2025-08-19 20:03:35
Eli Dourado is Head of Strategic Investments at Astera Institute, a foundation funding transformative science and technology across energy, aerospace, AI, and other frontier sectors. Before joining Astera, he worked as a "regulatory hacker" at Boom Supersonic, where he helped navigate complex aviation regulations to make supersonic flight viable again.
In our conversation, we explore:
How Eli's refusal to be pigeonholed led to a career reviving forgotten technologies
How lifting the 1973 ban on supersonic flight could reshape aviation, after decades of stagnation and regression
Why airships need to be massive to be economical, and how they could transform global logistics
The untapped potential of geothermal energy and why drilling economics are the key bottleneck
Why titanium could be the next material to undergo a manufacturing revolution
How reading regulatory fine print can unlock trillion-dollar industries
Why AI might not automatically solve our productivity problems
The relationship between technological stagnation and potential civilizational collapse
The fascinating possibility of harvesting antimatter in space
(00:00) Intro and Eli's background
(04:11) Eli’s work at Astera Institute
(07:53) The frontier sectors Astera is betting on
(08:57) Eli’s path from academia to tech investing
(13:06) How Eli became involved with supersonic flight
(15:42) Why the airline industry entered “the great regression”
(18:38) The origins of the overland supersonic flight ban
(20:37) Working as a "regulatory hacker" at Boom Supersonic
(27:30) The current state of supersonic flight technology
(30:40) Eli’s cargo airship research
(37:20) What sparked Eli’s interest in airships
(40:23) Why airships fell out of favor as a way to travel
(42:53) How Jim Coutre found a path to profitable airships
(47:00) The pros, cons, and profit potential of airship travel
(50:08) A case for geothermal energy
(55:37) Understanding the “idiot index” and scaling titanium production
(58:36) Thoughts on AI and avoiding complacency
(01:02:00) The risks fueling a potential societal collapse
(01:06:10) Final meditations
Newsletter: https://www.elidourado.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elidourado/
Elon Musk: https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1982181281
The Collapse of Complex Societies: https://www.amazon.com/Collapse-Complex-Societies-Studies-Archaeology/dp/052138673X
Finite and Infinite Games: https://www.amazon.com/Finite-Infinite-Games-James-Carse/dp/1476731713
Jed McCaleb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jed-mccaleb-4052a4/
Cate Hall on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cate-hall-9a81a35/
Ian McKay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ian-mckay-850332100/
Jim Coutre on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-coutre-b224b812/
Robert Metcalfe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Metcalfe
Jamie Beard on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geothermal-jamie-beard/
Astera Institute: https://astera.org/
Mercatus Center: https://www.mercatus.org/
Make America Boom Again: https://www.mercatus.org/research/research-papers/make-america-boom-again
Concorde: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde
Airbus: https://www.airbus.com
Boeing: https://www.boeing.com/
Hermeus: https://www.hermeus.com/
Astro Mechanica: https://www.astromecha.co/
Cargo airships could be big: https://www.elidourado.com/p/cargo-airships
The Center for Growth and Opportunity: https://www.thecgo.org/
Hindenburg: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg
Graf Zeppelin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_127_Graf_Zeppelin
Metcalfe’s law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law
The state of next-generation geothermal energy: https://www.elidourado.com/p/geothermal
Fervo Energy: https://fervoenergy.com/
Value from Elon Musk’s ‘Idiot Index’?: https://therrinstitute.com/value-from-elon-musks-idiot-index
A beginner’s guide to sociopolitical collapse: https://www.elidourado.com/p/collapse
Antimatter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter
I’d love it if you’d subscribe and share the show. Your support makes all the difference as we try to bring more curious minds into the conversation.
Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].
2025-08-14 21:09:56
"The Best Venture Firm You've Never Heard Of is the best piece of writing I've ever read online, and I read a lot of stuff. Personally recommend it to all my friends." — Kaan, a paying member
Friends,
If you were the CEO of a buzzy company in the late 2010s, there was a good chance you would get a call from the lieutenants of Softbank’s Masayoshi Son. If you passed the first screening, you might find yourself invited to Tokyo for an in-person summit. It is a matter of startup lore that halfway through an immaculate sushi dinner, an entrepreneur might receive something close to an ultimatum from the Softbank impresario: accept our gargantuan offer or we’ll fund your competitor. Only those in attendance will know how closely the rumor hews to reality, but it makes for a compelling scene.
