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

Miles Clements is a Partner @ Accel where he helps to lead their growth fund. At Accel, Miles has led or invested in Atlassian, Cursor, Linear, and more. AGENDA: 03:38 Where is True Alpha and Value in a World of AI 05:10 Why it is Total BS that Cursor is Dead 07:55 Why Cursor Were Not Wrong to Build Their Own Models 09:38 What is the Upside When Investing in Cursor at $27BN? 15:12 Do Sub $10BN Outcomes Even Matter to a Fund the Size of Accel? 17:07 Losing ServiceTitan: Investing Lesson Learned… 19:55 Missing Rippling: What We Learned 27:20 What is Accel's Win Rate 30:22 How VCs Approach Ownership Has Changed 35:09 Does Miles Feel Happier or Sadder to be an Anthropic Investor Post Pentagon Debacle 36:45 What Happens to Companies Like Miro and Snyk with High Prices to Live Upto? 38:05 Why it is a Great Time to Be Thoma Bravo and Vista 38:36 Why Founder-Led Companies Are Always Better 41:12 Why Would Any Founder Go Public Today 43:48 When is the Right Time to Take Chips Off The Table? 45:24 Should VC Firms Have Evergreen Funds and Be Responsible for Public Positions 50:28 You Can Pick Any VC to Join Accel, Who Does Miles Choose…

Mitchell Green is a legendary growth equity investor and the Founder and Managing Partner of Lead Edge Capital, a firm with over $5 billion in assets under management. Known as a relentless "money maker", Mitchell has led investments in the likes of Bytedance, Toast, Procore, Duo Security and more. AGENDA: 0:00 The SaaS Apocalypse: Why Incumbents Aren't Going to Zero 05:50 "Dead Money": Why Public Software Estimates Were Too High 08:15 Leverage is the Enemy: Lessons from the 1999 Retail Crash 11:50 The Truth About Growth Equity: Zeroes vs. 10X Returns 15:40 Mainframes to AI: Why Oracle and SAP Will Thrive 20:35 The "Stock-Based Comp" Scandal: Silicon Valley's Hidden Crime 24:35 ByteDance vs. The World: Why China Could Win the AI War 31:50 Selling is the Job: Why Buying is the Most Glamorous Part of VC 35:45 Too Many Tourists: Why 50% of VCs Shouldn't Be in the Business 44:10 The Gross Dollar Retention Rule: The Only Number That Matters in SaaS

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?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anish Acharya is a General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), where he leads consumer and fintech investing at Series A. He serves on the boards of standout portfolio companies including Deel, Mosaic, Clutch, Titan, and HappyRobot and has led early bets in companies like Runway and Carbonated. Before a16z, he founded and exited two startups—Snowball (acquired by Credit Karma) and SocialDeck (acquired by Google) and scaled Credit Karma's U.S. Card business to over 100 million members. AGENDA: 00:03 - Why building an AI company today requires being in San Francisco 06:58 - The "SaaS Apocalypse" myth: Why "vibe coding" everything is a lie 09:11 - How AI agents are finally breaking the lock-in of legacy software providers 10:13 - Incumbents vs. Startups: Who actually wins the AI distribution war? 14:39 - Why the developer tool market looks more like Cloud than Uber and Lyft 22:43 - The death of the Chatbox? Why browse-based interfaces are still preferable 27:14 - Why power users are 10x more valuable in the age of AI consumption 28:36 - Do margins matter in a world of AI? 34:46 - Why we are definitively not in an AI bubble right now 38:58 - Why the Legal and Customer Support industries will have dozens of winners 39:44 - Lessons from Marc Andreessen: Why the "quality of being right" supersedes process 44:51 - Is "Triple, Triple, Double, Double" dead? The new physics of growth 01:10:41 - The a16z Playbook: How to win 100% of the deals you chase

Ariel Cohen is the Co-Founder and CEO of Navan (formerly TripActions), an AI-powered travel and expense platform. Last month, Ariel took the company public, since being a public company, they have faced a torrid time seeing stock price decline by 50%. The company is currently valued between $4BN-$5BN. AGENDA: 0:00 The Truth About Going Public After 11 Years 5:50 Why We Couldn't Wait: The Real Reason for the IPO 8:15 Disrupting the Giants: Amex, Concur, and the $1T Opportunity 11:50 "If We Don't Build This, We're Dead": Seeing ChatGPT Early 18:35 Why Navan Built Their Own Customer Service AI 23:45 Why Infrastructure is Overrated (and What Actually Matters) 28:55 Vibe Coding: How We Rebuilt Our Product in 6 Hours 34:55 Are Any Public Company CEOs Actually Happy? 38:50 Lessons from Robinhood: Energy, Ethics, and the Stock Price 45:10 The Cost of Success: $1B Mistakes and Parenting Regrets

AGENDA: 00:00 - SpaceX Completes Acquisition of xAI in $1.25 Trillion Merger 08:44 - The Rehabilitation of the IPO and the End of "State Private Forever" 15:53 - The 2026 SaaS Massacre: Public Market Collapse 31:20 - Next-Gen CRM War: Hubspot Down 50%+ vs Next Gen Heavily Funded 45:30 - Microsoft's $360 Billion Market Cap Loss and the Shift in AI Narrative 52:45 - Nvidia's Strategic Retreat: The Dispute Over the $100 Billion OpenAI Investment 01:03:30 - Waymo Raises $16 Billion at a $110 Billion Valuation 01:17:30 - The Launch of OpenClaw and Moltbook: 1.5 Million Agents Join a Social Network

