Uncapped with Jack Altman

Episódios

• Uncapped #52 | Mike Volpi from Hanabi Capital 10.06.2026 56min

  Mike Volpi is a General Partner at Hanabi Capital, with a background that spans senior operating roles and nearly two decades of investing. Mike currently sits on the boards of several innovative companies, including Scale AI, ClickHouse, Ferrari, and Confluent, where he is known as a thoughtful sounding board and a steady presence through the highs and lows of startup life. Mike is a retired partner at Index Ventures, where he led investments in category-defining companies across AI, software, and infrastructure. Earlier in his career, he held leadership roles at Cisco, including as Chief Strategy Officer and SVP/GM of Cisco’s routing business, giving him firsthand experience in building products and teams at scale. We discussed what it takes to build a great venture firm in the AI era, why many of venture’s traditional rules are breaking down, and how AI is reshaping software, investing, and company building. We also explored the future of frontier AI labs, robotics, defense tech, and the mindset founders and investors need to adapt to a rapidly changing world. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:39) Building a venture firm for AI (4:02) Designing Hanabi (5:52) Why stage matters less (9:38) Building a venture brand (13:58) The role of board seats (17:06) Attributes of enduring firms (20:44) The future of AI labs (23:14) Open-source and neolabs (32:49) The compute race (36:51) The future of software (45:49) Investing in defense (47:50) From operator to investor (50:35) Thriving founders today --- Links: https://x.com/mavolpi https://www.hanabi.com/ https://x.com/jaltma https://uncappedpod.com/ --- friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #51 | Joe Lonsdale from 8VC 27.05.2026 43min

  Joe Lonsdale is the Founder and Managing Partner at 8VC, an early-stage venture capital firm managing over $6 billion in capital. In 2003, he founded Palantir (NASDAQ:PLTR), a global software company known for its work supporting US and its allies’ defense and intelligence. Since then, he has founded over a dozen prominent companies, including Addepar, a wealth management platform helping investors manage over $7 trillion, and OpenGov, the leading cloud software provider for local governments which recently sold for $1.8 billion. Joe was an early investor in Anduril, Oculus (acq. FB), Guardant Health (NASDAQ:GH), Oscar (NYSE:OSCR), Illumio, Wish (NASDAQ:WISH), JoyTunes, Blend (NYSE:BLND), Flexport, Joby Aviation (NYSE:JOBY), Orca Bio, Qualia, Synthego, RelateIQ (acq. CRM), Yugabyte, among many others. We discussed what it takes to keep building after success, why AI is accelerating entire industries, and how it could reshape productivity, healthcare, defense, and the economy. Joe also shared his views on investing in hard problems, rebuilding trust in technology, and where America needs to adapt to win in the AI era. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:32) Why Joe keeps building (3:53) AI being contrarian and right (5:39) What Palantir got right (6:53) Pulling forward innovation (9:32) AI vs social media (12:23) Making AI work for America (18:03) Department of War debate (21:16) Betting on defense (26:51) Robotics, bio, and energy (32:16) Investing in the AI era (35:38) Peptides opportunity (38:35) Texas vs California (40:12) Political correctness --- Links: https://x.com/JTLonsdale https://x.com/jaltma https://8vc.com/ https://uncappedpod.com/ --- friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #50 | Tobi Lütke from Shopify 20.05.2026 58min

  Tobi Lütke is the co-founder of Shopify, where he has served as the company's CEO since 2008. Under his leadership, Shopify grew from an online snowboard shop in Ottawa, Canada in 2004 to the world's leading e-commerce platform, powering over 4 million merchants in more than 175 countries. The company went public in 2015 at a $1.27 billion valuation and has since grown to a market cap exceeding $100 billion. As a programmer Tobi has served on the core team of the Ruby on Rails framework and has created many popular open source libraries such as the Typo weblog engine, Liquid and Active Merchant. We discussed building Shopify over more than 20 years, what it takes to sustain a life’s work, and why founder-led companies can move faster through major technological shifts. We also talked about how AI is reshaping software, entrepreneurship, and team building. Along the way, Tobi shared his views on originality, product craftsmanship, the future of work, and why he believes AI will create far more opportunity than scarcity. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:49) A problem worth solving (5:58) Building products people love (10:14) Why originality matters (11:47) Conformity in Silicon Valley (15:47) Founder-led companies (18:44) Shopify’s AI transition (23:52) Building with urgency (26:52) AI for small businesses (35:18) Raising the standard of living (41:11) Predicting the future with AI (48:14) Changing perception on talent (55:34) Reading and curiosity --- Links: https://x.com/tobi https://x.com/jaltma https://www.shopify.com/ https://uncappedpod.com/ --- friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #49 | Kevin Hartz & Bennett Siegel from A* 12.05.2026 37min