Whether Ryan Petersen enjoyed the high-brow mafioso stylings of Masayoshi Son is unknown. Flexport has not really had the kind of close startup competitors that facilitate such a dynamic. What is certain though is that his company was the recipient of one of Son’s gifts, his singular form of gavage-capitalism.
Unlike others, Flexport survived to tell the tale. And, in Ryan Petersen, it has the kind of forthright founder willing to review the episode bluntly. With that in mind, I was excited to cover Flexport’s $1 billion raise from Softbank in this edition of “Letters to a Young Founder.” What changed after a raise that large? How did it impact the decisions Ryan made? Taken together, was it worth it?
Beyond that particular round, Ryan and I discuss fundraising more broadly, his hiring lessons, and M&A exploits. That final subject gave us a chance to discuss some recent news: late last month, Flexport announced it was selling Convoy, the trucking startup it had purchased less than two years earlier.
To access the full correspondence, join our premium newsletter, Generalist+. For $22 per month or $220 per year, you’ll get full access to my conversation with Ryan and unlock our library of case studies, tactical guides, and interviews. Get an MBA’s worth of insight for the price of a business lunch.
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Subject: 100 year storm
From: Mario Gabriele
To: Ryan Petersen
Date: Wednesday July 30 2025 at 11:24 AM BST
Hi Ryan,
I was surprised and intrigued by the metaphors you used in your (excellent) last letter.
You repeatedly connected ideas from physics and biology to business building, referencing the equation for kinetic energy, cosmic radiation, and evolution. Not only did I find it illuminating, but it made me curious to ask a meta-question: Do you frequently find yourself borrowing from science when thinking through managerial problems? Where do you get your best ideas from? Are there any other frameworks from these fields that you rely upon?
Your letter also nicely set up some of the topics I’d love to delve into today. You briefly referenced how you’d been too slow to hire people with deep domain experience, preferring more classic technical Silicon Valley types. I’d love to discover what other talent lessons you’ve picked up over the years. What makes for an exceptional hire? What about a disastrous one? What unusual signals do you look for that other executives might miss? I know that Bezos liked to give candidates brain teasers as tests of basic cognitive ability – do you rely on any similar heuristics? How have you changed your practices as Flexport has grown?
I’d be particularly keen to hear any thoughts you might have on recruiting senior executives. I find that many promising startup founders succeed in nabbing their first 10, 20, or 50 employees but discover they need a new playbook to recruit the elite VPs that tend to arrive after this phase. Even gifted founders have a relatively low success rate with these hires, as far as I’ve heard – about a 50% hit rate seems common. (This suggests that many are batting much lower.) Given how expensive these more senior hires are – both in terms of time and capital – getting them right is all the more important. Are there any hard-earned lessons you’ve learned from over a decade of hiring?
This may be a bit ambitious for a single letter, but the other topic I’d love to discuss is capital. As part of my research into Founders Fund, you shared that several of Flexport’s raises had been challenging. What made them so hard? Were there any raises that stand out in particular in this respect?
On the other hand, you’ve also succeeded in raising nearly $3 billion in venture and debt capital, including a $1 billion Series D from Softbank in 2019.
I’ve seen many startup CEOs face the following challenge: Their startup is growing so quickly that shortly after raising one round, they receive interest to preempt the next one. Though their company does not need money, there’s a natural temptation to bring in more capital at a higher valuation. Founders are smart enough to recognize that their business may be being overvalued, and that, in theory, that could create problems down the line, but many seem to feel it’s worth the risk. They know intellectually that having too much money can cause a startup to lack discipline, but they always seem confident that it will not happen to them.
For the latter half of the 2010s, Softbank was the temptress-in-chief, convincing many promising startups to take on board much more capital than they required at lofty valuations. To put it mildly, that seems to have been a damaging strategy for both the investor and its portfolio companies. High profile bets like Wag and WeWork flamed out, while firms like Rappi and Oyo had to restructure themselves and rewire their cultures. Not all of Softbank’s investments struggled, of course, but with the benefit of hindsight, it mostly looks like a failed experiment.
What was it like from the inside? Were you able to maintain discipline after raising so much capital? In the past, you’ve noted that you raised capital to protect Flexport against “100 year storms.” Did Softbank’s warchest give you a different sense of security or resilience as an organization?
