Uncapped with Jack Altman

• Uncapped #27 | Vince Hankes from Thrive Capital

  Vince Hankes is a Partner at Thrive Capital where he’s worked on investments in OpenAI, SpaceX, Databricks, and Stripe among others. Vince invests across all stages and currently sits on the board of Airtable, Benchling, Console, Isomorphic, Lattice and Rogo. Prior to joining Thrive, Vince was an investor at Tiger Global. We covered: Non-consensus investing Writing billion dollar checks Buying Carvana at the bottom The value of compounding What matters most to Thrive --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:50) The evolution of Thrive (4:22) Instagram, Github, and Stripe (7:57) Qualitative, then quantitative (9:39) Writing massive checks (16:48) Winning strategies in venture (25:58) Buying Carvana at the bottom (32:50) Managing conflicts (36:13) AI’s impact on the market (42:25) East meets West Coast investors (45:19) Vertical specific workspaces (49:53) Scale and timing of robotics (51:31) OpenAI vs everything else (55:59) What matters most for Thrive --- More on Vince: https://x.com/vhankes https://www.linkedin.com/in/vincent-hankes/ More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: [email protected] --- This episode is presented for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice or an offer to sell, or a solicitation of an offer to buy, any securities. The discussion herein similarly does not constitute a solicitation with respect to any Thrive fund or an offer of investment advisory services. Investments identified herein are discussed solely for illustrative purposes and there is no guarantee that current or future investments of Thrive will be similar in quality or kind.

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• Uncapped #26 | Ali Rowghani

  Ali Rowghani is the founder of First Harmonic, a go-to-market program purpose-built for seed stage founders. Ali has had a long, distinguished career in tech. He worked with Steve Jobs and Ed Catmull at Pixar for nine years holding various roles including CFO and SVP of Strategic Planning, took Twitter from $0 in revenue through IPO as the CFO and COO, and most recently was the founding Managing Director of Y Combinator’s Continuity Fund where he led investments in DoorDash, Stripe, Coinbase, Zapier, among many others. Ali has also invested as an early angel in several breakout AI companies, including Mercor, Decagon, and Cursor. He’s seen the arc from inception to IPO many times and recognizes what separates winning startups from the pack. We covered: Pixar’s golden age Exceptional leadership Working with Steve Jobs Twitter going from $0 to $2B Operating beliefs in venture --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:53) Pixar’s miracle factory (6:28) Working with Steve Jobs (13:23) Ed Catmull and John Lasseter (16:28) Crazy years at Twitter (18:30) Getting monetization right (19:56) Learnings in hindsight (22:37) Elon Musk observations (24:03) Beginning of YC’s growth fund (29:31) Between pre and post traction (33:23) The second job of a CEO (34:35) First Harmonic (35:31) Beliefs in venture --- More on Ali: https://www.firstharmonic.com/ https://x.com/ROWGHANI More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- Link to Ali’s referenced blog post: https://www.ycombinator.com/library/3k-the-second-job-of-a-startup-ceo --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: [email protected]

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• Uncapped #25 | Lulu Cheng Meservey

  Lulu Cheng Meservey is the leading voice in the new age of PR and comms and is the founder of Rostra, an advisory firm helping founders go direct. Lulu has been a trusted voice for founders like Palmer Luckey at Anduril, Eric Glyman at Ramp, and Brian Armstrong at Coinbase. She previously ran corporate affairs and communications for Activision Blizzard and was the head of comms for Substack. Lulu writes an acclaimed newsletter called Flack, where she proposes her new playbook for communications and shares tactical advice for how to help win over the people who matter, without wasting time or inducing cringe. A few memorable moments: Aura is code for good communicator People like to have assumptions for the level of celebration you deserve The correct version of this company has him in it Words that mean the same thing aren’t perceived the same way Comms is the last thing to be uniquely human --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:50) Comms having a moment (3:43) Breaking through the noise (6:30) What makes a great story (9:58) Creating story arcs (17:29) Flow and stock (20:29) All press is good press (23:25) Leaning into authenticity (28:10) Word choice (35:09) Impact on recruiting (42:48) The business of comms (45:48) Comms predictions (48:18) Tech & media relationship --- More on Lulu: https://x.com/lulumeservey https://www.getflack.com/ https://rostra.co/ More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: [email protected]

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• Uncapped #24 | Balaji Srinivasan

  Balaji Srinivasan is an angel investor, tech founder, and WSJ bestselling author of The Network State. He is currently the founder of The Network School, a frontier community for techno-optimists. Formerly the CTO of Coinbase and General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, he is an early investor in many successful tech companies, including Anduril, Perplexity, OpenSea, Alchemy, StarkWare, Dapper Labs, Benchling, and Polymarket to name a few. Balaji also led the launch of USDC as Coinbase CTO, and was an early investor in many important crypto protocols including Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Solana among others. In this conversation, we discuss the evolving political landscape, emphasizing the disruptions caused by technology and the internet. Balaji outlines the four factions in the current political climate: the internet, Blue America, Red America, and China. We also explore the implications of tariffs, the rise of AI, and the future of network states. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:19) The Network School (1:24) Mapping the political landscape (3:38) Tech and the media (6:19) China and the trade war (11:32) Tariffs and economic strategy (24:30) Global economic shifts (27:41) Rise of the global anti-woke coalition (31:11) Unholy alliances that might form (37:18) Class warfare instead of race warfare (41:21) The answer may not be in America (46:56) The Network State --- More on Balaji: https://x.com/balajis https://ns.com/ https://thenetworkstate.com/ More on Jack: https://x.com/jaltma https://www.altcap.com/ --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: [email protected]

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• Uncapped #23 | Martin Casado from a16z

  Martin Casado is a general partner at a16z, where he leads the firm’s $1.25 billion infrastructure practice. Martin has led investments in Cursor, dbt Labs, and Fivetran to name a few. Prior to joining a16z in 2016, he was the co-founder and CTO of Nicira, which was acquired by VMware for $1.26B. While at VMware, Martin was the SVP and GM of network and security, which he scaled to a $600 million run-rate business. Martin started his career at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory where he worked on large-scale simulations for the Department of Defense before moving over to work with the intelligence community on networking and cybersecurity. We covered: What necessitates specialization The conflicts dynamic Infra vs app companies Importance of open source The only sin in VC --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:27) Importance of media for VC (3:50) Evolution of a16z (7:00) Specialization (10:32) Value of distribution (13:16) Staying power in infra (19:49) The conflicts dynamic (26:32) State of play in AI (30:48) The future of coding (34:58) Significance of open source (39:48) Marc Andreessen’s leadership (44:02) The only sin in VC (48:37) Scaling a lot of board seats --- More on Martin: https://a16z.com/author/martin-casado/ https://x.com/martin_casado More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: [email protected]

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