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  • #217 CEO & Co-Founder Codeium, Varun Mohan w/ Leigh Marie Braswell: Limitless

    #217 CEO & Co-Founder Codeium, Varun Mohan w/ Leigh Marie Braswell: Limitless

    · Grit

    Guests: Varun Mohan, CEO & Co-Founder of Codeium; and Leigh Marie Braswell, partner at Kleiner Perkins

    “A lot of people are really bad at knowing what good is,” says Codeium CEO Varun Mohan. Specifically, he’s thinking of startups that hire based on a “logo” — a well-known company on the rĂ©sumĂ© — rather than exceptional talent. Codeium is based in Mountain View, CA, and Varun believes that it’s incumbent on any new startup to hire in the San Francisco Bay Area, because of how exceptional talent is concentrated there.

    “When you hire someone that’s 10x better,” he says, “you can’t replace them with 10 1x people. Because the the 10x person is going to be thinking of ideas that none of these 1x people are ever going to think of.”

    Chapters:

    (01:05) - Ludicrous growth(03:54) - Seizing opportunity(07:29) - Product-market fit(13:05) - Scale AI & MIT(17:42) - Coding efficiency(22:58) - Larger companies(25:20) - Varun and Leigh Marie’s working relationship(29:51) - Pivoting to Codeium(34:00) - Giving away the product(37:01) - The code-gen landscape(42:20) - Annual reinvention(45:00) - Picking a problem(47:07) - Bipul Sinha’s help(50:43) - Ambition(53:13) - Building in Silicon Valley(55:11) - Spotting talent(59:11) - Who Codeium is hiring(59:43) - What “grit” means to Varun

    Mentioned in this episode: Graham Moreno, Wiz, ChatGPT, Google, Nuro, Goldman Sachs, Waymo, the DARPA Challenge, Alex Wang, Douglas Chen, Safeway, Equinox, Carlos Delatorre and MongoDB, The Qualified Sales Leader by John McMahon, GitHub Copilot, Microsoft, Exafunction, Mamoon Hamid, Figma, JPMorgan Chase, Starlink, SpaceX, Rubrik, Michael Dell, Stripe, and John Doerr.

    Links:

    Connect with Varun

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    Connect with Leigh Marie

    LinkedInTwitter

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #216 Founder Khan Academy, Sal Khan: Dangerously Curious

    #216 Founder Khan Academy, Sal Khan: Dangerously Curious

    · Grit

    Guest: Sal Khan, founder of Khan Academy

    AI is poised to change nearly every business, but few are changing as quickly as education. And Sal Khan, who has spend more than a decade manually creating more than 7,000 educational videos, says that’s a good thing. He’s encouraged Khan Academy to focus on “disrupt[ing] ourselves ... more than almost any other organization that I know of.”

    The reason is backed up by the data: Personalized tutors — designed to help students achieve mastery in a subject, but previously thought to be unscalable — could shift the educational bell curve “significantly to the right,” Sal says.

    Chapters:

    (00:52) - John and Ann Doerr(05:20) - Khan Academy’s origins(07:42) - What it is now(12:43) - Emotional fortitude(15:25) - Generating revenue(19:36) - The two-sigma “problem”(21:31) - OpenAI and Sam Altman(24:47) - What AI can do(27:56) - Cheating and other fears(30:06) - Video production(34:08) - Standardized tests(38:36) - AI tutors’ tone(40:22) - Not leaving the closet(43:20) - Who Khan Academy is hiring(45:58) - What “grit” means to Sal

    Mentioned in this episode: Nasdaq, Dan Wohl, Vedic and Buddhist literature, Microsoft, Benjamin Bloom, ChatGPT, the Turing Test, Greg Brockman, Donald Trump, Bing Chat and Sydney, Khanmigo, the SAT and ACT, Schoolhouse.world, Craig Silverstein and Google, John Resig and jQuery, and Angela Duckworth.