On the subject of warchests, I’d be interested to hear how you think about M&A as a CEO. You’ve made a number of acquisitions, including some quite high-profile ones. As I’m sure you know much better than I, reportedly 70-90% of acquisitions fail. Now that you’ve worked through a few of them, have you discovered any good rules of thumb?
I’d be particularly keen to hear about Convoy. You acquired that business in the wake of its collapse in late 2023…and announced you were selling to DAT Freight & Analytics just a couple of days ago! It’s not often you see an asset go full circle in this way. I’d love to hear why that was the right decision for both companies.
Best,
Mario
Subject: 100 year storm
From: Ryan Petersen
To: Mario Gabriele
Date: Sunday August 10 2025 at 3:52 PM PST
Hi Mario,
Arrogance, complacency, and bureaucracy are the three things that kill companies. At a very fundamental level, these are the anti-values that we’re looking to avoid when we’re hiring. You have to learn how to detect these in people because otherwise, you’ll end up with a dysfunctional culture.
Half the challenge of hiring strong senior execs is avoiding those three traits – arrogance, in particular. If someone’s successful, they usually know a lot about something. But they have to have the humility to realize that they’re coming into a new business and approach it with a beginner’s mind. Most executives can’t do that well. Complacency is also common. Execs might have worked hard in the past but now they don’t want to put in the work. They like their beach house and don’t want to make the effort of coming into the office. We test for these things.
We’re looking for what I call “insecure overachievers,” which is a BCG framework, I think. These are people who are ready to grind, have a chip on their shoulder and want to prove it to the world. We obviously want very, very smart people and we test for that, too. Our industry is especially tricky because there’s a ton of complexity that can’t be deduced from first principles. Global logistics doesn’t operate by the laws of physics – it’s the product of lots of prior art that’s been built up over decades. It’s a bit like law in that respect.
You need a lot of experience to understand the nuances of how it works. An 18 year old couldn’t have started Flexport – not because they’re not smart enough, but because they wouldn’t have had the time to learn it all. I started Flexport when I was quite young, it took me a long time to grasp, and I’m still learning every day.
The other side of this is that people who do have a lot of experience can appear deceptively smart. They’ve spent twenty years in the industry, so they understand how things work, but they might not actually be that sharp. I call this “chaffeur knowledge,” which is a Charlie Munger framework.
2025-08-12 20:03:25
Hemant Taneja is the CEO and Managing Partner of General Catalyst, a venture capital firm that has evolved into what he describes as a "strategic conglomerate with venture capital at its core." Under his leadership, GC has expanded beyond traditional investing to become an organization focused on transforming entire industries from healthcare to call centers to insurance.
In this conversation, Hemant unpacks General Catalyst's unusual structure and ambitious mission. He shares why his firm acquired the hospital system Summa Health in Ohio, why AI roll-ups will create some of the most valuable IPOs in the coming decade, and how servant leadership principles have reshaped his approach to building organizations.
We explore:
How General Catalyst evolved from a traditional VC firm into a multi-business "strategic conglomerate"
Why Hemant believes the next decade requires completely rethinking what excellence means in company building
How GC's healthcare transformation company (HATCo) is working to reinvent the American healthcare system
Why GC made the unprecedented move to acquire Summa Health, a hospital system in Ohio
How servant leadership principles learned from Ken Chenault transformed Hemant's approach to building organizations
Why AI is accelerating transformation across industries faster than anyone predicted
How General Catalyst built its global seed practice through unusual acquisitions of La Famiglia, Venture Highway, and Wayfinder
Why Hemant believes AI roll-ups of labor arbitrage businesses will become some of the most valuable IPOs in the next decade
The changing profile of successful founders in an era of rapid technological change
How General Catalyst thinks about balancing profit and purpose across its portfolio
(00:00) Intro
(02:16) General Catalyst’s ambition to help shape the future
(04:23) How General Catalyst challenges founders to think bigger
(06:05) GC's structure as a strategic conglomerate
(10:44) Balancing profit and purpose in venture investing
(12:19) The unusual role of CEO in a venture firm
(15:11) How Hemant approaches decision-making in operations vs. investing
(16:43) Lessons from Ken Chenault and the case for servant leadership at GC
