Erik Torenberg
87 episodes listed below
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On Turpentine VC, host and venture capitalist Erik Torenberg delves deep into the art and science of building successful venture firms through conversations with the world’s best investors and operators. Hear about insider strategies on decision-making, investment theses, and building firms for the long term—from the ground-level, VC to VC. Guests in season 1 include Ben Horowitz of a16z, Mamood Hamid and Ilya Fushman of Kleiner Perkins, and Alfred Lin of Sequoia.
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Detailed investor conversations connect venture firm structure, portfolio strategy, and talent decisions to the judgments behind capital allocation.
Turpentine VC treats venture capital as an operating business, with firm design and investment judgment examined from inside the partnership. Erik Torenberg keeps interviews focused on how investors make consequential choices, giving abstract ideas like conviction and portfolio…
Benchmark keeps recruiting calls with partners; Felicis keeps one main fund. Your kind of stubborn?
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A focused look at how a storied venture firm makes decisions and stays relevant.
Turpentine VC presents a clear look at how Kleiner Perkins operates as a firm and as a partnership. The strongest thread runs through decision-making, the majors and minors framework, the craftsman view of venture, and the discipline that holds it together.
A sharp look at 776 as a tech-driven venture firm.
The episode frames 776 as something closer to a tech company than a classic venture firm, and that angle gives the discussion some bite. Alexis Ohanian is strongest when he gets into the mechanics: how the firm supports founders, how it makes its accountability visible, and why…
A clear look at how Theory positions itself in a crowded venture market.
Theory Ventures comes across as a firm trying to stand out in a crowded venture market, with fund size, concentrated portfolios, and founder perception all part of the pitch.
A disciplined look at how a growth-stage firm wins by staying specific, selective, and useful.
E77 is a focused conversation about later-stage investing and the discipline it requires. Somesh Dash lays out how IVP approaches the pitch, why specificity matters more than broad enthusiasm, and how the firm supports teams as they scale.
A clear case for seed discipline, firm design, and staying intentionally constrained.
This episode centers on a simple but useful question: what happens when a seed firm decides to remain sized for seed instead of chasing scale?
A sober look at AI voice and the investment case.
Anish Acharya and Olivia Moore keep the discussion grounded in a practical question: where AI voice is heading, and what that means for product and investment decisions.
A steady look at how Felicis keeps a generalist mandate and a single-fund approach.
Aydin Senkut walks through Felicis in a way that feels measured rather than flashy. The episode follows the firm’s evolution around one main fund, a generalist mandate, and a narrative-first way of sizing up companies, then ties that back to LP reception, risk, consistency, and…
A sober look at inception investing, fund sizing, and AI-era venture math.
Ed Sim presents Bold Start as an inception investor, getting involved before companies incorporate, pressure testing ideas with technical founders, helping line up early hires, and then leading or co leading rounds once the pieces are in place.
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.
Mischief VC’s Lauren Farleigh and Zach Perret describe how the firm grew from a $30 million Fund One to an $80 million Fund Two.
Turpentine VC opens with a crossover frame.
This conversation looks at how Kleiner Perkins works as a partnership.
Turpentine VC shares an interview with Martin Casado of A16Z.
Greg Castle, managing partner of Anorak Ventures, says his firm has been investing in emerging technology since 2016 and has backed Oculus, Flexport, Flock Safety, and Recru.
Turpentine VC’s lost September 2022 conversation with Elad Gil focuses on AI before ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Claude launched, and he argues that transformers created a new opening for startups after earlier AI waves mostly benefited incumbents like Google, Netflix, Amazon, and Facebook.
Chris Paik, general partner at Pace Capital and co-founder of Thrive Capital, argues that venture rewards hunger, early outreach, and “if there’s a deck, it’s too late.” He says Pace is trying to build “closer to a temple” than an empire, with a craft-driven model that favors being first and getting conviction before the market wakes up.
Alexis Ohanian says 776 was built as “a tech company that deploys venture capital,” with software measuring founder response times, internal work, and portfolio attention.
Andrew Braccia describes how Accel expanded from seed and Series A into Europe, Israel, India, and growth investing, including bets on Atlassian, Qualtrics, Squarespace, and CrowdStrike.
This episode features guests Keith Urboy, Logan Bartlett, Kevin Ryan, and Zach Weinberg discussing AI investments, including insights into OpenAI's early funding and regulatory challenges, while blending in casual NBA talk about the New York Knicks.
Mercor gets put under investor questioning.
Ed Sim shares journey building Bold Start Ventures from $1M inception fund to $800M+ AUM over 13 years.
Sarah Tavel and Eric Vishria describe Benchmark as an “internet era firm founded in 1995,” then contrast it with Sequoia’s semiconductor-era roots and Andreessen’s mobile-era profile.
Kareem Zaki says Thrive Capital was built around one idea: back category-defining technology companies with multi-decade tailwinds, even when that means moving across stage, geography, and sector.
Logan Bartlett, partner at Redpoint and host of The Logan Bartlett Show, argues that venture is not a normal asset class and that private equity logic does not map cleanly onto it.
Nicole Wischoff says she closed a $50 million fund in the summer of 2024 by setting a May 1 first-close target, using a hard timeline, and leaning on Zendana as anchor LP.
Mark Andreessen and Ben Horowitz use this A16Z episode to trace the browser's origin from rural Wisconsin, where Mark grew up in a town of 1,309 people with a party phone line and no cable TV.
Chris Zioli, partner at Wing Capital, says Wing invests only in enterprise, not consumer, international, or fintech, and centers its AI thesis on data infrastructure, RAG pipelines, and vector databases like Pinecone.
Chad Byers says Susa Ventures is moving from one seed-focused brand into three products: Susa for seed, KIVU Ventures for A and B rounds, and Humba Ventures for frontier-tech discovery.
Turpentine VC re-releases Eric Vishria’s interview with Aydin Senkut, founder and managing partner of Felicis Ventures, who is described as Google’s first product manager, an original super angel investor, and a repeat New York Times and Forbes Midas list honoree.
Turpentine VC Episode E68 focuses on Tom Tunguz explaining how Theory Ventures used Monte Carlo analysis on historical venture returns to build a concentrated portfolio.
Turpentine VC features Molly O'Shea and 8VC founding partner Alex Kolesich discussing his H1 2024 report on AI, defense, and markets.
Turpentine VC episode featuring Hemant Taneja, CEO of General Catalyst, discussing the firm's evolution from artisanal partnership to professionally managed venture business.
Turpentine VC releases an episode from The Cognitive Revolution with Nathan Labenz, joined by Anish Acharya and Olivia Moore of Andreessen Horowitz, for a close look at AI voice technology.
Keith joins a throwback live conversation about talent.
Somesh Dash joins Eric for a growth-stage conversation about IVP's discipline.