Discover shows related to David Senra, based on actual content similarities. Explore podcasts with similar topics, themes, and formats, backed by real data.
How Mark Zuckerberg, Palmer Luckey, Josh Kushner & Scott Wu Think | Jeremy Stern
Episode 44
Sunday, October 4, 2026 β’ Duration 01:08:10
Jeremy Stern is the editor-in-chief of Colossus, where he writes long-form profiles of leading entrepreneurs and investors. He goes behind the scenes of his reporting on Mark Zuckerberg, explaining how months of interviews revealed Zuckerbergβs fascination with Augustus, relentless competitive drive and commitment to building Meta for decades. Jeremy discusses why Metaβs distribution and infrastructure could give it an advantage in AI and why some founders seem incapable of walking away. He explains how a question about defense technology became his first profile, on Palmer Luckey, and why he brings the craft of fiction and poetry to writing about business. Jeremy also describes Scott Wuβs combination of mathematical genius, natural leadership and authenticity, and how Josh Kushnerβs family history shaped his exploration of Thrive Capital and the American dream. The conversation closes with the story of Jeremyβs Russian professor, whose belief that people have an obligation to their gifts changed his life and helped shape how he sees the people he writes about.
Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/jeremy-stern
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Bringing AI to the Real Economy | Alexander Taubman
Episode 43
Wednesday, September 30, 2026 β’ Duration 01:02:09
Alexander Taubman is the co-founder and CEO of Long Lake, a company that buys established service businesses and uses AI to improve how they operate. He explains Long Lakeβs $6.3 billion deal for American Express Global Business Travel, why deploying AI in the real economy is difficult and why he sees productivity gains creating more jobs as businesses grow. Alex describes how Nexus, Long Lakeβs AI platform, connects models to business data and workflows, why its engineers work alongside employees in the field and why he wants to own businesses rather than sell software. He shares how his grandfatherβs idea of βthreshold resistanceβ applies to AI adoption, what he learned at Goldman Sachs and Oaktree and how investing in founder-owned businesses through Taubman Capital prepared him to build Long Lake. Alex also discusses the influence of Danaher, Henry Singleton and John Malone, why he values partners who make him more ambitious and why Long Lake plans to hold its businesses for decades. Including Amex GBT, he expects more than $4 billion in combined revenue the following year and explains why he believes long-term compounding could eventually build a trillion-dollar company.
Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/alexander-taubman
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Chapters
(00:00:00) The $6.3 billion Amex GBT deal
(00:01:21) Bringing AI to the real economy
(00:06:17) Why greater productivity can mean more jobs
(00:11:29) A prepared mind and a tight acquisition filter
(00:16:01) Nexus and the AI platform behind Long Lake
(00:17:32) Put the engineers where the work happens
(00:20:36) Why own the businesses instead of selling software?
(00:22:28) Build tools people want to use
(00:25:24) A high bar for talent, acquisitions and technology
(00:28:03) What his grandfather taught him about removing friction
(00:36:40) Learning capital allocation at Goldman Sachs and Oaktree
(00:41:01) Buying founder-owned businesses with permanent capital
(00:44:35) How the Long Lake team came together
(00:47:26) The best partners make you more ambitious
(00:49:28) More than $4 billion in projected revenue
(00:53:32) Why going public could expand Long Lakeβs ambition
(00:54:23) Henry Singleton and staying flexible
(00:55:57) John Malone and the businesses that will endure
(00:57:57) Why Long Lake doesnβt plan to sell
(01:00:13) Could Long Lake become a trillion-dollar company?
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Building the Streetwear Empire Kith | Ronnie Fieg
Episode 42
Sunday, September 27, 2026 β’ Duration 01:30:12
Ronnie Fieg is the founder, CEO and creative director of Kith. At 13, he turned down an envelope of cash at his bar mitzvah to ask his cousin for a job, then spent 15 years working his way up from stock boy to buyer at David Z. He explains how growing up in Queens and working on 8th Street shaped his taste, how his first ASICS Gel-Lyte III collaboration landed on the front of The Wall Street Journalβs Pursuits section and why he still designs every product for himself first. Ronnie describes why Kith refuses to wholesale or license, why he opens new physical stores as online sales grow and why he believes luxury should mean how much people love what they buy. He also details how a failed white chocolate bread idea became Kith Treats, how he prices product so customers get more than they pay for and what he felt seeing all 1,800 of his shoe designs laid out in chronological order. Ronnie shares how an obsession with padel led to Kith Ivy, why he is expanding into hospitality with Ronnieβs and why growing up before the internet forced him to develop his own point of view.
