Venture with Grace

Grace Gong
  • 4.8 (22)
  • Investing
  • Updated Daily

I host a top VC podcast called Smart Venture Podcast (SVPpro.com). Past guests include C-level/VPs of Google, Meta, Amazon, Sephora, Dunkin' Donuts, Chipotle, Pepsi, Instagram, Deloitte, Reddit, Lyft, etc. Managing Partners of top funds (many were featured on the Forbes Midas List) and unicorn founders (founders of Craigslist, Square, Loom, Cruise, etc.) Venture with Grace is my new spin-off series that features top LPs, GPs, solo GPs, Angel Investors, top AI founders, and other experts in tech and business to cover specific domain expertise. Watch this Live on LinkedIn/ YouTube: Grace Gong

  1. 4d ago

    Frank Petterson, Uniphore CTPO on Enterprise AI and Product Leadership

    Frank Petterson is the Chief Technology and Product Officer (CTPO) at Uniphore, where he leads the company’s global product, engineering and AI groups. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~He brings over 20 years of experience building high-performing organizations across diverse software disciplines. Prior to joining Uniphore, Frank served as head of Engineering at Meta Platforms, where he led the Business Growth and Platform organization. He also served as CTO at AliveCor, directing the development of clinically validated mobile ECG solutions. Frank has held technical leadership roles at Google & YouTube, building Hangouts, YouTube Live and YouTube Gaming, and at Industrial Light & Magic as Production Technology Supervisor for feature films, including winning an Academy Award. Frank holds a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University and a B.S. in Computer Science from Rice University. Building enterprise ai products at scale: lessons from meta, google, and uniphoreWhat it takes to lead world-class product and engineering organizations through multiple technology waves-From consumer platforms to enterprise ai: designing ai products that deliver real business value#ArtificialIntelligence #EnterpriseAI #ProductLeadership #EngineeringLeadership #Technology

  2. 4d ago

    Jason Goodison, General Compute CTO on the Future of AI Inference

    Jason Goodison is the Co-Founder and CTO of General Compute, an AI infrastructure company building one of the fastest inference clouds by leveraging alternatives to traditional GPUs to dramatically reduce latency and cost for AI workloads. The company is developing next-generation infrastructure that enables developers and enterprises to run large language models more efficiently at scale. Before founding General Compute, Jason launched SuperCall, where he built ultra-low-latency Voice AI agents for enterprises and scaled the company to $50,000 in monthly recurring revenue as a solo founder. He previously founded Pair AI, a Y Combinator-backed startup (W23), and spent more than three years as a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft, where he helped build the distributed system responsible for compiling thousands of Windows builds every day. A Computer Science graduate of the University of Waterloo, Jason is also a prominent engineering educator who has helped thousands of software engineers through his technical content and developer community.Topics Why AI Inference Is the Next Major Battleground: Building Faster, More Cost-Efficient Infrastructure Beyond Traditional GPUsLessons from Building Multiple AI Startups: Scaling Products from Zero to Revenue as a Technical FounderThe Future of AI Infrastructure: How Developers Can Optimize Performance, Latency, and Cost for Large Language Models#ArtificialIntelligence #AIInfrastructure #LLM #Startups #Engineering

  3. 4d ago

    Sue Xu, Amino Capital Managing Partner on Data Moat Investing

    Sue Xu, Ph.D. is Managing Partner at Amino Capital, an early-stage venture firm in Palo Alto investing across AI, SaaS, consumer, Web3, and frontier technologies with a core focus on data moats and network effects. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~Since joining in 2012, she has led investments in 300+ startups from seed to Series A, helping build ~20 unicorns and 45+ companies valued over $100M, including Chime, Rippling, Webflow, Replit, and Grail (acquired by Illumina). A former Stanford medical researcher and founding scientist on multiple biotech spin-offs, she holds three patents and 20+ publications, and began her career building lab-based biotech ventures. Beyond investing, she has spoken at the UN General Assembly on AI and human impact, and regularly teaches and lectures on entrepreneurship, data systems, and global innovation.Topics What actually creates “data moat” companies in AI and SaaSFrom Stanford lab spin-offs to unicorn outcomes: patterns that repeatAI unicorn readiness with network effects at 300+ investment scale#VentureCapital #Startups #DeepTech #SaaS #Entrepreneurship

