Astasia Myers is a GP at Felicis, an iconic VC firm with investments in companies like Shopify, Canva, Adyen, Notion, Mercor, Plaid, Supabase, Flexport, and more. 

Astasia's favorite books: God's Bankers (Author: Gerald Posner)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:26) Astasia’s Infra Thesis
(03:59) Golden Age of Infra & Innovators Network
(06:22) RL Environments & AI Agents
(08:57) Disruption Opportunities: Data & Observability
(11:31) Where to Find Infra Founders
(16:31) Early Signals & Thesis-Driven Investing
(18:01) Picking & Decision-Making Process
(20:11) Red Flags in Infra Investing
(22:20) References & Diligence
(24:35) Proof of Usage & Production Signals
(26:24) Building Edge as an Investor
(28:01) How Felicis Helps Founders Post-Investment
(30:05) Consensus vs. Contrarian Views in Infra
(32:09) Tourist Traps in Infra Investing
(34:43) GTM & Sales Motion in Infra
(37:25) Pricing Strategies for Infra Startups
(40:09) Ecosystem vs. Core Product Focus
(42:15) Lessons from Outlier vs. Good Companies
(44:30) Infra Wedges to Fund Today
(45:23) Commoditized but Promising Categories
(47:06) Exciting AI Advancements
(48:21) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Astasia Myers: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/astasiamyers/

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Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infinite
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi
Research column: https://infrastartups.com 

Spiros Xanthos is the CEO of Resolve AI, a platform to put AI on-call for humans. He previously started Log Insight that was acquired by VMware. And started Omnition that was acquired by Splunk. He also helped start OpenTelemetry. They've raised $35M from amazing investors such as Greylock.

Spiros's favorite books: 
- Zero to One (Author: Peter Thiel)
- Build (Author: Tony Fadell)

(00:01) Introduction & Setting the Stage
(00:42) AI’s Impact on Software Engineering
(02:55) What Reliability Means in Software
(04:34) Resolve AI Explained in Plain English
(06:33) Real-World Example of Resolve in Action
(08:28) Early Customers & Lessons from Company Building
(11:40) OpenTelemetry & The Open Source Journey
(16:55) Positioning a Developer Tool in a Crowded Market
(18:58) Philosophy of Product Building
(21:06) Cultural Norms: What to Keep and What to Change
(24:33) Radical Transparency & Team Dynamics
(26:50) Recruiting for Resilience in Early Team Members
(28:59) Future of AI in Software Engineering
(31:25) Resolve AI Roadmap & Expansion Plans
(33:28) Exciting AI Advancements on the Horizon
(35:17) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Spiros Xanthos: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spiros/

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Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infinite
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Nick Schrock is the founder of Dagster Labs, a data platform that helps you build, schedule, and monitor reliable data pipelines. They've raised $49M in funding from investors such as Sequoia, Index, Amplify, Slow, and 8VC. He is also the cocreator of the popular query language GraphQL. 

Nick's favorite books: The Great CEO Within (Author: Matt Mochary)

(00:01) Introduction and Welcome
(00:39) The Origins of GraphQL at Facebook
(05:24) Explaining Data Orchestration in Plain English
(09:03) What Dagster Is and Why It Matters
(12:37) Assets vs. Tasks: A New Philosophy
(16:51) Balancing Open Source and Commercial Features
(22:18) Growing the Early Open Source Community
(25:26) Signals of Community Health
(27:59) Landing the First 10 Customers
(32:25) Culture Shift: From Engineering-Heavy to Go-to-Market
(37:49) Mistakes DevTool Founders Often Make
(41:21) Selective Micromanagement and Leadership Style
(44:36) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Nick Schrock: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schrockn/

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Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infinite
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Rehan Jalil is the CEO of Securiti, a platform that enables the safe use of data and generative AI. They've raised $156M in funding from investors such as General Catalyst, Mayfield, and others. He was previously the CEO of Elastica, which was acquired for $280M by Bluecoat. Before that, he was the CEO of WiChorus, which was acquired by Tellabs for $180M.

