. Decagon is a leading company in AI-powered customer service. Escape Velocity is a podcast series with industry-leading founders who have scaled their businesses to billion dollar companies or successful large exits. What too often looks like an overnight success, always starts with an idea and a founder looking to get to scale. This early part of building a company - the “0 to 1” journey - is often the most messy and least linear part of any successful company.  In these conversations, I ask the most successful founders and leaders to unpack key lessons from those early days before they became the household name we know today. Escape Velocity is hosted by Ansaf Kareem, a venture capitalist and founder of Latitude Capital. Visit Our Website: www.escape-velocity.io Follow Us On Twitter: @0to1podcast

    42 min
  7. Lina Khan, Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

    06/27/2024

    Lina Khan, Chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)

    Lina Khan is the Chair of the Federal Trade Commission which enforces the United States' anti-trust and consumer protection laws, including in Big Tech and AI. When she was sworn in in 2021, Chair Khan became the youngest person ever to hold this role. Sign up for new podcasts: www.escape-velocity.io Follow Escape Velocity: @0to1podcast Host - Ansaf Kareem: @ansafk

    25 min
  8. Immad Akhund, CEO of Mercury

    04/18/2024

    Immad Akhund, CEO of Mercury

    In this podcast, we speak with Immad Akhund, CEO of Mercury. Mercury - a leading FinTech company last valued at over $1.5B. Escape Velocity is a podcast series with industry-leading founders who have scaled their businesses to billion dollar companies or successful large exits. What too often looks like an overnight success, always starts with an idea and a founder looking to get to scale. This early part of building a company - the “0 to 1” journey - is often the most messy and least linear part of any successful company.  In these conversations, I ask the most successful founders and leaders to unpack key lessons from those early days before they became the household name we know today. Escape Velocity is hosted by Ansaf Kareem, a venture capitalist and founder of Latitude Capital. Visit Our Website: www.escape-velocity.io Follow Us On Twitter: @0to1podcast

    49 min
  9. Bipul Sinha, CEO of Rubrik

    02/12/2024

    Bipul Sinha, CEO of Rubrik

    In this podcast, we speak with Bipul Sinha, CEO of Rubrik. Rubrik is a leader in the data security space and was last valued at $4B. Escape Velocity is a podcast series with industry-leading founders who have scaled their businesses to billion dollar companies or successful large exits. What too often looks like an overnight success, always starts with an idea and a founder looking to get to scale. This early part of building a company - the “0 to 1” journey - is often the most messy and least linear part of any successful company.  In these conversations, I ask the most successful founders and leaders to unpack key lessons from those early days before they became the household name we know today. Escape Velocity is hosted by Ansaf Kareem, a venture capitalist and founder of Latitude Capital. Visit Our Website: www.escape-velocity.io Follow Us On Twitter: @0to1podcast

    33 min
  • 9 Episodes

5
out of 5
12 Ratings

About

Escape Velocity is a podcast series with industry-leading founders. What too often looks like an overnight success, always starts with an idea and a founder looking to get to scale. This early part of building a company - the “0 to 1” journey - is often the most messy and least linear part of any successful company.  In these conversations, I ask the most successful founders and leaders to unpack key lessons from those early days before they became the household name we know today. Escape Velocity is hosted by Ansaf Kareem, a venture capitalist and founder of Latitude Capital. Visit Our Website: www.escape-velocity.io Follow Us On Twitter: @0to1podcast

Information

  • Creator
    Latitude Capital
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2025
  • Episodes
    9
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2024

You Might Also Like