🎧 5 podcasts every venture investor should follow

In venture, the sharpest insights often come from real conversations.

These shows will keep you close to the deals, strategies, and thinking that shape the market.

🖱 The Twenty Minute VC — Harry Stebbings interviews partners from Sequoia, a16z, Index in 20-min bursts.

🖱 Acquired — 2–4 hour deep dives into companies and deals, from OpenAI to Nintendo.

🖱 All-In Podcast — four VCs debating startups, macro, and politics — straight from Silicon Valley.

🖱 Masters of Scale — Reid Hoffman on how founders and investors scale companies.

🖱 This Week in Startups — Jason Calacanis tracking fresh startups and early trends.

The best way to sharpen your venture instincts is to listen where the insiders talk.

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📊 Crypto Venture Weekly: August 18–22, 2025

$80M raised across 16 projects this week, alongside new Bitcoin treasury moves and a wave of M&A activity. DigiFT and Irys led the funding charts, while Kraken, Valantis, and Kerberus went shopping.

Here’s what the top 8 are building 👇

🖱 DigiFT ($11M, SBI, Polygon, Offchain Labs)
Singapore-based RWA exchange enabling regulated tokenized assets.

🖱 Irys ($10M, CoinFund, Hypersphere, Amber)
Programmable datachain for decentralized storage and retrieval.

🖱 OVERTAKE ($7M, Sui Foundation, Immutable)
P2P marketplace on Sui for trading in-game assets.

🖱 Legion ($5M, VanEck, Brevan Howard Digital, Coinbase Ventures)
Fundraising platform giving retail early access to ICOs and pre-token sales.

🖱 LO:TECH ($5M, 13books Capital, Faction VC)
London-based digital asset trading firm with a focus on new liquidity products.

🖱 o1.exchange ($4.2M, Coinbase Ventures, Alliance DAO)
Onchain trading terminal built on Base for advanced execution.

🖱 LYS Labs ($4M, Alchemy, Auros, dingaling)
Contextualized, machine-ready data for Internet Capital Markets.

🖱 Loop Crypto ($2M, Fabric Ventures, VanEck, a16z crypto)
Stablecoin and crypto payments processor simplifying merchant adoption.

Investor attention this week was on RWA exchanges, next-gen trading infra, and new payment rails.

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🤝 Trump’s Intel deal isn’t new money

Intel announced an $8.9B “investment” from the Trump administration - framed as the U.S. taking a 10% stake. But the funds aren’t fresh capital: they come from Biden-era CHIPS Act and Secure Enclave grants that were awarded but never paid out.

🖱 $5.7B from CHIPS Act grants + $3.2B from Secure Enclave program
🖱 Trump: “The U.S. paid nothing for these shares — a great deal for America and Intel”
🖱 Legal experts question if CHIPS Act funds can even be converted into equity
🖱 Government stake will be passive — no board seats, no governance rights

It’s a political win on paper, but whether this reshapes Intel’s future or survives legal challenges - is still an open question.

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🌍 Crusoe eyes $10B valuation with clean power data centers

Denver-based Crusoe Energy Systems is in talks to raise over $1B at a ~$10B valuation, up from $2.8B last year.

Backed by Founders Fund, Nvidia, and Fidelity, the startup converts stranded fuel into computing power for sustainable data centers.

🖱 Prevented 22B cubic feet of gas flaring - equal to 630K cars off the road annually
🖱 Abilene site: 1M sq ft, up to 100K GPUs, powered by 1.2 GW of clean energy
🖱 Key player in $500B Stargate project with $11.6B already secured
🖱 15+ GW of clean energy projects in development worldwide
🖱 Acquired Atero (GPU infra management) for $150M

Crusoe’s push shows how scaling AI compute and cutting emissions can align, but this round will test if green data infra can draw capital as fast as it burns energy.

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🧪OpenAI enters protein engineering

OpenAI and Retro Biosciences unveiled GPT-4b micro, a model trained on protein sequences and interaction data.

Its first breakthrough: redesigning Yamanaka factors - the Nobel-winning proteins that reprogram adult cells into stem cells.

🖱 The AI-designed variants showed 50x higher efficiency in cell reprogramming
🖱 DNA repair processes also improved, hinting at potential longevity benefits
🖱 Results held across multiple donors and delivery methods
🖱 Reprogramming sped up from weeks to just days

Researchers say this is only the beginning - such AI tools could radically accelerate regenerative medicine.

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💸 AI giants push back on shadow investors

OpenAI has issued a warning against buying its shares through resellers, SPVs, tokenized equity, or forward contracts.

The company says any transfer of its stock requires written approval, and unauthorized deals can be voided or lead to legal action.

🖱 SPVs have been a common way for smaller investors to access hot AI rounds like OpenAI and Anthropic, with funds earning fees along the way.

🖱 Anthropic recently told Menlo Ventures to stop using SPVs, urging them to invest directly instead.

🖱 Robinhood began offering tokenized shares of OpenAI and SpaceX to European clients, sparking OpenAI’s public pushback.

