This Week in Startups - Video

Filmed at the Upfront Summit 2017, Jason interviews a panel of VC thought leaders that all share the common theme of incredible portfolios and tremendous success. Patricia Nakache (Trinity Ventures), Aydin Senkut (Felicis Ventures), Jeff Clavier (SoftTech VC), Omar Hamoui (Sequoia Capital) convene to discuss trends and the future of venture capital, their biggest misses and lessons learned, “FOMO” in the investing landscape, how to avoid fraudulent situations, and much more.

Filmed at the Upfront Summit 2017, Jason sits down with legendary entrepreneur-turned-investor, Vinod Khosla. In 1980, Vinod co-founded Daisy Systems, the first significant computer-aided design system for electrical engineers. In 1982, he made his early fortune as one of the co-founders of Sun Microsystems, and in 1987, he switched gears to join the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, where he gained huge recognition and appreciation as a venture capitalist. He is also widely known for launching Juniper Networks, a company which is believed to be the next Cisco. Currently, he is the founder of Khosla Ventures, a firm focused on assisting entrepreneurs to build impactful new energy and technology companies. Join us as Vinod Khosla shares his inspiring story of mistakes, lessons learned, and advice for entrepreneurs building technology-based businesses.

Jason “jams out” a number of marketing and growth tips with founders in this special “Jam Session” episode of This Week in Startups. Casey Winters is a growth advisor and was previously Growth Product Lead at Pinterest and GrubHub. He explains how to use landing pages to capture all of the free search traffic that you may be missing out on. Sue Kwon, Head of Communications at Honor, draws parallels from her experience of working in a tv newsroom to what founders go through having to quickly tell their story with little money and time. Then, David McIntosh, CEO and co-founder at Tenor, talks about growth, specifically about making decisions that compound exponentially instead of slow linear growth.

In this Part 2 episode, Jason and Sam continue their exploration of the Trump Phenomenon, social media and fake news, and the benefits and threats of A.I. The thematic question to ask ourselves is: what sort of society do we want to live in? As technology becomes more powerful, and as more jobs become obviated by intelligent machines, Sam highlights that we need to figure out how to redistribute wealth to the better part of humanity. He reminds us though, that it’s not all depressing, and that with the right approach, we are living in the first moment of human history where we can plausibly imagine virtually everything changing.

Today’s guest is Sam Harris, philosopher, neuroscientist and best-selling author of books including “Waking Up,” “The End of Faith,” “Letter to a Christian Nation,” and “The Moral Landscape.” Jason and Sam explore a wide range of topics, including the ethics of robots, the value of meditation, Trump’s lies, and his most recent obsession AI, which stemmed from an initial conversation with Elon Musk. Sam argues that the threat of uncontrolled AI is one of the most pressing issues of our time and poses the question: Can we build AI without losing control over it? The two then discuss why meditation is so important for entrepreneurs and business people. Sam has built his brand and fan base around radical honesty and authenticity, so the conversation naturally segues to Trump and his lies. This is only the first of two parts, so stay tuned for much more.

Jordan Ritter is an accomplished serial entrepreneur perhaps best known for co-founding Napster, the controversial file-sharing company that fundamentally changed the music industry. He shares about the inspiration behind the music-streaming site, the key role he played in helping it scale, the pivotal moment that lingers in his memory during the craze, and the most important lesson he learned there. Currently, he is the CEO of Atlas Informatics, a startup in Seattle with an audacious goal to redefine search as we know it. Atlas Recall, the company's first product, gives you a searchable photographic memory that helps you find everything you have seen across all of your devices, apps and cloud services, and the context surrounding them: when you looked at them, what order you did so in, what other windows and apps you had open at the same time, where you were when you accessed it, and sharing history. Join us as Jason and Jordan discuss this meaningful paradigm shift towards real contextual awareness and machine learning.

News Roundtable! Katie Benner of The New York Times and Amir Efrati of The Information are in the studio to talk with Jason about the latest tech news. On tap: SnapChat cleaning up Discover and readying for IPO, Tesla cleared in accident investigation and a new era of safety in cars, the future of net neutrality under President Trump, and more.

