For this episode, we brought on Ed Zitron to make the bear case against large language models and walk us through his “Hater’s Guide To The AI Bubble.” In this fiery debate with Eric Newcomer, Tom Dotan, and Madeline Renbarger, we dig into whether generative AI is the next platform shift or a $500B mirage. From the viral TaskRabbit CAPTCHA myth to SoftBank’s high-stakes bets, we debate the hype, shaky economics, and media spin driving the AI boom.
GPT-5 has landed! Is it the leap forward OpenAI promised or just an incremental upgrade? Eric Newcomer and Tom Dotan discuss this, how AI capex might be propping up the entire economy, and what Apple’s golden gifts to Trump say about Big Tech’s political bets.
This week on the Newcomer Podcast, we're joined by a very special guest: Danny Rimer, seasoned investor and longtime partner at Index Ventures, for a timely conversation around Figma’s highly anticipated IPO.
Danny takes us behind the scenes of Index’s early bet on Figma and its visionary CEO Dylan Field, sharing how the deal came together and what made the design platform stand out in a crowded startup landscape. From there, we zoom out to talk about the current venture capital climate — what’s changed, what’s stayed the same, and what the smartest investors are watching right now.
We also dig into AI’s evolving role in the startup ecosystem, the tension between hype and real value, and where Danny sees the next big opportunities emerging. Whether you're a founder, investor, or just love a good origin story, this is an episode you won’t want to miss.
Timecodes:
00:00 Introduction to Danny Rimer
02:29 How Rimer met Figma and the beginnings of design as a category
16:42 Figma's failed Adobe deal and comeback
25:39 How Index approaches AI deals
31:00 AI's iPhone moment and looking beyond the chatbot
39:10 Shifts in the venture capital industry
Tech leaders unveiled the American AI Action Plan on Wednesday and President Trump signed 3 executive orders with big handouts to AI companies. Madeline returns fresh off of a trip to Washington DC and gives Tom and Eric the lowdown on tech's victory lap at the nation's capital. Plus, even the altruists at Anthropic feel the need to raise Middle East money.Timecodes:01:45 - The All-In podcast might as well be state-run media05:16 - The vibes at the All-In Hill and Valley event08:50 - The coming AI abundance12:29 - Woke AI and the ministry of truth15:30 - America's strategic advantage is President Trump22:36 - The AI copyright kerfuffle32:36 - Dario faces the harsh reality of capitalism
Fresh back from London! In this episode, Eric Newcomer reunites with co-hosts James Wilsterman and Max Child of Volley to dive into the best moments from the Cerebral Valley AI Summit.
From buzzy startup founders to incumbent innovators, the London event showcased a rapidly evolving AI landscape. But what stood out most? Eric, James, and Max break down their favorite clips and debate the key questions driving the industry right now:
The next Cerebral Valley AI Summit returns to San Francisco on November 12th!
Timestamps08:21 Uber’s Self-Driving Strategy and Market Positioning16:56 Figma’s IPO Bear and Bull case26:17 Harry Stebbings’ Interview Insights with Granola’s CEO32:11 Exploring AI’s Role in Scientific Discovery38:26 The Impact of AI on Reading and Writing
The Newcomer Podcast returns just in time to have Eric, Tom, and Madeline weigh in on Meta's audacious AI hiring spree. The tech giant has enticed researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic with huge paydays in the hopes it can bring its Llama models up to par with the competition. Next up, Ramp's report that companies have stopped purchasing AI tools made a lot of buzz this week, but it's still too early to call an AI peak.
Later on in the episode, Grok's offensive replies aren't enough to slow down xAI's latest model launch. We close out the episode rehashing Sequoia partner Shaun Maguire's latest inflammatory tweets over New York mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani.
00:35 — Meta poaches top researchers to ail its flailing models
11:13 — XAI outperforms despite Grok's offensive replies
18:27 — It's too early to call the AI bubble
28:50 — Shaun Maguire's tweets bring attention to Sequoia
Today on the pod, we're bringing you two of the liveliest panels from the 2025 Cerebral Valley AI Summit, held this week in London.
Both panels — “The Autonomous Vehicle Rollout” and “Investing in 2030” — explore one of the major themes from the event: where AI is poised to show up next in our everyday lives, beyond the chatbot. Think voice, devices, and even your car.
First up, we'll hear from Uber CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, and Alex Kendall, Co-founder and CEO of Wayve, who are teaming up to bring self-driving cars to the UK.
Then we turn to the investor perspective, with top European VCs — Philippe Botteri of Accel, Tom Hulme of Google Ventures, and Jan Hammer of Index Ventures — on where they see the biggest AI opportunities for founders in the years ahead.
We’re officially one week out from the Cerebral Valley AI Summit! On today’s episode, co-hosts James Wilsterman and Max Child of Volley join host Eric Newcomer to preview what’s ahead — from standout speakers to can’t-miss panels and the big ideas that will shape the conversations next week.
To kick things off, Eric poses a timely question: What themes are starting to take shape across the participants and topics at this year’s summit? What’s really driving the energy in AI right now?
