The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Mike Mignano is a General Partner at Union Square Ventures, one of the most iconic venture firms in the world, whose investments include Coinbase, Stripe, Etsy, Twilio, Cloudflare. Before joining USV, Mike was a Partner at Lightspeed, where he backed breakout AI companies including Granola and Suno. Prior to investing, he co-founded Anchor, acquired by Spotify. 
AGENDA:
00:00 Is Fear of Failure the Secret Weapon Behind Great Founders?
07:20 Why Leave Lightspeed for USV — and Is Thesis-Driven Venture Still Alive?
09:50 Is the Real AI Money Still in Infrastructure, or Are Apps Finally About to Explode?
13:00 Who Wins the AI Model War: OpenAI, Anthropic, Open Source, or the "Rebel Alliance"?
19:00 Are We About to Hand Our Entire Lives Over to AI Agents?
21:00 Can Anthropic Keep Growing Like This — or Will Token Spend Break the Model?
26:00 Can AI Routing Become a $50BN Company, or Is It Just a Commodity Pipe?
30:00 Will the AI Energy Crisis Create the Next Monster Venture Outcomes?
36:00 Can Startups Survive Microsoft, OpenAI, and the Brutal Power of Bundling?
45:00 Should VCs Ignore Price When Backing Generational Companies?
55:30 Is Traditional Media Dead — and Who Becomes the New Tech Kingmaker?

Clay Bavor is the Co-Founder of Sierra, one of the world's fastest-growing enterprise AI companies. Sierra is valued at approximately $15.8 billion, has raised more than $1.5BN from leading investors including Sequoia, Benchmark, Greenoaks, GV and Tiger Global, and today serves more than 40% of the Fortune 50. The company recently surpassed $150 ARR, making it one of the fastest-growing enterprise software businesses in history.
AGENDA:
00:00 – Why Frontier AI Demand Will Be Unlimited
08:00 – Open Models vs Frontier Models: Who Actually Wins?
17:00 – China's AI Advantage & The Distillation Debate
20:30 – Inside Sierra: The AI Agents Running the Entire Company
24:00 – The $100,000 Token Budget Every Engineer Will Soon Need
29:00 – Building AI for 40% of the Fortune 50
37:00 – Why Forward-Deployed Engineers Are the Future of Enterprise AI
43:00 – Sierra's Unusual Board Meetings & Billion-Dollar Company Playbook
48:00 – The Four Values Behind a $16B Startup: Craftsmanship, Intensity & Family
56:00 – Clay Bavor's Hiring Philosophy, AI-First Teams & What's Coming Next

AGENDA:
00:00 Coinbase Slashes AI Spend 50%—Is the AI Token Bubble Bursting?
12:55 Anthropic Warns Open Source Could Destroy the AI Business Model
18:10 Dario Escalates the AI War with China & Open-Source
22:00 Should the US Ban Chinese AI Models?
33:15 Microsoft's AI Strategy Is Breaking Down
38:00 Kalshi's $40B Valuation Signals a New Consumer Gold Rush
41:15 Has SpaceX Frozen the AI IPO Market?
43:20 Why Bending Spoons May Be the Smartest IPO of the Year
46:00 The $100B Opportunity to Buy Broken SaaS Companies
53:30 Which Software Companies Would Jason Buy Tomorrow?
1:04:30 The Great AI Talent War Is About to Get Worse
1:11:20 Every Company Is Becoming an AI Company—or Dying

KR Sridhar is the Founder and CEO of Bloom Energy, the distributed power company powering the AI revolution. Under his leadership, Bloom has grown to a market cap of approximately $93 billion, with revenue surpassing $2 billion as demand from AI data centres has surged. Over the last 12–18 months, Bloom has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI infrastructure boom. It's also the largest position in Leo Aschenbrenner's investment portfolio, making up around 16% of his fund.
AGENDA:
00:00 Why Failure Is Never an Option: The Mindset That Built a $90B Company
05:20 The 25-Year Bet: Why Bloom Never Doubted AI Would Need Its Technology
12:10 Andy Grove's Brutal Leadership Lesson That Changed Everything
18:40 AI Isn't a Bubble—It's a "Hockey Stick on a Hockey Stick"
25:30 Why Electricity, Not AI Models, Will Decide the Winners of the AI Race
34:20 The Radical Vision: Why Power Must Move to the Edge of the Grid
40:40 How Bloom Beat Everyone to Power Oracle's AI Data Centres in Just 55 Days
50:00 The Future of Cities, Energy Sovereignty & Why AI Will Democratise Power
52:10 Parenting, Purpose & the One Belief KR Thinks Everyone Gets Wrong About AI
55:00 The Next 10 Years: Why AI Could Create Global Energy Abundance

Paul Erlanger is the Co-Founder and CEO of FOMO, the social-first trading platform building the future of on-chain investing. Since founding the company in 2025, Paul has raised approximately $94 million, including a $17 million Series A led by Benchmark and a $75 million Series B led by Index Ventures with participation from USV, valuing the company at $550 million. Today, FOMO has grown to 600,000 users, processed over $4 billion in trading volume, and is adding thousands of new users every day—all with a team of just 17 people.
AGENDA: 
00:00 – Building a $550M Company with No Salaries, No Managers & No 1:1s
03:58 – Why Traditional Brokerages Will Lose in the Next 10 Years
09:30 – Why Robinhood's Strategy Is Wrong; The End of the Financial Super App? 
13:05 – "Markets Aren't a Casino" — The Case for Retail Investors Fighting Wall Street
16:45 – The Radical Hiring Bet: Giving Employees Founder-Level Equity
23:40 – AI Kills Org Charts: Why FOMO Will Stay Under 25 Employees
29:30 – Why Taste Beats AI & The Biggest Mistake Most Consumer Startups Make
33:10 – The Social Media Playbook That Every Startup Gets Wrong
39:20 – How Benchmark, Index & USV Won the Deal—and the VC Advice Founders Need to Hear
46:10 – The Future of Investing: Social Trading, Creator Economies & Financial Networks