  Kevin Hartz and Bennett Siegel are co-founders and GPs at A*, a five year old early-stage venture capital firm with $1B in AUM. A* has invested in companies like Notion, Cape, Whop, Paraform, Simile, Krea, Mercor, Watney Robotics, Andera and others. Kevin is also the co-founder of Eventbrite (NYSE: EB) and co-founder and board member of Xoom, an online money transfer service that IPO’d in 2013 and later acquired by PayPal for $1.1B. Notable investments, primarily at the seed/early stages, include PayPal, Airbnb, Pinterest, Reddit, Anduril, and Palantir among others. Bennett was previously a partner at Coatue building out their venture capital business where he invested in earliest financing rounds for Ramp and Decagon, among other investments. We discussed how AI is reshaping venture capital, software, and startup building – from the rise of younger founders and AI researcher-led companies to the growing pressure on traditional software businesses. We also covered the changing economics of seed investing, the influx of mega funds into early-stage venture, AI rollups, robotics, and why this may become the biggest technology boom yet. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:25) The A* Capital story (1:16) Why big funds went into seed (7:50) The mother of all bubbles (10:46) Why founders are getting younger (13:00) Mapping talent, not markets (16:31) The rise of AI researcher founders (19:16) Why seed investing is so hard (22:54) Concentration and venture returns (27:34) The AI rollup craze (31:15) AI vs traditional software (33:15) Robotics and the future of AI (35:39) What’s next for A* Capital --- Links: https://x.com/kevinhartz https://x.com/BennettSiegel https://x.com/jaltma https://www.a-star.co/ https://uncappedpod.com/ --- friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #48 | Tarek Mansour from Kalshi 29.04.2026 47min

  Tarek Mansour is the co-founder and CEO of Kalshi. Kalshi is a regulated prediction market exchange valued at $22B in 2026 where people trade on the outcomes of real-world events – things like inflation prints, Fed decisions, elections, or weather events. Instead of betting against a house, users trade against each other in a market, and prices reflect the collective probability of an outcome happening. Before starting Kalshi, Tarek worked as a quantitative trader at Goldman Sachs as a structured credit and equities analyst and at Citadel as a global macro trader. During his time at these firms, he realized a common thread: a lot of trading stemmed from an opinion on a future event. We covered the idea behind prediction markets and how they offer a more direct way to trade on beliefs about the future. The conversation follows the long, difficult path to building a regulated exchange in the U.S., from early skepticism to ultimately winning a landmark legal battle. We also discuss how these markets can improve forecasting, enable new forms of hedging, and change how information gets priced. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:23) Kalshi’s genesis (5:05) Regulation-focused from inception (11:06) Suing the government (18:02) Gambling vs. financial markets (20:58) Defining insider trading (25:38) Incentive structure of the system (32:40) Investing vs. trading (35:31) Hedging use cases (41:38) Scaling a lean team (44:02) Defining Kalshi’s culture --- Links: https://x.com/jaltma https://x.com/mansourtarek_ https://kalshi.com/ https://uncappedpod.com/ --- friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #47 | Max Mullen from Instacart 16.04.2026 35min

