Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Martin Casado on Frontier Model Economics, AI's Slowdown, and the Cursor Deal - [Invest Like the Best, EP.498]

the ability to turn capital directly into technological progress may be the most important change of all

The a16z Show

The New AI Agents That Shop, Plan, and Gossip

the most compelling agents may ultimately do more than save time. They could become a kind of secret superpower.

The Business of Tech

Meet the government’s new tech boss

The institute's territory sits between promising laboratory research and technologies mature enough to attract private investment. Bringing companies and investors alongside earlier could help bridge that expensive gap.

It's Been a Minute

Denée Benton wants the freedom to feel good | It's Been a Minute

I think that I was always the kid who was getting sent to the principal's office for like having too many opinions and it feels like as an adult it's paying off, you know, like I was like a little producer in training.

The a16z Show

The Robots Already Working in American Factories | Tutor Intelligence

deploy robots into real businesses, use human "tutors" when needed, and turn that work into training data that makes the robots more capable.

The Prof G Pod

"Indifference and Negligence" — Nate Silver on Disney, 538 and Going Independent

Disney, due to what I would term as indifference and negligence, wound up kind of winding the site down. Um but now Silver Bulletin is back at Substack, where we do what we probably should have done 16 years ago, and are monetizing it through a subscription model.

The a16z Show

How Bending Spoons Built a $20 Billion Compounder | Luca Ferrari

radical innovation can produce extraordinary outcomes, but systematic improvement can be more dependable, especially when paired with a model designed to compound over decades.

The a16z Show

Can AI Fix Professional Networking? | Inside Cosign

Looking ahead, they imagine professional networking where your personal agent can talk directly to a company's agent, determine whether there's a potential fit, and only bring the opportunity to you when there's a genuine "coincidence of intent."

TED Radio Hour

Can curiosity save the wild?

I wanted to do this for the rest of my life, but I wanted to do it at a much, much larger scale. So then two years later, at 22 years old, I came up with a plan, and the vision was to build an animal sanctuary that nobody visits, or at least not in person.

The a16z Show

Why AI Could Turn Small Law Firms Into Billion-Dollar Businesses

AI won't just cut costs for law firms. It could expand access to legal representation by making an entirely new class of cases economically viable.

The Business of Tech

Meet the government’s new tech boss

The government has committed $ 231 million to the New Zealand Institute for Advanced Technology, with funding largely redirected from other parts of the science system. That puts serious expectations on the Institute and its leadership. Can they turn promising science into thriving businesses and make sure New Zealand keeps a decent share of the rewards.

The a16z Show

The Startups Rebuilding American Industry | The AD50

With private capital increasingly willing to fund physical infrastructure and production before government demand is guaranteed, they can become some of the most valuable companies in the world.

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Inside Anthropic’s trillion-dollar AI gamble

To get to $1 trillion, we do have to move to some of that white collar work, where it goes from AI augmentation to labor saving or replacement in some areas.

The a16z Show

Mark Cuban on Why AI Could Turn Solo Founders Into Trillionaires

Mark believes founders should use AI to learn, not as an excuse to stop thinking.

The Business of Tech

Meet the government’s new tech boss

The challenge is choosing where New Zealand has a genuine edge, then backing it without confusing commercial discipline with impatience.

The a16z Show

Reinventing School for the AI Era | Joe Liemandt, Gagan Biyani & Erik Torenberg

the most important question for students may not be which field is safest from AI, but what they care enough about to build

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks were making so much money that they could afford to give bad service, charge a lot, and treat customers poorly. And the reason they could do that is because there was an oligopoly of five banks that had 80% market share, and they had been there for decades with basically no new entrants.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks in Brazil were making 25% return on equity, some of the highest profitability of any bank in the world, while at the same time charging some of the highest interest rates. Credit cards were charging 300% a year in interest. And so you had this market that was highly profitable for the incumbents and yet deeply exploitative of consumers.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The Brazilian banking system was an oligopoly of five banks that had been around for decades, that were making 25% return on equity, charging the highest fees and highest interest rates in the world, and yet had the lowest NPS scores. So the opportunity was massive — you had a lot of value being extracted from consumers with very little value being given back.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Christina Cacioppo - Building an Enduring Software Company in the Age of AI - [Invest Like the Best, EP.496]

I think one thing that's counterintuitive about compliance is that it's actually a sales tool. If you are compliant, you can sell to bigger companies, you can sell to more regulated industries, and you can charge more.

The a16z Show

What It Takes to Win as a Founder | Ben Horowitz

the best entrepreneurs aren't defined by a lack of weaknesses, but by having a strength or insight that's genuinely exceptional

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Christina Cacioppo - Building an Enduring Software Company in the Age of AI - [Invest Like the Best, EP.496]

I do think that, in the long run, there's something like: the companies that are doing the most important work, on the most important problems, with the best people, tend to win. And I think AI is actually making that more true, not less true, because AI is a great equalizer on the execution side — it's getting cheaper and easier to build software. What's not getting cheaper and easier is knowing what to build.

Mixed Signals

Google’s Josh Spanier On The Unrealized CMO Armageddon, And Why AI Is At 'The End Of The Beginning'

We've never lacked for ideas in marketing we've been constrained by resources you only have so much budget so much time so many people with AI as sort of an accelerant every idea fear that you have suddenly becomes possible.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks were making so much money that they didn't need to change. And the customers had no other choice. It was a very stable but deeply inefficient equilibrium that only existed because there was no technology and no capital to disrupt it.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks in Brazil at the time were making 50% return on equity. They had the highest banking fees in the world. They had interest rates on credit cards of 300% a year. And they were serving customers terribly. So the opportunity was enormous.

