How a16z's Most Connected VC Picks Founders

Today I walk with Ron Nachum, co-founder and CEO of Sapien, an AI company that helps CFOs understand how their businesses run. Ron dropped out of Harvard to start Sapien with two friends from high school, recently raised from Neo and Ali Partovi at a $180M valution. Sapien works with CFOs at manufacturers and Fortune 500 companies, and now at 22 he's building an engine that reads a company's financial and operational data from the ground up. He gets into the night his co-founder found a $10M mistake hours before a customer's board meeting, and why he picks investors by asking if he'd want them at his wedding. We get into: - The spreadsheet error that turned $10M in expected profit into a $2M loss, and how Sapien caught it the morning of the board meeting - Why he'd rather start a hard company than an easy one when anyone can build anything with AI - Dropping out of Harvard after Ali Partovi's first check from Neo, and why the risk felt asymmetric - The wedding test he uses on every investor, and why he chose Neo over Y Combinator - Juggling 500 times in a row in second grade, and the nurture-only belief behind everything he builds so much more! 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐬 (00:00) Trailer (01:18) Ron Nachum, Co-Founder & CEO, Sapien (01:35) The $10M error found on board meeting day (04:53) Telling CFOs twice his age they were wrong (07:55) How a 19-year-old earns trust from skeptical buyers (11:53) Why it's better to start a hard company (13:29) Rubber band bracelets and 3D-printed fidget spinners (18:32) The professor who told a 14-year-old not to email him (22:56) Pain tolerance as the top founder trait (27:16) Being too blunt as a young leader (35:43) Why he records almost every conversation (38:31) Dropping out of Harvard after Neo's first check (45:30) Choosing Neo over Y Combinator and the wedding test (46:54) From recruiting tools to the brain for CFOs (54:45) Finishing SOC 2 controls overnight to close a customer (59:18) Why he wants to build a hotel on the moon (1:00:45) Outro Follow Ron LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ron-nachum/ X: https://x.com/RonNachum Website: https://sapien.ai/ Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

Today I walk with Quinten Farmer, co-founder of Tolan (https://www.tolans.com/), a personal AI built to be a guide through life. Quinten has sold his last company, Even, to Walmart for $300M, saved millions of Americans billions in payday loans and overdraft fees, and raised $60M from USV and Khosla. He gets into why he has zero interest in an AI that books your flights, and why Tolan takes most of its time from TikTok and television. We get into: Why he has zero interest in an AI that books flights or writes work emails, and the guardian angel idea behind Tolan Social penetration theory, and why every Tolan gets its own lore and backstory Selling Even to Walmart for $300M after saving Americans billions in payday loans and overdraft fees The email to David Tisch that gave him two options: hire me or I go to Afghanistan The lunch spent on compostable takeout container margins that pulled him back into tech so much more! 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Trailer (00:49) Quinten Farmer, Co-Founder, Tolan (00:58) What Tolan is and what it is not (02:02) The car accident that showed Tolan's agentic side (04:47) Anthropic's machine God VS being nice to your toaster (06:24) Social penetration theory and why every Tolan has a backstory (09:36) 200 minutes a week and taking share from TikTok (10:47) Why great friendship gets mistaken for therapy (14:26) Talking to his Tolan at 2 a.m. in the hospital (16:32) Why Silicon Valley is obsessed with AI assistants (21:38) Dropping out and the only time he saw his grandfather cry (29:35) The David Tisch email: hire me or I go to Afghanistan (32:22) Selling Even to Walmart for $300M (37:24) Why shipping a lot with AI is the wrong move (57:43) How Tolan runs without 996 (1:03:38) What he wants his boys to remember (1:04:30) Outro