  Max Mullen is the co-founder of Instacart and an active investor having invested in 100+ companies including Gumloop, Mercury, Owner among others. He also runs a founder community in San Francisco called Workshop. We discussed the full arc of building Instacart from a contrarian idea that investors rejected to a $10B consumer marketplace. Max highlighted the scrappy early days, marketplace product-market fit, and key inflection points like retailer partnerships and the Amazon–Whole Foods moment. We also explored what makes great consumer founders, why the best ideas look wrong at first, and how to build and scale in “hard mode” markets. Finally, the conversation touched on investing, decision-making frameworks, and what it takes to win in consumer over the long term. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:36) The inception of Instacart (4:55) Finding product market fit (7:20) Landing Trader Joe’s (11:04) Big levers for growth (13:36) Operationally complex businesses (14:55) Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods (17:50) COVID and Instacart’s IPO (20:02) Prioritizing profitability (23:21) Avoiding temptations (24:59) The future of Instacart (25:53) Investing in consumer (28:21) Irrationally optimistic founders (29:49) B2B vs consumer founders (30:35) How to work with investors (33:38) Building Workshop --- Links: https://x.com/Max https://x.com/jaltma https://maxmullen.com/ https://uncappedpod.com/ --- friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #46 | Brad Lightcap from OpenAI 01.04.2026 49min

  Brad Lightcap serves as OpenAI's COO, overseeing its business, operations, and strategic partnerships across Research, Applied AI, and go-to-market. He also manages the OpenAI Startup Fund. Previously, Brad was part of Y Combinator Continuity and led finance and operations initiatives at Dropbox. We discussed the shift from chat-based AI to agents that can take action, and what that means for software and the broader economy. We also covered how these systems are being built and deployed, how tools like Codex are changing how work gets done, and what this next phase of AI unlocks for startups and incumbents alike. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:39) The early days of OpenAI (3:47) A research centric culture (7:32) Post-ChatGPT chapters (11:54) Sci-Fi future or good software (15:26) AI’s impact on rural communities (18:57) Codex and coding of the future (24:04) Doing a lot of things at once (27:55) What VCs should invest in (35:43) The software sell off (38:23) Using Codex over ChatGPT (42:32) FDEs and Private Equity (44:53) Working with Sam --- Links: https://x.com/bradlightcap https://x.com/jaltma https://openai.com/ https://uncappedpod.com/ --- friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #45 | Ron Conway from SV Angel 25.03.2026 41min

  Ron Conway is the Founder and a Managing Partner of SV Angel. He has been an active angel investor since the mid-90s and has received wide recognition for his role in the tech ecosystem. He has been included on Vanity Fair’s 100 most influential people in the Information Age, awarded Best Angel at the TechCrunch Crunchies Awards, and has been named on Forbes Magazine's Midas list of top “deal-makers” since 2011. Prior to founding SV Angel, Ron was with National Semiconductor Corporation in marketing positions (1973-1979), Altos Computer Systems as a co-founder, President, and CEO (1979-1990), taking the company public on Nasdaq in 1982. Ron reflects on decades of investing, from semiconductors to AI, and what it really means to be an “all in” partner to founders. He shares how relationships compound into an unfair advantage, why the best investors show up at inflection points, and how being willing to fight, whether in boardrooms or Washington, can change outcomes. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (1:50) From semiconductors to AI (8:39) Two investments that changed everything (11:46) Nonpassive angel investing (14:57) Becoming a relationship broker (18:00) Building authentic relationships (24:48) Going deep with OpenAI and Airbnb (29:19) Fighting for founders (31:39) Remarkable returns at seed (33:20) The state wealth tax (37:17) Tech and politics --- Links: https://x.com/RonConway https://x.com/jaltma https://svangel.com/ https://uncappedpod.com/ --- friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #44 | Max Junestrand from Legora 12.03.2026 49min

  At 23, with no legal background, Max Junestrand co-founded Legora to transform how lawyers work. Legora recently (March 2026) raised $550 million at a $5.55 billion valuation in a Series D funding round to accelerate its expansion across the United States. Over the past year, Legora has grown from 40 to 400 team members across the globe and the platform supports tens of thousands of lawyers each day across 800 customers in more than 50 markets. Max shares the story of building Legora, what it really means to build AI-native software from day one, why legal work is uniquely suited for AI, and how a small team from Stockholm convinced some of the world’s largest law firms to change how they work. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:31) Legora's origin story (9:05) Building an AI-native company (18:16) No sacred cows, the models will be amazing (27:36) Winning pilots and global expansion (36:43) Starting in Europe (47:15) Stockholm culture and "blodsmak" --- Links: https://x.com/MaxJunestrand https://x.com/chetanp https://x.com/jaltma https://legora.com/ --- https://uncappedpod.com/ friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #43 | Garry Tan, Harj Taggar, and Jared Friedman from YC 03.03.2026 59min

