logo
episode-header-image
Jan 2025
1h 2m

20VC: Carvana: The Most Wild Story in Pu...

Harry Stebbings
About this episode

Carvana is one of the most wild stories in the public markets. The company IPO’d with a market cap of $2BN before skyrocketing to $60BN, only for the company to lose 99% of it’s value hitting a bottom of $400M market cap. Today the company is stronger than ever and with a market cap of $41BN. Joining us in the hotseat is Dan Gill, Carvana’s CPO, the man who oversees all technology functions, as well as strategic partnerships for the business.

In Today’s Episode with Dan Gill We Discuss:

  1. From $60BN to $400M Market Cap:

  • What did Carvana do that Dan wishes they had not done?

  • What did Carvana not do that Dan wishes they had done? 

  • How do you maintain morale in a team when the company has lost 99% of it’s value? 

  1. From $400M Back to $40BN Market Cap:

  • What have been the core needle movers in Carvana’s market cap surging?

  • How does the Carvana business model benefit from economies of scale?

  • How does vertical integration of the different products Carvana sells change the margin structure of the business? 

  1. The Future of Carvana:

  • Why does Dan believe there is a massive market for Cavana in selling new cars?

  • Why does Dan want to move into the peer to peer market, a market where so many before have failed?

  • Why does Dan think Carvana should sell Chinese cars on the platform if American citizens want to buy them? 

  • What revenue line does Carvana not have today that Dan believes will be the biggest in 10 years time? 

  1. Product Advice, North Star Metrics, Idea Selection:

  • What is the product advice that Dan gives more than any other?

  • How does Dan advise startup founders on how to know they have the right north star metric? What is his framework?

  • How does Dan advise founders on how to select the right idea to work on?

  • What is Dan’s prioritisation framework for if an idea will have a larger enough impact and is therefore worthy of being worked on?

 

Up next
Yesterday
20VC: OpenAI's Multi $BN Deal with AMD | Polymarket, Vercel and Supabase Raise Mega Rounds | Does King Making Really Work in Venture Capital: Harvey vs Legora | Chamath is Back: The SPAC is Back
AGENDA: 03:29 OpenAI and AMD's Major Partnership 07:35 Microsoft Have F***** Up the OpenAI Partnership 17:08 OpenAI's Developer Day Announcements 20:45 Why VC is the Most Forgiving Asset Class on Price and Valuation 29:10 What Does it Take to IPO in 2025: Why Snyk Will Not IPO 42 ... Show More
1h 24m
Oct 6
20VC: Cerebras CEO on Why Raise $1BN and Delay the IPO | NVIDIA Showing Signs They Are Worried About Growth | Concentration of Value in Mag7: Will the AI Train Come to a Halt | Can the US Supply the Energy for AI with Andrew Feldman
Andrew Feldman is Co-Founder & CEO of Cerebras, building the world's fastest AI inference and training. Cerebras recently closed a $1.1BN Series G round at an $8.1 billion valuation, backed by top names including Fidelity, Atreides, Tiger Global, Valor Equity and 1789 Capital. Un ... Show More
1h 4m
Oct 3
20Growth: How to Use Influencers to Scale Growth Insanely Fast | How to Optimise User Onboaring for Growth | How the Best Growth Teams Create Organic Growth and Community | Why LTV/CAC Models are BS with Ketty Slonimsky
Ketty Slonimsky is Chief Growth Officer at Palta, the platform behind apps like Flo (the #1 female health app with 77M+ MAU), Simple, and Zing AI, where she leads a centralized growth function across the portfolio. She was previously first VP Product & Growth at HeliosX (£900M+ A ... Show More
1 h
Recommended Episodes
Sep 29
The King of Chicago Trading Wants to Build a GPU Market Bigger Than Oil
Don Wilson has built a career diving into some of trading’s thorniest problems, including figuring out ways to trade new and niche markets. Now, the founder and CEO of DRW has his sights set on the GPUs powering AI, which he thinks could end up being a bigger market than crude oi ... Show More
34m 25s
Oct 1
Tarek Mansour on Kalshi's Plan to Create Markets in Everything
For over 20 years, people have been talking about prediction markets or event markets are the next big thing. But mostly, with some niche exceptions, they haven't taken off, in part due to regulatory constraints. But now they seem to be booming, and the regulatory environment has ... Show More
44m 32s
Oct 2024
Shut It Down or Double Down: Nathan Barry’s Road to $45M with Kit (ConvertKit)
Nathan Barry, the creator behind ConvertKit (now rebranded as Kit) came to visit my Inner Circle and gave a very special presentation. Nathan’s journey from a designer to building a software empire fascinated me. He originally tried to solve his frustrations with MailChimp and, i ... Show More
1h 2m
Jan 2025
The Future of Branding & Growth Strategies | Eric Siu
In this episode of The GaryVee Audio Experience, I sit down with Eric Siu to talk about personal branding, marketing strategies, and the mindset behind long-term business success. We get deep into the role of organic content, the TikTokification of social media, and why attention ... Show More
1h 10m
Feb 2024
How Local Businesses Can Compete with Larger Rivals
In 2020, Kwame Spearman left his consulting job in New York City to take over an iconic independent bookstore, the Tattered Cover Book Store in Denver, Colorado—his hometown. Spearman saw an opportunity to reinvent the local business to build a community space after the pandemic. ... Show More
30m 1s
Nov 2024
VREP #449 | Commercial Market Momentum Building into 2025 with Cory Wright
Is the commercial real estate market finally turning a corner? The latter half of 2024 provides compelling clues. Founder & Managing Broker of William Wright Commercial Cory Wright sits down with Adam and Matt this week to dive deep into BC's ever-evolving commercial real est ... Show More
44m 24s
Mar 2025
AI, Social Shopping, and the Future of Media | GaryVee Q&A with New York Post
I sat down with Lydia Moynihan from the New York Post to dive into some of the biggest shifts happening in business, media, and technology. We get into the explosion of social shopping, how AI is changing the content game, and why traditional media is struggling to keep up.We als ... Show More
48m 1s
Sep 5
Mercado Libre: E-commerce Empire - [Business Breakdowns, EP.227]
This is Matt Reustle. Today we are breaking down the Latam e-commerce Giant, Mercado Libre. My guest is Daniel Wu of Bristlemoon Capital. I was introduced to MELI about 15 years ago when it was still the eBay of Latam, and similar to a place that you revisit after a long time awa ... Show More
1h 13m
Dec 2024
VREP #451 | The Scalena Brothers' Market Recap 2024
When does waiting for the perfect market moment become a costly mistake? Adam & Matt sit down to ponder that question and unpack the 2024 real estate market - a year where inventory surged 46% while sales volumes remained stubbornly low.From downtown's struggles to a transfor ... Show More
52m 46s
Feb 2025
#215 David Heacock: Managing and Marketing a $250M Business
Imagine leaving a six‐figure Wall Street salary behind to chase a single, daring idea. In this episode, David Heacock shows you how he turned a basic product into a $250M empire. At 29, he left Wall Street to bet on air filters. That bet transformed into Filterbuy, now a $250 mil ... Show More
2h 4m