$1M ARR in 3 Weeks. $150M ARR One Year Later

$1M ARR in 3 Weeks. $150M ARR One Year Later

Subscribe to stay ahead of technology trends. Never miss future editions. Maor Shlomo [https://www.linkedin.com/in/maor-shlomo-1088b4144/], founder of Base44 [https://base44.com/], and Mark Tluszcz [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-tluszcz-a024b51/], Chairman at Wix [https://wix.com/], join NEW ECONOMIES to unpack the fastest-moving acquisition story in vibe coding: a solo founder who hit $1M in annualized revenue three weeks after launch, sold Base44 [https://base44.com/] to Wix for $80M within months, and grew the business from roughly $3M to $150M in annualized revenue in the year since the deal closed. Maor walks through the origin story — building a tool for his now-wife’s CRM problem, wanting to give non-technical people a way to build tools rather than just websites — and the operational chaos that followed, including running the platform solo with no monitoring and fielding a security scare in the middle of his brother’s wedding. Mark also explains why Wix, twenty years into believing non-technical people deserve real building tools, saw Base44 not as a bolt-on but as the natural extension of what Wix had been doing since 2006. WATCH NOW: $1M ARR IN 3 WEEKS [https://youtu.be/lQHO8IXHJiY] Throughout the episode, we get into why owning the full stack — front end, back end, and now the model layer — was non-negotiable for both companies, culminating in the release of Base 1 [https://base44.com/blog/maor-shlomo-building-the-model-behind-base], Base44’s own fine-tuned model for building web applications, and why Maor thinks the real bottleneck has already shifted from writing code to making good product decisions: as coding stops being the constraint, taste, distribution, and the judgment to know what’s worth building become the differentiators. We also cover the coming wave of vibe-coded enterprise tools, why “verticalized” models beat horizontal ones for this category, and the emerging idea of Base44 acting less like a coding assistant and more like a co-founder. We close on where Maor and Mark think the next big opportunities sit — re-humanizing technology through live events and the “off planet opportunity” (space) opened up by the SpaceX IPO — and who each of them would want on their board, landing, unexpectedly, on… Watch or listen now on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@NEWECONOMIESPOD], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-ideas-by-new-economies/id1829098542], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3oVCdw4btnIL1mWGarCT7i], and X [https://x.com/ollieforsyth] Download the transcript Timestamps (0:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHO8IXHJiY]) Meet Maor Shlomo & Mark Tluszcz(2:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHO8IXHJiY&t=120s]) The Origin of Wix(4:07 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHO8IXHJiY&t=247s]) The Base44 Founding Story(7:30 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHO8IXHJiY&t=450s]) $1M in Revenue in Just 3 Weeks(9:23 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHO8IXHJiY&t=563s]) The Craziest Base44 Story(12:08 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHO8IXHJiY&t=728s]) Why Wix Acquired Base44(20:42 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHO8IXHJiY&t=1242s]) Launching Base44's AI Model(30:07 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHO8IXHJiY&t=1807s]) Why You Should Own the Stack(32:33 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHO8IXHJiY&t=1953s]) How We Update AI Models(34:18 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHO8IXHJiY&t=2058s]) What's Still Missing for AI Builders?(39:36 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHO8IXHJiY&t=2376s]) The State of Vibe Coding(47:40 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQHO8IXHJiY&t=2860s]) Tech Predictions from Maor & Mark Our notes from this conversation * Coding stopped being the bottleneck. What to build is. Base44 hit $1M in annualized revenue three weeks after launch, then a couple million within three months — solo, with no funding. Maor’s line: “coding is not the issue anymore. The question is what are you going to build.” That’s the thesis for the next few years, not just the next few months. * Why Base44 and Wix teamed-up Wix approached Base44 because a “crazy guy” running a one-man show kept generating enough noise that people started telling Mark’s team to buy him. Nir Zohar [http://il.linkedin.com/in/nirzo], Wix’s President, sealed the vibe over steak; the real decision came later, with Maor and Avishai Abrahami [https://www.linkedin.com/in/abrahamiavishai/] (CEO and Founder at Wix) at a whiteboard in the middle of the night, mapping three paths: stay bootstrapped, raise a lot of money, or partner with Wix. Maor’s real hesitation wasn’t valuation — it