20VC: Scaling to $1BN+ in Revenue with No Funding: Surge AI | The Most Insane Scaling Story in Tech |

Adarsh Hiremath is the Co-Founder and CTO @ Mercor, an AI recruitment platform and one of the fastest-growing companies in technology. They have scaled to $70M in ARR in just 24 months. They are famed for working 6 days per week, 9AM to 9PM. All of their founders are Thiel fellows, they are also the youngest unicorn founders ever with the fundraise announced today raising $100M led by Felicis at a $2BN valuation.  In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 04:36 How Debating Makes The Best Founders 06:05 Do People Treat You Differently When a Unicorn Founder 10:58 Scaling to $70M ARR in 24 Months 13:42 How Culture Breaks When Scaling So Fast  23:49 The Future of Foundation Models 24:05 OpenAI vs Anthropic 24:32 Data: Synthetic vs Human 27:10 The Future of Programming and AI 28:15 The Impact of AI Tools on Software Development 28:51 Why Software Will Become Commoditised 29:55 Network Effects and Marketplaces 33:13 Raising From Benchmark After a Helicopter Ride 37:30 Quickfire Round: Insights and Reflections

20 Feb 45min

Jonathan Ross is the Founder & CEO of Groq, the creator of the world’s  first Language Processing Unit (LPUTM). Prior to Groq, Jonathan began  what became Google’s Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) as a 20% project where he  designed and implemented the core elements of the first-generation TPU chip.  Jonathan next joined Google X’s Rapid Eval Team, the initial stage of the famed  “Moonshots Factory”, where he devised and incubated new Bets (Units) for Google’s  parent company, Alphabet. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 04:20 Interview with Jonathan Ross Begins 04:59 Scaling Laws and AI Model Training 06:22 Synthetic Data and Model Efficiency 12:01 Inference vs. Training Costs: Why NVIDIA Loses Inference 17:06 The Future of AI Inference: Efficiency and Cost 18:15 Chip Supply and Scaling Concerns 20:57 Energy Efficiency in AI Computation 25:40 Why Most Dollars Into Datacenters Will Be Lost 31:05 Meta, Google, and Microsoft's Data Center Investments 41:11 Distribution of Value in the AI Economy 42:10 Stages of Startup Success 43:17 The AI Investment Bubble 45:00 The Keynesian Beauty Contest in VC 48:40 NVIDIA's Role in the AI Ecosystem 53:39 China's AI Strategy and Global Implications 57:51 Europe's Potential in the AI Revolution 01:10:14 Future Predictions and AI's Impact on Society

17 Feb 1h 20min

Founder and CEO of LADbible Group, Solly Solomou has built one of the largest and most engaged digital media entertainment companies in the world. Under his leadership, LADbible has grown to reach two-thirds of 18-34-year-olds in the UK, with a global audience of over 494 million followers, including 141 million in the US. The company’s content now has a total reach of over 1 billion people worldwide. In Today’s Episode We Discuss: From Printer Shop Office to Ringing the IPO Bell: How did Solly start LADbible with no money and no experience? How did a moment with Kevin Hart and Ice Cube show Solly that he had something special with LADbible? In the expansion of the business, what new products did not work? What did Solly learn from the failures of products? Why did Solly always want to build the business without an external funding?  What are the top 3 pieces of advice Solly gives to young entrepreneurs starting a business today? The Future of Content and Social Media: How does Solly see wearables changing the future of media and social? Does Solly agree that the friendship graph has been eradicated by interest graphs? Does Solly think TikTok should be banned? Why does Solly think TikTok Shop is the most interesting product in social today? Europe vs US: Is Europe F******: What are the single biggest differences between doing business in the US vs Europe? Why did Solly decide to go public in London on The London Stock Exchange? How tough is it being a public company in London? How important are local liquidity markets if Europe is to regain competitiveness? If Solly were advising Keir Starmer on how to stimulate growth in the UK, what would he say and advise?

14 Feb 59min

TS Anil is the CEO @ Monzo, where he has been the mastermind behind the greatest turnaround in tech in the last 10 years. When TS took over at Monzo they had £40M in revenue, very little runway, had a 40% down round and had large layoffs and low employee NPS. Today they are at £1BN in revenue, profitable and the UK’s largest digital bank with more than 10m customers. From $40M Revenues to $1BN Revenues and Profitable:  1. What are the most profitable elements of Monzo’s business today? How will that change in time? 2. What did TS do with Monzo that he wishes he had not done? What did he not do that he wishes he had done? 3. How does TS approach expansion? How will he win Europe against the competition of Revolut? 4. Why have no European fintechs won when expanding into the US? What do they do wrong? 5. How does TS think about the decision to go public? Will he go public in London?  6. How does TS respond to the notion that Monzo has a “work life balance” culture in the face of the fierce culture of Revolut? 7. What have been TS’ biggest lessons from raising $1BN for Monzo from the largest institutions in the world? What was the easiest round? What was the hardest?  8. What three core traits does TS believe all great leaders need to have? If you do not have them, how can you develop them most efficiently?

