OpenLP from Sapphire Partners
121 episodes listed below
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Hosted by a General Partner (GP) and a Limited Partner (LP), Origins dives into the venture capital ecosystem to learn how the people behind the money make decisions: How LPs choose VC funds to invest in, what drives performance in venture, the dos and don'ts of fundraising, what founders/entrepreneurs/CEOs need to do to raise a Seed, Series A and beyond, what it takes to go from emerging manager to franchise VC, and the latest private market trends and dynamics shaping the investment ecosystem. Origins is co-hosted by GP Nick Chirls and LP Beezer Clarkson.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
A GP-LP pairing turns venture capital's fund mechanics, manager judgments, and institutional relationships into clear, practical conversation.
Origins - Inside Venture Capital, Hosted by a GP and an LP examines how venture decisions look from both sides of the fund relationship. GP Nick Chirls and LP Beezer Clarkson use guest interviews to connect manager selection and portfolio construction with the institutional work…
A fund can perform and still forget its LPs; your investor questions get sharper from there.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at AI-native company building, from venture philosophy to operating reality.
The episode treats AI-native company building as a real venture question: which teams are reorganizing around AI, and which are only adding tools at the edges.
A compact look at how venture insiders are thinking about AI, timing, and adoption.
Origins starts the new year with a compilation built around the biggest venture themes from last year, and AI sits at the center of it. The show leans on GP/LP shorthand, a timing exercise on themes, and examples like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Shield AI to make its point: in…
A quiet, practical look at what makes a VC firm feel durable.
Franchise funds are often treated like venture’s blue-chip badge, but this conversation stays with the tougher question of what still matters after early wins, market swings, and polished narratives wear off.
A sharp look at how Amplify structures itself to back outlier technical bets.
Origins presents Amplify as a firm built around backing outliers, and the episode makes that idea feel concrete rather than abstract. Sunil Dhaliwal, who founded Amplify in 2012, and Mike Dauber, who joined in 2014, walk through the firm's evolution, its $900 million across…
A sharp look at venture access, brand, and the signals used to judge managers.
The episode circles a familiar venture question: how much of a company’s safety comes from money, and how much is just the story people tell after the fact. It also gets into the way access gets packaged and sold, while the hosts push back on treating anecdotes like proof.
A sharp venture conversation about real IPO readiness.
Beezer Clarkson and Index Ventures partner Nina steer the conversation past the usual IPO talk and into what makes a venture backed company feel truly ready.
A practical LP-side look at how venture firms become durable franchises.
Origins treats the franchise fund question as a study of how venture firms age, and Stephen Blustein's path through Bessemer, TCV, Lightstreet, the Packard Foundation, and Adam Street Partners makes that LP angle feel concrete.
A candid look at how a selective seed fund adapts without losing its edge.
Origins takes a close look at how a seed and pre-seed fund tries to stay selective as venture gets tougher and more concentrated. Micah Rosenblum and the hosts revisit Founder Collective's shift from $100K checks to a $500K minimum, and the same question keeps surfacing: can…
Demetri Kofinas interviews specialists on geopolitics, energy markets, AI, and finance at length.
BBC's daily business show, from toy-industry founders to Anthropic's Pentagon standoff.
Origins marks its 100th episode with Zach Weinberg, who sold Invite Media to Google in 2010, co-founded Flatiron Health in 2012, and later built Curie Bio.
Will Manidis argues that venture capital is reaching a “very weird local minima” and that a merchant-banking model may absorb more risk dollars than classic VC.
Beezer Clarkson and Nick talk with David Clark, CIO of Vencap International, about a dataset spanning more than 400 venture-fund commitments and roughly 15,000 to 16,000 portfolio companies.
Beezer Clarkson and Thomas Christensen debate what makes a venture firm a "franchise fund," and Christensen puts a rough number on the top tier at 25 to 30 firms.
Hosts Nick Churls (GP at Asylum Ventures) and Beezer Clarkson (LP at Sapphire Partners) analyze a conversation with investor Tomas to explore how novel venture capital strategies become industry standards.
Wesley Chan says he looks for founders who want to prove they are right, not just prove other people wrong, and he ties that instinct to Google, Steve Jobs, and Canva.
Nick Churls and Beezer Clarkson spend the conversation with Micah Rosenblum on what it means for Founder Collective to stay disciplined while the venture market keeps shifting around it.