Rehan's favorite books: Good to Great (Author: Jim Collins)

(00:00) Introduction 
(02:14) Founding Securiti and the Evolution of Data Privacy
(06:08) Why Data Security Needs a Unified Platform
(09:32) Scaling Challenges and Product Decisions
(13:17) The Role of AI in Data Security
(17:20) Navigating the Enterprise Sales Motion
(21:56) Go-to-Market Lessons from Elastica to Securiti
(25:43) Competing in a Crowded DSPM Market
(29:00) Shifting Buyer Personas and GenAI Adoption
(32:11) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Rehan Jalil: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rehanjalil/

--------
Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infinite
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Alberto Rizzoli is the CEO of V7 Labs, an AI agent platform to automate knowledge work. They've raised a total of $43M in funding from Radical Ventures, Temasek, Air Street Capital, and others. 

Alberto's favorite books: Sapiens (Author: Yuval Noah Harari)

(00:01) Introduction and What V7 Labs Does
(01:23) The Founding Insight and Early MVP
(04:54) Getting the First Five Customers
(07:01) Darwin vs. Go: Product Differentiation
(10:16) Infrastructure and Chaining Models at V7
(12:34) Product Philosophy: Killing Your Darlings
(15:56) Surprising User Behavior and Composability
(17:32) Human-in-the-Loop vs. Fully Autonomous
(19:38) Identifying High-PMF Sub-Verticals
(22:37) Positioning V7 in a Crowded Agent Market
(26:33) Advice for Founders Post-Pre-Seed
(29:22) Exciting AI Trends: MCP and AI-to-AI Communication
(31:18) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Alberto Rizzoli: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/albertorizzoli/

--------
Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infinite
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Dave Selinger is the CEO of Deep Sentinel, an AI-powered video surveillance system. They have raised $38M in funding from Intel Capital, Shasta Ventures, and others. Prior to this, he was the cofounder and CTO of Redfin. And he was also the cofounder of RichRelevance. 

Dave's favorite books: 
- The Speed of Trust (Author: Stephen Covey)
- Snow Crash (Author: Neal Stephenson)

(00:01) – Origin Story: A Near-Miss and the Broken Security Market
(04:22) – What Deep Sentinel Does and Why It Works
(06:23) – Benefits of Vertical Integration in Security Tech
(10:20) – How Deep Sentinel Tackles False Positives with AI
(14:06) – Balancing Escalation Risk and Deterrence
(17:06) – How Deep Sentinel Processes and Uses Its Data
(19:36) – Positioning Deep Sentinel in the Competitive Landscape
(21:12) – Go-to-Market Learnings for Hardware-Software Companies
(23:39) – Residential vs. Commercial Security: A Comparison
(26:41) – Regulation and Public Sentiment Around Security AI
(29:03) – Insurance, Security, and Incentive Alignment
(31:23) – Company Building and Lessons from 20 Years of Founding
(39:26) – The Role of Distillation and LLMs in Deep Sentinel’s Future
(42:27) – Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Dave Selinger: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/selly/

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Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infinite 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Brennan Pothetes is the CEO of Infinity Constellation, an AI-native holding company. They've raised $17M from Freestyle Capital, Charlie Songhurst, and others. 

Brennan's favorite books: Zero to One (Author: Peter Thiel)

(00:01) Lightning Bolt Moment – Origin of Infinity Constellation
(03:48) Transitioning from Founder to Holdco CEO
(07:00) How Infinity Incubates vs Acquires Companies
(09:05) Infinity vs Traditional Venture Studios
(10:58) Aligning Incentives: Founders, Holdco, and Investors
(16:32) Target Markets and How They’re Chosen
(20:27) When a Company Graduates from the Holdco
(23:04) Resource Allocation and “Too Many Toddlers” Problem
(26:29) Shared Infrastructure and the Code Commons
(29:48) Model Choices, Full Stack AI, and the Infinity Playbook
(32:05) First 3 Hires at a Portfolio Company
(33:53) Who is the Real Competition?
(37:03) Infinity’s 5-Year Vision and AI Trends
(38:37) Rapid Fire Round

Mark Fussell is the CEO of Diagrid, a developer platform that provides tools and services for building cloud native applications. They've raised $24.2M from Amplify and Norwest. He is also the co-creator of Dapr, an open source tool used by 40,000 companies. 

