First episode of 2025! For our very first episode of the year, we invited Justine and Olivia Moore, who are Partners at Andreessen Horowitz VC firm, focused on investing in all things AI. We covered a wide range of topics from the current funding landscape in AI startups, defensibility, their favorite AI startups as well as what 2025 is going to look like for the AI landscape. Enjoy!

It’s the end of 2024 and we put together the best content of this year in one final year-end episode. We categorized the content into 3 segments - 1. Silicon Valley stories and lessons 2. AI and what’s in store for us for the future 3. Advice and guidance - for being the best version of yourself in 2024. We loved talking to the guests this year and have big plans for 2025. Thank you for joining us in this journey and we hope you enjoy this Wrapped episode!

Aidan Gomez is the CEO and co-founder of Cohere. Aidan was an intern at Google Brain in 2017, when he helped co-author the now-famous “Attention Is All You Need” paper that conceptualized the transformer and eventually kicked off the Generative AI boom. He then left Google in 2021 to start Cohere, an AI startup valued at over $5b, that specializes in building LLMs for enterprise customers. In this conversation, we cover it all - from Aidan's childhood in Canada, his foray into computers and the internet, landing an internship at Google by accident, starting Cohere and what sets Cohere apart from other LLM businesses.

We chatted with Mark Pincus - in his own words, he is the "most unmanageable founder in tech". He was the CEO of the mobile gaming platform, Zynga, and is an outspoken critic of the current state of media and journalism. In this episode, we covered it all - from his take on the US elections, the state of media, the story of Zynga, then the comeback story, him meeting Zuckerberg and investing in Facebook and about the product culture of Zynga. This was great fun for us and I hope you enjoy it too!

Aarthi and Sriram talk to Ishan Mukherjee - a multi-time Silicon Valley based startup founder, launching his new AI startup Rox. Coming from a small town in India with working class beginnings, Ishan tells us his story of immigrating to the US, starting and exiting multiple companies, working at companies like Amazon and Apple and essentially, living the immigrant American Dream.

The year is 2024 and it has been a few days since the remarkable US elections. Trump is now President elect. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy (both former guests of our podcast!) are leading DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency). What does it all mean for tech, for startups and for skilled immigration? What is the future of journalism and media? Is this election a one of one, or is this the first of many podcast elections? We cover it all here in our solo episode. Chapters 00:01:00:17 – 00:03:21:15: One week after the US elections ⁠00:03:19:26 – 00:14:12:00: DOGE and Elon Musk 00:14:15:21 – 00:22:22:17: Elon, Trump and the new government  00:22:34:07 – 00:27:48:05: The podcast election  00:27:55:07 – 00:33:25:13: Views on journalism - the decline of wired magazine  ⁠00:33:38:03 – 00:47:39:19: Sriram’s view on skilled immigration and country caps  00:47:46:26 – 00:58:35:22: Views on the Trump government  ⁠00:58:50:10 – 01:00:44:26: RFK Jr, FDA and the American food system ⁠01:00:48:27 – The end

The one where our show becomes the Aarthi, Sriram and Anil show? Sriram and Aarthi are joined by Anil Varanasi, the CEO and co-founder of Meter, the company building networking hardware. In this wide-ranging conversation, Anil shares his fascinating journey from his and his brother’s unconventional upbringing, his ability to find and fund talent early, to building Meter, including stories of sleeping in Chinese factories and why Meter is building AI models. And then, the tables turn and Anil asks the hosts some great questions. Enjoy!

Sriram and Aarthi are joined by Gokul Rajaram who is a Silicon Valley icon. Gokul has done it all - founder, angel investor, executive at the best of the best technology companies such as Facebook and Google, and best of all, a good friend and guide to Aarthi and Sriram during their career inflection points. We covered everything from Paul Graham’s famous essay on Founder Mode, Gokul’s experience working with Mark Zuckerberg and Larry and Sergey, his hot takes on AI startups, and the current fundraising climate.