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

Latest Episodes:

20Product: Is the Design Phase Dead in a World of AI | Has Claude Code Crushed Anthropic Already | What Roles of a PM Are Less and More Important with AI | How the Best Product Leaders Tell Stories with Noam Lovinsky, CPO @ Superhuman Jan 16, 2026

Show notes

Noam Lovinsky is the CPO @ Superhuman (formerly Grammarly). Prior to Superhuman he was a Senior Director of Product Management at Facebook. In his earlier years, he was CPO @ Thumbtack and spent 5 years as a Director of Product Management at Google where he was responsible for all of Youtube's applications.

AGENDA:

03:43 What is Great Product Leadership in a World of AI

07:45 Does the Design Phase Die in a World of Vibe Coding

12:21 How AI Changes Product Development Most

22:23 Accelerating Product Development

29:32 AI's Impact on Product Building

34:19 Predictions for 2026

34:45 Quick Fire Round

38:41 Reflections and Future Plans

20VC: Anthropic's $10BN Fundraise: Have They Beaten Cursor Already | a16z's $15BN Fundraise: Is the Middle Dead in VC Today? | How OpenAI Could Go to Zero and ElevenLabs at $11BN: Buy or Not? Jan 15, 2026

Show notes

AGENDA:

05:02 Anthropic's $10 Billion Fundraise

07:54 Has Claude Code Beaten Cursor Already

15:54 OpenAI Could Still Go to Zero

26:33 Andreessen Horowitz's $15 Billion Fundraise

45:16 The Middle is Dead: Boutique vs. Large Platforms in Venture

50:01 The Future of Venture Capital

01:08:06 The Impact of Wealth Taxes on the Industry

20VC: a16z's $15BN Fundraise with Alex Rampell | The Best Companies Have Hostages Not Customers | The Best Founders Materialise Capital, Customers and Labour | Mid-Sized Funds with Die and The Future of Venture Capital Jan 12, 2026

Show notes

Alex Rampell is a General Partner at Andressen Horowitz, where he leads their $1.7BN apps fund. Just last week, a16z announced they had raised $15BN for their latest funds, over 20% of all capital raised by venture firms. At a16z, Alex has led deals into Plaid, Mercury and OpenDoor to name a few.

AGENDA:

04:55 How to Do 5x on a $15BN Fund Pool?

09:21 What Two Groups of Funds Will Win the Next Decade in VC?

14:39 What Three Things Are the Best Founders Able to Do?

19:22 The Best Companies Have Hostages, Not Customers

31:37 The Two Types of Deals You Want To Do In VC

38:52 The Importance of Founder/Capital Fit

40:34 Multiple Successive Rounds Are Dangerous… Here is Why?

42:13 Challenges of High Valuations

45:27 The Importance of Ownership in Deals

52:47 Is Triple, Triple, Double, Double Dead

58:33 Advice on Selling Companies

01:11:55 What is the Future of Venture Capital

20Growth: The $6.6B Growth Engine Behind ElevenLabs | Why ElevenLabs Do Not Have PMs | The 7 Part Launch Playbook to Crush All Launches with Luke Harries, Head of Growth @ ElevenLabs Jan 11, 2026

Show notes

Luke Harries is Head of Growth at ElevenLabs, where he leads marketing, product, engineering, and developer experience. ElevenLabs has raised $281M with the latest round pricing the company at a $6.6B valuation. Previously, Luke held roles at PostHog and Microsoft, and is also an angel investor supporting startups like Lovable and Runna.