Mark's favorite books: 
- Crossing the Chasm (Author: Geoffrey A. Moore)
- Good to Great (Author: Jim Collins)
- The Dispossessed (Author: Ursula K. Le Guin) 

(00:01) Opening and Introduction
(00:09) The Origins of Dapr: Solving Developer Pain
(01:53) Why Launch Diagrid After Building Dapr at Microsoft
(03:36) Why Dapr Gained Traction Among Developers
(05:30) Open Source Commercialization: What to Charge For
(07:51) When Do Companies Turn to Diagrid for Help?
(09:53) Key Features: PubSub, Workflow, and Catalyst
(11:48) North Star Metrics and Innovation Philosophy
(13:17) Pricing Strategy for Infra and Dev Tools
(15:28) Competing Against Hyperscalers Like AWS & Azure
(17:32) Who Diagrid Competes With and Role of Platform Engineering
(19:29) The Agentic Shift in Microservices
(21:28) How AI Is Changing Microservices Design
(22:59) What's Coming Next at Diagrid: Roadmap and AI Features
(24:51) Lessons from the First Five Customers
(26:59) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Mark Fussell: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mfussell/

--------
Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infinite 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Jan Liphardt is the founder of OpenMind, where they're building an operating system for intelligent machines. He is an associate professor at Stanford and was previously an associate professor at UC Berkeley. He got his PhD from University of Cambridge.

Jan's favorite books: The Little Prince (Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

00:01 — Introduction
00:32 — Gap Between Movie Robots and Real-World Robotics
02:35 — Vision for a New Robotics OS
07:14 — Robotics OS Stack Breakdown
11:01 — Biggest Technical Challenges in Robotics
15:06 — Data Volume, Processing, and Cloud vs. Local
19:09 — Shared Intelligence Layer: What is Fabric?
23:15 — Filtering Good vs. Bad Ideas in a Robot Network
26:06 — Business Model for Robots and Machine Economy
29:55 — Standards and Interoperability in Robotics
33:14 — Most Exciting AI Advancements Today
35:00 — Rapid Fire Round 

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Where to find Jan Liphardt: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jan-liphardt/

--------
Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Anna Patterson is the cofounder of Ceramic, an AI infrastructure platform for large scale model training. They raised their seed round led by NEA along with amazing investors such as Lukas Biewald, Laszlo Bock, Sean Carey, Jeff Hammerbacher, Ankit Jain, Seval Oz, Joanna Rees, Gokul Rajaram, and Ram Sriram. She was previously the founder and managing partner at Gradient Ventures. She was the VP Engineering at Google for 14 years. 

Anna's favorite book: Books she reads with her daughters as part of their family book club

(00:01) Introduction & AI Infra 101
(01:11) Budget Breakdown: Training vs Inference
(02:16) Mapping the AI Infra Landscape
(04:18) Verticalized vs General-Purpose Infrastructure
(06:22) Why Ceramic Was Built From Scratch
(08:35) MVP Tradeoffs and Decision Framework
(10:16) Achieving 2.5x Speedup in Long Context Training
(11:50) Short vs Medium vs Long Context: A Primer
(13:38) Long Context vs RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)
(15:24) Real-World Impact of Long Context Models
(16:38) Bottlenecks at 96K Token Contexts
(17:51) Data Pruning 101: What to Keep, What to Drop
(21:01) What Is “Good Data” in Subjective Domains?
(22:32) How to Grade Reasoning, Not Just Answers
(24:15) Synthetic Data: Use Cases & Limits
(26:19) Staying Current in Fast-Moving Domains
(27:30) Will Every Company Have Its Own Model?
(29:23) Unlocking the Next 10x in Infra
(31:27) Favorite Recent AI Advancements
(32:33) Rapid Fire Round

--------
Where to find Anna Patterson: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-patterson-15921ba/

--------
Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Tom Chavez is the cofounder of super{set}, a startup studio that founds, funds, and builds data and AI startups. Prior to this, he was the CEO and co-founder of Krux, a martech platform acquired by Salesforce in 2016. Before Krux, he was the CEO and co-founder of Rapt, a provider of software for media monetization acquired by Microsoft in 2008. He went to Harvard for undergrad and Stanford for his PhD.

