The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

AGENDA:
00:00 Coinbase Slashes AI Spend 50%—Is the AI Token Bubble Bursting?
12:55 Anthropic Warns Open Source Could Destroy the AI Business Model
18:10 Dario Escalates the AI War with China & Open-Source
22:00 Should the US Ban Chinese AI Models?
33:15 Microsoft's AI Strategy Is Breaking Down
38:00 Kalshi's $40B Valuation Signals a New Consumer Gold Rush
41:15 Has SpaceX Frozen the AI IPO Market?
43:20 Why Bending Spoons May Be the Smartest IPO of the Year
46:00 The $100B Opportunity to Buy Broken SaaS Companies
53:30 Which Software Companies Would Jason Buy Tomorrow?
1:04:30 The Great AI Talent War Is About to Get Worse
1:11:20 Every Company Is Becoming an AI Company—or Dying

KR Sridhar is the Founder and CEO of Bloom Energy, the distributed power company powering the AI revolution. Under his leadership, Bloom has grown to a market cap of approximately $93 billion, with revenue surpassing $2 billion as demand from AI data centres has surged. Over the last 12–18 months, Bloom has become one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI infrastructure boom. It's also the largest position in Leo Aschenbrenner's investment portfolio, making up around 16% of his fund.
AGENDA:
00:00 Why Failure Is Never an Option: The Mindset That Built a $90B Company
05:20 The 25-Year Bet: Why Bloom Never Doubted AI Would Need Its Technology
12:10 Andy Grove's Brutal Leadership Lesson That Changed Everything
18:40 AI Isn't a Bubble—It's a "Hockey Stick on a Hockey Stick"
25:30 Why Electricity, Not AI Models, Will Decide the Winners of the AI Race
34:20 The Radical Vision: Why Power Must Move to the Edge of the Grid
40:40 How Bloom Beat Everyone to Power Oracle's AI Data Centres in Just 55 Days
50:00 The Future of Cities, Energy Sovereignty & Why AI Will Democratise Power
52:10 Parenting, Purpose & the One Belief KR Thinks Everyone Gets Wrong About AI
55:00 The Next 10 Years: Why AI Could Create Global Energy Abundance

Paul Erlanger is the Co-Founder and CEO of FOMO, the social-first trading platform building the future of on-chain investing. Since founding the company in 2025, Paul has raised approximately $94 million, including a $17 million Series A led by Benchmark and a $75 million Series B led by Index Ventures with participation from USV, valuing the company at $550 million. Today, FOMO has grown to 600,000 users, processed over $4 billion in trading volume, and is adding thousands of new users every day—all with a team of just 17 people.
AGENDA: 
00:00 – Building a $550M Company with No Salaries, No Managers & No 1:1s
03:58 – Why Traditional Brokerages Will Lose in the Next 10 Years
09:30 – Why Robinhood's Strategy Is Wrong; The End of the Financial Super App? 
13:05 – "Markets Aren't a Casino" — The Case for Retail Investors Fighting Wall Street
16:45 – The Radical Hiring Bet: Giving Employees Founder-Level Equity
23:40 – AI Kills Org Charts: Why FOMO Will Stay Under 25 Employees
29:30 – Why Taste Beats AI & The Biggest Mistake Most Consumer Startups Make
33:10 – The Social Media Playbook That Every Startup Gets Wrong
39:20 – How Benchmark, Index & USV Won the Deal—and the VC Advice Founders Need to Hear
46:10 – The Future of Investing: Social Trading, Creator Economies & Financial Networks

AGENDA:
00:00 – Google Loses Two AI Legends as Anthropic Wins the Talent War
14:45 – China's $50B DeepSeek Bet Changes the AI Power Balance
27:15 – AI's Memory Crisis Has Begun — Apple Warns of a '100-Year Flood'
30:00 – Wall Street Finally Asks the $725 Billion Question: Who Pays for AI?
41:00 – We Built an AI Finance VP... and It's Better Than Humans
46:30 – The Death of Moats? Why Founders Should Stop Talking About Defensibility
58:30 – Databricks, ServiceNow & the New AI Software Winners
01:07:00 – The Seat-Based SaaS Model Is Dying
01:12:00 – OpenAI's Custom Models Could Rewrite Enterprise Software
01:17:00 – OpenAI's Biggest Threat Isn't Anthropic Anymore

Nikesh Arora is the Chairman and CEO of Palo Alto Networks, the global cybersecurity leader. Since taking over in 2018, he has transformed the company from an $18 billion market cap business into one worth more than $225BN with more than 21,000 employees globally. Previously, Nikesh was President and COO of SoftBank, where he worked alongside Masayoshi Son and helped shape the firm's technology investment strategy. 
AGENDA:
00:00 Why AI Token Prices Will Fall 90% — And Why That's Bullish for AI
07:40 The Frontier Model Problem: Breadth vs Depth in AI
11:30 Most Enterprises Are Using AI Completely Wrong
13:10 Why AI Could Cut Marketing, HR & Finance Teams in Half
16:00 AI Applications Will Have Opinions — SaaS Never Did
20:00 OpenAI, Anthropic & The Most Important Valuation Question in Tech
24:00 The Real Business Model of AI: Transaction Revenue Beats Advertising
25:10 Why Token Prices Must Collapse
28:20 Where Value Actually Accrues in AI: Models, Memory or Apps?
29:00 Why Memory Becomes the Biggest Moat in AI
32:00 Why Every Enterprise Should Be Scared Right Now
33:15 Should Governments Regulate Frontier AI Models?
37:10 Why Brian Armstrong's AI-First Playbook Doesn't Work Everywhere
40:00 The Biggest AI Mistake CEOs Are Making Today
42:00 How Nikesh Creates Darwinian Competition Inside Palo Alto
43:00 Do AI Companies Really Need Forward-Deployed Engineers?
45:00 Why Enterprise AI Products Still Aren't Ready
52:00 Systems of Record vs Systems of Intelligence: The Future of Software
54:00 Why AI Applications Will Replace Traditional SaaS Workflows
58:00 What Nikesh Learned From Google That Still Matters Today
1:04:00 From $200 and Two Suitcases to Running a $225B Company
1:10:00 Happiness, Gratitude and Why Tomorrow Matters More Than Ten Years From Now