AGENDA:

The $6.6B Growth Engine Behind ElevenLabs
Why Luke Said "No" to Investing in ElevenLabs (and Why He Was Wrong)
How ElevenLabs Makes a Horizontal Product Strategy Work
How to Build Sharded Growth Teams That Actually Scale
The 7-Part Launch Playbook That Gets 700K+ Views Per Product
The Truth About CAC, Payback, and Performance Marketing in AI
SEO Isn't Dead: The Mini-Tool Strategy You Should Steal
Kill Your Inbound SDRs—The Case for Voice AI in Sales
Why You Don't Need PMs and the Rise of Growth-Led Product Teams

20Sales: Why the Best Sales People are F**** in the Head | Why Remote Work is BS | Why Europe is a Nightmare for Recruiting Sales Teams | How to Build a Sales Machine | What Everyone Gets Wrong Today in Sales with Chad Peets Jan 09, 2026

Show notes

Chad Peets is one of the great sales leaders of our time. Previously, he was the sales saviour at Snowflake and was an advisor to the CEO there. He was also an MD at Sutter Hill where he sat on the board of companies like Sigma Computing and Augment Code.

AGENDA:

04:53 How to Recruit the Best Sales Talent Today

06:27 Why Europe is a Nightmare for Recruitment in Sales

11:29 How to Evaluate Sales Talent: Green and Red Flags

21:58 Why Remote Work is BS and You Have to be in Office

23:43 How to Improve Sales Team Performance in Just 24 Hours

27:45 When to Fire vs When to Give More Time

32:10 How to Set Sales Quotas Effectively

34:39 Adjusting Compensation Plans for Better Performance

37:50 Why Work Life Balance is Total BS

41:08 Biggest Lessons on Leading Sales Teams

50:37 What is The Future of Enterprise Sales with AI

58:40 Quick Fire Questions and Final Thoughts

20VC: Groq's $20BN NVIDIA Acquisition | Manus Acquired by Meta for $2BN | Why Sam Altman Does Not Care About Dilution | Navan Trading at 4x ARR & Why Going Public Does Not Make Sense Anymore | The Rise of Invisible Unemployment and Labour Markets in 2026 Jan 08, 2026

Show notes

AGENDA:

04:30 Groq Acquired by NVIDIA for $20BN: The Breakdown

17:13 Meta's $2BN Acquisition of Manus: Did They Sell Too Early

36:04 OpenAI's Stock-Based Compensation Strategy

47:42 Will AI Replace Venture Capitalists

56:13 Navan Trading at 4x ARR: Who is Good Enough to Go Public?

01:09:46 The Rise of Invisible Unemployment

01:14:21 The Future of Work and Education in an AI-Driven World

20VC: $0-$260M in Revenue in Three Years: How We Did It | You Need to Work Weekends to Win — Most Founders Aren't Ambitious Enough | The Revolut Playbook: Speed, Urgency, Extreme Ownership, and Zero Excuses with Alan Chang @ Fuse Energy Jan 05, 2026

Show notes

I have interviewed 1,000 entrepreneurs over 10 years. Nik Storonsky and our guest today are the two best that I have interviewed.

Joining the show today; Alan Chang, Co-Founder and CEO of Fuse Energy. Alan has scaled Fuse Energy from $2M in revenue in the first year, to $20M the second year to now $400M in the third year. Like Netflix beat incumbents to own media, Revolut beat incumbents to own banking, Fuse will beat incumbents to own energy. Prior to founding Fuse, Alan was one of the first three hires at Revolut where he played a crucial role alongside Nik (Founder) in scaling the company to over $75BN valuation.

AGENDA:

00:04:00 — The interview process that led to the $150M pay packet

00:05:05 — The moment I knew Revolut was going to be a $TRN company

00:06:10 — How Revolut drove speed and urgency in their teams

00:07:35 — Biggest lesson from Nik Storonsky @ Revolut

00:09:40 — If you want to build a generational company, you cannot have work-life balance

00:11:40 — What I disagreed with Nik @ Revolut on most

00:13:35 — Is Nik right that Revolut should have got a banking licence earlier?

