Explorez tous les épisodes du podcast Giant Ideas

Today, we're joined by Max Jaderberg, President of Isomorphic Labs.

Isomorphic Labs, the Alphabet-backed company spun out of DeepMind, is using AI to design new medicines, with the mission of solving all disease. 

Tommy Stadlen and Cameron McLain talk to Max about why he believes no future exists where medicines aren't designed with AI, and why he'd be "severely disappointed" if disease doesn't mean something completely different 30 years from now.

He speaks about:

• What "solve all disease" means in practice 
• How a medicine actually gets made today, and why it's "very, very fancy trial and error"
• Why earlier AI drug discovery overpromised, and what AlphaFold changed
• Why you can't download the data this field needs off the internet
• The 90% clinical failure rate 
• Bio-resilience, bad actors, and why Isomorphic keeps its models in-house

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

After more than 50 episodes interviewing founders, investors and leaders, Giant co-founders Tommy Stadlen and Cameron McLain turn the mic on themselves to ask what the best entrepreneurs have in common.

From resilience, storytelling, obsession and self-awareness, to the power of control. They speak about:

• Cameron's four founder traits, and why three out of four is the bar
• Why Tommy added control to his list (and what Alex Ferguson has to do with it)
• Producing under fire vs simply enduring
• The case for benign dictatorship in early-stage companies
• "Trauma showcasing" in pitch meetings, and what drives founders
• The four burners: what founders give up, and why the greats might not call it sacrifice
• Why intelligence might not make the top three
• Agentic founders, 16-year-olds pitching from Sweden and 10-person teams building huge revenue...

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Steve Case, the co-founder of AOL, to talk about what the first internet boom can tell us about this one.

Steve started AOL in 1985, when 3% of people were online. He took it public in 1992 as the first internet company to list, and now runs Revolution, the firm behind Rise of the Rest and more than 200 investments across 100 American cities. 

Cameron McLain talks to Steve about why AOL raised just $10 million over seven years (while today's AI companies are seeded with a billion), why he still thinks the Time Warner merger was the right call, and why he thinks AI needs to be very carefully deployed to avoid a revolution.

He speaks about:

• The nine years it took AOL to reach a million users (ChatGPT took three months)
• Arguing with IBM and Apple about whether to build modems into computers
• Being 26 and taking on AT&T, GE and Microsoft with just $10 million
• Whether he'd do the Time Warner merger again
• The industries AI can't disrupt

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Eric Ries, the author of The Lean Startup and the founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange.

Eric wrote the book that taught a generation of founders how to build under uncertainty, and he has spent the years since trying to fix what happens to those companies once they grow.

His new book, Incorruptible, is about a double mystery: why successful companies so often get ruined, and why a handful avoid that fate.

Tommy Stadlen and Cameron McLain talk to Eric about why he thinks the best practices of modern corporate governance destroy value, why he believes a strong founder is not enough to protect a company, and what he'd change about The Lean Startup if he could go back.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're back with Michael Moritz, the Sequoia investor who backed Google, Yahoo and PayPal, to talk about his family and his latest book.

Moritz has written a memoir, Ausländer, out in the US this month. It began with papers found when they cleared out their mother's house in Wales, and grew into an account of how his grandparents were murdered and how his father got out during the Nazi Regime.

We talk to him about what he found in the archives, why he thinks a stable society is a much more fragile thing than most people assume, his experience of anti-semitism, and if he thinks Silicon Valley is befriending Trump (and what he thinks of the US president).

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Michael Moritz, the former chairman of Sequoia Capital, one of the most successful venture capitalists of all time.

Michael Moritz is a venture capitalist and philanthropist renowned for backing early tech giants like Google, PayPal, and YouTube during his 38-year career, first as Partner then Chairman of the firm. 

Cameron McLain and Tommy Stadlen talk to Michael about why he thinks the first 16 years of a founder's life tell you more than you can find anywhere is, why he still wears the cap of the company that lost Sequoia more money than any other, and why he shivered every time anyone called Sequoia an institution.

He speaks about:

• the phone call that brought Sequoia to Google
• why he asks founders about their first 15 or 16 years
• meeting the Collison brothers at 20 and 18, and what was obvious within minutes
• why founding pairs make each other better
• why Bill Gates took the radio taken out of his Mercedes 
• the $44m Webvan loss, and going back to the same idea 20 years later as Instacart
• and lots more...

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're back for our FINAL episode before a 3 week summer break! We're back the first week of September.

Today we're joined by Qasar Younis, co-founder and CEO of Applied Intuition and former COO of Y Combinator, to talk about his life lessons & career advice.

