Podcast · 64 episodes
The Peel with Turner Novak, page 3
by Turner Novak · English
Exploring the world’s greatest startup stories. Get a behind the scenes look into the founding stories of your favorite companies. Learn how the industries they operate in actually work, and learn playbooks and tactics you can use to launch and scale your own business.
All episodes, page 3
Building AI-Native Infrastructure for Developers | Erik Berhnardsson, CEO of ModalModal is building AI-native cloud infrastructure for developers, replacing traditional container/GPU workflows with a new platform optimized for fast feedback loops, large-model initialization, and…16 Oct 2025 · 1 h 41 min · 54 chapters
Howie: The AI Secretary | Austin Petersmith, Co-founder and CEOHowie is an email-based “AI secretary” that automates scheduling and calendar hygiene (offering time slots, rescheduling, adding Zoom links, handling Calendly links, notifying about conflicts, and…9 Oct 2025 · 1 h 40 min · 45 chapters
How Loops Fixes Email for Developers with Co-founder and CEO Chris FrantzLoops, an email sending platform for software companies, argues email shouldn’t live in a company’s codebase.2 Oct 2025 · 1 h 17 min · 34 chapters
Untold Startup Lessons from Dozens of Academic Research Papers with Dan Gray at EquidamDan Gray (Equidam) discusses what academic research says about venture capital and startup failure, emphasizing premature scaling, the timing of “origination-stage” investing, and how incentives and…25 Sep 2025 · 2 h 6 min · 51 chapters
Rethinking Asset Allocation, The Past Present and Future of Venture Capital | Dan Feder, University of MichiganDan Fader (University of Michigan) argues that institutional investors should rethink asset allocation: classic endowment portfolio theory still matters for reducing risk per unit of return, but it…18 Sep 2025 · 1 h 52 min · 41 chapters
Inside Intercom’s AI Turnaround, Why Software Companies Must Train Their Own Models | Eoghan McCabe, Co-founder and CEOIntercom’s turnaround into an AI-native customer service business (Finn), triggered by ChatGPT’s launch; why late-stage SaaS needs an “AI story,” how to build reliable AI agents, and why software…12 Sep 2025 · 1 h 59 min · 52 chapters
How To Generate Alpha in Venture Capital | Albert Azout, Level VenturesHow Level Ventures thinks about generating alpha in venture by adapting to market change, leveraging networks/knowledge/size, and “criticality investing” (being first to the next consensus so…4 Sep 2025 · 1 h 21 min · 36 chapters
The Ocean: Earth’s $2.5 Trillion Last Frontier | Will O’Brien, Co-founder of UlyssesThe ocean as the next strategic frontier and a $2.5T economic domain; how autonomy and modular underwater robotics can reduce cost and human bottlenecks for tasks like ecosystem restoration, offshore…29 Aug 2025 · 1 h 51 min · 36 chapters
How to Build a Content Strategy + CPG Brand Lessons | Isaac Medeiros (Mini Katana, Kanpai Foods)Isaac Medeiros shares how to build long-term, format-driven content strategy (not just chasing virality), how to measure recurring viewership and audience loyalty, and how his CPG brands used…21 Aug 2025 · 1 h 15 min · 30 chapters
The Past, Present, and Future of AI, Robotics, Venture Capital, Crypto | Why Deep Tech Startups Mess up Value Capture | Michael Dempsey, Managing Partner, CompoundThe past, present, and future of AI/robotics and venture investing, with a focus on why deep-tech startups often fail at value capture and how Compound approaches research-driven investing.14 Aug 2025 · 1 h 58 min · 52 chapters
Ryan Hoover on Growth Flywheels, Building Communities, Helping Founders, LP InvestingRyan Hoover (Product Hunt, Weekend Fund) discusses how to help founders, build growth “flywheels,” and create communities—contrasting audience vs community—and how AI changes product building while…8 Aug 2025 · 1 h 38 min · 44 chapters
PhD to $100M Revenue: Rebuilding SMB Lending with AI | Sahill Poddar, Co-founder and CEO of ParafinParafin’s embedded SMB lending model using platform data and machine learning to offer fast, pre-approved loans without relying on traditional bank underwriting (personal FICO/EBITDA thresholds,…1 Aug 2025 · 1 h 25 min · 39 chapters
Sleeping in Parking Lots to $250M+ Revenue: How Handshake Built Gen Z's Career Platform, Inside its Fast Growing AI Data Labeling Business, Scaling a Three-Sided Marketplace, How AI Changes HiringHandshake’s origin and scaling, its “human AI data labeling” business for frontier LLM labs, and how AI will change hiring and early-career job search.24 Jul 2025 · 1 h 37 min · 39 chapters
Solving the Hardest Problems in Dev Tools | Jake Cooper, Founder of RailwayRailway’s approach to “solving the hardest problems in dev tools” by making deployment, scaling, and infrastructure configuration cheap in both time and money, especially for AI-era software teams…18 Jul 2025 · 1 h 28 min · 44 chapters
How WordPress Powers 43% of the Internet | Matt Mullenweg, Co-founder and CEO, AutomatticHow WordPress became the dominant open-source CMS (about 43% of websites), how Matt Mullenweg’s company Automattic built businesses on top of it, and the principles behind open source—freedom,…11 Jul 2025 · 1 h 29 min · 38 chapters
Gamma's Journey to $50M ARR with 30 Employees | Co-founder and CEO Grant LeeGamma (the “anti-PowerPoint”) and how to build a horizontal, AI-native presentation tool focused on content-first creation.3 Jul 2025 · 1 h 31 min · 37 chapters