  In this episode, the team behind Y Combinator reflects on what has — and hasn’t — changed since the early days of YC, and how AI is reshaping what it means to be a founder. They discuss how they evaluate builders now, why execution still matters more than competition, and what YC is prioritizing as the startup landscape evolves. At its core, the mission remains the same: increase the number of great startups in the world. Garry Tan is president and CEO of Y Combinator and a group partner. He was a partner at Y Combinator from 2011 to 2015, where he built key parts of the YC experience for founders including Bookface and the Demo Day website. Garry is the co-founder of Initialized Capital and Posterous (YC S08), a blog platform acquired by Twitter, and prior to that, he was an early designer and engineering manager at Palantir. Harj Taggar is a Managing Partner at YC. Of the 1,000+ companies Harj has advised while at YC, 5 have gone public. He was previously founder and CEO of Triplebyte (YC S15) and Auctomatic (YC W07), which was acquired by Live Current Media in 2008. He first joined YC as a partner in 2010, leaving in 2014 to start Triplebyte and rejoining in 2020. Jared Friedman is a Managing Partner at YC. Jared has advised more than 20 YC unicorns while at YC. He was co-founder of Scribd, which was funded by Y Combinator in 2006 and grew to be one of the top 100 sites on the web. Jared previously worked at a pioneering AI company. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:18) The YC product (5:05) AI and the new builder (13:01) Pivots and upcoming trends (22:26) Making something people want (24:50) What’s in store for SaaS (33:02) Capital in the age of AI (36:28) The human capacity for desire (42:18) Building in America (44:29) Fixing San Francisco (47:58) Scaling YC --- Links: https://x.com/snowmaker https://x.com/harjtaggar https://x.com/garrytan https://x.com/jaltma https://www.ycombinator.com/ https://uncappedpod.com/ --- friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #42 | Bret Taylor from Sierra 19.02.2026 1h

  Bret Taylor is the founder and CEO of Sierra, an AI agent company transforming customer service. Bret’s legendary career includes being CTO of Meta, co-CEO of Salesforce, chairman of the board at OpenAI, co-creating both Google Maps and the Like button, and founding three companies. We unpacked the so-called “SaaS-pocalypse” and what AI agents mean for the future of enterprise software. We talked through the shift from systems of record to autonomous agents, outcome-based pricing, platform transitions, Codex and the transformation of software engineering, and who is structurally positioned to win in the next era of AI. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:20) The SaaS-pocalypse and systems of record (12:34) Sierra's competitive landscape (17:05) Outcomes-based pricing (24:22) The rapid evolution of AI support technology (28:21) Young founders vs. experienced founders (34:12) Beyond support: The full customer lifecycle (38:47) Codex and the future of software engineering (51:49) OpenAI and advertising (54:59) How to run a board --- Links: https://x.com/btaylor https://x.com/jaltma https://uncappedpod.com/ --- Email: friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #41 | The Benchmark Partnership 04.02.2026 56min

  In this episode, the Benchmark partnership explains why they’ve resisted scale, eliminated residual economics, and built an equal partnership designed to endure. We talk about what that choice enables – for founders, for decision-making, and for practicing venture as a craft rather than a factory. Peter Fenton is the longest-serving full-time general partner at Benchmark. Over the last two decades, Peter led investments in Twitter, Yelp, Elastic, Docker, Zuora, and many others. More recent investments include Sierra, Ollama, ClickHouse, and Airtable. Peter has been on the Forbes Midas list 18 years in a row. Eric Vishria is a general partner at Benchmark. Eric led investments in Confluent and Amplitude, both of which IPO’ed in 2021. He is also an investor and board member at Cerebras Systems, Benchling, Contentful, among others. Most recent investments include Fireworks, Quilter, and Greptile. Before joining Benchmark, Eric was the co-founder and CEO of a social web browser company called Rockmelt, which was sold to Yahoo. Chetan Puttagunta is a general partner at Benchmark. Eric is an investor and actively involved with Elastic (which IPO’ed in 2018), Legora, Manus, LangChain, Airbyte, Cursor, Reducto, Numeral, and the list of great companies goes on. Noteworthy exits include MuleSoft, which was acquired for $6.5B by Salesforce and Acquia, which was acquired for $1B in 2019. Prior to Benchmark, Chetan was a general partner at NEA for seven years. Ev Randle is the newest general partner at Benchmark. Prior to joining the firm, Ev invested in Anthropic, Chainguard, Databricks, Flock Safety, and SpaceX, among others as a partner at Kleiner Perkins. Through his experience at Founders Fund and with personal capital, Ev also has invested in Rippling, Ramp, Wave, Faire, Figma, among others. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:18) Becoming more rare to stay small (4:58) Activities that degrade with scale (9:08) The principles of Benchmark (14:07) Contributing as much as you take out (18:37) Doing the right, hard-to-sell things (23:31) Benchmark’s relationship with founders (31:29) What makes a quality investor (36:15) Cultivating different tastes in founders (39:56) Spotting special people (46:06) Consensus vs non-consensus bets (47:50) Investing in founders, then AI (53:06) Founder centricity matters more than ever --- Links: https://x.com/peterfenton https://x.com/ericvishria https://x.com/chetanp https://x.com/EverettRandle https://x.com/jaltma --- https://uncappedpod.substack.com/ Email: friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #40 | Vinod Khosla and Keith Rabois from Khosla Ventures 21.01.2026 1h 5min

