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The Luba Show

Luba Yudasina

Conversations with the human behind the ambition.

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  • 40 episodes
  • a few times a week
  • Avg 1 hr 19 min
  • English

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  • #43
    Thursday Β· 38 min

    $56 Billion Investor Says Investors Don't Make Companies

    Today I walk with Hunter Walk, co-founder of Homebrew. Hunter led product at YouTube after Google acquired it, backed Chime years before its $11.6 billion IPO, and his firm led the seed round in Graphite before Cursor acquired it, and now he and his partner Satya Patel invest only their own money. He told me why skin in the game isn't enough anymore, and the one data point he'd use to explain why a startup succeeded. We get into: Why skin in the game isn't enough, and how a committed cap table carried Chime through its near-death years to an $11.6 billion IPO His founder "sandwich," and the hard question he put to Graphite's three Harvard co-founders before leading their seed Why he asks for the resumes of the first 20 hires, and what Google, Stripe, and Anthropic had in common at that stage Moving Homebrew to his own money, and why he doesn't need a markup from the next venture fund to prove he's good Naive VS dangerous: what founders should and shouldn't sacrifice for a startup so much more! π“πˆπŒπ„π’π“π€πŒππ’ (00:00) Trailer (00:58) Hunter Walk, Co-Founder, Homebrew (01:29) Skin in the game VS heart in the game (02:46) How Chime almost died before going public (04:12) Secondaries and the β€œnext hot thing” mindset (06:14) The founder sandwich (08:39) Graphite: from seed round to Cursor acquisition (12:35) Naive VS dangerous: what a startup costs you (14:16) Investing his own money and skipping the markup (15:19) Why the first 20 hires predict success (19:16) Corner Health and primary care in a box (21:12) Checking his ego and imposter syndrome (25:43) Pre-consensus bets VS pre-anointed winners (30:31) The Homebrew tattoo and Screendoor (32:50) LeBron, Wembanyama, and backing competitors (36:12) Food banks, door knocking, and touching grass (38:19) Outro Follow Hunter LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hunterwalk/ X: https://x.com/hunterwalk Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #42
    Monday Β· 1 hr 32 min

    Inside Runway's $5.3B Playbook

    Today I walk with Anastasis Germanidis, co-founder and co-CEO of Runway (https://runway.com). Anastasis met his co-founders at NYU's ITP art program, built Runway into an AI video company doing over $200M in annual recurring revenue at a $5.3B valuation, and recently acquired the Paris-based Kinetix team into Runway, and now he's pushing Runway's video models into world models for robotics and software. He gets into the hour of existential crisis after OpenAI launched Sora, and how the team shipped a better model within a few months. ​ We get into: - How Runway accidentally built one of the best models for robotics by teaching a video model to predict pixels - Why he defines AGI as something that can never be reached, and why folding clothes is still harder for AI than the tasks people call complex - The 2022 call to drop the entire product and build 30 magic tools in 30 days - OpenAI's Sora launch, the hour the company asked if it could compete, and shipping Gen-3 at CVPR a few months later - Why proof of work beats credentials and big-lab resumes when Runway hires so much more! ​ π“πˆπŒπ„π’π“π€πŒππ’ (00:00) Trailer (01:21) Anastasis Germanidis, Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Runway (02:27) Accidentally building one of the best robotics models (03:04) The camera control that led to world models (07:18) How video models train robots and self-driving cars (10:47) What a world model actually is (12:10) Pitching world models to a 30-person team in 2023 (16:19) Why folding clothes is still unsolved for AI (17:37) Why AGI can never be reached (19:13) Learning to code from his sister's professor (22:03) A game built on Nietzsche's eternal recurrence (30:35) Starting an AI company from art school (35:44) The book every Runway hire gets (39:47) Why staying in stealth is counterproductive (42:03) 30 magic tools in 30 days (46:01) Keeping the team smaller than it should be (52:35) Fueled by being underestimated (55:55) Sora's launch and an hour of existential crisis (57:02) Racing to beat Sora in three months (1:01:56) Solaris and software generated in real time (1:05:15) Why AI labs pay for fake versions of Amazon (1:08:27) Video requests cost 100x more tokens than LLMs (1:09:52) Why Sora struggled as a consumer app (1:16:30) Hiring on proof of work (1:19:44) Becoming co-CEO with CristΓ³bal Valenzuela (1:21:21) The cost of being a full-stack AI company (1:29:39) Would he live the same life again (1:30:56) What he's still becoming (1:32:52) Outro Follow Anastasis LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/agermanidis X: https://x.com/agermanidis Website: https://runway.com Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #41
    October 28 Β· 1 hr 15 min

