"Turpentine VC" | Venture Capital and Investing

Keith Rabois, Logan Bartlett, Kevin Ryan, and Zach Weinberg share a rare anecdote about the first venture investment into OpenAI, lay out the bull and bear case for the leading AI companies and discuss regulatory chess games at play in American politics. For full show notes, visit: https://highlightai.com/share/8a2ea800-ab8a-4115-80c7-04c059d3fb10   — 📰Be notified early when Turpentine drops new...

This week on Turpentine VC, Erik Torenberg is joined by Arif Janmohamed, partner at Lightspeed Ventures to dive into the world of AI investment. They explore Lightspeed's evolution from a strong focus on enterprise early-stage investing to becoming a global multi-stage firm with a $7 billion capital reach. Arif shares insights on identifying market opportunities, their frameworks for investing in...

Mike Maples Jr., Founding Partner at Floodgate, sits down with David Weisburd to discuss Mike’s new book “Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future”. This is a masterclass on early-stage venture investing. Mike shares his views on identifying ideas and founders that led to his early investments in Lyft, Twitter, and Okta. They also cover how Mike thinks about fundraising from LPs, his...

In this episode of Turpentine VC, we’re releasing one of our most popular interviews with Roger Ehrenberg, owner of IA Capital Partners and the Managing Partner of Eberg Capital. Roger discusses his contrarian strategy to seed investing that has allowed him to generate 10x fund returns, and emphasizes the importance of focusing on concentrated portfolios to achieve outsized success. They talk abou...

Anish Acharya, General Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, dives deep into the transformative potential of AI in the consumer technology sector. Anish discusses a16z’s "Abundance Agenda," detailing how AI is set to revolutionize personal finance, education, wellness, and social interactions. From the concept of "self-driving money" to AI-powered companions and personalized learning, Anish paints a viv...

This week on Turpentine VC, we’re releasing Molly O’Shea’s interview with Mark Suster, Managing Partner of Upfront Ventures. In this episode, Mark discusses the value of disciplined investments and Upfront Ventures' focused investment strategy. He emphasizes the importance of founder-market fit and market timing in investment decisions. Mark shares his perspectives on promising sectors such as hea...

This week we’re dropping the first episode of Logan Bartlett, Keith Rabois, Kevin Ryan, and Zach Weinberg's newest podcast This Won’t Last. The show is an unfiltered backchannel where they unpack the hype cycles in venture, startup culture, and business. In this episode they discuss Paul Graham’s Founder Mode, AI valuations, the state of the venture market, and free speech concerns with Telegram a...

In this episode of Turpentine VC, we revisit one of our most referenced interviews with Trae Stephens, General Partner at Founders Fund and co-founder of Anduril. Trae discusses the unique DNA of Founders Fund, emphasizing the firm's culture of open debate and high conviction in investments. He highlights the importance of concentrated portfolios, and how Founders Fund's no-process approach differ...

In this episode of Turpentine VC, Erik Torenberg welcomes back Tomasz Tunguz, GP of Theory Ventures. They dissect the investment landscape of data businesses through the lens of Databricks. They analyze the company's growth trajectory, competition with Snowflake, and its potential in the AI era. Tom presents bull and bear investment cases, discusses valuation metrics, and explores the strategic im...

This week on Turpentine VC, we’re releasing a conversation between Erik Torenberg, Laura Deming of The Longevity Fund and Will Eden of Sylvan Consulting (prior to that, with Thiel capital) focused on the past, present and future of biotech. Recorded in 2019, they discuss platform companies and the evolving biotech investment landscape, examining segments like therapeutics, cell and gene therapies....

Erik Torenberg sat down with Seth Bannon, co-founder and general partner at Fifty Years, a pre-seed and seed focused VC firm. They discuss the challenges of commercializing academic research, the differences between biotech and tech bio companies, exploring recent advancements in bioengineering, genetic engineering, synthetic biology, and the significance of the "bio moment." They also cover the i...

In this episode of Turpentine VC, Erik is joined by Diogo Mónica, General Partner at Haun Ventures. They discuss the intersection of AI and crypto, the impact of blockchain technology on fintech, and the advancements in crypto infrastructure. Diogo shares potential use cases of crypto and highlights how fundamental cryptographic research can benefit broader applications beyond just crypto. They al...

