How I Invest with David Weisburd

What if the biggest threat to venture capital returns isn't picking the wrong startups, but building funds that are too big to succeed? In this episode, I sit down with Hunter Walk, Partner and Co-Founder of Homebrew, to discuss why the venture capital industry's obsession with larger funds, higher valuations, and hot deals may be working against investors and founders. Hunter explains why he and...

What happens when space becomes the next battlefield, and America's adversaries are moving faster than its defense industry? In this episode, I sit down with Even Rogers, Chief Executive Officer of True Anomaly, to discuss why space is becoming one of the most consequential frontiers in modern warfare. Even explains how his experience as a U.S. Air Force space operations officer exposed critical g...

What if you could identify the next billion-dollar startup before its founders even approach investors? In this episode, I sit down with Jerry Ye, Partner at BITKRAFT Ventures, to explore how data science is transforming venture capital from an intuition-driven business into something increasingly measurable. Drawing on his background in machine learning, large-scale data mining, and quantitative...

What if the biggest opportunity in AI isn't building better models, but unlocking the 80% of data those models can't access? In this episode, I sit down with Joseph Coyne, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Studio VC, to explore why he believes enterprise AI is still in its first inning. Drawing on nearly two decades in venture capital, including experience at Bain Capital Ventures and Samsung, Jo...

What if the best venture capital opportunities are hiding in the 47 states Silicon Valley largely ignores? In this episode, I sit down with Jack Selby, Managing Director at Thiel Capital and an early member of the PayPal Mafia, to explore why he believes venture capital has become dangerously concentrated in Silicon Valley and overpriced AI startups. After working alongside Peter Thiel for 27 year...

What if just 7% of venture-backed companies generate all the gains, and the real skill is identifying the managers who can find them first? In this episode, I sit down with Brijesh Jeevarathnam, Partner and Global Head of Fund Investments at Adams Street Partners, to explore how institutional investors identify exceptional venture capital managers in an increasingly crowded market. Drawing on more...

What if the most overlooked asset in your portfolio is the one that gives you the freedom to invest in everything else? In this episode, I sit down with Christopher Donahue, President, Chair and CEO of Federated Hermes, to explore how the firm manages approximately $700 billion in money market assets and why cash is far more than an idle allocation. Chris explains how liquidity creates financial f...

How do you invest in generational companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX before everyone recognizes their potential? Gavin Ezekowitz is the Co-Founder and Chief Investment Officer of BFA Global Investors, an alternative investment firm providing access to private market opportunities. In this episode, Gavin explains how BFA gained exposure to Anthropic, OpenAI, and SpaceX through GP relation...

Are venture capitalists overpaying for the next generation of AI winners? Matthew Harris is a Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, where he invests in financial services and technology companies. In this episode, Matthew explains why the best venture investments often look overpriced, how valuation discipline can cause firms to miss power-law winners, and why today's AI market is increasingly driven...

Is AI destroying the software industry, or creating its biggest investment opportunity yet? David Breach is President of Vista Equity Partners, a firm managing approximately $100 billion in assets. In this episode, David explains why the recent selloff in software stocks may be missing a much larger opportunity: AI-powered digital workers. We explore Vista's repeatable playbook for creating value...

What if the biggest advantage in venture capital isn't picking winners, but getting access to them? Erik Syvertsen is GM of Asset Management and Chief Legal Officer at AngelList and Chairman of USVC. Drawing on AngelList's extensive venture investment data, Erik explains why seed and growth investing operate like two different asset classes, why the best startups often command higher valuations fr...

What if the biggest advantage in institutional investing isn’t finding better managers, but building an organization that can make better decisions over decades? In this episode, I sit down with Tim McCusker, President of NEPC, which advises on approximately $2 trillion in assets, to discuss what separates the best institutional investors from everyone else. Tim explains why even sophisticated end...

What if AI makes software abundant and shifts venture capital’s biggest opportunities into the physical world? Leo Polovets is a General Partner at Humba Ventures, an early-stage deep tech fund investing across robotics, defense, energy, manufacturing, and other physical industries. Leo explains why AI is commoditizing software, why hardware may capture more value as a result, and why some of the...

