20VC: Sequoia's Mike Vernal on His Biggest Lessons From 8 Years of Hyper-Growth at Facebook, Why The Strength of Data Moats Is Over-Rated Today and The Challenge of "Overthinking Investments" In Venture

Matt Pohlson is the co-founder and Chairman of Omaze, the most insane story in startups that you have never heard. From near death experience to working with Arnold Schwarzenegger, George Clooney and The Pope. Omaze has raised over $200 million for charity by offering once-in-a-lifetime celebrity experiences and luxury house draws. He's a master storyteller, a purpose-driven builder, and one of the most creative entrepreneurs in modern philanthropy. In Today's Episode We Discuss: 00:00 — He Died for 4 Minutes… Then Built a $400M Startup 04:00 — The Magic Johnson Moment That Sparked Omaze 06:30 — From $780 to $1.7M: The Breaking Bad Campaign That Changed Everything 09:00 — Star Wars, Schwarzenegger, and Selling Dreams 13:00 — He Flatlined in Surgery… And Everything Changed 18:00 — How Near-Death Killed Fear and Transformed His Leadership 22:00 — Why Fear Isn't Real — And How to Beat It 24:00 — The $250K Bet That Changed Omaze's Business Forever 27:00 — Launching Houses: The Pivot to $100M+ Revenue 34:00 — The Science of Storytelling: Make the Customer the Hero 38:00 — Why TV Still Works: $35M Ad Spend Secrets 45:00 — How They Almost Went Out of Business—Twice 50:00 — The Deck That Saved Omaze Mid-COVID 53:00 — Loneliness, Therapy, and the CEO Mental Game 55:00 — From Self-Doubt to Self-Love: The Hoffman Process 58:00 — How to Lead With Story, Science, and Soul 1:02:00 — Should Omaze Go Public? Matt's Unfiltered Take 1:05:00 — Addiction, Ambition, and Why Fulfillment Can Kill Hunger 1:10:00 — Revenue Per Employee: $7M a Head! 1:15:00 — Matt's 10-Year Vision: Fortune 500. #1 in Charity. Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.

6 Juni 20251h 25min

Agenda: 00:00 – The Most Unfiltered Episode Ever Begins 03:30 – Does OpenAI Even Matter? Sam Lessin Says Maybe Not. 05:45 – TVPI Is Bullshit? 09:20 – Asset Gatherers vs Real Investors: Who Actually Wins? 12:15 – The Death of the Billion-Dollar VC Fund? 16:00 – Mid-Tier VC Funds Are Getting Annihilated 21:00 – Chime: Great Exit or Missed Opportunity? 27:00 – The War on Relevance: What Companies Truly Matter? 33:00 – If You're Not a Billion-Dollar Company, Do You Even Count? 37:10 – Mary Meeker's AI Report: What Everyone Missed 39:50 – $600B in AI CapEx—Where Is the Revenue?! 43:40 – What Could Trigger the First AI Crash? 51:10 – The Existential Dread Missing in Most B2B Startups 58:30 – Will AI Reduce Your Startup to Just a Pipe? 01:01:10 – IPO Market Is Back: What Actually Matters Now? 01:06:50 – YC Startups at $60M Valuations: How Should You Play It? 01:10:00 – Why 3% Ownership Could Still Work—Maybe 01:11:30 – Will Elon Still Be Tesla CEO by 2027? Place Your Bets 01:14:10 – Will Meta Release a Closed AI Model? And Does It Even Matter? 01:17:30 – The Real Challenge of Managing 11 Companies and 58 Kids Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.

5 Juni 20251h 23min

Varun Mohan is the CEO and Co-Founder of Windsurf, the leading AI-native IDE, which has over a million users and generates over 50% of all committed software across thousands of companies. Prior to Windsurf, Varun graduated with a Master's in Computer Science from MIT and led a team at Nuro focused on large-scale deep learning infrastructure for autonomous vehicles. Today's Agenda: [00:00] The $3B Startup That Only Happend on the Third Pivot [05:12] When to Give Up vs When To Stick at It [08:55] "Never Fall in Love With Your Idea" — Here's Why [10:38] What Founders Get Wrong About Being First [13:52] What Would Windsurf Do If They Had Unlimited Resources [16:45] Will Lovable and Bolt Ultimately Compete with Windsurf and Cursor [19:25] The Product Development Rule That Breaks All Startup Rules [21:20] The Cold Truth About Moats in the AI Era [24:30] The OpenAI Question You're Not Supposed to Ask [32:50] Who Actually Counts as an Engineer in 5 Years? [35:10] Will Product Managers Even Exist in 2030? [37:30] Async Agents Are Coming—But Most Will Fail.. Why? [41:00] The Truth About Agent-Only Workflows [44:20] The One Area of Engineering That AI Will Eat Next [46:12] What Cursor Got Right (That Windsurf Didn't) [47:55] Are LLM APIs Already Commoditized? [50:30] Why Anthropic Won't Win by Default [52:10] Should Model Companies Own the App Layer? [58:05] What Does Varun Want to be Remembered For?

