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Motion Blur
Grant Gregory and Hammad Aslam
36 episodes
4 days ago
Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam
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All content for Motion Blur is the property of Grant Gregory and Hammad Aslam and is served directly from their servers with no modification, redirects, or rehosting. The podcast is not affiliated with or endorsed by Podjoint in any way.
Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam
Show more...
Investing
Business
Episodes (20/36)
Motion Blur
Video: The State of Adventure (Capital)

The official State of Adventure presentation. Enjoy!

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • The official State of Adventure deck

  • Grant’s tweet announcing the deck

  • Grant’s LinkedIn post announcing the deck, and the full deck

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • Spotify

  • Apple Podcasts

  • ⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠

  • Subscribe

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.

Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa Ventures

Intro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! Subscribe to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
4 days ago
42 minutes 17 seconds

Motion Blur
Bonus Episode: One Year of Motion Blur!

This short bonus episode officially marks the one-year mark for Motion Blur.

It’s been a great year, with a lot of highlights. We reflect on some of them and Hammad and Grant each share some exciting personal news.

Enjoy! And Happy Halloween!

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • Spotify

  • Apple Podcasts

  • ⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠

  • Subscribe

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.

Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa Ventures

Intro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! Subscribe to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
4 days ago
11 minutes 13 seconds

Motion Blur
Will's Corner: Hardware Over Software?

One more convo about the State of Adventure! This one is with our close friend Will Quist at Slow Ventures. Will had Grant on their podcast to riff on Adventure Capital, Narrative Warfare, and much more.

Will is one of the sharpest minds in venture, and we’re excited for you to tune into this convo.

Grant Gregory and Cantos just dropped a 286-slide deep tech mega-deck. They swap inside baseball on narrative warfare, the voting vs weighing machine, and why “precision” in deep tech labeling matters (Waymo ≠ TLM ≠ Shinkai ≠ Anduril).

Grant shows his two most important slides: the Deep Tech Score (levels from SaaS to “OpenAI before Transformers existed”) and the “narrative violation” where hardware’s capital-to-outcome multiples beat software in the data he compiled.

Chapters:

  • 00:48 Who is Grant? A16Z American Dynamism team → Cantos

  • 01:36 Why capital finally “got the plot” on hard tech

  • 03:13 The two most important slides: Deep Tech Score + Narrative Violation 04:20 Hardware vs software: the capital-intensity myth, with data

  • 05:59 Narrative warfare: voting machine vs weighing machine

  • 06:38 Anointment dynamics; operating between fundamentals and momentum 07:28 Can founders learn the voting machine? Authenticity over mimicry

  • 09:44 Defense FOMO, IBM-ification of venture, and pre-signal markets

  • 14:18 Defense exits: only a few true fund-returners; multi-product is required 17:21 Deck feedback: founders want a real definition of “venture scale”

  • 18:45 Deep Tech Score criteria: risk types, hypothesis legibility, market maturity

  • 22:22 Why concentrated, full-stack investing matters in non-consensus areas 24:32 Non-VC capital in SpaceX/Tesla/Anduril: the uncomfortable truth

  • 29:31 Business physics: power, supply chains, leverage in physical industries

  • 30:13 Will’s take: Automation is a terrible investment vs services on top

  • 32:10 Advice to founders: narrative warfare + slow conviction

Keep in touch with Slow Ventures: X: https://x.com/slow

Connect with Will

Connect with Grant

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • The full YouTube video of the conversation, and the tweet

  • Grant’s tweet announcing the deck

  • Grant’s LinkedIn post announcing the deck, and the full deck

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • Spotify

  • Apple Podcasts

  • ⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠

  • Subscribe

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.

Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa Ventures

Intro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! Subscribe to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
1 week ago
38 minutes 28 seconds

Motion Blur
Official Release + Takeaways: The State of Adventure Capital


It’s officially out! Grant and Hammad discuss the takeaways and reception from the inaugural State of Adventure Capital deck.

The presentation covers every aspect of American Dynamism Cinematic Universe, from capital inflows to dilution metrics, deep currents, and more. We dive into the meaning behind “Adventure Capital”, why the timing is right for these categories, and what investment opportunities exist for startups building in the physical world.