    He Raised $130M For Voice AI Back When The Market Didn't Exist

    Today I’m talking to Dylan Fox, founder and CEO of AssemblyAI (https://www.assemblyai.com). Dylan taught himself to code, was a machine learning engineer at Cisco, and went through Y Combinator's very first AI batch in 2017, and now AssemblyAI serves over a million developers and 100 million API calls a day with $130M raised from Accel, Insight and Y Combinator. On October 27, AssemblyAI launches AssemblyAI-TTS-1, a text-to-speech model built for voice agents that completes its voice stack alongside streaming speech-to-text and turn detection. He gets into the five years he waited for a Series A, and why he thinks the last 10% of an AI product is where product market fit gets decided. We get into: - Five years from founding to a Series A, in a voice AI market he says has since grown 10x - Why AssemblyAI went 100% usage-based with no committed contracts, and how that produced around 180% net dollar retention - The Amazon Echo commercial that pulled him into voice while he was at Cisco - Applying to YC a month late with no co-founder, and how partner Daniel Gross vouched for him - Scaling headcount before the business was ready, and the go-to-market reset that left AssemblyAI at 85 to 90 people and so much more! π“πˆπŒπ„π’π“π€πŒππ’ (00:00) Trailer (01:16) Dylan Fox, Founder & CEO, AssemblyAI (01:46) YC's first AI batch and five years to a Series A (05:49) Granola, Tolan and the voice agents built on AssemblyAI (07:27) Why the last 10% of an AI product creates product market fit (09:43) 180% net dollar retention with zero committed contracts (14:04) Field sales techs earning $20K more commission with voice AI (17:47) Voice as the primary interface to all hardware and software (24:42) Teaching himself to code to build a DoorDash for toiletries (29:17) Rejected by Twilio, hired by Cisco (33:07) The Amazon Echo that started AssemblyAI (40:56) Applying to YC a month late with no co-founder (45:01) How Daniel Gross got him into YC (1:01:30) Scaling up too early and resetting go-to-market (1:07:21) Leaning on Accel, Insight and founders from Synthesia and Pinecone (1:14:19) Why he quit X (1:15:10) Outro Follow Dylan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dylanbfox/ X: https://x.com/YouveGotFox Website: https://www.assemblyai.com Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #40
    October 22 Β· 1 hr

    This Harvard Dropout Raised At $180M Valuation To Build An AI Brain For CFOs

    Today I walk with Ron Nachum, co-founder and CEO of Sapien, an AI company that helps CFOs understand how their businesses run. Ron dropped out of Harvard to start Sapien with two friends from high school, recently raised from Neo and Ali Partovi at a $180M valution. Sapien works with CFOs at manufacturers and Fortune 500 companies, and now at 22 he's building an engine that reads a company's financial and operational data from the ground up. He gets into the night his co-founder found a $10M mistake hours before a customer's board meeting, and why he picks investors by asking if he'd want them at his wedding. We get into: - The spreadsheet error that turned $10M in expected profit into a $2M loss, and how Sapien caught it the morning of the board meeting - Why he'd rather start a hard company than an easy one when anyone can build anything with AI - Dropping out of Harvard after Ali Partovi's first check from Neo, and why the risk felt asymmetric - The wedding test he uses on every investor, and why he chose Neo over Y Combinator - Juggling 500 times in a row in second grade, and the nurture-only belief behind everything he builds so much more! π“π’π¦πžπ¬π­πšπ¦π©π¬ (00:00) Trailer (01:18) Ron Nachum, Co-Founder & CEO, Sapien (01:35) The $10M error found on board meeting day (04:53) Telling CFOs twice his age they were wrong (07:55) How a 19-year-old earns trust from skeptical buyers (11:53) Why it's better to start a hard company (13:29) Rubber band bracelets and 3D-printed fidget spinners (18:32) The professor who told a 14-year-old not to email him (22:56) Pain tolerance as the top founder trait (27:16) Being too blunt as a young leader (35:43) Why he records almost every conversation (38:31) Dropping out of Harvard after Neo's first check (45:30) Choosing Neo over Y Combinator and the wedding test (46:54) From recruiting tools to the brain for CFOs (54:45) Finishing SOC 2 controls overnight to close a customer (59:18) Why he wants to build a hotel on the moon (1:00:45) Outro Follow Ron LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-nachum/ X: https://x.com/RonNachum Website: https://sapien.ai/ Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #39
    October 19 Β· 1 hr 4 min

    After A $300M Walmart Exit He Raised $60M From Khosla To Build An AI Friend

    Today I walk with Quinten Farmer, co-founder of Tolan (https://www.tolans.com/), a personal AI built to be a guide through life. Quinten has sold his last company, Even, to Walmart for $300M, saved millions of Americans billions in payday loans and overdraft fees, and raised $60M from USV and Khosla. He gets into why he has zero interest in an AI that books your flights, and why Tolan takes most of its time from TikTok and television. We get into: Why he has zero interest in an AI that books flights or writes work emails, and the guardian angel idea behind Tolan Social penetration theory, and why every Tolan gets its own lore and backstory Selling Even to Walmart for $300M after saving Americans billions in payday loans and overdraft fees The email to David Tisch that gave him two options: hire me or I go to Afghanistan The lunch spent on compostable takeout container margins that pulled him back into tech so much more! π“πˆπŒπ„π’π“π€πŒππ’ (00:00) Trailer (00:49) Quinten Farmer, Co-Founder, Tolan (00:58) What Tolan is and what it is not (02:02) The car accident that showed Tolan's agentic side (04:47) Anthropic's machine God VS being nice to your toaster (06:24) Social penetration theory and why every Tolan has a backstory (09:36) 200 minutes a week and taking share from TikTok (10:47) Why great friendship gets mistaken for therapy (14:26) Talking to his Tolan at 2 a.m. in the hospital (16:32) Why Silicon Valley is obsessed with AI assistants (21:38) Dropping out and the only time he saw his grandfather cry (29:35) The David Tisch email: hire me or I go to Afghanistan (32:22) Selling Even to Walmart for $300M (37:24) Why shipping a lot with AI is the wrong move (57:43) How Tolan runs without 996 (1:03:38) What he wants his boys to remember (1:04:30) Outro Follow Quinten LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quintendf X: https://x.com/quintendf Tolan - https://www.tolans.com/ Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #38
    October 14 Β· 1 hr 44 min

