Grit

In 2020, Airwallex lost nearly half its revenue overnight. Today it's worth $11 billion. Jack Zhang reflects on the decisions that kept the company alive, raising capital during uncertainty, and leading through its toughest chapter. This episode is a candid look at why Jack chose to keep building, even when a $1.2 billion acquisition was on the table. Guest: Jack Zhang, founder and CEO, Airwallex...

AI may change software overnight, but company building still takes time. Ryan Smith explains why, despite the pace of AI, “the race is going to be way longer than anyone thinks.” He reflects on Qualtrics surviving multiple market cycles and ultimately being acquired by SAP for $8 billion days before going public. Guest: Ryan Smith, co-founder Qualtrics Connect with Ryan Smith X LinkedIn Connect wi...

Great software companies often come from understanding pain points at a very deep level. On Grit , Aman Narang shares how Toast built trust with 171,000+ restaurant operators by helping restaurants manage everything from payments and online orders to staff scheduling and daily operations. He also reflects on lessons around product-market fit and scaling a company before it’s fully ready. Guest: Am...

Founder quality becomes more important as startups become easier to build. Trae Stephens, co-founder of Anduril and partner at Founders Fund, has spent years backing founders with strong conviction, including most recently at Roadrunner. He shares why too much capital too early can hurt startups, and why the best companies are built by teams with complementary strengths. Guest: Trae Stephens, co-f...

What does it take to run a company where the business is risk itself? In conversation with Joubin Mirzadegan, Peter Zaffino shares what the role demands at AIG, including high stakes decisions, constant responsibility, and sacrifice. This episode looks at his journey as CEO ahead of his transition to Executive Chairman this June. Leading at a global scale across 200+ countries. Guest: Peter Zaffin...

In a market that hadn’t changed in decades, Linear didn’t win by being faster. They won by being more thoughtful. Karri Saarinen helped shape design at Airbnb and Coinbase before building Linear around small teams and high standards. On Grit, he shares how Linear is building for a new era of software development. Guest: Karri Saarinen, co-founder and CEO of Linear Connect with Karri Saarinen X Lin...

What does security look like when attackers use AI better than you do? Armadin recently raised $200M to build for the “attacker of the future,” where attacks are autonomous and harder to contain. On the Kleiner Perkins Grit podcast, Kevin Mandia joins Joubin Mirzadegan to share how he’s thinking about this shift, why cybersecurity has always been a calling, and why customer trust is what ultimatel...

Emil Michael went from scaling Uber across 600 cities to rewiring the world's largest military. In the midst of the Pentagon-Silicon Valley debate, the now U.S. Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering opens up about what a real partnership demands from both sides. He also shares how he's built three new entry points for defense tech companies, and why America's military is called t...

Few founders have seen Silicon Valley from every seat at the table. After co-creating Google Maps at Google, serving as CTO at Facebook, and later as co-CEO of Salesforce, Bret Taylor is now building AI agents at Sierra to redefine customer experience. On Grit, he explains why “competitive intensity” is a core value at their fast-growing company and why he believes AI won’t lead to a world where p...

What began as a 14 year old fixing infected computers became Malwarebytes, an 800 person cybersecurity company trusted by millions of customers. On Grit, Marcin Kleczynski joins Joubin Mirzadegan to explore AI driven cyber threats, strategic reinvention, and the discipline of evolving before the market forces you to. “We’ve exceeded. Now, what do we do to protect individuals against the next wave...

Can you scale customer support without burning out agents or frustrating customers? Ping Wu shares how Cresta combines AI and human intelligence into a single system that scales sustainably for companies like United Airlines and Porsche. In this episode, Ping also breaks down the three constraints that shape automation in the real world: conversation complexity, infrastructure debt, and customer d...

USDC closed the gap between software and law in modern finance. On Grit, Jeremy Allaire discusses how fully reserved, dollar backed digital currency became part of the financial system after more than a decade of work. He also shares why for him grit is about sustaining belief through deep uncertainty, even when Circle faced the threat of bankruptcy in 2019. Guest: Jeremy Allaire, Co-Founder, Chai...

Glean has grown into a $7.2B company by giving employees AI assistants and agents that extend their capabilities. CEO Arvind Jain is back on Grit alongside Joubin Mirzadegan. Here’s what stood out: “My mindset by default is that if you build something last year, that it's got to be obsolete. There has to be a new way to do that thing better today. If not, then it's just lack of imagination.” “I ha...

