Generative Now | AI Builders on Creating the Future
Generative Now is a weekly series from Lightspeed, highlighting the stories, strategies and insights behind today's most exciting AI companies and how they’ll change everything about the way we work. Inspired by the popular in-person Generative Meetups in places like New York, San Francisco, LA and Europe, host and Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano will speak with founders, engineers, designers and other leaders that are leveraging AI to take their product to new heights. Listen and follow Generative Now wherever you get your podcasts.
Episodes
There’s no doubt we have more choices for entertainment than at any other point in history. And yet, once a series ends, it can be difficult to find something you like just as much. But what if AI could give you a seemingly endless supply of quality content? In this episode of Generative Now, host Michael Mignano, partner at Lightspeed, sits down with Rohan Nayak, CEO and co-founder of Pocket FM, an audio platform that has pioneere...
In this special mailbag episode of Generative Now, Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano tackles your questions from X and LinkedIn. He gets into AI's market expansion, startup defensibility, which verticals investors are watching, and how the most interesting new roles are being shaped by AI. Plus, Michael shares what is exciting about consumer AI products right now.
Episode Chapters
(00:00) Introduction
(00:35) AI Opportunities: New ...
History may not repeat itself, but it certainly rhymes. Vibe coded games, like a flight simulator from @levelsio, are reminiscent of early iPhone app store games like Flappy Bird and Paper Toss. How else are consumer tech cycles evolving? Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano welcomes back investor Semil Shah for their quarterly check-in. They talk about the landscape of VC seed investing, the impact of AI on tech hubs like New York, ...
This week, we’re revisiting a conversation with Scott Belsky, who recently announced a new role leading innovation at A24. Lightspeed Partner and Host Michael Mignano talks with Scott about the evolution of marketing with generative content, the future of personalization, and overlooked opportunities in the AI landscape.
This conversation took place at the Robin Hood Opportunity x AI Summit. Robin Hood is the largest foundation fig...
Lulu Cheng Meservey puts founders in control of their narrative using one simple principle: Go Direct. This week, we’re revisiting our conversation with the CEO and Founder of Rostra, the go-to communications agency for Silicon Valley founders. Lulu joins Lightspeed Partner and Host Michael Mignano on the podcast to talk about her modern communications playbook for founders of places like Ramp, SSI, Scale, Anduril, Suno, and The ...
This week, we are revisiting a conversation between Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano and Johnny Ho, co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Perplexity. Perplexity is the AI powered search engine that is rapidly growing and challenging the industry status quo. Johnny and Michael talk about his background as a competitive programmer, the business model of search, and Perplexity’s Publisher Program, where publishers earn a...
Code is content. Writers build apps. App builders write newsletters. This is Every CEO & Founder Dan Shipper’s vision for the modern media company. Michael Mignano, Partner at Lightspeed, sits down with Dan to talk about building the first multimodal media company, developing viral software like Cora, and cultivating an audience and talent at Every.
Check out our episode with Nathan Baschez, Every cofounder and Lex CEO
...
AI is rapidly expanding what we can get done in a day. So, can entrepreneurs leveraging AI start companies of one? In this episode of Generative Now, host Michael Magnano, partner at Lightspeed, sits down with Josh Mohrer, the founder and CEO of Wave, a revolutionary AI app that records, transcribes, and summarizes meetings and conversations. Josh talks about his entrepreneurial journey, transitioning from running Uber's New Yo...
Mikey Shulman, Co-Founder and CEO of Suno, comes back on the podcast to answer your questions from X with Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano. Mikey shares about Suno’s growth over the past year, introducing new models, and launching their mobile app. They also address numerous questions from the audience about the potential of AI in creating realistic music, copyright issues, and the future vision for AI-generated compositions.
Enterprise search is a problem that’s plagued companies since the advent of working on computers. Now, AI promises solutions. In this week’s episode, host Michael Mignano from Lightspeed sits down with Arvind Jain, founder and CEO of Glean, to discuss the evolution of AI-assisted enterprise search. Arvind shares what insights helped to start Glean's journey in 2019, how the company leveraged transformer-based models early on, a...