In Grant’s words: This is something I’ve been wanting to do for 3 years now (ever since my a16z days), and the goal is to have this be an annual project in similar scope to Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report. An ambitious goal to be clear! But we believe we have a unique purview of the American Dynamism / Deep Tech / Hard Tech landscape, and are compiling all of our learnings together to share them with our founders, coinvestors, and other people in the cinematic universe. Our hope is that this will be a resource for everyone as they build in these categories.

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • ​The official State of Adventure deck
  • ​Grant’s tweet announcing the deck
  • ​Grant’s LinkedIn post announcing the deck, and the full deck

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • ​Spotify
  • ​Apple Podcasts
  • ​⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠
  • ​Subscribe

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.

Learn more about the hosts:

  • ​Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠
  • ​Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa Ventures

Intro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! Subscribe to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
4 weeks ago
56 minutes 12 seconds

Motion Blur
Early Release: The State of Adventure Capital

The state of all things Hard Tech, Deep Tech, and American Dynamism

After 9+ months of work, Grant has finished his inaugural State of Adventure Capital deck. And ahead of Grant’s presentation at the upcoming Cantos AGM, we’re giving Motion Blur listeners a special early listen.

The presentation covers every aspect of American Dynamism Cinematic Universe, from capital inflows to dilution metrics, deep currents, and more. We dive into the meaning behind “Adventure Capital”, why the timing is right for these categories, and what investment opportunities exist for startups building in the physical world.

In Grant’s words: This is something I’ve been wanting to do for 3 years now (ever since my a16z days), and the goal is to have this be an annual project in similar scope to Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends Report. An ambitious goal to be clear! But we believe we have a unique purview of the American Dynamism / Deep Tech / Hard Tech landscape, and are compiling all of our learnings together to share them with our founders, coinvestors, and other people in the cinematic universe. Our hope is that this will be a resource for everyone as they build in these categories.

The State of Adventure will be formally released next week. Until then, enjoy this early version.


🔗 Show Resource Links

  • Grant’s recent tweets on some of the slides from his deck

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • Spotify

  • Apple Podcasts

  • ⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠

  • Subscribe

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.

Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa Ventures

Intro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! Subscribe to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
1 month ago
36 minutes 21 seconds

Motion Blur
Dan Gray – What's Wrong with Venture?

A deeper discussion on the shortcomings (and benefits) of venture

Today we’re interviewing Dan Gray, head of insights at Equidam. We’ve been following Dan’s work throughout the past year and decided to have him on as we begin talking to more LPs about their allocation strategies and perspectives.

Dan’s twitter account is a great follow — he frequently shares lots of data-driven insights and rebukes for a lot of the “tried and true” aphorisms. This episode is filled with hot takes, enjoy!

🔗 Dan’s Bio

  • Dan is the Head of Insights at Equidam, a platform for startup valuation that helps make unconventional and novel ideas more legible for investors. With two decades of experience in and around startups, Dan’s career spans industrial engineering, gaming, fintech, and animation. He has worked across the startup ecosystem—from startup hubs to accelerator programs—supporting both founders and investors in navigating the complexities of venture capital.

  • Dan is a prolific writer and commentator on the startup landscape, contributing regularly to Crunchbase News and sharing insights on his blog, credistick.com, as well as on X. His work focuses on demystifying fundraising, startup valuation, and the shifting incentives in the venture capital ecosystem.


🎙️ Podcast Links

  • ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠

  • ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠

  • ⁠⁠⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠⁠⁠

  • ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at ⁠⁠Cantos⁠⁠ where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, ⁠⁠Susa⁠⁠’s growth fund. Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠⁠⁠@grant__gregory⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Embers⁠⁠⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠⁠⁠@_hammad_aslamh⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Susa Ventures⁠⁠

If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every week for new episodes.

Intro music credit: ⁠⁠⁠Will Harrison⁠⁠⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠ to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
1 month ago
1 hour 20 minutes 32 seconds

Motion Blur
It's Good to Be Back

“It’s good to be back!” — Tony Stark

We are finally back after a long summer hiatus. Grant and Hammad discuss some exciting personal news, as well as what’s in the pipeline for the next few episodes of Motion Blur.

Enjoy!

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • Grant’s recent tweets on some of the slides from his deck

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • Spotify

  • Apple Podcasts

  • ⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠

  • Subscribe

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.

Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa Ventures

Intro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! Subscribe to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
1 month ago
14 minutes 58 seconds

Motion Blur
Capital as a Moat

Today we’re talking about a topic we get asked about at least once every week: capital as a moat. Should you raise a billion dollars? Should you bootstrap?