was fear of scaling the “magic” too fast and killing the thing that made it work. Avishai’s answer was structural, not financial: lean on Wix for the boring infrastructure, stay lean and move fast everywhere else. * Owning the front and back end obligates you to own the middleware too. Base44’s release of Base 1 — its own fine-tuned model for building web applications — wasn’t a marketing move, it was the logical endpoint of a stack Wix and Base44 already owned end to end. Mark’s framing: If you own the front end and the back end, you eventually have to own how you deliver the service between them, or you’re dependent on someone else’s pricing and roadmap. * Scale generates the training data that makes owning a model worth it. Two things moved Base44’s model timeline up by a year or more: open-source models reaching frontier-adjacent quality, and Base44’s own traffic generating millions of usable data points. The lesson generalizes — building your own model only makes sense once you have the volume to fine-tune it well, not before. * The next differentiator isn’t code quality — it’s taste. Horizontal coding models are good at many things. Base44’s bet is that a model trained specifically on what makes a good product decision — not just working code — becomes a durable edge as raw code generation becomes commoditized across every vibe coding platform. * Distribution, not creation, is the unsolved problem for builders. Mark’s read on the ecosystem: Plenty of products get built, very few get used, because building well and marketing well are different skills. Base44’s answer is a beta “distribution layer” that uses its own context on each app — B2B or consumer, local or global — to recommend a growth playbook, not just more features. * Vibe coding is quietly eating enterprise software, not just side projects. The skepticism about production-readiness a year ago has given way to real adoption: internal tools, dashboards, and niche SaaS products built by domain experts with zero developers on staff. Maor’s example — a former restaurant manager building an invoicing tool for local restaurants — is the shape of a much larger shift in who gets to start a software business. * Nobody has visibility past about three months, and that’s the honest answer. Maor won’t pretend to forecast a year out — internal roadmaps only run two or three months because the ground moves that fast. What he will say: Frontier-model costs keep compressing, open source keeps closing the gap, and the category itself is widening past web apps into games, slide decks, and design — anywhere code can define an output. * Building in public is now a distribution channel, not a personality quirk. Maor’s early growth came from documenting the numbers, the features, and the struggles publicly every day, not from a marketing budget. His conclusion for founders generally: Storytelling and audience-building are becoming as valuable a skill as the product itself, especially for anyone starting without capital. * A board doesn’t need people like you. It needs people who aren’t. Mark’s operating principle for Wix’s board — deliberately including outsiders like the CEO of Manchester City for a completely different read on marketing and culture — showed up again when asked who they’d add next: both landed on the same instinct, that the highest-leverage addition is someone who understands modern culture and storytelling, not another operator who thinks like they do. Links Follow Ollie on X - https://x.com/ollieforsyth [https://x.com/ollieforsyth]Follow Maor on X - https://x.com/MaorShlomo [https://x.com/MaorShlomo]Follow Mark on X - https://x.com/marktluszcz [https://x.com/marktluszcz]Visit Base44 - http://base44.com [http://base44.com] Visit Wix - http://wix.com [http://wix.com] Previous episodes include If you enjoyed this episode, help sustain our work by clicking ❤️ and 🔄 at the top of this post. ….. Brought to you by Harmonic [https://harmonic.ai/] Get full access to NEW ECONOMIES at www.neweconomies.co/subscribe [https://www.neweconomies.co/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Reid Hoffman: LinkedIn

Subscribe to stay ahead of technology trends. Never miss future editions. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, joins NEW ECONOMIES to explain why we’re still underutilizing AI, why agent management — not individual contribution — becomes the default mode of work within three years, and why the next decade of company-building rewards taste and judgment over raw skill: once AI can draw, code, and write as well as any specialist, the only thing left to own is the specific, unrepeatable bar for what excellence looks like. We also cover why AI carries a positive perception across Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America while triggering data-center bans and slowdown politics in the US and Europe — and why 91% of non-Chinese AI market cap still sits within 30 miles of Silicon Valley. We get into the founding story behind Manas AI [https://manasai.co/] — Reid’s drug-discovery venture, plus whether Silicon Valley is still the best place to start a company. We close on the lessons Reid has learned from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and the technology trends Reid is most excited about next. Watch or listen now on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@NEWECONOMIESPOD], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-ideas-by-new-economies/id1829098542], and Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3oVCdw4btnIL1mWGarCT7i] Download the transcript Timestamps (0:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc]) Meet Reid Hoffman (1:36 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=96s]) Why Most People Are Under Utilizing AI (5:28 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=328s]) How Should We Be Using AI? (7:17 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=437s]) Why Agent Managers Are Next (8:47 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=527s]) Are We Taking AI Seriously Enough? (11:58 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=718s]) How Is Blitzscaling Different Today? (15:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=900s]) Is Silicon Valley Still The Best Region? (16:27 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=987s]) Should Startups Partner with AI Models? (21:37 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=1297s]) Personalized AI & Taste (24:28 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=1468s]) Is Distribution The New Moat for Startups? (26:19 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=1579s]) Does AI Have a Negative PR Problem? (28:48 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=1728s]) What Would Reid Coach Governments? (33:20 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=2000s]) It’s Not Just Anthropic or OpenAI (36:36 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=2196s]) The IPO Gold Rush (38:32 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=2312s]) Sam vs Dario Characteristics (42:30 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=2550s]) Lessons from Satya Nadella (47:30 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=2850s]) Ollie Joins As Reid’s Chief of Staff (49:39 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=2979s]) Reid’s Trends (55:27 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUyAJO5VWSc&t=3327s]) Fire Round Our notes from this conversation * The next career move isn’t a skill — it’s a headcount. Individual contributors are giving way to agent managers, each overseeing anywhere from a handful to tens of thousands of agents. Reid’s timeline: broad-based adoption within three years, starting with coding and spreading into every “digital closing loop.” * Non-US, non-Europe just inherited the industrial revolution’s rematch. AI carries a negative PR perception in the US and Europe (job-loss anxiety, data-center bans) and a positive one everywhere else — Asia, the Middle East, Latin America, Africa. Reid calls it the reverse revenge of the industrial revolution: the regions that missed the first wave may lead the cognitive one. * Distribution didn’t die — it became the AI amplifier. Moats aren’t dead, but they’ve changed shape. Existing companies with distribution aren’t finished; they’re only finished if they refuse to plug AI into what they already own. Refuse, and “the dinosaur decay has started.” * Wrapper businesses are living on borrowed time. If a competitor can point Claude Code or Codex at your product and rebuild it for the token cost, you were never defensible. The businesses that survive have a theory of the game: network effects, enterprise integration, or data loops the model can’t just absorb as a feature. * Hand skill is depreciating. Taste is the new scarce resource. AI coordination doesn’t need better hand-eye coordination to draw well — so that skill’s value drops. What rises: judgment about what excellence actually looks like, in code, writing, and product. Reid expects taste and context-awareness to matter for decades, not quarters. * The market isn’t consolidating to three companies — it’s expanding to ten or fifteen. Reid’s eight-year-old antitrust argument held: from five-to-seven heading toward ten-to-fifteen frontier and adjacent players, not three. That’s good for entrepreneurs — more potential acquirers, more room to build something valuable without having to out-build OpenAI or Anthropic. * Blitzscaling didn’t disappear — it moved from headcount to compute. The old version was maximum organizational scale under uncertainty. The new version: build something in two weeks, throw it away, rebuild — at higher velocity and higher risk — while a much smaller human team manages a much larger agent workforce. * Trust gets built by