Tom's favorite book: The Three Musketeers (Author: Alexandre Dumas)

(00:01) Origin Story and Starting Superset
(02:58) How Superset Evaluates Ideas and Risk
(06:24) What Is a Venture Studio and How Superset Works
(10:49) Underfunded Layers in AI Infrastructure
(14:55) Orchestration Opportunities in LLM Workflows
(15:49) The Future of Data Infra and ETL in the AI Era
(20:46) Code Infra: Code Quality and AI-Generated Software
(24:55) Model Infra, MLOps, and Why It’s Underwhelming
(27:22) Cloud Economics and Gross Margins in AI Companies
(32:15) Early Team Structure in AI Infra Startups
(34:49) Full Stack vs Composable Infra in AI
(37:52) Fragmentation vs Consolidation in AI Tooling
(41:02) Where Moats Will Accumulate: Data In, AI, Data Out
(45:10) Biggest Challenge in Building Superset
(46:23) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Tom Chavez: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tommychavez/

--------
Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Rowan Stone is the CEO of Sapien, a decentralized data foundry where AI models can access verified human expertise worldwide. They've raised raised a $10.5M round led by Variant. He's also the co-creator of Coinbase's layer 2 network called Base.

Rowan's favorite book: Outlive (Author: Peter Attia)

(00:01) Introduction
(01:09) The Flaws in Centralized Data Models
(04:10) Mechanism of Knowledge Transfer and Expert Incentives
(07:08) Supply, Demand, and Market Dynamics for Training Data
(10:22) Chain of Thought Reasoning and 3D/4D Data Use Cases
(12:22) Building the MVP: What Worked and What Didn’t
(15:17) Acquiring the First Five Customers
(17:59) What They Got Right and What They’d Change
(20:15) How to Scale from Early Customers: Advice to Founders
(22:02) Data Infrastructure Opportunities in 2025
(25:57) Designing AI-Native Databases
(28:04) Biggest Startup Challenge: Messaging and Clarity
(30:22) Future of Data Collection Mechanisms (2 to 5 Years Out)
(32:07) Autonomous Vehicles and Demand for 4D Data
(35:33) Emerging AI Use Cases: Memory, Wearables, and Robotics
(36:19) Rapid Fire Round

--------
Where to find Rowan Stone: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rowan-stone/

--------
Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Rish Gupta is the cofounder and CEO of Spot AI, a video AI platform for the physical world. They've raised $93M from amazing investors such as Scale, Bessemer, and Qualcomm Ventures.

Rish's favorite book: Atlas Shrugged (Author: Ayn Rand)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:32) Video-AI basics: ingesting camera feeds across diverse networks ​
(02:42) Edge-vs-cloud trade-offs for compute, storage, and bandwidth ​
(05:40) Mapping the sector: hardware waves to cloud cameras to pure-software layer ​
(07:43) Founding insight: why Spot AI attacked the video layer now ​
(11:35) Bare-bones MVP: two-page dashboard that unified camera access ​
(15:34) First-10-customer lessons & pruning the ideal customer profile (ICP) ​
(18:54) Go-to-market experiments: ICP variants, pain points, and channels ​
(23:00) Early-team blueprint: engineering-heavy, founders run sales ​
(24:03) Hardware stance: free IP cameras to simplify one-vendor buying ​
(26:01) Biggest tech hurdle: supporting thousands of camera brands & configs ​
(27:00) Sales challenge: outbound fatigue forces novel GTM motions ​
(28:55) Future vision: each camera becomes an autonomous AI agent with a "job" ​
(30:25) Key AI unlock: massive context windows enabling flow-state reasoning ​
(32:14) Rapid-fire round

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Where to find Rish Gupta: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/profilerish/

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Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Alex Levin is the cofounder and CEO of Regal, a platform for AI phone agents. They've raised $82M from amazing investors such as Emergence Capital.

Alex's favorite book: The PayPal Wars (Author: Eric M. Jackson)

(00:01) Introduction
(02:37) Evolution of customer contact tools and legacy players
(06:02) Launching Regal: Origin story and early challenges
(08:41) MVP strategy and problems worth solving
(11:46) Lessons from 0 to 10 customers: Growth mistakes and hiring
(16:13) Ideal early-stage team construction and hiring philosophy
(19:06) Sequencing hires as company scales
(20:58) What makes a good investor and how to leverage them
(25:42) Best and worst experiments while building Regal
(29:04) Internal use of AI at Regal across teams
(31:49) The future of AI phone agents and near-term blockers
(34:13) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Alex Levin: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexlevin1/

--------
Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Colin Zima is the cofounder and CEO of Omni, a data platform that combines the consistency of a shared data model with the speed and freedom of SQL. They recently raised their $69M Series B led by ICONIQ Growth. He was previously the Chief Analytics Officer at Looker.