He speaks about:

• The rule he got from a Harvard professor: a mediocre person in a high-growth industry beats the best person in a mediocre one
• The most useful advice of his career
• Optimising for the people you'll learn from over title and pay (at any cost)
• The four life-burners problem, and which one he switched off
• Working seven days a week since he was 14, and what his routine is on the weekend
• Why you can't become Nirvana by copying Kurt Cobain
• The three eras of Y Combinator, and why the old YC wouldn't work today
• "We Make Mistakes" — the only post he wrote as COO, and why it matters

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Qasar Younis, co-founder and CEO of Applied Intuition, a physical AI company valued at $15 billion that builds the models and simulation tools behind autonomous vehicles, defence systems, and industrial machines (before this, he was COO of Y Combinator).

Tommy Stadlen talks to Qasar about why he thinks physical AI will define the next 25 years, and why Applied's ability to run the same models across cars, drones, and construction equipment is its biggest edge. They also get into how he thinks about fundraising and cap tables, and why he says not all money is equally useful.

He speaks about:

• Why Applied Intuition has never spent a dollar of the ~$1 billion raised
• Corporate VCs, multi-stage funds, and why the partner matters more than the firm name
• Why 85% of the global economy is physical (and why that's the real AI opportunity)
• Neural simulation, and how Applied trains one model to work in a car, a drone, and a tank
• Why timing is the hardest thing for founders to get right
• Why he's not worried about self-driving safety
• The billion-machine vision (and why he still drives a 1987 manual Land Cruiser)

Enjoy!

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc. Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're back with Fareed Zakaria, the host of CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS, to talk about his lessons about how to do a great interview.

Fareed Zakaria has interviewed people from presidents, dictators, and the Dalai Lama over three decades, live on air. Tommy Stadlen and Cameron McLain talk to Zakaria about the craft behind those conversations: why he treats an interview as seduction rather than confrontation, why Lee Kuan Yew is the most impressive guest he's ever had, and why the Dalai Lama was a tough interview.

He speaks about:

• Why he avoids confrontation and treats interviews as seduction instead
• The Omar Bartov interview, and why he thinks a soft question made the conversation deeper than an accusation would have
• Why he rarely books politicians in power anymore (and regrets it most times he has)
• Lee Kuan Yew turning a "polyglot population" into a nation with no race riots
• Why the Dalai Lama was his hardest interview 
• What AI leaves for humans once it becomes the better "analytic machine"
• Why he doubts there will be another CNN

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Fareed Zakaria, host of CNN's flagship foreign affairs show and author of The Post-American World. 

Cameron McLain and Tommy Stadlen talk to Fareed about what the world could look like in 2040: why he believes the American-led order built in 1945 is dissolving, why he argues liberal democracy's issues are cultural rather than economic, and why he still thinks a coalition of the US, Europe, Japan, Korea, Singapore and India could keep a rules-based order alive.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're back with Alex Bouaziz, co-founder and CEO of Deel, to talk about his life lessons.

Alex Bouaziz is the co-founder and CEO of Deel, the global payroll and HR platform he's grown from zero to a $17 billion business in just a few years. Tommy Stadlen talks to Alex about the mindset behind building Deel, from why he calls himself a "wartime CEO" to how a chance encounter on Reddit led to his first hire. Alex opens up about running the business alongside his father, why he thinks his generation's gaming habits made remote-first culture feel normal rather than crazy, and the moment of seeing Deel's logo on Arsenal shirts around London.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Alex Bouaziz, co-founder and CEO of Deel, the global HR and payroll platform now serving companies across 150+ countries with more than $1 billion in annual revenue.

Tommy Stadlen talks to Alex about how Deel became the fastest startup to reach $100M in recurring revenue: and why that record came down to one thing: following customers. Alex explains why Deel launched with contractors when everyone else went after employees, how they carried the intensity of Y Combinator all the way to a billion-dollar business, and why their M&A strategy (13 acquisitions in six years) has been one of their most underrated growth levers.

He speaks about:

• The YC "time chamber" mindset they still run the company on
• Why speed of execution matters - and why comfort in any department is a warning sign
• Why hiring A players is less about finding them, and more about NOT lowering the bar when you're desperate to hire
• What most people miss about the Deel M&A strategy (and how they keep founders motivated years after acquisition)
• The case for brand marketing at the enterprise stage, and what Arsenal taught him about community
• Why being a remote company selling to remote companies is an unfair advantage
  
  And lots more!

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Toyin Ajayi, co-founder and CEO of Cityblock Health and a former doctor who trained in the NHS before taking on the US healthcare.

Toyin built Cityblock to serve people on Medicaid. The company is now around $1.5bn in annual revenue, with 150,000 members across 11 states. Tommy Stadlen talks to her about her giant idea, value-based care: why she thinks paying doctors for procedures instead of real outcomes is the root of America's healthcare crisis, why the patients who need care most are the least likely to walk into a clinic, and why she believes AI poured onto the wrong business model will do real damage.

