Tacos and Tech Podcast
The Tacos and Tech Podcast highlights the builders of companies, technologies, ecosystems with a local flair for our lifestyle as well. risingtidepartners.substack.com
Episodes
Angel Academy Session 2 puts two founder-turned-investors on stage: Neal Bloom and Ashok Kamal. Both built companies, stumbled through first exits, and eventually landed on the investor side of the table. The conversation covers what actually changes when you go from pitching to writing checks — how to evaluate founders when there's nothing but a prototype, why saying no fast is a form of respect, and what most first-time angels ge...
Neal sits down with Paige Craig, Founder and Managing Partner at Outlander VC, the first-check fund that backs founders as early as humanly possible. Paige shares how growing up homeless, bootstrapping a defense tech company during the Iraq War, and years of studying what makes founders tick led him to build a 38-point framework for picking people - not plans. They cover physical AI, manufacturing, defense tech, and why first-time ...
The 2026 San Diego Angel Conference (SDAC) kicks off with Angel Academy Session 1, hosted at SDSU's ZIP Launchpad. Neal Bloom walks a room of aspiring and returning angel investors through the fundamentals — what angel investing actually looks like, how the SDAC's group diligence process works, and why a portfolio approach matters more than picking one winner. With 135 startup applications on the table and a Decision Day set for Ma...
In this weeks episode, I sit down with Grayson LaFrenz and Chad Lohrli, two of the co-founders of Cadre AI, the San Diego-based AI strategy and integration firm helping mid-market companies turn AI hype into P&L impact. They get into why 99 out of 100 business leaders still can’t point to measurable ROI from AI, how Cadre’s pod model mirrors the playbook Grayson used to build Power Digital into a record-setting exit, and why change...
Episode Summary
Neal Bloom takes the stage at the 2026 San Diego Angel Conference Knowledge & Networking Event at SDSU to walk a room full of aspiring and active angel investors through the four questions he uses to evaluate early-stage companies. Using live audience exercises - pitching Uber, Airbnb, and Palantir in one sentence, debating whether Viori was a pass or a miss - he turns startup evaluation from an abstract skill into s...
Listen & subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube.
Welcome everyone to the weekly San Diego Tech News!
I’m Neal Bloom from Rising Tide Partners.
My co-host in this episode is Fred Grier, journalist and author of The Business of San Diego substack. He covers the ins-and-outs of the startup world including breaking news, IPOs, fundraising rounds, and M&A through his newsletter.
Before we dive in, we wanted to thank and ask our listeners to h...
Blueprint Equity just closed a $333M Fund III - and they’re doubling down on a thesis that feels increasingly contrarian in today’s AI-fueled world.
In this episode, Neal sits down with Sheldon Lewis and Bobby Ocampo, co-founders and managing partners of La Jolla-based Blueprint Equity, to unpack their “early growth equity” strategy - investing in bootstrapped SaaS companies doing $1–7M in ARR and growing fast.
They share their journ...
Matt Holman, founder of Commerce Catalyst and Subscription Prescription, joins Neal to unpack what’s really happening inside modern e-commerce and subscription-driven CPG brands. From Utah’s fast-growing “Silicon Slopes” ecosystem to AI-powered personalization, Matt shares how founders are building durable revenue in a post-hype e-commerce world.
They explore the tension between acquisition and retention, why subscription is often m...
Susie Harborth joins the pod to share her journey from refugee immigrant and first-generation college student to biotech operator, ecosystem builder, and now founder-investor behind Inspirafund and Sencie.
After building early-stage life science companies, launching BioLabs in San Diego, and working across venture and banking, Susie is now placing focused bets in overlooked but meaningful spaces - starting with sleep, rest, and reco...
Listen & subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube.
Welcome everyone to the weekly San Diego Tech News!
I’m Neal Bloom from Rising Tide Partners.
