Episoder
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Guest: Jack Conte, CEO & co-founder of Patreon
For many YouTube video creators, getting millions of views on your videos may seem like the goal. But when Jack Conte and his wife Nataly Dawn became YouTube stars through their band Pomplamoose, they didn’t automatically find gold at the end of the rainbow.
“You check your ad revenue and you make 48 bucks in ad revenue and you're like, ‘Oh my God, I'm worthless,’” Jack recalls. “And you check that dashboard every day ... and eventually you start to believe that you're worth $48 a month. That's a bad f**king feeling.”
That’s why in 2013, he co-founded the artist-funding platform Patreon, and discovered that there were a lot more creators like him out there. As of 2022, those creators have earned more than $3.5 billion from Patreon.
Chapters:
(01:06) - Barriers to entry(03:04) - The creator economy(08:36) - Patreon’s mission(11:22) - Its name(13:12) - Talking to artists(17:26) - Detail obsession(24:07) - “Nobody has an answer”(27:17) - Playing empty rooms(31:09) - Success feels like failure(33:37) - “I’ll be happy when...”(39:26) - Type one vs type two joy(45:32) - Self-confidence(48:30) - Obsession, humility, and kindness(53:51) - Figuring out your sound(56:18) - “I’m f**king terrified”(01:00:33) - Pedals(01:04:04) - Starting Patreon(01:07:04) - Who Patreon is hiringMentioned in this episode: Jason Kilar, Spotify, YouTube, Pomplamoose, Google Docs, GoDaddy, LaCroix, James Freeman and Blue Bottle Coffee, Woody Allen, Medium, YCombinator, Apple and the App Store, MySpace, Matthew “The Oatmeal” Inman, AdSense, Home Depot, Skrillex and Fred Again, Matt Bunting, and Sam Yam.
Links:
Connect with Jack
LinkedInRead "I'm f**king terrified"Watch the "Pedals" music videoConnect with Joubin
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This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
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Guest: Mark Pincus, founder & chairman of Zynga, and managing member & co-founder of Reinvent Capital
Before Zynga and Facebook made social gaming mainstream, the video game industry was “extreme on this being about art and crafting,” recalls Zynga founder Mark Pincus. He believes his winning instinct was the realization that games were “at least 50 percent science” — but it’s not enough to just have the instinct.
Mark says entrepreneurs like him have to quickly take multiple shots on the goal and “look for feedback loops that tell you your instinct is right ... you need to get to a minimum viable idea state and you need to find true signal around that idea state, that it’s right or wrong, and move on.”
Chapters:
(01:40) - Rubbing sticks together(07:01) - Virtual businesses(12:10) - Pre-Zynga companies(13:51) - Setting the real intention(17:44) - Internet treasures(23:21) - Disrupting gaming (30:14) - The chip on Mark’s shoulder(33:19) - The end of Tribe(37:24) - Zynga Poker(42:59) - Explosive growth(46:57) - Making the virtual real(52:02) - The downturn(58:12) - Stepping aside (sort of)(01:01:50) - Back into the fire(01:08:45) - In the abyss(01:11:46) - What “grit” means to MarkMentioned in this episode: Dot Earth, Elon Musk and the Boring Company, Uber Eats and Dara Khosrowshahi, ChatGPT, Roblox, Madhappy, Reid Hoffman, Craigslist, Google, Napster and Sean Parker, the California Culinary Academy, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook, Yahoo, John Doerr, Words with Friends, LinkedIn, Tribe.net, Supercell and Ilkka Paananen, FarmVille and Hay Day, Parker Conrad and Rippling, Bing Gordon, Fred Wilson, Brad Feld, the Game Developer’s Conference, CNET, Matt Cohler, Don Mattrick, Microsoft and the Xbox, Joe Biden, Jason Citron and Discord, Steve Jobs, Super Labs, Marcus Segal, Frank Gibeau, The Courage to Be Disliked, and Stewart Butterfield.
Links:
Connect with Mark
TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
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Manglende episoder?
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Guest: RJ Scaringe, CEO and Founder of Rivian
“I’m very comfortable with things not being in their end state,” says Rivian CEO and founder RJ Scaringe. The company’s challenging mission — to help make 100% of the world’s cars electric — will take a long time, and a lot of willingness to build the metaphorical plane in midair.
