Newcomer Pod

Matt Mahan, Mayor of San Jose and gubernatorial candidate focused on pragmatic city reforms. He breaks down California’s stalled high-speed rail as a sign of governance collapse. He discusses cutting homelessness through smart spending, using AI and performance management in city services, trade-offs in regulation and energy, and why competence-first politics matters for California’s future.

Shardul Shah, Partner at Index Ventures and early investor in Datadog and Wiz, shares stories of wiring seed money on conviction and a decade-long relationship with founders. He recounts why Google bought Wiz, how in-person chemistry shapes bets, why mid-size acquisitions often fail, and the people-first AI and cloud security opportunities he’s hunting now.

Barry McArdle, CEO and co-founder of Hex and former Palantir forward-deployed engineer, explains Palantir’s pragmatic data-integration playbook and why copying it fails. He contrasts field-driven engineering with product-scale approaches. He also explores how AI agents are reshaping data workflows, the future of business intelligence, and the trade-offs of model choices and enterprise pricing.

Rick Heitzmann, venture capitalist and FirstMark co-founder behind early bets like Airbnb and Pinterest. He talks about the AI investment boom, why massive private capital may push a fresh wave of IPOs, how data and AI infrastructure shape winners, and which megacaps might need public funding soon.

Julie Samuels, President and CEO of Tech:NYC and longtime tech-policy leader, discusses tech and politics in New York. She explores why Zohran Mamdani connects with voters. Conversations cover tech’s internal political split, Empire AI and state AI strategy, data center energy concerns, housing and workforce issues, and ways tech can work with a new mayor to modernize government.

Jeremy Levine, general partner at Bessemer Venture Partners known for early software bets, joins to unpack SaaS repricing, AI-driven acceleration, and why venture is a long game. He contrasts thin AI add-ons with deep integrations, discusses foundational models and robotics’ manipulation challenge, and explains how scale and patient capital shape modern investing.

Keith Rabois, prominent VC and operator from PayPal to Founders Fund, offers brisk takes on tech, finance, and politics. He dissects Brex’s sale and Ramp’s CFO-focused play. He debates AI investing, data moats, and Rogo as a banking copilot. The conversation pivots to immigration, geopolitics, free speech, and enforcement controversies.

Yoni Rechtman, partner at Slow Ventures known for contrarian VC takes, weighs in on Trump-era risks and tech’s political responsibilities. He discusses why Slow skipped foundation models, how AI creates second-order investment opportunities, and their growth-by-buyout roll-up playbook for mundane industries. The conversation probes VC motives, creator-focused investing, and how AI reshapes scarce-production businesses.

Tony Fadell, veteran hardware designer who helped build the iPod, iPhone and Nest, discusses what the next AI‑native device might look like. He explores pins, pens, earbuds and foldables as companion sensors. He debates Apple’s strengths and missteps, the risks of OpenAI’s scale, and how multimodal world models and better sensors will shape future devices.

Ankur Bhatt, Head of AI at Rippling, explains Rippling’s employee graph, AI productization, agent design, and permissions for enterprise AI. CJ Desai, CEO of MongoDB, outlines why MongoDB is suited for AI-native apps, its model-agnostic strategy, and handling unstructured data. They discuss building AI agents across payroll, IT, and finance, identity and accountability, and enterprise search and assistants.