Today I walk with Ali Partovi, founder and CEO of Neo and host of a new podcast Confession. Ali co-founded LinkExchange, which Microsoft bought for $265M, co-founded Code.org with his twin brother Hadi, and wrote the first check into Cursor, and now he runs Neo, the firm that backed Kalshi when every top VC passed. He gets into the night he wanted to tell Universal Music Group to f*** off, and the $12M he borrowed against his own account to keep Kalshi open before the 2024 election. We get into: - Why he wanted to tell Universal Music Group to f*** off over a Bono video, and the half measure he still regrets - How Sequoia's Mike Moritz judged hires in ten minutes while three co-founders spent an hour each and had no opinion - Betting on Alfred Lin as LinkExchange's CFO when Ali thought the idea was idiotic, years before Alfred became co-head of Sequoia - Wiring Kalshi $12M of borrowed money when no bank would lend $100M two weeks before the 2024 election - Why Elon Musk stays the face of SpaceX, and why founders shouldn't fight being the face of their company so much more! 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Trailer (00:55) Ali Partovi, Founder & CEO, Neo (01:09) Rock climbing as exposure therapy for fear (06:47) Bono, U2 and the Universal Music threat (16:00) Selling iLike for $25M after a 10x bigger first exit (17:44) Nobody cares about your failure as much as you do (22:51) Why Elon Musk stays the face of SpaceX (28:50) From MIT daycare to the Iranian revolution (37:00) The Commodore 64 stuck in Iranian customs (47:59) Mike Moritz and his 10-minute hiring verdicts (54:19) Betting on Alfred Lin before Sequoia (58:05) Spotting Paul Graham and Robert Morris at Viaweb (1:03:35) Flying campus to campus to start Neo (1:13:00) The Cursor founders who named their team "the winning team" (1:17:46) Kalshi's 40 law firm rejections (1:23:25) Wiring $12M to Kalshi before the 2024 election (1:33:58) 40 Neo scholars inside OpenAI (1:41:46) Why Neo is named after The Matrix Follow Ali Confession: https://link.mgln.ai/4TnDcL X: https://x.com/apartovi LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/apartovi Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

Today I walk with Bryant Chou, co-founder of Webflow and founder of Ploy. Bryant is the former CTO of Webflow, the platform behind roughly one in every hundred websites, built its growth and marketing teams, and went back through Y Combinator 13 years after his first batch, and now he's building Ploy, an AI platform that turns your website into your hardest working employee. He gets into deciding to leave Webflow in a single day, and the grandfather whose last question to him was how many people worked at his company. We get into: - Why he left Webflow after 13 years to start over solo at 40, and why he decided in a single day - Being "scared s***less" of 20-year-old founders, and why he said yes when Garry Tan asked him to do YC again - Why building a company in 2026 looks nothing like 2013, when he, Vlad, and Sergey had to cover every skill themselves - Ploy's bet on the 99% of websites that aren't on Webflow - His grandfather's escape from a wanted list in Taiwan, and the "keep going" that followed him through 800 employees so much more! 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 (00:00) Bryant Chou, Co-Founder of Webflow & Founder of Ploy (01:46) What running Webflow's marketing team taught a CTO (03:05) "Slurping" your website into a brand design system (07:35) Deciding to leave Webflow in a single day (11:08) Going after the 99% of websites not on Webflow (12:34) Turning your website into your hardest working employee (13:41) Scared of 20-year-old founders and doing YC again (14:30) Building a startup in 2013 VS 2026 (18:04) Why a 40-year-old third-time founder went back to YC (20:16) Demoing Ploy cold after his son's baseball game (24:31) His grandfather's escape from a wanted list in Taiwan (35:41) 996, FOMO, and the San Francisco rat race (40:10) Relearning founder mode (50:58) Running three teams through Covid with two kids under two (58:00) The redemption he's chasing with Ploy Follow Bryant LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bryantchou/ X: https://x.com/bryantchou Follow Luba Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lifeoflubaa/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yudasinal/ X: https://x.com/LubaYudasina

Today I walk with Adam Delehanty, founder and CEO of Ghost, a leading ghostwriting agency for founders, VCs, and brands. Adam has written culture books for Hinge, Duolingo, and e.l.f. Beauty, advises many prominent founders and VCs on their content, and has hosted a popular writing group in his sunroom for 175 Wednesdays in a row. These days, he's been spending more time stepping out from behind the “ghost” and building his own voice online.