The Delphi Podcast

Episodi

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  Most Venture Funds Will End Badly | Michael Dempsey 19.08.2026 1h 32min

  Join José as he hosts another episode of the Emerging Manager series on the Delphi Podcast, sitting down with Michael Dempsey, managing partner of Compound. Michael makes the case that most venture funds being raised today are playing momentum games that won't survive contact with a real cycle, and explains why Compound has become known as one of the slowest-deploying seed funds in the US. They dive into the fallacy of founder legibility, why paying up at seed doesn't improve outcomes, ...
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  Steve McLaughlin Built a Multi-Billion-Dollar Investment Bank and Beat Wall Street at Its Own Game 12.08.2026 1h 16min

  In this episode of The Delphi Podcast, Tommy sits down with Steve McLaughlin, founder and CEO of FT Partners, to unpack how he left Goldman Sachs at 32 and built one of the most influential investment banks in fintech. Steve shares the story behind FT Partners’ early days, including how his team took a company that had received roughly $150 million offers and ultimately sold it for $550 million. He explains why FT goes deeper than traditional investment banks, how the firm has built decades-...
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  Building the SoftBank of Robotics | Andrew Kang 31.07.2026 1h 23min

  Join José as he hosts a special edition of the Emerging Manager series on the Delphi Podcast, sitting down with Andrew Kang, founder of RoboStrategy. After managing personal capital through Mechanism Capital across both public and venture markets, Andrew turned his focus entirely to the under appreciated robotics industry a space he identifies as being at a critical inflection point reminiscent of AI in 2022 or crypto in 2014. They dive deep into the underlying method behind finding a...
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  OpenAI is Making a MASSIVE Mistake 28.07.2026 1h 32min

  In this episode of The Delphi Podcast, Tommy sits down with Travis Good, co-founder of Ambient, to discuss why open-source AI may ultimately beat the closed labs and what that shift means for developers, businesses, and the broader AI economy. Travis explains how Ambient is building a decentralized marketplace for AI inference, matching demand with underutilized GPU capacity while verifying that users receive the exact model quality they paid for. They also explore the risks of building on c...
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  Identifying Generational Managers with Jordan Nel 14.07.2026 1h 19min

  Join José as he hosts the first episode of the Emerging Manager series, sitting down with Jordan from Nomads—the fund-of-funds arm of the legendary VC firm Hummingbird. Together, they break down what truly separates elite venture investors from the rest of the market and how small, nimble emerging managers can outmaneuver multi-billion dollar tech funds. They dive into the concept of "pre-consensus" versus non-consensus investing, the art of tracking down hidden talent pools, and the unique ...
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  Sandy Kory: The Founder Obsessed Investor Behind BillionToOne, BaseTen & Palantir 22.06.2026 1h 35min

  What makes a great founder? Sandy Kory has spent decades trying to answer that question. As the founder of Horizon, he's backed companies like Palantir, BillionToOne, Canva, BaseTen, and SendCutSend long before they became breakout successes. In this episode, Sandy shares the unconventional framework he uses to identify exceptional founders, why he ignores most pitch decks, why talent density matters more than almost anything else, and how he developed conviction in companies years before t...
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  Samed Düzçay: Accessing Institutional Yield Strategies at Tori Finance 05.05.2026 55min

  Join Yan Liberman and Can Gurel as they speak with Samed Düzçay, founder of Tori, a yield protocol bringing institutional-grade delta-neutral strategies on-chain. Samed shares his journey from mining Bitcoin as a child to building and exiting a successful SaaS company, eventually identifying a massive gap in the stablecoin yield market. They dive into the mechanics of the "carry trade," exploring how Tori captures spreads in emerging markets while hedging out local currency risk. Samed...
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  Logan Jastremski: Solana vs Hyperliquid - Who Wins The Global Exchange Race? 02.02.2026 1h 30min

  Join Tommy Shaughnessy as he speaks with Logan, Managing Partner of Frictionless Capital, about the high-stakes race to build a global blockchain-based financial system. Logan shares his updated thesis on why monolithic, high-throughput architectures like Solana are winning the battle for real revenue and trading dominance over modular designs.They dive deep into the "Global Exchange" vision, the physics of time-to-inclusion, and how innovations like Proprietary AMMs (PropAMMs) are redefining...
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  Clay Robbins: Building Colosseum, Solana’s Largest Hackathon & Accelerator with 80,000 Participants 19.01.2026 1h 8min

  Join Tommy Shaughnessy in San Francisco for the first podcast from the new Coliseum office. In this episode, Clay Robbins, Co-Founder of Coliseum, discusses how his team manages the world's largest online hackathons and why they chose to double down on the Solana ecosystem.They dive into the mechanics of sourcing 80,000 builders, the transition from remote to a massive in-person accelerator, and the shift from an infrastructure-focused crypto world to a new era of diverse consumer application...
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  Nic Carter: Quantum Threatens $600B of Bitcoin 09.01.2026 1h 6min

  Join Tommy Shaughnessy as he speaks with Nic Carter, partner at Castle Island Ventures, about his deep dive into the existential threat quantum computing poses to Bitcoin. After six months of intensive research and discussions with Nobel Prize-winning physicists, Nic breaks down why the "quantum threat" has moved from theoretical FUD to a material risk that the Bitcoin community is currently unprepared to face.They explore the "Q-Day" timeline, the vulnerability of Satoshi’s 2 million BTC, an...
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  Mike McCormick: AI Acceleration vs Risks, Funding Global Resilience, AGI scenarios, U.S. vs China 09.10.2025 1h 42min