Colin's favorite book: Blink (Author: Malcolm Gladwell)

(00:01) Introduction
(01:10) What Is a Data Model and Why It Matters
(03:27) Gaps in the Modern Data Stack
(05:38) The Staying Power of SQL
(07:29) Origin Story: Why Omni Was Created
(10:13) Lessons from Building the MVP
(12:48) Go-to-Market Insights: Zero to Ten Customers
(16:02) Founder-Led Sales and Marketing Tactics
(18:58) Company Building: Recruiting and Product Challenges
(21:34) Product Positioning in a Crowded Market
(23:26) Design Philosophy in Enterprise Software
(28:21) Omni's Tech Stack and Development Strategy
(28:57) Real-World Use of AI Inside the Company
(31:01) Future of Data Tooling and Role of AI
(33:49) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Colin Zima: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinzima/

--------
Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infinite
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Alvaro Morales is the cofounder and CEO of Orb, a usage-based billing product for modern software companies. They've raised $44M to date from amazing investors such as Mayfield, Menlo Ventures, and Greylock. 

Alvaro's favorite book: Conversation in the Cathedral (Author: Mario Vargas Llosa)

(00:01) Introduction 
(00:35) What is Usage-Based Billing?
(02:27) Challenges in Metering Usage
(04:14) Examples of Consumption-Based Products
(05:49) Tools for Usage Metering and Billing
(09:08) Founding Story and Validation of Orb
(12:11) Building the MVP for a Billing System
(14:48) Acquiring the First 10 Customers
(18:33) Scaling Sales & Marketing After Initial Traction
(21:09) Building the Team & Ideal Candidate Profile
(23:26) Technology Stack Behind Orb
(25:55) Real-Time Analytics vs Streaming for Billing
(27:18) Other Key Components of Orb's Solution
(28:38) Why Incumbents Haven’t Solved This Problem
(31:09) How Orb Uses AI Internally
(32:53) Most Exciting AI Advancements for the Future
(34:30) Rapid Fire Round

--------
Where to find Alvaro Morales: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alvaro-morales/

--------
Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infinite 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Jay Madheswaran is the cofounder and CEO of Eve, a legal AI platform for plaintiff law firms. They recently raised their $47M Series A from Andreessen Horowitz, Lightspeed, and Menlo Ventures. He was previously a partner at Lightspeed and the first engineer at Rubrik.

Jay's favorite book: The Truth Detector (Author: Jack Schafer)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:44) Overview of Legal AI and Industry Impact
(03:53) Daily Operations in Plaintiff Law Firms
(05:49) Identifying and Launching Eve's MVP
(08:58) Framework for Building an Effective MVP
(12:02) Acquiring Early Customers (Zero to Ten)
(14:20) Scaling Beyond Early Customers: Growth Strategies
(16:08) Encouraging Word-of-Mouth and Inbound Growth
(18:21) Product Development and Customer Feedback Loops
(20:27) Eve's Technology Stack and Internal AI Usage
(22:16) Team Structure and Leadership Development
(24:20) Role and Impact of Designers in Early Startups
(27:15) Future Trends in Legal AI: Consolidation vs. Specialization
(30:29) Exciting AI Advancements Relevant to Eve
(31:58) Rapid Fire Questions

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Where to find Jay Madheswaran: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayanth1/

--------
Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Anant Bhardwaj is the founder and CEO of Instabase, an AI-native unstructured data platform. They've raised $322M in funding to date from NEA, Andreessen Horowitz, Greylock, and Index Ventures. He did his masters from Stanford and PhD from MIT. 

Anant's favorite book: The Singularity Is Near (Author: Ray Kurzweil)

(00:07) Defining Unstructured Data
(01:18) The Growth of Unstructured Data and Its Challenges
(02:05) Evolution of Tools for Analyzing Unstructured Data
(04:25) How Large Language Models (LLMs) Changed Data Processing
(05:27) Do We Still Need ETL in the LLM Era?
(06:05) Structured Queries vs. Direct Unstructured Querying
(08:22) Applying LLMs in Enterprise Settings
(09:34) Ensuring Accuracy in AI-Driven Data Analysis
(11:29) SQL vs. AI-Driven Queries in Business Use Cases
(13:48) Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for Enterprise AI
(15:02) The Founding of Instabase and Its Early Vision
(19:03) Building the MVP of Instabase
(22:52) First 10 Customers: Lessons from Early Sales
(26:01) Scaling Customer Acquisition: Experiments and Failures
(30:35) When to Hire a Sales Team: Key Lessons
(33:52) AI Adoption at Instabase for Internal Productivity
(37:48) The Technology Stack Behind Instabase
(42:36) Transition from OS-Based Architecture to LLM-Based System
(43:45) Rapid Fire Questions

--------
Where to find Anant Bhardwaj: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anantpb/

--------
Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Malte Kosub is the cofounder and CEO of Parloa, an AI agent platform for customer service. They raised their $66M Series B led by Altimeter.

