Grant LaFontaine is the co-founder and CEO of Whatnot. The podcast hosts had asked whether Whatnot was inspired by the booming Asian live stream commerce model.
“Although we had no idea. Yeah. We literally had no idea.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading:
filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard
(the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Grant LaFontaine
AssertionNot checkable as stated
Whatnot's revenue has never grown less than 90 percent year-over-year
“I don't think we've ever grown under, like, you know, top line sales. I mean, revenue's probably never grown under 90% a year. In the entire history of the business.”
Grant LaFontaineOct 31, 2025▶ 15:01How to Build an $11B Empire Selling Funko Pops | Whatnot CEO Grant Lafontaine Joins TBPN
Insight
TikTok struggles with commerce because users visit for video, not shopping
“Like, say, TikTok, amazing product, but people are going there to, like, watch videos, not necessarily shop, and I think that pattern's really hard. So we've always believed there's opportunity for a player who's purpose built to be world class at shopping and…”
Grant LaFontaineOct 31, 2025▶ 17:55How to Build an $11B Empire Selling Funko Pops | Whatnot CEO Grant Lafontaine Joins TBPN
Insight
LLMs cannot beat traditional machine learning for core ranking systems yet
“In core ranking systems I haven't seen anything yet that's, like, much better than the state-of-the-art machine learning models. So I'd say we're, at least in core ranking systems, probably not a lot of LLMs.”
Grant LaFontaineOct 31, 2025▶ 29:56How to Build an $11B Empire Selling Funko Pops | Whatnot CEO Grant Lafontaine Joins TBPN
AssertionNot checkable as stated
The average Whatnot user watches 80 minutes of video per day
“And the average person watches 80 minutes.”
Grant LaFontaineOct 31, 2025▶ 32:09How to Build an $11B Empire Selling Funko Pops | Whatnot CEO Grant Lafontaine Joins TBPN
Insight
Collectors buy items primarily to socialize around shared interests
“A lot of why you collect is not necessarily for the object, but to sort of hang out and talk to people about your interests.”
Grant LaFontaineOct 31, 2025▶ 4:39How to Build an $11B Empire Selling Funko Pops | Whatnot CEO Grant Lafontaine Joins TBPN
Disclosure
Food and drink is Whatnot's most exciting future expansion category
“So the one, the future category I'm most excited about, it's still early innings, is food and drink.”
Grant LaFontaineOct 31, 2025▶ 20:43How to Build an $11B Empire Selling Funko Pops | Whatnot CEO Grant Lafontaine Joins TBPN
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