    Links:

    Connect with Sal

    TwitterLinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

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  • #215 COO Rippling Matt MacInnis: Learn the Engine

    #215 COO Rippling Matt MacInnis: Learn the Engine

    · Grit

    Guest: Matt MacInnis, COO of Rippling

    One of the most important things a non-founder can do, says Rippling COO Matt MacInnis, is to learn how to operate in the context of the company they’re joining. His CEO, Parker Conrad, “spikes” in certain skill areas, and the rest of the executive team needs to maximize his ability to thrive while “taking care of the rest of it.” Matt likened the work to being a hobbyist airplane pilot, who can’t get a license without knowing all the minute details about their plane’s engine and aerodynamics.

    “You can’t be a good pilot if you don’t understand the engine, because if something goes wrong, you want to be able to troubleshoot it,” he says. “An executive coming in to fly your airplane better learn the engine.”

    Chapters:

    (01:08) - Telling Rippling’s story(04:27) - Founding & failing at Inkling(09:30) - Different types of hard(13:55) - Discipline and stamina(15:22) - Meeting with Steve Jobs(19:20) - Definitely, give up!(22:29) - Product-market fit(27:15) - Founders and culture(33:24) - Executive instincts(36:06) - Talent Signal and AI(40:06) - 150 former founders(44:08) - Zero to one projects(48:06) - The failure of Silicon Valley Bank(55:25) - Routines and discipline(59:37) - Disagreeing with Parker(01:02:25) - Who Rippling is hiring(01:03:37) - What “grit” means to Matt

    Mentioned in this episode: Parker Conrad, London Breed, Apple, Sequoia Capital, Sapphire Ventures, Tenaya Capital, digital textbooks on iPad, Oricom, Netscape, Peter Cho, Eddy Cue, John Couch, iBooks, Slack, Airbnb, Paul Graham, Brian Chesky, “founder mode,” Larry Ellison, Ivan Zhao and Notion, Intel and ARM, Salesforce, United Airlines, LLMs, GitHub, DocuCharm, Peter Thiel, Mamoon Hamid, Expensify, Navan, Costco, Comcast, HBO’s Silicon Valley, Jensen Huang and NVIDIA, and Taylor Swift.

    Links:

    Connect with Matt

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    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #214 Former CEO Hulu & WarnerMedia Jason Kilar: No Labels

    #214 Former CEO Hulu & WarnerMedia Jason Kilar: No Labels

    · Grit

    Guest: Jason Kilar, former CEO & co-founder of Hulu and former CEO of WarnerMedia

    When Jason Kilar was a child, he was obsessed with Walt Disney — not just as a filmmaker or the creator of Disneyland, but as an entrepreneur. He started his career at the Walt Disney Company (where else?) but then got his first opportunity to help build something new when a young startup entrepreneur from Seattle visited his business school classroom. Most of Jason’s classmates predicted the failure of this startup, Amazon.com, which elicited “this awesome laugh, the Jeff Bezos trademark laugh.” How a leader reacts to criticism or doubts, Jason learned, says a lot about their conviction and intelligence.

    Chapters:

    (01:08) - Bing Gordon and John Doerr(04:11) - Warner Bros.(06:12) - Walt Disney(11:10) - Working at Disney(14:32) - What makes it special(18:31) - Meeting your heroes(20:06) - “Walt’s folly,” Disneyland(22:45) - Harvard and Amazon(25:09) - Meeting Jeff Bezos(29:10) - “Help people understand Amazon exists”(33:25) - Amazon’s culture(38:07) - What Warner Bros. makes(40:55) - Obscurity and relevance (45:53) - Feeling the lows(50:09) - Launching Hulu(53:36) - NewCo or ClownCo?(59:13) - Over-communication(01:03:14) - The future of TV memo(01:06:46) - Innovator’s dilemma(01:08:57) - No labels(01:14:04) - Unfinished business(01:16:22) - Staying present(01:20:26) - The theatrical window(01:26:19) - What’s next?

