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

Latest Episodes:

20VC: Will SpaceX IPO at $1.5TRN | Will Cursor Kill Figma | Lightspeed Raises $9BN | OpenAI: $1BN from Disney, New CRO & #1 App in App Store | Oracle and Broadcom Hit: Now the Time to Buy? Dec 18, 2025

Show notes

AGENDA:

03:32 Lightspeed's $9 Billion Fundraise

05:20 The Impact of Mega Funds on Seed VCs

10:09 The Supercycle of Growth and Late-Stage Investments

13:06 Disney Invests $1BN into OpenAI and What It Means

23:19 Oracle Hit Hard: Is Now the Time to Buy

28:34 Broadcom's Market Cap Drop and Anthropic's AI Chip Orders

35:04 Cursor Competes with Figma: The Convergence of Design and Coding Tools

46:20 The Biggest Danger for Incumbents: Being Maimed by AI

55:28 Boom Supersonic Raising $300M to… Power Data Centres… WTF

01:00:24 Will SpaceX IPO at $1.5TRN and The Elon Option Value

20VC: a16z's David George on How $BN Funds Can 5×, Do Margins & Revenue Matter in AI & the Most Controversial Bet at a16z Dec 15, 2025

Show notes

David George is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he leads the firm's Growth investing team. His team has backed many of the defining companies of this era, including Databricks, Figma, Stripe, SpaceX, Anduril, and OpenAI, and is now investing behind a new generation of AI startups like Cursor, Harvey, and Abridge.

AGENDA:

03:05 – Why Everyone is Wrong: Mega Funds Does Not Reduce Returns

10:40 – Is Public Market Capital Actually Cheaper Than Private Capital?

18:55 – The Biggest Advantage of Staying Private for Longer

23:30 – The #1 Investing Rule for a16z: Always Invest in the Founder's Strength of Strengths

31:20 – Why Fear of Theoretical Competition Makes Investors Miss Great Companies

35:10 – Does Revenue Matter as Much in a World of AI?

44:10 – Does Kingmaking Still Exist in Venture Capital Today?

49:20 – Do Margins Matter Less Than Ever in an AI-First World?

53:50 – My Biggest Miss: Anthropic and What I Learn From it?

56:30 – Has OpenAI Won Consumer AI? Will Anthropic Win Enterprise?

59:45 – The Most Controversial Decision in Andreessen Horowitz History

1:01:30 – Why Did You Invest $300M into Adam Neumann and Flow?

20Growth: How Wiz Built a $30BN Brand in Enterprise | What Worked vs What Was a Mega Failure: Lessons Learned | Why Marketers Make the Worst CMOs & What To Look for in Growth with Raaz Herzberg Dec 12, 2025

Show notes

Raaz Herberg is the Chief Marketing Officer and VP Product Strategy at Wiz, the fastest-growing cloud security company in history. As one of the first 10 employees, Raaz has helped scale the business from nothing to a multi-billion-dollar ARR business. Before Wiz, Raaz was a Senior PM working on Azure at Microsoft.

AGENDA:

03:51 What No One Knows About The Early Wiz Days

09:08 Most Effective Marketing Wiz Ever Did? Lessons from it?

24:11 How Wiz Mastered Enterprise Sales and Product Development

39:12 The Value of Proof of Concept an Why Everyone Gets Them Wrong

44:23 Why The Best Leaders Give More Equity Than They Should

52:55 The Impact of COVID on Business Operations

01:01:33 What in AI is No One Talking About That Everyone Should Be?

01:07:29 Why Does Raaz Think Custom Tools Will Dominate the Enterprise?

