Venture with Grace

Deepak Agarwal, Chief AI Officer at LinkedIn and former Pinterest AI leader, expert in recommender systems and AI platforms. He discusses building AI-first consumer platforms at scale. He covers scaling engineering orgs, durable AI stacks for hundreds of millions of users, the challenges of productionizing agentic systems, and the spectrum from copilots to autonomous collaborators.

Gloria Zhang, an investor with engineering and product roots from IBM and an MBA from Wharton. She digs into signals that separate real AI infrastructure from demos. She contrasts infra vs apps, explains agentic workflows and GPU demand, and explores prosumer tools, pricing, retention, and durable moats in AI-driven media and products.

Kristin Torres Mowat is a healthcare and healthtech investor advising startups through growth, fundraising, and M&A, drawing from her SVP Corporate Development role at Castlight Health where she drove strategic partnerships, health plan relationships, and data operations to scale the transparency/engagement pioneer through IPO. Previously at Fortune 200 DaVita, she shaped corporate strategy, founded the Falcon nephrology EHR business ($12M P&L, 50-person team), co-led the Healthcare Partners merger, and built leadership recruiting—starting her career at Bain & Co. A Mexico City native with deep operator credentials across services and software, Kristin guides healthtech through critical inflection points from boardrooms to balance sheets.Topics:Healthcare M&A war room: Diligence hacks from Healthcare Partners merger that closed fastHealthtech board playbook: Operator tactics for fundraising, growth, exits in 2026 regulatory warsWhen healthcare startups should partner vs. build in-house#Healthcare #Startups #IPO #SaaS #M&A #Castlight

Bryan Liu is a Principal at Alumni Ventures, where he invests in AI-native video, full-stack AI, autonomous companies, and blockchain infrastructure. He focuses on the future of storytelling and intelligent systems, backing breakout companies like Higgsfield—one of the fastest-growing AI companies ever to reach $100M ARR—along with Veda and RealRoots. Prior to venture, Bryan Liu led M&A and venture transactions at PayPal, working across fintech, consumer, and international acquisitions, and earlier advised global technology and media leaders including Disney, Google, and Sony at Deloitte. Combining deep transaction experience with a sharp eye for AI-native products, Bryan Liu invests at the intersection of technology scale, creative tooling, and defensible business models.Topics:AI-native video: why filmmaking is becoming softwareInside Higgsfield’s $100M ARR in months breakoutAutonomous companies: when software runs the business itself#AutonomousCompanies #FutureOfStorytelling#VentureCapital #FrontierTech #AIInvesting

Yogi Goel is Co-Founder & CEO of Maxima, building agentic AI that automates accounting workflows for startups and scaleups, fresh off 7+ years as Senior Director of Finance & Accounting at Rubrik where he scaled ARR from $5M to $900M, managed 28 flawless quarterly closes, launched rolling forecasts/QBRs, and designed the Rubrik2K enterprise GTM motion that grew sales from 100 to 1,000+ while hitting IPO (NYSE: RBRK). Previously on LinkedIn Sales Navigator's early team predicting its $1B ARR path and IB at Barclays/Citi advising mega-deals like Fundtech's $1.25B sale, Dell's $24B LBO, and Kornit Digital IPO, Yogi blends Big 4 audit roots (EY) with operator rigor to make AI replace CPAs without errors.Topics:Rubrik's 180x ARR explosion: 28 flawless closes + Rubrik2K that crushed Fortune 2000Lessons from scaling Rubrik from $5M to $900M ARRThe future CFO stack: humans + agents + systems#AgenticAI #B2BSaaS #Fintech #CFOStack #StartupScaling