Malte's favorite book: The Qualified Sales Leader (Author: John McMahon)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:26) Overview of AI in Customer Support
(01:33) The Current Landscape of AI Agents
(02:46) Enterprise Adoption of AI Agents
(04:16) The Founding Story of Parloa
(06:25) Deciding What Goes into V1 of a Product
(07:56) Achieving 99.9999% Accuracy in AI Agents
(09:29) How to Identify Customer Needs for AI Products
(10:55) Scaling from Early Customers to the Next 10
(12:41) Growth Experiments: What Worked and What Didn’t
(14:42) Current State of Parloa: Capabilities and Scale
(16:36) Structuring Teams for AI-First Companies
(18:49) Technology Stack and Internal AI Use Cases
(21:29) How to Pitch an AI Product to Enterprises
(23:32) Essential Tools Used Inside the Company
(25:41) AI’s Role in Daily Life and Workflows
(27:54) The Future of AI Agents in Customer Support
(28:37) Can AI Agents Fully Replace Human Agents?
(29:05) Exciting AI Advancements Impacting Parloa
(30:06) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Malte Kosub: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maltekosub/

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Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-infinite
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Scott Stevenson is the cofounder and CEO of Spellbook. They launched the first generative AI copilot for lawyers. It's used by more than 3,000 law firms and are growing really fast. They most recently raised $20M Series A from investors such as Inovia, Bling, and Moxxie. 

Scott's favorite book: Zero to One (Author: Peter Thiel)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:06) The basics of legal AI and its applications
(02:57) How lawyers use AI for contract review and drafting
(03:22) Inspiration from GitHub Copilot and AI’s role in legal work
(04:19) AI in litigation vs. transactional legal work
(06:37) Why AI adoption in legal work accelerated
(07:07) The launch story of Spellbook
(07:45) Finding the right problem to solve in legal tech
(10:11) How GitHub Copilot influenced Spellbook’s early direction
(11:42) Spellbook’s first prototype and early traction
(13:11) The moment Spellbook realized it had product-market fit
(14:31) Measuring actual product usage and customer adoption
(15:27) Early learnings from new customers
(17:59) Growth experiments: what worked and what failed
(20:48) Discovering unexpected customer segments
(22:50) Company building philosophy and structuring Spellbook
(26:18) Avoiding over-optimization for structure in startups
(30:21) How to decide what to ship in a startup
(32:21) Pattern-matching vs. narrative reasoning in product development
(35:39) Lessons from AI contract review and LLM usage
(36:14) Rapid-fire round

Merrill Lutsky is the cofounder and CEO of Graphite, an AI-powered code reviewer that's used by tens of thousands of users. They are backed by amazing investors including Andreessen Horowitz.

Merrill's favorite book: Never Split the Difference (Author: Chris Voss)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:06) Teaching AI to Understand Code
(02:40) AI-Assisted Code Generation and Code Review
(06:20) Current Landscape of AI-Assisted Code Review
(09:04) Motivation Behind Launching Graphite
(16:52) Landing the First Paying Users and Early Learnings
(21:42) Growth Experiments: Wins and Misses
(26:27) Current Scale of Graphite
(29:12) Tech Stack Behind Graphite
(33:12) Future of AI-Assisted Coding and Graphite’s Role
(35:37) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Merrill Lutsky: 

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/merrill-lutsky/

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Where to find Prateek Joshi: 

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Amit Jain is the cofounder and CEO of Luma AI, an AI platform to create realistic looking videos. They're backed by Andreessen Horowitz, Amazon, and AMD. He was previously at Apple where he worked on VisionPro.