Small investors are eager to ride the AI wave through any channel available. For now, giants like OpenAI and Anthropic only warn. The real test will come with the first canceled deal.

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⚡Tesla swaps AI voice in China

Tesla will add a new voice assistant to its Chinese cars, powered by ByteDance’s Deepseek and Doubao models. Drivers will control navigation, media, and climate by voice, and even get news updates.

🖱 Doubao handles voice recognition, while Deepseek manages dialogue.

🖱 In the US, Tesla uses Grok, but Chinese rules push it to local AI models.

🖱 Competition is heating up, as BYD and Geely are already adopting Deepseek.

A reminder that in China, even Tesla has to localize its tech stack to stay in the race.

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🤖 McKinsey claims AI is rewriting corporate revenues

McKinsey’s latest survey says 10–20% of large corporations boosted revenue by 10%+ thanks to generative AI. Half to two-thirds reported at least some gain.

🖱 Even “boring” industries like oil drilling or grocery chains supposedly saw jumps.

🖱 Marketing, the obvious use case, reported smaller growth than others.

🖱 At the low end, 10% gain at 10% of big business equals ~1% of US GDP.

Numbers sound spectacular, but the reality check is simple: surveys measure optimism more than accounting.

When managers round up answers to avoid looking clueless, research drifts far from reality.

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🧠 Bill Gates launches $1M Alzheimer’s AI Prize

Bill Gates has unveiled a $1M competition calling on researchers, engineers, and startups to use AI against Alzheimer’s disease.

The initiative is run through the Alzheimer’s Disease Data Initiative, with finalists set to compete in Copenhagen in March 2026.

🖱 Alzheimer’s affects over 7M Americans today, a number expected to rise with longer lifespans
🖱 AI could accelerate research by spotting hidden patterns, biomarkers, and drug opportunities at scale
🖱 Gates’ personal drive comes after his father’s death from Alzheimer’s in 2020
🖱 Applications open now, semi-finalists will be announced in December

AI has the power to shift research from reactive to predictive, a chance to change the trajectory of one of medicine’s hardest challenges.

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🤖 Levels of company autonomy

This framework breaks down how organizations evolve from human-led software shops to fully autonomous AI-driven entities.

🖱 Levels 0–1: Today, most founders use AI as an assistant. ChatGPT for research, code helpers, or microtasks, but humans still make all decisions.

🖱 Level 2: Companies deploy hundreds of LLMs, guided by humans. AI boosts productivity, but final control remains human.

🖱 Levels 3–5: Over the next decade, AI starts making decisions itself, from handling 50%+ of workflows to running 90% of operations, and eventually building fully autonomous organizations.

The higher the level, the greater the scalability and lower the operating costs.

Progress is not linear - many companies may stall at levels 2–3 due to regulation, customer trust, or the need for human oversight in sensitive industries.

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🪙 a16z ramps up DC lobbying to $1.49M

Andreessen Horowitz is spending heavily in Washington, reporting $1.49M in federal lobbying so far this year, more than Sequoia, General Catalyst, and even its own trade group NVCA.

🖱 a16z’s spend is up from $950K in 2023 and $1.8M in 2024
🖱 Targets range from crypto and stablecoins to AI and defense policy
🖱 The firm now lobbies the National Security Council and defense bills, tying tech regulation to national security
🖱 Recently added ex–deputy national security advisor Anne Neuberger as a senior advisor on AI, cyber, and defense

While other VCs mostly sit out formal lobbying, a16z is betting big that shaping regulation directly will pay off as it pushes into defense and “American Dynamism.”

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⚖️ Musk takes Apple & OpenAI to court

Elon Musk’s xAI has filed an antitrust lawsuit in Texas, accusing Apple and OpenAI of striking a deal that locks ChatGPT into iOS by default.

The claim:

Apple became a “gatekeeper,” handing OpenAI monopoly power inside its ecosystem.

🖱 Apple allegedly “gave up” on building its own AI and leaned fully on OpenAI
🖱 iPhone users get ChatGPT by default, with no built-in alternatives
🖱 Every Apple user interaction flows into OpenAI’s training data
🖱 App Store promotions favor ChatGPT, while Musk’s Grok is excluded despite ranking high
🖱 Musk argues this setup suppresses competition and harms rival AI projects

If the court agrees, the case could test whether bundling AI into operating systems is innovation, or anticompetitive gatekeeping.

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💡 An Wang built an empire on persistence

An Wang was the engineer-founder who turned a single breakthrough into a company that defined office computing. A Harvard-trained physicist, he patented pulse transfer memory, sold the rights to IBM, and used the momentum to build Wang Laboratories.

Before the PC era, his systems powered American offices and his philanthropy reshaped campuses and hospitals.