Show notes: https://davidsenra.com/episode/ronnie-fieg
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Chapters
(00:00:00) You canβt work backwards from money
(00:04:43) βKeep the envelope. I want a job.β
(00:10:25) Why the CEO is also the fit model
(00:18:43) The childhood shoe that launched his career
(00:20:52) The Wall Street Journal, a line down the block and a visit from Adidas
(00:26:48) Get rid of the crap
(00:31:09) What luxury should actually mean
(00:32:40) Why Kith doesnβt wholesale or license
(00:38:24) Building the opposite of an arrogant sneaker shop
(00:40:39) The Italian crook who registered Kithβs trademark
(00:52:02) How a $20 deli experiment became Kith Treats
(00:55:11) Serve your customers, donβt chase new ones
(00:59:35) Always give people more than they pay for
(01:02:41) Seeing 15 years of work laid out on the floor
(01:12:00) Growing up before the algorithm
(01:25:46) How a padel obsession created Kith Ivy
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Building One of the Fastest Growing CPG Companies in History | Peter Rahal of David Protein, Medici Brands & RXBAR
Sunday, September 20, 2026 β’ Duration 01:20:41
Peter Rahal is the co-founder of RXBAR, David Protein, and Medici Brands. After selling RXBAR for $600 million, he tried investing and quickly discovered he was miserable watching other people run companies. He explains why he returned to protein bars, why founders must deeply understand their products and how he plans to build the most important food company of the 21st century. Peter describes the intelligence, beauty and discipline behind David's brand, how growing up with dyslexia shaped his competitive drive and why he channels anger and resentment into company building. He also details his approach to hiring former founders, building a culture of truth seeking and humility and treating the organization itself as a product. Peter walks through the acquisition of his critical ingredient supplier, Epogee, the supply agreements that protected his business and what he would change about communicating the decision to other entrepreneurs. He shares why he chose Greenoaks as an investor, why speed matters more than maximizing a fundraising valuation and how he is building a decentralized organization where leaders master their products, confront problems and earn their autonomy.
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Chapters
(00:00:00) Life after selling RXBAR for $600 million
(00:07:29) Going all in and burning the boats
(00:11:48) Building the most important food company of the 21st century
(00:13:49) How a brand is like a human being
(00:21:07) Why Peter always chooses the hard path
(00:28:17) From zero to $300 million in two years
(00:29:59) Why Peter started selling frozen cod
(00:32:51) The organization is the product
(00:36:56) Why he recruits former founders
(00:41:15) Buying his supplier and victimizing his competitors
(00:51:56) How Neil Mehta and Greenoaks earned a spot on the cap table
(00:55:47) How Peter fundraises
(01:00:31) Running a business is like a river
(01:04:16) Why the company is named Medici
(01:06:28) Bureaucracy is not inevitable
(01:11:48) Why Peter has 25 direct reports
(01:16:06) Peter's principle of reactionary leadership support
(01:17:45) On divine discontent and loving the fight
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Luca Ferrari on Building Bending Spoons: Extreme Ownership, Talent Science & Relentless Simplification
Episode 40
Sunday, September 13, 2026 β’ Duration 02:01:28
Luca Ferrari is a co-founder of Bending Spoons, the technology company he built with his partners by rethinking how software businesses should hire, operate and allocate capital. He explains why Bending Spoons aspires to build βthe best company there ever was,β why it favors raw talent and drive over experience and how a centralized talent team uses testing and more than 100 signals to identify exceptional people early. Luca describes the companyβs culture of extreme ownership and relentless simplification, including why employees are given more work than they can possibly complete, why teams rotate across businesses and why Bending Spoons eliminated traditional job titles. He also details the proprietary operating system and AI tools that allow small teams to run acquired products such as Evernote, why Bending Spoons buys businesses to hold and transform rather than sell and how operational excellence gives it an advantage in acquisitions. Luca closes by discussing going public, his approach to negotiation and capital allocation and why he believes logic and rationality are more reliable than blindly following data.