value, not by messaging. Reid’s answer to AI skepticism isn’t a better narrative — it’s a free medical assistant, a lease-reading legal agent, a tutor on every phone. “It isn’t by a story of words... how you get trust is by seeing value.” Links Follow Ollie on X - https://x.com/ollieforsyth [https://x.com/ollieforsyth] Follow Reid on X - https://x.com/reidhoffman [https://x.com/reidhoffman] Subscribe to Reid’s Podcast, Masters of Scale - https://mastersofscale.com/ [https://mastersofscale.com/] Discover Reid’s other projects: https://beacons.ai/reidhoffman [https://beacons.ai/reidhoffman] Reid’s Books - Blitzscaling [https://www.blitzscaling.com/] & Superagency [https://www.superagency.ai/] Related previous episodes If you enjoyed this episode, help sustain our work by clicking ❤️ and 🔄 at the top of this post. Get full access to NEW ECONOMIES at www.neweconomies.co/subscribe [https://www.neweconomies.co/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

Mark Manson

Subscribe to stay ahead of technology trends. Never miss future editions. Mark Manson [https://youtu.be/lU8t3QL9dN0?si=N5rEG2SMqCXW-SU8] is someone you've probably heard of before. He's the author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, which has sold more than 20 million copies worldwide. In this episode, he shares some incredible advice on life, what it takes to become a successful creator, why creators should think more like founders, and what he's building next - including his self-help app, Purpose [https://purpose.app/]. Throughout the episode, we also explore why he believes AI content and human content are splitting into two permanent tracks, why non-fiction book sales are down 20–30% and what an “AI-proof” book would actually need to look like, and why Mark thinks the next decade of media rewards trust and credibility over cleverness — because the moment ChatGPT can write as well as he can, the only thing left to own is the specific, unrepeatable mix of experience that makes his voice his. If that’s not enough, we go deep on the founding story behind Purpose [https://purpose.app/], his new AI life-advice app built to do what ChatGPT can’t — actually challenge you instead of just agreeing with you — plus why traditional publishing has banned AI outright while his own two-person research team now outproduces the four-person team he had two years ago, and much more. Timestamps (0:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU8t3QL9dN0]) Meet Mark Manson (2:20 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU8t3QL9dN0&t=140s]) The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck(9:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU8t3QL9dN0&t=540s]) Why Creators Should Think Like Founders (17:17 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU8t3QL9dN0&t=1037s]) NEW MEDIA: Will AI Content Survive? (19:30 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU8t3QL9dN0&t=1170s]) How Mark Manson Uses AI (26:55 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU8t3QL9dN0&t=1615s]) How To Write A Non-Fiction Book Today (32:34 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU8t3QL9dN0&t=1954s]) How To Master Your Edge Case (35:13 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU8t3QL9dN0&t=2113s]) Has The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Changed? (37:13 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU8t3QL9dN0&t=2233s]) The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Anymore(39:46 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU8t3QL9dN0&t=2386s]) Mark’s App - Purpose Watch or listen now on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@NEWECONOMIESPOD], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-ideas-by-new-economies/id1829098542], and Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3oVCdw4btnIL1mWGarCT7i] Download the transcript Our notes from this conversation 1. AI self-help is coming for most of human self-help.Therapy, coaching, and advice are all just language processed through experience — exactly what LLMs are built for. Mark’s bet with his new app, Purpose [https://purpose.app/], is that AI will do it better and cheaper than most coaches ever could. 2. Non-fiction is on a countdown.Sales are down 20–30% over two years — not to podcasts, but to AI. Readers now get a chapter in, then interrogate the idea in ChatGPT instead. Survival means novel frameworks AI couldn’t have generated on demand. 3. Media is splitting into AI content and human content.AI is closing in on pure entertainment and education — it can already find the platonic ideal of what makes someone laugh or cry. What it can’t replicate is the parasocial layer: trust, belonging, a specific person’s judgment. 4. The moat isn’t the idea — it’s the audience you own.Mark regrets chasing traditional publisher/Audible/Netflix deals instead of owning distribution directly. Mel Robbins did it right: a viral book converted deliberately into live events, podcasts, and an owned brand. 