我接受采访了！Sourcery、Alex Karp 与 Sam Altman 片段背后的故事……

What was going through your head as Alex Karp is swinging his sword around?

He just starts—

Yeah.

—using his skills. And I'm just... You can see my eyes; I'm like...

How was your first time discovering that Jack and Sam Altman were brothers?

Was it... Oh my God.

Was it at Bay?

Paige.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to Seed to Harvest. My next guest is someone very special to me. In just 1 year of full-time building, she's interviewed over 200 founders, CEOs, executives, and investors across public companies, startups, VC, growth equity, PE, and hedge funds on her show Sorcery. Her guests have included Alex Karp, Palmer Luckey, CEO of Anduril, and Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase. I'm really excited to be sitting down with the wonderful Molly O'Shea to hear more about her transformation from an NYU art student to VC to one of tech's top podcasters, and the lessons she's learned along the way. Molly, welcome to the show, and thank you for joining me today.

Thank you, Paige, and thank you for this amazing setup. This is gorgeous.

This is gorgeous.

This secret enclave.

Secret garden.

I don't know where we are.

Unclear. I'm excited to get into it. I was listening to some of your podcasts. You grew up in Connecticut, and I remember you telling an interviewer this story about how you hustled in middle school. You were super excited to sell things and make money. Can you talk a little bit about your early entrepreneurial origins? Then we'll get into the NYU art story.

1. Early Entrepreneurial Roots

Of course. This brings me back to living at the beach in Westport, Connecticut, and starting a lemonade stand with my sister.

No way. You had a lemonade stand?

Of course. I think every—

Oh, great.

Did you?

No.

Then I'm not going to say that. I think starting off with entrepreneurial pursuits and being independent as a kid, we grew up in Westport, Connecticut, which is gorgeous. It's right on the water, down by Compo Beach, which is densely populated, and you could just go to the beach. We were cute little kids, wheelbarrowing our lemonade down to the beach.

So cute.

We were hustling people. We were like, "You know what? No, I think we're going to raise prices. $5 a cup."

Yeah, like that. Supply and demand.

Yeah, exactly. So that was a little bit of a taste. Both my parents were entrepreneurs. They each had their own businesses, so I shadowed them as a kid. I remember driving around with my mom while she was building and designing homes. I'd be at my dad's office—he had a marketing agency, and he was working with lots of clients and doing all this stuff. My brothers had worked for him for a little bit, and my sister and I were always talking about taking over the business.

From a young age, I saw what it takes to build a business, and I didn't see any other reality. I didn't know what being an office worker was like.

You're like, "This is what I want to do."

I just knew, okay, you're the main character, right? The world kind of conforms to you, and you get to do what you want. If nails end up in the middle of the day, they just do. Not to say that I literally don't do that at all. I'm really bad with that stuff.

You never do that?

I am bad at that. I will go for walks and have calls. I saw my parents build their businesses, do things, make money, and grow and grow and grow, providing for our family. That was the only thing I knew. I started doing my own little things in middle school.

Yeah.

I remember I would—

When did you start painting?

2. Art Became Her Advantage

I started art as a young kid. I probably had always done it. My Greek grandfather was a painter. My mom's side of the family are all artists, or at least practice art. My brother's an artist. He's really talented. My mom's an artist, and then she did the homes thing.

I naturally had that gift too. This is funny: In my act two, or whatever it might be, I'll probably be building and designing homes. Ever since I was little, I would draw houses in books. I have 10, if not 20-plus, of these little black Moleskine books.

Yeah.

I taught myself dimensions. I give myself credit because I think that's pretty fucking cool. I taught myself how to build a house in 3D, with dimensions and all this stuff, and make it right. I would build these little towns and make books full of them.

Wait, that's so cool.

It's really cute because you can go back. My mom has a bin—I hope she didn't throw them out—with all my old books and drawing books. I did that, and down the line I started painting, drawing more, and doing portraits. I obviously went to college for that, but it really started with drawing houses.

Wow. That's so cool. I didn't know that. I knew you wanted to be an architect, or you were considering that. Then you started doing commissions in the homes your mom was designing. What inspired you to go to college for art? How did you make that decision?

Because it was going to get me in.

Like—

Honestly, it's a fair point. I went to a very competitive school. All my friends were taking AP courses and studying with a tutor for fun. It was that kind of dynamic, and I was like, "What? What is going on?" I'm a competitive person, but I have to feel comfortable being competitive in some way, and studying just wasn't it. I knew I was really good at art, so I put all my time and attention into that.

I was taking courses at Silvermine Arts Center in Norwalk, and I remember this because, in the fall, it gets dark really early. I would go to this art center after school and take many different classes, from photography to drawing, figure drawing—which is really important for learning the skill of drawing—to sculpture and all this kind of stuff. Once I knew that was my talent, I thought, "Well, I obviously have to use that to get into school." If you know your asymmetric advantage, you have to pour into it and use it to get in, because everybody was going to college, right?

Charlotte, who's been helping me, is 16 or 17 and applying to college right now. She's phenomenally well-educated and has so many great extracurriculars. She has her own path, but I'm seeing through that process that a lot of kids at her school are packing in all these things. It's like, what makes you different?

Yeah.

What made me different was the whole art thing, and pursuing entrepreneurial things—making commissioned paintings for my mom's clients and doing graphic design on my own. In middle school, this was probably not legal, but I would pick the metal corners off the chorus folders and make little pendants out of them. I'd go to the chain store, buy chains, make necklaces, and sell them. I just loved the process of making something, refining it, and selling it.

Yeah.

Making it, refining it, and selling it—and making money to fuel the next thing—is this generative cash flow process.

Yeah.

It's creative, fun, and exciting, and I just kept doing that. For art, it was really clear: art was my thing. Before college, I also did a summer architecture course at USC.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I didn't know whether I wanted to be a creative director like my mom was or go into architecture. I did this program, and it's 9 hours a day. It's intensive. Architecture's really difficult. You have to do 5 to 6 years of school.