As Rivian has grown from one person to seven to 17,000, though, RJ admits that there’s a lot more pressure to not screw up. “There’s all these conflicting emotions I had ... is this the right product?” he recalls. “Is it the right strategy? Am I capable of doing this? But at the end of the day, I try really hard not to let that be overly distracting.”
Chapters:
(01:58) - Starting from scratch(05:35) - Auto tech innovation(08:03) - The supply chain(09:52) - Rivian’s deal with Volkswagen(14:28) - Outsourcing(16:10) - Capable EVs(19:06) - Brand and customer satisfaction(21:05) - That nagging feeling(27:26) - Raising capital(31:31) - RJ’s father(32:35) - The dark side of cars(34:43) - Tesla’s influence(37:13) - Financial challenges(42:38) - Entrepreneurial mindset(44:59) - Hard decisions(46:46) - Don’t screw this up(49:56) - 25,000 decisions a day(52:16) - Daily routines(54:57) - Who Rivian is hiring(55:34) - What “grit” means to RJMentioned in this episode: Porsche, Alex Honnold, Amazon AWS, Mercedes, Elon Musk, Lotus, U.S. News and World Report, MotorTrend, J.D. Power, Ford, Blue Origin, SpaceX, MIT, Jeff Bezos, and the Tesla Roadster.
Links:
Connect with RJ
TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
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Guest: Sridhar Ramaswamy, CEO of Snowflake
“People underestimate what it is to go through a complete reset,” says Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy. And he knows it: After an incredible 15-year run at Google, he started over from zero with an AI search startup, Neeva. And in hindsight, he regrets not trying to port over more of the skills that had made him a successful leader before. “You should be truthful with yourself about what is it that you know that you're really good at,” he says.
In this episode, Sridhar and Joubin discuss Morgan Stanley, working with urgency, avoiding comparisons, following your passions, Steph Curry, summer school, the Google bubble, axes of improvement, Vivek Raghunathan, Bill Coughran, Bell Labs, Mark McLaughlin, Nikesh Arora, daily emails, Chris Degnan, competitiveness, aircraft carriers, and size 31 pants.
Chapters:
(01:05) - Travel challenges(03:55) - Crisis mangement(08:59) - Parenting(14:01) - Defining success(20:37) - From Google to Neeva(27:57) - Transition troubles(31:06) - Glean vs. Neeva(34:08) - Becoming Snowflake’s CEO(38:41) - Authority(39:58) - Frank Slootman(44:24) - Palo Alto Networks(48:27) - Transparent culture(50:56) - Sridhar’s morning ritual(54:23) - Complete visibility(57:49) - Priorities(01:00:10) - Snowflake’s stock price(01:02:33) - Who it’s hiringLinks:
Connect with Sridhar
TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
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Guest: James Freeman, Founder and Former CEO of Blue Bottle Coffee
In the six or so years since he sold his last shares of Blue Bottle Coffee to Nestlé, James Freeman has had a lot of time to ruminate — about how he succeeded in creating a unique café experience, and also the ways he failed his workers as a manager. But he’s already thinking about how he’ll be better in round 2. “I've changed so much — physically, mentally, emotionally — I feel like I could be a better collaborator,” James says.
In this episode, James and Joubin discuss All About Coffee by William Ukers, Oliver Strand, performance anxiety, MongoMusic, farmers’ markets, “first touch” design, Parisian cafés, self-deception, Facebook ads, “great exits,” The Picture of Dorian Gray, “frictionless” coffee, Zeno’s Paradox, Yoda, iced oat lattes, espresso machines, The Devil Wears Prada, Steve Jobs, Angela Duckworth, and sandpaper.