Grant opens the debate by discussing the merits of durability and the idiosyncrasies of building in different categories. We dig more into Parker Conrad’s tweet about venture backed competition potentially eating your lunch, and Hammad then steps in to discuss his thoughts on capital as acceleration and the quality of leadership.

This discussion plays off of many of our prior episodes: chicken sexing, anointment, the hedonic treadmill, and more. Ultimately, capital can be a powerful accelerant in the hands of disciplined leadership, and it’s contingent upon founders (and their investors) to make the most of it.

Enjoy!

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • Strategy Letter I: Ben and Jerry’s vs. Amazon

  • Parker Conrad Tweet

  • Ravens GM on the NFL Draft Tweet

  • Ric Elias of Red Ventures on The Drive Podcast (a top recommendation from Grant)

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • Spotify

  • Apple Podcasts

  • ⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠

  • Subscribe

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.

Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa Ventures

Intro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

Show more...
4 months ago
51 minutes 2 seconds

Motion Blur
Craving Commodities

We are back after a short summer break! Our first order of business, commodity companies. But not the ones you’re thinking of, we’re talking about businesses that make and sell commodities.

Most investors shy away from commodities because they imply heightened competition and structurally lower margins (and returns). But there are benefits – commodities imply massive scale, and many of the incumbents are huge as a result. Which begs the question, can startups break into these markets and capture some of the upside?

Grant believes there’s real opportunity to do just that within in the American Dynamism Cinematic Universe. Companies like Shinkei, Solugen, and others are finding ways to provide products at structurally different cost profiles, and that opens the door to large outcomes.

We wrap up the podcast by exploring how Hammad thinks about the topic and how it relates to software companies.

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • Shinkei

  • Solugen

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • Spotify

  • Apple Podcasts

  • ⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠

  • Subscribe

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.

Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa Ventures

Intro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

Show more...
4 months ago
45 minutes 40 seconds

Motion Blur
IO Awaits

Fundraising milestones, OpenAI's latest acquisition, and the merits of planning ahead


One of the hardest dynamics of today’s venture landscape is figuring out milestones to benchmark yourself against. Categories like American Dynamism aren’t mature enough for there to be definitive milestones, and the software / AI world is shifting so rapidly that founders are left to explain their own benchmarks (or adapt to rapidly changing ones).

In today’s episode Grant and Hammad discuss how to navigate this type of uncertainty, and how OpenAI’s latest acquisition compliments the discussion. They also discuss Mike Dempsey’s latest piece on venture fundraising and how it captures the current market zeitgeist.

This is perhaps the most active the tech ecosystem has ever been. All the incumbents are live players, and the challenger companies are aggressively expanding their horizons. It’s going to be a fun ride.

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • Announcing io

  • Paul Graham’s Tweet

  • Mike Dempsey’s The First 40 Months

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • Spotify

  • Apple Podcasts

  • ⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠

  • Subscribe

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.

Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa Ventures

Intro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

Show more...
5 months ago
47 minutes 14 seconds

Motion Blur
Finding Maze Historians

In today’s episode Grant and Hammad unpack the “Idea Maze” — a framework for understanding whether founders truly grasp the terrain they’re building in. The Idea Maze comes from Balaji Srinivasan’s lecture notes on entrepreneurship, and was subsequently popularized by Chris Dixon’s succinct blog post.

Beyond just being able to chart possible paths, great founders become what Grant calls Maze Historians — encyclopedic students of their category’s history, players, dead ends, and hidden treasures. Grant argues that this level of mastery is foundational for building in the American Dynamism Cinematic Universe.

We explore the origins of the original Idea Maze concept, why it’s taken hold at firms like Andreessen, and why action — not just analysis — creates key insights.

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • Grant’s post on Finding Maze Historians

  • Balaji’s Lecture Notes

  • Chris Dixon’s Idea Maze Post

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • Spotify

  • Apple Podcasts

  • ⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠

  • Subscribe

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.

Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa Ventures

Intro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

Show more...
5 months ago
31 minutes 50 seconds

Motion Blur
Replay: The Hardware Playbook

Given we’ve had a bunch of new subscribers recently, we decided to re-release one of our first episodes we ever recorded, and the first one we launched with!

You know the saying: Hardware is hard!

