The Peel with Turner Novak

Navin Chaddha is the Managing Partner at Mayfield. He’s made the Forbes Midas List 18 times, and thinks a lot of the AI revenue everyone's chasing right now is fake.

Mayfield is a 56-year-old firm that backs founders at the paper-and-pencil stage. They’re investing $3 billion into AI, but Navin warns the market is overcapitalized by a factor of 10x.

We get into what’s actually going on with the $1B+ funding rounds, the $25 trillion of value AI has to justify, the dangers of FOMO, how he separates vibe revenue from real revenue, backing vertical models instead of horizontal ones, why inference will dwarf training, how a startup actually beats a $100 billion incumbent, the people x-ray behind his founder bets, what cricket taught him about running a company, lessons being the last founder to IPO before the Dot Com Crash, what he learned working with Satya Nadella, and the unfinished business still driving him.

Thanks to this episodes sponsors!

Numeral: Sales tax on autopilot https://www.numeral.com
Flex: Premium banking, 60-day credit, 0% APR https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital
Amplitude: AI analytics https://www.amplitude.com
Merge: Every model, one API https://www.merge.dev/turner
Monaco: The revenue engine for startups https://www.monaco.com/

Timestamps:
0:00 Lumilens: Zero to $3B revenue in 14 months
0:50 Connecting GPU's is AI's next bottleneck
5:07 Mayfield: investing $3B in AI and semiconductors
9:39 Where a $1B round actually gets spent
12:51 The six-layer AI stack, and who needs mega-rounds
15:00 Why AI is overcapitalized by 10x
17:47 FOMO is for sheep
21:13 Vibe revenue vs real revenue
22:45 Backing vertical models
24:22 The best firms have one North Star
27:18 Are semiconductors still cyclical?
29:10 Why inference will dwarf training
31:19 What happens after every infra build-out
36:27 2 billion Gemini users isn't real AI adoption
38:21 What a correction does to AI stocks
40:46 How FOMO pulls VC's into hot categories
44:13 What Navin looks for in founders
50:23 Why "everyone hates this category" can be a buy signal
54:12 The argument against the cloud everyone got wrong
57:20 What white-collar work AI teammates will take
1:01:45 How AI startups beat incumbents
1:06:54 Why startups die of indigestion
1:11:49 Mayfield’s secret formula: people-first
1:19:18 What cricket taught Navin about building companies
1:23:17 Dropping out of Stanford to start VXtreme
1:29:22 Blitzscaling to blitz-failing: the last IPO before the Dot-Com Crash
1:31:25 Joining Mayfield instead of starting a 4th company
1:33:29 Unfinished business (backing a $1T company)
1:35:54 Could you tell Satya would run Microsoft?
1:38:58 Investors he respects, founders he missed

Referenced
Mayfield: https://www.mayfield.com/
Lumilens: https://lumilens.com/
Lumilens Raises $700M: https://www.wsj.com/tech/startup-raises-700-million-to-replace-data-center-wires-with-light-adc74358?mod=e2twd
Built to Last by Jim Collins: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=built+to+last+-+jim+collins&adgrpid=186020621003&hvadid=779535177756&hvdev=c&hvexpln=0&hvlocphy=9218885&hvnetw=g&hvocijid=9037174021105194159--&hvqmt=e&hvrand=9037174021105194159&hvtargid=kwd-362242264527&hydadcr=21907_13365950_10662&mcid=f1dd2c5deb5539b7afc6bcdfee5613c8&tag=googhydr-20&ref=pd_sl_4b3f3t1l23_e

Follow Navin
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/navinchaddha

Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

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Alamin Uddin is the co-founder and CEO of NexHealth.

Today, NexHealth’s healthcare infrastructure serves 89 million patients. But at one point, the company had $4,000 in the bank and a maxed-out Amex card.

We talk about why 75% of dentists still keep a server in the closet, how healthcare skipped the internet, cloud, and mobile and went straight to AI, why most healthcare systems have no API, funding the company with side hustles, the $36k customer pre-pay that saved the business, how 81% of new AI healthcare startups are built on NexHealth, where he thinks AI value actually accrues, and outlasting OpenAI.

Thanks to this episodes sponsors!

Numeral: Sales tax on autopilot https://www.numeral.com
Flex: Premium banking, 60-day credit, 0% APR https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital
Amplitude: AI analytics https://www.amplitude.com
Merge: Every model, one API https://www.merge.dev/turner
Monaco: The revenue engine for startups https://www.monaco.com/