Chapters:
(02:25) - Coffee is culture(07:10) - James’ music career(11:20) - Moving into business(15:17) - Starting Blue Bottle(17:55) - “Fun until it wasn’t”(21:09) - Food vs. tech in San Francisco(23:15) - The coffee shop experience(29:18) - Dissatisfaction and bad management(33:42) - Exhaustion(36:22) - Exit(37:39) - Anxiety and falling apart(40:31) - Paying the bills vs. the high life(44:08) - Visiting Blue Bottle today(46:53) - The decision to sell(51:35) - Could he have stayed?(54:01) - The next coffee shop(s)(57:35) - Returning to the ring(01:01:39) - What if it works out?(01:03:30) - What “grit” means to JamesLinks:
Connect with James
LinkedIn
TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]
Connect with Joubin
Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
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Guest: John Hanke, CEO of Niantic
When Pokémon Go launched, Niantic CEO John Hanke was enjoying a tranquil walk through a bamboo forest near Kyoto with his son. When he got back, it was all hands on deck: Building on a platform Niantic had developed for its previous game, Ingress, Pokémon Go was a runaway success story, earning $100 million dollars in revenue in its first week, and $1 billion in its first seven months. “I had a huge amount of anxiety that this is just too good to be true,” John recalls. “When are the wheels going to come off? What’s going to go wrong?”
In this episode, John and Joubin discuss San Francisco’s history, Noam Bardin, Google Street View, David Lawee, AR glasses, Field Trip and Ingress, Tsunekazu Ishihara, gaming outside, Gilman Louie, Frank Slootman, mellowing out, Thomas Kurian, Jay Chaudhry, commute burnout, daily yoga, Xerox PARC, Mark Zuckerberg, Apple Vision Pro, the history of gaming, and talking to computers.
Chapters:
(02:17) - Waze and Google Maps(05:39) - John’s childhood heroes(07:38) - Pokémon Go’s first week(10:13) - Maps as a platform(13:56) - Spinning Niantic off of Google(17:36) - Hyperscaling(19:05) - Finding Niantic’s mission(22:45) - Startups and families(24:15) - Adrenaline and gas(30:17) - Drive without desperation(34:42) - Negotiating with the Pokémon Company(38:25) - Zero to a million(41:28) - Relief and responsibility(43:44) - Sustaining engagement(47:18) - Enjoying the ride more(50:57) - Rules for balance(55:42) - Augmented reality and wearables(01:01:38) - Social games(01:04:14) - LLMs and the voice UI(01:06:52) - Who Niantic is hiringLinks:
Connect with John
TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
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Guest: Mark McLaughlin, chairman of the board at Qualcomm
When he was 24, Mark McLaughlin thought his career was over. Since childhood, he had dreamed of attending West Point and joining the Army, but a helicopter crash left him unable to serve, with a medical discharge. However, the crash also let him stay closer to his then-girlfriend Karen. They married and raised three children, and Mark found success in his new career, serving as CEO of Palo Alto Networks and now chairman of the board at Qualcomm. “In hindsight,” he says, “I would tell you the worst thing that ever happened in my life was the best thing that ever happened in my life.”
In this episode, Mark and Joubin discuss semi-retirement, Palo Alto Networks, identity crises, West Point, homeschooling, self-awareness, working on the plane, Walter Reed Hospital, Nikesh Arora, Cristiano Amon, non-founder CEOs, Paul Jacobs, Verisign, reference interviews, rising to the occasion, and fortitude.
Chapters:
(00:57) - Mark’s reputation and family(09:40) - “What am I doing?”(14:58) - Deciding to step away(16:55) - Overcoming work addiction(22:15) - Mandatory sacrifice(24:25) - Carl Eschenbach(27:12) - The people who matter(32:11) - Energy vs. adrenaline(37:31) - The helicopter crash(44:02) - Leaving Palo Alto Networks(50:05) - Bungled CEO transitions(54:24) - “Detox” time off(57:32) - Waiting for the right pitch(01:04:48) - The at-home interview(01:08:59) - Work in perspective(01:12:10) - What “grit” means to MarkLinks:
Connect with Mark
LinkedInConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
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Guest: David Risher, CEO of Lyft
David Risher can measure his career in phone calls, from the one that introduced him to Jeff Bezos in 1995, to the call from the Lyft board in 2023, asking him to vie for the CEO job. But initially, he believed his life’s legacy might be the nonprofit Worldreader, which has brought books to more than 22 million readers around the globe; he had to convince himself that turning Lyft around during one of its most difficult eras was also a call worth answering.
In this episode, David and Joubin discuss reliable exercise, pickleball, Sean Aggarwal, John Zimmer and Logan Green, return to office, Women+ Connect, reference checks, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, Adam Bosworth, interracial marriages, children of divorce, powdered wigs, Barnes & Noble, the University of Washington, Barcelona, the Galapagos Islands, Amazon’s Kindle, Steve Kessel, expat talent, Bucky Moore, rideshare insurance, robo-taxis, Elon Musk, and data science.
