The Peel with Turner Novak

Oren Zeev runs one of the most successful venture firms in the world. The catch: he has no partners, no associates, holds no investment committee, writes no memos, and has no office.

He's a solo GP managing $2.7 billion across 11 funds, an early backer of Audible, Houzz, Chegg, Tipalti, and Navan, where a relationship that started with a $50k check became a stake worth more than a billion dollars.

We get into why most partners add negative value, the days his calendar is empty enough to surf on a Tuesday, why he's never shown an LP a single slide in 11 funds, why diversification is a lie, his fund that had only five companies, how Navan went from a $90M run rate to zero in a month (and survived), the cross-fund investing everyone tells him not to do, the DPI stand that cost him LP's, the Yozma Program that built Israel's startup economy, and the 30-minute meeting that turned into his first fund.

Thank you to Monaco, Flex, Clerk, and Numeral for supporting this episode.

Monaco: The revenue engine for startups https://monaco.com

Flex: Premium banking, 60-day credit, 0% APR https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital

Clerk: Everything you need for authentication https://clerk.com

Numeral: Sales tax on autopilot https://numeral.com

Timestamps:
(0:00) Running $2.7B with no team or partners
(1:58) How one person can beat a team
(4:43) Omission beats commission: why committees miss
(7:13) What really fills a partnership's day
(9:23) The returns business, not the production business
(10:58) A week in his nearly empty calendar
(16:49) The mistakes new solo GP's make
(19:34) Eleven funds, zero slides
(22:09) No thesis
(24:28) Why diversification doesn't work
(27:14) The fund with only five companies
(30:44) TripActions insight: everyone hates their travel software
(34:59) Paying employees to spend less
(37:34) COVID: $90M run rate to zero
(39:24) How Navan survived
(41:34) A $100M round with no way to price it
44:29) Keeping the team: the real test of leadership
(46:04) What Oren looks for in founders
(50:39) Cross-fund investing, and "trust me, bro"
(53:59) Always his own biggest LP
(55:14) The DPI stand that cost him LP's
(58:54) Decart, and the Anthropic deal
(1:03:54) Inside the 30-year rise of Israel's tech ecosystem
(1:07:19) The Yozma program that built an industry
(1:11:59) Why Israelis build now instead of selling early
(1:14:39) Moving to the Valley in the 2002 nuclear winter
(1:17:19) Audible, and why the first home run matters
(1:19:29) Leaving Apax, and going solo
(1:22:04) Peter Thiel and a fund raised in 30 minutes
(1:24:24) The second fund: 48 hours, still no deck
(1:25:49) ICON: helping Israeli founders crack the Valley
(1:30:29) The leader he admires most: Anwar Sadat

Referenced:
Zeev Ventures: https://www.zeevventures.com/
Navan: https://navan.com/
Mercury Interactive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_Interactive
ICON: https://www.iconsv.org/
Yozma: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yozma

Follow Oren
Twitter: https://x.com/orenzeev
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ozeev

Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Darragh Buckley was the first employee at Stripe. He’s since started Increase, the banking infrastructure that moves over $500 billion a year. And he just bought a bank.

We talk about how to buy a bank, why putting an API on a bank is like "strapping a jet engine to a go-kart", operating with high-empowerment, the overnight sprint that turned on Stripe’s first dollar of revenue, why Patrick and John Collison would run across the office, and why you want your banker to be bored.

Thanks to this episode’s sponsors:
Monaco: The revenue engine for startups. https://monaco.com
Flex: Premium banking, 60-day credit at 0% APR. https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital
Clerk: Everything you need for authentication. https://clerk.com
Numeral: Sales tax on autopilot. https://numeral.com

Timestamps:
(0:00) Stripe's 1st employee bought a bank
(1:38) Fixing the stone in his shoe building Stripe
(7:59) Banking looks like 2010 payments
(11:11) Merging two layers into one, just like Stripe
(14:52) Why he finally bought the bank
(16:26) How do you actually buy a bank?
(20:20) The first bank that got away
(22:04) Why banks can’t chase new fads
(25:26) Compliance as code, from day one
(29:46) Talking straight to the Federal Reserve
(32:19) The Fed migration that nobody noticed
(33:50) The missing last mile of banking
(35:44) Getting customers to switch
(38:23) The challenger sales model
(40:33) What customers use Increase for
(41:48) How Ramp's bill pay works
(42:37) $500B a year with 33 people
(45:31) Hiring for a high-empowerment culture
(47:08) Growing up with the Collisons
(50:27) 150 test cases in one night
(54:23) What really made early Stripe work
(57:07) Why Patrick and John sprinted everywhere
(1:00:00) “You're not in payments, you're in fraud”
(1:02:31) Where AI hits a wall on fraud
(1:05:08) Giving payment cards to AI agents
(1:09:27) Use boring technology widely
(1:11:37) You want your banker to be bored