Amit's favorite book: Skunk Works (Authors: Ben R. Rich, Leo Janos)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:26) How Can AI Models Generate Realistic Videos
(02:38) The Current Landscape of Video Generation
(06:16) Teaching AI Models the Laws of Physics
(09:47) Founding Luma: Deciding on the First Product Version
(12:56) Validating Market Need & User Feedback
(16:42) Key Learnings from Ray 1 Before Launching Ray 2
(21:24) Growth Hacks That Moved the Needle
(24:27) From Zero Users to Today: The Growth Journey
(27:53) Building a Community Around Luma
(30:57) Luma’s Technology Stack & AI Infrastructure
(36:42) Biggest Technical Challenges in Building Luma
(39:24) The Future of Video Generation & AI's Role
(41:54) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Amit Jain:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gravicle/

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
X: https://x.com/prateekvjoshi 

Zach Lloyd is the cofounder and CEO of Warp, the intelligent terminal powered by AI. They recently raised their $50M Series B led by Sequoia Capital. He was previously the cofounder of SelfMade and the interim CTO of TIME.

Zach's favorite book: The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Author: Leo Tolstoy)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:07) Basics of the Terminal: What It Does and Why Developers Use It
(01:48) Foundation of Warp: Addressing Terminal Shortcomings
(05:00) Initial Feature Set: Building Warp’s Early Product
(07:19) Product Iteration and Retaining Early Users
(10:15) AI Integration in Warp: Initial Use Cases and Evolution
(14:00) Technical Challenges: Building Warp in Rust
(16:25) Feature Prioritization: Balancing Feedback and Vision
(18:26) Warp's Tech Stack: Languages, Frameworks, and Tools
(22:22) Cross-Platform Development Challenges
(23:07) Importance of Design: Competitive Advantage in Dev Tools
(26:10) Hiring for Design in Early-Stage Startups
(30:22) Warp’s Vision for the Next Five Years
(32:15) Lessons from Scaling Warp: Advice to Younger Self
(34:02) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Zach Lloyd:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zachlloyd/

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

Amias Gerety is a partner at QED Investors, a fintech-focused VC firm with $3.8 Billion under management. He was previously the Assistant Secretary at the US Department of Treasury. And he graduated from Harvard.

Amias's favorite finance book:
Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market (Author: Walter Bagehot)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:46) Why Do Robots Need Insurance?
(03:04) Challenges for Insurance Companies with Robot Liability
(07:34) Risks of Autonomous Robots in Industrial vs. Domestic Settings
(12:22) Cybersecurity and Hacking Risks in Robotics
(15:41) Importance and Challenge of Historical Data in Robotics Insurance
(18:52) Leveraging Telemetry Data for Risk Modeling
(22:09) Creating a Functional Insurance Market for Robotics
(26:42) Should Robots Be Independent Legal Entities?
(28:34) Should Robots Buy Their Own Insurance?
(32:30) Partnerships Between Insurers and Robotics Companies
(37:11) Regulatory Framework for Robotics Insurance
(38:57) Advice for Founders in Robotics Insurance
(40:07) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Amias Gerety:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amias-gerety/

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi 

Jordan Tigani is the cofounder and CEO of MotherDuck, a data warehouse platform based on open source database DuckDB. They've raised $100M in funding from amazing investors like Andreessen Horowitz, Felicis, Madrona, and Altimeter. He was previously the CPO at SingleStore and spent 11 years at Google before that. He has a degree in electrical engineering from Harvard. 

Jordan's favorite book: The Master and Margarita (Author: Mikhail Bulgakov)

(00:01) Introduction
(00:08) Founding of MotherDuck
(01:12) The Philosophy of Shipping Products at MotherDuck
(05:02) Founding Story and Identifying the Market Opportunity
(10:57) Building the First Version and Overcoming Early Challenges
(12:23) Validating Customer Needs and Asking the Right Questions
(18:24) Deciding What Features to Prioritize and Exclude
(21:30) Positioning a New Product in a Mature Market
(27:36) Overcoming Challenges in Scaling MotherDuck
(32:29) Measuring Success of New Features in Enterprise Products
(36:20) Structuring the Organization for Effective Execution
(41:09) Preparing MotherDuck for the AI Native Era
(43:28) Rapid Fire Round

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Where to find Jordan Tigani:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jordantigani/

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Where to find Prateek Joshi:

Newsletter: https://prateekjoshi.substack.com 
Website: https://prateekj.com 
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateek-joshi-91047b19 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prateekvjoshi