Alex Edelson joins the conversation.
The conversation opens by pushing back on a common venture belief: more money does not automatically make a startup safer.
Kyle Samani joins Nick Churls and Beezer Clarkson to talk about how Multicoin Capital started as a small fund and grew into a much larger firm.
LP hosts Beezer Clarkson and guest Laura Thompson debrief a previous conversation about franchise venture capital funds, exploring what defines them, why LPs and founders care, and the challenges of maintaining franchise status across generations.
The hosts discuss their conversation with venture capitalist Wesley Chan, exploring his unique investment philosophy shaped by his Google experience, his high bar for what makes a world-changing company, and the importance of independent thinking in venture capital.
Two LPs from Sapphire Partners discuss their conversation with Thomas Christensen about franchise funds, exploring whether venture capital is broken due to unattractive public exits and the role of secondary markets.
Beezer Clarkson talks with Sunil Dhaliwal and Mike Dauber about how Amplify approaches venture through the lens of outliers.
Hosts Nick Turles (GP) and Visa Clarkson (LP) analyze a previous interview with GPs from Amplify, using it as a springboard to discuss the challenges of building a sustainable venture capital firm.
Beezer Clarkson talks with Index Ventures partner Nina Achadjian about ServiceTitan’s 2024 IPO, and Nina says Index’s view is that 'great companies can go public at any time.' Nina traces her conviction in ServiceTitan back to meeting founders in college, watching them leave tech jobs for Glendale, California, and building software for plumbers and HVAC technicians after 5:00 a.m.
Sarah Tovel joins Origins to talk about what it means for a company to become AI native.
Beezer Clarkson and Laura Thompson, both from Sapphire Partners, unpack their conversation with Jessica Archibald of Top Tier Capital and contrast her LP view with Stephen’s GP-to-LP perspective on franchise funds.
This episode of Origins features insights from top venture capital voices on AI trends for 2026, covering topics like AI-native company transformation, venture funding challenges, market cycles, and AI's impact on industries like biotech.
Hosts Nick Churls (GP) and Beezer Clarkson (LP) discuss venture capital insights from their conversation with investor Zach Weinberg, exploring themes of creative innovation energy, the challenges of AI competition, and the nuances of biotech investing including fund sizing, ownership strategies, and market dynamics.
In this minisode, hosts Nick Turles and Beezer Clarkson discuss venture capital insights from a conversation with Dan, focusing on the tension between data and anecdotes in VC decision-making.
This minisode explores what makes a 'franchise fund' in venture capital—a firm with such strong returns it faces no fundraising challenges.
Venture capital GP Nick Turles and LP Beezer Clarkson discuss what early-stage venture can learn from crypto traders, analyzing Bitcoin's strategic features, the psychology of holding through volatility, and how crypto experience creates better investors.
Beezer Clarkson flies solo.
Tomasz Tunguz of Theory Ventures explains how a solo-GP spinout from Redpoint raised a fund in a tough market with a math-first plan of 12 to 15 concentrated companies per fund.
Beezer Clarkson (Sapphire Partners, LP) interviews Jessica Archibald (Top Tier Capital Partners GP, 20-year VC veteran).
A GP and LP discuss how LPs structure portfolios to capture right-tail outcomes while generating early distributions, debating whether to sell or hold top-performing companies.
Hosts Nick Churls and Beezer Clarkson discuss the role of former operators in venture capital and how they approach investing, using Micah Rosenblum as a case study.
Hosts Nick and Beezer discuss venture capital decision-making, featuring a conversation with a venture partner about the importance of unstructured thinking time.
Hosts Nick and Beezer discuss a recent conversation with Alex from Slipstream, exploring similarities and differences in their approaches to venture capital investing.
Hosts discuss a recent conversation with a guest about venture capital, fundraising, and the dynamics of the investment ecosystem.
Hosts recap a conversation with early-stage and growth-stage VCs about how they evaluate teams and make investment decisions across different stages.
Hosts and guests debate the real value add of venture capitalists in the startup ecosystem.
Hosts interview an experienced LP about endowment management and venture capital fund selection, including a live evaluation of a new fund.
A GP and LP discuss venture capital decision-making, including LP perspectives on emerging vs.
A deep dive into the current state of the venture capital market from both LP and GP perspectives.