Building Got Easy. This Startup Solves What to Build | Alfred Wahlforss, Listen Labs

15 Hot Takes on VC and AI from the 2026 Allocate Beyond Summit

I just attended Allocate’s Beyond Summit in Deer Valley Utah. It was a peek into what the top VC's and LP’s are thinking about right now. Allocate asked me to record an episode of the show, live from the conference. So I asked everyone “What’s your hottest take on the VC market today?” Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episode Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com Flex: Get premium banking and a net 60 day credit card at 0% APY https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com Timestamps: (1:22) Seed investing is dead (Tripp Jones, Uncork) (5:56) Seed is not dead (Bryan Rosenblatt, Sandlot) (13:19) Most consensus era of VC ever (Nate Williams, Union) (18:02) Taking the Power Law Pill (Pratyush Buddiga, Susa Ventures) (29:15) The 2nd-time founder premium is dead (Matt Cohen, Ripple Ventures) (32:46) AI will crush intelligence labor (Clark Cheng, Merrimac) (42:25) New deep tech investors will lose their shirts (Sunil Nagaraj, Ubiquity Ventures) (46:39) ChatGPT for robotics is still 15 years away (Sungjoon Cho, Fortitude Ventures) (52:07) The app layer ARR reckoning (Josh Christensen, Mercato) (58:30) The AI bubble will pop in Q2/Q3 (Amias Gerety, QED) (1:08:22) Most individuals do VC wrong (Jon Oberheide) (1:15:25) Allocators have become too allocator-y (Dan Feder, University of Michigan) (1:20:55) LP’s should value information, not just returns (Ben Ivey, Marshall Street) (1:24:09) Upcoming litigation of Russian doll SPVs (Asher Siddiqui, Song United) (1:30:13) Why retail needs private market access (Sarah Pinto Peyronel, Robinhood Ventures) Referenced https://beyondsummit.allocate.co/ Tripp Jones, Uncork Capital Twitter: https://x.com/thistrippjones Bryan Rosenblatt, Sandlot Twitter: https://x.com/BRosenblatt4 Nate Williams, Union Twitter: https://x.com/naywilliams Pratyush Buddiga, Susa Ventures Twitter: https://x.com/pratyushbuddiga Matt Cohen, Ripple Ventures Twitter: https://x.com/mattybcohen Clark Cheng, Merrimac LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/clark-cheng-cfa-frm-caia-a411535 Sunil Nagaraj, Ubiquity Ventures Twitter: https://x.com/sunilnagaraj Sungjoon Cho, Fortitude Ventures Twitter: https://x.com/josungjoon Josh Christensen, Mercato LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshjdmba/ Amias Gerety, QED Twitter: https://x.com/amiasmg Jon Oberheide Twitter: https://x.com/jonoberheide Dan Feder, Michigan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danfeder Ben Ivey, Marshall Street LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benivey Asher Siddiqui, Song United LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashersiddiqui Sarah Pinto Peyronel, Robinhood Ventures Twitter: https://x.com/SPintoPeyronel *This podcast is produced by Allocate for informational and educational purposes only and is intended for institutional, accredited, and qualified investors. Nothing discussed constitutes an offer to sell or solicitation to purchase any security or advisory service, and nothing should be construed as legal, tax, or investment advice. Any offering will be made only pursuant to applicable confidential offering documents. Views expressed by participants are their own and subject to change. Any discussion of target returns, projected outcomes, IRRs, MOICs, or other performance metrics is hypothetical and illustrative only and should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance. Investments in private funds are speculative, illiquid, and involve substantial risk, including possible loss of the entire investment. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Certain guests may have financial or other interests in the opportunities discussed. Allocate Management Company, LLC is an SEC-registered investment adviser. Registration does not imply any level of skill, training, or SEC endorsement. Please consult your own advisors before making any investment decision.*

Building Got Easy. This Startup Solves What to Build | Alfred Wahlforss, Listen Labs

