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

Latest Episodes:

20VC: Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins | OpenAI's $110BN Mega Round | Cursor Hits $2BN in ARR | Block's 40% Headcount Reduction: AI or Overhiring Mar 05, 2026

Show notes

AGENDA:

04:13 Anthropic vs The Pentagon: Who Wins

13:54 Was Sam Altman Wrong to Take the Deal

24:28 OpenAI's $110BN Mega Round: The Breakdown

28:22 Who Has a Bigger Valuation Premium: Sam Altman or Elon Musk

34:38 Why We Got the SaaS Apocalypse Wrong?

43:24 Why Salesforce Could be the Best Buy in Public Markets

47:46 Block Lays Off 40% of Team: AI or Overhiring

01:00:16 Cursor Hits $2BN in ARR… so not Dead?

01:18:15 How to Pick Winners in AI?

20VC: Monday.com CEO on Is SaaS Dead: Will Everything Be Vibe Coded | Will Systems of Record Become Valueless Databases in an Agentic World | Will LLMs Own the Value in the Application Layer with Eran Zinman Mar 02, 2026

Show notes

Monday has been hit harder than almost any other public SaaS company. With $1.3BN in ARR, the company is valued at just $3.8BN; a more than 60% fall since IPO. Today, Eran Zinman, Monday's CEO joins Harry Stebbings in the hotseat to walkthrough six of the biggest threats to Monday's business; what is real, what is not and what are the unknowns.

AGENDA:

05:47 Six Threats Monday Faces Today

07:04 Threat #1: Vibe Coding: Will Companies Vibe Code Everything

11:24 Threat #2: Will OpenAI and Anthropic Own the Application Layer

13:52 Threat #3: Will Agents Turn Monday and Salesforce into a Database

18:43 Why is Monday Adding 15% Headcount When Everyone is Cutting?

21:40 How Monday is Using AI to be More Efficient

27:49 What Happens to Seat Pricing? What Comes Next?

34:17 What No One Sees About Enterprise AI Adoption

37:13 How Google AI Overview Smashed 10% of our Customer Acquisition

38:49 If Bullish on Monday, Why Has Eran Not Bought More Stock…

40:38 How to Manage Internal Morale When Stock is Down 60%

44:08 Do Private Companies Have Advantages Public Companies Do Not Have

47:28 With $1.5BN in Cash, Why is Eran Not Buying More Companies…

53:30 What is the Most Offensive Bet Eran Would Like to Take?

57:13 Quickfire: Marriage, Biggest Short, Mentors

20VC: Why Cursor is Dead | An AI Tsunami is Coming & You Need to Prepare | Systems of Record Become Valueless Databases with Agents | Is This The End of Tech Private Equity with Jerry Murdock, Co-Founder of Insight Partners Feb 28, 2026

Show notes

Jerry Murdock is the Co-Founder of Insight Partners, one of the most formidable growth investors of the last three decades, with over $90 billion in AUM and a portfolio that has shaped the modern software economy. Jerry never does podcasts, and so this is his first-ever long-form interview.

AGENDA:

03:50 There is an AI Tsunami Beginning

05:43 Cursor is F***** and Everyone Knows It

07:28 How Open Source Will Crush in an Agent First World

10:20 Is NVIDIA F****

17:32 Are Systems of Record Dead in an Agent-First World

21:04 Humans Will Not Buy Software, Agents Will…

24:57 Universal Basic Income Will Have to Happen, Mass Unemployment is Coming

30:54 What Happens to Tech Private Equity: Is Thoma Bravo F******

37:50 What Single Decision Does Jerry Regret Most… Why?

41:45 Single Biggest Mistake With Insight… What Did Jerry Learn?

45:26 Why is Now the Best Time to Start a Fund

47:03 The Twitter Bet that Made $90BN Insight

49:34 Biggest Marriage and Parenting Advice

56:04 Will Agents Help Us Live Forever

20VC: Anthropic Wipes Billions Off Markets | Citrini Research: The Ultimate Breakdown: Agents, "Ghost GDP", Consumer Spend etc. | Figma Earnings Beat & Four Public Stocks to Buy | Jack Altman Joins Benchmark Feb 26, 2026

Show notes

AGENDA:

03:55 Anthropic Security Product Wipes Billions Off Public Markets

11:17 Do Agents Turn SaaS Incumbents into Valueless Databases

22:07 Anthropic Secondary Sale Makes Hundreds Decamillionaires

23:20 Citrini Research Piece: Everything You Need To Know

26:04 Will DoorDash Be Replaced by Agents

34:22 Will "Ghost GDP" Soften Consumer Spending Power

42:46 Why No Public Company Has Created a Good Agent Product

47:19 Is Tech Private Equity and Thoma Bravo F***** in this Market

51:05 OpenAI Massively Increases Spending Plans: Analysis

56:24 Figma Fights Back: Earnings Through the Roof

01:02:12 Momentum Versus Value: Four Public Stocks to Buy

01:09:30 Jack Altman Joins Benchmark Capital

20VC: Inside Coatue's $70BN Machine: Why Price Matters Least | Why Mega Markets are the Most Important | How to Assess Durability of Revenue and Margins in AI with Lucas Swisher Feb 23, 2026

Show notes

Lucas Swisher co-leads the growth fund at Coatue where he has partnered with iconic companies like OpenAI, Harvey, Deel, Canva, Openevidence, Anthropic, and others. Prior to Coatue, he was on the investment team at Kleiner Perkins, where he focused on growth stage software businesses.

AGENDA:

04:23 Why Public SaaS Is Getting Crushed in the AI Wave

06:01 How to Find Value in the Deluge of Public SaaS

10:34 Durability of Revenue in AI

17:42 Market Size vs. Founder Quality: What Wins?

19:04 Why Price is the Last Thing to Matter

24:58 Mega-Funds Math: Can $5B+ Funds Still Generate Venture Returns?

28:04 What Returns Are 'Enough'? Why 3x Isn't Exciting at Growth

30:34 When Double-Downs Go Wrong: Overestimating TAM and Multi-Product Expansion

33:03 Margin Matters… But at Scale: AI Gross Margins, Cost Curves & Efficiency

36:42 Why it has never been harder to be a seed investor

39:25 Is 'Kingmaking' a Myth: When Capital Helps (and When It Hurts)

44:12 Is Canva Really a Platform Company? Multi S-Curves and Leaning into AI Early

46:05 Lessons from Mary Meeker: Modeling, Storytelling with Data, and Not Missing the Forest

48:27 Lessons from Mamoon Hamid: Spotting Inflection Points with Minimal Data (Figma Story)

49:54 LP 'Pick One' Games: Mamoon Hamid, Mary Meeker, Insight Partners

51:41 OpenAI vs Anthropic: Who Wins?

56:52 Most Memorable Founder Meeting: Harvey and Founder-Market Fit

59:00 Career Decisions & Misses: Leaving Insight, Missing Anduril, and Looking Ahead

20VC: Codex vs Claude Code vs Cursor: Who Wins, Who Loses | Will All Coding Be Automated - Do We Need PMs | The Real Bottleneck to AGI | The Three Phases of Agents and What You Need to Know with Alex Embiricos, Head of Codex at OpenAI Feb 21, 2026

Show notes

Alexander Embiricos is the Head of Codex at OpenAI, leading the development of the company's flagship AI coding systems that power automated software generation, debugging and developer workflows. Under his leadership, Codex has become one of the most widely adopted AI developer platforms.

AGENDA:

05:13 Will Coding Be Automated? Why AI Could Create More Engineers, Not Fewer

07:17 Do We Need PMs? The "Undefined" Product Role and When It Matters

08:06 The Real AGI Bottleneck: Human Prompting, Validation, and "Too Much Effort"

13:04 Three Phases of Agents: Coding → Computer Use → Productized Workflows

13:52 Enterprise Reality Check: Security, Permissions, and Safe Agentic Browsing

17:57 Is Inference the New Sales and Marketing?

18:49 What % of Codex Was Written by AI?

21:33 Do OpenAI Use AI for Code Review?

23:31 Is there any stickiness to AI coding tools?

28:22 What Does "Winning" Mean at OpenAI? Mission, Competition, and Moats

32:04 The Future UI: Chat or Voice

34:10 Agent-to-Agent Workflows: Designing for Approvals, Compliance, and Automation

35:39 Do Coding Models Have a Data Moat?

36:50 How does Codex View Data: Will They Build Their Own Mercor and Turing?

37:27 How Does Codex View Consumer: Will They Compete with Lovable?

