Slapping "AI" on your startup’s pitch deck is basically table stakes right now. When a founder raised $20 million from Cathie Wood's ARK Invest for an eSports gamification loyalty startup without those two letters in the spotlight, it got us wondering how the conversation even started — especially when ARK had already been burned by a company operating in th ... Show More
May 29
Does your CEO have AI psychosis? Aaron Levie thinks most of them do.
The people deciding that AI can replace your job are also the ones least likely to understand what your job truly involves, according to Box founder Aaron Levie, who pointed to this as an example of "AI psychosis.” Indeed, ClickUp recently cut 22% of its workforcefor AI agents, t ... Show More
38m 2s
May 22
Elon Musk can't hear you over the sound of his $1.75 trillion IPO
The SpaceX S-1 is finally here, and the story it tells goes way further than rockets. The filing runs to 36 pages of risk factors alone, and the numbers inside match the ambition: a $28 trillion total addressable market, a pay package tied to establishing a Mars colony, and a val ... Show More
34m 56s
Aug 2024
Venture returns, recovering startups, and VC conflicts | E1995
<p>This Week in Startups is brought to you by…</p>
<p>Coda. Coda empowers your startup by bringing words, tables, and teams together. Strategize, plan, and track goals effectively with all your valuable data in one place. Go to <a href="https://www.Coda.io/twist">https://www.Coda ... Show More
1h 27m
Sep 2025
$46B of hard truths from Ben Horowitz: Why founders fail and why you need to run toward fear (a16z co-founder)
Ben Horowitz is the co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, Silicon Valley’s largest and most influential venture capital firm, with over $46B in committed capital across multiple funds. He took Loudcloud public with just $2 million in revenue (dubbed “the IPO from hell”), sold it for ... Show More
1h 37m
Aug 2025
The state of VC within software and AI startups – with Peter Walker
Brought to You By:• WorkOS — The modern identity platform for B2B SaaS.• Statsig — The unified platform for flags, analytics, experiments, and more.• Sonar — Code quality and code security for ALL code.—In this episode of The Pragmatic Engineer, I sit down with Peter Walker ... Show More
1h 19m
Sep 2024
24 Steps to Launch a Start-Up
Many people aspire to entrepreneurship. But Bill Aulet, who has advised founders for decades, warns that it remains a high-risk endeavor. In this episode, he outlines concrete steps anyone can take to get a new venture off the ground — including intrapreneurs within large organiz ... Show More
28m 46s
Sep 2025
What We Can Learn from Failure with Ami Colé Founder, Diarrha N’Diaye
What does it really take to build a brand from scratch — and what happens when you have to close the doors? In this candid conversation, Emma sits down with Diarrha N’Diaye, founder of the beloved beauty brand Ami Colé, to talk about the highs of launching a cult-favorite company ... Show More
1h 43m
Feb 2025
20VC: Affirm Max Levchin on Why Grading Talent by Letter (A or B) is Total BS | How to Create a Culture of Post Mortems and Writing | Why You Should Only Study Failure Not Success & The Biggest Surprises Scaling to $18.7BN Market Cap
<p dir="ltr">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 C ... Show More
1h 2m