Podcast
Greymatter
Hosted by Greylock Partners · EN
How do tech startups go from idea…to iconic? Greymatter’s weekly podcast features interviews with VCs, founders, and tech visionaries on everything from AI, marketplaces, and cybersecurity as well as company-building strategies like growth, finding product-market-fit, and recruiting top talent. Founders and VCs offer candid accounts of success, failure, and adaptation. Greymatter delivers practical insights mixed with the bold optimism that defines entrepreneurship.
12episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Greylock Presents: The Intelligent Marketer
Jun 2400:44:13Tap to summarizeThe Intelligent Marketer is a new podcast hosted by Greylock partner Mike Duboe and FERMAT CEO Rishabh Jain, about the intersection of AI, marketing, and commerce. In every episode, Mike & Rishabh talk with an expert guest about the future of artificial intelligence in marketing, and how marketers can stay ahead of the curve. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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"Ship Pricing as Fast as Product" - CEO Alvaro Morales on Orb's Mission to Revolutionize Billing Infrastructure
Oct 8, 202400:35:48Tap to summarizeOrb is on a mission to revolutionize billing infrastructure. In this episode of Greymatter, Greylock partner Saam Motamedi chats with Alvaro Morales, CEO and co-founder of Orb, a cutting-edge billing infrastructure platform designed for the next wave of SaaS and AI companies. Orb allows businesses to implement dynamic pricing models such as usage-based and hybrid systems, empowering companies like Vercel, Pinecone, and Perplexity to evolve their revenue strategies with ease. Morales highlights how Orb’s flexibility transforms revenue workflows, especially in industries like AI and cloud infrastructure, by allowing businesses to shift pricing models without extensive re-engineering. He notes, “Pricing is about as customer-centric and product-centric as you get.” – and goes on to explain that it’s about understanding what value you provide to your customers and how to best meet them.For more great conversations like this one, please follow or subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. You can also find a link to our YouTube channel in the description. Finally, we'd like to thank the people who helped make this podcast happen, including Elisa Schreiber and Fitz Barth.This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod.fm.Transcript of episode:Orb: https://www.withorb.com/Follow Greylock: Youtube, X, LinkedIn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Opal Security's Umaimah Khan on Security-First Identity
Jul 23, 202400:36:00Tap to summarizeToo often, usernames and passwords are the only thing standing between cyber criminals and an organization's data. While it seems obvious, implementing stronger identity controls has historically been a challenge for organizations because the mechanisms that cut off access to threats can also impede employees’ ability to access the systems they need to do their jobs. Opal Security was founded to solve for that tension. Opal Security CEO and co-founder Umaimah Khan spoke with Greylock partner Saam Motamedi about about the company’s mission to deliver scalable least privilege from a security-first standpoint without slowing businesses down.You can read a transcript of this interview here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/security-first-identity/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Product-Led AI: Mustafa Suleyman on Defining Intelligence
Jun 20, 202400:35:11Tap to summarizeGuest episode of Product-Led AI, hosted by Greylock partner Seth Rosenberg. In this episode, he speaks with AI pioneer Mustafa Suleyman, who has been at the forefront of the technology through several major leaps forward. As the co-founder of DeepMind, Google’s VP of AI Policy and Products, the co-founder of Inflection, and now the CEO of Microsoft AI, he’s seen AI’s evolution into the transformative tech it is today. He shares his perspective on AGI, autonomous agents, and opportunities for startups.You can read a transcript of this interview at https://productledaipod.com/podcasts/defining-intelligence/You can watch the video of this interview at https://youtu.be/cNzRviY4Ei8?si=0Drr1xNbWkkbhPJf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Code Smarter, Not Harder
May 22, 202400:18:30Tap to summarizeGreylock partner Corinne Riley reads her essay "Code Smarter, Not Harder: Solving the Unknowns to Developing AI Engineers."Building AI tools for code generation and engineering workflows is one of the most exciting and worthy undertakings by startups today. But there are still many open questions about the technical unlocks that must be solved to make coding tools that work as well as (or better than) human engineers in a production setting. Riley explores these core questions alongside an analysis of the current ecosystem of startups developing AI coding tools. You can read the essay here: https://greylock.com/greymatter/code-smarter-not-harder/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Reinventing Distributed Commerce with AI
