Generative Now | AI Builders on Creating the Future

In this episode of Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano sits down with Tanay Kothari, the co-founder and CEO of Wispr Flow, an AI-powered voice dictation platform. Tanay traces his path from building dozens of apps as a teen in Delhi to now, and how those experiences inspired him to make one of the first “zero-edit” voice products. Tanay gets into training in-house models, beating su...

Recorded live at Lightspeed’s offices in San Francisco, this special episode of Generative Now dives into the urgency and promise of AI interpretability. Lightspeed partner Nnamdi Iregbulem spoke with Anthropic researcher Jack Lindsey and Goodfire co-founder and Chief Scientist Tom McGrath, who previously co-founded Google DeepMind’s interpretability team. They discuss opening the black box of mod...

In this episode of Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano sits down with Kayvon Beykpour, co-founder and CEO of Macroscope, which launches today, and the former co-founder of Periscope. They dive into how Macroscope will serve as an “understanding engine” for software companies, giving leaders real-time visibility and saving engineers time with AI-powered workflows. Kayvon reflects on...

In this special episode of Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano talks with Semil Shah, founder and partner of Haystack VC and partner at Lightspeed. Together, they have a wide-ranging, unfiltered conversation on the state of AI, venture capital, and the future of media. They get into everything from Meta’s high-stakes AI talent spree and Apple’s uncertain strategy, to the Figma IPO,...

In this episode of Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano sits down with Rahul Vohra, founder of the email client Superhuman, to unpack the future of AI-powered productivity. Rahul shares the origin story of Superhuman, how game design principles shaped its blazing speed and keyboard-first UX, and why time—not email—is the real problem it solves. He dives into the thinking behind their...

In this episode of Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano sits down with two co-investors: Steve Jang, Co-Founder and Partner at Kindred Ventures, and Scott Belsky, Partner at A24 and founder of A24 Labs. Together they explore the current state and future of consumer AI, from why most products still look like chatbots, to what’s next in AI-powered hardware, browsers, and personal agent...

In this episode, Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano sits down with the Foundation for American Innovation’s Chief Economist Sam Hammond to talk AI policy. Sam breaks down the key infrastructure needed for AI developments and how policymakers are adapting to rapid technological change. He also shares insights on AI training data and fair use, workforce disruption, and how, when it comes to AI, ever...

In this episode of Generative Now, Lightspeed partner Michael Mignano sits down with the former Stitch Fix COO and founder of The Yes, Julie Bornstein. They talk about Julie’s latest venture: Daydream, an AI-powered fashion discovery engine built for the LLM era. Julie shares how her decades at Nordstrom, Sephora, and Pinterest shaped her vision, why now is the moment for natural language search i...

This week, Lightspeed Partner Mike Mignano sits down with his colleague Bucky Moore, a fellow partner at Lightspeed to explore the rapidly shifting landscape of AI and infrastructure. They unpack the evolution from hardware to cloud to AI-native architectures, the growing momentum behind open-source models, and the rise of AI agents and reinforcement learning environments. Bucky also shares how hi...

This week, Lightspeed Partner Mike Mignano sits down with Moritz Baier-Lentz, Partner and Head of Gaming and Interactive Media at Lightspeed. From the world’s #1 ranked Diablo II player to Goldman Sachs banker to VC, Moritz has lived multiple lives—all shaped by a deep passion for games. In this episode, Moritz joins Michael Mignano to talk about the AI revolution in gaming: how generative tech is...

What is the future of AI in the workplace? What kinds of jobs would you trust an AI to do? In this episode of Generative Now, host and Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano explores how AI is transforming the workforce, with insights from four sharp thinkers: Semil Shah, founding general partner at Haystack and Lightspeed Venture Partners, on the risks of replacing junior talent with agents, Suno Co-...

This week, Lightspeed Partner Mike Mignano sits down with Gabriel Stengel, founder and CEO of Rogo, to explore how AI is transforming the world of finance. Gabe shares his journey from sleepless nights as a junior investment banker at Lazard to building Rogo, a cutting-edge AI platform that automates the grueling work of benchmarking, earnings analysis, and pitch deck creation in seconds. They dis...