  Vinod Khosla and Keith Rabois are Managing Directors at Khosla Ventures. Vinod is an entrepreneur, investor and technologist. In 2004, Vinod formed Khosla Ventures to focus on both for-profit and social impact investments that have included OpenAI, Stripe, DoorDash, Commonwealth Fusion Systems and many more. Vinod previously co-founded Daisy Systems, the first significant computer-aided design system for electrical engineers, which led to an IPO. He later went on to co-found Sun Microsystems in 1982, serving as its first chairman and CEO. After joining Kleiner Perkins Caulfield and Byers (KPCB), Vinod incubated the idea for Juniper Networks to take on Cisco System’s dominance of the router market. Keith is also currently the CEO of OpenStore and led the first institutional investments in DoorDash, Affirm, and Faire, invested early in Stripe, and co-founded Opendoor. While a General Partner at Founders Fund, he led investments in Ramp, Trade Republic, and Aven, and before that made early personal investments in YouTube, Airbnb, Palantir, Lyft, Udemy, and Eventbrite. Keith started his career in leadership roles at PayPal and LinkedIn before becoming COO of Square. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:58) The working relationship (4:26) Pie chart on what’s discussed (7:11) Ethos of investors today vs yesterday (10:42) Comparing FF and KV (12:46) What makes a great founder (22:56) Alpha in today’s market (30:05) Themes within AI (38:23) AI companies built differently (46:23) Excitement outside of AI (53:12) Politically active on X (58:24) Evolution of political leanings --- More on Vinod: https://x.com/vkhosla https://www.khoslaventures.com/team/vinod-khosla More on Keith: https://x.com/rabois https://www.khoslaventures.com/team/keith-rabois More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #39 | Daniele Perito from depthfirst 14.01.2026 45min

  Daniele Perito is Co-founder and Executive Chairman of depthfirst, an AI-native security platform that understands your code, business logic, and infrastructure to find real vulnerabilities, slash false positives, and give developers actionable fixes in their workflow. Daniele is also Co-founder and Board Member of Faire, where he previously served as Chief Data Officer and helped build the company’s data, risk, and analytics foundations from the early days to a multi-billion dollar valuation. Before co-founding Faire, Daniele worked at Square and was on the founding team of Cash App, where he focused on security, fraud, and risk systems supporting products used by millions of merchants and consumers. We covered: Inception stories from Faire and Cash App The ultimate truth seeking machine Building superhuman attackers with AI Who wins over time: attackers vs defenders Why security feels like its own world --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:40) The founding Faire insight (4:34) Operational rigor of marketplace businesses (10:39) Starting a company now vs in 2017 (12:01) The inception story of Cash App (16:22) depthfirst’s mission (18:08) AI security landscape (26:10) Security is a fantasy world (31:15) Building superhuman attackers for defense (38:27) Roles of humans and AI in security (39:14) Platform vs pipeline businesses --- More on Daniele: https://depthfirst.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieleperito/ More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #38 | Ben Horowitz from a16z 09.01.2026 57min