Yeah.

How I calculate things is: Does it have an efficient ROI? Will I be able to achieve what I want to achieve in the amount of time, or will this actually take longer than I think?

Ooh, I love that.

An efficient ROI.

Yeah. What will the actual options be for me at the end of this if it’s not for me? I did that program, and it was fucking awesome. It was really cool, and I loved it. I love architecture, home design, buildings, and all that kind of stuff.

I feel like there’s a but coming.

Yeah.

But.

But hear me out. At USC, right, I’d be in the studio probably making little—

Models.

Models and drawings by hand all day, watching the kids go to football games and do all the social things. I’d just be slaving away in there. I was like, “Nah, it’s probably not for me.” And then, this is another thing you probably heard from that podcast: I found out you don’t even make that much money.

Yeah.

You pour all this money into the education, spend all this time that you can’t take back, and then you don’t actually make that much money? That doesn’t make any sense to me. None. I wanted to figure out, okay, I could get myself into school—

Mm-hmm.

—for art. I had an amazing portfolio. I won all these awards, state awards, all that kind of stuff. I’m really fucking good at art. And so I used that to get into college. The college was NYU. I went there and went to one of their orientation days.

Good to go.

What stood out to me—and a plug for NYU—is that they have Gallatin, where you can pretend you want to study grass and wood. There were kids there who were theater majors and ended up in finance, and athletes who ended up in marketing. You saw that people could cross over—

Yeah, like crossover.

—and try things and do lots of stuff. For me, that was perfect. I knew how to get into school. I had a skill set, something that could get me in.

Yeah.

Then I could get in and figure it out as I went, because I had no idea.

Yeah.

Right?

Okay, I want to switch gears a bit and talk about the skills and figuring it out. Can you talk a little bit about the first time you heard about venture capital?

Yeah. I think I was in my sophomore year of college.

Mm.

I was at Google 30 Weeks, their incubator for designers. I was a project manager there. It was a very small team, probably 4 or 5 of us. I had my own company at the time called Blue & Tuck. It was a sports bra company.

Cool.

It used technical fabrics. People are all about space now, but I was about space back then.

You were using space-tech textiles to make sports bras?

Yeah. It was a NASA-derived fabric.

I love that.

It was silver-ion plated. It blocked RF—

Oh my gosh.

—shielding, like radio frequencies and stuff. At the time, phones weren’t that big, and this was just a functional product. I made a sports bra you could put your phone in.

Oh.

I was like, “Okay, but you don’t want any potential harm—”

Radiation.

“—radiation, breast cancer, bad.” So I did this huge study, trying to understand material science. At first, I was talking to my dad, and we were like, “We have to invent a fabric.” It turns out it probably already exists, right? So it did. I found all these suppliers for it, and that was awesome.

Yeah.

Anyway, I got into Google 30 Weeks as a project manager because of that, my knack for building businesses, and my creativity. It was for designers. Building a business is hard, and I wanted to be exposed to as many as possible. There was a venture capitalist on the team, and once I understood what that job was—

You’re kind of like, some—

I was like—

The gears start turning.

“​​Oh, this is awesome. This is awesome.”

Yeah.

“This is going to be an easy job.”

Yeah.

All you do—

How hard can it be?

It can’t be that hard. Not at all, for me. I know you’re laughing because you understand.

Mm-hmm.

But it’s a real reality. What you do as a venture capitalist seems very simple.

Yeah.

At its base level, you find companies, research them, do a lot of diligence, and choose which ones you want to invest in. Over time, you get to see them grow, and see all the mistakes and challenges. Hopefully, they’re really good teams. Sometimes you have to learn hard lessons, and then maybe one day you make a return. Hopefully. That’s the goal, right? Sometimes.

Yeah.

Once I saw that, I was like, “Oh, obviously, if I want to build a business…” I was probably 17, 18, 19 at the time, right?

Yeah.

I was young, and I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I didn’t have the risk appetite to actually go all in. I was like, “I don’t have any money.” I don’t have any money.

Yeah.

I’m working 10 jobs right now, and I go to NYU, and I have to live in an apartment in New York City as a kid.

Yeah.

It’s so expensive. I’m eating cafeteria food and frozen food from Trader Joe’s. There’s no way I can just do something for free for a while and bask in unemployment, right? It doesn’t make sense. So, logically, I need to be a VC, and I can learn all this stuff—

Yeah.

—invest in these companies, and make money. Obviously, you don’t make that much money as a VC unless you’re a GP somewhere or you have major exits. But the goal would be, maybe in my 30s, to use all those learnings to start my own company and do that.

So after graduating, you had this experience, encountered venture capital, and thought, “I want to go try this out in the real world.” Can you share a bit more about your experience working in a family office and continuing to gravitate towards venture and startups?

After graduating and getting into VC, it’s a new world. You’d think just because someone has a fund, or the name of a fund, that the fund exists. I was just learning about this. I didn’t know much about the industry: which firms are good, which firms have been around for a while, how it works. I didn’t know you could just make them, or what the process is for building them up.

Obviously, there are some long-dated legacy funds and solidified names. But for whatever reason, I thought there’d be no way they would hire me with an art degree. I finished up my credits really early, then shifted over to entrepreneurship and business classes. I took a graduate class in college, which was really cool, and all this stuff. I was like, “There’s no way they’d hire me.”

Anyway, I got into VC. I was working for a growth equity fund, doing pre-IPO investments. It was all the hard stuff: spreadsheet modeling, decks, research, all that good stuff. It was super fun. It’s such a wild, satisfying puzzle to unravel and uncover, to figure out: Do we want to do this business? Do we want to get into this? Does it have a long tail? Do we think there’s an exit? All that kind of stuff.