    Mentioned in this episode: Amazon, The Matrix, Star Wars: A New Hope, Disney World, Diane Disney Miller, Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, Michael Eisner, Universal Studios and Harry Potter, Disney University, Jeffrey Rayport, Barnes & Noble, Joel Spiegel, David Risher, Joy Covey, Garry Trudeau and Doonesbury, Andy Jassy, Brian Birtwistle, Jim Kingsbury, Vessel and Verizon, HBO, Friends, Hogwarts Legacy, Sony, Netflix, NBCUniversal, Paramount, AT&T, Discovery, Richard Tom, Kara Swisher, Fox, YouTube and Google, Saturday Night Live, Peter Chernin, Jeff Zucker, Bob Iger, Andy Rachleff and Benchmark, CBS, Miracle on 34th Street, Marissa Mayer and Yahoo, Rony Abovitz and Magic Leap, House of the Dragon and Industry, Dune, Christopher Nolan, and the TSA.

    Links:

    Connect with Jason

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    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #213 CEO & Co-Founder Loom Joe Thomas w/ Ilya Fushman: After the Exit

    #213 CEO & Co-Founder Loom Joe Thomas w/ Ilya Fushman: After the Exit

    · Grit

    Guests: Joe Thomas, CEO and co-founder of Loom; and Ilya Fushman, partner at Kleiner Perkins

    Loom CEO Joe Thomas had a lot of things to think about before he sold his company to Atlassian for $975 million: The impact an acquisition might have on the product, how to keep the Loom brand alive, the risk of remaining independent... but it wasn’t until after the deal was announced that he really understood what it meant for his team.

    “I didn't know how emotional it'd be for me,” Joe says. “All of the Loom employees, current and former, that reached out when this was announced, they did their calculation and they're like, ‘Oh my God.’ That, to me, was the most emotionally transformative part of the process. I didn't fully recognize what that would be like, on the individual front.”

    Chapters:

    (01:34) - The Atlassian acquisition(05:25) - The bittersweet moment(08:15) - Transforming Loom(13:30) - Ilya’s perspective(18:04) - Life-changing(22:55) - Doing it again(25:00) - Loom’s early days(28:26) - The Series A(32:33) - Turning on monetization(35:37) - The Series B(37:05) - Loom AI(43:13) - Revenue orientation(48:18) - The acquisition landscape(52:27) - Working inside Atlassian(54:04) - Atlanta tech(55:00) - Who Atlassian is hiring(55:24) - What “grit” means to Joe

    Mentioned in this episode: Wilson Sonsini, Vinay Hiremath, Andrew Reed and Sequoia Capital, Zoom, Mike Cannon-Brookes, Shahed Khan, COTU Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz, Scott Farquhar, the Lindy Effect, SVB, Google Chrome, Dropbox, Slack, Snapchat, HubSpot, the Van Westendorp Price Sensitivity Meter, Dylan Field and Figma, Atlassian Rovo, Palo Alto Networks, Salesforce, and Garrett Langley and Flock Safety.

    Links:

    Connect with Joe

    LinkedInTwitter

    Connect with Ilya

    TwitterLinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #212 Founder Magic Leap & SynthBee Rony Abovitz: Underdog

    #212 Founder Magic Leap & SynthBee Rony Abovitz: Underdog

    · Grit

    Guest: Rony Abovitz, founder & CEO of SynthBee

    SynthBee CEO Rony Abovitz grew up “really believing” in Star Wars and the idea that there could be benevolent, artificially intelligent beings like R2-D2 and C-3PO.

    “It wasn't a dystopian vision of the future,” he says. “It wasn't HAL from 2001. It wasn't the Terminator. It wasn't Skynet. It was this kind of friendly, empathetic, more utopian vision.”

    George Lucas himself told Rony to tone it down and not “take it so literally” — but he was undeterred. The way he describes today’s leading AI powers sounds like an idealistic Rebel conceptualizing the Evil Empire.