41:56 Benchmarks vs "Vibes": How People Actually Judge Models

42:43 Cursor's Edge and the Case for Building Your Own Models

47:37 Is SaaS Dead? What Still Defends Value (Humans + Systems of Record)

51:28 Talent Wars and Career Advice for New Engineers in the AI Era

01:01:03 Guardrails, the Fully AI-Managed Stack, and a 10-Year Vision for Everyone

20VC: Anthropic Raises $30BN at $380BN Valuation | Thrive Raises New $10BN Fund | OpenAI Buys OpenClaw | Stripe Raises at $140BN: Is Adyen Wildly Undervalued? | Monday, Figma, Shopify: Which are Buys vs Sells? Feb 19, 2026

Show notes

AGENDA:

04:14 Anthropic's $30B Raise at $380B

06:18 Why SaaS Stocks Keep Getting Crushed

18:15 Wall Street's New Religion: AI Replaces Headcount

22:42 The Bear Case for Shopify: What Could Go Wrong?

31:51 Replit and Lovable are Proof Figma Missed Out: Figma; Buy or Sell?

48:42 Stripe Raises at $140BN: Is Stripe Wildly Overvalued or Adyen Undervalued?

54:36 OpenAI Buys OpenClaw

01:06:28 Thrive's $10B Growth Fund

01:09:10 Arif Janmohamed Leaves Lightspeed for New Firm

01:17:12 Workday's Founder Returns as CEO: Will it Work?

01:20:34 Which Founder Returns Next: HubSpot, Twilio, Gitlab?

01:24:03 Is Monday.com a Screaming Buy?

01:28:25 Jason and Harry Bet $200,000

20VC: SaaS is Dead: Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski Feb 16, 2026

Show notes

Sebastian Siemiatkowski is the co-founder and CEO of Klarna, the global digital bank with over 114 million global active users and 3.4 million transactions per day. Seb is one of the leading public company CEOs pushing the boundaries of AI.

AGENDA:

04:50 — The Real Threat to SaaS is The Switching Cost Coming Down

05:57 — What revenue multiple will software companies trade at in the future?

14:12 — Why you need to build your own customer service AI to win

23:51 — Klarna has two times the customer base of Revolut. They will beat Revolut

25:39 — How I lost a billion dollars not investing in Nubank

30:57 — Why Nubank are more likely to win the US than Revolut?

34:28 — We used to be 6,000 people. Now we are just 3,000

39:58 — When is a high valuation too high and can be dangerous?

42:45 — How we got Sequoia to invest and Michael Moritz to join the board

53:14 — If you are an investor today that is not building then you're at a fundamental disadvantage

01:11:43 — I have changed my mind on the adoption cycle... I think it will take longer than people think

20VC: Is SaaS Dead: Klarna Replaces 1,500 Internal SaaS Products | Why Systems of Record Will Die in an Agentic World | What Revenue Multiple Will Software Companies Trade At? | From 7,000 to 3,000: We Need Less People Than Ever with Sebastian Siemiatkowski

20Sales: Inside ElevenLabs $330M ARR Sales Machine | The 20x Sales Comp Plan Reps Must Hit | How to Land and Expand in a World of AI | Why Product-Market-Fit is BS, Reps Should Not Be in the Office and Outbound is King with Carles Reina Feb 14, 2026

Show notes

Carles Reina is VP of Sales at ElevenLabs, where he was the first investor and fourth employee. Carles has scaled the revenue org from Day 1 to over $330M in just 3 years. Carles is also an active investor with investments in ElevenLabs, Revolut, Happy Robot and more.

AGENDA:

0:00 How I Turned $20K into $16M with Revolut Angel Investment

10:45 Why I Don't Believe in Product-Market Fit

15:40 How to do Land and Expand: Turning $12K Deals into Millions

19:40 The 20X Rule: A "Ruthless" Comp Plan for Elite Reps

24:35 Public Shaming? Why Honest Pipeline Reviews Save Companies

28:50 Why Your Sales Reps Should Never Be in the Office

35:45 The Outbound King: How to Pivot from 90% Inbound

45:45 "Vibe Coding" & The Death of Technical Ceilings

55:35 Why I'd Fire Myself: The Secret Psychology of High-Performers

20VC: Anthropic's Superbowl Ad: Who Won - Who Lost | Harvey Raises $200M at $11BN Valuation | Sierra Hits $150M in ARR: Is Customer Support Too Crowded Feb 12, 2026

Show notes

AGENDA:

03:43 Anthropic Predicts $149B in ARR in 2029

09:27 Will FDEs Become More or Less Powerful

26:17 Harvey Raises $200M at an $11BN Valuation

42:45 Is Customer Support a Terrible or Terrific Investment Category

56:14 Anthropic's Superbowl Ad: Who Won and Who Lost

01:11:30 Do CEOs Have to Work Harder Today Than Ever