In this Part 2 episode, Jason and Dave Mathews continue looking at the latest technology showcased at CES 2017, featuring interviews with: - Betsy McHugh, Founder and CEO of Hurdl - Alexander Kaay, CEO of s7.io - Rob Griffin, Co-Founder of GeniCan - Shai Goitein, CEO of PowerUp Toys - SmartGurlz - Kenny Dodge, Community Manager of xCraft Enterprises - Ethan Woods, Founder of Grillbot LLC - Einaras von Gravrock, CEO of CUJO - Dulcie Madden, Co-Founder & CEO of Mimo - Nick Smoot, Entrepreneur of Innovation Collective

Filmed at CES 2017, the theme of today’s show is the future of transportation. Jason and tech inventor Dave Mathews sit down at the Ring booth to talk about new automotive trends & innovations from Mercedes and Audi, the big story of Amazon Alexa, and predictions in tech for 2017. Next, ChargePoint President & CEO Pasquale Romano joins the show to talk about his mission to get everyone behind the wheel of an electric vehicle, and provide them a place to charge wherever they go. Then, CEO Gregory Ducongé reveals how VULOG Carsharing is leading a new generation of carsharing technologies. This is only the first of two parts, so stay tuned for much more.

Filmed at CES 2017, Jason sits down with James Siminoff, a dogged entrepreneur driven by the idea of winning no matter how tough the challenge. James was one of three people inside a garage workshop, tinkering away on projects. Answering the doorbell from the garage was a pain, and after realizing that the market did not offer a solution to this problem, James took on building a front door monitoring system himself. Today, this game-changing doorbell is called Ring, and the company’s mission is to reduce crime in neighborhoods. Join us as Jason and Jamie explore the breakthrough features of the product, lessons learned in the rollercoaster life of a tech entrepreneur, and the future of home automation in the playing field.

Gina Bianchini is an expert in community building. Many know her as the co-founder and former CEO of Ning, an online platform for people and organizations to create custom social networks. Her latest venture is with a social software startup called Mightybell, which reinvents groups online by helping companies and organizations power discussions among professionals. Gina fundamentally believes in the power of new connections and that the answer to today’s flood of social networks is a morphing and progression of these networks. Mightybell addresses the need to connect relevant members, break the ice, and drive people to meet up and to learn from each other.

Today’s TWiST features the two highest-rated speakers at 2016 LAUNCH SCALE, sharing their best strategies for building startups. First, Jason Lemkin, Founder of SaaStr, shares tips and common mistakes to getting from $1m to $10m in ARR. Then, Alex Tew, shares some of his learnings from The Million Dollar Homepage and Calm.com, and dives into the key ingredients to creatively acquiring 100,000 users before you launch.

Home security systems haven't meaningfully evolved in decades. Current monitoring systems can have false alarm rates ranging between 95%-99%, giving homeowners no more of a sense of security than having no system at all. Sunflower Labs CEO & co-founder Alex Pachikov is modernizing the home security market with the introduction of the Sunflower Home Awareness System, which combines outdoor sensors with an aerial camera for a complete view of what's going on around your home. Backed by $2.1M in funding from General Catalyst and others, Sunflower Labs is disrupting the home security market at this exciting intersection of new technology and the smart home. Then, Homebrew General Partner Satya Patel shares a framework for understanding how to get from seed stage to series A. Why is this relevant today? About 20% of companies that have raised seeds in the past few years are now going to be able to raise series A’s, but that number is decreasing, so the battle for the A dollar is becoming more brutal. In Homebrew’s first round of raising funds, they had a 92% success rate of helping companies raise A rounds vs. seed rounds that they lead. Join us and learn tips on how to get money in your bank.

We have a primal desire to fill our brains with information, as animals forage for food. But with the constant and exponential barrage of technology, we are at a near-constant state of interruptions and distractions. "Multi-tasking" is a myth, it's brain switching .... and we can't keep up. And everything suffers as result: our sleep, relationships, mood, attention -- and performance. How can we break out of the cycle and rescue our brains from high-tech addiction? And how about companies like Facebook -- don't they have a responsibility to design healthier products? Adam Gazzaley, author of "The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World," is with Jason today, and has answers. We also learn more about Dr. Gazzaley's fascinating neuroscience experiments and research, and where we're headed with the brain and the taking back of control of our attention -- and futures.

News Roundtable! Dave Mathews (NewAer) and Iain Thomson (The Register) join Jason to tackle 2016's biggest stories and 2017's best bets. The trio starts by dissecting Apple and its disastrous decisions, stepping into high gear with the rise of the Drones, the latest major hack(s) in an especially hackalicious year (thanks Yahoo), not to mention Russia and possibly Putin himself hacking into the U.S. election, the steps up and back for self-driving autos (with sushi bets, naturally), Trump's surreal summit with tech illuminati, Facebook fake news destroying the world, and more.