Alfred Wallforss is the Co-founder of Listen Labs, the AI customer research company. Companies like Microsoft use Listen to run AI-powered customer interviews, and Alfred talks about how they first landed them as a customer at a pitch competition. We talk why startups should pursue enterprise customers early on, why 85% of survey answers are random clicks, how AI is changing the $140B market research industry, leveraging VC’s for customer intros, how to stand out when recruiting as a startup, and hiring for obsession. Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episode Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com Flex: Get premium banking and a net 60 day credit card at 0% APY https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com Timestamps: (0:14) Listen: AI customer research tool (7:30) Fraud is a big problem in customer research (9:06) The $140B customer survey industry (12:08) Why running customer surveys is so hard (16:03) AGI will never replace humans (18:25) Surveys vs interviews (21:13) Importance of emotion in data collection (22:54) Using AI interviews to get product feedback (26:15) Building digital twins creates better data (32:22) Outperforming generic AI tools (34:17) Sweetgreen’s Max Protein Bowl (36:09) Jevon’s Paradox in customer research (40:37) Quantitative vs qualitative (42:38) Landing Microsoft as an early customer (44:50) Targeting enterprise customers from day 1 (48:05) Building a VC customer intro leaderboard (51:53) Recruiting with billboard games (57:20) Hiring for obsession (1:02:07) Alfred’s favorite movies (1:03:53) Listen’s custom agent harness (1:06:24) Velocity Fellowship for Swedes moving to SF (1:08:34) Growing up with entrepreneurial older brother (1:09:46) No shoes in the office Referenced Try Listen: https://listenlabs.ai/ Careers at Listen: https://listenlabs.ai/careers Sweetgreen protein bowls: https://listenlabs.ai/case-studies/sweetgreen Toni Erdmann: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4048272/ Episode with Erik @ Modal: https://www.thespl.it/p/building-ai-native-infrastructure Follow Alfred Twitter: https://x.com/itsalfredw LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wahlforss Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Inside the AI Sprint, Understanding Anthropic's Strategy | Tomasz Tunguz, Theory Ventures

Tomasz Tunguz is the Founder and General Partner of Theory Ventures. We talk about today’s “all out sprint” in AI, Anthropic’s strategy, the three layers of AI business models, how AI compares to prior technologies, where to invest in AI today, and what Theory looks for in new investments. Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episode Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com [https://www.numeral.com] Flex: Get premium banking and a net 60 day credit card at 0% APY https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital [https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital] Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com [https://www.amplitude.com] Timestamps: (0:42) The “all out sprint” in AI today (1:40) Why GPU prices are up 116% in six weeks (6:34) AI infra end-state: “We’ll over build” (9:12) Tokenmaxxing, and why AI needs to get more efficient (15:48) AI models will resemble pharma more than software (19:52) Why Anthropic still trades at a discount (25:42) Anthropic’s strategy: commoditize the compliments (30:29) Why OpenClaw is so strategic for OpenAI (34:08) The three layers of AI business models (38:18) Where to invest in AI today (45:49) Who will survive SaaSpocalypse? (52:15) Comparing AI’s impact to historical technology cycles (57:34) How new technology historically impacts jobs (1:05:58) Where AI is underrated today (1:10:41) How people are actually buying AI products (1:14:06) Why Theory’s investing in ads, inference, and email (1:16:24) 2026 IPO pipeline, how VC has changed over 20 years (1:20:56) What Theory looks for in new investments (1:22:32) Starting Theory Ventures in 2022 (1:25:39) Running a monte carlo analysis to determine portfolio construction (1:27:54) Tomasz personal AI projects Referenced Theory Ventures: https://theoryvc.com/ Tomasz Blog: https://tomtunguz.com/ Follow Tomasz Twitter: https://x.com/ttunguz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomasztunguz Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Cursor + Kalshi Seed Investor on Spotting Outlier Talent | Ali Partovi, Neo

