When Itai Ben-Zaken’s first startup failed in 2018, the former BCG consultant and Wharton MBA spent months trying to understand what he could have done differently during the five years he ran the company.
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Today
Early Anthropic hire, former METR COO have found a way to rein in rogue AI agents; plus, health benefits platform Thatch reaches $1B valuation
Their startup, Artificial Intelligence Underwriting Company (AIUC) has raised $40 million in a Series A round led by Ribbit Capital, with participation from First Harmonic. Also, Thatch is a five-year-old startup and the company raised $108 million from The General Partnership, I ... Show More
8m 36s
Yesterday
Superhuman acquired notetaker Fathom; plus, OpenAI bought smartphone camera maker Glass Imaging, and AI infrastructure company Cornelis raised $205M
Fathom said that it has over 400,000 monthly active users. Also, Glass Imaging was founded by a pair of former Apple engineers who previously led the team that developed Apple's Portrait Mode. And Cornelis, a company creating networking technology to help AI chips communicate mor ... Show More
7m 19s
Sep 14
Fusion power startups find new partners in the defense world; plus, Mecka AI nears $500M valuation amid rush for robot training data
Fusion startups are inking defense-related deals, reigniting the relationship between fusion and national security that might have gone dormant, but never completely disappeared. Also, the round for Mecka is coming together months after Mecka announced its Series A. Learn more ab ... Show More
7m 6s
Sep 2020
#97 Secret Sauce or Snake Oil?
Today's founder had everything going for him: a huge market, loads of experience, and $70k in monthly revenue. But then, everything went wrong. Christopher Hussain's startup, RealKey, is supposed to make the complicated mortgage lending process simpler, but his pitch left our inv ... Show More
25m 55s
Aug 2020
#95 You Asked. Investors Answered. Now What?
In the spring, founders desperate for ideas about how to keep their companies afloat called in to get advice from our investors. Several months later, the economy is still far from recovering, so we called the founders back to see if the investors’ advice was working. Learn more ... Show More
32m 28s
Apr 2017
Recode Decode: Bijan Sabet, general partner, Spark Capital
Spark Capital General Partner Bijan Sabet talks with Recode’s Kara Swisher about being a venture capitalist based on the East Coast, and how he became an early investor in companies like Twitter, Tumblr and Cruise. Sabet also discusses why he has become more politically vocal und ... Show More
55m 14s
May 2025
Undoing a $5 Billion Acquisition and Building a Durable Standalone Plaid (with Plaid CEO Zach Perret)
We sit down with Zach Perret, CEO of Plaid, to discuss the remarkable journey of Plaid and the broader fintech landscape over the past several years. Zach takes us blow-by-blow through journey of almost getting acquired by Visa, the challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic… ... Show More
59m 7s
Jan 2025
Building A $2 Billion SaaS Company: Lessons From A Two Time Founder
<p>Two-time founder Rujul Zaparde knows a thing or two about resilience and learning from failure. </p><p>After dropping out of college to build FlightCar, he worked as a PM at Airbnb, and later as a visiting partner at YC. </p><p>In 2020, he co-founded Zip, a procurement softwar ... Show More
24m 31s