20VC The Memo: Inside the Growth Engines of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Instacart with the Growth Leaders Who Built Them; How Instagram Went from 440M to 1BN, How Twitter Changing Their Signup Flow was a Needlemover and How Removing Card Payment Requ

Agenda: 00:00 – The Worst IPO Mis-Pricing Ever: What Really Happened at Figma 02:30 – Fidelity vs Founders: How Important is Fidelity When Going Public 07:00 – Why Founders Secretly Want a Pop, Even If It Makes Them Look Stupid 10:15 – The Truth Behind the $3B Figma "Left on the Table" 14:00 – Direct Listings vs IPOs: Should Figma Have Gone Direct 23:00 – CEO Compensation is Broken, Brian Halligan Doesn't Hold Back 29:00 – The New Normal: Growth Rounds with Elon-Style Moonshot Packages 33:00 – Is Canva Next? Why Founders Should "Run, Forrest, Run" to the NASDAQ 36:00 – The Case for Going Public: VCs Are a Bigger Pain Than Public Markets 44:00 – Can AI Even Work for SMBs? Why No One's Cracked the Code (Yet) 51:00 – Meta's Monster Quarter: Growth, Cash Burn, and the Real AI Strategy 56:00 – CEO of the Year? Why Jensen Huang Leaves Zuck & Satya in the Dust 1:00:00 – Cognition's $15B Deal & Mass Layoffs: The Most Savage M&A Move of 2025 1:07:00 – Ramp's $22B Raise: Genius Move or Suicide Round? 1:09:00 – CRV Shrinks, Benchmark's Bet, and the Future of Venture Strategy

7 Aug 1h 20min

Ron Gabrisko is the Chief Revenue Officer at Databricks, where he joined in 2016. Under his leadership, Databricks has scaled from $0 to $3.7BN annualized revenue. He has grown the sales team from 0 to over 1,000 globally, leading expansion into enterprise, government, and international markets. Ron previously held senior sales roles at Cloudera and IBM, bringing deep experience in data and AI infrastructure. His tenure at Databricks has been defined by hypergrowth, multi-product adoption, and world-class GTM execution. Agenda for Today: 00:04 – The Databricks Origin Story: Ali, Ben Horowitz & 7 PhDs 00:08 – Ali vs JPMorgan: Turning Down $10M to Stay Cloud-First 00:13 – Prospecting Day: How Ron Scaled the GTM Culture 00:16 – Why Databricks' Pricing Model Was Its Secret Weapon 00:19 – Enterprise vs SMB: The Risky Bet That Paid Off 00:23 – From $2M to $13M ARR: How Ron Built the First Sales Engine 00:29 – Can AI Replace Salespeople? Ron's Brutally Honest Take 00:36 – How to Get Your First Million-Dollar Rep (and Keep Them) 00:42 – The Culture Secret Behind Scaling to 5,000 Sales Reps 00:45 – Why Databricks Waited Until $500M ARR to Go International 00:52 – What Makes a Great Sales Meeting? Ron's Gold Standard 00:58 – The Snowflake Wars: Why Ron Says Databricks Is 5 Years Ahead

4 Aug 1h 15min

Miles Dieffenbach is Managing Director of Investments at Carnegie Mellon University, where he helps oversee a $4 billion endowment with a focus on venture capital, private equity, and alternative investments. Under his leadership, CMU's private book has remained self-funding during some of the toughest years for liquidity. Agenda for Today: 00:04 – "I Had Cancer at 26 – It Changed Everything" 07:00 – Inside the $4BN Carnegie Mellon Endowment: The Investment Blueprint 10:45 – Are LPs Getting Screwed in Venture? 13:30 – 90% of LPs Shouldn't Be in Venture – Here's Why 16:00 – Seed Funds Are a Trap (And No One Wants to Admit It) 20:00 – The $140BN Problem with Multi-Stage Funds 24:00 – "Index Is the Best in the Game – Here's Why They Win" 29:30 – "The Dirty Secret of LPs: Brand Over Performance" 34:30 – "When Founder-Friendly Goes Too Far" 38:00 – "The OpenAI Bubble – Will It All Go to Zero?" 44:00 – "Ping Pong Diligence & Wildest Fundraising Stories"

4 Aug 1h 27min

Agenda: 00:00 - Why Benchmark Is Bleeding Partners (and Why That's the New Normal) 04:57 - "I Wouldn't Leave Benchmark… Unless I Had THIS" — Jason on Brand vs Autonomy 09:01 - The Rise of the Solo GP & The Death of LP Conventional Wisdom 13:50 - The Unstoppable Force of Elad Gil & The Myth of LP Discipline 18:45 - Is Vibe Coding the New SaaS? Jason's $10K/Month Spend Reveal 26:57 - Cursor's Growth Is Insane—But Is It Sustainable? 31:44 - Will Microsoft, Google, or Amazon Win the AI Infra War? 37:42 - Is GitHub Copilot the Biggest Miss in Microsoft's History? 44:15 - Are Big Tech Incumbents Now Too Powerful to Fail? 48:00 - Apple's AI Problem: Is It Time for a Management Overhaul? 52:30 - Figma's IPO: $30B Return, Zero Hype. What Happened? 1:06:00 - Final Bets: Cursor to $4B ARR, Lovable to $400M ARR, OpenAI to $800BN?