2 Juni 20251h 5min

Kyle Norton is the Chief Revenue Officer at Owner.com, where he scaled revenue from $2M to $40M ARR in under 3 years while selling to one of the toughest markets: SMB restaurants. Before Owner, Kyle led sales at Shopify, where he helped architect one of the most operationally elite GTM orgs in SaaS. Agenda: 00:00 – From Shopify to $40M ARR at Owner.com 06:40 – Why Founders Who Skip Sales Get Burned 11:50 – 90% Inbound, Then 70% Outbound — And Why Neither Is Enough 17:40 – How to Use AI in Sales to Massively Increase Outbound 24:30 – BDRs Don't Get Paid for Demos. Only Closed Revenue. 30:50 – The 3-Part Sales Scorecard That Replaced My Gut 36:20 – I Posted a Job on LinkedIn and Got 1,200 Applicants 42:15 – I Fired a Rep on Day 11. Here's Why. 49:40 – We Don't Do Pipeline Reviews. The Secret... 55:00 – The One Call Close Script That Wins in 99% of Cases 1:03:10 – Why YouTube Is Our Underrated Growth Weapon 1:14:30 – Sales Is a Personal Development Exercise Disguised as a Career 1:20:45 – The Night We Closed Until 1AM and Hit the Number

30 Maj 20251h 18min

Agenda: 00:00 – Why "Fund Returners" Are a Myth in Late-Stage VC 05:02 – Builder.ai Implodes: $500M Gone & Fraud Allegations Begin 11:40 – The Dirty Truth About Late-Stage Venture Math 15:57 – The Hinge IPO: Who Won, Who Lost, and Why It's a Game Changer 23:03 – The Chime Bombshell: Late-Stage VCs Forced to Crystallize Huge Losses 27:14 – Why YC Is Both Chanel and Walmart—and Has Officially Won 33:41 – Seed Is Easy. Series A Is Brutal. Here's Why 39:50 – The Silent Killer: How Dilution Is Screwing VCs Without Them Realizing 46:04 – OpenAI's $6B Jony Ive Deal: Genius or Delusion? 50:47 – Does OpenAI Win the Hardware War 1:02:09 – Duolingo, Klarna, and the Truth About AI Layoffs 1:13:10 – Only 20% of Unicorns Are Real. The Other 80%? Zombies 1:15:44 – Why 2021 Had an IPO Every Day — And Why That Won't Return Soon 1:18:00 – Quickfire: AGI Dates, Half-Trillionaires, and Trump Tax Moves

29 Maj 20251h 19min

Airwallex is the most insane story in startups: The best angel investment ever: The angel that turned $1M into $1BN. One of the world's best VCs pulled a term sheet and lost $1BN. The company turned down a $1.2BN offer from Stripe. The company scaled to $1BN in transaction volume in 9 months. The company has never not grown 100% in a year. Jack Zhang is the Co-Founder and CEO of Airwallex, one of the world's fastest-growing global payments and financial infrastructure companies. Since founding the company in 2015, Jack has scaled Airwallex to over $130B in annual payment volume, $720M in ARR, and a global team of 1,800+ employees. Under his leadership, Airwallex has raised over $1.2BN from investors including Square Peg, Lone Pine, and Tencent. In Today's Episode We Discuss: 00:00 – The Best Angel Investment Ever: From $1M to $1BN 06:55 – From Lemon Factory and Petrol Station to Billionaire: The Early Days 15:20 – $5M side hustle while working full-time: how Jack did it 24:45 – Failing Three Times Before Product-Market-Fit 31:00 – The Term Sheet That Got Pulled and Lost Matrix $1BN 34:40 – Why We Rejected Stripe's $1.2BN Acquisition Offer 49:05 – 0-$1B transaction volume in 9 months: How Shein Saved Airwallex 1:03:40 – We F****** Up Scaling internationally... & Burnt $200M/year 1:08:00 – When COVID hit, they lost 50% of revenue overnight 1:11:45 – Why Jack raised at 6x revenue and is now buying back stock himself 1:15:00 – The truth about secondaries and how much is "enough" 1:18:00 – The hiring mistakes that almost broke the culture 1:20:15 – Why Jack is Taking Out a Line of Debt for $70M

27 Maj 20251h 26min

Luke Harries is Head of Growth at ElevenLabs, where he leads marketing, product, engineering, and developer experience. ElevenLabs has raised $281M with the latest round pricing the company at $3.3B valuation. Previously, Luke held roles at PostHog and Microsoft, and is also an angel investor supporting startups like Lovable and Runna. In Today's Episode We Discuss: 00:00 – The $3.3B Growth Engine Behind ElevenLabs 04:55 – Why Luke Said "No" to Investing in ElevenLabs (and Why He Was Wrong) 15:40 – How ElevenLabs Makes a Horizontal Product Strategy Work 20:15 – How to Build Sharded Growth Teams That Actually Scale 26:30 – The 7-Part Launch Playbook That Gets 700K+ Views Per Product 33:00 – The Truth About CAC, Payback, and Performance Marketing in AI 39:05 – SEO Isn't Dead: The Mini-Tool Strategy You Should Steal 44:10 – Kill Your Inbound SDRs—The Case for Voice AI in Sales 48:40 – Why You Don't Need PMs and the Rise of Growth-Led Product Teams

23 Maj 20251h 15min

Agenda: 04:34 Chime's IPO Announcement: Who Wins & Who Loses 06:28 The Lopphole That Means Chime Has a Better Business than JP Morgan 10:51 Why Investors Who Invested at $25BN Will Make Money When it IPOs at $12BN 18:59 Are IPOs Dead & The Future of the Late Stage Private Market 27:32 Exits are Larger Than Ever: So What? What Happens? Who Wins? Who Loses? 40:51 Is Europe Totally F******* 43:48 Challenges of Going Public & What Needs to Change? 46:12 OpenAI's Future and Predictions 49:45 Rippling vs. Deel Lawsuit: Is Deel Screwed? 59:28 Why So Many Companies Are About To Become Database Companies 01:08:07 The Future of Salesforce: Buy or Sell? 01:13:28 Quickfire Round Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile's Regulation A+ Offering. Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Investing in private company securities is not suitable for all investors because it is highly speculative and involves a high degree of risk. It should only be considered a long-term investment. You must be prepared to withstand a total loss of your investment. Private company securities are also highly illiquid, and there is no guarantee that a market will develop for such securities. DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.

22 Maj 20251h 17min