Mercor has raised $750 million in a Series D at a $20 billion valuation, with participation from Nvidia, Benchmark, General Catalyst, Funds managed by affiliates of Apollo, XTX Ventures, Salesforce, and others.Co-Founder & CEO Brendan Foody joins Sourcery to discuss how Mercor has grown more than 5X on a mid-nine-figure base, built a network of over 5 million experts, and scaled to more than $5 million in daily payouts to people helping train frontier AI models.Founded in 2023 by college dropouts, Mercor has evolved beyond AI-powered recruiting into building the data, evaluations, and reinforcement learning environments used to train AI systems on real professional work.Brendan explains why he believes every Fortune 500 company will eventually build its own AI intelligence, why human expertise becomes more valuable as AI improves, & how Mercor plans to expand from frontier labs into the broader enterprise economy.𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒(00:00) Brendan Foody, Co-Founder & CEO Mercor(01:00) Mercor’s Path to a $1T Company(02:22) Mercor’s 3 Products(04:05) $5M a Day in Expert Payouts on Stripe Connect(05:40) Why Mercor Is Not a Marketplace(08:51) Is Human Data a Durable Category(12:20) How Mercor Finds and Evaluates Experts(15:45) Holding Category Leadership With a Founding Team in Their Early 20s(18:00) Chips on the Shoulder and Avoiding Mimetic Competition(28:25) Why Mercor Acquired Deeptune(31:22) Turning Down Acquisition Offers(34:40) Harvey, LAB and Why the Model Is the Product(41:30) Why Data Is Mispriced in the AI Stack(43:40) Every Fortune 500 Becomes a Neolab(49:55) IPO Timeline and the Next 12 MonthsMolly on X: https://x.com/MollySOSheaBrendan on X: https://x.com/BrendanFoody𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Harvey—The AI platform built for legal work, is helping the best firms and companies close deals faster. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 build with Harvey. Visit: http://harvey.ai/ • Zone—develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com • Mercor—The human intelligence behind frontier AI. Frontier labs and leading enterprises use Mercor to turn the knowledge of 5M+ experts into the data, evals and benchmarks that make AI better at real work. Visit: http://mercor.com/sourcery • VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com • Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery Follow Sourcery for the latest updates! https://www.sourcery.vcDisclosure: Paid Ad. Agents are an experimental AI tool. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public Holding’s, Inc. makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. Brokerage accounts and services provided by Open to the Public Investing, Inc. See additional disclosures at https://public.com/disclosures/agenticdisclosures.#podcast #investing #technology #venturecapital #entrepreneur #startup #siliconvalley

Planet builds a satellite in about 8 hours. At NASA, the same work took 8 years.Will Marshall is Co-Founder and CEO of Planet Labs (NYSE: PL), which has built about 700 satellites in 15 years, more than any company except SpaceX, and runs the only fleet that images Earth’s entire landmass every day.Marshall walks through Planet’s SF factory, from the garage whiteboard and the phone the founders launched on a suborbital rocket, to the clean room where Pelican-10 is being integrated, the shock, vibration, and thermal test stations, and the RF chamber. The tour ends with a live demo of Planet’s AI interface querying 10 years of daily imagery, and a first look at the new Dove production floor. 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒(00:00) Will Marshall, Co-Founder & CEO at Planet Labs(00:48) 700 satellites for less than one NASA mission(02:44) Why Planet Labs is really a data business (03:45) How a satellite sees trees from 500 km away (06:22) 4 million images of Earth, every day (07:44) What a satellite goes through to reach orbit (09:03) The $500 phone vs. the $1B satellite (12:05) 1,000x more data than the first satellites(14:47) Planet Labs' 48 ground stations that bring Earth’s data home (16:44) Why every Planet Labs satellite is named after a bird(18:19) A look inside Planet Labs’ sharpest satellite(20:17) Why Planet Labs doesn’t make its own chips (21:14) Building a satellite in 8 hours, not 8 years(22:47) Why fleet size isn't what matters(24:30) The engine that’s 10x more efficient in space (25:29) Why the 100 million pieces of space junk is the real collision risk (26:56) Spotting gas leaks from space(27:40) Testing satellites to the breaking point (32:19) What changed at Area 51 in five years? (37:31) The room where satellite radios are testedWill Marshall: https://x.com/Will4Planet Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Harvey—The AI platform built for legal work, is helping the best firms and companies close deals faster. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 build with Harvey. Visit: http://harvey.ai/  • Zone—develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com   • Mercor—The human intelligence behind frontier AI. Frontier labs and leading enterprises use Mercor to turn the knowledge of 5M+ experts into the data, evals and benchmarks that make AI better at real work. Visit: http://mercor.com/sourcery • VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com  • Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery  Follow Sourcery for the latest updates!https://www.sourcery.vcDisclosure: Paid Ad. Agents are an experimental AI tool. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public Holding’s, Inc. makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. Brokerage accounts and services provided by Open to the Public Investing, Inc.  See additional disclosures at https://public.com/disclosures/agenticdisclosures.

