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Great Chat
Published by Mackenzie Bohannon, Angela Du, Ashley Mayer, Helen Min, & Sally Shin
- News
- Tech News
A podcast mostly about tech.
Listen on Apple PodcastsPublished by Mackenzie Bohannon, Angela Du, Ashley Mayer, Helen Min, & Sally Shin
A podcast mostly about tech.
Listen on Apple PodcastsVenture capital used to be the most patient money in finance. So why does it suddenly look like day trading? This week on Great Chat, the group digs into tech’s short-term era: founders leaving their own companies for nine-figure packages, emerging managers pitching early DPI, researchers switching teams, and a YC Startup School that filled Chase Center with mega-church energy. Plus, TK is back, Anthropic loses its aura, and Kalshi had a rough week. An optimistic takeaway: if no reputation is permanent, neither is any failure. Keep swinging. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
The tech industry used to be way funnier; there was a whole HBO show about it! Now the timeline is earnest, angry or self-righteous, and rarely self-aware. Comedian Alexis Gay, who spent seven years working in tech and startups, joins the chat to diagnose what happened: tech got too big to be a cottage industry, too powerful to poke fun at itself, and too fragmented to share an inside joke. She also makes the case for why now is exactly the moment for a new Silicon Valley-style show. Plus: the Brian Chesky hack that nobody believes, why buying tech merch hits different than earning it, and the "directionally very bad" mug we all need ASAP. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
This week on Great Chat, we grapple with the wave of tech leaders who are trading mystique for distribution and engagement-maxxxing. Is this the new world, and we're just boomers? Probably. But that's not going to stop us from crashing out over it. We also chat about Anthropic's latest model and television commercial, and comms blunders by Phia and 1X. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
The SPV drama keeps coming, this time with some new main characters. We break down the public spat between AngelList-affiliated USVC, Anduril co-founder Matt Grimm, and the SPV/fund manager caught in the crossfire. We explore the mounting pressures around deal access and liquidity contributing to the explosion of SPVs, and why SPVs keep taking reputational damage for what's really an incentives problem. Plus: Fable is back (kind of), Angela survived her cruise with a new appreciation for hygiene tech and some notes for Starlink, and we marvel at Taylor Swift’s lockdown on wedding content. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
This week on Great Chat, The New York Times piece about San Francisco's "struggling" six-figure earners has Helen and Ashley doing the math on their early-20s rent checks. Then: the New York congressional primary results, where the biggest Twitter personalities got the fewest votes (and the guy with no following won??). Ryan Petersen calls remote work "white collar fraud," the internet responds, and it's actually kind of productive? And very sadly, Om Malik passed away at 59, and the outpouring from the tech community was unlike anything we've seen in years. What made him irreplaceable — and what does it mean that we can't imagine who fills that role today? Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
Inspired by Midjourney’s foray into full-body scanning, we dig into our industry’s obsession with health and longevity. From the earlier wave (think: 23andMe, Forward) to this current era (Prenuvo, Function, Neko), those of us in tech have been eager early adopters. But what are the tradeoffs in a system that isn’t designed to act on all this information? Plus: the pro-natalists are split on Anne Hathaway’s latest pregnancy, GLP-1s change women’s lives way more than men’s, and WIRED’s invitation to Dialog must have gotten lost in the mail. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
This week on Great Chat, we talk about the biggest IPO in history, the wealth to follow, and what people from prior liquidity events in our industry have learned about money, identity, and happiness. We also cover venture-backed M&A activity, revisit "why Twitter is not real life," and hypothesize how Anthropic will recover from its current fall. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
Over the past week, our Twitter feeds were filled with stories that rarely get told: VCs behaving poorly in pitch meetings. Some founders even named names. What does it say about this moment that founders are publicly sharing these tales? And where are we in the spectrum of founder friendliness? Plus: OpenAI joins the IPO party with a confidential filing, Hunter Biden is the antithesis of the looksmaxxing trend, and maybe escorts are a social good? Go Knicks! Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
You can’t turn around in San Francisco without seeing a startup billboard…or five. We share some of our favorite marketing stunts of all time, and talk about why startup-branded shuttles and cafes are all the rage in our current era. Plus: more SpaceX S-1 talk (we can’t get enough), with Anthropic’s confidential filing close on its heels. It’s going to be a fun few months in the group chat. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
The AI labs’ ARR charts only go up and to the right, but actual diffusion through the Fortune 500? Way messier. This week, Jaclyn Rice Nelson, co-founder and CEO of Tribe AI (and Ashley's partner at Coalition), joins the chat to explain why OpenAI and Anthropic each stood up their own deployment companies. We discuss why the big consultancies can’t get the job done, and why "change management" is the wrong frame for what's actually a from-scratch refactor of how enterprises work. Plus: SpaceX's $1.75T turducken IPO, and a meh Google I/O may have just made the case for moving beyond conference-driven product launches. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