20VC OGs: SpaceX Valued at $800BN & Harvey Raises $160M at an $8BN Price | Airwallex Raises $330M and The Battle with Keith Rabois | Netflix Acquires Warner Brothers | IPO Market Predictions for 2026: Anthropic, Stripe, Databricks and SpaceX Dec 11, 2025

Show notes

AGENDA:

03:46 SpaceX's $800 Billion Valuation: A Deep Dive

09:18 IPO Market Predictions for 2026

18:18 Netflix's Bold Move: Acquiring Warner Brothers

27:43 Tiger's New Fund Strategy

33:02 Databricks' Head of AI $500 Million Seed Round

36:38 Harvey Raises $160M at an $8BN Valuation

48:22 Will LLMs Kill the App Layer

01:02:02 Google's AI Capabilities

01:06:58 Chinese Open Source Models in US Startups

01:08:57 Airwallex Raises $330M at an $8BN Valuation

01:23:50 Prediction Markets and Insider Trading

20VC: Kalshi's $1BN Raise, the Polymarket Feud, and the Battle to Replace Traditional Media Dec 08, 2025

Show notes

Tarek Mansour is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Kalshi, the leader in the world of prediction markets. Just last week, they announced their $1BN raise at an $11BN valuation. In total, they have raised $1.59BN from some of the best, including Sequoia, a16z, General Catalyst, IVP, Meritech, and more. They also last week announced exclusive partnerships with CNN and CNBC, marking their move into mainstream media and news.

AGENDA:

03:28 Why Did Kalshi Need to Raise $1BN

10:35 Why is Kalshi vs Polymarket Such a Fierce Rivalry?

20:44 The Future of Prediction Markets

25:09 Why Does Kalshi Partner with CNN When They Could Replace Them?

26:27 Why Did Tarek Fight For the Rights of his Early Investors So Much?

27:25 What Makes Alfred Lin The Best?

29:19 Does Having Sequoia as an Investor Change the Game?

36:58 Are Teenage Founders Today Emotionally Ready to Lead Companies

38:30 Quick Fire Round: Celebrity Investors, Relationships with Parents

20VC: Inside Bending Spoons Acquisition Machine: Evernote, Eventbrite, Vimeo | How Evernote Evaluates Acquisitions and New Product Ideas | How Evernote Mastered Product Launches, User Retention and Monetisation with Federico Simionato Dec 05, 2025

Show notes

Bending Spoons is the acquisition machine of the tech world. They have acquired the likes of Evernote, Vimeo, Eventbrite, Streamyard and more. However, they never open their gates to the secrets behind Evernote's product machine. Today that changes with Federico Simionato joining 20Product. Fede has been a Product Lead at Bending Spoons for 8 years where he has led product teams at Evernote, WeTransfer and more.

AGENDA:

03:02 From Dentist Games to $11BN Bending Spoons

04:54 Advice for Aspiring Product Managers

05:38 Building a Coveted Brand at Bending Spoons

07:43 Evaluating and Testing New Product Ideas

13:35 How Evernote has Mastered User Retention

25:24 The Impact of AI on Product Design and Prototyping

31:19 How Bending Spoons Does Product Launches and Lessons Learned

33:27 How Every Product Team Should Do Monthly Updates to Users

36:38 Recording and Transparency in Updates

38:06 Lessons from Failed Product Launches

45:14 Structuring Teams and Acquisitions

47:12 Monetization Strategies and Push Notifications

57:21 Quick Fire Round: Insights and Reflections

20VC: Thrive & OpenAI Partnership | Eventbrite Acquired for $500M | Databricks Raising $5BN at $134BN Valuation: Cheap or Not? | Why SaaS is Like Japan and The TAM Trap in Software Dec 04, 2025

Show notes

AGENDA:

04:20 Thrive and OpenAI Partnership

07:14 Databricks Raising $5BN at $134BN Valuation: Cheap or Not?

17:39 Eventbrite Acquired by Bending Spoons for $500M

21:39 Pagerduty's $1BN Market Cap, Just 2x Revenue

26:59 The TAM Trap: Why SaaS Is Like Japan

37:42 Lessons from Companies Hitting $100M ARR

44:57 The Future of Labour Markets is F******

52:10 The Importance of Compounding in Investments

56:45 The Relevance Game in Venture Capital

01:05:01 Supabase at $5BN or Lovable at $6BN: Which One?

