Tom Chavez, Vivek Vaidya, and Habu co-founders Matt Kilmartin and Mike Moreau lift the veil on what really happened at Habu's build-out and eventual successful acquisition in just four short years as super{set}'s first-ever exit.

Announcing super{set} Fund II! The world has tilted in our favor. We’ve been building companies in the data+AI space for 25 years, mostly while it was niche and nerdy. With the AI revolution fully upon us, we’re thrilled to announce that super{set} has closed a $90 million second fund to invest in companies at inception. Since launching our first fund, super{set} has founded, funded and scaled 16 data+AI startups. Fund II brings our committed capital in active funds to $176M and comes on...

Talent and career development in startups is typically nonexistent - so at super{set}, we're changing that. While a startup’s opportunities for rapid growth and trial by fire are incredible, we believe startup employees can still benefit from intentional mentorship and development. No - it's not about bringing in professional coaches who lack hands-on company-building expertise. And no, it's more than advice from the balcony unmarried to what life is actually like in the startup...

Rachel Gollub is a distinguished engineer, programmer, and entrepreneur with a storied career in Silicon Valley: she started her career as part of the founding team behind the Java programming language and ended it as CTO of healthcare giant Optum. Along the way, Rachel managed to start several companies on top of a quick stopover at Stanford. In this episode, Rachel reflects on her experiences working alongside tech luminaries like James Gosling and dives into the challenges and triumphs...

Everyone’s talking about what went down at OpenAI - but what does it mean for ethical and responsible AI, and what are the lessons for entrepreneurs on startup board governance? With the abrupt dismissal of CEO Sam Altman, questions loom over the stability and direction of one of AI's most influential entities. Let’s uncover the twists and turns in this high-stakes boardroom drama. Why was Sam Altman abruptly dismissed - only to be brought back again? What role did board member Helen Toner...

Everyone’s talking about AI - so The Ethical Tech Project decided to listen. Joining forces with programmatic privacy and data+AI governance platform Ketch, The Ethical Tech Project surveyed a representative sample of 2,500 U.S. consumers and asked them about AI, the companies leveraging AI, and their sentiment and expectations around AI and privacy.  On the latest episode of The {Closed} Session, get an inside look at the survey results in a deep-dive conversation with the team at The...

The {Closed} Session Spotlight Series showcases a different co-founder from the super{set} portfolio every episode. Today's guest is Lindsey Meyl, Co-founder at RevAmp (rev-amp.ai), a "Datadog for RevOps" platform that offers observability across the revenue engine, monitoring performance, flagging when something is amiss, and determining the root cause of how to fix it.

Like Rocky Balboa and Apollo Creed, the fiercest competitors can sometimes become friends. Omar Tawakol is a prime example. As the founder and CEO of BlueKai, he went head-to-head with Tom, Vivek, and the 'Krux mafia' for dominance in the Data Management Platform arena. A serial entrepreneur with roots in New York and Egypt, Omar eventually steered BlueKai to a successful acquisition by Oracle before creating Voicea, which Cisco acquired. Today, he's pioneering a new venture called Rembrand...

From unpacking Google search patterns to understanding the philosophical underpinnings of big data, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz offers a unique lens. As the NYT Best-selling author of “Everybody Lies” and a renowned data scientist, he delves into the ways data mirrors societal nuances and the vast implications for tech and its intertwining with everyday life.

BONUS CONTENT: The {Closed} Session Spotlight Series showcases a different co-founder from the super{set} portfolio every episode! Andrew Marshak is Co-founder and Head of Product at Headlamp Health (Headlamp.com), a healthtech company bringing greater precision to mental health care. From multiple stints in the early-stage trenches to co-founding Headlamp Health, Andrew Marshak's journey is marked by serious startup scar tissue. He's deeply driven by Headlamp Health's mission: transforming...

How is AI steering the future of marketing strategy? With the convergence of AI and marketing tactics, Rex Briggs paints a compelling picture of what's possible: AI agents that revolutionize user interactions, and generative techniques that craft persuasive content. Drawing from his deep expertise in marketing measurement, Rex joins Tom Chavez and Vivek Vaidya to explore the cutting-edge of AI-driven marketing strategies. Listen for insights on harnessing AI's potential in modern marketing.

BONUS CONTENT: The {Closed} Session Spotlight Series showcases a different co-founder from the super{set} portfolio every episode! Gal Vered is co-founder and Head of Product at Checksum (checksum.ai), end to end test automation leveraging AI to test every corner of your app. Gal details his background as a product manager at Google, a YCombinator CTO, a Northwestern Kellogg MBA, and an Israeli Navy Officer. The group delves into the exciting problem that Checksum is solving with AI and...