Show notes: https://davidsenra.com/episode/luca-ferrari
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Chapters
(00:00:00) Fanatical founders building enduring companies
(00:01:23) Luca on building the best company there ever was
(00:04:22) The origins of Bending Spoons
(00:05:47) Talent and why experience is overrated
(00:15:05) Turning hiring into a science
(00:23:30) Why Bending Spoons doesn't use bonuses
(00:29:26) Why everyone in the company has the same job
(00:42:41) On finding great potential and saturating their capacity
(00:49:50) Insisting on a culture of extreme ownership
(00:59:28) Luca's principle of relentless simplification
(01:05:15) Why Bending Spoons doesn't use job titles
(01:10:27) The proprietary operating system behind Bending Spoons
(01:17:07) Why Bending Spoons isn't private equity
(01:19:32) How Bending Spoons acquired & transformed Evernote
(01:28:01) How Bending Spoons uses AI
(01:40:42) How Bending Spoons thinks about capital allocation
(01:43:50) Why procrastination without laziness is good
(01:46:46) Operational excellence is not optional
(01:49:07) How Bending Spoons negotiates acquisitions
(01:54:47) Logic over numbers
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Mati Staniszewski on ElevenLabs, Voice AI & Building the Communication Layer for AI
Episode 39
Wednesday, September 9, 2026 β’ Duration 01:11:07
Mati Staniszewski is the co-founder of ElevenLabs, an AI audio company he started in 2022 with his longtime friend Piotr DΔ bkowski. He explains how a frustration with poorly dubbed content in Poland led them to build frontier speech technology, why ElevenLabs combines audio research with product deployment and how its focus on voice shapes where the company chooses to compete. Mati also describes the Palantir-inspired operating model behind ElevenLabs: small autonomous teams, a flat organization and forward deployed engineers who work directly with customers and feed what they learn back into the product. He discusses using AI to amplify human potential, helping people who have lost their voices speak again, why imperfections can make AI voices feel more human and his belief that voice will become one of the primary ways people interact with AI. After turning down multiple acquisition offers, Mati says he and Piotr are committed to building ElevenLabs independently and pursuing what they see as a rare opportunity to reshape how humans communicate with technology.
Show notes: https://www.davidenra.com/mati-staniszewski
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Chapters
(00:00:00) Building an AI-Native Company Before ChatGPT
(00:02:59) Why ElevenLabs Started With Audio & Dubbing
(00:12:37) Research + Product Deployment: How ElevenLabs Is Built
(00:16:15) Focus as a Competitive Advantage
(00:18:47) Building an Ecosystem Around Voice
(00:22:25) The Communication Platform & Deutsche Telekom
(00:28:29) Forward Deployed Engineers & Lessons From Palantir
(00:33:41) Flat Organizations, Transparency & AI-Native Management
(00:37:19) Small Teams & Putting Engineers Everywhere
(00:43:00) Where ElevenLabs Is Growing Fastest
(00:44:38) Taste, Art & Science in AI
(00:48:23) Using AI to Amplify Human Potential
(00:55:19) Becoming an Entrepreneur & Building With Piotr
(00:56:49) Why Mati Won't Sell ElevenLabs
(01:04:01) Voice as the Interface for AI
(01:06:49) Turning Conferences Into a Business Tool
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Zach Dell on Base Power, Energy Abundance & Building a Company for Life
Episode 38
Sunday, September 6, 2026 β’ Duration 01:16:19
Zach Dell is the co-founder of Base Power, an energy company on a mission to make electricity more affordable and reliable. His starting insight was that home batteries had the wrong business model. Companies sold expensive backup systems that sat idle most of the time. Base installs batteries at homes, retains ownership and operates them as a fleet: charging when electricity is cheap, discharging when it is expensive and providing backup when the grid goes down. The homeowner gets lower electricity bills and backup power. Base gets an asset it can put to work every day.