Chapters:
(00:45) - Biking to work — and across the US(03:44) - Lyft Bikes (07:35) - How David became CEO(12:18) - 14 months later...(15:28) - Customer obsession(17:40) - Jeff Bezos(21:00) - Leaving Microsoft(24:28) - Drive + empathy(27:39) - David’s parents(30:38) - Being straightforward(36:20) - Loving the Work(38:42) - Amazon’s early days(40:49) - Bezos’ farewell easter egg(43:44) - “What else is out there?”(48:36) - Ariel Cohen(49:56) - Living overseas(53:06) - Starting Worldreader(58:15) - The lifelong journey(01:00:40) - Growing profitably(01:04:09) - Waymo and driverless cars(01:10:45) - Physical businesses at scale(01:14:03) - Who Lyft is hiring(01:15:19) - What “grit” means to DavidLinks:
Connect with David
TwitterLinkedInThe Amazon easter eggConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
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Guests: Vipul Ved Prakash, CEO and co-founder of Together AI; and Bucky Moore, partner at Kleiner Perkins
No one knows for sure whether the future of AI will be driven more by research labs and AI-native companies, or by enterprises applying the technology to their own data sets. But one thing is for sure, says Together AI CEO and co-founder Vipul Ved Prakash: It’s going to be a lot bigger. “If you look at the next 10 years or the next 20 years, we are doing maybe 0.1 percent of [the] AI that we’ll be doing 10 years from now.”
In this episode, Vipul, Bucky, and Joubin discuss startup table stakes, Tri Dao, tentpole features, open-source AI, non-financial investors, Meta Llama, deep learning researchers, WeWork, “Attention is All You Need,” create vs. capture, Databricks, Docker, scaling laws, Ilya Sutskever, IRC, and Jordan Ritter and Napster.
Chapters:
(00:53) - Executive hiring(04:40) - How Vipul and Bucky met(06:54) - Six years at Apple(08:19) - Together and the AI landscape(12:47) - Apple’s deal with OpenAI(14:27) - Open vs. closed AI(17:32) - Nvidia GPUs and capital expenditures(22:48) - Fame and reputation(24:17) - Planning for an uncertain future(27:00) - Stress and attention(30:18) - AI research(34:58) - Challenges for AI businesses(39:02) - Frequent disagreements(43:05) - Vipul’s first startups, Cloudmark and Topsy(47:55) - Taking time off(50:09) - The crypto-AI connection(53:20) - Who Together AI is hiring(54:37) - What “grit” means to VipulLinks:
Connect with Vipul
TwitterLinkedInConnect with Bucky
TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
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Guest: Andrew Bialecki, CEO of Klaviyo
Whenever the marketing platform Klaviyo is hiring, says CEO Andrew Bialecki, “we sort of don't care so much what skills you have.” Instead, the company looks for “high slope” individuals who are curious and able to continually learn new things. “A big turnoff for me is [when] somebody says, ‘Oh, well, I was never good at that when I was growing up,’” Andrew explains. “You know, ‘I'm not a good writer’ or ‘I'm not good with numbers.’ And it's like, well, OK, but anybody can learn anything.”
In this episode, Andrew and Joubin discuss WeCrashed, Paul Graham, vertical integration, automating sales, Ed Hallen, The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle, child prodigies, interview questions, public speaking and decompression, taking ownership, hiring engineers, burnout, and productivity habits.
Chapters:
(00:51) - Klaviyo's office (02:36) - Attention to detail(06:32) - Big decisions(12:23) - What Klaviyo does(14:50) - Its 2023 IPO(20:35) - The founding story(25:06) - Nature or nurture?(28:47) - Science and hockey(31:02) - Hiring for slope(33:57) - Extroversion(37:00) - Culture as product(39:53) - Owning your success(46:24) - “The algorithms of humanity”(50:55) - Why Andrew runs(52:35) - Sports psychology for startups(55:34) - Richard Feynman(58:27) - Who Klaviyo is hiring(59:20) - What “grit” means to AndrewLinks:
Connect with Andrew
TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
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Guest: Niraj Shah, CEO and co-founder of Wayfair
Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah caught the entrepreneurship bug in his mid-20s, when he and his longtime co-founder Steve Conine sold their first company just a few years out of college. They left the acquirer and independently realized “we absolutely wanted to start something else,” Niraj recalls. “Once you’ve done that, if you enjoy that, it’s very hard to pursue something more traditional.” But the “if you enjoy that” bit really matters: Whenever he’s counseling younger people, Niraj tells them to pursue something they’re genuinely excited about. Otherwise, “it’s going to be very hard for you to do your best work.”