Here are a few of the themes that emerged from the discussion:
It’s all building toward what promises to be a packed, thought-provoking week in Cerebral Valley. Let’s dive in!
Timestamps:
1:40: Eric poses the question
1:55: Evolution of the role of the designer
8:00: Text box vs product
14:15: Unbundling ChatGPT
19:19: Is there a Microsoft Office Suite for the AI era?
22:10: Who owns the context
26:02: Surveillance state
36:57: Distribution vs product
42:00: Sprinting until the end of history
In this second installment of the Cerebral Valley podcast series, co-hosts James Wilsterman and Max Child of Volley join Eric Newcomer for a thought-provoking conversation about the future of AI-generated voice and video — and what it means for our sense of reality.
From TikTok trends to the future of Hollywood and podcasting, the trio explores where generative video might take us over the next five years. Will AI content dominate our feeds? Will we even be able to tell the difference?
To put these predictions to the test, the hosts play The AI Video Turing Test — a game where they watch viral AI-generated videos from 2018 to today, ending with the latest clips made with Veo 3. Can they spot what’s real and what’s fake? And what makes some fakes feel too real?
This episode dives deep into the shifting boundaries between synthetic and human-made content — and makes one thing clear: we’re no longer at the bottom of the uncanny valley. AI is climbing fast.
The 2025 Cerebral Valley AI Summit will be held in London on June 25th
Timestamps:
02:50 — Predictions: AI in 5 years
15:00 — Hollywood perceptions of AI
18:55 — AI generated video games
23:05 — AI Video Turing Test
The Cerebral Valley AI Summit is right around the corner! To help you navigate the fast-evolving AI landscape ahead of the event, Newcomer Podcast is launching a special four-part series — co-hosted by James Wilsterman and Max Child of Volley. Get insider insights, expert analysis, and fresh perspectives on the trends shaping the future of artificial intelligence.
In this first episode, James, Max, and host Eric Newcomer dive into what it really means to be an AI agent — and explore how agentic AI could reshape the future of work and everyday life. From picking wedding outfits to writing code, they share personal experiences of agents in action and reflect on where this technology is headed next.
So — where is AI headed? In the second half of the episode, the trio revisits market predictions made by AI last November and puts them to the test using fresh data pulled by Deep Research. After a spirited round of forecasting, they return to their 2024 AI Fantasy Drafts to see whose lineup is raising, exiting, and, ultimately, leading in the race for AI dominance.
Our next episode focuses on AI's impact in voice and video, and may include a few more surprise games...
The 2025 Cerebral Valley AI Summit will be held in London on June 25th
Timestamps:
00:39 - Intro & the scaling wall reversal
06:13 — How we use Claude and Deep Research
08:45 — Agents are here for the web search
14:44 — Coding agents as the breakout tool
24:24 — Update on last year's AI predictions
36:51 — AI Fantasy Draft
We're welcoming Bloomberg's Kate Clark to the show this week and diving into her reporting on the rough fundraising environment for any VC that isn't an a16z or GC-style megafund. The only emerging funds that can raise, it seems, are ones that are started by investors who leave these brands. If it weren't for the AI funding bonanza, the situation would look even worse.
We each make our predictions for how rosy or dreary the venture market will be 2 years from now. And, of course, take a moment to comment on Elon's DOGE departure.
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro and welcome to Kate Clark
00:57 Emerging managers struggle to raise
14:34 The X factor, sovereign wealth
22:07 Venture market predictions
32:51 Elon Musk out in Washington
In this special episode, we feature two interviews recorded live during Newcomer’s Breaking the Bank Summit, a financial technology summit held this week in San Francisco.
We’re including two of the most dynamic discussions here, beginning with Gabriel Stengel of Rogo and Jeff Seibert of Digits, followed by an interview with Josh Reeves, CEO of Gusto.
The episode kicks off with a breakdown of the event, highlighting the key debates that emerged between Rogo and Digits around the trustworthiness of LLMs in fintech, as well as Reeves’ perspective on the service intensive business and going shoeless in the office.
After getting our hosts’ reactions, we dive in to live-recorded audio from the event.
For a full selection of discussions from the summit, including video of each talk, visit the Newcomer Youtube at youtube.com/@newcomerpod
Timecodes
00:00 - Intro
09:43 - Rogo + Digits Discussion
28:13 - Josh Reeves, Gusto Interview
Eric relays his dispatch from Dimension Capital’s biotech summit in Park City, where the crowd was much more academic than the conferences we usually attend. Biotech stocks aren’t doing great, meanwhile university funding cuts could spell trouble for drug research. Still, people were rosy about AI tools.
We also took a temperature check on the state of fintech, which investors tell us is mixed. Everyone’s hopeful about IPOs and streamlined stablecoins, but the dollar getting destabilized by the tariffs has some investors skittish. Later in the episode, Madeline explains how Trump’s crackdown on immigration is spooking startup founders and employees.