    “You’ve got companies that receive massive funding that want to take all the data in the world ... I feel that's a massive mistake,” Rony says. “We become serfs. They become the Lords. They become the Kings. I'm completely opposed to that. So I started to imagine for SynthBee what is a different form of computing intelligence, one that could help us, but have much more safety [and] human centrism.”

    Chapters:

    (01:12) - Fundraising(02:27) - Meeting John Doerr(07:05) - The Beast(10:06) - Unfinished business(11:47) - Apple and Meta(15:20) - The COVID-19 pandemic(21:12) - “Investors panicked”(25:28) - Shaquille O’Neal vs. digital Shaq(29:43) - Magic Leap alumni(32:45) - Financial outcomes(38:27) - Peggy Johnson(40:27) - “A weird version of hell”(44:08) - A strange intro to Google(50:42) - Larry Page and Sergey Brin(54:27) - Founder voting power(01:00:40) - Mako Surgical(01:03:04) - The 9/11 term sheet(01:06:40) - The worst pitch ever(01:09:55) - The 2008 IPO(01:16:15) - Selling to Stryker(01:18:30) - What is SynthBee?(01:26:44) - Humility in tech(01:31:44) - Who SynthBee is hiring

    Mentioned in this episode: Scott Hassan, Bing Gordon, Chewy, Mary Meeker, Suitable Technologies and Beam, NASA, Mark Zuckerberg, Matthew Ball, NTT Docomo, Blade Runner, Wired Magazine, CES, Dow Jones, Tesla, Zoom, OpenAI and Anthropic, Adam Silver and the NBA, John Monos, the Apple Vision Pro, Madden NFL, McLaren, Satya Nadella and Microsoft, the HoloLens, Godzilla and King Kong, Willow Garage and ROS, Trading Places, Z-KAT, Frederic Moll, John Freund, Christopher Dewey, John and Christine Whitman, Sycamore Ventures, Andy Bechtelstein, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, Kevin Lobo, Muhammad Ali, Star Wars and George Lucas, Yuval Noah Harari, and Infosys.

    Links:

    Connect with Rony

    LinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #211 CEO & Co-Founder Klarna, Sebastian Siemiatkowski: Country Cousin

    #211 CEO & Co-Founder Klarna, Sebastian Siemiatkowski: Country Cousin

    · Grit

    Guest: Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO and co-founder of Klarna

    Living and working in Stockholm, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski thinks a lot about how he’s perceived in Silicon Valley: “I feel like here I am, I am the small, country cousin from Sweden.” And on top of that, he knew that someone like Sam Altman wouldn’t initially think of a European banking startup as an ideal partner for OpenAI — so, he made up an excuse to fly to San Francisco and meet with Altman.

    “I felt like, OK, this is going to be the busiest man in the world very soon,” Sebastian recalls. “When I first booked it with Sam, I think I got three hours in his calendar. By the time I arrived in San Francisco, it was down to 30 minutes.”

    Chapters:

    (01:02) - Workday and Salesforce(06:01) - Rolling your own(08:45) - AI-driven customer service(15:33) - Automation at scale for business(19:28) - The Toyota way(23:40) - Sam Altman (25:36) - Playing offense(28:25) - Reinventing Klarna(31:44) - The startup journey(35:37) - Common equity(39:28) - Champions League(42:24) - Hype cycles(47:35) - Sebastian’s father(52:28) - Control and stability(57:23) - Comfort zone vs. stretch zone(01:02:27) - Creating resilience(01:06:23) - Why Klarna isn’t hiring

    Mentioned in this episode: OpenAI, Seeking Alpha, Slack, Workday, ChatGPT, Stripe, CRMs, Mark Benioff, Twitter, Anthropic, Waymo, Devin AI, the Collison brothers and Stripe, Pieter van der Does and Adyen, Daniel Ek and Spotify, General Atlantic, DST Global, Anton Levy, Michael Moritz, Sequoia Capital, Niklas Adalberth, PayPal, CNBC, “Under Pressure” by Queen, Boris Johnson, Elon Musk, Google, Sam Walton, Made in America, Nina Siemiatkowski, and Snoop Dogg.