5. Everyone needs a 99.9th-percentile intersection.As AI closes the gap on any single skill, defensibility shifts to combinations — three or four things that overlap in one person and can’t be cleanly copied. Not one moat, a stack of them. 6. Trust-dependent verticals resist AI longest.Relationships and money are getting hotter, not colder, in the AI era — because people don’t want the same answer ChatGPT gives everyone else. Credibility itself is becoming the scarce resource. 7. AI compounds — and legacy media is opting out.Mark’s research team shrank from four to two while output and quality went up. Meanwhile traditional publishing often bans AI outright, ceding a gap that compounds every quarter against competitors who didn’t wait. 8. Good advice has a shelf life.Mark’s own “give a f*ck about less” advice was right for an overwhelmed era — but it also fed the tribalism defining today’s polarization. Advice isn’t universal; it’s tied to the context that produced it. Links Follow Ollie on X here [https://x.com/ollieforsyth]. Follow Mark on X here [https://x.com/Markmanson]. Follow Mark on Instagram here [https://www.instagram.com/markmanson/]. Download Mark’s new app Purpose here [https://www.instagram.com/purpose.app/]. Interested in NEW MEDIA? Visit our latest project on the most promising new media creators here [https://new-media.co/]. Related previous episodes If you enjoyed this episode, help sustain our work by clicking ❤️ and 🔄 at the top of this post. Get full access to NEW ECONOMIES at www.neweconomies.co/subscribe [https://www.neweconomies.co/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

The Eventbrite Story | Julia & Kevin Hartz

Subscribe to stay ahead of technology trends. Never miss future editions. How Eventbrite survived the business apocalypse — and why the internet made real life more valuable than ever Husband and Wife duo Kevin and Julia Hartz, co-founders at Eventbrite, join us on the NEW ECONOMIES podcast show to share how they built one of the world’s largest event marketplaces, navigating a leadership transition after a decade as co-founders, surviving COVID when their entire industry (and revenue) shut down overnight, and why the future belongs to companies bringing people together. About Eventbrite: Eventbrite is one of the world's largest event technology platforms, enabling anyone to create, promote, and sell tickets for live experiences. Since its founding in 2006, the company has powered millions of events across more than 180 countries, helping creators — from independent organizers to major venues — connect with audiences at scale. In our latest podcast episode, Kevin and Julia share Eventbrite's origin story — from a married founding team working out of a windowless office and surviving on cup noodles to building a global marketplace that transformed how people create and discover live experiences. They explain why curiosity became their greatest competitive advantage, why they ignored conventional startup advice by serving every event category from day one, and why complementary founders consistently outperform identical ones. If that’s not enough, we also unpack the brutal reality of leading a public company through COVID after revenue turned negative almost overnight, why acting before everyone agrees is often a founder’s greatest advantage, what selling Eventbrite to Bending Spoons (who went public this week) taught them about long-term stewardship, and why, despite every wave of technology, they believe the most valuable human experiences will always happen in real life. Timestamps (0:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U]) Kevin & Julia Hartz(1:45 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=105s]) A Blossoming Relationship(3:40 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=220s]) The Aha Moment for Eventbrite(8:15 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=495s]) Ideas Outside Eventbrite(9:24 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=564s]) Eventbrite’s First Year(12:50 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=770s]) The Product Market Fit Moment(14:58 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=898s]) Building a Self-Serving Product(17:25 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=1045s]) 2016: Julia Takes Over as CEO(23:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=1380s]) The Brilliance of Eventbrite vs. Competitors(30:22 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=1822s]) The COVID Moment That Changed Us(38:22 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=2302s]) IRL Is Back(41:34 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=2494s]) Bending Spoon Acquires Eventbrite(45:13 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=2713s]) A* Star Raises $450M(47:10 