In this episode, Niraj and Joubin discuss shopping malls, employee discounts, working in Boston, family time, Jay Chaudhry, Cornell University, pursuing what you enjoy, fostering trust, family vacations, over-hiring corporate staff, taking market share, the power of ecommerce, ownership mentality, setting priorities, and rapid hiring.
Chapters:
(00:51) - Wayfair’s first retail stores(05:35) - Buying from other stores(08:59) - Immigrant entrepreneurship and Niraj’s dad(12:57) - Building the flywheel(15:32) - Structuring your calendar(17:59) - Success and attention(21:47) - Niraj’s first business(25:54) - His co-founder, Steve Conine(29:58) - Wayfair’s operations and the COVID surge(33:52) - The home goods market(37:50) - Optimizing SKUs(41:21) - Specializing, focusing, and problem-solving(44:42) - Sustainable work ethic(48:05) - AI and personalization(52:42) - Who Wayfair is hiring(53:56) - What “grit” means to NirajLinks:
Connect with Niraj
LinkedInWatch the Cornell talkConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
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Guest: Jay Chaudhry, CEO, chairman, and founder of Zscaler
Much of the media coverage of Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudhry is quick to identify him as the wealthiest Indian-American person, with a net worth of $10.8 billion. But to hear Jay himself tell it, that number has never been very important to him: “My family had no money,” he says of his childhood in India. “I had no attachment for money. There was no feeling of ‘I must buy this, buy this.’ ... And it hasn’t changed a bit.” Perhaps surprisingly, he says not caring about money is one of the big reasons for his financial success: With no attachment to money, “I could take risks.”
In this episode, Jay and Joubin discuss startup “gambling,” Jay’s wife Jyoti, scarcity and risk, wasting time, “bonding walks,” family vacations, self-confidence and self-criticism, gardening, seven-minute aerobics, Marc Andreessen and Netscape, and IBM.
Chapters:
(01:54) - Selling SecureIT to Verisign(06:49) - Jay’s humble beginnings(09:12) - The worst way to describe him(11:42) - Working harder than ever(14:15) - Authenticity and selflessness(16:36) - Family time(18:53) - Happy childhood(21:33) - Setting an example (24:48) - Customer meetings(27:30) - Conviction and execution(31:07) - Do your best(33:16) - Turning off your brain(38:23) - Getting experience(40:17) - Who Zscaler is hiring(41:12) - What “grit” means to JayLinks:
Connect with JayConnect with Joubin
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This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm
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Guest: Bill Magnuson, CEO and co-founder of Braze
The deployment of smartphones around the world was more impactful than any other technology to date, says Braze CEO Bill Magnuson — and that has big implications for emerging fields like generative AI. “If we get to the point where they [LLMs] really can be useful, human-like companions ... they will be usable by everyone that has smartphone technology.” In other words, the question is not business opportunity or scale: It’s capability.
In this episode, Bill and Joubin discuss earnings days, Aaron Levie, MIT, customer churn, shower thoughts, technical co-founders, lacking context, AGI, “hands on keyboard,” the T-Mobile G1, app marketing, the 2008 financial crisis, Bob Iger, World War II, Peter Reinhardt, Watershed, and international offices.
Chapters:
(00:51) - Morning people(05:09) - What Braze does(06:59) - From CTO to CEO(08:17) - Waking up and commuting(10:49) - Leading vs. engineering(12:35) - Cognizant of believability(19:52) - LLMs and the human brain(25:46) - The AI ceiling(28:43) - The historic deployment of smartphones(37:58) - The benefits of youth(40:18) - Taking the leap(43:35) - Read more sci-fi(46:38) - Survivor bias(48:55) - Big risks at scale(52:30) - Who Braze is hiring around the world(55:32) - What “grit” means to BillLinks:
Connect with Bill
TwitterLinkedInConnect with Joubin
TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]Learn more about Kleiner Perkins
This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm -
Guest: Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce AI
In 2020, Clara Shih quit Hearsay, the company she founded and ran for 11 years; in hindsight, she says “I probably should have quit a little bit sooner.” But at the time, she cared a lot — too much — about what everyone else thought. “There's a lot of guilt around leaving initially and feeling bad for feeling bad,” Clara says. But her worries subsided when her replacement and former COO, Mike Boese, guided the company with “class and grace” to an exit: A $125 million+ acquisition just this week by Yext.
