Innovative Business Models: The Rise of Hardware-Enabled SaaS

Larry Cheng, co-founder and managing partner at Volition Capital, joins us to explore why capital efficiency is more important than ever for founders. He explains how capital discipline can coexist with high growth, shares lessons from backing Chewy early, and breaks down why the best companies know how to build without overspending.

We also dig into the resurgence of CapEx in frontier tech. Larry shares how Volition is thinking about hardware-enabled SaaS, and offers a framework for evaluating return on capital — whether you're acquiring users, building hardware, or rolling up businesses.

We also covered Circle’s explosive IPO, the Rippling–Deel legal battle, Alpha School’s AI-powered academic results, and Anthropic’s appointment of a national security advisor to its board.