    The First Investor Behind $60B Cursor & $22B Kalshi

    Today I walk with Ali Partovi, founder and CEO of Neo and host of a new podcast Confession. Ali co-founded LinkExchange, which Microsoft bought for $265M, co-founded Code.org with his twin brother Hadi, and wrote the first check into Cursor, and now he runs Neo, the firm that backed Kalshi when every top VC passed. He gets into the night he wanted to tell Universal Music Group to f*** off, and the $12M he borrowed against his own account to keep Kalshi open before the 2024 election. We get into: - Why he wanted to tell Universal Music Group to f*** off over a Bono video, and the half measure he still regrets - How Sequoia's Mike Moritz judged hires in ten minutes while three co-founders spent an hour each and had no opinion - Betting on Alfred Lin as LinkExchange's CFO when Ali thought the idea was idiotic, years before Alfred became co-head of Sequoia - Wiring Kalshi $12M of borrowed money when no bank would lend $100M two weeks before the 2024 election - Why Elon Musk stays the face of SpaceX, and why founders shouldn't fight being the face of their company so much more! π“πˆπŒπ„π’π“π€πŒππ’ (00:00) Trailer (00:55) Ali Partovi, Founder & CEO, Neo (01:09) Rock climbing as exposure therapy for fear (06:47) Bono, U2 and the Universal Music threat (16:00) Selling iLike for $25M after a 10x bigger first exit (17:44) Nobody cares about your failure as much as you do (22:51) Why Elon Musk stays the face of SpaceX (28:50) From MIT daycare to the Iranian revolution (37:00) The Commodore 64 stuck in Iranian customs (47:59) Mike Moritz and his 10-minute hiring verdicts (54:19) Betting on Alfred Lin before Sequoia (58:05) Spotting Paul Graham and Robert Morris at Viaweb (1:03:35) Flying campus to campus to start Neo (1:13:00) The Cursor founders who named their team "the winning team" (1:17:46) Kalshi's 40 law firm rejections (1:23:25) Wiring $12M to Kalshi before the 2024 election (1:33:58) 40 Neo scholars inside OpenAI (1:41:46) Why Neo is named after The Matrix Follow Ali Confession: https://link.mgln.ai/4TnDcL X: https://x.com/apartovi LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apartovi Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #37
    October 12 Β· 1 hr 3 min

    He Left A $4 Billion Company To Go Back To YC At 40

    Today I walk with Bryant Chou, co-founder of Webflow and founder of Ploy. Bryant is the former CTO of Webflow, the platform behind roughly one in every hundred websites, built its growth and marketing teams, and went back through Y Combinator 13 years after his first batch, and now he's building Ploy, an AI platform that turns your website into your hardest working employee. He gets into deciding to leave Webflow in a single day, and the grandfather whose last question to him was how many people worked at his company. We get into: - Why he left Webflow after 13 years to start over solo at 40, and why he decided in a single day - Being "scared s***less" of 20-year-old founders, and why he said yes when Garry Tan asked him to do YC again - Why building a company in 2026 looks nothing like 2013, when he, Vlad, and Sergey had to cover every skill themselves - Ploy's bet on the 99% of websites that aren't on Webflow - His grandfather's escape from a wanted list in Taiwan, and the "keep going" that followed him through 800 employees so much more! π“πˆπŒπ„π’π“π€πŒππ’ (00:00) Bryant Chou, Co-Founder of Webflow & Founder of Ploy (01:46) What running Webflow's marketing team taught a CTO (03:05) "Slurping" your website into a brand design system (07:35) Deciding to leave Webflow in a single day (11:08) Going after the 99% of websites not on Webflow (12:34) Turning your website into your hardest working employee (13:41) Scared of 20-year-old founders and doing YC again (14:30) Building a startup in 2013 VS 2026 (18:04) Why a 40-year-old third-time founder went back to YC (20:16) Demoing Ploy cold after his son's baseball game (24:31) His grandfather's escape from a wanted list in Taiwan (35:41) 996, FOMO, and the San Francisco rat race (40:10) Relearning founder mode (50:58) Running three teams through Covid with two kids under two (58:00) The redemption he's chasing with Ploy Follow Bryant LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryantchou/ X: https://x.com/bryantchou Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #36
    October 8 Β· 41 min