I got obsessed with it. I thought it was a really satisfying intellectual journey and process. At the time, I just didn’t have the capacity to start my own company. I know what it takes. So I started on this journey. The first couple of funds I worked for were emerging managers. I was joking, but if you looked at my LinkedIn, I probably changed funds every year or so. Some of that was due to macro factors. One of the funds couldn’t raise another fund, and I was let go. As a first job out of college, that’s wild.

I was like, “Oh my God. Harsh reality check.”

Yeah.

But I learned really soon that you can’t depend on the world.

Yeah.

You have to always be on your toes and use your skills to apply to the next thing, and think about what you want to get out of it. I was fortunate enough to get another job—another VC job in a world where it’s really hard to get VC jobs. I kept being able to do it because I had this really great skill set. I could find companies and diligence them.

I know people debate whether there’s pattern recognition in VC, but if you can find companies and understand what trends are going on, you can be ahead of the curve. You can package that together for your team and help them become more knowledgeable, so you can find the gaps: things you missed, things you want to find, places where there could be a sweet spot, something that’s overlooked. Those are really important. For me, I’m just really good at finding lots of stuff.

I can find anything, right, Brett? Anyways, so—

Yeah, I feel like there’s a story behind that.

Inside story. But it’s a really cool process, and that was when I started Sorcery.

Yeah. Okay, so tell me about the origin story of Sorcery.

Sorcery started when I was working at TMV. They’re a fund in New York. They’re great. The partners are Sariah and Marina Hajipateras. Marina comes from a really cool background. Believe it or not, her family comes from the shipping industry, and her name is Marina. She’s really cool.

Wow.

They have an awesome strategy. They were doing a lot of early-stage consumer stuff that I wasn’t doing yet, in health and the future of work. That was their whole strategy. They’re great, and they understand marketing and brand and all that kind of stuff.

When I was there, it was a small team. I forced my way into that fund, by the way. There’s never been a fund or a job where I didn’t force myself.

Yeah.

Except Upfront. But anyways, when I was there, I was aggregating all this information and making it easy for them. People always say that if you want to work for someone, find the jobs they’re doing that they don’t want to do.

Yeah.

Or find something that helps them and lets them see five steps forward. I’ve always tried to make myself that person and do that. I did that by starting Sourcery. It was originally just a newsletter for our team. I would go through all the deals of the week. At first, it was every day. I’d go through Fortune, Pro Rata, FinSMEs, and all these places.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, all these places to scrape what companies are being funded, what’s getting acquired, what the exits are, what the IPOs are, and what funds are getting created—

So you’re doing this every day—

—and are getting funded.

—internally?

Every day, yeah. I’d set aside an hour, maybe before work. Ever since I was young, I’d wake up super early, so I’d have plenty of time during the day to do more stuff. I was doing this every day, and then at one point I thought, “This is too much. I’m going to do this once a week.”

I had left and gone to New York Life Ventures, and once I went to New York Life, I published it publicly because it had just been an internal thing. It caught on through organic word of mouth.

So what year was it when you first did it?

I have zero clue. I don’t know.

Love that.

Yeah. It could’ve been 8 years ago—

It’s just a blur.

—or 2. I don’t remember, but in my mind, I’m still 23.

Yeah.

I have no idea.

I love that. It’s a great age.

Yeah. I started publishing it publicly, and through word of mouth and friends, it became a really valuable resource because it was curated.

Yeah.

I knew which companies were good and signaling, the ones that could still be interesting. The signals were things like the investors, the amount of money, or the time between rounds. Those are things you can see optically.

Yeah.

I also started storing a bank of information in my brain about all these companies over time. You have a better sense of which ones are interesting if you have that constant exposure and they’re top of mind. So—

Was there one where you could see patterns emerging and think, “This one’s going to hit”?

Definitely not OpenAI.

Really?

I don’t think I even saw that coming, like, ever. Did you? That came out of nowhere.

No way.

Yeah, but I feel like Stripe was really obvious. These are really cool because they’re now companies that I’ve interviewed.

Huge companies, yeah.

You know?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

I’ve been tracking them for 7 years. That’s crazy.

So cool.

And Coinbase. There were a handful of these companies that continued to grow, and I’ve been watching Flexport for years and years and years. Figma, and a bunch of these companies I’ve interviewed now.

Yeah.

And it’s really awesome.

Okay, I have a tangential question about spotting companies and tracking talent. At what point did you start committing more heavily to Twitter/X as a platform? I feel like you’ve grown really dramatically on that platform.

This is a very clear answer.

Yeah.

It was when Elon took it over.

Really? Okay.

Yes. I had started doing some of it organically. I had no reason to. I wasn’t trying to make a million dollars off a newsletter. I wasn’t in the newsletter-pump marketing game. That wasn’t a thing for me.

You’re like, “I’m writing a newsletter for my friends. I’ve curated companies.”

Yeah.

That’s it.

It’s just a resource for work.

Yeah.

I was using it as a utility. I wasn’t using it to create clickbait or whatever, even though I will make stuff that’s funny because I think it’s funny clickbait, but it’s still valuable information. That’s kind of the irony.

I had started doing a little bit of marketing and brand building, probably when I was at Upfront, and putting it on LinkedIn. I’d never done this before. Turns out if you put something on LinkedIn, people see it.

People do see it.

They subscribe.

Yes.

It grows. Most of my newsletter subscribers came from LinkedIn.

Yeah.

I made it a little icon and everything. I’m a huge fan of Elon. I’ve obviously been watching his companies throughout the history of time and seeing how purely relentless he is as an operator, an inventor, and a technologist. I’d read the books about him, including the Walter Isaacson book. When you study someone for a period of time, you see that he has a distinct playbook he uses for all of his companies.

Mm.

I don’t have any money to buy a Tesla, but I’m sure if I had one, I’d understand how he built it: vertical integration and all that stuff. He’s maniacal about creating processes and then deleting things that are inefficient.

Mm-hmm.