    Links:

    Connect with Sebastian

    TwitterLinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #210 CEO & Co-Founder Huntress Kyle Hanslovan w/ Ev Randle: Deep Roots

    #210 CEO & Co-Founder Huntress Kyle Hanslovan w/ Ev Randle: Deep Roots

    · Grit

    Guest: Kyle Hanslovan, CEO & co-founder of Huntress; and Ev Randle, partner at Kleiner Perkins

    Talk is cheap, says Huntress CEO Kyle Hanslovan: “I learned real early on that integrity is like one of the very few things, if not the only thing, you can't buy.” En route to Huntress’ current status as a $1.5 billion firm with $100 million in ARR, he took a long time to hire new execs, or partner with VC firms.

    Indeed, Kleiner Perkins partner Ev Randle recalls the deliberation Hanslovan underwent before signing KP’s term sheet. “It's pretty rare for a founder's diligence process on you to increase your conviction on them and the business that they're building,” he says. “You just saw that the effort extended across to so many different places and so many details that it's typically not.”

    Chapters:

    (01:03) - Learning how things work(03:31) - Default trusting(05:07) - Over-sharing(10:50) - Kyle’s leadership style(15:44) - Hiring for conflict(19:24) - Scaling execs(22:52) - Evaluating VCs(28:55) - Pattern-matching(32:13) - Why Huntress is worth $1.5 billion(38:34) - Kyle’s childhood and early career(42:00) - The 99 percent(47:49) - Bootstrapping(51:14) - Deep roots(57:47) - Customer love(01:01:14) - “Nothing will stop us”(01:05:50) - Who Huntress is hiring(01:07:22) - What “grit” means to Kyle

    Mentioned in this episode: Sony, Sam Altman, Nike, Elad Gil and High Growth Handbook, Kim Scott and Radical Candor, JMI Equity, Vinod Khosla, Todd Park, Capterra, Reddit, FUBU, Rippling, the NSA, QuickBooks, Amazon AWS, and South Park.

    Links:

    Connect with Kyle

    TwitterLinkedIn

    Connect with Ev

    TwitterLinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #209 Former President & CEO Ford, Mark Fields: All Cylinders

    #209 Former President & CEO Ford, Mark Fields: All Cylinders

    · Grit

    Guest: Mark Fields, former president & CEO of Ford Motor Company and chairperson at Planview


    In 2005, Mark Fields was asked to run the Americas for the Ford Motor Company, a role he would serve in for 7 years, later becoming COO and then CEO. His wife and kids were used to relocating for Mark’s job, but had just put down roots in Florida. He told them that this time, they should stay put — he would commute between Florida and Detroit every week, and call home for an hour every night.

    “I probably communicated more with [my wife] because we were apart, than if I was there,” Mark says. “Because if I was there, I'd come home for dinner, we'd spend a little bit of time together, I'd grunt at her, and then I'd go back to my emails, and ignore the kids. Whereas, by being away, I actually had really focused time every day to talk.”

    Chapters:

    (01:01) - The auto business in ‘89(05:27) - The business now(08:47) - Ford vs. Trump(11:44) - Becoming a leader(17:35) - The next chapter(20:01) - Relocating the family(24:45) - Bring the kids to work(29:19) - “You have one life”(33:52) - Ego and purpose(42:06) - Retirement adrenaline(45:10) - Leading with passion(48:06) - Avoiding bankruptcy(52:55) - Grading Mark’s CEO years(55:12) - The board(58:32) - Electric vehicles(01:04:50) - 24 Hours of Le Mans(01:11:36) - Selling a $580,000 car

    Mentioned in this episode: Harvard Business School, Ronald Reagan, Toyota, Nissan, Honda, CNBC, Volkswagen, American Icon, Donald Trump, Rutgers University, Mazda, Hertz, the Range Rover, Michigan University and Michigan Stadium, Mamoon Hamid, work/life balance, Mark McLaughlin and Palo Alto Networks, the Great Recession, GM, Chrysler, the North American International Auto Show, Bill Ford, Argo AI, Chariot, autonomous vehicles, Ford v Ferrari, Enzo Ferrari, the Ford GT, Jaguar Racing, and De Beers.