🖱 The pivotal invention: a memory register that underpins modern computing, monetized early to fund the next act

🖱 Company arc: from calculators and components to office computers and text-processing systems that owned the workflow

🖱 Scale: 30,000 employees and $3B+ in revenue at peak, with Wang machines across US offices

🖱 Playbook: build where work happens, integrate deeply into daily processes, then expand product by product

🖱 Missed turn: the platform shift to personal computers punished even the category leader

🖱 Legacy: a pioneer of computing and a major philanthropist who gave hundreds of millions to education and healthcare

🖱 Read: “Lessons: An Autobiography” by An Wang

The takeaway is simple. Genius opens the door. Persistence walks through it, ships relentlessly, and survives the next platform shift.

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📊 How Google makes its money

Alphabet still earns most of its revenue from ads, but the mix is shifting.

Google Cloud has tripled in five years and now makes up 14% of sales, while subscriptions and devices have doubled over the same period.

🖱 Ads remain the core driver of Alphabet’s business
🖱 Cloud is the fastest-growing arm, tripling in five years
🖱 Subscriptions and devices have doubled in revenue
🖱 Profit margins remain high, though below Microsoft (36%) and Meta (39%)

Alphabet is still one of the most profitable companies on the planet, but its future growth story is now tied as much to cloud and subscriptions as to ads.

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✈️ From cereal boxes to a $42B IPO — the story of Airbnb

In 2007, two broke design grads in San Francisco rented out their loft with inflatable mattresses and Pop-Tarts for breakfast. That scrappy idea, called Airbed and Breakfast, became Airbnb — a community “where anyone can feel at home.”

🖱 2008: Third co-founder Nathan Blecharczyk joined, and the platform went live during the Democratic National Convention — 80 bookings in a week.

🖱 With bookings stalling, the founders sold “Obama O’s” and “Cap’n McCains” cereal boxes at $40 each, raising $30K — their first “funding round.”

🖱 2009: Y Combinator invested $20K, Sequoia added $585K, and the rebrand to Airbnb marked the shift from airbeds to full homes.

🖱 Over the next decade, nine funding rounds fueled explosive growth.

🖱 2020: Airbnb survived the COVID crash by pivoting to local travel and remote-work rentals. Instead of collapse, it went public at a $42B valuation.

Today Airbnb makes billions in quarterly revenue and $600M+ in profit.

The lesson: desperation can spark creativity, and persistence can turn airbeds and cereal into one of the biggest IPOs of the decade.

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🌐 Framer hits $2B valuation with new funding

Framer, the no-code website builder with over 500K monthly users, has raised $100M in a Series D led by Meritech and Atomico, pushing its valuation to $2B. The company is now targeting enterprise growth and AI-powered features.

🖱 Framer powers dynamic websites with built-in analytics and enterprise security
🖱 Customers include Miro, Perplexity, Scale AI, and 40% of Y Combinator’s latest batch
🖱 ARR has hit $50M, with $100M targeted for next year
🖱 The company has been break-even for the past year

From design-first tool to enterprise platform, Framer is positioning itself to run not just landing pages, but entire company websites.

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🍴 Trump “broke the Barrel”

Cracker Barrel’s logo rebrand turned into a culture war saga after conservatives, led by Trump, blasted the chain for going “woke.”

Under pressure, the company backtracked, restored its old logo and thanked the President for weighing in.

🖱 MAGA influencers framed it as a test case: “Go woke, lose money”
🖱 Trump allies claimed credit after executives called to confirm the reversal
🖱 Cracker Barrel also deleted its Pride page and scrubbed DEI mentions from its site
🖱 Conservative pundits declared “victory” and quickly issued new demands

A restaurant logo became a political battlefield, showing how fast companies can fold under online pressure.

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🚀 Naval on Elon Musk’s true drive

Naval Ravikant shared a story that changed how he sees Musk. It started with a clash between Elon and Bill Gates.

Bill Gates once shorted Tesla. Elon confronted him:

🗣️Elon: “Why would you short Tesla?”
🗣️Gates: “The math says it’s overvalued. I’ll profit on the short.”
🗣️Elon: “Profit? I thought you cared about climate change and saving the world?”

Elon walked away and never spoke to Gates again.

For Naval, that moment revealed Musk’s mindset:

🖱 Money is only a tool, never the mission
🖱 His audacious goals aren’t for show, he means them literally
🖱 He doesn’t want to be remembered as “the car guy” or even “the one who saved America” — he wants humanity in space

It’s not about credit or legacy.
For Musk, it’s about getting us to the stars in his lifetime.

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📉 First-time VCs hit a wall on second funds

Managers who raised debut funds in the boom years of 2021–2022 are now struggling to secure Fund II.

PitchBook data shows only 33% of 2021’s first-time managers and just 12% from 2022 have raised a second vehicle.

🖱 In 2021, first-time VCs raised a record $24.1B
🖱 Median time between funds used to be under 3 years
🖱 Now LPs concentrate on big firms, with 12 funds capturing over half of all capital in 2025
🖱 Emerging managers face LP pullback, economic uncertainty, and political headwinds in climate and energy

The result is a two-speed venture world. Big firms get bigger, while new managers risk stalling out, threatening the next generation of investor talent.

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