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=2830s]) Young Founders to Watch(48:25 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EUW-KsF01U&t=2905s]) What’s Next? Watch or listen now on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@NEWECONOMIESPOD], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-ideas-by-new-economies/id1829098542], and Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3oVCdw4btnIL1mWGarCT7i] Download the transcript Our notes from this conversation * Eventbrite wasn’t built to sell tickets — it was built to make gathering possible. Kevin and Julia saw ticketing as an overlooked payments problem. If anyone could create an event as easily as sending an email, millions of communities, creators, and organizers could exist that otherwise never would. * The best co-founding teams divide by strengths, not titles. From day one, they focused on complementary abilities instead of overlapping responsibilities. Rather than competing for the same decisions, each founder owned the areas where they naturally created the most leverage. * Curiosity became the company’s competitive advantage. The early years weren’t spent making assumptions — they attended events, watched customers, worked the door themselves, and continuously simplified the product based on real behavior instead of internal opinions. * Product-market fit expanded by following customers, not chasing categories. Instead of focusing on one niche, Eventbrite launched broadly and observed where adoption naturally emerged. Every new customer segment revealed the next opportunity to build for. * Crisis rewards speed more than certainty. When COVID shut down live events almost overnight, the team assumed the worst immediately. They raised capital, reshaped the roadmap, focused on customer survival, and acted long before the situation became obvious to everyone else. * The internet didn’t replace real life — it made it more valuable. Every major technology wave has changed how people connect, but none has replaced the human desire to gather. Digital platforms increasingly become discovery engines for experiences that ultimately happen offline. * Building companies isn’t a chapter — it’s an identity. Even after taking Eventbrite public, leading it through COVID, and eventually selling it, Kevin and Julia continue building new companies and backing founders. For them, entrepreneurship isn’t a milestone — it’s how they approach the world. Links Subscribe to NEW ECONOMIES on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@NEWECONOMIESPOD].Follow Ollie on X: https://x.com/ollieforsyth [https://x.com/ollieforsyth].Follow Julia on X: https://x.com/juliahartz [https://x.com/juliahartz].Follow Kevin on X: https://x.com/kevinhartz [https://x.com/kevinhartz]. Visit A* Capital: https://www.a-star.co [https://www.a-star.co/]. Related previous episodes If you enjoyed this episode, help sustain our work by clicking ❤️ and 🔄 at the top of this post. Get full access to NEW ECONOMIES at www.neweconomies.co/subscribe [https://www.neweconomies.co/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

How We Access The Best Companies

Subscribe to stay ahead of technology trends. Never miss future editions. Ben Miller [https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-miller-b5b79a4/], CEO and Co-Founder at Fundrise [https://fundrise.com/], joins NEW ECONOMIES to explore the future of investing in an AI-driven world. From democratizing private markets to backing the next generation of technology companies, Ben explains why software is entering a new era of disruption, and how AI could reshape everything from work and housing to healthcare and human longevity. About Fundrise: Fundrise is the largest direct-to-consumer alternative asset manager with more than 385,000 active investors, 2.1 million platform users, and $3.3 billion in assets across real estate, venture, and private credit. In this episode, we explore why Fundrise expanded beyond real estate into venture investing, how Ben thinks about building with conviction instead of institutional consensus, and why some of the best investment decisions come from waiting rather than deploying capital on schedule. We also go deep on how AI is reshaping software, venture, and the broader economy — from why application-layer businesses may become harder to sustain, to why capital is increasingly concentrating around models, compute, and infrastructure. If that’s not enough, we also discuss why venture is far more relationship-driven than most people realize, why investors often overstate their impact relative to founders, and why Ben believes the next great opportunities won’t come from another consumer app — but from applying AI to the physical world through biology, materials, energy, and longevity. Watch or listen now