This week, we are revisiting a conversation between Lightspeed partner Michael Mignano and Anthropic’s head of product, Mike Krieger. Mike is known for co-founding Instagram, one of the most beloved pieces of consumer technology, and now he has taken his talents to Anthropic. They discuss the challenges AI product builders face and the evolution of product innovation and draw parallels between two...

This week, we are revisiting a conversation between Lightspeed partner Michael Mignano and Arvind Jain, the founder and CEO of Glean about the evolution of AI-assisted enterprise search. Arvind shares what insights helped to start Glean's journey in 2019, how the company leveraged transformer-based models early on, and how Glean developed the market for this product. They also talk about competiti...

How can AI make meetings better? That’s the simple question that inspired Granola, a productivity tool that can tell you what was actually discussed in that meeting last week and what the real next steps are.  In this episode of Generative Now, host Michael Mignano, partner at Lightspeed, sits down with Granola co-founders Chris Pedregal and Sam Stephenson at their headquarters in London. They tal...

Can a pivot to AI actually save a company? In the case of Gamma, it did that and more. In this episode of Generative Now, host Michael Mignano, partner at Lightspeed, talks with Jon Noronha, the co-founder of Gamma, an AI-powered platform that helps users create interactive and engaging presentations, websites, and social media assets.  Nearly four decades since the creation of PowerPoint, they ta...

Exceptional AI products begin with exceptional teams, but in 2025, AI staffing has never been harder.  In this episode of Generative Now, Lightspeed partner Michael Mignano dives into the realities of AI recruiting and team building, sharing insights from some of today’s top AI leaders. You’ll hear from: Demi Guo, CEO and Co-Founder of Pika Mati Staniszewski, CEO and Co-Founder of Eleven Labs Bill...

There’s no doubt we have more choices for entertainment than at any other point in history. And yet, once a series ends, it can be difficult to find something you like just as much. But what if AI could give you a seemingly endless supply of quality content? In this episode of Generative Now, host Michael Mignano, partner at Lightspeed, sits down with Rohan Nayak, CEO and co-founder of Pocket FM,...

In this special mailbag episode of Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano tackles your questions from X and LinkedIn. He gets into AI's market expansion, startup defensibility, which verticals investors are watching, and how the most interesting new roles are being shaped by AI.  Plus, Michael shares what is exciting about consumer AI products right now. Episode Chapters (00:00) Introd...

History may not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes. Vibe coded games, like a flight simulator from @levelsio, are reminiscent of early iPhone app store games like Flappy Bird and Paper Toss. How else are consumer tech cycles evolving? Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano welcomes back investor Semil Shah for their quarterly check-in. They talk about the landscape of VC seed investing, the impact...

This week, we’re revisiting a conversation with Scott Belsky, who recently announced a new role leading innovation at A24. Lightspeed Partner and Host Michael Mignano talks with Scott about the evolution of marketing with generative content, the future of personalization, and overlooked opportunities in the AI landscape.  This conversation took place at the Robin Hood Opportunity x AI Summit. Robi...

Lulu Cheng Meservey puts founders in control of their narrative using one simple principle: Go Direct. This week, we’re revisiting our conversation with the CEO and Founder of Rostra, the go-to communications agency for Silicon Valley founders. Lulu joins Lightspeed Partner and Host Michael Mignano on the podcast to talk about her ​​modern communications playbook for founders of places like Ramp,...

This week, we are revisiting a conversation between Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano and Johnny Ho, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Perplexity. Perplexity is the AI powered search engine that is rapidly growing and challenging the industry status quo. Johnny and Michael talk about his background as a competitive programmer, the business model of search, and Perplexity’s Publish...

Code is content. Writers build apps. App builders write newsletters. This is  Every CEO & Founder Dan Shipper’s vision for the modern media company. Michael Mignano, Partner at Lightspeed, sits down with Dan to talk about building the first multimodal media company, developing viral software like Cora, and cultivating an audience and talent at Every.  Check out our episode with Nathan Baschez,...

AI is rapidly expanding what we can get done in a day. So, can entrepreneurs leveraging AI start companies of one? In this episode of Generative Now, host Michael Magnano, partner at Lightspeed, sits down with Josh Mohrer, the founder and CEO of Wave, a revolutionary AI app that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings and conversations. Josh talks about his entrepreneurial journey, transitio...