Oren Zeev is one of the most prominent solo capitalists in venture. He is one of the most no BS investors of our time. Oren manages over $1BN in AUM and is known for his "radical alignment" approach, often taking $0 in management fees. His track record includes massive successes like Navan, Audible, and Houzz. AGENDA: 03:11 – Why the Best Investments Always Look "Wrong" at the Start 05:58 – The AI Tsunami: How to Spot Beneficiaries vs. Victims 10:43 – The Death of Incumbents? Why Most AI Predictions Are Wrong 14:12 – Why Chasing Hyper-Growth is a "Disaster Waiting to Happen" 19:41 – The Biggest Mistakes From 2021 and Investing Lessons From It? 25:52 – Is the Future of Venture Boutique or Mega Fund: Does the Middle Die? 32:00 – The Great VC Shakeout: Why 50% of Funds Will Slowly Die 38:52 – Why Oren Zeev Takes $0 in Management Fees 50:48 – Why VCs Should Never Tell Their LPs What They Are Doing? 59:11 – How I Missed Investing in Facebook and Lessons Learned

Omer Shai serves as the CMO at Wix. Shai leads a team of over 400 people and is responsible for the company's global online and offline marketing activity, which boasts an incredible growth of approximately 3 million new users every month. Under Shai, the marketing department has executed hundreds of worldwide campaigns for television and social including 5 Super Bowl commercials, creative videos, podcasts and more. AGENDA: 00:00 — The AI Agent Revolution: 93% Automation? 03:55 — Why I'm Buying TWO Super Bowl Ads This Year 08:58 — The $100M Marketing Secret: Brand vs. Performance 13:28 — Why LTV is Bullshit (and What You Should Use Instead) 18:52 — 10x Your Growth: How to Find Tomorrow's Arbitrage 27:10 — SEO is Dying? Why I'm Increasing My Ad Spend Anyway 31:14 — The TikTok Fail: Why Even Big Brands Can't Crack It 36:11 — Stop Selling the "Why": Put the Product in the Center 47:57 — Will AI Make You Unemployed? A Warning for Marketers 52:27 — Why Celebrity Endorsements Never Work

AGENDA: 03:36 Brex Acquisition by Capital One for $5.15BN 10:54 Does Brex's Acquisition Help or Hurt Ramp? 16:28 TikTok Deal Completed: Who Won & Who Lost: Analysis 19:30 Anthropic Inference Costs Higher Than Expected 37:50 Open Evidence Raises at $12BN from Thrive and DST 53:56 Wealthront IPO Disaster: Is $1.5BN IPO Too Small? 01:07:27 Salesforce Wins $5BN Army Contract: The Last Laugh for SaaS

Max Junestrand is the Co-Founder and CEO @ Legora, the legal AI company that has scaled to $70M in ARR, 750 of the world's leading law firms as customers and over 300 employees in just 2 years. They have raised over $200M from some of the best in the business including Benchmark, General Catalyst, Redpoint and ICONIQ. AGENDA: 04:16 Why Does Everyone Think Harvey When They Hear Legal AI? 07:35 Why OpenAI is Toast? Switching to Anthropic! 11:47 24 Months: Which Foundation Models Will Win? 23:53 Lessons Scaling from Europe into the US 28:53 Do Americans Work As Hard As They Say? 32:20 Why Seat Models Are Not Dead in SaaS? 36:17 How to Use Competition To Drive a Fire in Your Team? 40:59 Is Legal AI a Winner-Take-All Market? How Does It End? 47:18 The Future of Law Firms: Do Juniors Get Fired? 53:19 How We Raised $200M and 3 Rounds with No Deck 57:21 Quickfire Round: Best Advice, Closest Mentor, Biggest Mindset Shift

AGENDA: 00:03:00 – Harry's Wild Start: Making £1.75M at 19 in 36 Hours 00:06:00 – How Harry Got Marc Benioff on 20VC with Cold Emailing Alone 00:07:30 – Raising $70M on WhatsApp – Relationship Building Secrets 00:12:00 – Decision Framework: What Would Pat Grady (Sequoia) Do? 00:15:00 – Chase Your First Million – It Unlocks Everything 00:16:30 – Advice for 19-Year-Olds Today: Niche Down, Interview Leaders, Publish 00:18:00 – University Is a Waste for Most | Leverage Youth & Risk 00:22:30 – How Getting Kicked Out of School Changed Everything 00:30:00 – Why Should Everyone Be Creating Content Today and How to Start 00:35:30 – 7 Lessons from Billionaires 00:36:00 – #1: Never Accept No (The $12M Turnaround Story) 00:37:30 – #2: Beat Down the Door (53 Emails to Marc Benioff) 00:39:00 – #3: Just Start – 99% Never Do 00:40:30 – #4: Use a Role Model Framework for Hard Decisions 00:42:00 – #5: Chasing Money Won't Make You Happy – Enjoy the Art 00:44:00 – #6: Break Big Visions into Achievable Milestones 00:45:30 – #7: Win Over the Partner (Power of Pillow Talk)