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founders

also referred to as: founder · the founders

29 statements across 22 episodes · 11 bullish · 11 bearish · 10 people on the record · first statement Oct 14, 2024 by Jordi Hays · said 65 times in 28 episodes since 2024 · across every show →

Mentions by year

brought up most by Jordi Hays (27), John Coogan (18), David Senra (12), Nima Jalali (2), Morgan Housel (2)

tap a year for its mentions
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0815202420252026episodes it came up in
001.57.5315202420252026episodesmentions per episode
2026 3 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2025 31 mentions in 14 episodes 2 per episode
2024 31 mentions in 12 episodes 3 per episode

every mention, scene by scene, with the transcript →

Everything said about founders, oldest first

Oct 14, 2024
Insight
Hays: VC marketing should focus exclusively on founders and LPs
“As a venture fund, all of your marketing should be towards founders, which is one customer, and then, you know LPs, which is your other customer.”
Jordi Hays Oct 14, 2024 ▶ 51:06 The "Switzerland of AI" is Crazy (ep3)
Nov 3, 2024 negative
Insight
Hays: Short startups where founders obsess over their nootropic biohacking stacks
“Yeah, you basically want to short the companies where the founder is, like, even thinking about what their stack is, versus the founder that's just, like, flow state ingesting”
Jordi Hays Nov 3, 2024 ▶ 4:06 The Secret Billionaire Party (ep6)
Nov 14, 2024 negative
Insight
Hays: Founders Should Take Initial Investor Calls Solo to Build Rapport
“You can't, two people cannot connect. Like if we had a third person here that was constantly butting in, like our rhythm would be totally thrown off. And yeah, I think that it's much, you're much better off. Take the first call solo, take even a second call so…”
Jordi Hays Nov 14, 2024 ▶ 1:48:15 Low T levels at Y-Combinator (ep9)
Nov 14, 2024 positive
Insight
Hays: Great social media posting signals ability to win customers and capital
“If you can, Post bangers. It is a proxy for your ability to get attention, which can drive customers and capital and all these things.”
Jordi Hays Nov 14, 2024 ▶ 1:00:40 Low T levels at Y-Combinator (ep9)
Nov 21, 2024 positive
Insight
High-ego venture capitalists provide valuable negotiation practice for young startup founders
“You know, like jokes aside, there is something very valuable about being a young founder and interacting with an extremely high ego investor, because at least there is some alignment there most of the time. So you can kind of get some reps in, deal with some s…”
John Coogan Nov 21, 2024 ▶ 1:51:31 How to Spend a Trillion Dollars Fast (ep13)
Dec 2, 2024
Insight
Hays: Founders should focus on share price over percentage ownership
“Dilution does not mean you're having to give back your shares. You know, it's not like you're getting less shares over time. And so as long as the per, yeah, as long as the per share price is going up, like you need to be less fixated on how much of the pie yo…”
Jordi Hays Dec 2, 2024 ▶ 22:56 How BILLIONAIRES dress for XMAS (ep17)
Dec 6, 2024 negative
Insight
Hays: Founders should never reference-check VCs before active deal conversations
“Don't try to reference check a VC before you're in an active conversation. It's a bad look.”
Jordi Hays Dec 6, 2024 ▶ 1:09:18 Inside Facebooks Secret "Red Book" (ep18)
Dec 6, 2024 negative
Insight
Hays: Founders requiring NDAs for pitch decks is a major red flag
“The thing about startups is the reason that it's so bearish when a founder says to you, oh, can you sign my NDA before you look at my deck is because as a founder for 99.9% of businesses, you should be able to tell somebody your exact plan step by step, every …”
Jordi Hays Dec 6, 2024 ▶ 1:15:53 Inside Facebooks Secret "Red Book" (ep18)
Dec 11, 2024 positive
Opinion
Coogan: Multi-billion-dollar founders hang out at Amangiri, not Blue Bottle
