May 21
Why old-school sales work still wins in the AI era | Graham Moreno (Head of GTM, Parallel)
In the latest episode of Executive Function, Brett sits down with Graham Moreno, Head of GTM at Parallel Web Systems. Before Parallel, Graham scaled Windsurf's GTM organization from three sellers to seventy-five in under a year, served as President through the Cognition acquisiti ... Show More
1h 2m
May 14
Why founders should bet on first-time executives | Praveer Melwani (CFO, Figma)
In this latest episode of Executive Function, Brett sits down with Praveer Melwani, CFO at Figma. Praveer joined Figma in 2017 as the company's first business operations and finance hire—when the team was around 30 people and not yet charging for the product—and stepped into the ... Show More
43m 48s
Apr 30
Why great product leaders should stop obsessing over the roadmap | Diya Jolly (CPO & CTO of Xero)
In the latest episode of Executive Function, Brett is joined by Diya Jolly, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Xero. Before Xero, Diya was CPT at Okta and led YouTube's advertising monetization products at Google. In this conversation, she unpacks her three-bucket framework ... Show More
49m 54s
Sep 2021
Dave Girouard - Making Better Loans - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 52]
My guest today is Dave Girouard, co-founder and CEO of Upstart, a lending platform that leverages AI to make loans more accessible and affordable. Dave started in Silicon Valley as a Product Manager at Apple and later spent eight years at Google, where he built their suite of clo ... Show More
1h 9m
Dec 2023
How to Build a Start-Up — Without VC Funding
As interest rates have risen in recent years, venture capital funding has dried up. How can founders grow their companies in this new environment? In this episode, a founder who grew a $600 million company using just $10,000 of his own money, shares his strategy. Mike Salguero is ... Show More
32m 42s
Apr 2019
20VC: So You Want To Be Acquired? Instacart VP of Corp Dev, Dave Sobota on His Biggest Lessons From 10 Years in Google's M&A Team Working on The Acquisitions of Motorola, Waze & Android
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-sobota-1793741/">Dave Sobota</a> is the Vice President of Corporate Development @ <a href="https://www.instacart.com/">Instacart</a>, the company that delivers your groceries in as little as 1 hour. To date the company has raised over ... Show More
27m 43s
Oct 2020
SoCal Super Angel - why accelerators? By David Mandel.
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/david3712/">David Mandel</a>, SoCal-based super Angel, investing in emerging technology startups who Invested in over 500 startups up to date, talks about early stage startups. We focused our conversation on how helpful accelerators can be ... Show More
30m 23s
Aug 2021
370: How to Build a Billion-User App
Prerna Gupta is a serial entrepreneur who entered the tech spotlight when her Songify app hit #1 in the app store. She’s gone on to co-found several startups focused on music, dating, and short stories, and in 2011 Fast Company named her one of the most influential women in techn ... Show More
52m 47s
Jan 2021
15 years of investing experience - what do founders do wrong? By Ali Jamal
<p><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/mralijamal/">Ali Jamal</a>, Growth and Product Executive, Founding Partner at <a href="https://angel.co/first-check-ventures/syndicate?utm_campaign=syndicate_direct_link">First Check Ventures</a>, Angel Investor and a Startup Advisor talks ... Show More
29m 43s
Jul 2023
468: How to Fall in Love with a Problem with Uri Levine of Waze
There are not many interviews where Nathan Chan is speechless, but this is one of them. If you want to learn how to find product market fit, build a successful team, and create a lasting business, then Uri Levine has the map. Levine is the co-founder of two unicorn startups–Waze ... Show More
1h 2m
Today’s episode is with Dave Girouard, the CEO and co-founder of Upstart, an AI-powered lending platform that recently went public. Before founding Upstart, Dave was President of Google Enterprise, and spent 8 years building Google's billion dollar cloud apps business.
Here at First Round, we first came to know Dave when we invested in Upstart’s seed round ... Show More
<p style="text-align: left;"><a href= "https://twitter.com/jeremyj">Jeremy Johnson</a> is the Founder & CEO @ <a href="https://andela.com/">Andela</a>, the startup that aims to bring a scientific approach to building engineering teams. They have backing from some of the best inve ... Show More
<p><strong>Nathan Beckord of Founder Suite and Funding Stack: Cracking the Code to Successful Fundraising</strong></p> <p><strong>This week, Nathan Beckord shares with us how to put yourself in the best position to get to ‘yes’ with potential investors.</strong></p> <p><strong>In ... Show More
