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

Josh Browder is my favourite emerging manager. As the Founder of Browder Capital he has been the first check into unicorns like Micro1, Owner.com and Yuzu Health to name a few. He turned his Thiel Fellowship Grant of $100K into a whopping $10M angel portfolio. All new investments move into Josh's Four Seasons Residence where he then trains them on company building. They are only allowed to leave when they raise their seed round. In addition to this, Josh is the Founder & CEO @ DoNotPay, the now profitable company that has raised $22M from Marc Andreessen and others. 
AGENDA:
00:00 Why I believe young founders make the best founders
02:10 What do I look for in founders I'm investing in?
10:00 How I test for founder commitment pre-investment
11:00 What do I want to see in the childhoods of the entrepreneurs that I back?
12:05 Why I make founders live with me in my Four Seasons residence after investing
14:00 There are three reasons why pre-seed companies fail and how I solve for them
15:45 What do I look for in a team to assure me they will last?
16:50 Is $5 million post still attainable in this world?
17:15 Should we be worried about the increasing levels of fraud at the early stages?
18:10 Which Silicon Valley investor was the most impressive?
20:00 Do VCs really add value?
20:50 Does university carry less value than ever and should founders drop out if they have a dream and an idea?
24:00 The advice of one lawyer changed the entire trajectory of this multi-million dollar company
28:10 I would never invest in someone that I met over Zoom
29:20 Are all the best founders you invest in delusional?
31:10 What is the biggest benefit of being a Thiel Fellow?
36:20 The problem of accelerators and why artificial constraints can enforce quality
38:20 How we used Mark Zuckerberg's house as a viewing instrument tool to get users
41:20 My pre-seed cheque in Micro One is now worth hundreds of millions and my lessons
43:20 The biggest mistake VCs are making in assessing founders
44:10 Why I will never tell the entrepreneur what to build and why I place little value on ideas
47:00 Why kingmaking is real and why you should accept half the price from a tier one firm
49:00 My biggest lessons on reserve investing
53:00 Why price rounds are bullshit and we should do more SAFEs
54:20 What all founders need to know about signing with a VC
55:10 Single biggest advice to founders on how to get the best price
57:30 What role does not exist today that will be massive in five years' time?
59:10 Stocks are bullshit. Cash is bullshit. I put my money in land. My personal investing strategy
1:01:00 Why the Trump administration is unwaveringly good for US business
1:03:20 Why competitive markets are the best investments
1:05:40 The serendipity of San Francisco is unmatched
1:08:10 What things does no one know about Marc Andreessen that everyone should know?

Shiv Rao is the CEO and Co-Founder of Abridge, a leader in generative AI for healthcare. The company reached a $5.3 billion valuation following a $300 million funding round with investors including Jensen Huang, Henry Kravis, USV, Bessemer Venture Partners and Elad Gill. A practicing cardiologist, Shiv has scaled the company to 450 employees and partnered with major health systems like Emory and Yale. 
AGENDA:
04:00 — You just have to survive long enough to not die
06:00 — Did USV liking music make them billions of dollars?
13:58 — The three variants of an AI native company
15:00 — How do you know if foundation models are going to kill or help you?
22:15 — Why OpenAI and Anthropic doing consultancies is such an obvious move
41:00 — Biggest lesson from Jensen Huang at Nvidia
41:00 — What Founder Mode truly means
52:00 — What the founder of Duolingo taught me about sacrifice
56:37 — If I started a company again, Elad Gill would be the one investor I go to

AGENDA:
00:05:11 — Anthropic freezes secondary sales, requiring board approval for all transfers.
00:10:45 — Why Anthropic is buying capacity from Elon Musk.
00:15:35 — Anthropic's massive $200B revenue commit to Google.
00:18:55 — Goldman Sachs predicts a 24x surge in token consumption driven by agents.
00:31:05 — Will AI labs eat the app layer? The threat to Legal and CX verticals. 
00:37:55 — SaaS public markets: HubSpot tanks 18% while Monday.com finds its footing.
00:42:40 — Growth theft: How Clay is commoditizing ZoomInfo's data business.
00:46:25 — Cerebras prices IPO at $150–$160 with a $48B market cap.
00:52:15 — Real Venture Capital: Celebrating the early bets by Foundation and Benchmark.
00:58:30 — Ramp's valuation vs. the Chapter 7 collapse of e-commerce card Parker.
01:06:20 — Success and Sacrifice: Is mental health the price of building a $20B company?

Patrick Forquer is the Chief Revenue Officer at Legora, the fastest growing enterprise business to ever hit $100M in ARR and now on track to hit over $250M in ARR by the end of the year. They recently raised a $550 million Series D at a $5.55 billion valuation, led by Accel, note 20VC did participate and is an investor in the company. 
AGENDA:
0:00 – How Jude Law Generated $50 Million in Qualified Pipeline
4:00 – Why Implementation is Your Secret Weapon to Win in AI
5:50 – Why AI Enterprise Sales Require "Legal Engineers"
7:45 – The 6-Figure Rule: When Should Humans Control Sales
12:55 – Is Legora Vastly Overvalued at $5.5BN? 
15:45 – How to do global expansion in a world of AI
18:00 – How to Win Supremely Competitive Markets
24:45 – Why Giving Your Product Away for Free is a Death Sentence
33:55 – Legora's Onboarding and Training Playbook for Sales Teams
38:25 – Spotting Red Flags: How to Know if a Sales Rep Will Fail in 45 Days
46:30 – How to Structure Sales Commissions in a World of AI
49:40 – How to do Revenue Forecasting in a World of AI
1:00:30 – Will companies vibe code solutions and no longer buy a SaaS products?

Cliff Weitzman is the Founder & CEO of Speechify AI. He solved his dyslexia and ADHD in college by building a Voice AI agent that's now used by over 60 million people and has over 1 million five-star ratings. Over 200 software and AI engineers work on Speechify which won the Apple Design award last year.
AGENDA: 
00:00 — Until You Hit $100K Do Not Spend on any Channel Other than Meta 
04:53 — How I hacked the college system by applying to 26 universities
06:33 — The "Great Guy" yearbook prank that accidentally outed me
08:35 — What I learned from hunting down the top 100 CEOs in the world
11:51 — The "Warrior" rule: Why I force my senior leaders to edit their own ads
13:52 — Why companies are like bodybuilders: The Bulking and Cutting cycle
17:34 — I test 1,000 AI-generated ads every single day
20:13 — How I built a custom AI ad platform in just four days
23:19 — The one $3,000,000 ad I filmed in a hot tub with red headphones
32:15 — Why we will soon spend more on AI tokens than employee salaries
34:55 — "I'm disappointed in you": The 1,000-credit daily AI requirement
36:31 — How LLMs helped me find my father's cancer when doctors couldn't
41:13 — Why 40% of billionaires are dyslexic—and why you should be too
45:41 — Why I refuse to hire anyone who has worked at Google
47:05 — I flew into a war zone in Ukraine just to keep one engineer
55:49 — Why performance reviews are a total waste of time
58:32 — QA is the most valuable skill in the world (and you're probably bad at it)
01:03:59 — Why we keep our valuation and funding a total secret
01:07:51 — The "Virus" Strategy: How Logan Paul hijacked the WWE
01:11:32 — What I learned from sleeping at Mr Beast's house for three weeks
01:14:15 — How we made a 36X return on Nvidia using high-leverage options
01:23:44 — I found the hacker who stole $200k—then I hired him
01:32:45 — Why I spent 11 days sleeping in a Walmart parking lot