She speaks about:

• Why "value-based care" is the worst brand for one of the biggest ideas in healthcare
• The first Cityblock patient, an elderly, partially blind man living in a Brooklyn basement
• Why fee-for-service ends up paying more for the amputation than for keeping someone safe at home
• The ~140 million Americans on Medicaid and Medicare, and the market everyone missed
• How AI is pushing the marginal cost of a patient interaction close to zero
• Why most healthcare AI dollars are making the system more expensive, not better
• Growing up in Nairobi during the AIDS epidemic, and the UN moment that outraged her and still drives her
• NHS vs US healthcare - and the one-line answer to which she'd choose...

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Tony Fadell, the inventor of the iPod and co-inventor of the iPhone. Tony is the founder of Nest (the smart thermostat acquired by Google) and the New York Times best-selling author of Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making.

In this second episode, Tommy Stadlen talks to Tony about his years working alongside Steve Jobs and what he's learned about building a career, why he thinks saying "no" is the most underrated skill in product, and why giving credit away is the thing most leaders get wrong.

He speaks about:

• what Steve Jobs was truly great at, and the one thing he was bad at
• the two types of assholes, and how to tell ego from mission
• why giving credit to your team is the most joyful part of leading
• hustling his way into General Magic with seven months of letters and cold calls
• chasing heroes instead of brands early in your career
• why the best mentors (like Bill Campbell) know people, not tech
• the General Magic crash at 25 that taught him to stay grounded

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Tony Fadell, inventor of the iPod, co-inventor of the iPhone, and founder of Nest, acquired by Google. He's also the New York Times bestselling author of Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making, and has invested in over 100 companies working across AI, surgery, textiles, and drug discovery.

Tommy Stadlen talks to Tony about why Apple was so close to collapse when it bet on the iPod, why no single AI device will replace the smartphone, and the two-year internal standoff with Steve Jobs that a Wall Street Journal reviewer ended without knowing...

He also speaks about:

• Why Apple had less than 1% market share and $500M in debt when they gambled on the iPod
• "Stay beginner": why great product teams design as if they've never seen the product before
• "Virus of doubt": the Nest approach to making people notice what they'd stopped seeing
• Why the iPhone was really three devices you already owned, merged into one
• General Magic: building the iPhone concept 15 years too early (and what that tells you about timing)
• Why companies (and people) only change when they're close to dying
• Why no single AI device will replace your phone...

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today, we're joined by Jeff Lawson - co-founder of Twilio and now founder of Inertia, a fusion energy company commercialising the Lawrence Livermore fusion breakthrough (the first experiment to produce more energy from fusion than it consumed.)

Cameron McLain talks to Jeff about why he thinks the barriers to fusion are manufacturing problems, not physics problems, what a 10-15 year timeline to grid energy actually looks like, and why he thinks SaaS is heading for a structural reckoning.

He speaks about:

1. Why the Lawrence Livermore breakthrough proved the physics works.
2. Why the two commercial barriers are cost problems, not technical problems. 
3. For almost 100 years, fusion was '3 decades away' because nobody knew if it could work. But now it can work, the question is commercialisation.
4. Why fusion and solar will win together. In 50 years, Jeff expects the grid to run on two sources: solar-plus-battery and fusion. 
5. How to make Agile work in hardware (and why the Gantt chart is a lie!)
6. Why SaaS has an innovator's dilemma in the AI age.
7. Why infrastructure companies win when the world is building.
8. Why storytelling runs through everything: fundraising, hiring, selling.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

In this episode, Cameron McLain sits down with Barry Eggers, co‑founder of Lightspeed Venture Partners (≈$40B AUM), to decode what’s really happening in today’s venture market. From trillion‑dollar IPOs and billion‑dollar seed rounds to AI, robotics, and space, Barry explains why he thinks this moment isn’t just another bubble... 

Barry shares how Lightspeed grew from a $475M first fund to a global platform, why the real edge in venture is being early and decisive, and why he believes intelligence is becoming commoditised while EQ and judgment become the ultimate differentiators, and why family matters most.

Key Insights:

• Venture has split in two: a small slice of traditional early‑stage builders and a massive pool of quasi‑public investors.
• Billion‑dollar seed rounds can make sense when you’re backing teams going after markets that can compound to the trillion‑dollar scale.
• AI is making intelligence abundant, shifting value to founders and investors with superior EQ, judgment, and speed of decision‑making.
• The real error in venture is missing generational companies because of price.
• Lightspeed's secrets to success, and why family and life experiences matter most.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

On this episode of Giant Ideas, Tommy sits down with Ajaz Ahmed, founder of AKQA and now Studio.One, to decode what truly iconic brands have in common — from Nike, Apple and Disney to Gymshark, and how founders can learn from them.