    He Ghostwrites For Tech's Biggest Brands - Adam Delehanty

    Today I walk with Adam Delehanty, founder and CEO of Ghost, a leading ghostwriting agency for founders, VCs, and brands. Adam has written culture books for Hinge, Duolingo, and e.l.f. Beauty, advises many prominent founders and VCs on their content, and has hosted a popular writing group in his sunroom for 175 Wednesdays in a row. These days, he's been spending more time stepping out from behind the β€œghost” and building his own voice online. We get into: Why ghostwriting = journalism Γ— therapy Growing up the product of Irish writers and anxious Jewish therapists β†’ "This was the only job that made sense” Why culture starts to dissipate somewhere between 200 and 1,000 employees, and the role of culture artifacts and lore in preserving aura His method for using AI: the human + Claude + human sandwich, and how to train Claude to edit its own work Why founders who only post about their product are that person at that bar everyone runs from Why he spent four days in the woods recently with his phone locked in the car, and what on earth happened Why words like "partner" move us further from the truth so much more! π“πˆπŒπ„π’π“π€πŒππ’ (00:00) Trailer (01:17) Adam Delehanty, Founder & CEO, Ghost (03:07) Why culture breaks between 200 and 1,000 people (04:28) What it means to become an β€œinternal journalist” for his clients (07:06) Hiring a ghostwriter is nothing to be ashamed of! (08:38) Cutting 12 company values down to the 4 that are real (09:59) The right reasons to start a company (13:43) The founder who only talks about his product at a bar (15:02) Why my LinkedIn posts get three likes (16:59) Human, Claude, human: how Ghost writes (19:36) Training Claude to edit its own writing (20:59) Why AI won't replace the hardest part of his job (22:13) Writing as a way to figure out who you are, and what your company is (25:51) Four days in the woods with his phone locked in the car (29:20) How Williamsburg lost all its aura (31:22) Reading Ted Sorensen instead of TikToks about him (34:00) The subtle hints of particular words: why women call some men β€œdude” (35:51) Notes on trendy lingo in tech right now (e.g., β€œGTM engineer”) (39:33) The Ghost mantra: β€œfind the language your ideas deserve” (40:51) What he's still becoming (41:34) Outro Follow Adam LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamdelehanty/ X: https://x.com/adam__xyz Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #35
    October 5 Β· 1 hr 11 min

    How a16z's Most Connected VC Picks Founders

    Today I walk with David Haber, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. David co-founded Bond Street and sold it to Goldman Sachs, started his career working for the founder of Royalty Pharma and investing at Spark Capital, and helped open a16z's New York office. He gets into why he'd rather back the missionary than the mercenary, and why he believes opportunity lives between fields of expertise. We get into: - The Friday night football taco stand he set up in high school, which he says made the vendor millions of dollars over the next 20 years - Working next to Airbnb co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk as a sophomore intern, and passing on the chance to become Airbnb's first non-technical hire - How Royalty Pharma got to a $25 billion market cap with about 50 employees, and why it inspired his firm over fund thesis - Vantage, the AI tool he built from 750 meetings' worth of transcripts that now lives in a16z's Slack - Why founders spend 95% of their time selling, and why he backs missionaries over mercenaries so much more! π“πˆπŒπ„π’π“π€πŒππ’ (00:00) Trailer (00:51) David Haber, General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz (01:14) Why people call him the most connected VC in New York (02:35) From the Holocaust to Nicaragua to Tijuana (05:23) The Friday night taco stand that made a vendor millions (11:18) Sitting next to Airbnb's Nathan Blecharczyk as an intern (15:40) Royalty Pharma: $25B market cap with about 50 employees (28:48) The hardest problem in building Bond Street (37:06) Emailing Goldman Sachs' CFO and ignoring his job description (39:27) Vantage: the AI tool built on 750 meetings (46:02) Why founders spend 95% of their time selling (47:20) Missionary VS mercenary founders (52:18) Firm over fund, and how a16z runs like a company (59:40) Taking 275-year-old Sotheby's into NFTs (1:00:36) Marc Andreessen's pitch: the J.P. Morgan of the information era (1:10:45) Why he wishes Bond Street had been bigger (1:12:31) Outro Follow David LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haber/ X: https://x.com/dhaber?lang=en Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #34
    October 1 Β· 1 hr 15 min