So I thought, “Okay, there’s definitely some game theory there.” Once he took over X, I was like, “Game on.”

Yeah.

This is going to be a game. It’s going to be some sort of game of words or whatever. I hadn’t studied any of the other social media platforms. I don’t care about social media. I’m really not a social media person. I’m sure I got into it through Instagram and stuff, but it’s not like I’m addicted. I just don’t have that kind of connection to it. Once he took over X, it was like, “Oh, this is obviously going to be a game.”

Yeah.

I’m a really great writer and a creative, and I was working at a fund at the time that was an RIA, so I couldn’t post anything related to our portfolio or companies or whatever.

Couldn’t post anything, yeah.

It had to be PC. I didn’t want to get canceled. It was all professional, and I made sure it was on the mark. I used that as a playbook to game Twitter and grow.

Wow.

And so I had some advantages.

Okay, yeah. Tell me more about that. I’m so interested.

Yeah—

This is the first I’m hearing about the reason for your transition. It’s super interesting, so I’m interested to see how you—

And Twitter has been a huge part of my growth.

Totally.

So I love—

Yeah.

— it. X now.

Yes.

Sorry.

X.

But no, this was a really important part. They open-sourced the algorithms.

Yeah.

I’d study that.

Really?

And I’d use it.

You would go into—

Yes.

—the developer docs and study it?

No. I would—

Oh, God.

—read the summaries. Like a normal person. I’m not reading developer docs.

And then you’re like, “I’m just imagining you in there, really studying it.”

Okay, press Command. No, I don’t even know what the terms are.

Ah.

But it would show how they weight certain things. I’m a good writer, so I can understand what makes a good psychological hook.

Mm.

Obviously, I’m not trying to get you or—

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

—that kind of thing. But I’m crafting good stories. It’s all about storytelling, which is the same with startups, fundraising, and anything in life.

Yeah.

Sales. And so I just started to learn how to tell really good stories in 140 characters or 280 characters, and more specifically, in the first line.

Yeah.

Where did breaking come from?

I don’t know, but I’ve obviously abused that. I think I get penalized every now and again for it, because they specifically said they would—

They’re like, “We’re banning breaking.”

Yeah, they’re like, “If you use it too much, we’re going to downrank your content.”

Wow.

Well, okay, so I’ll just use that for funding announcements and stuff.

Okay.

But sometimes I’m just like, “Breaking: Paige interviews Molly.”

Woo! No, I can’t wait to publish that.

Yeah.

I guess one of my questions there is about the balance of breaking news versus more thematic or timeless content that isn’t as grounded in milestones. How do you think about balancing the two in your interviews? I feel like you do a great job of that.

Great question. This is a constant battle, whether it’s scheduling or anything else. What I saw very early on with the podcast, and what helped it break out, was timing it with announcements.

Mm.

Which goes back to the newsletter.

That makes sense, yeah.

It goes back to all the deals, the funding announcements.

Yeah.

Which was completely obvious, right? I overlooked this. But once I started posting when a company—

Yeah.

—raised funding—

Well, they’re going to put all their resources toward highlighting that interview of yours and be like, “Everyone, please go watch the Sorcery episode.”

Yes, but there’s also a media storm around it.

Oh, yeah.

And so this is why—

And they’re like, “Oh, how do we cover it?” And it’s like, “Oh, Molly’s interview, according to Sourcery.”

Exactly.

It’s on the 3rd.

And I’ll have all these different outlets put it out, but this is also my hot take: people who do exclusives or set a day for media exclusives around an announcement are shooting themselves in the foot. The internet does not—

That is a hot take.

—the internet doesn’t work like that.

Yeah.

You have to post as much as possible, to some extent, while obviously maintaining quality. There are so many different things going on at all times. Every day there’s another Anthropic or OpenAI kind of thing that breaks the internet, or a model release or whatever. Funding announcements don’t really stand out now. You have to give people a reason to care. Sometimes you have to brute-force your way into the world.

Yeah.

People have obviously learned this on Twitter—or, sorry, X—and have gotten in trouble with it, or just don’t do it well because—

Like the paid partnerships they send me—

The paid partnerships, the spam posting—

—guys.

It all has to be authentic.

Come on.

Your team should be reposting it. Early on, I found that this announcement format worked really well because you time it well. It’s timely.

Mm-hmm.

It’s news. People pay attention. It’s novel; it’s something people haven’t seen before, and it’s important. People love numbers, excitement, and FOMO, too. FOMO plays a big part in this, especially for VCs.

Shout out to that.

That’s why people are reading the newsletter and watching what deals are going on, what they missed out on, who raised a round without letting them know.

Who are writing in the anti-portfolio.

Exactly.

Yeah.

That’s a big part of it, and so we started timing things around these announcements. One of the best practices for funding announcements—

Please share.

You’ve heard it here—

You’ve heard it here.

Sure, if you want to pick an exclusive, like Bloomberg or whatever, do that, but don’t time out the rest of the media market.

Mm-hmm.

You’re really not doing yourself a service. You can get The Wall Street Journal; you can do all these things. Maybe get all of them, but make sure each one is distinctive in some way.

Like a different story.

They all write roughly the same thing, so whatever. But it does matter to have as many eyeballs on something as possible. With any sort of advertising, you won’t notice that billboard until you’ve seen it 20 times.

Yeah.

Maybe on your 50th time, you’ll actually notice it and read it, right? With news and announcements, your investors retweeted it, your co-founders did, maybe some friends did, and all that kind of stuff. Once you start seeing it a little more, it’s really important. I get super disappointed sometimes when people ask to do an interview.

Oh, I know.

People ask to do an interview, and they get really excited and ready. I put so much time and attention into this. Brett’s here, we have all this equipment, and we really go out of our way. I only have so many slots a month for interviews. They’re expensive and require editing, travel, all this kind of stuff. These mean a lot to me. This is my favorite thing. This is my job.