Ajaz argues that “great brands are great storytellers” with a clear desire to right a wrong in the world. He shares lessons from two decades with Nike, why authenticity and category focus still win, and how founders racing from zero to billions can build brands that feel both familiar and radically new.

Plus, more on his new project Studio.One: an antidote to “multi‑mediocrity” with ownership for everyone, and work that earns its place in culture.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

In this episode of Giant Ideas, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, discusses how trust, purpose, and community design shaped one of the world’s most used websites. He reflects on three photographs that define his life, Wikipedia’s core purpose and why transparency, clear purpose, and walking the walk are central to trust.

He also shares the trust framework of building trust, and why execution matters more than idea secrecy, and the real‑world costs of living in mistrust.

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Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Why did Wikipedia stay donation-funded and ad-free while OpenAI raced toward billions in GPU spend and a hybrid for‑profit model? In this episode, Jimmy Wales joins Tommy and Cameron to unpack how business models factor in truth, trust, and the future of knowledge online.

Jimmy explains why he has no regrets about keeping Wikipedia a nonprofit, what he’s learned from two decades of volunteer-driven knowledge creation, and how AI changes the way we’ll all consume information.

Key points:

• Nonprofit vs OpenAI’s model – Why Wikipedia could bootstrap on donations while frontier AI can’t be built as a pure charity.
• Incentives and integrity – How avoiding ads and clickbait helps Wikipedia stay mission-driven and globally focused.
• Human motivation – Why Muppet Wiki and gaming wikis prove passion and recognition beat “$1 per article” content farms every time.
• Neutrality and bias – How Wikipedians work towards a neutral point of view, and why he doesn't believe it's “Woke‑ipedia”
• Trust and hallucinations in AI – Jimmy’s “Kate Garvey test” for new models
• Wikipedia in the AI era – From being core training data (next to Reddit) to losing “quick answer” traffic as AI summaries take over.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

In this episode of Giant Ideas, Cameron sits down with the co‑founder of Robinhood to talk about where it all began, and what founders today can learn.

They discuss:

- The origin story & friendship of the co-founders of Robinhood: Growing up as children of immigrant and meeting at Stanford

- 75 VC rejections: Why investors said young people would never invest, and what those VCs fundamentally missed

- Founder mindset: Changing your mind as a superpower, “gradient descent” as a way to iterate on ideas, and why early-stage investing is really about the people.

- Finding product‑market fit & the viral launch

- Democratising finance: from Occupy Wall Street to a cultural shift where knowing your money is “cool"

- Surviving the GameStop crisis: the most challenging chapter at Robinhood and what grit, tenacity, and “buying another day” really looked like.

Plus, his 3 personal highlights of his life so far - from his childhood to the IPO bell...

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Baiju Bhatt, the co-founder & CEO of Robinhood, has a vision that the Earth will one day be like Saturn - with rings in outer space. 

Baiju's latest company is Aetherflux: building solar panels in space, with energy harvested continuously from the sun, and transmitting it back to Earth or directly to AI infrastructure in orbit, via laser.

The economics of space-based energy are becoming interesting, and the target metric is straightforward: get cost per GPU hour competitive with Earth. Baiju thinks there's a real path there within five to seven years.

In this episode:

- Why AI made space energy suddenly viable

- The case for and against space-based data centres

- What the commercial space economy looks like right now

- How a physics student ended up building one of the most ambitious infrastructure companies on the planet

- His love for building cars

- Why Steve Jobs had a huge impact on his career 

And lots more! Part II coming next week on his lessons from Robinhood.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

In episode two with former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, he reflects on the hidden epidemic of loneliness through the story of his own life.

Moving from a tight‑knit immigrant family, to the healing power of nature, to the weight of taking the oath as Surgeon General, he shares how meaning and resilience are rooted in relationships rather than status or achievement. 

Vivek shares how forming a Moai (a small, committed circle of friends) transformed his life, why success in any career is ultimately relational, and how we can build connection (without relying on alcohol as a social crutch)...

Vivek Murthy has just released a new Substack! Check it out here: https://vivekmurthy.substack.com/

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

In this episode, former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy explains why loneliness has become a defining problem of modern life. He explains why:

- The crucial difference between being alone and feeling lonely,
- How mobility, social media, and the decline of traditional communities have eroded our sense of belonging
- Why young men are emerging as one of the most vulnerable groups.
- How loneliness isn’t just emotionally painful: it carries health risks comparable to smoking and obesity, and it undermines work, education, and social cohesion.
- What happens when digital platforms, gaming, and now AI chatbots start replacing real human relationships.
- Murthy explores how we might redesign technology, workplaces, schools, and public policy to rebuild connection
- Why service, purpose, and community are as vital to a fulfilling life as close personal relationships.

 A practical guide to understanding the loneliness epidemic, and what we can do to change course.

