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Harry Stebbings

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) interviews the world's greatest venture capitalists with prior guests including Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Once per week, 20VC Host, Harry Stebbings is also joined by one of the great founders of our time with prior founder episodes from Spotify's Daniel Ek, Linkedin's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman. 

If you would like to see more of The Twenty Minute VC (20VC), head to www.20vc.com for more information on the podcast, show notes, resources and more.

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Bending Spoons is the acquisition machine of the tech world. They have acquired the likes of Evernote, Vimeo, Eventbrite, Streamyard and more. However, they never open their gates to the secrets behind Evernote's product machine. Today that changes with Federico Simionato joining 20Product. Fede has been a Product Lead at Bending Spoons for 8 years where he has led product teams at Evernote, WeTransfer and more. 
 
AGENDA:
 
03:02 From Dentist Games to $11BN Bending Spoons
 
04:54 Advice for Aspiring Product Managers
 
05:38 Building a Coveted Brand at Bending Spoons
 
07:43 Evaluating and Testing New Product Ideas
 
13:35 How Evernote has Mastered User Retention
 
25:24 The Impact of AI on Product Design and Prototyping
 
31:19 How Bending Spoons Does Product Launches and Lessons Learned
 
33:27 How Every Product Team Should Do Monthly Updates to Users
 
36:38 Recording and Transparency in Updates
 
38:06 Lessons from Failed Product Launches
 
45:14 Structuring Teams and Acquisitions
 
47:12 Monetization Strategies and Push Notifications
 
57:21 Quick Fire Round: Insights and Reflections

20VC: Inside Bending Spoons Acquisition Machine: Evernote, Eventbrite, Vimeo | How Evernote Evaluates Acquisitions and New Product Ideas | How Evernote Mastered Product Launches, User Retention and Monetisation with Federico Simionato

AGENDA:
 
04:20 Thrive and OpenAI Partnership 
 
07:14 Databricks Raising $5BN at $134BN Valuation: Cheap or Not?
 
17:39 Eventbrite Acquired by Bending Spoons for $500M
 
21:39 Pagerduty's $1BN Market Cap, Just 2x Revenue
 
26:59 The TAM Trap: Why SaaS Is Like Japan
 
37:42 Lessons from Companies Hitting $100M ARR
 
44:57 The Future of Labour Markets is F******
 
52:10 The Importance of Compounding in Investments
 
56:45 The Relevance Game in Venture Capital
 
01:05:01 Supabase at $5BN or Lovable at $6BN: Which One?

20VC: Thrive & OpenAI Partnership | Eventbrite Acquired for $500M | Databricks Raising $5BN at $134BN Valuation: Cheap or Not? | Why SaaS is Like Japan and The TAM Trap in Software

Jonathan Siddharth is Founder and CEO of Turing, one of the fastest-growing AI companies advancing frontier models. Jonathan has led the company to an astonishing $300M ARR with just $225M raised and a profitable company. A Stanford-trained AI scientist, Jonathan previously helped pioneer natural language search at Powerset, which was acquired by Microsoft.
 
AGENDA:
 
03:35 Data, Compute, Algorithms: What is Most Abundant? What is Lacking Most?
 
09:18 What Does No One Know About AI's Data Requirements That Everyone Should?
 
17:05 The Biggest Challenges Enterprises Have with AI Adoption
 
20:38 Why Will 99% of Knowledge Work Will be Gone in 10 Years
 
27:12 How Will Data-Driven Feedback Loops Replace Technology as the Moat
 
36:08 Who Wins the Data Labelling Market? Who Loses?
 
38:23 Is Revenue BS in Data Labelling? Are Players Calling GMV Revenue? 
 
45:20 Why is SaaS Dead in a World of AI?
 
51:23 Will the Phone be the Primary User Interface to an AI World?
 
57:07 Quickfire Round

20VC: Scale, Surge, Turing, Mercor: Who Wins & Who Loses in Data Labelling | Is Revenue in Data Labelling Real or GMV? | Why 99% of Knowledge Work Will Go and What Happens Then? | Why SaaS is Dead in a World of AI with Jonathan Siddharth @ Turing

John McMahon is widely regarded as one of the greatest enterprise-software sales leaders of all time. He's the only person to have served as Chief Revenue Officer at five public software companies: PTC, GeoTel, Ariba, BladeLogic and BMC Software. He helped scale BladeLogic from a startup into a public company — ultimately leading to its ~$880M sale to BMC — and drove GeoTel into a multi-billion dollar acquisition. Today he sits on the boards of top names such as Snowflake and MongoDB, while also mentoring and influencing a who's-who of modern SaaS sales leaders.
 