I visited Planet Labs (NYSE: PL) in San Francisco to tour its satellite manufacturing facility and sit down with Co-Founder & CEO Will Marshall.Planet has built more than 700 satellites, second only to SpaceX, and operates the only constellation capable of imaging Earth's entire landmass daily, generating roughly 4 million images per day for defense, government, and commercial customers.Will explains Planet's work with Google on Project Suncatcher and NVIDIA-powered compute in orbit, why AI data centers in space could eventually be cheaper than on Earth, and how its satellite intelligence supports Ukraine, the US Navy, and governments building sovereign space capabilities.We also discuss Planet's growing defense business, AI-powered Earth monitoring, its manufacturing expansion in San Francisco and Berlin, the search for extraterrestrial life, and lessons from 15 years of building Planet.Will Marshall: https://x.com/Will4Planet Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊YouTube: ⁠https://youtu.be/llGHpPbCtHo𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Harvey—The AI platform built for legal work, is helping the best firms and companies close deals faster. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 build with Harvey. Visit: http://harvey.ai/  • Zone—develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com   • Mercor—The human intelligence behind frontier AI. Frontier labs and leading enterprises use Mercor to turn the knowledge of 5M+ experts into the data, evals and benchmarks that make AI better at real work. Visit: http://mercor.com/sourcery • VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com  • Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery  Follow Sourcery for the latest updates!https://www.sourcery.vcDisclosure: Paid Ad. Agents are an experimental AI tool. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public Holding’s, Inc. makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. Brokerage accounts and services provided by Open to the Public Investing, Inc.  See additional disclosures at https://public.com/disclosures/agenticdisclosures.𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒(00:00) Will Marshall, Co-Founder & CEO at Planet Labs(00:49) “We go where the cool people are”(01:46) What it takes to image Earth every day(04:13) Why information is power in modern war(07:39) Why countries want their own satellites(08:34) How Wall Street and Big Tech are watching from space(11:16) The most surprising uses of satellite imagery(14:49) Imaging any point on Earth within 30 minutes (17:24) What if you could ask a satellite a question?(19:41) Every AI story comes back to compute(20:38) Do data centers in space make sense?(25:32) Why satellites are so sensitive(26:55) The NASA maverick who made Planet Labs possible(28:37) Who's on Planet Labs no-go list(29:18) Will's prediction on finding aliens(33:34) Inside NASA's alien hotline(35:05) How a childhood hero inspired Will’s space career

fal has raised $1.65B in a combined Series E and Series F, with Sequoia Capital leading the E and Bessemer Venture Partners leading the F. Its founders see generative media as 1 of only 3 product market fits in AI, alongside search and coding agents.Burkay Gür (Co-Founder and CEO) and Gorkem Yurtseven (Co-Founder and CTO) started fal in 2021 after building machine learning infrastructure at Coinbase and Amazon. fal runs the infrastructure behind image, video, audio, and 3D models, serving developers, studios, and the model labs themselves.Recorded at Dalida in San Francisco, Burkay and Gorkem explain how fal moved from Python data infrastructure into generative media, why video and image now split its revenue 50/50, and how demand kept rising as video prices jumped more than 10X. They also cover fal’s 150+ person org with only 2 reporting levels, the compute shortage shaping model launches, and why they believe the margin in AI sits with compute providers over applications.“AI really has 3 product market fits. One of them is search. The other really clear one that’s growing really fast now is coding agents. And the third one is, we believe, generative media.”We cover: › The $1.65B Series E and F › Why individuals spend $10K to $20K a month on generative media › Veo 2 pricing and the shift to professional ads and film work › Super ICs and hiring for agency, hunger, and humility › World models, open source, and Hollywood adoptionBurkay Gur: https://x.com/burkaygurGorkem Yurtseven: https://x.com/gorkemMolly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊YouTube: https://youtu.be/pPzJ1wE8Lnw𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Harvey—The AI platform built for legal work, is helping the best firms and companies close deals faster. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 build with Harvey. Visit: http://harvey.ai/  • Zone—develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com   • Mercor—The human intelligence behind frontier AI. Frontier labs and leading enterprises use Mercor to turn the knowledge of 5M+ experts into the data, evals and benchmarks that make AI better at real work. Visit: http://mercor.com/sourcery • VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com  • Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery  Follow Sourcery for the latest updates!https://www.sourcery.vcDisclosure: Paid Ad. Agents are an experimental AI tool. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public Holding’s, Inc. makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. Brokerage accounts and services provided by Open to the Public Investing, Inc.  See additional disclosures at https://public.com/disclosures/agenticdisclosures.

Shardul Shah, Partner at $17B Index Ventures, joins Sourcery from the firm's NYC office to discuss its investments in Anthropic, Wiz, Datadog, Simile, Parallel, and the next generation of AI companies.Shardul joined Index in 2008 and has backed some of the most important companies in cloud infrastructure and cybersecurity, including Wiz, acquired by Google for $32B.We discuss why startup valuations will keep rising, how Index invests in founders before they even have a business plan, the firm's approach to conviction and concentration, the future of cybersecurity in an agent-to-agent world, and the evolving IPO and M&A markets.Shardul also shares how Index invested over $250M in Wiz, why the firm has historically underestimated its biggest winners, and how it identifies the next generation of category-defining founders.Shardul Shah: https://x.com/shardul_shah Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊YouTube: https://youtu.be/9Vq63dnCfMU𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Harvey—The AI platform built for legal work, is helping the best firms and companies close deals faster. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 build with Harvey. Visit: http://harvey.ai/  • Zone—develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com   • Mercor—The human intelligence behind frontier AI. Frontier labs and leading enterprises use Mercor to turn the knowledge of 5M+ experts into the data, evals and benchmarks that make AI better at real work. Visit: http://mercor.com/sourcery • VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com  • Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery  Follow Sourcery for the latest updates!https://www.sourcery.vcDisclosure: Paid Ad. Agents are an experimental AI tool. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public Holding’s, Inc. makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. Brokerage accounts and services provided by Open to the Public Investing, Inc.  See additional disclosures at https://public.com/disclosures/agenticdisclosures.𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒(00:00) Shardul Shah, Partner at Index Ventures(00:54) How venture has changed in the last 5 years(04:00) Index's biggest investments(05:35) What Index looks for when backing founders(08:41) Will AI replace venture capital?(09:17) What’s durable when AI moves this fast?(11:35) Why Index doesn't worry about valuations(15:12) "We're no longer an underdog"(16:33) The hardest part of winning deals(18:25) The founder who proved his investor wrong (21:13) The lessons behind saying no and thinking bigger(26:10) Inside Flapping Airplanes(26:47) Did Wiz sell too early? (30:56) How much money do startups really need?(33:55) Concentration vs diversification (35:43) Why venture fund cycles are getting shorter(37:13) The changing IPO and M&A environment(39:41) What 3 decades of returns look like(41:25) The person behind Shardul's biggest decisions

I went inside Starcloud’s headquarters in Redmond, Washington, right outside of Seattle, to tour the $2.3B company building AI data centers in space.Philip Johnston, CEO & Co-Founder led the tour, alongside technical features with Co-Founder & CTO Ezra Feilden, Co-Founder & Chief Engineer Adi Oltean, as well as Bailey Montaño, Miguel Rivera and Camilo Lopez from the engineering team.Starcloud has raised $450M to put Nvidia GPUs, AI inference and eventually gigawatts of computing infrastructure into orbit. Its latest round was $250M, led by Manhattan West, with Nvidia, Cisco Investments, Benchmark and EQT. The team went from founding to orbit in 21 months. Starcloud 1 launched with the first Nvidia H100 in space. Starcloud 2 launches in January with 100x the power, and Starcloud 3 is designed to deploy up to 50 satellites per SpaceX Starship launch.We cover the economics of orbital vs terrestrial data