Timestamps:
(0:00) Healthcare skipped 3 platform shifts and went straight to AI
(4:10) 75% of dentists still have on-prem servers
(10:05) How data interoperability holds back healthcare innovation
(16:02) Why everyone blames Epic
(20:15) Building the developer platform for healthcare
(24:36) Why everyone fails to fix the problem
(29:11) Fragmented markets enabled developer platforms
(32:32) Working as a receptionist at a doctor’s office
(36:13) Building a prototype on Twilio
(39:15) How incumbents went from blocking to partnering
(46:05) Canvassing Soho dentists door-to-door
(53:47) Reverse-engineering 40-year old databases
(56:21) Funding NexHealth with side hustles for two years
(57:30) The scheduling wedge no one could match
(1:02:20) Raising $391k from professors and customers
(1:03:46) Running out of cash, why customers kept churning
(1:07:45) $4,000 in the bank and a maxed-out Amex
(1:11:12) The $36k pre-pay that saved the company
(1:13:24) NexHealth’s three businesses today
(1:20:18) Payments and the “admin-day” problem
(1:26:15) 72% sales win rate
(1:28:27) The term sheet signed the week before COVID
(1:30:26) Spending half the Series A on an acquisition
(1:33:47) Raising $176M they didn't need
(1:37:28) Why starting before 2022 is an advantage
(1:42:22) Where AI value accrues: chips, models, the action layer
(1:44:55) 81% of AI products are built on NexHealth
(1:48:24) Staying patient for three years after ChatGPT
(1:51:25) Competitors building on their API
(1:54:02) “We’re a tech company, not healthcare company”
(1:56:09) Hiring from outside healthcare
(1:58:34) Shoes, email over Slack
(2:01:21) What AI changed inside the company
(2:04:16) Inspiration from Microsoft in 1977 - 1990

Referenced
NexHealth: https://www.nexhealth.com/
Build on NexHealth: https://docs.nexhealth.com/
Careers at NexHealth: https://www.nexhealth.com/careers
The Secret 3-Step Master Plan to Cure Healthcare: https://www.notboring.co/p/the-secret-3-step-master-plan-to

Follow Alamin
Twitter: https://x.com/alfromnexhealth
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alamin-uddin-95284889

Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Anatoly Yakovenko is the co-founder of Solana, the fastest scaled blockchain in the world.

We start by talking about how non-US residents were trading SpaceX on Solana pre-IPO, and which parlayed into the last 130 years of US financial markets.

We then get into how Solana is removing eight layers of middlemen that make-up the legacy financial system, whether you actually need to use blockchain to do this, the 4am inspiration to start Solana, how Solana was 10,000x faster than Bitcoin, why a16z passed on investing then paid a 1,000x higher price, how launching Solana at the bottom of the market right as COVID hit led to their success, why AI won’t take your job, growing up sharing one toilet with four families in the USSR, and playing competitive underwater hockey.

Thanks to this episodes sponsors!
Numeral: Sales tax on autopilot https://www.numeral.com
Flex: Premium banking, 60-day credit, 0% APR https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital
Amplitude: AI analytics https://www.amplitude.com
Merge: Every model, one API https://www.merge.dev/turner
Monaco: The revenue engine for startups https://www.monaco.com/

Timestamps:
(0:00) Trading SpaceX on Solana
(3:02) Why Wall Street runs on 100 year old tech
(10:51) US dominance created demand for tokenized stocks
(13:58) Complexity reduces risk of the financial system
(15:51) Do you need to use blockchain?
(18:34) Privacy tradeoffs of public ledgers
(23:45) Making a 10,000x faster blockchain
(30:05) A new data structure based on time
(32:54) Trading was Solana’s first use case
(37:41) Advice from his wife that led to Solana
(40:05) Why a16z passed (then paid up 1,000x)
(43:50) Rejection and COVID led to Solana’s fast adoption
(48:30) Best time to launch is the bottom of a market
(52:56) Why Bitcoin and Ethereum were so slow
(57:38) Rebuilding Solana with Alpenglow
(1:01:23) 35% of all stablecoin volume runs on Solana
(1:04:26) Motors replaced 200 billion jobs, AI will replace 100 billion
(1:08:17) It’s selfish to protest data centers
(1:10:11) Growing up in the USSR: one toilet, four families
(1:12:27) Culture shock moving to the US
(1:13:23) Government spending is fake GDP
(1:15:49) Playing competitive underwater hockey
(1:18:01) Armani at Backpack
(1:19:23) How Solana survived the FTX collapse
(1:22:47) There won’t be massive AI job loss

Referenced
Solana: https://solana.com/
Jobs at Solana: https://jobs.solana.com/companies/solana-foundation-2
Slow Ventures: https://slow.co/
Foundation Capital: https://foundationcapital.com/
Multicoin: https://multicoin.capital/

Follow Anatoly
Twitter: https://x.com/toly?lang=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anatoly-yakovenko

Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Tony Holdstock-Brown is the co-founder and CEO of Inngest, the durable execution platform that quietly powers your favorite AI agents.

We get into why agents work in a demo and die in production, building their own cloud to get 20x lower cost, growing 35x after AWS and Cloudflare copied them, growing a dev tools company without a personal brand or Twitter account, why he thinks evals today are like “asking the criminal if they committed the crime”, and the thing they built to score 100% of your production agents without paying for LLM as a judge.