Mike Krieger is known for cofounding Instagram, one of the most beloved pieces of consumer technology, and now he is leading product at Anthropic. This week, host and Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano talks to the product building legend to discuss the challenges AI product builders face and the evolution of product innovation. They draw parallels between two transformative eras: the social media revolution that gave birth to Inst...
This week on the podcast, we’re looking at how machine learning is optimizing how crypto giant Coinbase operates. Coinbase Head of Machine Learning Rajarshi Gupta joins the Generative San Francisco stage to discuss with Anand Iyer, Lightspeed Venture Partner focused on crypto.
(00:00) Introduction
(00:26) Rajarshi Gupta’s Career Journey
(01:54) Exploring Early Android Malware Detection
(04:44) Machine Learning ...
In this episode of Generative Now, host Michael Mignano, Partner at Lightspeed, chats with Anu Atluru—a startup founder, operator, angel investor, and co-runner of Slang—a product studio dedicated to social consumer products. Anu shares her insights on the evolving landscape of social products, the difference between social utilities and social networks, and how AI could reshape the healthcare landscape.
Episode Chapters
(00:00) ...
Inspired by NVIDIA’s announcements at CES, we are looking back at one of our favorite episodes. The explosion of generative AI-powered technologies has forever changed the tech landscape. But the path to the current AI revolution was paved by many breakthroughs. Bill Dally had a hand in quite a few of them.
In this week’s episode of Generative Now, we are revisiting a conversation Lightspeed Partner and host Michael Mignano had wi...
Nearly a decade after launching Anchor, cofounders Michael Mignano and Nir Zicherman have a new venture: Oboe. Oboe’s mission is to make humanity smarter through AI-powered tutors. The duo delves deep into their entrepreneurial journey, starting from the early days of Anchor to their latest venture, Oboe, where Nir is the CEO. They discuss the trials and errors of building Anchor, their vision for Oboe, and why AI-driven learning c...
Did 2024 live up to the AI hype? Investor Semil Shah joins Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano for another installment of Generative Quarterly. They cover key tech trends from 2024, including Jensen Huang’s Rockstar CEO status and AI consumer devices. Looking ahead to 2025, the duo delves into venture capital dynamics, IPO and M&A prospects, and the influence of tech in Washington D.C. Plus, Michael spins Juan Soto's signing int...
Dr. Olga Russakovsky, Computer Science at Princeton University, joins Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano to discuss what the next generation of AI talent is learning and where she expects to find the next big innovation in artificial intelligence.
From her research in computer vision and human-computer interaction to her work in fairness, accountability, and transparency in AI, Dr. Russakovsky has earned many awards, including the...
What is the future of AI in consumer technology? Marissa Mayer believes this future includes AI that makes the mundane magical. Marissa has been leading consumer technology that affects billions of lives since the dawn of the modern Internet. She was one of the first 20 employees at Google and worked on Google Maps, Gmail, and Google Search. She served as the CEO at Yahoo! where she reinvented the website for the mobile era. Now sh...
This week, Logan Kilpatrick joins Michael Mignano on the Generative NYC Stage to discuss leading the product for Google AI Studio. He and his team built the Google Gemini API into one of the best platforms in the world for developers to build with AI. Logan worked at OpenAI before Google, and he has had a front row seat to the meteoric rise to AI over the past few years. Michael and Logan discuss how Google feels like a startup, wh...
Writer and investor M.G. Siegler joins Host and Lightspeed Partner Michael Mignano from London to discuss the European tech scene and his experiences stepping back from venture capital after a decade with GV. The discussion covers the current 'VC Crisis', including CRV Ventures' decision to return funds, and the complex M&A and IPO landscape. Siegler offers his perspective on investing in people vs ideas, the defensibility of s...
Popular Podcasts
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.