on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@NEWECONOMIESPOD], Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-ideas-by-new-economies/id1829098542], and Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3oVCdw4btnIL1mWGarCT7i] Download the transcript Timestamps (0:00 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ]) Ben Miller (1:42 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=102s]) Democratizing Access To Private Markets (9:50 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=590s]) Venture vs. Real Estate (12:48 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=768s]) Getting Access To Companies (15:07 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=907s]) Venture Is Changing (20:10 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=1210s]) What Happens Next? (22:10 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=1330s]) Companies Going Public (28:16 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=1696s]) Where Are The Next Opportunities? (31:22 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=1882s]) The Impact of Longevity (33:30 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=2010s]) Tough Categories Right Now (35:15 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=2115s]) Thoughts On Vibe Coding Tools (36:12 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=2172s]) Ollie Joining As Chief of Staff (37:35 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=2255s]) How Ben Uses AI (40:53 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=2453s]) The Next Big Act For Fundrise (44:22 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=2662s]) What Categories Would Ben Build In? (46:13 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W-P0lS_hCQ&t=2773s]) Rapid Fire Our notes from this conversation * Fundrise was built as a reaction to the financial system. The idea didn’t start with real estate — it started with distrust. After living through the 2008 financial crisis firsthand, Ben’s view became simple: people should be able to own real assets directly instead of relying entirely on financial institutions. * Private markets became consumer products. Fundrise saw the opportunity earlier: It took institutional investing models — private equity, real estate funds, venture — and rebuilt them for individuals. The thesis wasn’t to invent a new asset class. It was to open access to one that already existed. * Great investing often means not doing what you said you would. The team raised venture capital to invest in tech — and then barely invested for a year. Instead of deploying because markets expected it, they waited. Flexibility became an advantage over institutional pressure. * Access in venture is more random than people admit. From the outside, venture looks like a system. Inside, it often looks like relationships, timing, and proximity. Many of the best investments happen through unexpected connections rather than structured processes. * Founders create outcomes. Investors mostly provide fuel. The venture industry talks heavily about value-add. Ben’s view: teams build companies. Capital matters. Advice occasionally matters. But execution compounds more than introductions. * AI is making software easier — and company building harder. As models become more capable, application layers become vulnerable. Product roadmaps compress. Builders increasingly compete not just with startups, but with the platforms underneath them. * Capital is concentrating faster than people expect. AI isn’t only changing software — it’s redirecting capital. Trillions are flowing into models, compute, and infrastructure, creating second-order effects across housing, credit, real estate, and the broader economy. * The next breakthrough isn’t digital — it’s physical. The most exciting opportunities may not be chat interfaces or copilots. They may come from applying AI to biology, materials, medicine, energy, and the physical world itself. * The future belongs to people willing to suffer for the hard decisions. Ben’s framework for leadership is simple: the best decisions are often the ones that are personally painful. Building means choosing uncertainty, absorbing pressure, and taking responsibility before outcomes are obvious. * Learning remains the ultimate competitive advantage. The next company, sector, or wave rarely looks obvious in advance. Curiosity, experimentation, and being willing to look outside your category matter more than defending a fixed identity. Links Subscribe to NEW ECONOMIES on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@NEWECONOMIESPOD] Follow Ollie on X (https://x.com/ollieforsyth [https://x.com/ollieforsyth]) Follow Ben on X (https://x.com/BenMillerise [https://x.com/BenMillerise]) Related previous episodes If you enjoyed this episode, help sustain our work by clicking ❤️ and 🔄 at the top of this post. Get full access to NEW ECONOMIES at www.neweconomies.co/subscribe [https://www.neweconomies.co/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]