centers, the $500/kg launch cost threshold, SpaceX rideshare and Nvidia chips in space. We also get into liquid cooling and radiators, radiation and chip burn-in, edge inference for government customers and plans for an 88,000-satellite constellation.We also go behind the scenes of spacecraft testing, including a rebuilt secondhand vibe table, plus laser fabrication and welding. We close with Philip’s take on SpaceX passing $100T and his mission to send a spacecraft to Alpha Centauri.Philip Johnston: https://x.com/PhilipJohnston Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊YouTube: ⁠https://youtu.be/mdq6urSx-f8𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Harvey—The AI platform built for legal work, is helping the best firms and companies close deals faster. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 build with Harvey. Visit: http://harvey.ai/  • Zone—develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com   • Mercor—The human intelligence behind frontier AI. Frontier labs and leading enterprises use Mercor to turn the knowledge of 5M+ experts into the data, evals and benchmarks that make AI better at real work. Visit: http://mercor.com/sourcery • VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com  • Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery  Follow Sourcery for the latest updates!https://www.sourcery.vcDisclosure: Paid Ad. Agents are an experimental AI tool. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public Holding’s, Inc. makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. Brokerage accounts and services provided by Open to the Public Investing, Inc.  See additional disclosures at https://public.com/disclosures/agenticdisclosures.

I got interviewed! Paige Finn Doherty of Behind Genius sat down with me in the yard to look back on Sourcery's insane growth for her 100th episode. Copy below is from her post, check out her podcast Seed to Harvest. (https://open.spotify.com/show/1TcSnOcmeCG82HnXwNZwM0?si=452aee7408c1489c) In just one year of full-time building Sourcery, Molly O’Shea has interviewed over 200+ founders, CEOs, execs & investors across public co's, startups, VC, growth equity, PE, hedge funds on her show, Sourcery - including Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir ($PLTR), Palmer Luckey, CEO of Anduril, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase. In today’s episode, we talk about how an art degree led her into venture, how an internal deal newsletter became Sourcery, and why she went all-in on X when Elon bought it.She also shares her contrarian take on funding-announcement exclusives and how a Top 100 dream-guest list landed her the Alex Karp interview that went viral. And yes, we talk about the Alex Karp sword swinging moment. My mission is to educate and inspire the next generation of CEOs and builders, and the reason why I wanted to share a conversation with Molly is she’s one of my favorite creators in the technology space!00:25 Intro01:26 Lemonade stands in Connecticut and growing up with two entrepreneur parents03:59 Drawing houses in Moleskines and teaching herself dimensions06:14 Using art to stand out08:32 Why the USC Architecture program failed her ROI test11:17 Discovering VC at Google’s 30 Weeks incubator15:12 Breaking into VC18:44 How Sourcery started as an internal deal newsletter22:53 Why she went all-in on X when Elon took over27:41 Breaking news vs. timeless content, and a funding-announcement playbook31:34 What frustrates her: companies that don’t amplify their own interviews34:21 Her Top 100 dream-guest list38:06 How the list landed Alex Karp40:55 Alex Karp: The first walking interview and the sword46:17 Jack Altman: “It’s my brother”48:28 Dry humor, Will Ferrell, and learning to smile49:53 The next list, and landing 20%+ of the first one in a year51:24 How Molly chooses guests55:41 Her vision for Sourcery: more walk-and-talks, factory tours, future list1:01:36 Molly asks Paige about Behind Genius Ventures1:05:28 What we’re each manifesting for the next 12 months

Is AI in a bubble? What happens to circular AI financing deals, and why is one of the world's largest asset managers investing in SpaceX and Anthropic?I sat down with Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton ($1.8T AUM), at the firm's NYC headquarters to discuss today's market conditions, AI valuations, private markets, and the future of investing.We cover:AI Bubble & Circular Deals: AI infrastructure spending, revenue recognition, chip depreciation, and risks in long-term data center financing.SpaceX & Anthropic: Franklin Templeton's late-stage venture investments, the SpaceX IPO, and Elon Musk's ambitions.Market Conditions: Inflation, interest rates, geopolitical risks, and where Jenny sees opportunities.Building a $1.8T Asset Manager: 17 acquisitions in six years, the $4.5B Legg Mason deal, and Franklin's expansion into private markets.AI & Tokenization: 1,000+ AI agents, an 11% sales uplift, and why blockchain could transform financial infrastructure.Jenny also shares how she went from Franklin Templeton's mailroom to CEO, and why she believes Elon Musk is the modern-day Benjamin Franklin.Jenny Johnson: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyjohnsonfranklintempleton Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊YouTube: https://youtu.be/VmCKksLNmsM𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Harvey—The AI platform built for legal work, is helping the best firms and companies close deals faster. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 build with Harvey. Visit: http://harvey.ai/  • Zone—develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com   • Mercor—The human intelligence behind frontier AI. Frontier labs and leading enterprises use Mercor to turn the knowledge of 5M+ experts into the data, evals and benchmarks that make AI better at real work. Visit: http://mercor.com/sourcery • VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com  • Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery  Follow Sourcery for the latest updates!https://www.sourcery.vcDisclosure: Paid Ad. Agents are an experimental AI tool. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public Holding’s, Inc. makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. Brokerage accounts and services provided by Open to the Public Investing, Inc.  See additional disclosures at https://public.com/disclosures/agenticdisclosures.𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒(00:00) Jenny Johnson, CEO at Franklin Templeton(01:08) Where is the market really headed?(05:34) Why AI is the biggest growth lever(08:10) Are we in an AI bubble?(11:28) How Franklin Templeton got into SpaceX and Anthropic(18:28) Closing a $4.5B deal in the middle of COVID(21:39) The strategy behind 17 acquisitions in 6 years(24:11) How Canvas grew from $2.5B to $30B(28:43) Why blockchain will rebuild finance(32:50) Will companies stop paying for top AI models?(37:08) Franklin Templeton’s 70-year climb(40:21) Who is the modern day Ben Franklin?

What if AI could predict human behavior before it happens?I sat down with Joon Sung Park, Co-Founder & CEO of Simile, the $2B AI startup building foundation models of human behavior, backed by Greenoaks, Index Ventures, + investors including Fei-Fei Li & Andrej Karpathy.Simile is building digital twins of real people to simulate how individuals, consumers, and entire populations make decisions. Its foundational Stanford research demonstrated 85%+ accuracy in predicting human behavior, and today the company has partnerships providing access to over 40 million real people globally.Companies including CVS, Wealthfront, Deloitte, and Banco Itaú are already working with Simile to understand their customers, test products, optimize messaging, and simulate decisions before deploying them in the real world.Recorded at Index Ventures in San Francisco, we discuss how Joon's original Stanford research, Smallville, evolved from 25 autonomous AI agents into a $2B company, why human behavior is more predictable than we think, and how simulations could transform traditional market research, corporate strategy, and decision-making.We also put Simile to the test. Before our interview, Joon simulated our conversation using AI, and the model correctly anticipated one of my opening questions.Joon Sung Park: https://x.com/joon_s_pk Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊YouTube: ⁠https://youtu.be/-6Kg5N7JL7I⁠𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Harvey—The AI platform built for legal work, is helping the best firms and companies close deals faster. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 build with Harvey. Visit: http://harvey.ai/  • Zone—develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com   • Mercor—The human intelligence behind frontier AI. Frontier labs and leading enterprises use Mercor to turn the knowledge of 5M+ experts into the data, evals and benchmarks that make AI better at real work. Visit: http://mercor.com/sourcery • VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com  • Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery  Follow Sourcery for the latest updates!https://www.sourcery.vcDisclosure: Paid Ad. Agents are an experimental AI tool. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public Holding’s, Inc. makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. Brokerage accounts and services provided by Open to the Public Investing, Inc.  See additional disclosures at https://public.com/disclosures/agenticdisclosures.