  Join Tommy Shaughnessy as he speaks with Mike McCormick, founder of Halcyon, about the urgent intersection of AI acceleration and safety. Mike shares his path from venture capital to launching a hybrid nonprofit–fund model focused on securing advanced AI systems. They dive into mechanistic interpretability, global competition for AGI, and what a safe superintelligence future could look like. Can we build superintelligence safely? How do we balance innovation with existential risk? And what ha...
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  Connor Howe: Building the Onchain Execution Engine with Enso Network 26.09.2025 53min

  Join Ashwath Balakrishnan and Neel Daftary as they explore the future of DeFi infrastructure with Connor Howe, co-founder of Enso. After nine years of building in crypto, Connor has created what he calls "the shortcut to building on-chain applications" - a developer tool that abstracts away the complexity of integrating with hundreds of DeFi protocols. From powering Berachain's $3.1 billion launch to enabling developers to reduce build times from seven months to just days, Enso is positioning...
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  Austin Federa: From Solana Foundation to Double Zero's Fiber Revolution 25.09.2025 1h 15min

  Join Alex Golding as he sits down with Austin Federa, Co-founder of DoubleZero, to explore how they're building permissionless high-performance fiber infrastructure that could revolutionize blockchain performance. Austin shares the technical vision behind creating a parallel internet for distributed systems, starting with Solana validators as their initial market. DoubleZero: https://doublezero.xyz 🎯 Key Highlights ▸ The internet bottleneck: why high-performance blockchains are hittin...
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  Legion & Cookie3: Evolution of Onchain Fundraising 19.09.2025 1h 6min

  Join José Maria Macedo as he co-hosts with Matt O'Connor from Legion and Filip Wielanier from Cookie3 to explore "Attention Capital Markets" - revolutionizing token distribution by linking social influence with capital commitment. Fresh off Legion's funding from VanEck and Brevan Howard, discover how they're moving beyond airdrops to merit-based investing that rewards genuine community builders. Legion: https://legion.cc Cookie3: https://www.cookie3.com 🎯 Key Highlights ▸ Legion's fun...
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  Mike Dudas (6MV): Pump.Fun, One of the Greatest Seed Investments Ever 15.09.2025 56min

  Join Tommy Shaughnessy as he sits down with Mike Dudas, Managing Partner at 6th Man Ventures, to discuss one of the most successful seed investments in crypto history. Mike shares the inside story of backing Pump.Fun years before it became a cultural phenomenon, generating over $800 million in fees and reaching a $5.5 billion FDV. From cold DMs to billion-dollar outcomes, this conversation explores venture capital strategy, founder evaluation, and navigating the intersection of AI and crypto ...
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  Michael Egorov: Yield Basis - Bringing Real Yield to Bitcoin 10.09.2025 1h 12min

  Join José Macedo and Yan Liberman as they host Michael Egorov, co-founder of Curve Finance and one of DeFi's original pioneers. Michael introduces Yield Basis — his ambitious new protocol that aims to solve one of DeFi's biggest problems: impermanent loss. Learn how this innovation could finally unlock natural, sustainable yield on Bitcoin at scale, creating the long-sought "holy grail" of yield-bearing Bitcoin without the downsides of traditional AMM strategies. Curve Finance: www.curve.fi...
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  pump.fun's Sapijiju: First-Ever Discussion on Building the Future of Social Trading 08.09.2025 1h 6min

  Anil Lulla and Yan Liberman host Sapijiju, co-founder of Pump.fun. Sapijiju shares Pump.fun’s bigger vision: beyond meme coins, it’s aiming to be the most rewarding social platform, revolutionizing creator monetization, and building a $2B-backed financial ecosystem. Pump.fun: https://pump.fun 🎯 Key Highlights ▸ Pump.fun’s vision: TikTok + Robinhood + Twitch in one ▸ Streamers earning 100–300x more than on traditional platforms ▸ 9 failed products before finding product-market fit ▸ Wh...
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  José Macedo and Pondering Durian: The Birth of Delphi Intelligence 21.07.2025 57min

  Join Tommy Shaughnessy as he hosts Pondering Durian (Lead at Delphi Intelligence) and José Macedo (Co-Founder at Delphi Labs & Founding Partner at Delphi Ventures) to introduce Delphi Intelligence — Delphi’s new open research initiative focused on artificial intelligence. Learn why Delphi is going deep into frontier models, robotics, reinforcement learning, and the intersection of crypto and AI, and how this initiative aims to uncover transformative opportunities across emerging tech. D...
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  Dev.Fun: Leading AI Vibe Coding Platform on Solana with 20,000+ Applications Live 11.07.2025 54min

  Join Tommy Shaughnessy as he dives into the world of Dev.Fun with founders Devlord and Robi. Dev.Fun is revolutionizing app creation by enabling anyone — regardless of technical background — to build and launch applications using AI-powered vibe coding. Learn how the team is merging Web3, tokens, and consumer apps to create a decentralized ecosystem of user-generated tools, games, and communities. They cover technical architecture, distribution strategies, monetization paths, and why Solana i...
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  Harry Dewhirst: What If the Physical World Had an API? — 375ai, DePIN, and Real-Time Data for AI 17.06.2025 1h

  Join Can Gurel as he hosts Harry Dewhirst, co-founder and CEO of 375ai, to discuss their ambitious real-world application of DePIN. Learn how they're building a decentralized network of sensors to capture and monetize physical data at scale. 375ai: https://www.375.ai/ 🎯 Key Highlights ▸ Harry Dewhirst’s background in Web2/Web3 and his path to founding 375ai. ▸ How 375ai evolved from deploying third-party DePIN devices to building its own network, hardware, and token. ▸ Overview ...