13 Feb 56min

Fabien Pinckaers is the Founder & CEO of Odoo, one of the most incredible businesses that you might not have heard of. Built from the countryside of Belgium, they do an astonishing $650M in ARR, they have over 5,000 employees and have over 50,000 companies as customers. Even better, Fabian openly does not ever want to sell the company, IPO, believes that titles in companies are total BS and most management is done completely wrong.  In Today’s Episode with Fabien We Discuss:  1. Everything You Know About Management is Wrong: Why is it BS to give people titles in a company? How does Odoo hire people after only one interview?  Why does Odoo prefer to hire really young people under 30? Why does Fabien think it is the worst to build a team in Silicon Valley? 2. The Billionaire Who Does Not Care About Money: Why does Fabien literally not care about money and does not even own a house? Why does Fabien refuse to ever sell or IPO Odoo? How does Fabien plan to offer liquidity to investors if he never wants to sell or IPO? 3. Why Did Every VC Turn Down the $5BN Odoo: What are Fabien’s biggest lessons from being rejected by every VC for Odoo? What did they not see that they should have seen?  Why did Fabien always want the price of the company on every funding round to be as low as possible?  How does Fabien advise founders on pitching VCs today, knowing all he knows? 4. Scaling to $650M in ARR: The Biggest Lessons:  Why does Fabien believe the biggest mistake companies make is they lose focus? What did Fabien not do with Odoo that they should have done? What did Fabien do and invest in, that with the benefit of hindsight they should not have done? When did the business start to break with scale? What would Fabien have done differently knowing all he does know?

12 Feb 1h 15min

Sridhar Ramaswamy is the CEO @ Snowflake, the $60BN public company with $3.5BN in revenue growing 30% per year. Sridhar joined Snowflake following his company, Neeva, being acquired by them for $150M. Prior to founding Neeva, Ramaswamy spent 15 years at Google  where he had an integral part in the growth of AdWords and Google’s advertising business from $1.5 billion to over $100 billion.  In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 1. OpenAI vs Deepseek vs Anthropic: Why will OpenAI beat Deepseek? What does no one see with Deepseek that they should see? Why has OpenAI beaten Anthropic? What elements turn a model from a commodity into a sustaining product suite? Will model providers become application providers? Will OpenAI be the biggest killer of startups in the next 10 years? 2. Snowflake vs Nvidia & Databricks: To what extent is Sridhar concerned NVIDIA will move into the data layer and compete with Snowflake? How does Sridhar view the competition from Databricks? What have they done better than them? What have they done worse than them and lost on? Does being private hurt or help Databricks in their fight against Snowflake?  If Sridhar could, would he take Snowflake private today?   3. Leadership, Parenting, Money: Do richer leaders make better leaders? How does being rich change the mindset of a leader? What are Sridhar’s biggest lessons when it comes to parenting?  What about the way that Sridhar was brought up, did he do deliberately differently with his kids?

10 Feb 55min

Brian Tolkin is the Head of Product @ Opendoor where he has spent the last 6 years and is responsible for product strategy and product and design teams. Before Opendoor, Brian spent an incredible 5 years at Uber through their wildest growth periods. In Today’s Episode with Brian Tolkin: 03:53 Brian's Journey at Uber: Launching China Pool 05:07 Product Lessons from Uber's China Launch 08:22 The Role of a PM in a Pre vs. Post AI World 10:16 Product Development Process in an AI World 17:43 The Importance of Simplification in Product Management 19:21 OKRs and Prioritization in Product Management 23:12 The Importance of Feedback Loops in Product Development 23:38 Evaluating Product Changes: User Adaptation vs. Bad Decisions 25:00 Balancing Gut Instinct and Data in Product Leadership 25:38 The Role of Simplicity in Product Design 27:02 Consensus vs. Dictatorial Product Leadership 27:54 Hiring for the Best Product Teams 31:33 How to do Effective Sprint Management 38:39 Quickfire Round: Insights and Advice

7 Feb 44min

Max Levchin is one of the great founders and technologists of our time. As the Founder and CEO of Affirm, he has built am $18.7BN monster in the buy no pay later space. Prior to Affirm he was one of the original co-founders of PayPal. Max is also the co-founder and Chairman of Glow, a data-driven fertility company. Max is also an immensely successful angel investor with a portfolio including the likes of Yelp, Pinterest and Evernote.  In Today’s Episode We Discuss: 04:19 How to Hire the Best People in the World 05:05 How to Manage Extreme Personalities 08:18 Biggest Lessons on Trust and What Happens When Lost 12:05 Is Grading Talent A and B Players Total BS? 15:31 How to Think About Calculated vs Uncalculated Risk 27:18 How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems: Step by Step 32:08 Why Every Person Must Write and How to Create a Writing Culture 36:01 Leadership Lessons from Layoffs 38:38 Is Affirm Losing or Beating Klarna in the US? 47:03 Peter Thiel or Elon Musk: Who Would Max Rather Start a New Company With? 48:37 Quickfire Round

5 Feb 1h 2min