May 16, 202400:32:39Tap to summarizeApp-tracking rules closed the door on user-tracking and targeted ads, but AI opened up new channels of engagement and personalization that previously weren’t possible. Commerce infrastructure company Fermat ushers businesses into this new era of online retail. CEO and co-founder Rishabh Jain talks with Greylock partner Saam Motamedi about the double impact of ATT and AI on commerce, and how Fermat is helping to build the next generation of online businesses. You can read the transcript of this interview here on greylock.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Shifting Power Dynamics in AI-Focused Cloud
May 16, 202400:12:23Tap to summarizeAudio version of the essay "The Big 4 Era: Shifting Power Dynamics in the AI-Focused Cloud" written by Greylock partners Jason Risch and Jerry Chen (read by Greylock head of editorial Heather Mack).It’s never been harder to compete with the Big 3 cloud providers. As the AI revolution has shifted NVIDIA into the central power broker of the tech ecosystem, AWS, Azure, and GCP have rushed to build their AI edge. In this “Big 4” era, What’s left for startups?At Greylock, we see ample opportunities in developer tools, infrastructure, agents, apps, security, codegen, and robotics. These observations our based on our daily work, as well as our ongoing data collection and analysis for our Castles in the Cloud project. This essay outlines those areas of opportunity, as well as those that are better suited for incumbents. You can read the essay at greylock.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Product-Led AI: Adept CEO David Luan on Upleveling Human Work
May 15, 202400:30:38Tap to summarizeGuest episode of Product-Led AI, a new podcast series hosted by Greylock partner Seth Rosenberg featuring conversations with leading AI builders.Adept CEO and co-founder David Luan has been riding the LLM wave since the early days of the modern AI boom: an early OpenAI employee, he led the company’s engineering team before serving as the tech lead for Google Brain’s work on LLMs. He co-founded Adept in 2022 to develop multimodal agents built to work alongside humans in any profession. Believing computers should work more like humans and not the other way around, Adept has stood out for its human-centric approach to AGI. In this episode, David talks about the moment he realized building a new product (and a startup) was a faster track to AGI; breaks down the frameworks for Adept; and shares his view of a future where AI functions almost invisibly below all software we use. Check out the whole series at productledaipod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Product-Led AI: Reid Hoffman on AI-Powered Networks
May 8, 202400:42:41Tap to summarizeGuest episode of Product-Led AI, the new series hosted by Greylock partner Seth Rosenberg where he chats with builders who put the power of AI into products that people love.This week, AI visionary (and fellow Greylock partner) Reid Hoffman talks with Seth about the main opportunities in the application layer of AI, with an extra deep dive on AI-powered networks and marketplaces. Having been instrumental in building and scaling several iconic networks throughout his career, Hoffman has learned the core fundamentals of building these types of businesses don't change much - they just look different, depending on the latest tech platform shift. About the series: Investor and former product builder Seth Rosenberg talks with founders about their inspiration and process to build, test, and continually reimagine how AI and humans work together. You can find more about the series at productledaipod.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Introducing Product-Led AI
May 1, 202400:47:53Tap to summarizeSpecial guest episode of Product-Led AI, a new podcast hosted by Greylock partner Seth Rosenberg. In this series, he focuses on the central question: How do you make AI useful?While plenty of money and attention goes to large language models and GPUs, it takes a different skill set to build AI products that change the way we work, learn, and live. We’re seeing this in AI co-pilots, AI-first networks and marketplaces, and entirely reimagined software categories where AI is solving long-standing challenges in new ways. But how do they actually do it?Investor and former product builder Seth Rosenberg talks with founders about their inspiration and process to build, test, and continually reimagine how AI and humans work together. You can find more about the series at productledaipod.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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