Uncapped with Jack Altman

• 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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• Uncapped #22 | Greg Rosen from BoxGroup

  Greg Rosen is a Partner at BoxGroup. Greg was the first hire at BoxGroup outside of the founders, David Tisch and Adam Rothenberg. After moving to the West Coast to work with Benchmark and Bedrock, Greg rejoined BoxGroup and currently invests out of their San Francisco office. An engineer by training, Greg built iOS games in high school before dropping out of college at 19 to join Jim Pallotta's venture fund in New York City. BoxGroup is an NYC-based seed stage venture capital firm that has invested in over 500 seed-stage startups over the last 15 years, including Plaid, Ro, Ramp, Clay, Scopely, Warp, Cursor, PillPack, Amplitude, Flatiron Health, Stripe, Warby Parker, Harry’s, Oscar, Flexport, Classpass, Vine, GroupMe, Airtable and more. We covered: Being collaborative at scale Avoiding adverse selection Getting to a yes instead of no Venture calendar audits Running the right strategy --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:47) The collaborative venture model (5:47) Adverse selection vs coverage (11:59) How to see a ton of companies (14:44) Getting to founders early (21:10) Helping teammates get to a yes (23:25) Why there aren’t more BoxGroups (27:57) What’s learnable about picking (31:46) Calendar auditing (34:39) Focusing on where you’re outlier (37:25) Depth vs breadth of network (41:03) The future of code (44:00) Brain computers --- More on Greg: https://www.boxgroup.com/ https://x.com/grosen More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: [email protected]

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• Uncapped #21 | Brian Armstrong from Coinbase

  Brian Armstrong is the co-founder and CEO of Coinbase, a leading cryptocurrency company that provides exchange, brokerage, and custody services to 100M+ verified users in over 100 countries. Founded in 2012, Coinbase went public in 2021 on the NASDAQ under the ticker COIN and as of August 2025 has a market cap of $83 billion. Brian is also the co-founder of New Limit, a longevity biotech company on a mission to significantly extend human lifespan that recently raised a $130M Series B led by Kleiner Perkins and angels including John and Patrick Collison, Elad Gil, and Joshua Kushner, among others. We covered: Working with the government When to jump to the hot new thing Choosing what frontiers to prioritize The inner game of being contrarian --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:26) Becoming the everything chain (4:20) Story behind the GENIUS Act (5:33) Working with regulators (10:45) The future of crypto and the government (17:10) When to jump to the hot new thing (23:03) Choosing what frontiers to prioritize (29:59) Brain-computer interface tech (34:48) Inside the mind of a contrarian (43:52) Creating a sustainable lifestyle --- More on Brian: https://www.coinbase.com/ https://www.newlimit.com/ https://x.com/brian_armstrong More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: [email protected]

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• Uncapped #20 | Guillermo Rauch from Vercel

  Guillermo Rauch is the founder and CEO of Vercel, creators of v0 which is one of the most popular AI app building tools that’s helping power the online presence of companies like Porsche, Under Armour and Nintendo. In May 2024, Vercel completed a $250M Series E at a $3.25B valuation and was recently named to the Forbes Cloud 100. Originally from Argentina, Guillermo became a self-taught developer at the age of ten, and has been a passionate contributor to the open-source community ever since. He is the mind behind foundational JavaScript frameworks like Next.js and Socket.io, and has built tools that power some of the internet’s most innovative products, including Midjourney, Grok, and Notion. We covered: Vercel’s early insights State of affairs for codegen Implications of AI for developers Skills of the future Product building taste --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:28) Prequel to Vercel (4:32) Vercel’s early insights (8:13) State of affairs for codegen (17:18) Codegen evolution (19:37) Perceived vs realized productivity (27:53) Fault attribution (31:56) Internet being a house of cards (35:33) When codegen will be exceptional (40:18) What kids should be learning (47:42) Chasing the dragon vs listening to customers (50:46) The next internet (51:58) Reverse engineering success (55:50) Making it work as a dad and CEO (58:14) Taste in building product --- More on Guillermo: https://vercel.com/ https://x.com/rauchg More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: [email protected]

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• Uncapped #19 | Dwarkesh Patel

  In his early twenties, Dwarkesh Patel has become one of the leading podcasters with nearly 1 million YouTube subscribers excited to consume his deeply-researched interviews. Dwarkesh has caught the attention of influential figures such as Jeff Bezos, Noah Smith, Nat Friedman, and Tyler Cohen, who have all praised his interviews – the latter describing him as “highly rated but still underrated.” In 2024, he was included in TIME’s 100 most influential people in AI alongside the likes of Ilya Sutskever, Andrew Yao, and Albert Gu. Dwarkesh’s interviews span far beyond AI, his North Star being his curiosity and preparation.  We covered: Digital minds leading huge companies AI making us smarter vs rotting our brain His approach to learning as his job Best in class interview preparation  --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:23) Skepticism around the timing of AGI (6:07) Confidence in AI researchers (7:17) Future utility of superintelligence (11:23) Impact of scaling digital minds (15:41) Driven by increases in compute (17:17) Is AI making us smarter? (21:03) AI’s impact on biology (23:54) Interests outside of AI (26:18) Chronology of his interests (31:10) His approach to learning (33:43) New thinking on human evolution (40:44) Learning and the media (45:52) Podcasting success (48:53) Best in class interview preparation --- More on Dwarkesh: https://www.dwarkesh.com/ https://x.com/dwarkesh_sp More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: [email protected]

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