In this recap episode, we highlight the best moments from our 2025 interviews and reflect on the ideas that defined the year. Featuring: David Rubenstein (co-founder of Carlyle) Yamini Rangan (CEO of HubSpot) Ben Chestnut (co-founder of Mailchimp) Winston Weinberg (co-founder and CEO of Harvey) Garrett Lord (co-founder of Handshake) Aidan Gomez (co-founder and CEO of Cohere) Michelle Zatlyn (co-fo...

What happens when AI becomes your most influential referrer? As consumers turn to ChatGPT for answers, James Cadwallader and his team at Profound help brands like Eight Sleep and MongoDB gain visibility and leverage inside AI models. On this episode of Grit, he explains why brand narrative has shifted away from content, and why Profound is scaling globally ahead of traditional SaaS timelines. Gues...

Turning down a $3B offer from Facebook is a bold move for any young CEO. Evan Spiegel shares how Snap’s early dream was to stay independent and give its community an authentic voice, a bet that proved right. He also explains why they are now doubling down on AR glasses and why the anxiety around AI deserves far more attention from tech leaders. Guest: Evan Spiegel, co-founder and CEO of Snap Inc....

What does it take to go from advising founders to becoming one? On this week’s special Reverse Grit episode, we flip the script and put our Grit podcast host Joubin Mirzadegan in the guest seat. Joubin recently founded Roadrunner, where he is now co-founder & CEO. Roadrunner is building an AI‑native CPQ to modernize the quote‑to‑cash stack, drawing on years of conversations he’s had with enter...

Fifteen years in, it can still feel like “we’re just getting started.” Michelle Zatlyn , co-founder of Cloudflare, returns to Grit with Joubin Mirzadegan to share how Cloudflare secures the internet for millions, with a vision built to last generations. She also shares why staying close to reality and to customers becomes harder as success compounds, and how Cloudflare is helping content creators...

Screens have pulled families apart. Brynn Putnam set out to bring them back together with Board, the world’s ‘first face-to-face game console.’ On Grit, she tells Joubin Mirzadegan how every venture she’s built, including Mirror, started as a personal need, and how her true edge is the ability to strip an idea down to what actually matters. Guest: Brynn Putnam, founder and CEO of Board Connect wit...

How do companies like Salesforce and Dell scale intelligence across every cloud? Aidan Gomez, co-founder and CEO of Cohere, explains how they’re building AI that works across all enterprise systems and deploys anywhere, giving companies true flexibility and security. He joins Joubin Mirzadegan for a wide-ranging conversation on why synthetic data went from dismissed to indispensable, and how the r...

The hardest company to build is the one you start after you’ve already succeeded. After scaling Yext into a platform powering millions of businesses, Howard Lerman chose to start over with Roam, the “Office of the Future,” where humans and AI work side by side from anywhere. On Grit , he joins Joubin Mirzadegan to talk about the solitude of leadership and what happens when you stop building for Wa...

The hardest part of transformation is knowing what to let go of. Dan O’Connell , now leading Front as CEO and formerly on the board at Dialpad, joins Joubin Mirzadegan to explore the delicate balance between legacy and innovation as he leads a decade old company through the AI revolution. He also reflects on why courage and control can coexist in leadership, and what it means to “make decisions th...

Before AI became a buzzword, a few true believers were already building. Since early 2022, Mati Staniszewski and his team at ElevenLabs have been among them, working to create voices that “actually represent emotions.” He shares with Joubin Mirzadegan how voice AI is transforming diverse fields, from delivering personalized healthcare for different age groups to amplifying creativity in filmmaking...

What’s product-market fit like when you give people the power to do what they never thought was possible? On this rerun of Grit from April 2024, Victor Riparbelli, co-founder and CEO of Synthesia, shares how his platform gave billions a new way to create video without cameras, and explores a future where video and audio replace text as the primary way to share knowledge and content. Guests: Victor...

Make your product irresistible, and everything else will follow. That’s the philosophy of Grant Lee , co-founder and CEO of Gamma, an AI design platform with an 'anti-PowerPoint approach', used by over 50M people. This week on Grit , he also shares why enduring businesses aren’t one person shows, and how their deliberate hiring process shapes and strengthens company culture. Connect with Grant Lee...