This Week in Startups

1:03 Jason intros Phil Libin from LAUNCH Scale 2019 1:51 Phil Libin on "The State Machine that Answers All Growth Questions" 32:40 Jason joins Phil on stage for Q&A 39:56 Jason intros Phil (NFX), Rebecca (Canvas Ventures) & Dave (Freestyle Capital) 41:34 Transitioning from founder to VC 44:08 How to let a founder know when they are headed down the wrong path 47:42 At what stage does a founder have to change their mindset? 49:49 Dave Samuel on Airtable CEO Howie Liu not taking his advice and succeeding anyway 52:21 How Rebecca Lynn recruited current LendingClub CEO Scott Sanborn in the early days 55:39 Should startups still relocate to the Bay Area under any circumstances? 1:03:40 How are VCs dealing with the influx in the number of startups over the past 10 years? 1:13:23 LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk: Lever CTO Nate Smith

0:48 Jason intros Rahul Vohra 3:21 Rahul gives a talk on building a "Product-Market Fit Engine" 29:42 Rahul takes questions from the LAUNCH Scale audience 37:28 Jason intros the "Future of Angel Investing" panelists: Ben Ling (Bling Capital), Clara Brenner (Urban Innovation Fund) & Jeff Clavier (Uncork Capital) 38:54 Has Silicon Valley reached peak entitlement? 41:44 Is "too much $ chasing too few companies" the new normal in VC 45:47 How important is price & valuation in decision making? 49:10 Importance of early revenue & strong board governance 52:28 How many of their biggest hits had multiple revenue models? 58:00 What is "venture-scale" in terms of growth rate? 1:02:40 How to train new associates to understand the importance of revenue quality? 1:09:13 LAUNCH Scale Partner Talk featuring Help Scout's VP of Sales Tim Thyne

0:50 Jason intros Tim Junio 1:44 Tim explains what Expanse does and how "attack surface inventory" is the first step in their cybersecurity platform 5:20 Tim explains the Dyn cyber attack 13:20 How many Fortune 500 companies have been blackmailed via cyber attack? 19:32 "White-hat" hackers impact on the cybersecurity industry 23:12 Human-made passwords are the weakest link 29:09 History of Russian interference 33:16 Why Gmail is good for cybersecurity 35:11 Tim's experience at the CIA 38:29 What worries Tim about potential election manipulation 45:38 Chinese infiltration via apps/tech companies 49:16 Christian Bale's rogue move was dangerous 51:17 Should Chinese-made routers be allowed in America? 56:16 Chances Alexa, Siri or Google Assistant have been compromised? 1:02:20 Is there foreign infiltration in major tech companies? 1:08:29 Jason & Tim go over the Snowden situation 1:17:49 How are government intelligence employees trained to avoid being compromised by foreign agents? 1:23:45 Working with Peter Thiel

0:41 Jason intros the #StartupTuneup with Urban-X companies 2:33 David Rodriguez pitches Food for All: food marketplace to reduce waste & help restaurants sell unused food 12:43 Jim Selevan pitches Pi-Lit: innovating transportation thru a wireless lamp system 26:33 Caroline Hansen pitches Hubbster: providing easy access to outdoor games & gear 41:24 Patrick O'Connor pitches 3AM Innovations: safety software for firefighters 50:52 Michael Lee pitches Evolve Energy: SaaS product that helps consumers save on energy costs thru AI 1:02:51 Urban Us Co-Founder & Partner Stonly Baptiste joins Jason to discuss the companies

