Podcast
The Peel with Turner Novak
Hosted by Turner Novak · EN
Exploring the world’s greatest startup stories.
Get a behind the scenes look into the founding stories of your favorite companies. Learn how the industries they operate in actually work, and learn playbooks and tactics you can use to launch and scale your own business.
34episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
Building the $3B API That Didn’t Exist, Europe’s Regulation Problem | Marcelo Lebre, Co-founder of Remote
Jan 1501:52:16Summary readyMarcelo Lebre is the Co-founder and President of Remote, the payroll and international employment company.Remote is one of today's most underrated software companies. We get into why payroll is such a hard problem, why most of the industry still runs on spreadsheets, the edge cases of software meeting government, and a diagnosis of Europe’s regulation problem.We also talk through the journey trying 8 different startup ideas before Remote, how COVID changed the business overnight, and what he’s learned about building culture and running remote teams.Thanks to Gillian O’Brien, Villi Iltchev, Andreas Klinger, Masha Bucher, and Marcelo’s co-founder Job for helping brainstorm topics for this.Try Numeral, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance: https://www.numeral.comSign-up for Flex Elite with code TURNER, get $1,000: https://form.typeform.com/to/Rx9rTjFzTimestamps:(3:22) Gaming with kids(6:05) Hundreds of millions in revenue in the most boring market(8:22) Payroll corporate spies(14:54) Why payroll tax is such a hard problem(19:46) Why tax is even more complicated outside the US(23:08) Legacy payroll still runs on manual spreadsheets(29:14) Remote’s unfair advantage in AI(31:40) Building the global payroll API that didn’t exist(38:06) Meeting his co-founder on a double date(42:04) Seven years of failed products before Remote(49:25) Launching Remote in 2019(52:39) Each year felt like a new apocalypse(59:25) Distributed teams must master async, document everything(1:02:42) Culture is what you tolerate(1:13:05) Europe's regulation problem and why it can't innovate(1:21:18) Why fundraising is so hard in Europe(1:28:23) Deleting spreadsheets to force automation(1:40:25) Burnout, health, fixing the system instead of grinding harder(1:47:57) Writing honestly about the hard parts of building companiesReferencedTry Remote: https://remote.com/Careers at Remote: https://remote.com/careersRemote Handbook: https://remotecom.notion.site/a3439c6ccaac4d5f8c7515c357345c11?v=8bb7f9be662f45da87ef4ab14a42be37The Toyota Way: https://www.amazon.com/Toyota-Way-Management-Principles-Manufacturer/dp/0071392319The Book of Five Rings: https://www.amazon.com/Book-Five-Rings-Miyamoto-Musashi/dp/1590309847Follow MarceloTwitter: https://x.com/marcelolebreLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcelolebreFollow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSubscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/
Summary
Kevin Hartz | Backing Teen Founders, Lessons from the PayPal Mafia
Jan 801:27:54Tap to summarizeKevin Hartz, Co-founder of A*, Eventbrite, Xoom, and Sauron.Kevin has been building and investing in technology companies for 30 years, and we talk about how the industry’s evolved, why he calls AI the Mother of All Bubbles, why we’re still early, and lessons today’s breakout AI companies can learn from those that survived the Dot Com Crash.Kevin is a big proponent of backing young founders. A significant percentage of his latest fund at A* is invested in teenagers, and he shares how he identifies outlier talent so early, from Seed investments in Airbnb, PayPal, and Pinterest, to many of today’s hottest AI companies.He also shares the insane story of investing 100% of the proceeds from his first startup into PayPal’s Seed round, how PayPal’s early fraud systems inspired Palantir, what he learned from the PayPal Mafia, from Peter Thiel, and what makes Founders Fund special.We also talk about how he and his wife recently had two babies, five months apart, using genome screening and surrogates.Thanks to Ramtin Naimi, Navya Gudimetla, and Bennett Siegel for helping brainstorm topics for the conversation.Try Numeral, the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance: https://www.numeral.comSign-up for Flex Elite with code TURNER, get $1,000: https://form.typeform.com/to/Rx9rTjFzTimestamps:(4:25) Power shift from VC’s to founders since the 90’s(9:08) AI is the mother of all bubbles(12:40) Why AI is still underhyped(14:10) What Kevin and A* are investing in today(16:02) Investing 100% of his first startups proceeds in PayPal’s Seed round(21:21) What made the PayPal Mafia special(23:37) Parallels between the 90’s and today(26:40) What makes Founders Fund special(35:07) How Palantir evolved from PayPal’s fraud models(39:06) Building Xoom on the PayPal API(43:38) Lessons between Kevin’s 1st and 2nd startups(46:52) Starting Eventbrite off early PayPal API app(51:51) Eventbrite’s hidden TAM challenge(53:49) Selling Eventbrite to Bending Spoons(54:59) Investing 20% of A* in teenage founders(1:02:33) Incubating Sauron, the home security company(1:08:44) Making breakfast for our kids(1:13:33) Having kids with genome screening and surrogates(1:20:31) Collecting art, how to get startedReferencedhttps://www.a-star.co/https://www.eventbrite.com/https://www.xoom.com/https://www.sauron.systems/https://www.orchidhealth.com/Setting the Table by Danny Meyer: https://www.amazon.com/Setting-Table-Transforming-Hospitality-Business/dp/006074276320% of fund in teenage founders: https://techcrunch.com/2025/10/18/this-top-vc-bet-close-to-20-of-his-fund-on-teenagers-heres-why/https://nypost.com/2025/12/14/us-news/xu-bo-chinese-billionaire-reportedly-sires-more-than-100-kids/Follow KevinTwitter: https://x.com/kevinhartzLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hartzFollow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSubscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/