Ali Partovi is the Co-founder and CEO of Neo. Neo started in 2017 as a network for the top college students. Neo is a “people-first” investor, a thesis it developed missing out on early investments in PayPal and Google at three employees. Neo has since invested in the Seed rounds of Cursor and Kalshi, and Ali shares everything he’s learned about spotting outlier talent, how to hire the best people, how computer science is the best business education, and why the best entrepreneurs start young. Special thanks to Hadi Partovi, Fuzzy Khosrowshahi, Alan Shusterman, and Claire Shorall for their help brainstorming topics for Ali. Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episode Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com Flex: Get premium banking and a net 60 day credit card at 0% APY https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com Timestamps: (0:09) Neo’s two 10x funds (2:19) Missing PayPal led to Neo (9:32) Not investing in Google at 3 employees (11:31) Backing Facebook despite the idea (13:01) Starting Neo to help top college students (17:21) How to identify outlier talent (24:38) Neo’s coding test (27:41) Bootstrapping the first cohort of Neo Scholars (34:58) How Cognition President Russel Kaplan changed Neo forever (39:21) Starting Neo after talking to Steph Curry (46:42) Launching [Code.org](http://Code.org) to teach 20M kids to code (59:38) Is coding still relevant in 2026? (1:03:43) How to hire outlier talent (1:07:25) Why you should aggressively apply for one job (1:11:09) Neo Residency: $750k uncapped (1:19:51) Growing up in Iran during the revolution (1:26:03) Impact of the immigrant mentality (1:29:15) Most entrepreneurial roots start very young (1:39:18) Lessons investing in Cursor + Kalshi seed rounds (1:50:27) Confession: a podcast about failure (1:52:36) Fucking up a $50m deal by lying to Steve Jobs Referenced Neo: https://neo.com/ Neo Scholars Application: https://neo.com/scholars Neo Residency: https://neo.com/residency Code.org: https://code.org/ Lying to Steve Jobs: https://x.com/apartovi/status/1447251334814523392 Losing a deal with Yahoo: https://x.com/apartovi/status/1449856639331340289 Follow Ali Twitter: https://x.com/apartovi LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apartovi/ Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

How a Hillbilly in Nevada Bootstrapped a $140M ARR Manufacturing Company | Jim Belosic, SendCutSend

Jim Belosic is the Co-founder and CEO of SendCutSend, a sheet metal manufacturing business he bootstrapped to a $140 million revenue run rate in eight years. We talk building a manufacturing business in the US, creative ways he financed the company early on, using speed and trust to compete with overseas competitors, lessons from restaurants, and why you can’t run a factory from a spreadsheet. Thank you to Numeral, Flex, and Amplitude for supporting this episode Numeral: The end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance https://www.numeral.com Flex: Sign-up for Flex Elite with code TURNER, get $1,000 https://form.typeform.com/to/Rx9rTjFz Amplitude: AI analytics, all you have to do is ask https://www.amplitude.com Timestamps: (0:16) Automating sheet metal manufacturing (5:59) Zero to $140 million ARR in 8 years (7:58) Acquiring a $750k laser with $0 (13:38) Automating factories is like baking cookies (15:17) Being legible to capital (17:31) Unlocking custom, low order manufacturing with software (20:00) Building more factories instead of selling the software (24:50) Run your company like a lemonade stand (28:30) Raising an angel round in 2021 as a safety net (33:21) SendCutSend’s unique bottoms-up GTM (38:24) Fun coupons (40:12) Building a moat with speed and trust 45:55) How US factories can beat China (47:40) Gaslight product launches (52:05) Lessons from non-manufacturing businesses (55:19) You can’t run a factory from a spreadsheet (58:10) Using data in manufacturing (59:50) Lessons from Factorio (1:03:17) Unlocking a negative cash conversion cycle (1:06:14) You need to resist automating everything (1:13:51) Surviving COVID with six weeks of cash (1:15:47) Solving the US skilled labor shortage (1:26:17) Teaching kids about manufacturing Referenced SendCutSend: https://sendcutsend.com/ Careers at SendCutSend: https://sendcutsend.com/careers Sandy Kory: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandykory Horizon VC: https://www.horizon.vc/ Concrete Canoe Competitions: https://www.asce.org/communities/student-members/conferences/asce-concrete-canoe-competition Follow Jim Twitter: https://x.com/jimbelosic LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/belosic Follow Turner Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/