(20:55) What Hemant has learned from Amazon, McKinsey, and Nvidia’s cultures
(23:37) The Berkshire Hathaway model—and how GC’s strategy differs
(25:19) Why Hemant felt GC needed a fundamental rethink
(28:33) What has changed since Hemant wrote his book on AI in 2018
(31:07) Why great founders have shifted from hackers to iterative builders
(32:55) The origin of HATCo and GC’s push into healthcare transformation
(39:32) Why HATCo acquired Summa Health
(43:48) What HATCo is planning next
(46:30) Hemant’s thoughts on policy and responsible AI self-governance
(48:49) Europe’s AI lag, the cloud wave it missed, and the case for sovereign infrastructure
(52:38) Why companies move to the US
(54:22) How to transform traditional industries with AI
(56:37) Rollout vs. buyout, and why starting small makes more sense now
(58:56) How rapid model progress unlocks new opportunities to reinvent businesses
(1:01:10) What companies need to be good partners in the creation portfolio incubator
(1:05:13) Why General Catalyst made rare acquisitions based on deep conviction in people
(1:11:34) Final meditations
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hemanttaneja
Unscaled: How AI and a New Generation of Upstarts Are Creating the Economy of the Future: https://www.amazon.com/Unscaled-Generation-Upstarts-Creating-Economy/dp/1610398122/
UnHealthcare: A Manifesto for Health Assurance: https://www.amazon.com/UnHealthcare-Manifesto-Assurance-Hemant-Taneja/dp/1716996511
The Transformation Principles: How to Create Enduring Change: https://www.amazon.com/Transformation-Principles-Create-Enduring-Change/dp/1637747357
Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World: https://www.amazon.com/Prisoners-Geography-Explain-Everything-Politics/dp/1501121472
Ken Chenault on X: https://x.com/chenaultken
Elon Musk on X: https://x.com/elonmusk
Andy Jassy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-jassy-8b1615/
Sriram Krishnan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sriramkrishnan01/
Marc Bhargava on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marc-bhargava-55030311
Jeannette zu Fürstenberg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannette-zu-f%C3%BCrstenberg-a4227a17a/?originalSubdomain=de
Yuri Sagalov on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yurisagalov/
Neeraj Arora on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neerajarora/
General Catalyst: https://www.generalcatalyst.com/
The Future of Health: https://www.generalcatalyst.com/stories/the-future-of-health
Unveiling GC Wealth: https://www.generalcatalyst.com/stories/unveiling-gc-wealth
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/
McKinsey: https://www.mckinsey.com/
Berkshire Hathaway: https://www.berkshirehathaway.com/
Stripe: https://stripe.com/
Snap: https://www.snap.com/
Gusto: https://gusto.com/
Livongo: https://www.generalcatalyst.com/companies/livongo-health
Moore’s law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law
Metcalfe’s law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metcalfe%27s_law
The Evolution of AI Agents: Navigating the “Fog of AI” in Rapidly Changing Foundations | Stanislas Polu and Harrison Chase: https://www.generalist.com/p/the-evolution-of-ai-agents
Our Acquisition of Summa Health: https://www.generalcatalyst.com/stories/our-acquisition-of-summa-health
Responsible Innovation Labs: https://www.rilabs.org/
Hemant’s responsible AI commitments post on X: https://x.com/htaneja/status/1724454074249273477
Mistral: https://mistral.ai
Legora: https://legora.com/
Helsing: https://helsing.ai/
Long Lake: https://llmh.com/
Kayak: https://www.kayak.com/
Demandware: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demandware
Circle: https://www.circle.com/
Altos: https://www.altoslabs.com/
Ro: https://ro.co/
I’d love it if you’d subscribe and share the show. Your support makes all the difference as we try to bring more curious minds into the conversation.
Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].
2025-08-07 21:58:46
“I really enjoy the thoughtfulness you put into your writing. There is so much noise in the tech world and I never regret opening your work.” — Lia, a paying member
Friends,
I am extremely excited to announce the 2025 edition of The Future 50, a database of the world’s highest potential startups valued at or under $200 million at the time of nomination. It’s the product of a five-month process involving over 200 elite venture practitioners, access to confidential information, and detailed independent research. Last year's Future 50 was our most popular launch, with several companies already raising at significantly higher valuations.
We created The Future 50 with a simple goal: to introduce readers of The Generalist to the most promising startups before they’re well-known.
Why do that?
We know that hearing about a breakout company early can serve as a real inflection point—for investors looking for their next big win, operators searching for a worthy place to apply their talents, and founders seeking inspiration.