Yeah.

I love this. With the interview, I share all the files afterward and share the posts. I share the file beforehand, too, and say, “If there are any clips you want, let me know. We’ll make them. We’ll make sure it’s a really great package for you.” We obviously want it to benefit you and get as many people to see it as possible, right? That’s the goal.

Yeah.

Expand the reach, especially with the newsletter, which has investors, LPs, family offices, many high-net-worth individuals, operators, talent, people interested in tech, people looking for jobs, and all this kind of stuff. The one thing that upsets me is when the company doesn’t engage once we put it out.

That’s tough.

That happens, and it happens—

That’s really frustrating.

—when people request it. It happens with huge companies, too, including ones that I admire. We’ll strategize about where we’re doing it, coordinate the date and location, all this stuff, and then it’s like, you couldn’t even repost? Just a simple repost or a reply. That’s the one thing I don’t get. Some people, I get it, are finicky with their socials and just don’t do that. But if I’m going to try to change anything today, I’m going to try to change that.

Yeah.

Because you should absolutely support people as much as you can in your career and in their careers. I try to do that as much as possible, especially with these interviews, these new companies, these later companies, and people trying to show their new products. That’s the point. I’m not a journalist. I’m genuinely trying to support startups.

I love tech, and that’s kind of behind it.

I love that. Well, thank you for sharing your frustration. I’m sorry that has happened to you. It’s very clear how much work you put into the researching, the scheduling, and the editing. I feel like the interview itself is, I don’t know, you should be spending an additional 90-plus percent on marketing that interview after the fact.

That’s a really good point. Maybe 10% of the work goes into before the interview.

Yeah.

90% is afterwards.

Yeah. Okay, so we’re in the land of manifestation. We were talking about this before. You posted an image of your top 100 dream podcast guests. I have a question I’m really excited to ask, but I’m going to ask this first. How many of those have you interviewed so far? And I heard you might have a new list coming out.

You did hear some things.

I did hear some things. A little birdie.

I had this idea last year. I’m constantly thinking of things and creating things. I was like, “Who do I want on? What do I do?” So I quickly made this list. At first it was the top 20, and then it was the top 35, and then it was 40, 50, 60, 80. All right, fuck it. Let’s go to 100.

Let’s go to 100.

It’s so hard because the initial process is short. I’m sure if I had more time, I would’ve thought of that person I’d been thinking of the whole time but forgot. But I put out this list, and it was awesome. I put it out around this time last year.

Yeah.

It was probably in October, and people love lists.

Yeah, they love a list. And they’re like, “Wait, you forgot about this person. You forgot about that person.”

Exactly.

“Hey, @ person tagged, you should go on Molly’s podcast.”

Exactly. What I’ve learned is people are super helpful and supportive.

As long as they know what you need, they’re like, “I have a quest.”

Exactly.

“I’m ready for my quest.”

If you put it in front of people—

Yeah.

—they will be like, “All right.” Or if they’re a VC, they’ll be like, “I can be helpful.” Some of them are VCs, so shout out to the VCs out there. I put out this list, the Sorcery Top 100, and immediately it caught fire. People loved it. They were looking at it, like, “Oh, Dylan Field’s a great call. Oh my God, yeah, Bill Ackman. Why is Elon on there twice?”

Why is Elon on there twice?

Yeah, so I also put Trey Stevens on there twice. That was unintentional, but I ended up interviewing Trey Stevens like three times after that, so maybe it did work.

I feel like it was on purpose.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I got a lot of great reception. I’m pretty sure Robinhood’s team had reached out to me after that. A lot of people just wanted to help. Palantir’s team—well, it wasn’t their team, but it was my friend there.

I’m so excited to talk about this.

Yeah. My friend there was like, “Yo, Molly, what the fuck? Where is Alex Karp on this list? You’re a huge fan. What are you doing? We’ve talked about this. You missed him.” And I’m like, “Oh, you’re right,” because—

Totally.

—when I started doing it, I was thinking about the Forbes Midas List, investors—

Yeah.

—and some of the founders and stuff. But I was like, “Oh, wow, I missed an entire personality.”

But maybe the point is that if you leave an important name out, people are going to be like, “Of course this person should be on there,” and then it’s an even stronger draw.

Exactly. So you’re correct, Paige, and that’s what happened. I got that text, and then I thought, “Maybe I need to revise this list.” So I made a revised list, and I added a 1B to Ivanka’s 1A, and the 1B was Alex Karp. My friend over at Palantir, Eliano, was like, “Dope. Great list. I’m going to send it over to Karp. We’ll see how this goes.”

Turns out it went well. Karp really liked the list. He was like, “This actually makes sense. I like the ordering. Put Palmer before Marc Andreessen.” And so he was like, “I think we could probably get him on. He’s interested. He thinks it looks good. He has no idea who you are. The list looks good.”

Yeah.

3. Landing Alex Karp

Maybe three days later, I get the call. I don’t know where I was; I was probably recording somewhere in San Francisco. He’s like, “Look, I think we got the interview. Our earnings are coming out, and there’s this new biography written about Alex Karp, Philosopher in the Valley. I think you should interview him on that.”

Like, timing it with an announcement.

Yeah, with someone like Alex Karp, or anyone of that stature, you need a reason. You can’t just do an interview. There has to be some sort of novelty or uniqueness to it and a reason to do it. So that was the reason: let’s interview him on this biography. They’d send me a book beforehand, I’d read it, and then we’d get to it.

I think I read the book in two days. It was actually a phenomenal book, really interesting, and it was written by an author who was from The New York Times and wouldn’t necessarily be aligned with Alex Karp, Palantir, Peter Thiel, or that whole world. It gave a bit of a weighted, objective point of view. It goes into his childhood and upbringing, his mom being an artist, and up through getting his PhD, living in Germany, doing all this stuff, and then getting brought in by Palantir—sorry, by Peter Thiel—to lead Palantir. Palantir and Peter Thiel, same world. Anyway, it was a great book. I read it, and I had to be in New York to interview him in five days.