Former Twitter CEO & CTO Parag Agrawal predicts AI agents could drive another 5,000–10,000x increase in web usage, fundamentally transforming how the internet operates and makes money.Now Founder & CEO of $2 Billion Parallel Web Systems, Parag is building the search infrastructure for an internet where AI agents, not humans, become the primary users. With a reported $230M raised, customers including Harvey and Notion, and a team that has grown 4x this year, Parallel is positioning itself at the center of the AI infrastructure boom.Recorded at Index Ventures in San Francisco, we discuss the massive GPU demand behind AI search, why traditional advertising and subscription models could break, and how Parallel is developing a new way to compensate content owners as agents replace human browsing. Parag also explains why the web will shift from reactive to proactive, how he's scaled Parallel from 30 to 120 employees this year, and lessons from his 11 years at Twitter as engineer, CTO, and CEO.Parallel Web Systems was funded by Index Ventures.Parag Agrawal: https://x.com/paraga Molly O’Shea: https://x.com/MollySOShea Sourcery: ⁠https://x.com/sourceryy 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊YouTube: ⁠https://youtu.be/iRI6gTe1wGM⁠𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒• Brex—The modern finance platform, combining the world’s smartest corporate card with integrated expense management, banking, bill pay, & travel. https://brex.com/sourcery • Harvey—The AI platform built for legal work, is helping the best firms and companies close deals faster. More than 200,000 lawyers, 80% of the Am Law 100, and over 20% of the Fortune 500 build with Harvey. Visit: http://harvey.ai/  • Zone—develops next-generation data center campuses, partnering with AI companies, site developers and technology leaders to bring compute online faster and at scale. Visit: https://zonefrontier.com   • Mercor—The human intelligence behind frontier AI. Frontier labs and leading enterprises use Mercor to turn the knowledge of 5M+ experts into the data, evals and benchmarks that make AI better at real work. Visit: http://mercor.com/sourcery • VCX—VCX is the public ticker for private tech, allowing investors of all sizes to invest in venture capital. View The Portfolio at http://GetVCX.com  • Deel—Deel is the global people platform that helps startups hire, manage, pay, and equip anyone, anywhere. Trusted by more than 35,000 fast-growing companies, Deel is the people platform that just works, so teams can scale without the chaos. Visit: https://www.deel.com/sourcery• Public–Investing platform Public just launched Generated Assets, which lets you turn any idea into an investable index with AI. With Generated Assets, you can build, backtest, refine, and invest in any thesis with AI. Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all ETFs. https://public.com/sourcery  Follow Sourcery for the latest updates!https://www.sourcery.vcDisclosure: Paid Ad. Agents are an experimental AI tool. Its output may be inaccurate and is not investment advice. Public Holding’s, Inc. makes no guarantees about its accuracy or reliability—verify independently before use. Brokerage accounts and services provided by Open to the Public Investing, Inc.  See additional disclosures at https://public.com/disclosures/agenticdisclosures.𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒(00:00) Parag Agrawal, Founder & CEO at Parallel (01:03) What is Parallel AI? (05:28) Bots took over the web & it’s only the start(07:22) Will people stick with AI agents?(11:55) Why models will get bigger, smarter and cheaper(14:47) Where AI startups actually find GPUs(19:43) Is 10x a year the new normal?(21:59) Searching the web faster than you can blink(26:02) AI that knows what you need before you do(26:57) Agents are breaking the web’s business model(31:08) Good bots vs bad bots(42:04) Why great models still give bad answers(47:56) Proactive agents and the future of search(51:30) The person who drives Parag’s ambition