    Links:

    Connect with Mark

    LinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #208 CEO & Co-Founder Patreon, Jack Conte: Crowd Surfer

    #208 CEO & Co-Founder Patreon, Jack Conte: Crowd Surfer

    · Grit

    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 hiring

    Mentioned 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 video

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #207 Co-Founder & Chairman Zynga, Mark Pincus: Speed of Play

    #207 Co-Founder & Chairman Zynga, Mark Pincus: Speed of Play

    · Grit

    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 Mark

    Mentioned 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

    TwitterLinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #206 CEO & Founder Rivian, RJ Scaringe: Electrified

    #206 CEO & Founder Rivian, RJ Scaringe: Electrified

    · Grit

    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 RJ

    Mentioned 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

    TwitterLinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #205 CEO Snowflake, Sridhar Ramaswamy: Visibility

    #205 CEO Snowflake, Sridhar Ramaswamy: Visibility

    · Grit

    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 hiring

    Links:

    Connect with Sridhar

    TwitterLinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

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    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #204 Founder & Former CEO Blue Bottle, James Freeman: After the Exit

    #204 Founder & Former CEO Blue Bottle, James Freeman: After the Exit

    · Grit

    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 NestlĂ©, James Freeman has had a lot of time to ruminate — about how he succeeded in creating a unique cafĂ© 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 cafĂ©s, 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 James

    Links:

    Connect with James

    LinkedIn


    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]


    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #203 CEO Niantic, John Hanke: Buried Ships

    #203 CEO Niantic, John Hanke: Buried Ships

    · Grit

    Guest: John Hanke, CEO of Niantic

    When PokĂ©mon 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, PokĂ©mon 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) - PokĂ©mon 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 PokĂ©mon 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 hiring

    Links:

    Connect with John

    TwitterLinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #202 Chairman of Qualcomm, Mark McLaughlin: The Right Pitch

    #202 Chairman of Qualcomm, Mark McLaughlin: The Right Pitch

    · Grit

    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 Mark

    Links:

    Connect with Mark

    LinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #201 CEO Lyft, David Risher: The Ride

    #201 CEO Lyft, David Risher: The Ride

    · Grit

    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 David

    Links:

    Connect with David

    TwitterLinkedInThe Amazon easter egg

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #200 CEO & Co-Founder Together AI, Vipul Ved Prakash w/ Bucky Moore: Super Cycle

    #200 CEO & Co-Founder Together AI, Vipul Ved Prakash w/ Bucky Moore: Super Cycle

    · Grit

    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 Vipul

    Links:

    Connect with Vipul

    TwitterLinkedIn

    Connect with Bucky

    TwitterLinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #199 CEO & Co-Founder Klaviyo, Andrew Bialecki: High Slope

    #199 CEO & Co-Founder Klaviyo, Andrew Bialecki: High Slope

    · Grit

    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 Andrew

    Links:

    Connect with Andrew

    TwitterLinkedIn

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

  • #198 CEO & Co-Founder Wayfair, Niraj Shah: Homeward

    #198 CEO & Co-Founder Wayfair, Niraj Shah: Homeward

    · Grit

    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 Niraj

    Links:

    Connect with Niraj

    LinkedInWatch the Cornell talk

    Connect with Joubin

    TwitterLinkedInEmail: [email protected]

    Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

    This episode was edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm

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