Wow.

It was a really quick turnaround. I didn’t know what I was going to wear, where it was going to be, or what was going to happen. I got to New York and received a call the day before. The Palantir team was going to provide the video service and production, and the crew was awesome. There was just one caveat.

One “but.”

It had to be a walking—

Oh, interesting.

—a walking interview.

Okay, so that was Palantir saying, “We gotta walk.”

Yes. Alex Karp is not the best at sitting—

If you’re listening and you haven’t seen it—

—still. He’s a very energetic person. He just gets bubbled up with passion and excitement and everything, so he’s not great at sitting still.

Yeah. Was that one of your first walking tours, then?

What?

Had you done a walking interview before?

No, this was the first one.

Oh, okay. So he kind of kicked off a walking tour series.

It literally cascaded the whole—

Yeah.

—Sourcery lore and thing. A lot of credit to that interview. I can’t speak highly enough about the impact and the reach—

Okay.

—that that created.

We gotta talk about the sword. What was going through your head as Alex Karp was swinging his sword around?

That was totally unexpected.

Yeah, I would assume.

Before the interview, he was also a totally normal guy.

Yeah.

Eliano was like, “Hey, he just wants to get to know you beforehand.” We chatted for 15, 20 minutes about who I am and what I’m doing, just so he knew, “Who the hell is this person?” I didn’t really exist in that capacity. Sourcery had just started, so we had a kind of catch-up chat beforehand, and then we just started.

I think Eliano might have mentioned before the interview that he obviously does the dead hangs thing.

Mm-hmm.

There was one of those in the office, and he has these quirks. He’s a big personality, and he’s very much himself—

Yeah.

—which is great, right? He also has swords in his offices—

As one does.

—just as a guy, right?

Yeah.

They just like swords. He was like, “At the end, maybe I can find it and we can do a photo.” I was like, “Okay.” It’s so funny because you can watch the video, and toward the end of the interview, you can see Eliano running behind us with the sword, trying to get us to be ready. We’re ending the interview, and I thought we were just going to take a picture.

Yeah.

Their video crew was thankfully videotaping this—

Yeah.

—because their video is out, right? He’s wearing a ski outfit, and I’m wearing a dress. I’m ready to go for—

It’s such a good contrast.

—a public company CEO interview, right? I’m in a dress and heels, trying to look very professional and all that kind of stuff.

Yeah.

He’s in his ski outfit. It’s a little bit casual. He has a sword, and I thought we were going to take a picture, and then he starts—

Yeah.

—using his skills. You can see my eyes. I’m like, “What’s going on?” The funny part is, Eliano was 6 feet in front of him, so when he’s doing this, Eliano’s like—

Right.

“What is going on?” And all of us are like, “This is not—”

Ah.

No one thought that was going to happen.

Wow.

And it became a meme—

Yeah.

—without that, like, really—

But, yeah, you got, like, 4.3—

4 point—

—million.

I think that clip—okay, so the interview itself shot out of nowhere. It seriously went totally viral—

Yeah.

—because of this. It was the first time I’d gotten viral hits for a million views, 2 million, all that kind of stuff, but this was escape velocity. This took—

Yeah.

—over the internet for 2 whole days. Maybe 3. Crazy. Almost a whole week. Let’s round up. So—

It was a whole week.

It was a month.

Yeah.

And so—

Mm.

—the actual interview got 4 million, 4.5 million views on X. It’s pinned to my profile because it’s the most—

It’s iconic.

—it’s the most defining thing of, “Oh, it’s that girl,” right?

Yeah.

People always know me, and every interview I start—

The sword girl.

—they’re like, “I have a sword. Should we…?” And I’m like, “Yeah, it’s okay. But if you want, please.”

I bet you’re going to inadvertently have a sword collection because people will give them to you—

I have—

—as gifts.

Zero at the moment.

Okay.

But we’ll see.

If you’re listening.

That one clip just took off and became a meme. I think that one has 4.3, whatever, over 4 million views. But that video and that presence alone have easily had 50 million-plus views in that amount of time. It had completely gone all over the internet. We’d seen it all over the place. Someone used it in their trailer for whatever. It’s just an iconic Silicon Valley moment.

It’s incredible.

It’s crazy. So, yeah, that was awesome.

Wait, I love that. I’m trying to think about how to pose this question. This is funny. I was watching the clip of Jack Altman. I should have texted him before this to ask him a question for you. That was your first time discovering that Jack and Sam Altman were brothers?

Was it—

Was it? Oh my God. Was it a bet?

Bitch.

Was it a bet?

We will leave that one unanswered.

Oh my—

It’s a bet.

So—

Maybe.

Okay—

For context, I interviewed Jack Altman, and this was another thing that ended up becoming a meme and going viral. I interviewed Jack Altman about his podcast, Uncapped, which is phenomenal.

Such big guys.

It has incredible guests—

It is great.

It was one of the first major breaks on X for this category, too. I wanted to interview him on it as well. That was the basis of the interview. This ended up becoming a meme, but one of the guests he interviewed, I asked him, “So you recently interviewed Sam Altman.”

Mm-hmm.

“Were you nervous?” And he goes, “No.”

“Why would I be nervous?”

“Why would I be nervous?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” He goes, “That’s my brother.” I go, “Jack Altman and Sam Altman? You’re brothers?” And he’s like, “Yeah.” I was like, “So you’ve known each other for a long time?” And he’s like, “Yes. Please keep this in. Keep this in. This is great. Don’t cut this out of the podcast.”

It was iconic. I really… That was one of my favorite moments.

The whole thing is, I have a very large sense of humor.

Yeah.

All day, if I’m not working, I’m watching funny clips and laughing to myself.

Yeah.

You can ask people.

Who are some of your favorite comedians? Do you have favorite comedians?