The a16z Show

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on the $220 Billion AI Buildout

Amazon expects to spend roughly $220 billion in CapEx in 2026, yet CEO Andy Jassy says the company is still leaving meaningful AI demand on the table.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks in Brazil were making 25-30% return on equity for decades, which is extraordinary. And they were doing that by charging customers incredibly high fees and interest rates. So the incumbent had an Achilles heel, which was that they were making too much money.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks in Brazil were making 30% return on equity, some of the highest returns of any banks in the world, and yet the service was horrible, the products were terrible, the interest rates were the highest in the world. That paradox was a sign that something was deeply broken.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks were so profitable and they were so used to that level of profitability that they just didn't need to change. And so when we came in with a completely digital model, with no branches, with a much lower cost structure, we were able to offer a credit card with no annual fee at a time when every single bank in Brazil was charging annual fees that were sometimes higher than the credit limit they were giving to customers.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks had been making so much money for so long that they had basically forgotten to serve the customer. They were just extracting value from the customer. And the interesting insight that I had was that you could build a much better bank just by using the customer as your north star, as opposed to using profit extraction as your north star.

The Business of Tech

Andfoods: Beans, cream and kitchen dreams

What if the cream on your cake tasted like dairy, whipped like dairy, but started life as a bean?

The Business of Tech

Andfoods: Beans, cream and kitchen dreams

Scientists there had developed a fermentation process that could turn black gram, also known as black mung bean, into a remarkably dairy-like cream. Alex and his fellow Fonterra alumnus, Leon Clement, saw the potential. Here was world-class New Zealand food science they could take into a market they knew inside out.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks in Brazil were making 25% return on equity consistently for decades. They were some of the most profitable banks in the world. And the reason they were so profitable is because they were screwing customers.

The Business of Tech

Andfoods: Beans, cream and kitchen dreams

Not by asking chefs to compromise, but by winning them over on taste, texture and how the cream performs when the kitchen heats up.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks in Brazil were making 30% return on equity every single year for decades. They were the most profitable banks in the world. And the reason for that was they had an oligopoly — five banks controlling 80% of all deposits in the country, and there was just no competition.

TBPN

50 Gigawatts To The Face, 17% GDP Growth Please, Road to COD 4, Bing Gordon Joins

Put aside the fraud. Like it just seems like like total slop in terms of the execution of that business and gives me absolutely no faith in a Therronos 2.0.

Diet TBPN

Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos, AI Data Center Forecast Jumps, Poppi’s Pepsi Deal | Diet TBPN

Holmes was the one who rode the wave better than anyone else. When the TED talk era came to an end and people finally came to their senses, she was still running the same playbook and in the most scrutinized field there is medical technology. When people ask how she got so far, it is largely explained by the period she did it in and she got caught when the world suddenly woke up.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks were making so much money that they had no incentive to improve. And the government was protecting them because they were too important to fail, too important for the financial system. So you had this oligopoly that was just extracting enormous amounts of money from consumers and small businesses.

Diet TBPN

Inflation Heats Up, Anthropic Investor Day, Tesla Roadster Mania| Diet TBPN

Being on the frontier just means you're getting distilled. If you're not getting distilled, that's the definition in your mind. Like unless other people will spend a lot of money to try to emulate your model and recreate it, then you are not — that's a good like reality check.

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks were making so much money that they didn't need to innovate. They were the Goliath, and we were the David. But what we understood is that in the age of the internet, David actually wins.

Diet TBPN

Inflation Heats Up, Anthropic Investor Day, Tesla Roadster Mania| Diet TBPN

If you're not getting distilled, that's the definition in your mind. It's like unless you're not frontier. Yeah. I think that's like the the most honest definition. Like unless other people will spend a lot of money to try to emulate your model and recreate it, then you are not

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks in Brazil were making 25, 30% return on equity every year, but the consumers were paying 300% interest rates on credit cards. It was one of the most profitable banking systems for shareholders in the world and simultaneously one of the worst for consumers.

Decoder with Nilay Patel

Why Elon Musk wants to sell you cell service

what happens when Elon Musk's rocket company jumps headfirst into a business everyone loves to hate.

Fresh Air

Inside the Musk/Bezos space race

So you have an individual controlling a company and essentially he has supranational capabilities. And what we discovered is that when you outsource that capability to an individual, you're at the mercy of their whims.

Fresh Air

Inside the Musk/Bezos space race

So it's sort of stunning how successful Elon Musk has been in space. I mean, one stat that just floored me is that in 2025, SpaceX launched about 80% of the things in orbit, 80%. And its next closest competitor was not Jeff Bezos. It was the government of China.

Fresh Air

Inside the Musk/Bezos space race

one stat that just floored me is that in 2025, SpaceX launched about 80% of the things in orbit, 80%. And its next closest competitor was not Jeff Bezos. It was the government of China. So you have an individual controlling a company. And essentially, he has supranational capabilities.

The Prof G Pod

Will the Real Winners of AI Be Us? Scott Galloway and Ethan Mollick

If you're an intern at company this last summer, you absolutely were using Claude or, you know, chat GPT and just turning it those answers into people, cuz it's better than you at your job. And middle managers were increasingly turning to using AI instead of interns, cuz it does the work and doesn't cry, right? And so, as a result, you saw this loop where nobody was learning the sort of entry skills before.

Freakonomics Radio

690. It’s Show Business, Baby!

Podcasting started as a niche-nerd pursuit. Now it's a $9 billion industry. Is that a lot?

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

David Vélez - Building Nubank and the Future of Global Banking - [Invest Like the Best, EP.495]

The banks were making so much money and were so profitable and had so much political power that nobody was able to change them. And the reason we were able to disrupt them is that we came from the outside, we had no legacy, we had no branches, we had no mainframes, we had no employees that were used to a certain way of doing things.