Vivek Murthy has just released a new Substack! Check it out here: https://vivekmurthy.substack.com/

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Cameron sits down with Mateo Jaramillo, the former Tesla exec building one of the most ambitious climate companies in the world: Form Energy. In this bonus episode, they dive into WHY he started the company, why one challenge coin in West Virginia changed everything, the three photographs that defined his life so far...

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Cameron sits down with Matteo Jaramillo, the former Tesla exec building one of the most ambitious climate companies in the world: Form Energy. They dive into long-duration energy storage, the AI-driven demand boom, and what it takes to scale hard tech from idea to gigawatt-hours.

- Why Matteo left a path toward the priesthood after Yale Divinity School
- Simple breakdown of iron-air batteries
- Why 100-hour duration matters for grid reliability and extreme weather
- How iron-air can be ~10x cheaper than lithium-ion for long-duration storage
- Form’s first deployments and the path from R&D to commercialization
- The Google Energy Deal
- Scaling Hard Tech (and Avoiding the “Trap Doors”)
- Lessons from the boom-and-bust of battery startups
- Balancing commercial progress and technical readiness so neither outruns the other
- Why manufacturing is the hardest and final “trap door” in battery startups
- How Form produced 100,000+ electrodes (60 miles of material) 
- Why big tech isn’t just buying power, but funding new energy technologies
- The role of Form’s data set (tens of millions of operating hours) in using AI to accelerate materials and electrochemistry innovation
- Lessons from Tesla & Elon Musk
- Matteo’s take on Elon’s aggressive deadlines—and why he runs Form differently

And lots more!

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

In this episode of Giant Ideas, former New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern returns to explore the person behind the public role. Invited to choose three photographs that define her life, Jacinda reflects on a childhood shaped by New Zealand, parents who modelled service and fairness, and the early experiences that forged her lifelong commitment to tackling inequality and child poverty.

She shares a candid glimpse into the emotional weight of leadership, including the lasting impact of March 15, and why stepping down wasn’t about burnout, knowing when to pass the baton. Jacinda also talks about becoming a mother while in office, learning to let go of control, accepting help, and challenging the myth that women must “do it all” alone. She also describes how she’s crafting her next chapter and why her family makes her so happy.

In this conversation:

• The three “photographs” that define Jacinda’s life and values
• How she was a a reluctant leader
• The emotional legacy of crisis leadership 
• Motherhood, power, and the myth of “doing it all”
• Pushing back on misogyny 
• Life after high office and why she has “no regrets”

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the podcast we are joined by Jacinda Ardern - former Prime Minister of New Zealand, and the world's youngest female head of government. This is a conversation for anyone who wants to lead with kindness, and learn how to deal with high pressure situations.

As PM, Jacinda became famous worldwide for her unique leadership style: leading with compassion and empathy. A 'different kind of power’ as she puts it. 

Her time in office was marked by her handling of major crises. She rushed through gun control laws within weeks of the Christchurch mosque attack. When Covid hit, Jacinda moved decisively to a rapid lockdown, something that would later prove divisive. In the midst of all that, Ardern was the second ever elected leader to give birth while in office. 

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Former UK Deputy Prime Minister and ex‑President of Global Affairs at Meta Nick Clegg returns for a deeply personal conversation.

Nick reflects on the three “photographs” that define his life: a chaotic, international childhood; the unexpected joy of being locked down with his wife Miriam and their three sons on a remote ranch in Montana; and the searing public failures of losing power and his parliamentary seat.

Along the way, he shares what it takes to sustain a high‑pressure dual‑career marriage, why physical resilience is underrated for ambitious parents, how he rebuilt after political defeat to reach the top of Silicon Valley, why he believes political leadership is tougher than being a CEO, and how to make Europe great.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Nick Clegg is the former UK Deputy Prime Minister and former President, Global Affairs at Meta. He has had a front seat to two of the biggest power structures globally: Westminster and Silicon Valley. 

At Meta, he became the company’s chief policy decision-maker, meeting with world leaders, governments and policymakers around the globe. He has written two best-selling books, Politics: Between the Extremes and How To Stop Brexit (And Make Britain Great Again).

His latest book: "How to Save the Internet” - posits that the global, open internet is fragmenting. The book outlines the global cooperation needed to reform Big Tech and preserve the internet as we know it: from where Big Tech has faltered to the necessary radical reforms ahead...

In this conversation, Tommy sits down with Nick to ask whether tech is actually making us happier, if the evidence on social media and polarization follows the headlines, and why Nick is far more worried about AI and the breakup of the open internet.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Andrew Yang joins the Giant Ideas podcast again, this time offering a deeper dive behind the person behind his giant ideas.

Andrew ran for president in 2020, and is the founder of a nonprofit called Humanity Forward, and the Forward Party, a new political party in America aiming to bridge partisan divides. Today his focus is on his new company - launched in late 2025. With Noble Mobile, aiming to cut out the middle man and make mobile data cheaper for Americans.