AGENDA:
 
03:33 The Art and Science of Sales: Insights from a Veteran
 
04:29 Adapting Sales Strategies in the Age of AI and PLG
 
07:47 The Ultimate Framework to do Deal Qualification
 
14:13 How to Drive Urgency and Maintain Sales Process
 
20:06 How to Hire the Best Sales Reps
 
25:11 Step-by-Step Guide to Training Sales Reps
 
45:22 The Mindset of the Best Sales Reps
 
54:55 Single Most Important Skill to Win in Sales

20Sales: John McMahon on How to Hire, Train & Retain the Best Sales Reps | How Sales Changes in a World of AI | Sales Lessons from Snowflake and MongoDB | How to Create and Drive a Sales Process with Urgency

AGENDA:
 
04:06 Anthropic's $30BN Investment from Microsoft and NVIDIA
 
07:01 Google vs. OpenAI: Sam Altman's "War Mode" Memo
 
15:27 NVIDIA's Customer Concentration: Bull or Bear
 
22:12 Is "War Mode" BS: Does Hyper-Aggressive Ever Work?
 
36:12 Sierra Hits $100M ARR: Justify $10BN Price?
 
46:14 Implementation is the Biggest Barrier to Enterprise AI Growth
 
01:04:04 Is LLM Search Optimisation (GEO) Selling Snake Oil? What AI is a Fraud vs Real?
 
01:14:27 Figma Market Cap: Is the IPO Market F****** for 2026

20VC: Anthropic Raises $30BN from Microsoft and NVIDIA | NVIDIA Core Business Threatened by TPU | Sam Altman's "War Mode" Analysed | Sierra Hits $100M ARR: Justifies $10BN Price? | Lovable Hits $200M ARR & Rumoured $6BN Round

Maor Shlomo is the Founder and CEO of Base44, the AI building platform that Maor built from idea to $80M acquisition by Wix, in just 8 months. Today the company serves millions of users and will hit $50M ARR by the end of the year. Before Base44, Maor was the Co-Founder and CTO of Explorium.
 
AGENDA:
 
00:05 – 00:10: How Vibe Coding is Going to Kill Salesforce and SaaS
 

 
00:13 – 00:15: Do Vibe Coding platforms have any defensibility?
 

 
00:22 – 00:24: I am not worried about Replit and Lovable, I am worried about Google…
 

 
00:28 – 00:29: Margins do not matter, the price of the models will go to zero
 

 
00:31 – 00:32: Speed to copy has never been lower; has the technical moat been eroded?
 

 
00:47 – 00:48: How does Base44 beat Cursor?
 

 
00:56 – 00:57: Do not pay attention to competition: focus on your business
 

 
00:57 – 00:58: How Base44 is helped, not hurt by not being in Silicon Valley?
 

 
00:58 – 00:59: What percent of code will be written by AI in 12 months?
 

 
01:01 – 01:02: OpenAI or Anthropic: Why Maor is Long Anthropic?
 

 
01:03 – 01:04: If I could have any board member in the world it would be Jack Dorsey

20VC: Base44's Maor Shlomo on How Vibe Coding Will Kill SaaS and Salesforce | Why it is BS that Vibe Coding Platforms Do Not Have Defensibility and Bad Margins | Why He Worries About Google, Not Replit and Lovable | Why Long Anthropic, Not OpenAI?

Max Altman is Co‑Founder & Managing Partner at Saga Ventures, a US$125 M early‑stage fund. Before Saga Max was an investor with Apollo Projects, Hydrazine Capital and Altman Capital (where he helped deploy over US$500 M) into breakout names such as Rippling and Reddit.
 