Are we walking a tightrope with AI, jeopardizing humanity's ethical core? Is AI more than just algorithms, acting as a mirror to our moral values? And when machine learning grapples with ethical dilemmas, who ultimately bears the responsibility? Harvard's Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science, James Mickens, joins Tom Chavez and Vivek Vaidya on "The {Closed} Session." Together, they dive deep into The Ethical Tech Project (a think-and-do tank crafting blueprints for ethical data use),...

Is AI our salvation or is it going to kill us all? Tom and Vivek roam widely on others’ takes about artificial intelligence, adding their insight and experience to the mix. Along the way they consider Descartes, Ray Kurzweil, Salt Bae, Marc Andreessen among others. If you are looking for a down to earth conversation that tempers the extremes at either end of the debate, this is the one you’ve been waiting for. Hosts Tom Chavez and Vivek Vaidya delve into the multifaceted world of generative...

What does ‘AI alignment mean? Can philosophy help make AI less biased? How does reinforcement learning influence AI's unpredictability? How does AI's ‘frame problem’ affect its ability to understand objects? What role does human feedback play in machine learning and AI fine-tuning? An acclaimed author and researcher who explores the human implications of computer science, Brian Christian is best known for his bestselling series of books: "The Most Human Human" (2011), "Algorithms to Live By"...

Does it matter where you go to college? Should the SAT be abolished? Do you have to have a degree in computer science to work in tech? What are the differences between higher education in the US and in India? Why did Tom and Vivek ban Harvard and Stanford degrees from working at their first company? Even though both Tom and Vivek have – in their own words – fancy degrees themselves, they also acknowledge that they came into the job market when there were fewer graduates in computer science...

Few technologies have captured the attention of the general public as well as seasoned software engineers and entrepreneurs like ChatGPT. But how does it work? How can humans use it to increase productivity and output? And how is it likely to evolve? Our guest for this episode is Rama Ramakrishnan, Professor of the Practice, Data Science and Applied Machine Learning, at MIT Sloan School of Management. He joins Vivek for a wide-ranging conversation about ChatGPT and generative AI, with...

Alex Kantrowitz, journalist and author of Big Technology, joins Tom and Vivek in the studio to discuss his road to journalism, ad tech, and the business and ethical considerations of generative AI. Alex recounts his career shift and discusses the impact of generative AI on journalism, drawing from an incident where AI tools were used to plagiarize his work. The discussion also covers the role of AI in improving performance across fields like journalism and software engineering, and its...

On the heels of boombox.io's $7M seed fundraise led by Forerunner, Tom Chavez and Vivek Vaidya sit down with boombox co-founders India Lossman and Max Mathieu for a special episode straight from super{summit} 2023 in New Orleans! Tom, Vivek, India and Max discuss their backgrounds as musicians and techies building a platform where music producers can store, version, and track all of their music files; collect time-stamped feedback on audio files; communicate on the go with iOS/Android apps;...

We are delighted to share our new episode of the {Closed} Session podcast with guest Alyssa Hutnik. Alyssa looms large in the privacy world, and she’s been thinking deeply about the intersections of data, technology and the law for nearly two decades. She’s also the Chief Privacy and Data Security Architect at Ketch, a super{set} company, as well as a lawyer. Hope you enjoy the episode!

Kicking off the fourth season of the {Closed} Session podcast with a great topic and guest: Frida Polli, CEO and co-founder of pymetrics, which was recently acquired by Harver, joins us to talk about the critical role that technology and specifically AI and neuroscience can play in eliminating bias in hiring and beyond.

(Part II of a two-part Episode) Arthur Patterson, the founder of venture capital firm Accel, sits down for a fireside chat with super{set} founding partner Tom Chavez as part of our biweekly super{set} Community Call. Tom and Vivek sit back and review the tape - analyzing Arthur’s insight into company building across the dimensions of identifying the right talent, doing experiments, what the common thread is across the hits and misses, and a first-hand perspective on the demonic energy that...

Arthur Patterson, the founder of venture capital firm Accel, sits down for a fireside chat with super{set} founding partner Tom Chavez as part of our biweekly super{set} Community Call. Tom and Vivek sit back and review the tape - analyzing Arthur’s insight into the early days of venture capital, where venture stands today, how venture capitalists view long time horizons, and what he is most proud of from his long career.

What does a startup’s board do? Who is on the board? What happens at a quarterly board meeting? What should the board meeting deck look like? How does the conversation change as a company grows from the seed stage to the later stage? How do you get the most out of your board? What is a “closed session” anyways? Tom and Vivek have come full circle: in this episode they’re talking about closed session board meetings in The {Closed} Session. They discuss their experience in board meetings -...