In this episode of Turpentine VC, Erik interviews Lee Jacobs, Founder & Managing Partner of Long Journey. Lee shares his journey from early investments and his experience with AngelList to co-founding Long Journey with Cyan Banister and Arielle Zuckerberg. He discusses the firm’s unique focus on investing in "magically weird" companies and emphasizes the importance of values, mission orientation,...

In this episode of Turpentine VC, Erik interviews Glenn Solomon, managing partner at Notable Capital (formerly GGV Capital). They discuss the firm's evolution over 20 years, highlighting its strategic shift towards long-term investments and sector focus. They talk about the rebranding process, Notable Capital's global perspective, and their approach to fund sizing and building a strong internal te...

In this episode of Turpentine VC, Erik sits down with Mike Volpi, partner at Index Ventures. They discuss the evolution of venture capital–the transformative changes in the VC landscape since 2008, the rise of seed capital, multi-stage asset aggregators, and the professionalization of venture firms. Mike also shares Index Ventures' unique approach to building relationships with founders and foster...

In this episode, Managing Partner Vinny Pujji discusses the strategic positioning and innovative approaches of Left Lane Capital. The conversation digs into the specialized data analysis that sets them apart from other investment firms. Vinny also charts out the future of Left Lane and breaks down how he approached several of their investments including ChargeBee, Astrotalk, Takai Tree, and more....

In this episode, Erik Torenberg sits down with Sequoia Capital Managing Partner Roelof Botha and Jacob Helberg, author, Palantir advisor, and founder of the Hill and Valley Conference. They delve into the challenges and opportunities around AI against the backdrop of US-China tensions, the role the government has in fostering tech innovation, and the debate between open and closed source models....

In today's episode, we discuss Benchmark's investment philosophy in the AI era with general partner Eric Vishria, and Sergiy Nesterenko, the Founder and CEO of Quilter. Sitting in for Erik Torenberg as host is AI Scout and Cognitive Revolution host Nathan Labenz. They cover the questions that Benchmark asks to determine whether a new company is solving an enduring or temporary problem, and the rea...

Today's episode features a discussion from 2023 with reknowned independent analyst Benedict Evans (formerly a16z and Mosaic Ventures) about his predictions and frameworks for AI, VR/AR, Crypto and blockchain, the cloud, automation, and more. AI scout and podcast host Nathan Labenz (The Cognitive Revolution's host) joined for the last 20 minutes to deepen the discussion on AI. Crush your 2024 goals...

This episode was initially recorded before a live audience in 2018. Erik Torenberg talks with Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan about the history of money and centralization and why crypto has the potential to fulfill the promise of the internet. Access global engineering without the headache and at a fraction of the cost: head to https://choosesquad.com and mention “Turpentine” to skip the wai...

Today's episode of Turpentine VC is a throwback to a conversation Erik Torenberg recorded with Parker Conrad and Parker Thompson that debates how much "value-add" investors can offer founders, issues around the misalignment between investors and founders, and the underdiscussed factors that influence VC deals. Parker Conrad is the co-founder and CEO of Rippling (and co-founder/CEO of Zenefits) and...

This episode of Turpentine VC is a live panel from the Hill and Valley Forum held in May 2024 on the pivotal role of novel technologies and AI in modern warfare and defense strategies, and how venture is helping rebuild the capital formation of the industrial base. Senator Mike Rounds moderates Joe Lonsdale, Managing Partner at 8VC, Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital, and Matthew Steckman, CRO at Anduril t...

In this episode of Turpentine VC, Erik Torenberg interviews Will Summerlin, managing partner at Autopilot, a VC firm investing in companies that use AI to automate industries. Prior to co-founding Autopilot, Will was an investor at ARK. Erik and WIll discuss where to find alpha when investing in AI, the competitive edge of incumbents versus startups, and investment strategies tailored to AI's pote...

In this episode of Turpentine VC, Erik Torenberg sits down with Alex Edelson from Slipstream Investors, and explores the potential for a new fund built on top of Turpentine, Erik's media company. This live pitch jam session covers the key questions and mental models for building and validating a new fund. They also cover portfolio construction, fund size and stage, and the delicate balance between...

Erik Torenberg talks to Vinod Khosla about his contrarian bets at Khosla Ventures, the firm’s strategic thinking about the future, and why his “venture assistance” is different than other funds. They also discuss his investment thesis in AI (including OpenAI), robotics, biotech, crypto, education, transportation, and more. Source better deals with the most complete startup database: https://bit.ly...