In this episode, Clara meets Joubin on the top level of Salesforce Tower to discuss Sarah Friar, AI “frenemies,” practice and discipline, quantifying hard work, burnout, turning off, Intercom, elite operators, “Serviceforce,” ChatGPT, hiring for hunger, kids and achivement, Thomas “TK” Kurian, Slack, David Schmeier, Juan Perez, Nvidia GPUs, Silvio Savarese and Frontier AI, Starbucks, and Sheryl Sandberg.
Chapters:
(01:04) - Apple’s OpenAI partnership(03:18) - Organizing your life (04:45) - Working smarter(07:49) - Hindsight(08:58) - Hearsay’s acquisition by Yext(11:23) - What everyone else thinks(14:25) - Productive worry(17:27) - Coming (back) to Salesforce(20:47) - Paranoia and immigrant hustle(25:42) - Quitting(26:39) - Meetings and infusing AI(29:38) - Internal time savings(31:48) - The Matthew McConaughey ads(33:48) - Different horizons(37:35) - France and sovereign AI(38:46) - How Clara uses AI to keep up(40:33) - Dis-intermediating Netflix(41:27) - Who Salesforce AI is hiring(42:05) - Advice from Howard Schultz and Marc BenioffLinks:
Connect with ClaraTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected] Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm -
Guest: Marissa Mayer, CEO and Founder of Sunshine and former CEO of Yahoo
When Marissa Mayer was first hired as the CEO of Yahoo, the company had lost nearly a quarter of its workforce in the preceding six months. Early on, she was chatting with employees in the cafeteria and one of them got her attention by smacking her tray. “Is it go time?” he asked. He was asking if the board and C-suite were ready to lead the company forward, but Marissa thought he had one foot out the door. “I had just come out of this meeting where they were like, ‘Everyone’s leaving!’” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘Oh no, please don’t go, I’ve only been here for four days!’”
In this episode, Marissa and Joubin discuss the number 12, contacts and photo sharing, fear of AI, soccer moms, maternity as a “disability,” mothers’ rooms, Jim Citrin, Project Cardinal, HTML5 vs. native apps, Ross Levinsohn, Lori Puccinelli Stern, Joe Montana, David Karp, Mark Zuckerberg, Taylor Swift, hiring at Google, Amit Patel, Hamilton, John Doerr, and the Google APM program.
Chapters:
(00:52) - Reading your own press(04:55) - Marissa’s lucky number(07:19) - Her latest startup, Sunshine(15:03) - Burnout, resentment, and rhythm(21:46) - The opportunity to become CEO of Yahoo(27:00) - Inverting maternity leave(31:14) - The big interview(36:44) - An epic dinner party(42:51) - The voicemail(47:18) - Farzad “Zod” Nazem and David Philo(50:25) - Last day at Google(53:52) - “Is it go time?”(59:03) - Buying Tumblr(01:04:46) - Alibaba and Verizon(01:06:24) - Larry and Sergey bucks(01:11:05) - Eric Schmidt’s advice(01:12:59) - In the room at Google(01:18:36) - Teaching and identifying talent(01:24:32) - Who Sunshine is hiringLinks:
Connect with MarissaTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected] Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm -
Guest: Sarah Friar, former CEO of Nextdoor
Sarah Friar has worked with some of the top leaders in Silicon Valley, including Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, Block CEO Jack Dorsey, and most recently Nextdoor founder Nirav Tolia, who just replaced her as CEO in May. And one of the things that sets top performers apart from the rest, she argues, is their compassion and their responsiveness. When her former EA’s husband was diagnosed with cancer, Sarah texted Benioff — who she had just left behind to work at Square — for help. Within seconds, she recalls, he arranged an appointment at UCSF. “That is an amazing moment of compassion,” she says, “where he did not need to take that time.”
