How I Invest with David Weisburd

E446: Vista Equity President: The Death of SaaS? AI Agents and the $3 Trillion Opportunity

E445: AngelList: Why Picking Winners Is the Wrong Way to Invest in Startups

E444: President of NEPC on Picking Fund Managers, Venture Capital, and AI Risk

E443: Why the Next Trillion-Dollar Startup Won’t Be a Software Company

Software development is increasingly commoditized by AI, shifting venture capital interest toward capital-intensive, physical industries like energy, robotics, and manufacturing. These deep tech sectors offer massive, uncontested markets but require longer R&D cycles and complex, top-down operational execution. Success...

E442: Nelson Mills on Building a $100 Billion Company, the China Threat, and the Future of War

Building a successful defense startup requires solving high-barrier technical problems, such as undersea navigation and communication in GPS-denied environments. Nelson Mills, founder of Vatn, emphasizes that achieving scale in this sector depends on shifting from expensive, bespoke hardware to modular, cost-effective ...

E441: Startup Investing When the Cost of Building Goes to Zero

The rapid decline in the cost of building technology has shifted the role of founders from hands-on engineers to strategic "steerers" of AI agents and tools. This transformation demands a new type of founder who can navigate the vast possibility space of AI, balancing emotional conviction in a product with the ability ...

E440: What Steve Jobs Taught Me About Great Founders

E439: Ethan Thornton: The 22-Year-Old Building a $3.7 Billion Defense Company

Asymmetric technology is essential for modern defense, particularly in the U.S.-China rivalry and the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Moving away from traditional cost-plus contracting toward a capitalistic, risk-taking model enables rapid innovation and maintains military superiority. By prioritizing "power law" technolo...

E438: Will Robbins on Elon Musk, AI & the Future of Silicon Valley

E437: Doug Beyer on Raising Capital, LP Psychology & GP Stakes

Emerging investment managers face a significant "cold start" problem, struggling to secure institutional capital without established track records or brand recognition. Roaring Brook founder Doug explains that providing anchor LP capital and operational support is essential to catalyze these nascent firms, allowing the...

E436: Nnamdi Okike on Billionaires, Founder Psychology & the Venture Capital Bubble

E435: Why Most Companies Aren’t Ready for AI

E434: Warren Gibbon on How AI is Changing the Private Markets

E433: AlphaSense’s Chris Ackerson on AI, the Future of Finance & Finding Alpha

E432: $24 Billion Investor on Private Credit, the Psychology of Winning & Fear of Failure

E431: Marty Kausas on AI, Trillion Dollar Startups & Founder Psychology

E430: Goldman Sachs’ Michael Bruun on AI, Private Equity & The War for Talent

E429: Dr. V on AI, Market Bubbles & Finding the Next Anthropic

E428: Michael Green on Peter Thiel, SpaceX, and Inefficient Markets

E427: AQR's Peter Hecht on AI, Market Bubbles & How the Best Investors Build Portfolios