Newcomer Podcast

Dec 11 2024 122 ep. 54 mins 106

Newcomer Podcast artwork

A podcast about Silicon Valley, hosted by newsletter writer and independent journalist Eric Newcomer. Listen in for interviews with the dealmakers and builders who matter. Subscribe to newcomer.co for summaries of the episodes plus tech industry news, scoops, and analysis.

www.newcomer.co

Copy RSS

Subscribe on Podcast Addict

Shake-ups at Silicon Valley's Biggest VC Firms

Dec 11 2024 20 mins

After a brief hiatus, the Newcomer podcast is back! Madeline Renbarger has rejoined me as my co-host to help break down all of the news across venture capital and startups. This week, we’re kicking off with a massive $693 million chip deal and Google’s huge quantum computing breakthroughs, in news that feels like flashes of Silicon Valley returning to its “silicon” roots. S

Has AI Hit a Wall? A Debate from the Cerebral Valley AI Summit

Dec 05 2024 42 mins

I’ve been spending some of the afternoon chatting with OpenAI’s now fully released o1. So far, I don’t know that it feels like the super intelligent ChatGPT 5 that we’ve all fantasized about — but it’s smart and sophisticated. The new model helped me to game out potential stories and talk through problems. And of course it wrote me a poem and told me a couple dad jokes.

Listen to Anthropic's Dario Amodei from Cerebral Valley + Videos from on Stage

Nov 27 2024 27 mins

If you get some downtime over the Thanksgiving holiday, catch up on everything that happened at the Cerebral Valley AI Summit last week. We’ve got videos of all of the talks on stage on our YouTube channel and are sharing my conversation with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei over our podcast feeds. Scale AI CEO Alexandr WangAndreessen Horowitz partner Martin CasadoLessons from This Yea

Fear-Mongering & Forecasting: Assessing AI's Predictions About AI

Nov 19 2024 49 mins

Cerebral Valley is tomorrow! I’ve been listening to old interviews, brainstorming with Claude and ChatGPT, and talking to investors to prep for my conversations with Dario Amodei, Martin Casado, and Alexandr Wang. We’ll be sharing those conversations here in the newsletter. Expect video highlights on our social media feeds, a detailed rundown of the biggest moments in the newsl

The AI Startup Fantasy Draft

Nov 13 2024 48 mins

This is probably my favorite episode of the year. We just updated our picks for our artificial intelligence startup fantasy draft. That means dropping startups whose star is fading and making new pickups. Last year, Max Child, James Wilsterman, and I drafted the most promising generative AI startups that had raised $100 million or more. In this latest episode, we make some hard cho

Trump & AI Policy + Overrated/Underrated on the Cerebral Valley Podcast

Nov 09 2024 55 mins

We’re back with a couple episodes of the Cerebral Valley Podcast leading up to our summit on November 20. I’m joined by my Cerebral Valley AI Summit co-hosts Max Child and James Wilsterman. On this episode, we started by talking about the thing on everyone’s minds — the election of Donald Trump and what it means for artificial intelligence. Then, at the 28 minute mark we de

Silicon Valley Can't Look Away from the Election

Oct 29 2024 21 mins

We’re in the home stretch. Silicon Valley’s political nightmare could hopefully soon be over. In the latest episode of the Newcomer podcast, we dig into all of the tech industry’s burning political takes.There was Josh Wolfe’s endorsement waffling. Jeff Bezos’ editorial intervention. And the general sense that everyone is losing their minds leading up to what should be Tr

Newcomer Turns Four

Oct 22 2024 23 mins

Newcomer turns four this week. On the podcast, Madeline talked with me about how it all began. When I made the decision to start Newcomer, the venture capital industry was in the beginnings of a record-breaking bull run. A lot has changed since then, for both venture and the media industry, but I’m excited about our growth at Newcomer and wanted to share a bit more about what’s

Listen: Bullish on AI, Bullish on Self-Driving, But Apprehensive About OpenAI & Tesla (with Jon McNeill)

Oct 15 2024 24 mins

DescriptionIn this episode, Eric Newcomer is joined by guest host Jon McNeill, a seasoned executive with experience at Lyft and Tesla who is now leading DVx Ventures. They discuss the bear case for OpenAI. The OpenAI discussion then leads into a closer look at the contrast between founder and manager modes before concluding with a discussion on Tesla’s advancements, or lack there

The Ongoing Startup Downturn & More PR People Than Reporters to Answer Their Emails

Oct 08 2024 17 mins

Description: In this episode of the Newcomer Podcast, Eric Newcomer and Madeline Renbarger discuss two major funding rounds, the ongoing downturn in VC funding, and the growing imbalance between public relations professionals and reporters. Eric and Madeline highlight Poolside’s $500M round and Impulse Space’s $150M raise, while pointing out that even the AI mega rounds cant hi