    $13 Billion CEO Thinks Most People Shouldn't Start A Company

    Today I walk with Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Superhuman, the company formerly known as Grammarly. Shishir co-founded Coda and sold it to Grammarly, built skippable ads at YouTube into a product that went from $0 to $1 billion in 18 months, and sits on the boards of Spotify and Walmart, and now he runs a company with over $700 million in revenue. He talks about why most people should not start a company, and why he gave up ownership of Coda without any startup pride. We get into: - Why the right startup idea should feel like a curse, and why he tells students not to keep a list of startup ideas - The misspelled Vinod Khosla email that made $500,000 land in his account and moved his company to Silicon Valley in a week - Joining YouTube when it lost money on every single view, and board meetings with Eric Schmidt about shutting it down - The skip button every salesperson said would kill revenue, and how it went from $0 to $1 billion in 18 months - Selling Coda to Grammarly, and why he needs a sense of purpose more than a sense of ownership so much more! π“πˆπŒπ„π’π“π€πŒππ’ (00:00) Trailer (01:07) Shishir Mehrotra, CEO, Superhuman (01:32) Making the Lego robotics world championships four times with his daughters (08:59) His dad only paid for majors where the books are 50 years old (12:18) Why most people should not start a company (14:47) The Vinod Khosla email that moved $500,000 in one afternoon (20:15) Joining YouTube when it lost money on every view (25:50) Board meetings with Eric Schmidt about shutting YouTube down (35:20) The skip button that went from $0 to $1B in 18 months (40:30) Susan Wojcicki and the 55/45 creator revenue split (45:54) Sketching Coda on a notepad by his bed (53:52) Why he sold Coda to Grammarly (59:30) Purpose over ownership and zero startup pride (1:01:45) The bundling theory he built with Daniel Ek at Spotify (1:04:49) Superhuman's AI agents and 60% of auto-drafted emails sent (1:09:37) Why AI will make teams bigger (1:15:32) Outro Follow Shishir LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shishirmehrotra/ X: https://x.com/shishirmehrotra Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #33
    September 29 Β· 1 hr 22 min

    She Raised $16.5M+ to End Genetic Disease - Noor Sidiqqui

    Today I walk with Noor Siddiqui, founder and CEO of Orchid. Noor was a Thiel Fellow at 17, studied CS at Stanford, and has raised $16.5M for Orchid from Vitalik Buterin, Brian Armstrong, Balaji Srinivasan, and Elad Gil, and now she's out to end what she calls the genetic lottery. She gets into why she thinks people won't have sex for babies anymore, and what she'd pick for her own kid if the tech existed today. We get into: - Why she calls the genetic lottery "super evil and unfair" - The 5–10% chance of genetic disease if you conceive the old-fashioned way - Her most controversial take: people aren't going to have sex for babies anymore - Why Michael Phelps is only Michael Phelps because of a genetic lottery - Tetrachromats, 100 million colors, and what "leveling the playing field" actually means so much more! Timestamps (00:00) Trailer (00:53) Noor Siddiqui, Founder and CEO, Orchid (01:04) The flashmob dance proposal (11:15) Applying to the Thiel Fellowship at 17 (24:22) Founders raising $50M and losing $100M (31:48) Taking advice from the 500 IQ nerd (35:36) Why genetics shape everything (51:03) What is a super baby (54:55) Sequencing 3 billion letters and why the genetic lottery is evil (1:01:16) People aren't going to have sex for babies (1:02:43) Michael Phelps and the genetic lottery (1:07:21) Escaping the code we were stuck with (1:20:21) Upgrading all humans would make her cool (1:22:20) Outro Follow Noor LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/noorsiddiqui/ X: https://x.com/noor_siddiqui_ Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/

  • #32
    September 24 Β· 51 min

    He Co-founded $2B Udemy. Now a16z Gave Him $42M To Rethink College - Gagan Biyani

    Today I walk with Gagan Biyani, founder and CEO of the Horowitz Andreessen Academy. Gagan co-founded Udemy, which grew into a multibillion-dollar public company, built Sprig, co-founded Maven, and started his first profitable business at 13, and now he's building a16z's new school for young builders, backed by $42 million. He gets into the $60M company he had to shut down, why his investors backed him again anyway, and why a Harvard dropout means nothing to him. We get into: -Starting a debate camp at 13 that ran 50% EBITDA margins, and landing in the principal's office for it -Sprig: $60M raised, 1,300 employees, a shutdown, and investors who backed his next company anyway -Why the Academy flips college around, with students building instead of attending class -The call from Andrew Chen and ten meetings with Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz that became the Academy -Why he tells 18-year-olds that raising VC is a ten-year commitment so much more! π“πˆπŒπ„π’π“π€πŒππ’ (00:00) Trailer (01:01) Gagan Biyani, Founder & CEO, Horowitz Andreessen Academy (02:23) A one-year fellowship built around building, not class (03:55) The three skills that are AI proof (08:16) Grandparents from Rajasthan who never finished high school (09:31) Starting a debate camp at 13 with 50% margins (12:59) Why schools are afraid of student agency (18:33) Seven jobs, three years, and rarely going to class (18:46) Why most professors don't care about teaching (25:41) What Udemy and Maven taught him (33:32) Raising $60M at Sprig, shutting down, and getting backed again (38:16) Why raising VC at 18 is a ten-year commitment (39:21) The call from Andrew Chen that started the Academy (41:18) Why the best builders will pick a16z over MIT or Harvard (43:17) 50 founding students, tuition-free (45:46) Why a Harvard dropout means nothing to him (51:42) Outro Follow Gagan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gaganbiyani/ X: https://x.com/gaganbiyani Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/

  • #31
    September 23 Β· 1 hr 15 min

    $9.5B Gusto Founder Went Back to Being an Engineer to Build an AI CoFounder - Edward Kim