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Inside the All-In Podcast: Lessons from Elon, Trump, Oprah, Travis Kalanick, Investing in 100+ Startups per Year with Jason Calacanis
Dec 1801:43:20Tap to summarizeJason Calacanis is the host of the All-In Podcast, This Week in Startups, co-founder of the Launch Accelerator, and the “3rd or 4th investor in uber”.We go inside the origins of All-In, how they decide what to talk about each week, and if Jason thinks it helped swing the election.We also talk lesson from starting 7 media companies over the past three decades, what he's learned from studying the world's best interviewers, joining Sequoia’s first scout program, his investing strategy at Launch, the story of being the “3rd or 4th investor in Uber", what people underestimate about Elon, and what it was like inside the Twitter buyout in 2022.Thank you to Austin Petersmith for helping brainstorming topics for the conversation.Thanks to Numeral for supporting this episode. It’s the end-to-end platform for sales tax and compliance. Try it here: https://www.numeral.comTimestamps:(3:34) Interviewing lessons from Oprah, Charlie Rose(6:48) How to ask good questions(12:20) Jason’s favorite upcoming podcasters(17:57) Starting 7 media companies(22:50) How he'd start a new media company today(27:56) In-person experiences, “Bang Bang” in Japan(32:44) Vinyl bars, smartphones, mental health(38:41) Origin of the All-In Podcast(42:58) All-In’s influence on the 2024 Election(46:58) Why All-In got so political(52:35) Media lessons from Trump(55:01) Joining Sequoia’s very first scout program(57:55) Jason’s VC investing strategy(1:03:55) How Launch competes with other accelerators(1:08:46) Fundraising is a numbers game(1:13:06) Investing in Uber and Robinhood Seed rounds(1:18:31) Origin of “3rd or 4th investor in Uber” meme(1:20:57) How Jason got the first Model S(1:26:19) What people underestimate about Elon(1:27:37) Inside the Twitter takeover(1:31:44) Career advice for young people(1:35:22) Jason’s experience taking GLP-1’s(1:40:05) How All-in picks topics each weekReferencedHowie: https://howie.com/All-In Podcast: https://allin.com/Bret Easton Ellis (Podcast): https://www.breteastonellis.com/podcastRed Scare (Podcast): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Scare_(podcast)Preet Berrara (Podcast): https://cafe.com/stay-tuned-podcast/Adam Friedland Show: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheAdamFriedlandShowThe Insider (Movie): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0140352/Launch: https://www.launch.co/Ro: https://ro.co/Follow JasonTwitter: https://twitter.com/JasonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoncalacanis/Follow TurnerTwitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovakLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovakSubscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it
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How the Smartest Companies Use AI | Ankur Goyal, Braintrust
Jun 7, 2024Tap to summarizeGet Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel Ankur Goyal is the Founder and CEO of Braintrust, the end to end developer platform for building the world's best AI products. Their customers include companies like Instacart, Zapier, Notion, Airtable, Replit, and more. We hit on the importance of LLM evals, advice for building AI products, why the best companies have two AI product roadmaps, and his non-conventional advice for founders. Timestamps: (00:00) Intro (04:04) Why everyone’s now an AI company (06:03) Reasons LLM evals are so important (08:10) Typescript becoming the language of AI (09:19) Replacing vibe checks with Braintrust (10:37) Making OpenAI’s protocols the standard (11:27) Why the best companies have two AI roadmaps (13:06) Building your product so each LLM release makes it better (14:54) Predicting AGI is impossible (15:54) Why people who work with LLMs aren’t worried about AI safety (16:52) The best developers are all-in on co-pilots (18:11) How AI is changing software development (21:09) Combining IDE, CIDC, and observability in one product (27:18) Are models more like CPU’s or relational databases? (30:14) How to pick an LLM (33:00) Advice for staying on top of new AI developments (34:30) Why tool calling is so important (38:02) Advice for young software engineers (40:25) Learning to code doing linear algebra homework (42:36) Lack of purpose interning in big tech (44:07) Working at MemSQL learning to be a founder (47:52) How to get a job at a startup (50:43) Building his first startups product on an international flight (52:39) Three lessons from his first failed startup (54:46) Don’t delegate what you’re good at (55:46) Why you should be careful listening to VCs advice (57:34) Tactics for successful delegation (59:36) Why Ankur doesn’t do any meetings (01:02:42) The importance of self-service in unlocking certain customer segments (01:05:14) How Braintrust got started (01:07:45) Advice on picking your target customers (01:10:35) How Braintrust hires with work trials (01:15:21) Balancing security with a modern UI (01:17:49) Why it’s hard to sell non-AI products right now (01:19:21) Advice for selling to large enterprises (01:23:10) Ankur’s favorite AI products Referenced: https://www.braintrustdata.com/ SICP Book PDF: https://web.mit.edu/6.001/6.037/sicp.pdf Hardcopy: https://www.amazon.com/Structure-Interpretation-Computer-Programs-Engineering/dp/0262510871 Linear’s guide to work trials: https://linear.app/blog/why-and-how-we-do-work-trials-at-linear Where to find Ankur: Twitter: https://twitter.com/ankrgyl LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankrgyl/ Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/
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