How I Invest with David Weisburd is a podcast that interviews the world's leading institutional investors. Previous guests include The Ford Foundation, Northwestern University Endowment, CalPERS, Stepstone, and other top limited partners.
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E443: Why the Next Trillion-Dollar Startup Won’t Be a Software Company
Friday, October 16, 2026 • Duration 01:02:28
What if AI makes software abundant and shifts venture capital’s biggest opportunities into the physical world?
Leo Polovets is a General Partner at Humba Ventures, an early-stage deep tech fund investing across robotics, defense, energy, manufacturing, and other physical industries. Leo explains why AI is commoditizing software, why hardware may capture more value as a result, and why some of the best opportunities are hiding in industries with almost no startup competition. We also discuss how to underwrite deep tech before revenue, what separates exceptional founders, the infrastructure bottlenecks created by AI, and why the biggest risk to deep tech may be its dependence on continued funding.
E442: Nelson Mills on Building a $100 Billion Company, the China Threat, and the Future of War
Episode 442
Wednesday, October 14, 2026 • Duration 53:04
What happens when autonomous underwater vehicles become cheap enough to manufacture at scale?
Nelson Mills is the Founder of Vatn Systems, a defense technology company building autonomous underwater vehicles. Nelson explains why undersea autonomy has lagged aerial drones, how advances in AI, navigation, manufacturing, and autonomy are changing the economics, and why Vatn is building lower-cost systems designed to operate at scale. We also discuss raising $85 million for a hardware startup, the rise of asymmetric warfare, lessons from Anduril, and what it takes to build a new defense prime.
E441: Startup Investing When the Cost of Building Goes to Zero
Episode 441
Monday, October 12, 2026 • Duration 01:16:29
What if AI makes the founder more important, not less?
John Borthwick is the Founder of betaworks, the startup studio and venture firm behind companies including Giphy, Dots, bitly, and TweetDeck, with investments in companies including Twitter, Tumblr, Kickstarter, and Hugging Face. We break down why John now puts more weight on founders than products, how betaworks identified Hugging Face before transformers reshaped AI, and why he believes the biggest opportunity is moving toward the AI application layer. We also discuss open-source AI, AI security, the changing nature of work, and why John believes AI was discovered rather than invented.
John Borthwick is the Founder of betaworks, the startup studio and venture firm behind companies including Giphy, Dots, bitly, and TweetDeck, with investments in companies including Twitter, Tumblr, Kickstarter, and Hugging Face. We break down why John now puts more weight on founders than products, how betaworks identified Hugging Face before transformers reshaped AI, and why he believes the biggest opportunity is moving toward the AI application layer. We also discuss open-source AI, AI security, the changing nature of work, and why John believes AI was discovered rather than invented.
E440: What Steve Jobs Taught Me About Great Founders
Episode 440
Friday, October 9, 2026 • Duration 01:03:56
What did Steve Jobs understand about building great companies that most founders miss?
Steven Rosenblatt is Co-Founder and General Partner at Oceans, a seed-stage venture firm based in New York City. Drawing on more than two decades as an operator and investor, including his time at Apple and Foursquare, Steven shares what he learned working directly with Steve Jobs, how he separates ambitious founders from delusional ones, what drew Oceans to Etched, and why AI is creating a technology cycle unlike anything he has seen before.
E439: Ethan Thornton: The 22-Year-Old Building a $3.7 Billion Defense Company
Episode 439
Wednesday, October 7, 2026 • Duration 57:05
What if the future of warfare is determined by who can innovate faster, not who can spend more?
Ethan Thornton is the Founder and CEO of Mach Industries, a defense technology company he started after dropping out of MIT. We break down how Mach went from experimenting with roughly 20 technologies to becoming a multibillion-dollar company, why Ethan believes asymmetric technology is reshaping modern warfare, and how Pentagon procurement is evolving. We also discuss China and Taiwan, lessons from Ukraine, autonomous warfare, recruiting exceptional talent, taking risk, and why Ethan believes great founders should empower their teams rather than make every decision themselves.
E438: Will Robbins on Elon Musk, AI & the Future of Silicon Valley
Episode 438
Monday, October 5, 2026 • Duration 01:16:57
What if the biggest edge in venture capital is identifying an exceptional founder before everyone else does?
Will Robbins is a technology-focused venture investor and founder of Robbins Capital, where he backs companies starting at formation. Previously, Will joined Contrary as its first employee and helped grow the firm to more than $250 million in AUM. In this episode, Will explains why traditional VC brands may matter less in an AI-driven world, how he identifies exceptional founders before they have traction, why the best startups often pivot, and why reputation with founders may be the most important asset a venture investor can build.
E437: Doug Beyer on Raising Capital, LP Psychology & GP Stakes
Episode 437
Friday, October 2, 2026 • Duration 41:28
What if the biggest opportunity in private markets isn’t backing companies—but backing the next generation of investment firms?
In this episode, I sit down with Douglas Beyer, managing partner and founder of Roaring Brook Holdings, to discuss why emerging managers remain one of the most undercapitalized opportunities in alternative assets. Douglas explains how anchor capital changes fundraising dynamics, why LP relationships determine whether firms survive, and how the best emerging managers build trust through transparency and execution. We also explore GP seeding, organizational durability, and why fundraising momentum matters more than most managers realize.
E436: Nnamdi Okike on Billionaires, Founder Psychology & the Venture Capital Bubble
Episode 436
Wednesday, September 30, 2026 • Duration 01:07:11
Can venture capital really be turned from instinct into science?
Nnamdi Okike is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of 645 Ventures, where he leads Seed and Series A investments in software and software-enabled companies. We discuss why Nnamdi believes venture investing is driven by the totality of an investor’s experiences rather than pure instinct, how 645 quantifies founder qualities, and why missionary and “non-central casting” founders can become exceptional investments. We also explore why startups need the right market inflections, how stablecoins and agentic commerce are reshaping fintech, what Nnamdi has learned across five fund vintages, and why raising too much capital at Seed can actually hurt a company.
E435: Why Most Companies Aren’t Ready for AI
Episode 435
Monday, September 28, 2026 • Duration 43:53
Which competitive moats will actually survive the AI era?
SC Moatti is Managing Partner at Mighty Capital and Board Chair at Products That Count. We break down what Mighty Capital learned from mapping 550 companies by defensibility, why traditional SaaS advantages like switching costs and data moats may be weakening, and why network effects and counter-positioning are emerging as powerful AI-era moats. We also discuss why SC disagrees with the conventional power-law approach to venture, how AI is transforming M&A and corporate innovation, the Product Alpha Effect behind Mighty Capital’s investment strategy, and what venture firms must change to survive the AI transition.
E434: Warren Gibbon on How AI is Changing the Private Markets
Episode 434
Friday, September 25, 2026 • Duration 01:00:46
Are private markets still positioned to outperform public markets?
Warren Gibbon is a Multi-Family Office Chief Investment Officer with deep experience across asset allocation, equity research, and portfolio management. We discuss why investors may need to re-underwrite their assumptions about private markets, how higher rates and growing competition have changed private equity, and why public-market earnings growth may be underappreciated. Warren also explains why he is more constructive on venture, what he looks for in emerging managers, the risks created by passive investing, and how he would deploy $100 million of fresh capital today.
How I Invest with David Weisburd, a podcast by David Weisburd - Stats, Episodes and Rankings - My Podcast Data