Founders and funders in conversation at Bloomberg's New York headquarters.
The Cornell Tech At Bloomberg Podcast turns a New York speaker series into sit-down conversations with founders, executives and venture investors. Guests range from Spotify's Gustav Söderström, on why a recommendation engine cannot just replay favorites, to Harlem Capital's Jarrid Tingle, on the hard economics of a first-time fund.
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The Cornell Tech At Bloomberg Podcast brings conversations from a monthly speaker series to audio. The series is held at Bloomberg's global headquarters in New York City and brings together Cornell Tech students, Bloomberg employees and members of the city's tech community to hear from entrepreneurs, investors and executives. Scarlett Fu of Bloomberg News introduces the guests. New York is more than the venue. Jessica Lin of Work-Bench, a firm built around growing enterprise tech startups, calls the city's customer base the magnet. Asked whether there is a West Coast or Boston version of her firm, she answers with geography. She also describes a new fund that lets Work-Bench lead early rounds, after its earlier funds proved the model. Brad Svrluga of Primary Venture Partners pictures the traditional early-stage firm as a handful of partners in a nice office without much hustle, and he explains why he believed seed investing needed far more commitment of resources. Jarrid Tingle of Harlem Capital, whose stated mission is pushing diversity in business, gets specific about money. First-time funds are usually small, he explains, and the management fee on one can comfortably pay only a couple of people in New York. He also recalls reaching the final round at a big firm and deciding to bet on himself instead. The executives shift the conversation toward products and people. Gustav Söderström, Chief R&D Officer at Spotify, describes a tension he says applies to all recommendation systems: replaying what a user already plays most is always the statistically safe pick, but keep doing it and people leave. He says Spotify's response involves experimenting with longer-term rewards drawn from reinforcement learning. Kate Ryder of Maven, a women's healthcare clinic and benefits platform, recalls a friend's first child and talks about what starting a family does to the body, the mind, relationships and work. She calls that stretch one of the most vulnerable times many people go through, and a place where much of gender inequality takes shape. Lisa Lewin, who rose from General Assembly student to its CEO, sets out the company's goals: reach more people around the world, make sure learners leave with marketable skills and a job, and grow the pool of technologists while open tech jobs outnumber the people qualified to fill them. Taken together, these conversations keep coming back to access: who gets funded, who gets care, who gets trained. The pace is conversational, and several guests talk through their own career decisions alongside their companies. For a first listen, the Söderström conversation suits anyone curious about how a streaming service decides what to play next. The Tingle episode is the one to pick for the working economics of venture capital. Interviews from the series can also be watched on Inside Bloomberg on YouTube.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants venture investors and tech executives to explain their decisions in their own words, especially one curious about New York as a place to build and fund companies.
What sets it apart: The conversations come from a speaker series at Bloomberg's New York headquarters, so the city's own investors, from Work-Bench to Harlem Capital, sit alongside executives from Spotify, Maven and General Assembly. New York itself often becomes part of the argument, not just the setting.
Welcome to the Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg Podcast! Each episode features wide-ranging discussions with tech's top entrepreneurs, investors, and thought leaders about the most pressing issues facing them and the industry. The conversations were originally recorded as part of the monthly Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg Speaker Series, which convenes students from Cornell Tech, Bloomberg employees, and members of New York’s tech community at Bloomberg’s Global Headquarters in New York City. Now, they're available to you!
Scarlett Fu takes your tech curiosity from Spotify's next-click trap to a venture fund's awkward math.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Kate Ryder ties Maven's virtual care model to the overlooked health and family-planning needs exposed by early parenthood.
Kate Ryder frames the need for better women's and family healthcare through a personal realization: a friend's first experience of parenthood made clear how little support people often receive as bodies, minds, relationships, and work all change at once.
Jessica Lin connects New York City's enterprise customers, Workbench's fund strategy, and its suits-and-hoodies community.
Jessica Lin, general partner and co-founder of Workbench, frames New York City as more than a backdrop for enterprise tech. Her argument is practical: being close to customers gives the firm a better shot at connecting startups with companies that have real IT pain points.
Spotify's recommendation challenge becomes a clear lesson in why the next click cannot be the whole product.
Spotify's growth story sits inside a useful tension: the recommendation that earns the next click may not be the one that keeps a listener over time.
A practical look at how one New York venture firm thinks seed investing should support founders beyond capital.
Brad Svarluga, co-founder and general partner at Primary Venture Partners, lays out a clear case for seed investing that goes beyond writing a check.
Lisa Lewin frames General Assembly's work around open digital jobs, practical training, and access to tech careers.
Lisa Lewin's move from General Assembly student to CEO gives this Cornell Tech at Bloomberg episode a grounded entry point into access to technology jobs and the future of work.
Malaysian builders tell their stories from the start.
Asian founders and executives on how they got here
Arizona's tech builders on money, exits and hard calls.
Scarlett Fu speaks with Kate Ryder, founder and CEO of Maven, about building a virtual care network for women and families with more than 2,000 providers.
Jessica Lin, general partner and co-founder of Work-Bench, explains how a Harvard Swahili major who planned to work in public health ended up investing in enterprise software.
Gustav Söderström, Spotify’s Chief Research and Development Officer, traces his path from starting a company after Sweden’s IT crash to building products at Spotify.
Brad Svrluga, co-founder and general partner of Primary Venture Partners, traces his path from math, art, and Williams to consulting, venture capital, and a first VC job in late 1999, just before the dot-com bubble burst.
Lisa Lewin says General Assembly has moved from campus-first bootcamps to a hybrid model that can teach a class across the country.
Jarrid Tingle, co-managing partner of Harlem Capital Partners, explains how a $15,000 Seed CX investment taught the firm to prioritize direct founder relationships and markets it understands.
Ragy Thomas, founder and CEO of Sprinklr, tells Bloomberg's Scarlett Fu that he is building a "modern customer experience management platform" that supports 36 channels and counts 50% of the Fortune 100 as customers.
Wayfair co-founder Niraj Shah says the company grew through the 2008-2010 downturn, when the furniture industry contracted from over $100 billion to $70 billion.
Interview with VSCO co-founder and CEO Joel Flory about the company's growth and unique position in the tech landscape.
An interview with Squarespace founder and CEO Anthony Castellina about his journey from a dorm room project to a leading website design platform.
Interview with Zola CEO Shanlyn Ma about disrupting the wedding industry with technology.
A panel discussion with entrepreneurs from the documentary Generation Startup about the realities of building a startup.