  4. 4d ago

    Andrew Dai, Elorian AI CEO on the Future of Multimodal Intelligence

    Andrew Dai is the Co-Founder and CEO of Elorian AI, a startup building next-generation multimodal foundation models designed to reason across text, images, video, and audio. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~The company emerged from stealth with one of the largest AI pre-seed rounds on record, raising $55 million from investors including Menlo Ventures, Altimeter, Jeff Dean, and Striker Venture Partners to develop AI systems capable of advancing visual reasoning for robotics, automotive, architecture, and other real-world applications. Before founding Elorian AI, Andrew spent nearly 14 years at Google Brain and Google DeepMind, where he helped build many of Google's most important AI systems. He served as co-lead for the Gemini data organization and synthetic data initiatives, co-led modeling for Google's Search Generative Experience, led PaLM 2 pretraining, co-led the GLaM Mixture-of-Experts language model, and previously led Google Health's electronic health record research. His earlier work on language model pretraining, Smart Reply, and Smart Compose helped lay the foundation for today's large language models. Andrew holds a Ph.D. in Machine Learning from the University of Edinburgh.Topics Why multimodal intelligence is the next major frontier beyond large language modelsLessons from building gemini, palm 2, and google's ai stack before launching elorian aiHow synthetic data, visual reasoning, and foundation models will shape the next generation of ai applications#ArtificialIntelligence #MultimodalAI #LLM #MachineLearning #Startups

  5. 4d ago

    Alisa Cohn, Executive Coach on Scaling Leaders from Startup to CEO

    Alisa Cohn is an executive coach, bestselling author, and one of the world's leading leadership coaches. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~She has coached C-suite executives at high-growth startups including Venmo, Etsy, DraftKings, The Wirecutter, and Mack Weldon, as well as Fortune 500 leaders at Microsoft, Google, IBM, Dell, Pfizer, Calvin Klein, and The New York Times. Recognized as one of the Top 50 Coaches in the World by Thinkers50 and the #1 Startup Coach by Global Gurus for four consecutive years, Alisa helps founders and executives navigate the transition from startup operator to world-class leader. Before becoming an executive coach, Alisa built her business expertise through leadership roles as a CFO and General Manager at early-stage companies. She is the author of the award-winning book From Start-up to Grown-up, host of the podcast of the same name, executive coach for Cornell Tech's startup incubator, and a frequent contributor to Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and Fast Company.Topics How founders successfully transition from startup builder to scalable ceo without becoming the bottleneckThe leadership habits that separate great executives from great operators as companies scaleCoaching high-performance leaders through difficult conversations, executive presence, and organizational growth#Leadership #ExecutiveCoaching #Startups #Entrepreneurship #Management

  6. Jul 20

    Swaroop Jagadish & Shirshanka Das, DataHub Co-Founders on Data Infra

    Swaroop Jagadish is the Co-Founder and CEO, and Shirshanka Das is the Co-Founder and CTO of DataHub, an enterprise metadata and AI context platform helping organizations build trusted data foundations for humans and AI agents. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~Founded in 2021, DataHub commercializes the open-source DataHub project originally created at LinkedIn and has raised more than $30 million while serving customers including PayPal, Notion, and Zendesk. Before DataHub, Swaroop spent over six years at Airbnb, where he led the Data Platform and Search Infrastructure teams, building the foundation for data-informed decision making and leading the development of widely adopted open-source projects including Apache Airflow and Apache Superset, as well as Airbnb's Dataportal, Knowledge Graph, and search infrastructure. Earlier, he built distributed database systems at LinkedIn and ad-serving infrastructure at Yahoo. Shirshanka previously spent a decade at LinkedIn as the architect for Big Data, where he led the company's metadata and data management strategy, created the open-source DataHub project, architected LinkedIn's GDPR data platform, and served as a PMC member and committer for Apache Gobblin. Before LinkedIn, he built high-performance serving systems at Yahoo and PayPal. Together, the two founders are applying decades of experience building data infrastructure at global technology companies to create the context layer that enables trustworthy, governed AI across the enterprise.Topics Why Enterprise AI Needs a Trusted Context Layer: Building the Metadata Foundation That Makes AI Agents Reliable and GovernedLessons from Building Data Infrastructure at Airbnb and LinkedIn: Scaling Data Platforms, Search, Governance, and Open SourceFrom Internal Infrastructure to Industry Standard: Turning DataHub into the Enterprise Platform for AI-Ready Data Management#ArtificialIntelligence #EnterpriseAI #DataInfrastructure #DataEngineering #OpenSource