00:15:05 — The green movement and the idea of "using less" is BS

00:22:55 — Why China is the shining light for regulation to follow

00:33:00 — What Nik at Revolut taught me about ownership and excuses

00:34:50 — The signs of truly top performing people in a team

00:36:55 — We do not have enough ambitious founders — we need to do more, not focus

00:39:55 — You need to work weekends to win

00:43:50 — Every single year we 10x revenue — now at ~$400M

00:44:35 — Why Eastern European engineers are the best

Items Mentioned in Today's Show:

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20VC: Enterprises Will Not Adopt AI without Forward-Deployed Engineers | Who Wins the Data Labelling Race: How Does it Shake Out? | How Synthetic Data Threatens the Future of Human-Generated Data with Matt Fitzpatrick, CEO of Invisible Technologies Dec 31, 2025

Show notes

Matt Fitzpatrick is the CEO of Invisible Technologies, leading the company's mission to make AI work. Since joining as CEO in January 2025, he has raised $100M and accelerated AI adoption across industries from sports to consumer and government. Previously, Matt was a Senior Partner at McKinsey, where he led QuantumBlack Labs, the firm's AI R&D and software development arm.

AGENDA:

04:40 Interview with Matt Fitzpatrick: Career Journey and Leadership

09:35 The Single Biggest Barriers to Enterprises Adopting AI

15:26 It is BS That Enterprises Can Adopt AI Without Forward-Deployed Engineers

28:05 Are AI Talent Marketplaces Dead? What is the best model?

46:33 How Does the Data Labelling Market Shake Out: Who Wins/ Who Loses

48:27 Are Revenue Numbers for Data Labelling Real Revenue? Or GMV?

51:20 Best Capital Allocation Decision? What did Matt Learn from it?

53:19 How Important is Brand for AI Companies Selling Into Enterprise?

01:05:59 Remote Work vs. In-Person Collaboration

01:17:06 What Does No-One Know About the Future of AI That Everyone Should Know

20VC's Big Fat Quiz of the Year: Founder, Fund and Breakout Company of 2025 | Predictions for 2026: The Company to Buy, The Biggest Short | Why Salesforce Could Win 2026 and The Tailwinds NVIDIA Will Face Dec 22, 2025

Show notes

AGENDA:

03:48 Founder of the Year 2025

06:58 Product of the Year

10:05 Fund of the Year

20:52 Breakout Companies of 2025: Who Made the Biggest Impact?

26:57 Biggest Surprises of 2025

32:57 Predictions for 2026: Top Performing Tech Stocks of the Year

35:25 B2B Stocks to Watch

38:31 Why Salesforce Could Be the Buy of 2026

47:11 Google, Meta, Apple, NVIDIA, Microsoft: Buy One, Short One

55:38 IPO Speculations: Who Will Go Public in 2026

01:00:57 The Impact of AI on Employment

20Product: On Running's CPO on How to Create Emotion Through Product | Why 99% of Products Fail and How to Create Cults Around Products | The Biggest Product Mistakes On Have Made & Lessons Learned with Gérald Marolf Dec 19, 2025

Show notes

Gérald Marolf is the Chief Product Officer at On Running. Gérald oversees the full range of On's shoes, apparel and accessories to make sure each delivers performance, comfort and style. Before On, Gérald spent over a decade building consumer brands with collaborators such as Microsoft and Ferrari.

AGENDA:

00:00 – Why Most "Great Products" Fail to Create Emotion

03:00 – How Perfume Taught Me Everything About Desire & Product

06:10 – The Brutal Reality of Building Physical vs Digital Products

16:00 – Why "Simple Design" Is Overrated and Dangerous

23:00 – Why Vuori is the Brand to Short in Consumer

28:30 – The Biggest Product Mistake: Listening to Customers Too Much

32:10 – On Only Do Tennis Because of Roger Federer

38:30 – Were We Too Late to Marathon Running? A Painful Admission

43:40 – The Most Controversial Product On Has Ever Launched

49:00 – Are Counterfeits Good or Bad in Fashion?