1:45 Zander’s take on the recent volatility in the public markets 3:38 What are the lessons learned from the WeWork disaster in terms of corporate governance? 6:09 Importance of diversity on BoD 10:18 Where does WeWork go from here, and how will the situation resolve? 12:35 Why Venture investing is so skewed towards growth, and why the best investors focus on gross profitability 14:41 What is SurveyMonkey’s current business, and why did they go into Enterprise SaaS? 19:20 How listening to customers & employees drives growth 23:33 How Dave Goldberg discovered SurveyMonkey and turned it into the company it is today 25:47 How Zander wound up as CEO after Dave’s passing 28:51 Zander’s thoughts on a Direct Listing as opposed to an IPO 30:42 Getting Serena Williams on the Board of Directors at SurveyMonkey 35:12 Motivating & hiring Gen Z & Millennial employees 37:45 Yosiat from Odoo on integration enabling scalability

0:52 Jason intros Culture Amp's Didier Elzinga 2:44 How Didier's prior career in Visual Effects led him to start Culture Amp 8:24 Issues with yearly performance evaluations 14:15 Did Silicon Valley take culture too far? 17:35 What defines good culture? 24:24 Generational differences in workplace culture 28:30 How should companies view the gig economy in terms of culture and compensation? 37:12 How should compensation work in this era? 43:20 Didier demos Culture Amp 58:45 Jason gives Sir Charles positive/negative feedback 1:07:20 "Buying" culture and anti-fragility

0:51 Jason intros Aileen Lee 1:36 Aileen on her time at MIT, early bias against women in math 5:56 What brought Aileen to San Francisco & working at GAP in the early days of the Internet 9:40 Aileen on working for Mary Meeker & what makes her special 10:25 “All companies that leverage technology are not the same.” 13:10 What made WeWork attractive to investors in the early days? 17:54 How the market is skewed to reward growth 22:35 Thoughts on SoftBank increasing valuations 28:24 How Aileen got involved with Dollar Shave Club 31:07 Jason’s experience with Dollar Shave Club 32:07 “Crushing it” culture in tech 35:12 Aileen’s history at Kleiner Perkins 36:27 Being a woman in VC in the 2000s 41:12 Starting Cowboy Ventures 43:46 Diversity in tech 48:38 What are they working on at All Raise?

0:51 Jason intros Upgrade CEO Renaud Laplanche 2:07 Renaud goes over the idea of his previous startup, LendingClub, and taking it public 9:57 What happened at LendingClub after the IPO? 11:18 What is Upgrade? How did it grow out of LendingClub? 12:40 Are credit scores an outdated metric? 14:11 What is the Upgrade Card? 15:30 Are modern credit card companies sinister in their approach? 24:54 Renaud's thoughts on Crypto 27:40 Where does Upgrade's lending capital come from? 31:22 Are we approaching a downturn after an unprecedented period of growth? 37:28 What goes into a great credit score 42:50 What has changed in startups since Renaud started his first company in 2000? 51:25 What keeps Renaud going after two successful exits as a founder?

1:00 Want to work at LAUNCH? gettheseat.com 2:28 Jason intros StockX's Josh Luber 3:14 When did the sneaker crazy start? 6:37 What is StockX? 9:19 What should Jason wear courtside? And why not Kawhi's? 14:13 Most $ Josh has spent on pair of sneakers? What were they? 18:15 What is StockX's take on a standard transaction? 18:44 Meeting Co-founder & Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert 19:58 Attracting Mark Wahlberg, Eminem, etc. as investors 22:55 Attracting SV firms vs. attracting famous investors? 29:39 What was Josh's background before StockX? 34:22 Finding investors who understood his space 36:36 How do IPO's (Initial Product Offerings) come into play on StockX? 41:35 StockX's future priorities 42:03 Value of authentication 48:37 Selling on StockX

1:00 Jason intros #AskJason and today's questions 1:47 How to differentiate a great founder from an okay one? - Darius 7:40 Dealing with the lack of updates as a syndicate Angel Investor? - Said 15:54 Bomani calls in and asks Jason about raising through crowdfunding 22:20 What will the new ideal makeup of a founder be after recent events (WeWork, JUUL, etc.)? - Patty 28:29 Peter calls in and asks Jason how Angel Investing changed since "Angel" was released 44:43 Alexandra calls in and asks Jason how to stand out in a slow-to-adapt market