  Ben Horowitz is a cofounder and general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, a venture capital firm that manages $60 billion in assets under management. He is also the author of the New York Times bestsellers, The Hard Thing About Hard Things and What You Do Is Who You Are. Prior to a16z, Ben was cofounder and CEO of Opsware (formerly Loudcloud), which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion in 2007. Earlier, he was vice president and general manager of America Online’s E-commerce Platform division, where he oversaw development of the company’s flagship Shop@AOL service. Ben also ran several product divisions at Netscape. Ben serves on the board of Anyscale, Databricks, Mayvenn, NationBuilder, Navan, and UnitedMasters. We covered: Marc and Ben’s relationship as co-founders Operating a venture firm like a CEO of a company Why scale is important and not for everyone The evolution of media --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:30) Marc and Ben’s relationship (6:10) Structuring the firm to attract great talent (10:28) Difference between execs and GPs (14:51) Firm-wide guiding principles (16:43) Scaling GPs vs small teams who concentrate (20:11) Why scale is so important in venture (23:45) What platform services work and don’t work (26:58) Ben’s view on board seats (34:56) The evolution of media (44:44) Laws of physics for fund sizes (48:28) Winning is more impactful than picking (52:15) Defending why venture doesn’t scale (55:00) Hiring ex founders and CEOs --- More on Ben: https://a16z.com/ https://a16z.simplecast.com/ https://x.com/bhorowitz More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #37 | Saam Motamedi from Greylock Partners 16.12.2025 1h 22min

  Saam Motamedi is a General Partner at Greylock Partners working with enterprise software entrepreneurs at the seed and early stages who are focused on new opportunities in intelligent applications, cybersecurity, AI, and data infrastructure. In 2019 at just 26 years old, Saam became the Greylock’s youngest General Partner in its 54-year history – a remarkable achievement at an institution that had backed Airbnb, AppDynamics, Coinbase, Discord, Figma, Instagram, LinkedIn, among others. Saam’s portfolio spans 14+ companies with collective valuations exceeding $10 billion. Abnormal Security, which Greylock incubated in its offices in 2018 with Saam as founding investor, grew into a multi-billion-dollar email security powerhouse. Cresta, where he led the Series A in 2019, became the leading generative AI platform for contact centers. Snorkel AI, Braintrust, Orb, and a portfolio of other infrastructure companies position Saam at the center of AI's business model transformation. We covered: Durable components to great firms Inside look at how Greylock operates Cracking the code on incubations Alpha in today’s venture strategies --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (1:32) Greylock turning 60 this year (4:11) What’s persisted since 1965 (8:59) Apprenticeship (11:34) What's durable in venture (16:29) Greylock’s ethos (19:33) Incentive misalignments (24:44) Breadth vs depth in venture (29:28) Managing the team on inputs (34:00) Why incubations are so hard (43:22) Finding alpha (52:38) Greylock’s approach to portfolio services (59:18) Assessing wild revenue ramps (1:08:10) Horizontal vs vertical SaaS (1:11:34) Friendships and work (1:16:26) Saam's biological age --- More on Saam: https://greylock.com/ https://x.com/saammotamedi More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #36 | Pat Grady & Alfred Lin from Sequoia 09.12.2025 1h 9min

  Pat Grady and Alfred Lin are partners at Sequoia and were recently named as the storied firm’s new co-stewards. Alfred joined the firm in 2010, where he has led major investments into category-defining companies like Airbnb, DoorDash, and Kalshi. Pat has been a partner at the firm for nearly 19 years and has led Sequoia’s growth-stage investing since 2015, backing companies like Snowflake, OpenAI, and Harvey. In this episode, we unpack how Sequoia actually works: their partnership model, how they pick outliers, and what stewardship means inside one of the most respected firms in venture capital. Some highlights: Consensus doesn’t matter, conviction does Freedom within frameworks: see, pick, win, help, harvest Mid-funnel decisions are the most important The two fears that lead to bad decisions To do this business well, you need courage --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (1:01) Initial mindset as stewards (4:30) The business of outliers (6:27) Managing the inputs in venture (12:11) Sourcing coverage goals (17:57) Seeing the right companies (22:36) Proprietary map of talent (24:39) The impact of great engineers (29:06) Picking winners with conviction (36:26) Coaching asymmetry into picking (43:16) Mentoring younger investors (46:45) Frameworks on picking (53:20) What it takes to win (58:32) How to onboard with a founder (1:02:59) Proudest board seats (1:06:12) 2026 in the new roles --- More on Pat & Alfred: https://sequoiacap.com/ https://x.com/gradypb https://x.com/Alfred_Lin More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #35 | Trae Stephens from Founders Fund 03.12.2025 52min