  7. Jul 20

    Kobie Fuller, Upfront Ventures Partner on LA Tech & AI-First SaaS

    Kobie Fuller is a Partner at Upfront Ventures, where he invests in AI-first enterprise software, marketing technology, retail enablement, and frontier technologies. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~Since joining the firm in 2016, he has backed companies across SaaS, AI, AR/VR, and enterprise infrastructure while helping strengthen Southern California's startup ecosystem. Prior to Upfront, Kobie was an investor at Accel, where he worked on investments including Campaign Monitor, UserTesting, AdRoll, and Invoca. Earlier, he served as Chief Marketing Officer at REVOLVE, one of the world's leading fashion e-commerce companies, and helped found OpenView Venture Partners after beginning his investing career at Insight Venture Partners, where he sourced early investments including ExactTarget (acquired by Salesforce for $2.5 billion) and Instructure (NYSE: INST). Beyond investing, Kobie co-founded Valence, a professional community for Black leaders in technology, and is known for applying elite athletic performance principles, product-building experience, and AI-first thinking to founder coaching and venture investing. He holds an A.B. in Economics from Harvard University.Topics Why the Next Generation of AI Companies Will Win Through Product-Led Growth, Network Effects, and Community Rather Than Traditional Enterprise SalesApplying Elite Athlete Performance Psychology and Mental Frameworks to Building Resilient Founders and Venture-Scale CompaniesInvesting in AI-First Enterprise Software: What Separates Enduring Platforms from Short-Lived AI Hype#ArtificialIntelligence #VentureCapital #ProductLedGrowth #Startups #EnterpriseAI

  8. Jul 20

    Junchen Jiang, Tensormesh CEO on Faster, Cheaper LLM Inference

    Junchen Jiang is the Co-Founder and CEO of Tensormesh, an AI infrastructure company building the first commercial platform for KV cache-accelerated LLM inference. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~This episode is brought to you by Nebius — the ultimate cloud for AI innovators.Nebius provides AI infrastructure you can count on, combining reliability and speed with flexibility and engineering support unmatched by hyperscalers.AI leaders like Meta, Shopify, and Higgsfield already partner with Nebius to run their AI workloads. Plus, venture-backed startups can save up to $150,000 on compute costs when they apply for access. Visit nebius.com or nebius.com/startups to learn more~~~~~~~~~~~~~Built on years of research at the University of Chicago, UC Berkeley, and Carnegie Mellon, Tensormesh helps organizations reduce AI inference latency and GPU costs by up to 10x while keeping models and data on their own infrastructure. The company emerged from stealth with $4.5 million in seed funding led by Laude Ventures. Junchen is also an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Chicago, where he leads research on large-scale AI systems and co-created LMCache and CacheBlend—breakthrough technologies that have become foundational components of modern LLM infrastructure. His work earned the ACM EuroSys 2025 Best Paper Award and has been adopted by organizations including Bloomberg, Red Hat, Redis, WEKA, and Tencent. He is also a recipient of the Google Faculty Award and the Carnegie Mellon Best Computer Science Ph.D. Dissertation Award.Topics Why LLM Inference, Not Training, Is Becoming the Biggest Bottleneck in Enterprise AIHow KV Cache Optimization Can Reduce AI Latency and GPU Costs by Up to 10xBuilding the Next Generation of Open-Source AI Infrastructure: From LMCache Research to Tensormesh#ArtificialIntelligence #LLM #AIInfrastructure #MachineLearning #Startups

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4.8
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About

I host a top VC podcast called Smart Venture Podcast (SVPpro.com). Past guests include C-level/VPs of Google, Meta, Amazon, Sephora, Dunkin' Donuts, Chipotle, Pepsi, Instagram, Deloitte, Reddit, Lyft, etc. Managing Partners of top funds (many were featured on the Forbes Midas List) and unicorn founders (founders of Craigslist, Square, Loom, Cruise, etc.) Venture with Grace is my new spin-off series that features top LPs, GPs, solo GPs, Angel Investors, top AI founders, and other experts in tech and business to cover specific domain expertise. Watch this Live on LinkedIn/ YouTube: Grace Gong

Information

  • Creator
    Grace Gong
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    626
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Grace Gong
  • Show Website
    Venture with Grace