What happens when autonomous underwater vehicles become cheap enough to manufacture at scale? Nelson Mills is the Founder of Vatn Systems, a defense technology company building autonomous underwater vehicles. Nelson explains why undersea autonomy has lagged aerial drones, how advances in AI, navigation, manufacturing, and autonomy are changing the economics, and why Vatn is building lower-cost sys...

What if AI makes the founder more important, not less? John Borthwick is the Founder of betaworks, the startup studio and venture firm behind companies including Giphy, Dots, bitly, and TweetDeck, with investments in companies including Twitter, Tumblr, Kickstarter, and Hugging Face. We break down why John now puts more weight on founders than products, how betaworks identified Hugging Face before...

What did Steve Jobs understand about building great companies that most founders miss? Steven Rosenblatt is Co-Founder and General Partner at Oceans, a seed-stage venture firm based in New York City. Drawing on more than two decades as an operator and investor, including his time at Apple and Foursquare, Steven shares what he learned working directly with Steve Jobs, how he separates ambitious fou...

What if the future of warfare is determined by who can innovate faster, not who can spend more? Ethan Thornton is the Founder and CEO of Mach Industries, a defense technology company he started after dropping out of MIT. We break down how Mach went from experimenting with roughly 20 technologies to becoming a multibillion-dollar company, why Ethan believes asymmetric technology is reshaping modern...

What if the biggest edge in venture capital is identifying an exceptional founder before everyone else does? Will Robbins is a technology-focused venture investor and founder of Robbins Capital, where he backs companies starting at formation. Previously, Will joined Contrary as its first employee and helped grow the firm to more than $250 million in AUM. In this episode, Will explains why traditio...

What if the biggest opportunity in private markets isn’t backing companies—but backing the next generation of investment firms? In this episode, I sit down with Douglas Beyer, managing partner and founder of Roaring Brook Holdings, to discuss why emerging managers remain one of the most undercapitalized opportunities in alternative assets. Douglas explains how anchor capital changes fundraising dy...

Can venture capital really be turned from instinct into science? Nnamdi Okike is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of 645 Ventures, where he leads Seed and Series A investments in software and software-enabled companies. We discuss why Nnamdi believes venture investing is driven by the totality of an investor’s experiences rather than pure instinct, how 645 quantifies founder qualities, and why miss...

Which competitive moats will actually survive the AI era? SC Moatti is Managing Partner at Mighty Capital and Board Chair at Products That Count. We break down what Mighty Capital learned from mapping 550 companies by defensibility, why traditional SaaS advantages like switching costs and data moats may be weakening, and why network effects and counter-positioning are emerging as powerful AI-era m...

Are private markets still positioned to outperform public markets? Warren Gibbon is a Multi-Family Office Chief Investment Officer with deep experience across asset allocation, equity research, and portfolio management. We discuss why investors may need to re-underwrite their assumptions about private markets, how higher rates and growing competition have changed private equity, and why public-mar...

What happens to financial analysts when AI can do the work they used to spend all night doing? Chris Ackerson is SVP of Product at AlphaSense, where he focuses on applying information retrieval, natural language processing, deep learning, and recommendation systems to search and discovery. We discuss how AI is changing the analyst role, why vertical AI can outperform general-purpose models in fina...

Is private credit really in a bubble, or are investors looking for risk in the wrong place? Theodore “Ted” Koenig is Chairman and CEO of Monroe Capital, a $24 billion private credit firm. We break down how private credit grew from a niche alternative to a $2 trillion asset class, why financing shifted from banks to private credit after the financial crisis, and the two ways Ted believes lenders ca...

What if the best reason to start a company isn’t to change the world, but simply because you love the game? In this episode, I sit down with Marty Kausas, CEO of Pylon, to unpack how he thinks about building an ambitious company from first principles. Marty explains why Pylon started with a goal of reaching $1 billion in revenue, why market size can matter more than the quality of the founding tea...