In today’s episode, Grant and Hammad discuss why that’s the case. Together they examine the software investing frameworks that also apply to hardware, and also explore new frameworks that offer some predictability in the built world.

The culmination of this conversation is a project Grant’s been working on for a while now dubbed The Hardware Playbook. Hammad closes us out with some thoughts on his perspective on the Near Frontier / Dynamism categories, and gets us ready for an upcoming episode on his software world view.

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • Spotify

  • Apple Podcasts

  • ⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠

  • Subscribe

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at Cantos where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, Susa’s growth fund.

Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠Embers⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠Susa Ventures

Intro music credit: ⁠Will Harrison⁠

Show more...
6 months ago
40 minutes 50 seconds

Motion Blur
Howdy, Partner

Grant's Promotion to Partner, the State of Seed Investing, and Quantum vs Classical Risks

Today’s episode is a day late but for good reason — Grant was recently promoted to Partner(!), so Hammad wanted to open the pod congratulating him, and let Grant share some thank you’s to those that have helped him reach this amazing milestone.

We then shift to a topic that’s seemingly on everyone’s minds: why is early stage (seed) investing so competitive? And what will happen from here? Grant opens with an iconic Jerry Neumann post from 10 years ago, and connects it to two other posts on the differences in risks between early and late stage startups.

This is one of our most wide-ranging episodes to date. We cover everything from quantum vs classical risks to lessons from Grant’s recent dinner with a founder of an iconic venture firm. Grant was also semi-caffeinated for this, which if you know him well, means you’re in for a high-tempo convo. Enjoy!

“I like hitting the tennis ball.” —Novak Djokovic

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • ⁠The Purity of Obsession⁠ - Grant’s post on becoming Partner

  • ⁠Heat Death: Venture Capital in the 1980s⁠ - Reaction Wheel (Jerry Neumann)

  • ⁠Slow Ventures’ State of VC 2025 Deck⁠

  • ⁠There are No Stages, Just Early and Late⁠ - Yoni Rechtman

  • ⁠Classical Risk vs Quantum Risk⁠ - Kanyi Maqubela

  • ⁠Odds of Success⁠ - Grant’s Ignition essay

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • ⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠

  • ⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠

  • ⁠⁠⁠⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠⁠⁠⁠

  • ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠⁠

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is a Partner at ⁠⁠⁠Cantos⁠⁠⁠ where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, ⁠⁠⁠Susa⁠⁠⁠’s growth fund. Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠⁠⁠⁠@grant__gregory⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Embers⁠⁠⁠⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠⁠⁠⁠@_hammad_aslamh⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠Susa Ventures⁠⁠⁠

If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every week for new episodes.

Intro music credit: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Will Harrison⁠⁠⁠⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! ⁠⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠⁠ to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
6 months ago
1 hour 6 minutes 8 seconds

Motion Blur
Q&A Mailbag #1

Today’s episode is the long-awaited Q&A. Thank you to all our listeners who submitted questions to us, we did our best to cover as many as possible. We plan on making more of these in the future so please keep them coming (and hopefully we can get to some that we couldn’t cover this time).

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • Bryce Roberts’ tweet on the Wiz acquisition

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠

  • ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠

  • ⁠⁠⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠⁠⁠

  • ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is an investor at ⁠⁠Cantos⁠⁠ where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, ⁠⁠Susa⁠⁠’s growth fund. Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠⁠⁠@grant__gregory⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Embers⁠⁠⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠⁠⁠@_hammad_aslamh⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Susa Ventures⁠⁠

If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every week for new episodes.

Intro music credit: ⁠⁠⁠Will Harrison⁠⁠⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠ to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
6 months ago
51 minutes 1 second

Motion Blur
Past Performance Does Not Equal Future Results

Entropy, record revenue growth, and persistence

Today’s episode covers the Second Law of Thermodynamics — entropy, and how it extends to the world of (AI) companies. We’ve seen a number of companies shatter revenue milestones in record times, and Hammad and Grant viewed this as an opportunity to talk about building enduring businesses in the face of shifting environment.

We open with one of Grant’s favorite facts: the average age of a company in the S&P 500 has fallen over 50 years in the past few decades. The Hedonic Treadmill has only accelerated, and we’re seeing more and more companies impacted. AI companies are no different. Hammad carries us through discussion on some of the practical implications of what this means, and Grant shares some thoughts on the broader uncertainty (and opportunity) with building in such a rapidly shifting playing field.