  Trae Stephens is a Partner at Founders Fund. He is also Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Anduril, a defense tech company focused on autonomous systems, and Co-founder of Sol, a next generation wearable e-reader. Previously, Trae was an early employee at Palantir Technologies, where he led teams focused on growth in the intelligence/defense space as well as international expansion. He was also an integral part of the product team, leading the design and strategy for new product offerings. Prior to Palantir, Trae worked as a computational linguist building enterprise solutions to Arabic/Persian name matching and data enrichment within the United States Intelligence community. He began his career working in the office of then Congressman Rob Portman and in the Political Affairs Office at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C. immediately following the installation of Hamid Karzai’s transitional government. We covered: Hard tech and the future of warfare AI morality and “good quests” How Anduril scales manufacturing Founders Fund’s investing philosophy Contrarianism and concentration The ethics of autonomy and national defense --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (0:35) Choosing good quests in the AI era (7:35) Ethics behind solving certain problems (11:29) Working with regulators (16:54) What’s left to prove at Anduril (18:32) Anduril, SpaceX, and Tesla at scale (22:30) The future of warfare (24:48) Juggling Anduril and Founders Fund (29:07) A system that rewards going deep (31:21) What’s made Founders Fund great (37:30) The king-making strategy in VC (40:26) Concentrating in the winners (43:55) Where there’s alpha in the market (47:22) Theological revival in traditional faith --- More on Trae: https://foundersfund.com/ https://x.com/traestephens More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #34 | Mel Williams from TrueBridge 25.11.2025 40min

  Mel Williams is a co-founder and Partner at TrueBridge Capital Partners, a fund of funds with $8 billion in AUM focused on venture capital. Since 2007, Mel’s team has backed firms like Thrive, Founders Fund, Sequoia, and Alt Capital, and powers the data behind the Forbes Midas List. Before TrueBridge, Mel co-founded UNC Management Company (UNCMC), where he worked closely with the President/CIO to manage over $2 billion of endowment capital for the University of North Carolina. We covered: Investing in frothy markets Doubling down on winners Seed vs multi-stage Picking managers --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (1:10) AI valuations and a frothy market (4:35) Long term market risks (7:18) Should VC funds keep getting bigger? (9:37) 10% of the market is the signal (14:08) Venture math debate (18:05) Characteristics of great investors (20:46) The case for seed stage firms (23:09) Picking managers (24:59) Big wins and big misses (30:12) It’s hard to kill a good brand (33:06) Building a concentrated portfolio (36:53) Advice to young LPs --- More on Mel: https://truebridgecapital.com/ https://truebridgecapital.com/team/mel-williams/ More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com
• Uncapped #33 | Vlad Tenev from Robinhood 20.11.2025 50min

  Vlad Tenev is the co-founder and CEO of Robinhood (NASDAQ: HOOD), which transformed financial services by introducing commission-free stock trading and democratizing access to the markets for millions of investors. As of Q3 2025, the company is doing $1.27 billion in revenue with 11 business lines each doing roughly $100 million. We discuss the evolution of online brokerage platforms from Schwab to E-Trade to now Robinhood. Vlad delves into the launch of Robinhood, the impact of the global financial crisis, and how mobile and high-frequency trading have transformed finance. The conversation explores the rise and success of prediction markets, the importance of engaging younger generations, and how AI is enhancing the future of trading. --- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (00:27) History of online brokers (4:15) The rise of Robinhood (9:15) Changing sentiment among generations (14:18) Incentive alignment with customers (18:47) The emergence of prediction markets (25:50) Economic value vs entertainment (28:26) Growing degree of risk taking (35:21) Tokenization and private markets (39:33) The impact of AI on Robinhood (43:35) What excites Vlad about AI (46:59) Reflections on being a founder --- More on Vlad: https://robinhood.com/us/en/ https://x.com/vladtenev More on Jack: https://www.altcap.com/ https://x.com/jaltma --- https://linktr.ee/uncappedpod Email: friends@uncappedpod.com