Dell explains why batteries can make the existing grid more efficient, why installing them where people consume electricity helps overcome infrastructure bottlenecks and how Base serves both homeowners and utilities. His strategy is to build a compounding cost advantage through vertical integration and technology. That now includes Base Core, a battery designed and manufactured by the company, and a longer-term ambition to help meet the growing power demands of AI.
Dell grew up watching his father, Michael Dell, build a company and knew from childhood that he wanted to become an entrepreneur. After several early ventures failed, he went into investing to study what makes a great business. He describes the βDad Terminalββongoing conversations with his father about strategy, operations and the problems in front of themβand the lessons Base has adopted from former SpaceX employees. Engineers and manufacturing teams work close together, and the entire company organizes around a few clearly defined goals.
He also explains the operating habits behind Base: monthly written updates, visible performance dashboards and a physical turtle placed on the desk of the person responsible for resolving a critical bottleneck. He keeps separate notebooks for working in the business and working on it, setting aside time each night to think on paper without distractions. He discusses building a beloved brand in energy, why his co-founder conversations focus on what is going wrong and why Base is his last company. His ambition is a lifelong effort to make, move, store and sell electricity more affordably and reliably.
Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/zach-dell
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Chapters
(00:00:00) Energy Abundance & the Power Demands of AI
(00:06:15) How Batteries Make the Grid More Efficient
(00:09:09) Early Ventures & the Insight Behind Base
(00:15:34) We Don't Sell Batteries. We Sell Electricity.
(00:22:25) How Base Works With Utilities & Competes for Customers
(00:30:44) Learning From Michael Dell: The "Dad Terminal"
(00:32:22) Vertical Integration & Lessons From SpaceX
(00:39:34) Writing Clearly & Making Time to Think
(00:44:53) North Stars, Turtles & Relentless Execution
(00:53:55) Learning From Great Founders & Building a Beloved Brand
(00:56:27) What's Your Constraint?
(01:06:26) Base Core & Taking Control of Manufacturing
(01:11:02) A Lifelong Mission & the Last Company He'll Build
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Doug Leone on Sequoia, Fear, Great Founders & Starting Over at 69
Building Defense Technologies to Protect Democracies | Torsten Reil, Helsing
Wednesday, August 26, 2026 β’ Duration 01:23:54
Torsten Reil has spent his career working at the intersection of artificial intelligence, simulation and entrepreneurship. He began as a biologist studying neural networks and complex systems before founding NaturalMotion, whose technology was used in films including Lord of the Rings, Troy and Harry Potter and later in games including Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption. After building and selling NaturalMotion, he eventually returned to entrepreneurship to co-found Helsing, a European defense technology company focused on artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.
Reil believes warfare is undergoing a fundamental shift from humans operating expensive weapons systems toward what he calls autonomous mass: large numbers of AI-controlled machines operating together. He explains why drones are making tanks, artillery and eventually crewed fighter jets increasingly vulnerable; how AI can navigate without GPS in jammed environments; and why Helsing developed Centaur, an AI fighter pilot that has controlled a real Saab Gripen in air combat against a human-operated aircraft. That work led Helsing to begin building its own autonomous fighter jet, the CA1 Europa.
The underlying strategy is to combine simpler, mass-manufacturable hardware with increasingly capable software. Reil argues that future conflicts will become battles of materiel, making manufacturing capacity as important as technological sophistication. Helsing's HX-2 strike drone was redesigned to scale from dozens of units per month to a baseline of 1,000, with the ability to surge to 3,000. He also explains Helsing's concept of distributed βresilience factories,β which allow countries to manufacture systems domestically while reducing their dependence on vulnerable centralized production facilities.
Reil also describes how he runs Helsing and why he considers talent density the most important ingredient in company performance and culture. The company closely monitors recruiting, conducts quarterly performance calibration and makes an unusually large investment in finding and retaining exceptional people. He discusses Helsing's values of βwhatever it takesβ and βthe truth is in the field,β why founders should pursue ambitions large enough to matter, and why he believes commentary has little value compared with actually building something that changes the world.
Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/torsten-reil
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Chapters
(00:00:00) Drones, Tanks & the Future of Warfare
(00:07:08) Why Torsten Founded Helsing
(00:09:27) Founder Conviction & Betting on European Defense
(00:19:19) Helsing's Mission: Protecting Democracies
(00:23:38) Programs of Record & Winning the Eurofighter Contract
(00:28:35) Building a Superhuman AI Fighter Pilot
(00:36:14) Deterrence, Autonomous Weapons & the Morality of Defense
(00:42:11) Mass Manufacturing, Software & the Future of Materiel
(00:48:33) Airbase Vulnerability, Procurement & Scaling Strike Drones
(00:52:46) Talent Density, Hiring & Performance Management
(00:59:44) How Torsten Hires Exceptional People
(01:05:27) Helsing's Culture: Whatever It Takes & Truth Is in the Field
(01:07:38) Deploying in Ukraine & the Weight of Defense Technology
(01:10:50) NaturalMotion, Gaming & Torsten's Path Into AI
(01:18:33) Outsiders, First Principles & Ambitious North Stars
(01:20:54) Why Commentary Is Worthless & Founders Should Build
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Sam Altman on Building OpenAI & Betting on the Impossible
Sunday, August 23, 2026 β’ Duration 01:18:16
Sam Altman has spent his career at the intersection of startups, investing and artificial intelligence. He says he was fascinated by AI as a child in St. Louis, studied it in college and eventually helped start OpenAI in 2015 after concluding that the most important opportunities often begin as non-consensus bets. His experience investing in startups taught him to look for power laws, back unconventional talent and recognize the decisions that can change a companyβs trajectory.
At OpenAI, Altman says most of his effort goes toward research and compute. Scaling compute requires coordinating chips, fabrication plants, data centers, power systems, finance, policy, supply chains and logisticsβwhat he describes as potentially the most expensive infrastructure project in history. He argues OpenAI should function primarily as a platform: one direct interface to powerful AI and one application programming interface that lets people build on top of it. That strategy requires killing good ideas to preserve resources for the great ones.
Altman expects AI capabilities to advance faster than society and the economy can absorb them. Human habits and institutional inertia will slow the transition, which he believes may make it smoother. He also expects human connection to become more valuable and AI to enable a major increase in small-business formation. His central concern is that AI should expand human agency rather than concentrate power in a small number of companies, people or models.
He also explains how Y Combinator shaped OpenAIβs operating philosophy: make non-consensus bets, put technical people in charge, ship early, learn from reality and iterate. Yet OpenAI required breaking the classic startup playbook. The organization spent four and a half years without launching a product and had to invent ways to measure research progress without customer feedback. On its first day, roughly a dozen people gathered in Greg Brockmanβs apartment and quickly realized they did not know what to do next. Years of what Altman calls βchaotic stumblingβ eventually produced the research path that led to GPT.
Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/sam-altman
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AppLovin: https://applovin.com/senra
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Chapters
(00:00:00) Tobi LΓΌtke, AI-Native Companies & Why Adoption Moves Slowly
(00:05:45) Sam's Own Resistance to AI & the Missing iPhone Moment
(00:10:00) Models, Compute, Power Laws & Non-Consensus Talent
(00:18:37) From AI-Obsessed Kid to Founder, Investor & Back Again
(00:23:19) Impossible Problems, Scientific Discovery & Human Connection
(00:30:16) AI's Two Biggest Risks: Loss of Control & Centralized Power
(00:33:09) Iterative Deployment, AI Safety & Learning From Reality
(00:40:27) Why People Fear AI & the Coming Small-Business Boom
(00:46:13) Context, Memory & the Next Way We Will Work With AI
(00:49:17) OpenAI's Platform Strategy & Killing Good Ideas
(00:53:20) Peter Thiel, Paul Graham & the Value of Nonlinear Thinkers
(01:00:42) How Y Combinator Changed Startups & Shaped OpenAI
(01:04:03) Learning More From Success & the Power of Repetition
(01:09:45) Building OpenAI Without Customers, a Product or a Playbook
(01:15:57) Letters to His Son & Preserving the Story
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David Senra, a podcast by Scicomm Media - Stats, Episodes and Rankings - My Podcast Data
