How do you become the best of the best—the top performer in your field? Dr. Julie Gurner, an acclaimed executive coach and once likened to Billions’ Wendy Rhoades by The Wall Street Journal, shares her insights on what it takes to excel at the highest level. In this episode, Dr. Gurner joins hosts Sterling Snow and Tyler Hogge to explore the mindsets, strategies, and leadership styles that empower people to perform at their peak. Episode Highlights: 00:00 Meet Dr. Julie Gurner and her unique...

"Joining a company as early as possible, right after achieving product-market fit, offers the greatest career advantage." – Jack Altman Jack Altman epitomizes the true "Investor-Operator." As the co-founder and former CEO of the multi-billion-dollar startup Lattice, and now a full-time investor with his $150 million venture fund, Alt Capital, Jack has successfully navigated both sides of the entrepreneurial journey. It’s clear he excels in every aspect, and we were thrilled to have him on the...

In this episode, Tyler Hogge & Sterling Snow sit down with David George, General Partner at a16z, where he leads the growth investing practice. Since joining in 2019, David has been at the forefront of investments in companies like Coinbase, Databricks, Figma, Robinhood and Instacart. Prior to a16z, David was at General Atlantic, where he invested in iconic brands like Airbnb, Opendoor, Slack, Crowdstrike, and Uber. David shares his unique insights into growth investing and his...

Current Investor and Divvy's Former CRO Sterling Snow is jumping back into an operating role, this time as CEO of Redo, a fast growing customer experience platform. Sterling shares how Redo's founder Taylor Brown approached him to take on the job and how together they're building a company everyone in Utah can root for. Chapters: 01:03 Why The Investor Operator Podcast Was Started 03:45 How Sterling Started Talking With The Founding Team At Redo 05:12 Why Redo May Be The Next Divvy 09:41...

How far would you travel for a good conversation? For hosts Tyler Hogge and Sterling Snow it was a no brainer to fly 2000 miles to talk with Kaz Nejatian, the COO of Shopify in their Toronto HQ. Kaz is a fascinating mind in tech and an unconventional thinker shaping the the product culture of Shopify. He shares his story of growing up in Iran, experiencing the Iran-Iraq war, and eventually immigrating to Canada at age 12. In Canada, Kaz gets even deeper into his fascination with computers...

When Blake Murray came up with the idea of Divvy, it was because he had a problem: he couldn’t get real-time data on the financial health of his business. So in 2016, Blake set out to find a solution and realized there was none. Blake spent the next several years building what would become one of the fastest-growing startups in history—a platform combining expense management software and a corporate card to help businesses of all sizes manage their finances. Blake, along with Tyler and...

Scott Sandell, Executive Chairman and Chief Investment Officer at NEA is truly one of the great venture capitalists of our generation. With nearly three decades at NEA he leads the field with a track record of dozens of successful investments including unicorns like Salesforce, Plaid, Workday, Robinhood, Cloudflare and Tableau. How has he done it? Scott shares his investment philosophy influenced by other greats like Dick Kramlich and John Doerr: understand an individual's life story,...

There may be no better pair of fintech investors than Better Tomorrow Ventures Jake Gibson and Sheel Mohnot. After successful exits in the industry -- Jake as the co-founder of NerdWallet, one of the OG consumer fintech companies, and Sheel with FeeFighter and Innovative Auctions, Jake and Sheel saw a gap in the market and started a fund to help fintech companies at the earliest stages. And they've already had some big wins, counting Ramp and Unit as Portcos. Jake and Sheel joined us on the...

Immad Akhund had the idea for Mercury years before they started. In fact, he'd launched 3 other startups and been through YCombinator twice before even starting initial validation on what would become the beloved neobank of startups everywhere. And opinions were mixed. Immad himself recognized the need for a simpler and more efficient banking service while while operating Heyzap his previous company. But when he shared the concept with other startups, not everyone grasped its...

Andreessen Horowitz General Partner Alex Rampell may be the most true version of an investor-operator. Alex's first entrepreneurial endeavor started as a child when he built and sold shareware out of his parent's house. Eventually he added more businesses to his portfolio before launching the payment platform TrialPay after college and eventually Affirm. Today, Alex invests in some of the largest companies at Andreessen Horowitz and he shares with Tyler and Sterling what he looks for in...

Geoff Lewis is a titan in the VC world as both the lead investor and founder of Bedrock Capital, the firm backing some of the world best-known tech companies. Geoff joins Tyler and Sterling on the podcast to share his insights on venture capital and what it takes to consistently make money for LPs. Geoff discusses the unique decision to raise Bedrock's fund size in a time when other funds are downsizing, the importance of assessing founders and their unique qualities, and the challenges and...

How did this small town farm kid go on to lead the revenue orgs for Silicon Valley's biggest companies? Mark Cranney credits his success to the lessons he learned growing up: work hard and run things efficiently. Mark shares the playbook he's used to build billions in pipeline through his career as an executive, sales leader and most famously as a partner at Andreessen Horowitz. If you're a founder, there's no better person to learn from than Mark. Chapters 00:37 Introducing Mark...

This isn't Henry Ward's first shot at entrepreneurship. In fact, the first company he founded failed. But Henry says the things he learned were pivotal for starting Carta, a multi-billion dollar company that's a darling of the venture world. CEO of Co-founder Henry Ward sits down with Tyler & Sterling and recounts his journey to entrepreneurship and shares critical advice for other builders who are in the game -- from establishing a strong company culture to the how of developing stronger...

President and CEO of YCombinator Garry Tan sits down with Tyler & Sterling and recounts his time as an early hire at Palantir, starting his company Posterous and becoming an investor of dozens of well-known startups. The companies Garry has worked with are worth a combined $226 billion. Garry gives valuable advice on cofounder dynamics, doing your inner work, and startup strategies for both Investors & Operators. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 05:55 Garry's $200 Million Mistake 13:00 Why...

If there was a Mount Rushmore of Investors, Keith Rabois would definitely be on it. Over his decades long career as both an investor and operator, Keith has had a hand in Silicon Valley unicorns like Square, Paypal, Airbnb and Youtube. In fact, he's aiming to be the 'Michael Jordan' of the investment world. Now, as a co-founder of Opendoor and Partner at Founders Fund Keith sits down with Tyler and Sterling and shares what he looks for in companies he invests in, what attributes a founder...

The IO podcast with Sterling and Tyler features Andy Rachleff, the founder of Benchmark Capital and unicorn startup Wealthfront, and explores the intersection between investing and operating. Ratcliffe believes that finding product-market fit and being ambidextrous in finding new opportunities while optimizing existing ones is more important than being paranoid in either role. He also discusses the importance of learning from success and putting entrepreneurs first. Venture capitalist Bill...