Thank you to Numeral, Flex, Amplitude, Merge, and Monaco for supporting this episode.

Numeral: Sales tax on autopilot https://www.numeral.com
Flex: Premium banking, 60-day credit, 0% APR https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital
Amplitude: AI analytics https://www.amplitude.com
Merge: Every model, one API https://www.merge.dev/turner
Monaco: The revenue engine for startups https://www.monaco.com/

Timestamps:
(0:00) The hidden infra layer every AI agent runs on
(1:46) Building complex chains of logic
(3:31) Why agent SDK's don't go far enough
(4:49) Healthcare was the original event-driven nightmare
(6:32) Storing traces on your infrastructure enables self-improving loops
(14:26) Why Inngest was already in the right place for AI
(15:49) Score agents off product events, not LLM's
(17:31) The OpenAI copy-paste signal
(21:24) Swap in LLMs and cut costs 20x
(23:44) How customers pulled the product forward
(25:41) Orchestration belongs outside the sandbox
(29:48) Building a neocloud to cut costs 20x
(32:09) Most neoclouds just resell AWS
(32:54) All AI infrastructure is converging
(34:49) Why Claude can't just build your backend
(36:44) How to build a software factory
(39:12) Agents are a lottery you get addicted to
(42:44) Loops must exist until AGI hits
(45:38) If models keep getting better, why orchestrate?
(48:28) When incumbents steal your features
(52:30) Why you can't vibe code infrastructure
(55:54) Why Tony has no personal brand
(59:38) Dev tools GTM without Twitter
(1:03:20) Lessons from the founder of DuckDuckGo
(1:10:39) Truth as a company value
(1:13:08) Taking too long adapting to AI
(1:15:10) Startups are 100% R&D
(1:17:19) Ali from Databricks
(1:19:03) Writing his own code, Voice-to-text with local models
(1:23:53) Evals are batshit insane

Referenced
Inngest: https://www.inngest.com/
Principles by Ray Dalio: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1501124021?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback
Traction - How Any Startup Can Achieve Explosive Customer Growth: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591848369?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

Follow Tony
Twitter: https://x.com/itstonyhb
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyhb/

Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Peter Rahal is the Founder and CEO of David. Before David, he built RXBAR in his parents' basement with $10k and sold it to Kellogg for $600M.

We get into why he basically rebuilt the same company again, how buying his own ingredient supplier made a food business venture-backable, why RXBAR's paleo positioning was a trap, the EPG fat technology behind David, how GLP-1’s have changed diet trends forever, selling cans of fish as a marketing weapon, the lawsuit that got him 120M impressions in a week, and why he studies fashion houses instead of food companies.

Thank you to Numeral, Flex, Amplitude, and Merge for supporting this episode.

Numeral: Sales tax on autopilot https://www.numeral.com

Flex: Premium banking, 60-day credit, 0% APR https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital

Amplitude: AI analytics https://www.amplitude.com

Merge: Every model, one API https://www.merge.dev/turner

Timestamps:
(0:00) David: Tools to increase muscle, decrease fat
(2:24) Making nutrition evidence-based, not ideological
(4:27) $300M revenue in year two
(5:19) Why he rebuilt the same company again
(7:12) Do what you're already good at
(9:57) In food, the only edge is brand
(12:13) The RXBAR playbook and $600M exit
(14:20) RXBAR's original positioning was too fragile
(15:25) Designing David from first principles
(18:22) Why people don't eat protein bars
(19:33) Building a multi-brand company that lasts
(25:44) How EPG made David venture-backable
(29:44) The Medici name and structure
(31:38) Food entrepreneurs are Luddites
(33:37) Why Big Food can't innovate
(38:21) Beverage is a better business than food
(40:34) Deciding which products to launch
(43:21) GLP-1's ended diet trends forever
(48:09) Looking good is the new status symbol
(51:30) Sleep first, exercise second, nutrition third
(54:35) Brand is just a unique human being
(59:05) Humor travels
(1:01:09) Marketing is finding mispriced attention
(1:06:35) When to bail on a marketing trend
(1:09:05) What makes a good meme
(1:10:00) Why David sold cans of fish
(1:13:30) How to navigate a lawsuit
(1:17:02) 120M impressions from a lawsuit
(1:18:52) Lessons from Bezos and Brad Jacobs
(1:23:30) Why the best brands are fashion and beauty
(1:25:00) Women set culture

Referenced
David: https://davidprotein.com/
EPG / Epogee: https://epogee.com/
Whoop: https://www.whoop.com/
Oura: https://ouraring.com/
Fort: https://fort.cx/
David Rumors TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@davidprotein/video/7616855415875210510
Founders Podcast: https://www.founderspodcast.com/
How to Make a Few Billion Dollars by Brad Jacobs: https://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Few-Billion-Dollars/dp/B0CHTQP25T

Follow Peter
Twitter: https://x.com/PeterRahal
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-rahal-037bba43

Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/