    Today I walk with Edward Kim, co-founder and CTO of Gusto. Edward built Gusto with two Stanford classmates into a $9.5B payroll platform running 300,000 small businesses, made over $1M selling Android apps on the side, and after a decade managing engineers, he's writing code again to ship an AI co-founder for the back office his mom used to run when he was a kid. He gets into why his doctor dad handed him a Paul Graham essay in the car, and the unfairness technical co-founders feel while business co-founders raise the money. We get into: -Making $700K a year selling Android apps after his first startup shut down -Why his doctor dad handing him a Paul Graham essay changed his career -His mom running the entire back office of his dad's medical practice while raising three kids -The unfairness technical co-founders feel while business co-founders get wined and dined by investors -Going back to code after 10 years managing engineers to ship an AI co-founder for small businesses so much more! (00:00) Trailer (00:51) Edward Kim, Co-Founder and CTO, Gusto (00:57) The elaborate escape rooms he builds for his wife Yuna (03:04) The San Francisco half marathon on a bet that reconnected him with Josh (05:32) Making $700,000 a year selling Android apps (10:25) Screenshot It, the $7 app for a feature Android didn't have (18:31) His mom running the entire back office of his dad's medical practice (26:22) The Paul Graham essay his doctor dad handed him in the car (29:51) Getting into Y Combinator with Gary as a partner (32:49) The unfairness technical co-founders feel while business co-founders raise money (36:51) After 15 years of co-founding, why the workload evens out (56:07) Building Gusto Co-Founder for the small business back office (1:15:01) His life philosophy in one sentence (1:15:08) Outro Follow Edward LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/edawerd/ X: https://x.com/edawerd Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #30
    September 17 Β· 1 hr 16 min

    He Helped Founders Raise $2 Billion. Now He's Sold on Solo Founding - Julian Weisser

    Today I walk with Julian Weisser, founder of Solo Founders and co-founder of On Deck. Julian has run 27 ODF cohorts, helped more than 1,000 founders collectively raise over $2 billion, and spent eight years matching people with co-founders, and now he believes AI has made the co-founder optional. He gets into the $400,000 payout demand from a co-founder who did two months of work, and why he compares co-founders to car phones now that solo founders have the cell phone. We get into: - Calling his own teenage taste in jazz "musical masturbation," and the moment that actually taught him to love it - The $400,000 payout a co-founder demanded for two months of work, and why there was no mechanism to force them out - His run co-founding On Deck, where 27 cohorts helped over 1,000 founders raise $2B+, and why he thinks the co-founder problem is basically already solved - The Hacker News post that got almost no response except one email from Dropbox's first employee so much more! Timestamps (00:00) Trailer (00:51) Julian Weisser, Founder, Solo Founders (02:06) Calling his old jazz taste "musical masturbation" (20:17) 27 cohorts, thousands of founders, more reps than any VC (35:50) The $400K co-founder payout demand (39:45) The Hacker News post that led to Dropbox's first employee (44:45) Golden Gate Park was built from sand dunes (54:50) Why co-founders have seasons, not forever contracts (58:53) The "oddballs" who never wanted co-founders, including Loyal's Celine Halioua (1:00:59) Co-founders are the car phone. Solo founders are the cell phone. (1:06:47) Why owning less equity can mean more freedom (1:16:18) His two-word life philosophy: keep going (1:16:34) Outro Follow Julian X: https://x.com/julianweisser LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianweisser/ Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #29
    September 14 Β· 1 hr 3 min

    Amplitude went public at a $5.6 billion valuation. Now its CEO is rebuilding all 800 employees around AI

    Automate Compliance (and get $1,000 off!!) - https://vanta.com/luba Today I walk with Spenser Skates, co-founder and CEO of Amplitude. Spenser shut down his first startup, a voice-to-text texting app called Sonalight, a year after it got into Y Combinator, spent years going through what he calls an identity crisis moving from founder to CEO, and has grown Amplitude into a public company of roughly 800 people, and now he's rebuilding it around Wave, an AI engine that rewrites products using their own data. We get into: Why he and his co-founder Curtis intentionally shut down Sonalight a year after Y Combinator, even after a Demo Day that got them press and tens of thousands of downloads The customer research rule he now enforces at Amplitude: talk to 30 teams before writing a line of the original product, and only build if a real chunk of them say yes Wave, Amplitude's new AI engine that scans a product's own data and rewrites its features, including one fix that tripled a customer's AI usage overnight Why he thinks the most ambitious operators, including a SaaS "legend" he looked up to, are driven by insecurity rather than confidence The Norman Borlaug story that convinced a 20-something Spenser to bet his entire career on tech instead of academic research So much more! TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Trailer (01:08) Spenser Skates, Co-Founder & CEO, Amplitude (01:36) Why video games stopped feeling like real achievement (08:50) Growing up in Cambridge and hating a life scripted by other people (15:04) The Norman Borlaug story that convinced him to bet on tech (20:14) Convincing Curtis to leave Google and co-found a company (24:55) Playing StarCraft until 2am while pretending to build the startup (29:04) The exact test for knowing when to kill a startup (32:30) Why half a founding team's time should go to customers, not code (35:02) The identity crisis of going from founder to CEO of 800 people (40:35) Burning the boats on the old Amplitude to go all in on AI (42:33) Wave: the AI engine that rewrites products using their own data (48:49) Why insecurity, not confidence, drives the most ambitious operators (56:01) Betting on his partner Anne and being "single until Series B" (1:05:00) Outro Follow Spenser LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spenserskates X: https://x.com/spenserskates Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/