It’s hard to build a company. It’s even harder to make it last!

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'Wow! What a Ride!'“ —Hunter S. Thompson

Lastly, please send us any questions you’d like us to cover in our upcoming Q&A episode! LinkedIn or Twitter DM us.

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • Clouded Judgement - 3.28.25 - The New AI Risk Curve — Jamin Ball

  • The average company age in the S&P 500 — Innosight Corporate Longevity Forecast

  • USS Indianapolis

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠

  • ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠

  • ⁠⁠⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠⁠⁠

  • ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is an investor at ⁠⁠Cantos⁠⁠ where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, ⁠⁠Susa⁠⁠’s growth fund. Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠⁠⁠@grant__gregory⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Embers⁠⁠⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠⁠⁠@_hammad_aslamh⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Susa Ventures⁠⁠

If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every week for new episodes.

Intro music credit: ⁠⁠⁠Will Harrison⁠⁠⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠ to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
6 months ago
44 minutes 15 seconds

Motion Blur
Time for Tariffs

What reindustrialization actually means, and how we do it

The market is digesting the impact of the latest round of tariffs, and given that reshoring is a core talking point, we wanted to use this as an opportunity to cover our perspective on the broader reindustrialization efforts.

This is very much an evolving dynamic, so we focus on the broader picture to give this more of a durable perspective. What do stronger tariffs signal about the next phase of American industrial policy? How do you navigate a world of uncertainty?

We dig into the logic behind tariffs, the practical impacts on startups and supply chains, and how founders should think about building in a world where industrial policy is no longer background noise.

The challenge with commenting on anything like this is that you stray outside of your circle of competence. We try to ground this by focusing more on what we know, and leaving other talking points for other people to tackle.

Lastly, please send us any questions you’d like us to cover in our upcoming Q&A episode! LinkedIn or Twitter DM us.


🔗 Show Resource Links

  • Here’s the iPhone. Here’s the iPhone with Tariffs — WSJ.

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠

  • ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠

  • ⁠⁠⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠⁠⁠

  • ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is an investor at ⁠⁠Cantos⁠⁠ where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, ⁠⁠Susa⁠⁠’s growth fund. Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠⁠⁠@grant__gregory⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Embers⁠⁠⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠⁠⁠@_hammad_aslamh⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Susa Ventures⁠⁠

If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every week for new episodes.

Intro music credit: ⁠⁠⁠Will Harrison⁠⁠⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠ to get notified for future episodes.

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7 months ago
36 minutes 10 seconds

Motion Blur
Chicken Sexing

The art of founder picking

Today we’re covering a topic near and dear to our hearts: chicken sexing!

While you might think it’s an odd comparison, there’s actually a lot of similarities between chicken sexing and founding picking. Grant originally wrote about this over a year ago on a previously pseudonymous blog, and then referenced it when he announced he was joining Cantos.

Expect to learn why this analogy resonates, how Grant originally came up with the idea (Hammad had a huge role in the backstory), and how this type of talent evaluation works in other domains like the NFL.

This piece was one of the ways that Grant ended up at Cantos, so it’s fun to revisit now as we get close to the year mark of him leaving a16z. Excited for you all to listen to this one!

Lastly, please send us any questions you’d like us to cover in our upcoming Q&A episode! LinkedIn or Twitter DM us.

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • Chicken Sexers — Odysea

  • Cantos and Chicken Sexing — Embers

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠

  • ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠

  • ⁠⁠⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠⁠⁠

  • ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is an investor at ⁠⁠Cantos⁠⁠ where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, ⁠⁠Susa⁠⁠’s growth fund. Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠⁠⁠@grant__gregory⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Embers⁠⁠⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠⁠⁠@_hammad_aslamh⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Susa Ventures⁠⁠

If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every week for new episodes.

Intro music credit: ⁠⁠⁠Will Harrison⁠⁠⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠ to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
7 months ago
48 minutes 51 seconds

Motion Blur
The Hedonic Treadmill

11x, an AI sales development representatives (SDR) co is in the news for some potentially troubling action. We are not going to comment on the individual company, but instead we wanted to use this as an opportunity to talk about what the challenges of building in the world of software are.