To do that, we have obsessively worked on creating our version of an early detection system for great companies. It’s driven by investor nominations, careful research, exclusive data, and our editorial process.
Given the depth and exclusivity of this reporting, The Future 50 is available only to subscribers of our premium newsletter, Generalist+. For $22 per month or $220 per year, you’ll get total access to our database of breakout startups, accompanied by our detailed rationale and exclusive traction information. If you work in tech, venture capital, or traditional investing, this product alone should more than justify a year’s subscription.
By joining as a member and unlocking the full Future 50, here’s what you can expect:
Detailed company profiles with clear explanations of what each does and why it matters
Exclusive traction data, including customer wins, revenue signals, and growth metrics
Three-point rationales explaining exactly why each company made the cut
A searchable database to filter by geography, sector, or team size
Join us now to unlock the full database and learn about 50 of the world’s highest-potential startups.
Though there is incredible variety among the awardees, a few key themes came to the fore. Pay attention to AI’s impact on traditional businesses, the unslakeable thirst for data, creative governance models, and much more.
As was the case last year, we discovered great companies worldwide. While America remains the undoubted epicenter of high-growth startups, we found exceptional teams operating in 12 different countries. We have awardees building incredible AI businesses in Brazil, high-performance drone systems in India, and elegant product software in Australia.
As you might expect, AI was everywhere from healthcare to defense to biotech to crypto to fashion. There’s no doubt that talented entrepreneurs are finding effective, original ways to leverage the technology to create net-new experiences, revitalize traditional industries, and unlock thorny problems.
Nearly 75% of awardees operate B2B, while 18% are B2C. Despite that, the Future 50 includes intriguing new consumer experiences that might change how we shop, spend, and connect with AI companions.
Though there were some outliers, most awardees operate with fewer than 50 full-time employees. While this is not entirely unusual given how young many of the startups are, it’s still striking to see how much traction companies can achieve with lean teams.
On the other end of the spectrum, a few startups have built large operations but still have valuations under our threshold. That’s an indication of the differing labor costs around the world and how strong unit economics can allow a company to fund its own growth.
This is just the start! There is much more to discover in the full piece and database.
There are an infinite number of ways you might try to create a list like this one. You could collate it based on perceived status, hard metrics, personal opinion, or the opinion of ceremonial judges. We took a different approach, with a few key characteristics:
Create a valuation threshold. We started by setting a valuation threshold of $200 million, post-money, at the time of nomination. (Naturally, some companies have raised in the five months since.) It is hard enough to compare a biotech firm to a social media app – it only becomes more so when one is a seed company and the other a Series D scale-up. The $200 million threshold prioritizes companies with real traction and strong products in market, but that still have plenty of room to run.
Focus on nominator quality, not quantity. We chose an outbound approach, believing it allowed us to create the highest quality list. We contacted over 200 of the world’s best-regarded investors and asked them to nominate companies with the highest potential. We started with those we know and consider exceptional pickers. In turn, we asked them to nominate other investors they consider impressive. We only considered nominations from partner-level investors and a few select angels with exceptional taste. Overall, investors from nearly every Tier 1 fund participated.
Push to the edges. We believe many of the most impactful companies will be built outside the United States. We proactively sought elite venture investors from Latin America, Africa, Europe, Oceania, and Asia to ensure global coverage. As you’ll discover, the list includes many stellar organizations from beyond Silicon Valley.
Force stack ranking to avoid over-nominating. As noted, we asked every investor to nominate the two companies they considered particularly high-potential, with an explanation for each. (Some investors ended up sharing a few more, which we considered.) Ultimately, our goal was not to solicit as many nominations as possible but to encourage nominators to make difficult choices, selecting those they consider the very best of the best. As a note, I did not nominate any companies myself to avoid a conflict of interest.
Study each company. After receiving an extremely strong cadre of nominations, I personally reviewed each one. This involved reading the investors’ rationales and studying the company directly via its website and associated press. We used this to filter the list down to a group of finalists.
Request exclusive, confirmatory information. We contacted the finalists directly and asked them to share data confirming their valuation at the time of the nomination, cumulative capital raised, and revenue run rate. We also asked them to outline their primary sources of differentiation and highlight other traction they consider notable. Companies have allowed some of this data to be shared publicly for the first time; the rest remains confidential but was invaluable in our assessments.
Make final judgments. We used the information gleaned from companies to choose our final 50. This relied on me personally reviewing all additional data supplied by the companies. In making our choice, we factored in metrics but also recognized that great companies have different commercial maturation rates.