“Where do you think the founders are of these multi-billion dollar companies that need to raise two billion dollars for their next Series F? They're not hanging out at Blue Bottle. They're hanging out at Amangiri.”
John Coogan Dec 11, 2024 ▶ 1:47:20 How we became the fastest growing podcast (ep20)
Dec 11, 2024 neutral
Assertion Partly supported
Hays: Germany forces startup founders to sign deal documents in person
“Germany, like forces their founders to do this, but it's a great photo opportunity.”
Jordi Hays Dec 11, 2024 ▶ 35:33 How we became the fastest growing podcast (ep20)
Dec 12, 2024 positive
Insight
Venture funds are the ultimate price discrimination tool for media brands
“I mean, a venture fund is the, is like the best way to price discriminate in, in an audience of founders because the higher value the founder, the more money you make when you invest.”
John Coogan Dec 12, 2024 ▶ 8:34 Billionaires XMAS list (ep21)
Dec 12, 2024 positive
Opinion
Y Combinator effectively functions as a labor union for startup founders
“This is why, I mean, this is why YC is like actually a very positive force in terms of, yeah, it's a union for founders.”
Jordi Hays Dec 12, 2024 ▶ 1:28:42 Billionaires XMAS list (ep21)
Dec 14, 2024
Opinion
Hays: The best founders are often controversial like Jobs and Kalanick
“The best founders are often controversial, right? Steve Jobs, Travis Kalanick, Kalanick.”
Jordi Hays Dec 14, 2024 ▶ 14:58 Surviving a VC Holiday Party (ep22)
Dec 17, 2024 positive
Insight
Hays: Founders Must Dictate Camera Angles and Smiles in Photoshoots
“Founders need to build into the shoot that, that, that this is the camera angle. I won't take photos in any other angles. I will be smiling.”
Jordi Hays Dec 17, 2024 ▶ 54:27 CHRISTIANITY: Why it's making a comeback (ep23)
Dec 31, 2024 negative
Insight
Hayes: Founders taking acting classes or doing ayahuasca are huge red flags
“Founder in his portfolio, moved to LA, set up shop, started taking acting classes, and that is just a huge red flag. You'd almost rather a founder you know, it's basically as bad as a founder saying that they're going to go to Peru and have a psychedelic exper…”
Jordi Hays Dec 31, 2024 ▶ 48:48 Year of Tech in Review (ep25)
Jan 7, 2025 positive
Insight
No podcast is too small for founders or investors to join
“If you are running a company or an investment firm, there's almost no podcast that's too small. Cause it used to be that if you were running a business and you got invited to speak at some random conference in Nebraska, like you're working oil and gas and it's…”
Jordi Hays Jan 7, 2025 ▶ 1:29:17 The END of Ski Season? (E26)
Feb 10, 2025 positive
Insight
Coogan: Founders should leave typos in ghostwritten posts to drive engagement
“So lesson for founders, if you're, if you have somebody on your board or your cap table, who's an interesting poster, who you want to feed a tweet to let them include a bullet point, maybe even include a little spelling mistake in there. So people are like, oh…”
John Coogan Feb 10, 2025 ▶ 12:50 The BEST Super Bowl Commercial (Saquon Barkley)
Mar 5, 2025 positive
Insight
Rabois: Founders usually benefit from working at an outstanding organization first
“I think it's most useful most of the time for founders to work in an outstanding organization for a year or two before starting their own company. You get a feel for a taste, taste of what great is, like what excellent really, excellence really means, excellen…”
Keith Rabois Mar 5, 2025 ▶ 6:40 "Work at an outstanding organization first" - Keith Rabois Advice on Starting Companies
Mar 7, 2025 neutral
Assertion Supported
Senra: Jimmy Soni Spent Longer Writing 'The Founders' Than PayPal's Lifespan
“It took him longer to write the founder's book than it took PayPal to be founded and then sold to eBay.”
David Senra Mar 7, 2025 ▶ 9:53 "I Invest in People" – David Senra Talks Ramp, His Favorite Founders, and the Pursuit of Greatness.
Mar 9, 2025 negative
Insight