Hammad opens the floor by telling us more about what AI SDRs are, how they work, how the market is evolving, and why a story like this might pop up. Grant then asks Hammad to share his perspective on where long-term value accrual will actually happen, especially if a feature (or product) becomes a standard. Grant closes us out by sharing some thoughts about how business is a never-ending race where you have to keep running to stay in the hunt.

Lastly, please send us any questions you’d like us to cover in our upcoming Q&A episode! LinkedIn or Twitter DM us.

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • 11x Tech Crunch article

  • a16z announcement post investing in 11x


🎙️ Podcast Links

  • ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠

  • ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠

  • ⁠⁠⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠⁠⁠

  • ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is an investor at ⁠⁠Cantos⁠⁠ where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, ⁠⁠Susa⁠⁠’s growth fund. Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠⁠⁠@grant__gregory⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Embers⁠⁠⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠⁠⁠@_hammad_aslamh⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Susa Ventures⁠⁠

If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every week for new episodes.

Intro music credit: ⁠⁠⁠Will Harrison⁠⁠⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠ to get notified for future episodes.

A hedonic treadmill, courtesy of ChatGPT’s latest image model

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7 months ago
41 minutes 29 seconds

Motion Blur
M&A is Back on the Menu

Google is acquiring Wiz, so we decided it’s time to talk about M&A. There’s a lot of analysis on this particular acquisition and less about how it fits into the broader tech ecosystem, so that’s where most of our discussion centers.

We open the conversation by talking about Grant’s time at the 3rd annual American Dynamism Summit in DC, and transition into the Wiz conversation by talking about his latest substack post. Hammad then gives us his perspective on the transaction and whether it will lead to a new era of M&A (and possibly venture liquidity).

And lastly, here’s a tweet Hammad sent that gives some food for thought.

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • FT - Alphabet agrees to buy cyber security group Wiz for $32bn

  • Odysea - Waiting for the WhatsApp Moment

  • Bryce Roberts’ tweet

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠

  • ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠

  • ⁠⁠⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠⁠⁠

  • ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is an investor at ⁠⁠Cantos⁠⁠ where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, ⁠⁠Susa⁠⁠’s growth fund. Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠⁠⁠@grant__gregory⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Embers⁠⁠⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠⁠⁠@_hammad_aslamh⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Susa Ventures⁠⁠

If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every week for new episodes.

Intro music credit: ⁠⁠⁠Will Harrison⁠⁠⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠ to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
7 months ago
44 minutes 3 seconds

Motion Blur
Not Dead, Can't Quit

Given the recent market sell off Grant and Hammad thought it would be a good opportunity to discuss their thoughts on the current venture landscape and how macro conditions impact the GP and LP ecosystem. We start off by quickly looking at the American Dynamism 50, which is an annual list of 50 companies highlighted that are supporting the national interest. From there the conversation shifts to the broader markets, LP liquidity needs, and potential shuttering of some non-performant firms.

What starts off as an episode about current market dynamics shifts to one about lessons learned from athletics, venture, and life. We hope that the majority of this ends up being fairly evergreen, even if some of the examples discussed are more transient.

In the words of the late Richard Machowicz, “Not dead, can’t quit!”

🔗 Show Resource Links

  • Grant’s Not Dead, Can’t Quit tweet

  • American Dynamism 50

🎙️ Podcast Links

  • ⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠

  • ⁠Apple Podcasts⁠

  • ⁠⁠⁠X (FKA Twitter)⁠⁠⁠

  • ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠

🌀 About Motion Blur

Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam. Grant is an investor at ⁠⁠Cantos⁠⁠ where he focuses on physical world technologies. Hammad is a Partner at Kivu Ventures, ⁠⁠Susa⁠⁠’s growth fund. Learn more about the hosts:

  • Grant Gregory, ⁠⁠⁠@grant__gregory⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Embers⁠⁠⁠

  • Hammad Aslam, ⁠⁠⁠@_hammad_aslamh⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠Susa Ventures⁠⁠

If you're interested in the real inside baseball of tech, entrepreneurship, and start-up investing, tune in every week for new episodes.

Intro music credit: ⁠⁠⁠Will Harrison⁠⁠⁠

Thanks for reading and listening to Motion Blur! ⁠⁠Subscribe⁠⁠ to get notified for future episodes.

Show more...
8 months ago
36 minutes 12 seconds

Motion Blur
Exploring what makes great companies and technologies work. Brought to you by Grant Gregory & Hammad Aslam