Guy Kawasaki is Canva's Chief Evangelist—evangelizing design democratization for 170M+ users after originating the role at Apple where he marketed Macintosh to the masses—and host of the Remarkable People podcast featuring icons from Richard Branson to Gabor Maté. Author of 14 books including Wise Guy, The Art of the Start 2.0, and Enchantment, he's an Executive Fellow at UC Berkeley Haas, adjunct at UNSW, ex-Wikimedia trustee, and serial entrepreneur who took pure equity in Canva early (genius move as it hit $40B valuation). Stanford BA/MBA UCLA grad with Babson honorary doctorate, Guy surfs, advises startups, and distills 40+ years making technology accessible from Macintosh evangelism to Canva's AI-powered graphics revolution.Topics:Evangelism tactics scaling from Apple Mac to 170M creators—AI design that kills PowerPoint forever Spotting Canva pre-unicorn, rejecting salary—serial entrepreneur timing hacksBuilding remarkable products in a world of feature overload#Canva #Entrepreneurship #PitchDeck #Leadership #Design

Priya Ramachandran is the Founder and Managing Partner of Foster Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm with a focus on B2B Enterprise SaaS. As an Operator and a GTM expert, Priya works with cross-border companies, entrepreneurs with product market fit, international market entry advice and introductions. Prior to this role, Priya was with BoldCap, BetterCloud, Coupa, Intel Security and LogiGear Corporation leading various strategic operational roles with a focus on Product Strategy, Customer Strategy & Adoption and Customer Success. She is also an active mentor at SaaSBOOMi with a focus on enabling and empowering cross-border founders. Priya holds a Global Executive M.B.A degree from INSEAD and a B.S degree from Bangalore University.Topics - Building GTM strategies that work for SaaS companies entering new international markets from day oneHow cross-border founders prove product-market fit fast and secure early VC funding.How operators-turned-investors evaluate GTM risk at seed and Series A#B2BSaaS #GoToMarket #VentureCapital #FounderOperator #CrossBorderTech

Rob Gelick is the General Manager of Yahoo Mail and an Emmy Award–winning C-level product leader who previously, as Chief Product Officer of Paramount, scaled Paramount+ from zero to more than 60 million global subscribers and billions in revenue. During his tenure at Paramount, Rob Gelick oversaw major streaming portfolios including Pluto TV, Pluto TV, Showtime, CBS, MTV, and Nickelodeon, leading large-scale cloud migrations and advancing both ad-supported and subscription monetization models. As General Manager of Yahoo Mail, Rob Gelick currently leads Yahoo’s largest business, serving more than 200 million monthly users worldwide while modernizing the platform, diversifying revenue streams, and owning full P&L responsibility. Across leadership roles at Yahoo, CBS Interactive, and ViacomCBS, Rob Gelick has built a reputation for turning complex media ecosystems into durable, customer-first, revenue-generating products through disciplined product strategy and operational rigor.Topics:Scaling Paramount+ from zero to 60M+ subscribersP&L hacks modernizing legacy for Gen Z while 10x'ing revenue streamsMonetizing content across streaming, mobile, and SaaS models#SaaS #ProductManagement #ParamountPlus #Yahoo #EmmyWinner #Scaleups

David Zeng is Co-Founder and CTO of Beacons AI, the Y Combinator-backed all-in-one platform powering 9M+ creators with AI-native tools for link-in-bio pages, websites, email marketing, ecommerce, and monetization across Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and more—helping solopreneurs turn brand deals, affiliates, and digital products into sustainable businesses without tech headaches. A Stanford PhD in signal processing and machine learning whose medical imaging research deployed globally in hospitals, David previously led ML at Azumio (launching Calorie Mama AI) and interned on computer vision at Google, bringing hardcore AI engineering to the $250B creator economy where Beacons handles unique creator mixes on every major US social network.Topics:Using ML signal detection to spot viral patterns before platform algorithms react.AI link-in-bio 3x's conversions – predicts TikTok/IG/YouTube audience overlapWhy the creator economy needs AI-native tools, not more dashboards#CreatorEconomy #SaaS #Startups #YC #TechInvesting

Scott Woody, Co-founder and CEO of Metronome and former Dropbox engineering leader, blends scientific modeling with large-scale infrastructure experience. He discusses why usage-based billing is becoming core infrastructure, how technical complexity blocks pricing agility, the pivot to AI infrastructure, and strategies for winning complex enterprise customers.