Provide detailed descriptions and clear rationales. One of our frustrations with lists is that they are often light on detail. For each awardee of the Future 50, you will find a strong synopsis of the business and why it matters. You will also find a bullet-pointed rationale explaining its inclusion: what we liked about it and why.
No process is perfect, and there are certainly trade-offs to any approach. However, this process has enabled us to create something unique: a global, detailed, actionable list of potentially legendary companies, many of which I had never heard of before.
Join today to access the full database. As with last year's cohort, we expect these valuations won't stay under $200M for long.
Brex is proud to sponsor The Generalist’s Future 50—a list of bold companies building what’s next. At Brex, we believe founders should be focused on creating the future, not drowning in spreadsheets and clunky finance tools. That’s why we built a finance platform that’s simple, scalable, and fast.
With Brex, founders get everything they need to maximize runway and grow their businesses—corporate cards, startup-friendly rewards, banking, and high-yield treasury with same-hour liquidity—all in one place. Over 30,000 companies, including 1 in 3 U.S. venture-backed startups, trust Brex to help them spend smarter and move faster. Ready to join them?
Meet 50 of the world’s highest-potential startups. Nominated by investors, selected by The Generalist.
2025-08-05 20:03:23
Jesse Walden is the founder and managing partner of Variant Fund, an early-stage crypto fund backing projects like Uniswap, Phantom, World, Morpho, Flashbots, Farcaster, Blockaid, Blackbird, and many more. Before launching Variant in 2020, he was an investor at a16z crypto, where he supported early-stage builders shaping the future of Web3.
In this episode, Jesse offers a wide-ranging view of where crypto stands today and where it’s headed. He unpacks the rise of stablecoins, the role of meme coins in capturing attention, and why NFTs are evolving rather than disappearing. We explore the challenges of interoperability between blockchains, the shift from invention to productization, and the intersection of crypto and AI, two technologies that may supercharge one another’s progress.
In our conversation, we explore:
The fundamental difference between AI (technology of abundance) and crypto (technology of scarcity), and why the two technologies are complementary
How the GENIUS Act is transforming the regulatory landscape for stablecoins and creating unprecedented bipartisan support
How DAOs 2.0 will return to their original vision: automation at the center with humans at the edges
How meme coins generate hype and the value of attention
Why user experience still holds Web3 back and what needs to change
What still needs to be solved to scale crypto, including true cross-chain interoperability
(00:00) Intro
(02:19) An overview of Variant’s work
(03:03) Jesse’s vision of a tokenized future and why it makes sense
(06:19) The state of crypto since 2022
(10:46) The GENIUS Act: what it is and how it could reshape stablecoins
(14:28) How stablecoins are both a payment tool and a communication layer
(17:07) Why stablecoins are not yet convenient in the US
(19:06) Variant’s investment in stablecoins and blockchains
(21:33) The policy and regulation crypto still needs to mature
(24:15) Speculation vs. stablecoins
(27:06) Meme coins and the attention economy
(31:53) The shift from invention to productization
(33:47) How the user experience is evolving in crypto, and what’s still needed
(38:15) Phantom and other companies Jesse is bullish on
(42:20) The short-term dip and long-term rise in developer talent
(47:48) Jesse’s heuristic for determining a founder’s passion in the crypto space
(50:37) Where AI and crypto collide (and what they can do for each other)
(56:48) Why there’s still opportunity for NFTs
(01:01:57) An explanation of DAOs and DAO 2.0’s opportunity for humans
(01:07:04) Final meditations
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessewalden/
Website: https://jessewalden.com/
Narrative Economics: How Stories Go Viral and Drive Major Economic Events: https://www.amazon.com/Narrative-Economics-Stories-Economic-Events/dp/0691182299
The White Paper: https://www.amazon.com/The-White-Paper/dp/1999675924
Sam Altman on X: https://x.com/sama
Vitalik Buterin on X: https://x.com/vitalikbuterin
Bitcoin: https://bitcoin.org
Stablecoin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stablecoin
Beyond Speculation and Stablecoins: Crypto's Next Phase?: https://jessewalden.com/beyond-speculation-and-stablecoins-cryptos-next-phase/
What is DeFi?: https://www.coinbase.com/learn/crypto-basics/plp-what-is-defi
Morpho: https://morpho.org/
Pump.fun: https://pump.fun/
Zora: https://zora.co/
Docker: https://www.docker.com/
Privy: https://www.privy.io/
Stripe: https://stripe.com/
Kraken: https://www.kraken.com/
Phantom: https://phantom.com/
Coinbase: https://coinbase.com/
Uniswap: https://app.uniswap.org/
Worldcoin: https://world.org/worldcoin-token
2024 Crypto Developer Report
Jesse’s post on X about NFTs: https://x.com/jessewldn/status/1749860648253526449
DAOs 2.0: https://jessewalden.com/daos-2-0/
Botto: https://botto.com/
Paul Graham’s post about planting trees: https://x.com/paulg/status/1682079355445424129
Land O’Lakes: https://www.landolakes.com/
Ethereum whitepaper: https://ethereum.org/en/whitepaper/
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Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].