I love Will Ferrell.

Oh, okay.

I love Will Ferrell. He’s amazing.

Is there going to be a—

He’s on my list.

—he’s on your list.

So, Will Ferrell, please.

Will Ferrell.

I would like to interview you.

When it happens, we’re going to roll the tape back and be like—

I might have to do one with Zach Galifianakis. I can’t even say his name.

Oh, yes, yes, yes. Between… Well, you gotta get the ferns, right?

Between Two Ferns.

Yeah.

I mean, this is not a fern, but we got a hedge here.

We got a hedge.

And some grass.

Yeah. I like that. Hey, you do have a great sense of humor.

Yeah. I have a dry sense of humor, and this was even a problem when I worked at different funds. I would deliver things with a straight face, so I’ve been working on the whole smiling thing. I’ve been getting better at it.

It’s—

My whole life, people have said, “Why aren’t you smiling? You should smile more.” The whole thing is, “Girls should smile.” I just wouldn’t smile. I just wasn’t a smiler, and now I’m getting better at smiling. Now I’m getting wrinkles from it, which sucks. I delivered that with great poise, and no one knows—

It was incredible.

—still to this day.

Still to this day. It’s a mystery. Wait, speaking of mystery, do you have an upcoming list coming out?

I do have a list coming out, and I could show it to you beforehand, or whenever this comes out. Hopefully this comes out in time, because I want to put the list out this Friday or as soon as possible, maybe even tomorrow.

Yeah.

It’s hard to compete with the Anthropic S1 that just dropped today, the same day as another episode I put out, which kind of sucks, but we’ll make sure it goes well. I want to get that list out as fast as possible because it’s been the most helpful resource to me. You asked how many of the people I’ve interviewed, and I’ve interviewed probably over 20% of it.

Wow.

I put out this—

That’s really incredible.

I was like—

Those are dream—

Dream—

—guests.

—a list of the top 100 people, also the hardest-to-reach, powerful people in technology and finance, and I got 20%. That’s crazy.

Yeah.

And I had just gone full-time—

And under—yeah, you’re—

—on it in, like, a month of—

Yeah.

—pushing that out there.

It’s incredible.

So it’s great. I definitely want to make this an annual thing, even for that one—

I had taken off some of the people I had on it, because 100 people gets short really quick. Even with this one, I was like, “Damn, am I gonna have to make it 150?” But you just gotta—

It’s—

It’s all about—

—next year.

—cutting it down—

Yeah.

—reducing, making it concise. So we’ll have that out soon.

Hmm. I’m really excited for that. So do you exclusively choose your own guests, or do people pitch you? What’s the breakdown?

4. Choosing The Right Guests

Good question. This is an art and a science. It’s incredibly difficult. You asked me before, “Will I start a fund? Will I do all this other stuff?” I still need to perfect this. The podcast and everything—we do really great numbers. We do hundreds of millions of impressions a year and views.

Yeah.

Hundreds and hundreds of millions. We have so much reach. We’ve become a name—

Yeah.

—and it’s a thing.

You are one of tech’s top podcasters.

Yes, I am.

I’m so happy to be sitting here interviewing you.

Because of that, to me, it’s still not there yet.

Job’s not done.

Job’s not— I don’t know if I can say that, because it’s a competitor thing, but—

Oh.

—job’s not done yet. You’re right.

Okay.

We could say it. It’s fine. My “Am I staying focused?” question comes down to this: when I’m looking at interviews, scheduling them, and rearranging them, I have to rearrange things every week.

Oh yeah, I bet.

It’s really hard.

Yeah.

I feel bad, because sometimes it’s people I’m close with or friends I know, and I’m like, “Fuck, I have to suddenly go across the country or go to Europe.” I’ll do this at the drop of a hat, and that’s why I keep on winning.

Getting inter—yeah.

Because I take it so seriously and hustle my ass off to make sure I’m getting the top 100 and prioritizing myself at the end of the day.

Mm-hmm.

I get distractions every week. I’m not saying these are bad or anything, but there are phenomenal companies and announcements that I have to say no to. Sometimes those will perform better on a metrics basis, because they’re in that media storm of—

Yeah.

—an announcement and all that. It’ll get attention; you’re guaranteed that. But for building the brand and the archive of people I’ve interviewed, I just have to be maniacally focused on that.

Yeah.

Otherwise, I just won’t be operating cleanly and true to myself. If I keep honing in, filtering, and refining, it’ll only make it better in the long term. I could easily do announcements all day, every day, and be completely full and busy, but the goal isn’t to be busy and full. It’s to be intentional—

Mm-hmm.

—and to craft a story from all these different points of view and from some of the biggest names. Last week, I interviewed Jenny Johnson, CEO of Franklin Templeton. She’s been on my list for a while. She’s a killer, and she was so fun to interview. She was awesome. She said, “I just got back from Uzbekistan.” I was like, “What?” She said, “I’m not thinking that clearly today.” I was like, “Are you kidding?” We were talking with her team, and her off is like anybody else’s on.

Yeah.

She was pulling references from crazy places, and she’s a student of history. She’s such an interesting mind. I always have to remind myself to gear back towards the focus.

Mm-hmm.

Don’t get distracted. I don’t need to start a fund right now. I don’t need to be a scout; I’m way past that. I don’t need to be an advisor or any of those things. People have asked me to join the boards of public companies.

Yeah.

And I’m like, “No.” It causes a conflict with what I’m doing today, which has been the best job I’ve ever had and the job I want to have for as long as possible. I need to stay focused.

I love that. I feel like your continued relentlessness, focus, and creativity are really inspiring. I’m excited to see what you do over the next decade and beyond.

Thanks.

How are you thinking about your vision for Sorcery and what success looks like for you?

That’s a good question. The quick answer is obviously to get the Sorcery 100 of the year or whatever. Here it is, right? And push myself there. I try to use as much research as possible for every interview, and I try to refine my skills as an interviewer.