In this episode we talk about:

- Why EVERYONE should run for president (and why your fear of public humiliation is holding you back in life)

- Nobile Mobile and why he believes Americans are being ripped off for their phone contracts.

- The 3 photographs that define his life

- The art of reinvention and his 'tours of duty'

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the Giant Ideas podcast we are joined by Andrew Yang.

When Andrew Yang, a political outsider, ran for US President in 2020 his campaign hinged on a warning: he predicted that a huge number of jobs would be lost by automation. His solution was a monthly universal basic income (UBI) of $1,000, designed to offset the job losses.

Now, six years later, it appears Yang might have been onto something. 

Dario Amodei, CEO of AI Giant Anthropic, has predicted that half of entry level white collar jobs will be eliminated in the next 3-5 years - spiking US unemployment to over 10%.

So, is UBI still the answer? Would UBI create a dystopian world of state-supported benefits, and loss of meaning? Or could UBI lead to more purpose, hope and a sense of buy-in to the American economy?

Listen to find out more about UBI, why 'elite oversupply' causes social unrest, why people are severely underestimating how disruptive AI will be compared to past industrial revolutions, and why he thinks we should redesign the economy around human flourishing, not just GDP...

Andrew is also the founder of a nonprofit called Humanity Forward, and he co-founded the Forward Party, a new political party in America aiming to bridge partisan divides. Today his focus is on his new company - launched in late 2025. With Noble Mobile, aiming to cut out the middle man and make mobile data cheaper for Americans.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

We welcome back Jeremy O'Brien, co-founder and CEO of PsiQuantum, a quantum computing company on a mission to deliver the first commercially useful quantum computers to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges. O’Brien has dedicated 25 years to this mission and was previously a Professor of Physics & Electrical Engineering at Stanford and Bristol University.

This is an episode for anyone curious to understand the person behind the technology with a goal is to unlock problems that are fundamentally out of reach today, and reinvent whole industries.

In this episode, we talk about founding a company with 4 co-founders, how to keep morale high when you're in stealth for so long, his 3 photos that define his working life, and the secret to his success...

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the Giant Ideas podcast we welcome Jeremy O'Brien, co-founder and CEO of PsiQuantum, a quantum computing company on a mission to deliver the first commercially useful quantum computers to tackle some of the world’s greatest challenges. O’Brien has dedicated 25 years to this mission and was previously a Professor of Physics & Electrical Engineering at Stanford and Bristol University.

This is an episode for anyone curious to peer into the fascinating world of quantum computing, to understand the radical changes it will have on the world if it scales - and the opportunities to transform healthcare, climate technologies, finance, transportation, security and beyond. Their goal is to unlock problems that are fundamentally out of reach today, and reinvent whole industries.

In this episode, we talk about what quantum computing actually is, how soon it is coming, and what will happen when it scales.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Welcome back to Giant Ideas! Happy new year. We return to normal scheduling next week, but this week we are sharing an exclusive conversation with some of the best television writers in the world right now: Succession writer Lucy Prebble, and the creators of the HBO hit Industry, Micky Down and Konrad Kay.

This was conversation was recorded last year - chaired by the legendary Henry Mance, the FT's chief features writer - and was one of my favourites from our Giant Ideas event in London last year.

In this conversation they get to the core of the 'character of bad business’ -  what it's like to write about the worst characters in business? What draws them to these people? Is there is an inevitability to the moral descent of business leaders with too much power? And - perhaps most importantly - how can you, our audience, avoid becoming the next Kendall Roy?

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Immad Akhund is the Co-founder & CEO at Mercury - one of the most widely used business banking platforms globally. He is also an active investor in Silicon Valley - as an active investor in 350 startups at their earliest stages including Airtable, Substack, and Rappi. 

In this episode we talk about the three photographs that define Immad's life so far, the fateful weekend of the Silicon Valley Bank failure, and his leadership lessons learnt in a time of crisis.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Immad Akhund is the Co-founder and CEO at Mercury - one of the most widely used business banking platforms globally. He is also an active investor in Silicon Valley - as an active investor in 350 startups at their earliest stages including Airtable, Substack, and Rappi. 

This year he announced that Mercury raised $300 million at $3.5 billion valuation. He also announced his $26 million fund to back early-stage startups. 

In this episode we talk about why founders make the best venture investors, his experience with investors at Mercury, and what it takes to scale a unicorn.

Stay tuned next week to hear episode 2 about Immad's life so far and how he dealt with the panic of the weekend Silicon Valley Bank failed.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the Giant Ideas podcast we welcome back visionary architect Bjarke Ingels, founder of  @BIGSOLUTIONS (Bjarke Ingels Group), whose work includes Google’s Silicon Valley campus, the Danish Maritime Museum, and 2 World Trade Center. 