Referenced:
Increase: https://increase.com
Careers at Increase: https://increase.com/articles/how-we-work
Stripe: https://stripe.com

Links:
NBA Player Harrison Barnes Buying a Bank: https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/nba-player-harrison-barnes-invests-155500816.html
Acquire or Be Acquired Conference: https://www.bankdirector.com/event/acquire-or-be-acquired-2026/
Choose Boring Technology Essay: https://mcfunley.com/choose-boring-technology
Previous episode with Ron Gabrisko @ Databricks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYOO0DfeXu4
Previous episode with Will Gaybrick @ Stripe: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AM1_NADNSgI
Patrick Collison's "Fast": https://patrickcollison.com/fastAuthorize.net: https://www.authorize.net

Follow Darragh
X: https://x.com/darraghbuckley
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darragh-increase/

Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Bilal Zuberi spent 18 years investing hard tech, most of it as a GP at Lux ($7B AUM), before starting @RedGlassVC in 2025 to bet on AI that touches the physical world.

Bilal was making defense tech investments 15 years ago, and he led the Series A in Applied Intuition, now a $15 billion company.

We hung out for a few hours and he shared everything he's learned investing in hardware, why hardware is still hard, why the deployment layer is the most attractive area of physical AI, taking a 90% pay cut to start Red Glass, "AUM as a moat", how to become a billionaire off management fees, and why consensus investing is mostly a circle jerk.

Thanks to this episode's sponsors:
Monaco: The revenue engine for startups https://monaco.com
Flex: Premium banking, 60-day credit, 0% APR https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital
Clerk: Everything you need for authentication https://clerk.com
Numeral: Sales tax on autopilot https://numeral.com

Timestamps:
(0:00) Leaving $7B to bet on physical AI
(0:51) What most people get wrong in physical AI
(4:17) Why a startup has to become a business
(11:31) Hardware is still hard, so what changed?
(15:40) How government went from SBIR mills to real customer
(17:48) Robotics goes from hard-coded to probabilistic
(23:34) Where value accrues: full stack, then wedges
(25:24) How Applied Intuition became a $15B company
(28:03) The deployment layer is the real prize
(32:22) OpenAI and Anthropic hint what will happen in physical AI
(36:14) Why customers have all the downside
(37:56) The best founders paint a picture and execute
(40:53) Why it's called Red Glass (founders chew glass)
(42:17) Every founder hates fundraising, even Travis
(44:29) Red Glass's four core values
(50:49) Why founders really take your call (the $250k effect)
(53:28) What Bilal looks for in a founder
(58:44) Why technical founders underrate fundraising
(1:00:26) The Tiger Global era
(1:04:02) From $10B to $100B, the goalposts moved
(1:06:21) Is this a bubble? Portfolio construction
(1:08:55) Building a firm that outlasts him
(1:12:13) From Nobel-lab chemist to Zero-to-One investor
(1:13:45) Are small funds just outsourced associates?
(1:16:35) When AUM becomes the moat
(1:18:34) How big funds choke off SPV money
(1:21:24) The risk of VCs backing competitors
(1:23:31) Why fund economics push everyone bigger
(1:26:20) Consensus investing is a circle jerk
(1:29:51) You can be a billionaire on fees alone
(1:33:09) Equal carry and the right to win
(1:35:55) Why good ethics in VC matter

Check out Red Glass VC: https://www.redglass.vc/

Follow Bilal
Twitter: https://x.com/bznotes
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bzuberi

Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Jamie Siminoff built the first WiFi video doorbell in his garage, got rejected on Shark Tank, and nearly went bankrupt "at least four times" while growing Ring into one of the largest consumer hardware businesses in the world.

We talk about the $1.15B sale to Amazon, coming back to lead Ring after leaving post-exit, and what he learned having a fresh set of eyes on the business.

We also get into the near death stories, like Christmas the company almost died from $1M of bricked doorbells, the $175k "F you, wire it" fight for the Ring.com domain, betting millions on TV ads when the board said no, landing Shaq as an early investor and celebrity endorser, the real backstage story of three dead demo units on Shark Tank, and why Jamie thinks AI can zero out crime in neighborhoods.

