Episodes

  • Reed McGinley-Stempel, CEO of Stytch: Building Frictionless Auth
    Mar 9 2025

    Reed McGinley-Stempel is the co-founder and CEO of Stytch, an all-in-one platform for modern authentication, authorization, and fraud prevention. Their mission is to eliminate friction on the internet -- without compromising security. They offer solutions that are purpose-built for the needs of both consumer and B2B apps, including features like Google One-Tap & Biometrics to optimize conversions for B2C, and SSO, RBAC, and SCIM to meet the demands of enterprise customers for B2B SaaS. Before Stytch, Reed worked at Plaid, where he met his co-founder Julianna Lamb. They witnessed firsthand the endless frustration experienced by teams — engineers wasting valuable time building authentication solutions instead of focusing on their own product and users suffering the pain of clunky authentication experiences. He is also a proud Duke alum - go blue devils!Topics:

    • The evolution of authentication
    • The future of identity management and fraud prevention
    • Impact of AI and machine learning on authentication and fraud prevention

    #Stytch #Authentication #Passwordless #FraudPrevention #CyberSecurity

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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Sam Toole, Partner at Primary Venture: Future of Healthcare
    Mar 7 2025

    Sam Toole is a Partner at Primary, where he spearheads new enterprise and healthcare investments. The Nantucket native and Hamilton alum was previously the GM of Physician Marketplace for Nomad Health, where he helped lead the company’s sales team from seed through a Series B. Sam’s entrepreneurial career started as the founder of ACK Surf, a surf school on the island of Nantucket, then continued with the creation of a DTC lifestyle clothing brand. Outside of work, Sam enjoys golfing, surfing, and snowboarding, and he hopes to one day live by the beach again.Topics:

    • The evolution of digital health
    • Evaluating healthcare startups
    • The role of AI in healthcare innovation

    #VentureCapital #HealthcareInvestments #DigitalHealth #HealthcareInnovation

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    1 hr
  • Alex Bangash, Transpose Co-founder: Platform Investing Innovator
    Mar 7 2025

    9Alex Bangash is the Co-founder/ Managing Director of Transpose Platform. Transpose Platform investing in the future of venture—backing founders, funds, and platforms that shape the next generation of market leader. Topics:

    • The Evolution of Venture Capital
    • The Future of Fund Structures
    • Building Successful Venture Funds

    #venturecapital #ventureinvesting #transposeplatform #futureofvc

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    58 mins
  • David Blumberg, Blumberg Capital: Global B2B Tech Visionary Builder
    Mar 5 2025

    David Blumberg is the founder and managing partner of Blumberg Capital, which he established in 1991. Prior to Blumberg Capital, David managed international investments with the Bronfman Family Office (Claridge), Adler & Co. Venture Capital APAX Partners and at T. Rowe Price. He also launched business development for Check Point Software Technologies as one of its top four executives.David earned his A.B. in Government, cum laude, from Harvard College and his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business and INSEAD. David speaks French and is proficient in Hebrew and Spanish. David serves as a member or observer on the boards of DataHeroes, Jassby, Kloudfuse, Mytaverse, Trulioo and Wunder Mobility.Topics:

    • Enterprise Software Evolution
    • The Art of Spotting IPO-Worthy Companies
    • Building a Durable VC Firm

    #VentureCapital #DurableInvesting #BlumbergCapital #FounderSuccess #ExitStrategy

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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Jon Turow, Partner at Madrona: Shaping Future AI/ML Infrastructure
    Mar 5 2025

    Jon Turow joined Madrona in 2022. As part of the investment team, Jon partners with founders who build products that customers love. He is interested in applied AI/ML, data infrastructure, financial infrastructure, and open-source business models.Jon is an experienced product leader with over a decade of experience in cloud computing. Most recently, Jon led the product teams for AWS Computer Vision AI services including Amazon Textract (AI for intelligent document processing) and before that Amazon Rekognition (highly accurate image and video analysis). He also wrote the original product and business plans for AWS IoT and AWS Greengrass, which extends AWS services to run locally on edge devices. Jon has launched more than 5 new services and countless features in the areas of AIML, edge computing, IoT, and messaging during his time at Amazon. Jon cofounded and led a cloud telephony startup prior to Amazon.Topics:

    • The Evolution of Applied AI
    • Edge AI & Computing's Future
    • Open Source AI Business Models

    #AppliedAI #VentureCapital #ProductLeadership #CloudComputing #AIInfrastructure

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    1 hr and 3 mins
  • OSS4AI CEO Yujian Tang on Democratizing Open Source AI Development
    Mar 2 2025

    Yujian Tang is the CEO of OSS4AI. OSS4AI is an organization aimed at providing all developers access to the resources to understand, use, and contribute to the direction and development of AI. He is also a Venture Partner at Banyan Ventures, a New York City-based pre-seed, first-money-in, venture capital firm born in the AI era.We will be in person going live at AWS in SF! Topics:

    • Open source AI projects
    • AI infrastructure and development
    • AI-native applications and infrastructure

    #VCPodcast #AI #VentureCapital #AIStartups #OpenSourceAI

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    57 mins
  • Pointhound CEO Jay Reno on Travel Points & Early-Stage Venture Investing
    Mar 2 2025

    Jay Reno is the Co-founder and CEO of Pointhound. Pointhound is helping people find and book free flights, for free, to amazing destinations using credit card points and miles. 🛫🏝️ 💳 He also leads seed and series A investments with 645 Ventures where he's a Venture Partner. Investment areas include consumer, fintech, climate tech and AI. Previously founded Feather, raised $76m, built a world-class team of 150 people, and sold the company in 2022.Topics:

    • The Role of AI in Fintech
    • Consumer AI Trends
    • Insights from Being a Second-Time Founder

    #SecondTimeFounder #FintechTrends #ConsumerTech #TravelTech

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    1 hr
  • (Smart Venture Pod watch party) Founding Partner Lauren Kolodny of Acrew Capital on the future of AI
    Feb 27 2025

    Lauren Kolodny is a Founding Partner of Acrew Capital. Lauren leads the fintech thesis area at Acrew. She has made investments in companies including Chime, Clara, Divvy, Gusto, Klar, Papaya, Pie, & Plaid. Prior to co-founding Acrew, Lauren was a partner at Aspect Ventures. Previously, Lauren worked in product marketing at Google, where she led a number of launches for Workspace, including Google Drive.Topics:

    • How AI is Transforming the Future of Financial Services
    • The Evolution of Payments Technology
    • Cross-Border Financial Solutions in a Global Economy

    #FintechFuture #VCInsights #AIBanking #StartupGrowth #DigitalFinance

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    50 mins