Village Global Podcast

Village Global Podcast

The Village Global podcast takes you inside the world of venture capital and technology, featuring enlightening interviews with entrepreneurs, investors and tech industry leaders. Learn more at www.villageglobal.vc.

Episodes

February 11, 2026 53 mins
Celine Halioua, Founder & CEO of Loyal, joins Village Global VP Sam Kirschner to discuss her journey building a biotech company developing the first FDA-approved drugs for lifespan extension – going dogs first. 

Loyal has raised over $250M and recently closed its Series C after clearing major regulatory milestones on both efficacy and safety.

In this conversation, Celine breaks down why you can't develop a human longevity drug to...
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This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Henry Shi (Anthropic, co-founder of Super.com) and Village Global GP Anne Dwane.

Henry and Anne discuss the three paths available to successful founders, why traditional venture capital often becomes a sales job, the rise of "seed-strapping" as a new funding model, and what ultimately led Henry to join a frontier AI lab instead of starting another company or becoming an investo...
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This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Henry Shi (Anthropic, co-founder of Super.com) and Village Global GP Anne Dwane.

Henry and Anne discuss how AI coding tools have evolved from autocomplete to junior engineers, what skills will matter when writing code becomes obsolete, and whether humans or AI will end up as the boss in the future of work.

Listen to the full episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vi...
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This is an excerpt from our full conversation with Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Superhuman (formerly Grammarly).

Shishir discusses why Grammarly is one of the most underestimated companies in Silicon Valley, how it's transforming from a grammar tool into an open platform for AI agents, and why "assist" AI—which meets you where you work—may be more powerful than chat or autonomous agents.

Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.c...
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This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Superhuman (formerly Grammarly).

Shishir discusses the fundamental differences between working at big tech companies versus startups, why skills at large companies are less transferable than you think, and what separates world-class recruiting processes from mediocre ones.

Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7UO7AOLgBA

Thanks for...
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Henry Shi, founder of Super.com (scaled to $200M+ annual revenue, 50 million users, profitable), joins Village Global GP Anne Dwane to discuss his unconventional path from founder to Anthropic.

Henry shares why he stepped back from his company at its peak, what he learned during his gap year building AI resources in public, the patterns he discovered tracking lean AI companies, and why he ultimately chose a frontier lab over VC or s...
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This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan and LinkedIn co-founder / Village Global Chairman Reid Hoffman.

Eric and Reid discuss what separates companies that last from those that flame out, why hypergrowth can hide critical problems, and how founders should think about their "theory of the game" for the next ten years.

Listen to the full episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/...
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Magnus Sandstrom and Debbie Wiss are senior partners at Swing Search, specializing in go-to-market roles at director, VP, and head levels for nearly 20 years. They joined Village Global partner Lindsay Pettingill to discuss the mistakes founders make when hiring their first sales and marketing talent, and how to get it right.

Takeaways:
  • Don't go too senior too early. Look for someone who can see around corners, not over mountains...
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This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Zoom founder and CEO Eric Yuan and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman.

Eric and Reid discuss where startups can compete against big tech in the AI era, why enterprise adoption of AI tools remains surprisingly slow, and what founders should focus on when selling AI products to enterprise customers.

Listen to the full episode here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-future-of...
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Eric Yuan is the founder and CEO of Zoom. Reid Hoffman is the co-founder of LinkedIn. Both are luminary LPs at Village Global. They joined Village GP Ben Casnocha to discuss the future of AI agents, digital twins in the workplace, selling AI to enterprise, and what it takes to build companies that endure.

Takeaways:
  • Digital twins will handle meetings you're unsure about attending. Your AI can join internal meetings, summarize key...
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This is a short excerpt from our full conversation with Airtable founder and CEO Howie Liu. Watch the full episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCR-zFXiXKA&t=2s

Howie spent 2.5 years building Airtable before launching – and only talked to about a dozen customers in that time.

In this clip, he explains why that approach made sense for a platform company, and how founders can validate ideas without drowning in customer dis...
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Van Jones is a political commentator, author, and former Obama White House advisor. Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins is founder and CEO of Promise, a software company transforming how governments deliver services to people in need. They joined the Village Global team to discuss what founders building in complex sectors need to know about power, narrative, and influence. 

Takeaways:
  • Political people often operate on emotion and relationships...
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Jennifer Tejada is CEO of PagerDuty, a public company serving 30,000+ customers worldwide. She joined Village Global GP Ben Casnocha for a masterclass on scaling in the AI era, followed by live feedback sessions with four founders building AI-native companies.

Takeaways:
  • Enterprise sentiment has shifted from “fear of missing out” to “fear of getting in.” Customers are anxious about security, resilience, and managing the people tr...
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Amjad Masad (@amasad), founder and CEO of Replit, and Yohei Nakajima (@yoheinakajima), Managing Partner at Untapped Capital, joined Village Global partner Ben Casnocha for a live masterclass with Village Global founders.

Takeaways:
  • AI agents are rapidly evolving, with coding and deep research agents showing the most traction today. But general-purpose assistants are still brittle — trip-planning and high-context tasks remain hard...
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Jacob Mullins, Venture Partner at Village Global, welcomes Kristen Ostro, founder and CEO of Strut Consulting, to discuss the foundational elements that set venture capital firms up for long-term success. Kristen shares how her career began under the mentorship of Dick Kramlich at NEA, where she was trained in the core values and operational excellence that have shaped her approach to supporting dozens of VC firms across Silicon Va...
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Jacob Mullins, Venture Partner at Village Global, sits down with Ezra Roizen, General Manager of Advsr and author of "The Magic Box Paradigm," to demystify the world of startup mergers and acquisitions (M&A) on Jacob’s private podcast, VC Mastermind, which we are cross-posting on the Village Global podcast. Drawing on decades of experience as both an entrepreneur and investment banker, Ezra shares his unique framework for maxim...
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Abhay Parasnis is founder and CEO of Typeface, is former CTO/CPO at Adobe, and sits on the board of Dropbox and Schneider Electric. He joined Ben Casnocha, co-founder and partner at Village Global, for a live masterclass for Village Global founders.

Takeaways:
  • If you can break into the top tier of the enterprise market, it’s hard to dislodge you.
  • Big platforms like Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI are eager to prove their tech's powe...
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February 11, 2025 46 mins
Aaron Harris was a partner at YC for 7.5 years where he funded Deel, OpenSea, Scale AI, Rappi, Lattice, and others. He also built YC's Series A program where he worked with founders on over 200 Series As and Bs that raised in excess of $3B in capital. He joined Sam Kirschner, VP at Village Global, to give Village Global founders helpful tips on fundraising.

Takeaways:
  • Investors bet on stories, not just data. Your job? Tell a stor...
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Kathy Copic is founder of Fieldwork Partners, where she works closely with early stage companies on scoping technical projects, getting early ML models into production, and helping them hire. She was interviewed by Lindsay Pettingill, Investment Partner at Village Global, during this masterclass for Village Global founders. 

Takeaways:
  • Maintain at least three interview touchpoints to thoroughly evaluate candidates — rushing the p...
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Eynat Guez, founder and CEO of Papaya Global, was interviewed by Ben Casnocha, co-founder and partner at Village Global, during this masterclass for Village Global founders.

Takeaways:

Show up to key meetings as the founder or executive team — don’t just send the sales team. It signals to the client that you’re personally invested and committed to making the deal a success.

Avoid being overly optimistic about where prospects stand. Se...
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