In this episode, Bjarke shares his philosophy on how your home should be a portrait of who you are. He also reflects on the three photographs that have defined his life, how his early love of drawing shaped his path to becoming an architect, and his unique design philosophy: embracing challenges and diverse demands (“Yes, is more”) to create innovative architecture.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the Giant Ideas podcast we welcome visionary architect Bjarke Ingels, founder of BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), whose work includes Google’s Silicon Valley campus, the Danish Maritime Museum, and 2 World Trade Center. 

In this episode, Bjarke shares his philosophy of “utopian pragmatism,” the inseparable link between form and function in architecture, and his thoughts on why architecture matters.

Bjarke also discusses collaborations with fellow visionary Thomas Heatherwick, the economic and societal forces shaping our built environment. We discuss his ambitious “Mindfulness City” project in Bhutan, his concept of “hedonic sustainability”: designing cities and spaces that are irresistible and joyful.

Tune in for a fascinating exploration of how architecture can shape a better world, insight into the Danish approach to design and sustainability, and why balancing contradictions is needed more than ever.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Doug Bernauer, founder of Radiant (one of Giant’s most exciting growth investments) joins us again on the Giant Ideas podcast. We backed Radiant in their Series C round to mass produce portable nuclear reactors.

The founder, Doug, worked with Elon Musk for 12 years at SpaceX - including their reusable rocket prototype and the Mars Colonisation project. In this episode, he shares the 3 photographs that define his life, what he learnt from SpaceX, and why good companies need 'unreasonable' leaders. 

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today we are joined by Doug Bernauer, founder of Radiant – one of Giant’s most exciting growth investments. We backed Radiant in their Series C round. Their vision is to mass produce portable nuclear reactors. But their vision goes far beyond that.

They want to first manufacture nuclear reactors for Earth - giving clean energy to remote areas. And they then want to use this profit to develop a reactor for Mars, to send it on a Starship to power the potential future civilisation of Mars. It’s a giant idea - both on this planet, and beyond.

The founder, Doug, worked with Elon Musk for 12 years at SpaceX - including their reusable rocket prototype and the Mars Colonization project. 

In this episode, we talk about why nuclear power’s time has finally come, how Radiant’s approach is unique, and his long term vision to deploy nuclear power on Mars.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

What are the moments that defined you?

Last week we had an in depth conversation with star investor Halle Tecco about creating massively better healthcare in the US.

Today, she joins us to talk about the 3 moments that defined her and the wisdom gained so far in life. From choosing a life partner, to deciding whether to have children, to choosing to leave your home town and prioritise adventure.

About Halle Tecco:
Halle Tecco is an entrepreneur and investor passionate about fixing the healthcare system.

She is the co-founder of Co-fertility - a company rewriting the egg freezing and egg donation experience. She is also the founder of Natalist and Rock Health, one of the pioneering digital health early-stage venture funds.

Now, as Course Director at Harvard Medical School and Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, she supports future healthcare leaders through teaching.

She is also the creator of The Heart of Healthcare Podcast, the #1 podcast in health tech, and is about to release a book, “Massively Better Healthcare: The Innovator's Guide to Tackling Healthcare's Biggest Challenges”.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the podcast, we are excited to be joined by Halle Tecco - an entrepreneur and investor passionate about fixing the healthcare system.

Halle is the co-founder of Co-fertility - a company rewriting the egg freezing and egg donation experience. She is also the founder of Natalist and Rock Health, one of the pioneering digital health early-stage venture funds.

Now, as Course Director at Harvard Medical School and Adjunct Professor at Columbia Business School, she supports future healthcare leaders through teaching.

She is also the creator of The Heart of Healthcare Podcast, the #1 podcast in health tech, and is about to release a book, “Massively Better Healthcare: The Innovator's Guide to Tackling Healthcare's Biggest Challenges”.

We talk about:

1. Why the US healthcare system is inefficient (from middlemen to bad incentives).
2. Why even with more insurance coverage, many people still can’t afford care because of high deductibles.
3. How big healthcare companies block change by using legal and regulatory power.
4. How new ideas succeed by either working outside insurance or partnering with existing players.
5. AI's potential to personalise medicine and lower costs

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the podcast we have Narayana Murthy - Founder and former CEO of Infosys - a giant which reached $100BN, one of the largest companies in history, and transformed India’s economy.

Infosys - founded in 1981 - offers consulting, IT, and outsourcing services across the globe. Starting with a small loan, 18 years later it became the first ever Indian company to be listed on NASDAQ. 

Murthy has been listed among the 12 greatest entrepreneurs of our time by Fortune magazine. He has akso been described as the "Father of the Indian IT sector" by TIME.

Murthy is also the father-in-law of Rishi Sunak, the former UK Prime Minister.

