Nudge: engineering the brain

Thrive Capital Partner Philip Clark joins Sourcery to break down how one of the most concentrated and influential firms in tech evaluates founders, builds conviction, and partners with companies that reshape the world.

“Josh always had a line to me when I joined Thrive, which is that the people who win deals are the ones who want to win them most.”

In this episode, we go deep on Thrive’s investments in OpenAI, Cursor, Wiz, Nudge, Physical Intelligence, and why Philip believes we’re entering a golden era for hardware — powered by cheaper sensors, software intelligence, and a new generation of engineers trained at SpaceX, Anduril, and Neuralink.

Philip tells the inside story of:

Seeing an early demo of OpenAI’s GPT-4 before launch

Why Thrive flew into an active war zone to close the Wiz deal

Cursor’s explosive growth from a small pivot to a multi-hundred-million ARR product

How Nudge is engineering the human brain using ultrasound

Why hardware’s barriers are falling and why the biggest companies of the next decade may be physical

If you want to understand the future of AI, hardware, and the next generation of “counterfactual companies,” this is the episode.

Philip Clark: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-clark-883a41126/

Molly O’Shea: ⁠https://x.com/MollySOShea⁠

Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryvc

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(00:00) Who is Philip Clark? How he joined Thrive Capital

(02:45) From physics to investing: becoming a technologist–optimist

(04:00) How semiconductors led him to Thrive

(06:00) Deep dive: Mesh Optical & the data center interconnect opportunity

(07:45) Inside Cursor’s explosive growth and why AI is “speed chess”

(09:15) How Philip first met Cursor’s founders during a pivot

(11:30) Path to partner & Thrive’s “full-stack investor” model

(13:45) The Wiz story: flying into an active war zone

(17:15) Why Wiz closed six-figure deals in weeks — the rare “fast + big” enterprise combo

(19:30) Why hardware is back: sensors, software, and SpaceX-trained talent

(21:45) The rise of Nudge and engineering the human brain

(26:30) Neuralink & Nudge: read to stimulate

(31:15) Why Thrive concentrates instead of “spray and pray”

(36:00) Inside OpenAI: seeing GPT-4 before launch

(40:45) What comes after SaaS — and the companies unlocked by AI