31 Jul 1h 21min

Martin Casado is a General Partner @ a16z where he leads the firms $1.25BN infrastructure fund. At a16z, Martin has led investments in companies like Cursor, dbt Labs, and Fivetran to name a few. Before joining a16z, he co-founded Nicira, acquired by VMware for $1.26B. At VMware, he served as CTO of Networking. Widely regarded as a visionary in enterprise infrastructure, Martin has helped shape the modern cloud computing stack. Agenda: 00:00 – Analysis of Current AI Investment Landscape 04:45 – Will Anthropic Kill the AI App Layer? 09:20 – "The Oligopoly Is Coming—Just Like Cloud" 12:50 – Are AI Models Actually Terrible Venture Investments? 15:40 – Why it is BS to Put Down AI Apps for Having Temporary Revenue 21:30 – "Open Source Is a National Security Weapon—And We're Losing" 26:40 – "Have the Foundation Models of the Future All Been Founded Already" 34:30 – Why it is BS to Denigrate AI Apps for Having Low Margins 38:40 – Does AI Make 1x Engineers 10x or 10x Becomes 100x 44:10 – "We're All Dead Wrong About AI and Job Loss" 50:30 – "The Only Sin in Venture: Backing the Wrong Winner" 55:10 – What People Think They Know About Wealth But Do Not

28 Jul 1h 10min

Fernando Fanton is one of the most respected product leaders in Europe, having held Chief Product Officer roles at Monzo and Just Eat. He previously led product and tech at Rappi, one of Latin America's most valuable startups. Today, Fernando is the CPO @ Property Finder; one of the biggest breakout unicorns from MENA. Agenda: 00:00 – Is "having a vision" actually killing great product teams? 03:15 – Why do most products suck—and what separates the great ones? 07:20 – Should we kill the PM role entirely? Fernando says maybe. 11:45 – Is Monzo's obsession with trust more powerful than speed? 16:10 – What's the #1 reason internal tools will never replace SaaS? 21:00 – Will AI wipe out the need for designers and PMs? 26:30 – Is it arrogant for product teams to protect users from "bad" choices? 32:15 – What's the future of product when OpenAI controls the whole stack? 37:40 – What Monzo product blew up—and why no one saw it coming? 42:55 – Can a bank built on principles really become a $100B company?

27 Jul 1h 7min

Agenda: 00:00 – Did Jason Just Kill Replit? 03:45 – Why Claude Lies To You and Cannot Be Trusted 06:50 – You Cannot Trust Agents. Period. 10:20 – Why Windsurf Was Dead Without Claude 12:30 – Cursor vs. Lovable: What's the Better Bet? 14:40 – Should You Still Invest in Cursor at $28B? 18:05 – Would You Bet on Anthropic at $100B or OpenAI at $300B? 24:15 – Inside OpenAI's Secret Weapon: The Calvin French-Owen Memo 27:50 – Perplexity Just Crushed ChatGPT and Claude 32:15 – Will Cursor Build Their Own Models Before Anthropic Cuts Them Off? 33:20 – Figma's IPO at $16B: Outrageous or Fair Game? 41:55 – 90% of Seed Funds Are Cooked—Is Rob Go Right? 52:15 – How Often Do You Meet a Founder Who Can Return the Fund? 1:08:00 – Which Seed Fund Would You Back Today?

24 Jul 1h 21min

Edwin Chen is the Founder and CEO of Surge. Founded in 2020, Surge has scaled to $1BN+ in revenue with zero external funding. At the same time, their competitor, Scale.ai raised over $1.3BN to reach $850M ARR. Today, Surge have the world's largest model providers as customers and have just 120 employees. Agenda: 00:00 — "Everyone Else Is Just a Body Shop" — Edwin Calls Out the Whole Industry 01:05 — Why 90% of Big Tech Is Wasting Time on Useless Problems 03:45 — "I Don't Do 1-on-1s" — How Surge Kills Meetings and Still Moves 10x Faster 05:55 — Will a Single Person Build a $1B Company? 08:10 — 100x Engineers Are Real — Here's How to Spot Them 12:10 — Why Most PhDs Are Useless in AI Training 14:20 — Built to a Billion With Zero VC — Edwin Explains How and Why 17:00 — "No Sales Team, No PR, No BS" — Why Surge Stays in the Shadows 21:15 — The Real Reason AGI Might Take Until 2040 24:45 — Will Synthetic Data Kill Human Labelling? 29:00 — "Academic Benchmarks Are a Scam" 31:05 — Why the Real Bottleneck in AI Isn't Compute or Models — It's THIS 33:00 — What Every AI Company Should Be Asking (But Isn't) 35:15 — "No, I Wouldn't Sell Surge for $100B" 39:00 — Is the Application Layer Doomed? Edwin Predicts the Future of AI Startups 46:30 — Have the Leading Foundation Models Already Been Founded? 48:10 — AGI Could Be Dangerous — And Most People Are Ignoring Why 20VC: Scaling to $1BN+ in Revenue with No Funding: Surge AI | The Most Insane Scaling Story in Tech |

21 Jul 1h 6min