  • #28
    September 10 Β· 51 min

    From $10M to $70M ARR in 12 Months, The Story of OpenArt - Coco Mao

    Automate Compliance (and get $1,000 off!!) - https://vanta.com/luba Today I walk with Coco Mao, CEO and co-founder of OpenArt, an AI visual storytelling platform. Coco spent years as an engineer at Google, ran her own startup inside Google's internal startup incubator, and built OpenArt through six months of weekly pivots until a prototype built in under three days went viral on Hacker News, and now she's betting the entire company on a new category she calls vibe directing. We get into: Why she quit her Google side-hustles, including the Amazon fidget-toy business she overstocked right before founding OpenArt The six-month stretch of weekly pivots that ended with a three-day prototype going viral on Hacker News OpenArt's bet on "vibe directing," the video-agent category she compares directly to vibe coding What actually separates good AI-generated work from "total slop": idea and taste, not the tools Launching the AI Personality Awards with Fanvue, and why she thinks AI influencers will make human creators more valuable, not less So much more! Timestamps (00:00) Trailer (00:54) Coco Mao, CEO & Co-Founder, OpenArt (03:11) Selling fidget toys on Amazon before quitting Google (04:56) Meeting co-founder Jon inside Google's startup incubator (08:01) Betting on AI art in 2022, a non-consensus space (08:18) The weekly pivot that led to a Hacker News-viral prototype (14:09) Naming OpenArt and getting mistaken for OpenAI (14:56) Raising a seed round on speed, not metrics (19:11) Hire fast, fire very fast (20:01) Why OpenArt survived while image-gen rivals disappeared (23:00) Vibe directing: the next category after vibe coding (28:08) What separates good AI work from total slop (39:40) Launching the AI Personality Awards with Fanvue (43:46) The hardest part of scaling: reinventing yourself (50:22) The one founder belief she now thinks is wrong (51:20) Outro Follow Coco LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kechunmao/ X: https://x.com/cocokechun Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #27
    September 7 Β· 1 hr 8 min

    He Turned A Newsletter Into A Venture Fund - Packy McCormick (Not Boring Capital)

    Today I walk with Packy McCormick, founder of Not Boring and Not Boring Capital. Packy built Not Boring into a top newsletter on Substack, spent years in finance before leaving to write full time, and now invests in the same kinds of companies he writes about through Not Boring Capital. He gets into the moment his growth flatlined during the 2022 market crash and what it freed him to do, and why he considers Not Boring's founding mission basically complete. We get into: Why he passed on investing in the friend who now runs a robotics company valued at $1 billion The real "nobody gives a s***" moment that came after Not Boring's meteoric growth crashed in 2022 The clay pot experiment behind why he still writes 30 imperfect essays a year instead of a few polished ones Why he thinks Anthropic's careful, downside-focused posture on AI is a little too pessimistic Why he doubles down on his strengths instead of trying to fix a below-average memory So much more! Automate Compliance (and get $1,000 off!!) - https://vanta.com/luba TIMESTAMPS (00:00) Packy McCormick, Founder, Not Boring & Not Boring Capital (01:02) Weekly business coaching calls with his mom (06:15) Passing on the friend who built a $1 billion robotics company (20:19) The moment nobody gave a s*** anymore (31:02) Being scared of infinity as a kid (34:50) Why Anthropic's pessimism wears him out (36:19) Retiring Not Boring's founding mission (41:09) Telling his pregnant wife he was starting over (45:27) The clay pot experiment behind his writing process (56:00) Double down on strengths, not weaknesses (58:52) What made Colossus's writer profiles so good (1:03:18) $470 million for micro nuclear reactors (1:04:19) The GLP-1 side effect nobody saw coming (1:07:58) What brought him joy this week Follow Packy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/packym/ X: https://x.com/packyM Website: https://www.notboring.co Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #26
    September 3 Β· 1 hr 16 min

    He Put AI Inside The Terminal Before Codex Existed- Zach Lloyd

    Automate Compliance (and get $1,000 off!!) - https://vanta.com/luba Today I walk with Zach Lloyd, founder and CEO of Warp. Zach is a former Principal Engineer at Google, where he led the Google Sheets team. Zach scaled his first startup, SelfMade, to 150 employees before it fell apart, and now he’s raised over $73 million for Warp from Sequoia and Google Ventures. He's betting the whole company on AI. He talks about the AI feature Warp built before Claude Code and ChatGPT existed, why not going harder at it is one of his biggest regrets as a founder, and what it's like having Marc Benioff as his cousin. We get into: The AI feature Warp shipped before ChatGPT even existed, and why building something like Claude Code six months early still turned into one of his biggest regrets His first startup, SelfMade, scaling to 150 employees and multiple millions in revenue without ever finding real product market fit Why he calls hiring "just sales," and why he'd rather hand over equity than compete on salary Why he barely opens a spreadsheet anymore, and which AI-era tools he thinks actually survive so much more! Timestamps (00:00) Trailer (00:59) Zach Lloyd, Founder & CEO, Warp (01:03) Grandfather Lloyd K Lloyd, San Francisco's original salesman (04:42) Marc Benioff is his cousin (21:33) The humility lesson from Google Sheets' original creator (27:07) SelfMade: 150 employees, still not a real business (34:04) Why hiring is really just sales (39:32) Nearing a million terminal users (41:18) Building AI before Claude Code and Codex existed (42:52) Only going halfway in on AI (1:03:09) Why he barely opens a spreadsheet anymore (1:10:10) Warp is automating 30% of its own engineering work (1:11:12) Building automated cloud factories (1:14:49) Almost naming the company Cursor (1:15:48) Never living on Saint Mark's again Follow Zach LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachlloyd/ X: https://x.com/zachlloydtweets Website: https://warp.dev Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #25
    August 31 Β· 1 hr 15 min