Eric Schmidt delivered a pitch for AI to the University of Arizona graduating class—and the audience was not having it. We break down the nuance behind those boos, and grapple with the reality that no tech leader could have delivered a rousing AI speech in this moment. On the bright side, Schmidt sent us down a fun rabbit hole, reviewing some of the best commencement speeches in recent history (RIP Steve Jobs). Plus: the most boring possible verdict in the Musk v. Altman showdown, the tweet about the SF wealth gap that broke our group chats, and the doomsday vibes at Meta. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
We’ve come a long way from the idealistic startup missions of the 2000s and 2010s. Today’s mission statements (when they exist) are more adversarial and more capitalist. Did we lose something, or are we just being honest? Plus: secondary sales exacerbate the already crazy SF housing market, and blaming AI isn’t landing as well for the latest wave of tech layoffs. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod: https://lightningpod.fm/
In this era of hot takes loosely held, we each reveal the hills we’re willing to die on. Helen defends advertising as the perfect business model, Angela says the maths never really math (so throw out your spreadsheets), and Ashley insists you only lose when you try to play someone else’s game. Plus: the Anthropic narrative shift, everyone loves Bret Taylor, and so long Tim Apple (hello Johnny Appleseed?). Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
When everyone is a developer, what does developer marketing even mean? This week on Great Chat, we're joined by developer relations expert Matt Palmer to discuss developer marketing and the eternal question of what's cool in San Francisco. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
In the wake of its historic $122B fundraise, OpenAI just wrapped one of the crazier weeks in news, but we couldn't miss the chance to zero in on its surprise acquisition of new media darling TBPN. We asked Alexia Bonatsos, early stage investor and former editor of TechCrunch (a new media darling from a prior era), to join the chat. Plus: Is Medvi a shining new example of company building, or a business milkshake duck? And what's the deal with VC firms removing controversial startup logos from their websites (cough, Delve)? Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod: https://lightningpod.fm/
So we all survived Q1—barely. When the world gets crazy, how do you stay sane? Spoiler alert: we don’t have any answers, but we have lots of hot takes. Plus: Mac opens a factory and schools us on submarine life, we wonder if anyone has reached Goldilocks status of being just the right amount online (not us), and it turns out AI may not have the polarizing effects of social media—we love a narrative violation. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod
We’re hearing the B word a lot more lately, and while it’s clear there’s a valuation bubble, we’re not betting on a correction just yet. Plus: OpenAI trades its “you can just do things” era for focus (RIP Sora and assorted side quests), Emil Michael shows us what it means to hold a grudge, and we Delve into the latest alleged bad behavior in startupland. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod: https://lightningpod.fm/
With all this talk of looming layoffs and AI automation, we have to wonder: what’s the People/HR world like these days? Emily Herron, a longtime startup People leader and current HR Evangelist at Rippling, joined the chat to share her refreshingly candid and pragmatic POV. Plus: Travis Kalanick is back, baby, with the perfect narrative-moment fit. Meanwhile, Marc Andreessen breaks the internet with his latest hot take: the Great Men of history weren’t introspective. Please keep counterexamples to yourself. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod: https://lightningpod.fm/
Inspired by International Women’s Day, we reflect on the different narratives for women in tech over the past few decades. From Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In to the rise (and fall) of the Girl Boss to…whatever this moment is? We break down what’s actually helpful to women, and what’s just performative. Plus: Microsoft enters the chat with Copilot Cowork (say that ten times fast), Anthropic strikes back with a lawsuit against the Department of War, and Cluely’s latest stunt feels so 2025. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod: https://lightningpod.fm/
AI makes a lot of things easier, but reading the room is not one of them. On this week's Great Chat, we discuss how this moment feels different from 2020 and 2008, and debate whether we will see a return to empathy from our tech leaders. How do you lead when no one knows what will happen next? It seems everyone could benefit from taking a deep breath right now. Plus, why Katy Perry is trending again, narrative violations by Cursor, and some awful analogies that remind us that the current moment doesn't fit neatly into past frameworks. Mercury is back as the headline sponsor for year two of Great Chat. Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services provided through Choice Financial Group, Column N.A., and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC. This podcast is edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod: https://lightningpod.fm/