Timestamps: 00:42 Lineup of our upcoming fintech summit02:02 Eric's dispatch from Dimension Capital and Recursion's biotech summit09:22 Fintech IPOs and stablecoins en vogue18:50 Heightened immigration enforcement spooks startup employees
How does the AI gold rush look from the helm of a $40-billion software giant? Salesforce co-founder, chair, and CEO Marc Benioff joins Eric Newcomer and Tom Dotan for a tour of the next tech boom cycle. The conversation opens with Benioff’s sweeping vision of “Agent Force 2.0,” where large language models paired with reasoning engines mint whole new classes of digital labor, and brands from Gucci to Disney are already swapping call-center scripts for autonomous agents.
The episode closes on politics and philanthropy: Prop C, homelessness, the 2024 electoral tightrope, and how Benioff plans to work with any administration and still sleep at night.
This week, we kick off by discussing Ben Smith’s bombshell post ”The group chats that changed America,” that exposed the private chats that nudged Silicon Valley’s money crowd into Trump’s orbit.
Then we hop to DC’s Hill-and-Valley Forum, where the mantra was industrial renaissance or bust. The race with China, AI’s essential energy demands, and the need to reshore American manufacturing were the talk of the forum. Fear of China loomed over the entire forum and only whispers of tariffs crossed the lips of attendees and speakers alike.
In the back half, Eric and Madeline are joined by Lux Capital’s Josh Wolfe, fresh off his on-stage appearance at the Hill and Valley Forum. Wolfe predicts two flashpoints the commentariat is ignoring: a terror-fertile Sahel and a China-courting Latin America. He spars with Eric Newcomer and Madeline Renbargner over Trump’s tariffs, friend-shoring versus reshoring, and whether founder-led startups like Anduril can out-maneuver bloated primes. If you think that the only great power game is Taiwan, Wolfe widens the aperture to central Africa and the Americas.
Timecodes
00:00 - Intro
01:10 - Silicon Valley’s Most Important Group Chats
08:18 - Hill and Valley’s “America First” Victory Lap
16:20 - Josh Wolfe on America’s Next War
We’re back to opining on the state of tech media! A16z has aqui-hired Erik Torenberg and his newsletter Turpentine, while the Technology Brothers with ties to Founders Fund have created a podcasting empire. Eric and Tom reminisce about the original wave of “going direct,” why it failed, and what’s different this time around.
Later on, Madeline shares that crypto VCs are growing frustrated with President Trump’s meme coin grifts, and how hosting a private dinner for top coin holders doesn’t help legitimize the industry.
This week, Tom breaks down his scoops on how the big foundation model providers are doing.and much to the chagrin of our resident skeptic, they’re earning lots of real revenue! OpenAI is on track to crack over $12 billion in revenue this year, and Anthropic projects it will double its ARR to $4 billion by the end of the year. But have we hit the AGI moment? Eric relays his o3 experiments as evidence. Madeline gets into the perpetual VC optimism in spite of market turmoil and why AI has early stage investors mostly unphased.
In the second half of our show, Eric interviews Contrary’s Kyle Harrison about his viral foundation model market map and why AI has led many VCs to embrace startup polyamory.
We're welcoming special guest Tom Dotan of Dead Cat fame to the show this week — just in time for the tariff market meltdown. To Silicon Valley's Trump supporters, we hate to say we told you so, but it's hard to imagine how these tariffs on our biggest trading partners will benefit tech and artificial intelligence development in the US.
In the second half of the show, Eric interviews Flexport CEO Ryan Petersen on how to make sense of what President Trump's tariff policies mean for his customers around the world.
OpenAI has done it again. The AI giant closed $40 billion in fresh funding (kind of) led by Softbank, We debate the bull and bear case for OpenAI's $300 billion valuation. Eric sticks to his guns from his previous bear case, but Madeline is more optimistic about OpenAI's consumer revenue.
We also go over the latest in the Deel/Rippling corporate espionage saga and dig into Eric's reporting on the Deel spy's confession. Plus, Elon Musk is reportedly stepping back from his hands on role in Washington in the coming weeks.
In the second half of this week's episode, Eric interviews Clay CEO and cofounder Kareem Amin, who topped the Enterprise Tech 30 list on mid-stage startups.
Time stamps
00:00 — Announcing Cerebral Valley London
03:26 — Is OpenAI worth $300 billion?
11:00 — The Deel Spy Confession
16:09 — Elon Pulls Back in DC
22:40 — Clay's Kareem Amin Talks Marketing Agents
This week, Eric shared the details of his vibe coding frenzy from the past few weeks, testing out Vercel and the buzziest coding assistant of moment, Lovable. We unpack the benefits and remaining headaches of these tools from a non-coder perspective. We then turn to the Studio Ghibli memes of the week from OpenAI's new 4o image model integration and try to make sense of all the copyright risks and benefits this new tool could lead us to.
Later in the show, we break down the story on 11x's potentially fabricated customers and subsequent backlash from some of Silicon Valley's most powerful VCs. And as Waymo fans, we're excited about their expansion in to Washington DC.
Produced by Christopher Gates