20VC: Scale, Surge, Turing, Mercor: Who Wins & Who Loses in Data Labelling | Is Revenue in Data Labelling Real or GMV? | Why 99% of Knowledge Work Will Go and What Happens Then? | Why SaaS is Dead in a World of AI with Jonathan Siddharth @ Turing Dec 01, 2025

Show notes

Jonathan Siddharth is Founder and CEO of Turing, one of the fastest-growing AI companies advancing frontier models. Jonathan has led the company to an astonishing $300M ARR with just $225M raised and a profitable company. A Stanford-trained AI scientist, Jonathan previously helped pioneer natural language search at Powerset, which was acquired by Microsoft.

AGENDA:

03:35 Data, Compute, Algorithms: What is Most Abundant? What is Lacking Most?

09:18 What Does No One Know About AI's Data Requirements That Everyone Should?

17:05 The Biggest Challenges Enterprises Have with AI Adoption

20:38 Why Will 99% of Knowledge Work Will be Gone in 10 Years

27:12 How Will Data-Driven Feedback Loops Replace Technology as the Moat

36:08 Who Wins the Data Labelling Market? Who Loses?

38:23 Is Revenue BS in Data Labelling? Are Players Calling GMV Revenue?

45:20 Why is SaaS Dead in a World of AI?

51:23 Will the Phone be the Primary User Interface to an AI World?

57:07 Quickfire Round

20Sales: John McMahon on How to Hire, Train & Retain the Best Sales Reps | How Sales Changes in a World of AI | Sales Lessons from Snowflake and MongoDB | How to Create and Drive a Sales Process with Urgency Nov 28, 2025

Show notes

John McMahon is widely regarded as one of the greatest enterprise-software sales leaders of all time. He's the only person to have served as Chief Revenue Officer at five public software companies: PTC, GeoTel, Ariba, BladeLogic and BMC Software. He helped scale BladeLogic from a startup into a public company — ultimately leading to its ~$880M sale to BMC — and drove GeoTel into a multi-billion dollar acquisition. Today he sits on the boards of top names such as Snowflake and MongoDB, while also mentoring and influencing a who's-who of modern SaaS sales leaders.

AGENDA:

03:33 The Art and Science of Sales: Insights from a Veteran

04:29 Adapting Sales Strategies in the Age of AI and PLG

07:47 The Ultimate Framework to do Deal Qualification

14:13 How to Drive Urgency and Maintain Sales Process

20:06 How to Hire the Best Sales Reps

25:11 Step-by-Step Guide to Training Sales Reps

45:22 The Mindset of the Best Sales Reps

54:55 Single Most Important Skill to Win in Sales

20VC: Anthropic Raises $30BN from Microsoft and NVIDIA | NVIDIA Core Business Threatened by TPU | Sam Altman's "War Mode" Analysed | Sierra Hits $100M ARR: Justifies $10BN Price? | Lovable Hits $200M ARR & Rumoured $6BN Round Nov 27, 2025

Show notes

AGENDA:

04:06 Anthropic's $30BN Investment from Microsoft and NVIDIA

07:01 Google vs. OpenAI: Sam Altman's "War Mode" Memo

15:27 NVIDIA's Customer Concentration: Bull or Bear

22:12 Is "War Mode" BS: Does Hyper-Aggressive Ever Work?

36:12 Sierra Hits $100M ARR: Justify $10BN Price?

46:14 Implementation is the Biggest Barrier to Enterprise AI Growth

01:04:04 Is LLM Search Optimisation (GEO) Selling Snake Oil? What AI is a Fraud vs Real?

01:14:27 Figma Market Cap: Is the IPO Market F****** for 2026