My co-host in this episode is Fred Grier, journalist and author of The Business of San Diego substack. He covers the ins-and-outs of the startup world including breaking news, IPOs, fundraising rounds, and M&A through his newsletter.
Before we dive in, we wanted to thank and ask our listeners to h...
Episode Summary
In this episode of the AI Builders Roundtable, the builders cross a line.
Instead of just discussing AI-native companies, they use one - Polsia AI - to start new businesses live on the show.
Neal, Craig, and Greg spin up real ventures, fund them, and watch agents begin executing tasks in real time. MVPs get scoped. Outreach campaigns get drafted. Websites get built. Autonomous execution starts.
What begins as a demo tur...
In this episode of Tacos & Tech, Neal Bloom sits down with Peter Goldsborough, co-founder and CTO of Rune, to unpack one of the most overlooked but decisive factors in modern warfare: logistics.
Peter shares how his background in software and defense tech led him to a simple realization-while billions have been spent on weapons and command systems, military logistics still runs on spreadsheets, whiteboards, and paper. The conversati...
Episode Summary
In Episode 3 of the AI Builders Roundtable, the conversation jumps right into deployment.
Craig, Greg, and Derrick break down what it actually looks like to run AI agents inside real companies - from shipping production code with Cursor to publishing crowdsourced sports data on-chain, to experimenting with autonomous bots that learn in public.
This isn’t a hype conversation. It’s builders comparing notes while actively...
In this episode, Neal sits down with Samantha Pantazopoulos, co-founder of Vizer, to unpack the company’s pivot from a consumer fitness rewards app to a B2B retail demand engine used by brands like Olipop and Health-Ade.
What started as a mission-driven app tying workouts to food bank donations evolved - through COVID, retailer shutdowns, and customer pull - into a platform helping brands drive measurable retail velocity across Walm...
Listen & subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube.
Welcome everyone to the weekly San Diego Tech News!
I’m Neal Bloom from Rising Tide Partners.
My co-host in this episode is Fred Grier, journalist and author of The Business of San Diego substack. He covers the ins-and-outs of the startup world including breaking news, IPOs, fundraising rounds, and M&A through his newsletter.
Before we dive in, we wanted to thank and ask our listeners to h...
A short audio reflection on what changes when context stops resetting.
And what happens when it starts compounding instead.
This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit risingtidepartners.substack.com/subscribe
In this episode of Tacos & Tech, Neal Bloom sits down with Troy Helming, founder and CEO of EarthGrid, to explore one of the most ambitious infrastructure plays of our time: building an underground super grid. Troy shares how a chance conversation about Navy SEAL plasma cutters sparked the idea for plasma-based tunnel boring, and how EarthGrid is now using that technology to dramatically reduce the cost, time, and friction of under...
In the span of days, the “AI news cycle” moved again: OpenClaw has been acquired.
Craig Lauer (longtime Qualcomm builder turned angel investor), Ross Young (CEO of Clinically AI, building tools for behavioral health), and Greg Moser (CEO of ShipCalm) break down what they’re seeing… then Greg takes it from theory to practice with a real demo of how he’s deployed autonomous agents inside his company via Slack.
Key Topics:
* Why OpenClaw...
Listen & subscribe on Apple, Spotify, YouTube.
Welcome everyone to the weekly San Diego Tech News!
I’m Neal Bloom from Rising Tide Partners.
My co-host in this episode is Fred Grier, journalist and author of The Business of San Diego substack. He covers the ins-and-outs of the startup world including breaking news, IPOs, fundraising rounds, and M&A through his newsletter.
Before we dive in, we wanted to thank and ask our listeners to h...
Welcome everyone to the weekly San Diego Tech News!
I’m Neal Bloom from Rising Tide Partners.
My co-host in this episode is Fred Grier, journalist and author of The Business of San Diego substack. He covers the ins-and-outs of the startup world including breaking news, IPOs, fundraising rounds, and M&A through his newsletter.
Before we dive in, we wanted to thank and ask our listeners to help us grow the show, leave a review and share...
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