In this episode, Sarah and Joubin discuss public markets vs. VC, George Floyd, working with the board, singular focus, Goldman Sachs, being in “flow,” the freedom of not getting the thing you want, Walmart, Steph Curry, Graham Smith, Charlie Rose and Donald Trump, ugly babies, Elon Musk, Ladies Who Lunch, CNBC, commuting from home, white noise, “frequent Friars,” @TechEmails on Twitter, and the “zone of gratefulness.”
Chapters:
(02:04) - Why Sarah left Nextdoor(08:18) - The stock market and success(10:21) - Going through hell(14:48) - Life is not an A/B test(16:09) - Multiple tours of duty(19:21) - Ikigai(22:02) - Perfectionism and drive(25:54) - Sarah’s next operating role(28:35) - Big transitions(30:35) - Personal burn rate(35:34) - “Are people gonna take my call?”(38:40) - Leaving Salesforce for Square(41:27) - Loyalty(45:33) - Leaving the right way(47:44) - Square and Swiss cheese companies(50:03) - Growth companies(52:38) - Apolitical workplaces(53:42) - Leaving Square(55:38) - Loneliness (57:18) - Daily routines(01:05:03) - Working on weekends(01:08:30) - Hyper-responsiveness(01:11:47) - Resumé virtues and eulogy virtues(01:15:33) - What “grit” means to SarahLinks:
Connect with SarahTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected] Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm -
Guest: Stanislav Vishnevskiy, CTO and co-founder of Discord
For many years, the conventional wisdom was the gaming was not social because it was something you usually did at home. “But people who play games are often the most social,” says Discord CTO Stanislav Vishnevskiy. “They’re spending 10, 20 hours with other people online, hanging out.” As a teenager, Stanislav logged more than 1,000 days playing his favorite video game and socializing with friends around the world, but with 200 million monthly active users, the social platform is appealing to a lot more than hardcore gamers. “People online who need to get together and collaborate ... [want] tp have control and create a place,” he says. “That’s not just a gaming need, right? That’s pretty much any community.”
In this episode, Stanislav and Joubin discuss “Discord moments,” hanging out online, IRC and AIM, Fates Forever, good and bad stress, leadership coaches, Claire Hughes Johnson, socializing online, heart surgery, Slack, Jason Citron, in-browser voice chat, Reddit, authentic CX, hiring slowly, Mitch Lasky, “playing moneyball,” React, content moderation, deprecation plans, and collaborative projects.
Chapters:
(02:09) - Discord’s scale and importance(07:35) - What is Discord?(09:43) - Hammer and Chisel(13:18) - How Stanislav’s role has changed(15:17) - Imposter syndrome(17:47) - Doing stuff for the first time(21:22) - Final Fantasy XI and Stanislav’s parents(25:12) - YOLO(27:02) - Games as social networks(30:49) - The evolution of Discord(35:58) - Inherent virality(39:04) - Building the company(41:39) - The COVID effect(43:08) - Hiring for slope(46:43) - Pivoting back to gaming(51:27) - The Discord Store and Nitro(54:30) - Emotional stakes(56:09) - Midjourney and AI art(59:58) - Virtual worlds(01:01:30) - Who Discord is hiring and what “grit” means to StanislavLinks:
Connect with StanislavLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected] Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm -
Guest: Eoghan McCabe, CEO, Chairman, and Co-Founder of Intercom
“We are not ready for the degree to which our world is going to change,” says Intercom CEO Eoghan McCabe, “in insane and incredible ways.” When he co-founded the company in 2011, the Irish-born entrepreneur was making it easier for companies to offer human customer service to their customers. But Eoghan believes “every single type of knowledge work” will soon be done by AI, and Intercom is well on its way to that destination: 45 percent of all tickets are being answered by bots now, and he expects that number to climb to 70 percent by 2026. “The agents no longer have to do the repetitive, painful, boring work,” Eoghan says. “They can focus on the more human, creative, interesting work that requires their empathy and creativity.”
In this episode, Eoghan and Joubin discuss fitting in, Archana Agrawal, authentic comms, taking risks, returning to the company you founded, politics at work, celebrating innovation, therapy for founders, and Ram Dass.