Giffon: Liquidation preferences trap founders who build heroic $30M revenue businesses
“Look, if you build a business to thirty million bucks for revenue, that's like a heroic feat. It's extremely hard to do. And then you somehow end up with eight percent of it under a two hundred million dollar press stack. That kind of sucks. And I don't think …”
Jeremy Giffon Mar 9, 2025 ▶ 13:05 "There's a lot of stuck founders out there" - Jeremy Giffon breaks down the current state of VC.
Mar 9, 2025 neutral
Insight
Giffon: Scaling from $20M to $100M revenue requires different leadership than starting up
“A lot of times the person who takes a business from 20 of revenue to a hundred of revenue can be a very, you're looking for a very different type of person, someone who's going to start it from zero and grow it into a huge business.”
Jeremy Giffon Mar 9, 2025 ▶ 9:02 "There's a lot of stuck founders out there" - Jeremy Giffon breaks down the current state of VC.
Mar 9, 2025 negative
Insight
Giffon: Founders with $20M revenue and $100M raised are quietly trapped
“A thing that happens far too much that, that no one talks about is all these founders who are stuck. You know, if you have twenty million of revenue, A hundred employees and you've raised a hundred million bucks. You can't just quit. If you're the founder, eve…”
Jeremy Giffon Mar 9, 2025 ▶ 8:17 "There's a lot of stuck founders out there" - Jeremy Giffon breaks down the current state of VC.
Mar 27, 2025 positive
Insight
Founders are generally more bullish than investors and sell for life needs
“Most founders are the most bullish in their company, even more so than the investors. So the desire to sell is generally pretty tapered and usually driven by life needs.”
Christian Garrett Mar 27, 2025 ▶ 20:23 Christian Garrett (137 Ventures) on Investing and Markets
Apr 26, 2025 negative
Opinion
Senra: Great founders should skip side quests and work until death
“I'd prefer them to not have side quests. I'd prefer them to work on what they're working on until they're dead.”
David Senra Apr 26, 2025 ▶ 9:44 What Great Founders Really Do | David Senra on TBPN
Apr 26, 2025 negative
Opinion
Van Lancker: VC pushes capital onto founders before they are ready
“The venture industrial complex tries to, you know, give you capital and, you know, quite frankly, perhaps before you're ready and make those commitments and those decisions before you're ready.”
Willem Van Lancker Apr 26, 2025 ▶ 2:50 Willem Van Lancker on Terrain’s Radical New Founder Program
Apr 28, 2025 negative
Insight
Sankar: Defense consolidation's real cost was eliminating founder-led heresy
“The real issue is that consolidation bred conformity, and the conformity pushed out all the heretics. It pushed out all the founder personalities that you need to make this stuff really work.”
Shyam Sankar Apr 28, 2025 ▶ 23:08 How to Win in the Age of AI and Autonomy | Shyam Sankar on TBPN
Apr 28, 2025 bullish
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Sankar: Over $100B has been deployed into national interest tech
“My reason for immense optimism in this moment is that the founders are back. You know, more than a hundred billion dollars have been deployed in the national interest.”
Shyam Sankar Apr 28, 2025 ▶ 23:21 How to Win in the Age of AI and Autonomy | Shyam Sankar on TBPN
Jun 28, 2025
Insight
Mtibaa: Back founders with no options, not founders with money
“You don't want a founder with money. You want a founder with no options.”
Yacine Mtibaa Jun 28, 2025 ▶ 22:56 Weekly Recap: Tesla Robotaxi, Mr. Beast's AI Tool, Yacine, The Social Network 2, Neuralink Update
May 26, 2026 negative
Insight
Ries: Flawed governance nullifies all other startup decisions over time
“If you don't get the governance of a company right, no other decision you make will matter in the long run because you won't be the one making it.”
Eric Ries May 26, 2026 ▶ 8:58 The Lean Startup Author on What Ruins Good Companies
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