AGENDA:
 
03:55 – Venture Capital Is FULL of Tourists With Single-Digit IQs
 
06:20 – Inside the Madness of Parker Conrad: Genius, Chaos, and WTF Emails
 
10:35 – The Rippling Deal That Changed Everything
 
12:40 – Living in Sam Altman's Shadow: The Confession
 
17:30 – $200M Fund Mistakes: Max's Brutal Lessons From Hydrazine
 
22:05 – The $2B Reddit Return… and the $2B Left on the Table
 
25:00 – Why Climate Tech Is a Total VC Mirage
 
28:40 – The New Seed War: Can Anyone Survive Sequoia & Andreessen?
 
46:55 – Max's Boldest Predictions

20VC: Max Altman on The New Seed War: Can Anyone Compete with Sequoia and a16z | Leaving $2BN on the Table with Reddit | Lessons from Backing Rippling at $25M Post | Why Climate Tech is a Mirage and Disaster

AGENDA:
 
04:47 Cursor Raises $2.3BN at $29BN Valuation
 
11:36 What Gemini 3 Means for Lovable, Cursor and Replit
 
30:54 Peter Thiel and Softbank Sell NVIDIA: The Bubble Bursting?
 
48:54 Oracle Credit Default Swaps: The Risk is Increasing
 
01:07:22 Stripe Does Tender at All-Time High: Why the Best Companies Will Never IPO
 
01:19:18 Why Retail WIll Cause a Surge of Capital into VC Funds

20VC: Cursor Raises $2.3BN: Who Wins the Coding War | Peter Thiel and Softbank Sell NVIDIA: Analysed | Why Venture Capital Will Hit $1TRN and the Opening of Retail | Why Stripe and the Best Companies Will Never Go Public

Dr. Andrew Ng is a globally recognized leader in AI. He is Founder of DeepLearning.AI, Executive Chairman of LandingAI, General Partner at AI Fund, Chairman and Co-Founder of Coursera. As a pioneer in machine learning Andrew has authored or co-authored over 200 research papers in machine learning, robotics and related fields. In 2023, he was named to the Time100 AI list of the most influential AI persons in the world.
 
Agenda:
 
03:19 What are the Biggest Bottlenecks in AI Today? 
 
08:51 How LLMs Can Be Used as a Geopolitical Weapon
 
15:48 Should AI Talent Really Be Paid Billions?
 
29:07 Why is the Application Layer the Most Exciting Layer?
 
36:22 Do Margins Matter in a World of AI?
 
38:02 Is Defensibility Dead in a World of AI?
 
45:29 Will AI Deliver Masa Son's Predictions of 5% GDP Growth?
 
49:39 Are We in an AI Bubble?
 
57:31 Will Human Labour Budgets Shift to AI Spend?

20VC: Andrew NG on The Biggest Bottlenecks in AI | How LLMs Can Be Used as a Geopolitical Weapon | Do Margins Matter in a World of AI? | Is Defensibility Dead in a World of AI? | Will AI Deliver Masa Son's Predictions of 5% GDP Growth?

Carl Rivera is the Chief Design Officer at Shopify, where he previously led both Merchant Services and the Shop App as VP of Product. Before joining Shopify through its acquisition of Tictail, Carl was the co-founder and CEO of Tictail, the "Tumblr for e-commerce," where he built one of the most beloved design-forward commerce platforms of its era.
 
AGENDA:
 
05:05 Biggest Lessons from Selling My Company to Shopify
 
09:55 Where Does Shopify Suck at Product: Lessons from that?
 
17:37 What makes Truly Great product Design: The Five Pillars
 
31:02 The Future of Design in an AI-Driven World
 
36:00 Do We Skip the Design Phase in AI: Figma's Evolving Role in Design
 
40:09 Remote Work vs. In-Person Collaboration: Where Remote Loses?
 
42:43 What Happens to the Vibe Coding Market
 
47:06 Product Management and Team Dynamics
 
59:48 Does AI Favour Incumbents or Startups

20Product: How AI Changes Product Design | Does the Design Phase Become Irrelevant in a World of Vibe Coding | The Five Pillars of Truly Great Product Design with Carl Rivera, Chief Design Officer at Shopify

20VC: Thrive & OpenAI Partnership | Eventbrite Acquired for $500M | Databricks Raising $5BN at $134BN Valuation: Cheap or Not? | Why SaaS is Like Japan and The TAM Trap in Software

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