2025-07-29 20:03:51
What’s next for AI agents, and how will they change the way we work? In this conversation, Stanislas Polu (CEO of Dust, formerly research at OpenAI) and Harrison Chase (CEO of LangChain, one of the most influential open-source AI frameworks) unpack the current state and future of AI agents. They reflect on their early conversations in the pre-ChatGPT days, how the landscape has evolved, and where it's headed next.
Stan and Harrison share lessons from building today’s agent infrastructure—from chat interfaces to the future of ambient, autonomous systems—and discuss the challenges of operating in the chaotic "fog of AI." We dig into the open questions, early insights, and messy realities of building in today’s fast-moving AI landscape.
In this conversation, we explore:
What sparked Stan and Harrison’s early interest in LLMs
The pre-ChatGPT era and how the AI landscape has evolved since late 2022
High-leverage use cases for agents inside Dust and LangChain today
The critical differences between AI workflows and true agents—and why agents may unlock more powerful, long-term solutions
Why reliability is the main blocker to ambient agents
Real-world enterprise use cases for AI agents across customer support, sales, and engineering
How to build in the “fog of AI” and the challenge of maintaining product vision when foundations shift every six months
Strategies for creating defensibility in a world where tech giants can quickly replicate features
The future of multi-agent systems and how they could transform enterprise productivity
The current state of the AI talent market
And much more
(00:00) Intro
(02:33) Brief overviews of Dust and LangChain
(03:30) The early days of LLM product development
(11:02) Harrison's journey to founding LangChain
(14:35) Dust's evolution and focus on enterprise productivity
(17:15) Tobi’s AI memo
(18:42) An overview of AI agents and how they differ from AI workflows
(26:43) High-leverage use cases for agents at Dust and LangChain
(30:41) How to interact with agents and an explanation of ambient agents
(36:21) What the future of agents may look like
(40:52) Current limitations of AI agents and reliability challenges
(45:40) Will we converge to one agent or many specialized ones?
(51:32) How to solve the sycophant problem
(56:04) The challenges of building AI companies in a rapidly changing landscape
(01:03:06) Recent AI talent acquisitions and market dynamics
(01:05:28) How Dust and LangChain attract talent
(01:09:12) How far off AGI may be
(01:12:52) Final meditations
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spolu/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harrison-chase-961287118/
Permutation City: https://www.amazon.com/Permutation-City-Novel-Greg-Egan/dp/1597805394
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World: https://www.amazon.com/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized-World/dp/0735214484
Anton Troynikov on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antontroynikov/
Gabriel Hubert on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabhubert/
Andrew Ng on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewyng/
Dust: https://dust.tt/
LangChain: https://www.langchain.com/
OpenAI: https://openai.com/
Stable Diffusion: https://stablediffusionweb.com/
CharacterAI: https://character.ai/
LangSmith: https://www.langchain.com/langsmith
Tobias Lütke’s memo reposted on X: https://x.com/tobi/status/1909251946235437514
ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models: https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.03629
Introducing ambient agents: https://blog.langchain.com/introducing-ambient-agents/
Claude task master: https://github.com/eyaltoledano/claude-task-master
Google Jules: https://jules.google/
Stripe: https://stripe.com/
Windsurf: https://windsurf.com/
Cognition: https://cognition.ai/
Scale: https://scale.com/
Inflection: https://inflection.ai/
Adept: https://www.adept.ai/
I’d love it if you’d subscribe and share the show. Your support makes all the difference as we try to bring more curious minds into the conversation.
Production and marketing by penname.co. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email [email protected].