Chapters:
(01:04) - Insecurity and success(06:16) - What Intercom does(08:20) - Reinvention and “big company values”(15:50) - Becoming an AI company(16:53) - 2011 vs. 2024 in San Francisco(21:03) - AI for customer service — and more(25:07) - “The shitty gift that being attacked brings”(30:25) - Expectations vs. reality, part one(33:16) - What success means now(36:08) - Running away(39:56) - Coming back(41:58) - Being busy is BS(44:10) - Expectations vs. reality, part two(45:44) - Self-mastery(50:38) - Sanding off the rough edges(55:08) - Who Intercom is hiring and what “grit” means to EoghanLinks:
Connect with EoghanTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected] Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm -
Guest: Mark Cuban, co-founder of Cost Plus Drugs and costar, Shark Tank
“I just love to compete,” says Mark Cuban. “And the day I stop is the day I’m dead.” Previously the co-founder of MicroSolutions and Broadcast.com, Cuban is probably best known to the public today for competing with the likes of Daymond John and Barbara Corcoran on the reality TV show Shark Tank. But his real focus — and his real enemy — these days is the pharmaceutical industry. His latest company, Cost Plus Drugs, aims to be far more transparent than established PBMs, or Pharmacy Benefit Managers, and Mark clearly relishes eating their margin. “Everybody talks about disrupting healthcare,” he says. “This is the easiest motherf**king industry I've ever tried to disrupt because it is so opaque, and everybody is so captured by the scale of these big companies.”
In this episode, Mark and Joubin discuss Luka Dončić, Synthesia, the Sony hack, the American Dream, TikTok propaganda, MicroSolutions, throwing away watches, keeping kids grounded, Black Mirror, keeping up, Ali Ghodsi, the NBA, MGM, gambling in Dallas, the Adelson family, CES, transparency, and Alex Oshmyansky.
Chapters:
(00:55) - Game day and superstitions(03:08) - Email responsiveness(05:48) - Shark Tank(09:21) - Retiring young(10:57) - American Airlines’ lifetime pass(12:55) - Sports and blue-collar work(16:02) - Compete or die(17:43) - Why Mark hates meetings(19:57) - Immortality through AI(23:05) - The new AI wave(25:07) - Startup founders and low-hanging fruit(29:24) - Selling Broadcast.com to Yahoo(31:35) - The Dallas Mavericks(34:52) - Selling his majority stake(37:08) - The missing link in pharma(41:27) - Disrupting a huge industry(43:57) - The problem with debt(44:59) - What “grit” means to MarkLinks:
Connect with MarkTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected] Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm -
Guest: Taylor Francis, co-founder of Watershed
One day when he was 13, Taylor Francis walked out of the movie theater, and he was pissed off. He had just seen Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth and internalized a “generational call to arms, that my parents had screwed our generation” by causing the climate crisis, he says. 14 years later, he was working at Stripe and felt another call to arms: The 2020s would be a crucial decade for slashing carbon emissions and combating global warming. So, he and his co-founders Avi Itskovich and Christian Anderson all left Stripe to start Watershed, which helps companies measure and reduce their emissions.
In this episode, Taylor and Joubin discuss Patrick Collison, Dan Miller-Smith, hiring challenges, Jonathan Neman, “golden age syndrome,” John Doerr and Mike Moritz, the Climate Reality Project, steady partnerships, DRI cultures, shared context, social distancing, information sprawl, and the founders’ “woe is me” narrative.
Chapters:
(01:02) - Magnetic missions(06:40) - How enterprise sustainability works(08:40) - Watershed’s first client, Sweetgreen(11:04) - Reflecting on the early days(16:36) - Al Gore and An Inconvenient Truth(18:53) - Mobilizing teenagers(22:16) - The origins of Watershed(27:04) - Leaving Stripe and raising money(31:41) - Interchangeable co-founders(33:06) - The ground truth (35:25) - The Dunbar Number(38:22) - Watershed’s operating principles(41:56) - Intensity, priorities, and sacrifice(47:37) - Moving faster(50:26) - Sustainability is a part of business(52:21) - The topology of emissions(58:08) - Who Watershed is hiringLinks:
Connect with TaylorTwitterLinkedInConnect with JoubinTwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected] Learn more about Kleiner PerkinsThis episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm - Vis mere