In this episode, we talk about Narayana Murthy’s early life and values, how Infosys grew from $40,000 to a multi-billion dollar global enterprise, why he believes in hard work, and the role of entrepreneurship and capitalism in India.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the podcast we welcome Jeremy Chan. Jeremy is a British-Canadian chef who grew up between London and Hong Kong, and is the Co-founder of Ikoyi restaurant. In 2017, Chan joined forces with Iré Hassan-Odukale – a friend who had just left a career in insurance - and together they decided to build Ikoyi.

Ikoyi is now a two-Michelin-starred restaurant in London, and it has recently been voted one of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. 

But Chan has not always been a chef. In fact he studied Philosophy with Cameron at Princeton, and worked briefly in finance. After leaving, he wrote to lots of restaurants asking them to take him on for some experience. He ended up working at restaurants like the two-starred Hibiscus, Dinner by Heston, and in one of the best restaurants in the world: Noma. He’s known for his creativity, innovation, and originality.

In this episode we talk about:

- The need for obsession and relentless drive when creating something new

- The importance of staying true to your creative vision and maintaining integrity in the face of external pressures

- The restaurant’s focus on creating meaningful, lasting experiences for guests and fostering a strong, values-driven team culture

- The challenges, discipline, and daily routines required to operate at the highest level

- The personal sacrifices required for success, and the reality of building a new business - from empty restaurants to finding new dishes

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the podcast we are joined by Sebastian Thrun - the “Godfather of self-driving cars”. He invented Google’s autonomous vehicle, now known as Waymo, which is doing a quarter of all rideshare journeys in SF.

Sebastian’s life has been full of moonshot ideas. He co-founded Google X, the moonshot factory at Google, and co-founded the flying taxi startup Kitty Hawk and Udacity, which democratised elite education online. He’s seen as one of the greatest computer scientists and roboticists of our time.

Tommy first met Sebastian 12 years ago, when he was researching his book co-authored with Lord John Browne, Connect.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the podcast we have Synthesia Co-founder and COO Steffen Tjerrild.

Synthesia is an AI company that allows you to create professional videos with just a few lines of text. It’s now used by over 1 million customers, including +80% of Fortune 100 companies. Synthesia is a UK unicorn, recently valued at $2 billion.

At the heart of Synthesia's exponential growth is Steffen. As the company’s COO, Steffen has seen the company through its inception to the latest funding round. Today we talk about text-to-video, product market fit, the future of deep fakes and how quickly you will be able to create your own Netflix shows... 

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on the podcast we are joined by Floyd Steadman OBE.

Floyd Steadman’s journey began in North-West London as a 10-year-old runaway, surviving alone after escaping an abusive home. Rejected by his own father and placed into care, Floyd's early life was marked by hardship, racism, and resilience.

After discovering rugby, Floyd became the first Black captain of Saracens rugby club, rising through a sport where no one looked like him. Later, he became a respected headteacher (including of Tommy Stadlen & Cameron McLain's school!) an advocate for inclusion, and the man who first spotted the talent of a young Maro Itoje.

This conversation discusses:

• Growing up in care and rough sleeping 
• Breaking racial barriers in elite rugby
• Nurturing the next generation including England captain Maro Itoje
• Why representation still matters
• What it means to lead, and how you can be kind and decisive as a leader

Floyd was awarded an OBE for his services to education, rugby, and charity, but his real legacy lives in the lives he’s changed.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Today on Giant Ideas we’re joined by General David Petraeus — arguably one of the most influential generals in American history. From leading coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan to running the CIA, General Petraeus has shaped the world on and off the battlefield.

We explore his insights on global security, technological warfare, leadership under pressure, and what the future holds for geopolitics. This is a rare and wide-ranging conversation with a man who has stood at the centre of history. In this episode, we cover a lot of controversial topics, and there was not the necessary time to explore, follow up, and challenge all of them in this episode.

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.

Welcome back to Giant Ideas! Today we are joined by Trip Adler, the Co-founder of Scribd - a company he co-founded with Jared Friedman, now Partner at Y Combinator. Scribd is a digital document library that hosts over 195 million documents, with billions of views a year.

Today we talk about Trip’s next act: Created By Humans, where he is Co-Founder and CEO, on a huge mission to champion AI rights for authors. 

Giant proudly led the seed round of Created by Humans, and we invited Trip on to talk about this giant idea that affects so many people: how can creativity thrive in the AI era?

In this episode, we talk about: what happens if we live in a world where only machines create art? Is AI the next IP frontier? We also talk about his early days pivoting at YC, why persistence matters, and the unusual way he earnt his first revenue…

Building a purpose driven company? Read more about Giant Ventures at www.Giant.vc.

Music credits: Bubble King written and produced by Cameron McLain and Stevan Cablayan aka Vector_XING.

Please note: The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Always consult a licensed professional before making any investment decisions.