Thanks to this episode's sponsors:
Monaco: The revenue engine for startups https://monaco.com
Flex: Premium banking, 60-day credit, 0% APR https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital
Numeral: Sales tax on autopilot https://numeral.com
Amplitude: AI analytics https://amplitude.com

Timestamps:
(0:00) Leaving Amazon, coming back with fresh eyes
(7:49) Deleting every useless meeting
(10:21) Zero-based time budgeting
(15:31) Bubble, or the golden age of AI?
(19:50) $480M to several billion in revenue
(23:48) Lessons on obsession from MrBeast
(30:17) The AI vision for Ring
(34:05) The $10k feature he can't ship yet
(38:50) Building apps on top of Ring
(40:03) Building in his garage, the Kickstarter ban
(44:45) The pre-sale, and the fear of getting copied
(47:59) How he talked his way onto Shark Tank
(49:24) Three dead units backstage
(54:04) Threatening Shopify's CEO before air
(55:23) The Christmas Ring almost died
(58:59) The midnight fix that saved the company
(1:01:22) Raising from True Ventures, the "ass hat" email
(1:05:04) Hiring gritty “new to business” people
(1:07:15) Missionaries, not mercenaries
(1:10:13) Building an authentic brand people trust
(1:12:49) Buying Ring.com with the last $175k of cash
(1:18:11) “We were always on the verge of bankruptcy”
(1:19:12) Betting $1M on TV ads when the board said no
(1:22:43) Why TV ads actually work
(1:25:26) Richard Branson, and doubling mid-raise
(1:28:46) Closing Shaq, how to do authentic celebrity endorsements
(1:33:27) Selling to Amazon for $1.15 billion
(1:35:16) Being paranoid to lose people's money
(1:36:38) Mentors, and never meeting your heroes

Referenced:
Ring: https://ring.com
Dyson: https://www.dyson.com
True Ventures: https://www.trueventures.com
Om Malik: https://om.co
Adam D'Augelli: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamdaugelli/
Saar Gur: https://www.linkedin.com/in/saargur/
Eoghan McCabe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eoghanmccabe/
Sky Dayton: https://www.skydayton.com/
Tobi Lütke: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tobiaslutke/

Follow Jamie
Twitter: https://x.com/JamieSiminoff
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamiesiminoff/

Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/

Tomer London is the Co-founder and Chief Product Officer of Gusto.

We go deep on how Gusto builds product, from obsessing over customers to shipping Gusto Cofounder with AI in eight weeks. We also get into what AI is doing to small businesses, surviving COVID, the manual world of payroll before software, what his dad's 40-year clothing store taught him, starting Gusto out of YC, and how Gusto thinks about making acquisitions now that it’s crossed $1B ARR.

Thanks to this episode's sponsors:
Numeral: Sales tax on autopilot https://numeral.com
Flex: Premium banking, 60-day credit, 0% APR https://home.flex.one/referral/bananacapital
Amplitude: AI analytics https://amplitude.com
Monaco: The revenue engine for startups https://monaco.com

Timestamps:
(0:00) Obsessing over small businesses
(10:09) Building Gusto Cofounder in 8 weeks
(13:57) What AI is actually doing to small businesses
(19:52) COVID and "the end of small business"
(27:42) Why running a small business is so hard
(32:21) SVB and why payroll can't be late
(36:29) How GTM changes after 500,000 customers
(39:27) Running payroll manually before Gusto
(46:19) Why payroll and compliance are so hard
(49:14) What his dad's clothing store taught him
(54:00) Are we regulating small business out of existence?
(58:04) Starting as ZenPayroll in 2012
(1:05:02) Getting the first customers
(1:07:28) Minimum Lovable Product vs MVP
(1:11:28) How AI changed the way Gusto builds
(1:15:58) Gusto's M&A playbook
(1:22:52) Shimon Peres and "no room for small dreams"

Referenced
Gusto: https://gusto.com
Guideline: https://www.guideline.com
Y Combinator: https://www.ycombinator.com
Sam Blond on The Peel: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-ai-native-gtm-playbook-sam-blond
No Room for Small Dreams, by Shimon Peres: https://www.amazon.com/No-Room-Small-Dreams-Imagination/dp/1538412209

Follow Tomer
Twitter: https://x.com/tomerlondon
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tomerlondon

Follow Turner
Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak

Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week: https://www.thespl.it/