    She Wants To Disrupt A $100 Billion Space With AI - Michelle Lim

    Automate Compliance (and get $1,000 off!!) - https://vanta.com/luba Today I walk with Michelle Lim, CEO of Flint, an autonomous web and ads building platform. Michelle interned at Meta, Slack, and Robinhood, grew Warp from employee number two to 500,000 developers over four years across engineering, marketing, and sales, and now she's building Flint to charge by outcome instead of software. She gets into her origin story that pushed her to fix marketing after four years at Warp, and why she thinks the market VCs have valued at $10 billion is actually worth $100 billion. We get into: -Why turning down medical school made her "a family disappointment," and the villain origin story that pushed her to build Flint after four years fixing marketing at Warp -Her "five Infinity Stones" framework: engineering, product, marketing, customer success, and sales, for knowing exactly when she was ready to leave Warp and start her own company -Why VCs have historically stayed away from funding marketing startups, and her bet that AI turns a market capped at HubSpot's $10 billion into a $100 billion opportunity -Her framework for writing LinkedIn hooks that lead with credibility and actually convert strangers into customers and hires So much more! Timestamps (00:00) Trailer (00:32) Intro (01:21) Singapore's definition of success: doctor, lawyer, or government scholar (02:31) Applying to Yale on a whim, thanks to a one-school early action rule (06:16) Why a startup was "one of the lowest prestige things" she could do at Yale (10:48) Discovering computer science through a Yale entrepreneurship club (16:21) What she took, and left behind, from Meta, Slack, Robinhood, and Warp (19:48) Winning an hour alone with Mark Zuckerberg on her best internship project (22:12) Sheryl Sandberg's leadership lesson: repeat the same story until it lands (27:59) Her framework for writing LinkedIn hooks that actually convert (35:53) Bodies "piling up" in Covid-era New York, and the push to join Warp (40:53) Telling Warp's CEO upfront that she wanted to be a founder (47:47) The "five Infinity Stones" framework for knowing when to start Flint (54:47) Why VCs avoid funding marketing startups, and her bet on a $100 billion market (1:00:23) Meeting her co-founder through a 200-question questionnaire, and his parents' interview (1:09:14) Never try to save money on a lawyer Follow Michelle LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michlimlim/ X: https://x.com/michlimlim Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

  • #24
    August 25 Β· 44 min

    He's Bringing Supersonic Flight BACK - Blake Scholl

    Automate Compliance (and get $1,000 off!!) - https://vanta.com/luba Today I walk with Blake Scholl, founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic. Blake was roughly Amazon's 200th engineer, spent more than a decade building XB-1 into the first supersonic jet made outside a government or military, and got the US ban on supersonic flight repealed after breaking the sound barrier, and now he's scaling Boom toward carrying passengers in 2030. He gets into the six years Boom spent waiting on Rolls-Royce for an engine, and why that breakup turned out to be the best gift the company ever got. We get into: Why he'd rather be a "dark matter entrepreneur" who tried and failed than spend his life asking what if The six years Boom spent trying to get Rolls-Royce to build a custom engine, and why losing that deal is what made the business financially viable Why "work on something you know about" is terrible advice, since what you know is far easier to change than what you love How a parenting lesson turned into the practice that built candor inside Boom's staff meetings So much more! π“πˆπŒπ„π’π“π€πŒππ’ (00:00) Trailer (00:41) Intro (01:39) The day XB-1 broke the sound barrier (05:40) 2,000 pounds overweight and called the Theranos of aviation (09:15) How big a dent can we make in the universe (12:01) Bill Gates and the dark matter entrepreneur (14:55) Mom's advice: work on something you already know (17:12) The flying lesson at 19 that decided everything (23:17) Starting Boom with three kids under two (24:39) The mistake dinner that became a staff meeting (27:22) Why the Rolls-Royce breakup was the best gift Boom got (30:37) Brian Chesky and permission to make the big swing (34:29) Amazon at engineer 200 and automating ads at 22 (37:58) Congestion price the entire road network (40:12) "I'd be proud of you for trying" (43:58) The $750K prize to fly supersonic (44:33) Outro Follow Blake LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/blakescholl/ X: https://x.com/bscholl Website: https://boomsupersonic.com/ Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

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