Mm-hmm.

Refine my skills as a freaking walking-tour interviewer.

Yeah.

That was a 180. It was hard. For the Alex Karp one, people who’ve been in the media industry for years, their whole lives, were like, “You didn’t have an earpiece in? You didn’t have note cards? How did you do that? You were rolling the whole time?”

Yeah, that’s pretty wild.

It’s because I have a good memory.

Yeah.

If I stay focused on one thing, I can easily get ADD if I want to, but when I’m focused, it’s usually tunnel vision when I go into interviews. Charlotte, who’s head of special ops, came to a couple of my interviews. She was like, “Holy shit. Once you start, you’re just locked in.”

Yeah.

There are lots of cameras and lights. It’s the same with getting on stage. The first time I was really on stage in a crazy capacity was at the Citadel Securities Conference last year.

Mm-hmm.

I had interviewed two of Sorcery’s partners at the time, the co-founders of Calci, and I was so nervous for that. I think it was at 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. I had to take a shot. I really don’t even drink ever. I’m embarrassed to say that, but I was freaking out.

Yeah.

I had to call someone for support and have them talk me down, but I was so nervous. After that, I realized I was just doing the same exact thing. At the end of the day, I’m just asking questions and listening.

Yeah.

That’s it. I really got over that. It doesn’t make me nervous. I don’t care. I love it now. If someone calls me up and wants me to moderate something on stage, let’s go. I’m ready to go. It’s cool to reach new audiences, try that out, refine that skill, and get better at it. It’s about making the podcast better, making my skills better, capturing the best stories, and making sure I can increase the audience in intentional ways by delivering the best information.

Mm-hmm.

I make sure data is incorporated in everything. I’m an investor at the end of the day. I’ve spent my whole career doing research, diligence, data, market maps, insights, and collecting all these nodes of information to understand how a business is growing and working. Does it actually have longevity? Is there a durable underlying model to it, or is it going to zoink out once there are 10 other market competitors, or go to zero?

Yeah.

Those are really the things at the end of the day. The whole walking-tour thing is so important. That type of content alone is 10, maybe 100 to 1,000 times more dynamic and visually interesting, and it performs incredibly well on YouTube. If you check out the YouTube channel—

Wait, do you—

—I’ve categorized the different types of interviews I do.

Yeah.

There are factory tours and HQ tours, the walking portions of these interviews. Then I have investor interviews.

Mm-hmm.

And then I have tech interviews. The walking interviews, the walk-and-talks—or I went to Bending Spoons and they called it a “walkie-talkie,” which I thought was cute, so I have to use that now.

So cute.

The walkie-talkies get hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views. It’s a really great format for YouTube—

Yeah.

—because you’re changing your environment a lot.

Mm.

And especially for people on YouTube, they love tools. They love factories. They love how things are made. That’s just the inherent nature of that kind of platform.

Dang. Should we be walking during this?

No, it’s fine. I actually can’t really think very well when I walk, so it’s hard. I don’t think I would be speaking this clearly if we were doing that. That’s why it’s hard with some of these investor types or public company CEOs. For some of them—

Yeah.

—it’s just not an easy format to do.

Hmm.

But, you know, the Figure AI, like Figure robot company—

Yeah.

—like that—

Those are, like, limited.

—walk-and-talks. Every day I get comments about it on YouTube. It’s still growing, and that one will probably hit a million views pretty soon on YouTube. YouTube’s really hard to hit a million views. It’s different for every platform. On X, there are so many social network factors.

Yeah.

You’re much more likely to get it on X. Instagram—I’m not an Instagram girly, but I’m getting better at it. I don’t know how it works, so I’ll leave it to the Instagram professionals. On LinkedIn, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything—

Anything hit a million?

—anything hit a million views, except I interviewed this investor from Mayfield, Navin Chaddha, and he regularly gets millions of views. He’s an influencer on LinkedIn.

Yeah.

Which is crazy. But yeah.

Dang. Okay. Well, I think we’ve unfortunately hit the end of our time together today. I’ve so enjoyed this conversation. It’s very clear why you’re winning: you’re incredibly devoted to this craft, which is so inspiring. You’re sharing these amazing stories of founders and investors building incredibly impactful companies, and you’re building one yourself. I learned a lot today in our conversation. If you’re listening, I’d highly recommend following Molly on X and all of her social channels. We’ll link those in the show notes. Any last words?

Yes. I want to turn it on you now.

Oh, okay.

Because I’m sure my audience—I’m going to cross-post this. I’m going to put it on my YouTube and in a newsletter and everything. But, Paige, you’re actually doing the thing.

Yeah.

You have a fund yourself.

Yeah.

So can you share with everyone, for my audience, about your fund, your top investments, and how you’ve grown it? You’re going to fund three now. What’s behind Genius?

Oh my God. Maybe some background: This book here is a children’s book I wrote about venture capital. I published it when I was a year out of college. Similar to you, I had an experience—it was actually watching the show Silicon Valley—and something clicked. I was like, “Venture capital is what I’m meant to do. This is my calling, and I want to take it as seriously as possible.”

I didn’t have any network in venture. I grew up in San Diego, so I started posting on Twitter, now X, about what I was learning. That blossomed into building Behind Genius. The core of Behind Genius is backing founders I call technical storytellers. A great example is Zane Hangsberger from Knox Metals. He’s built an incredible presence as part of the reindustrialization movement, and it’s had a huge impact on their business: how many customer orders they get and how much inbound investor interest he gets.

I’ve backed over 60 companies across three funds, and I’m incredibly excited about the future and continuing to tell impactful stories. That’s something I’m really interested in, too, and in inspiring and educating the next generation of investors and founders.

And so we have some factory tours coming up?

Yes, we have factory tours coming up. I was sharing with you before the show that I was just out in Detroit doing a factory tour at Knox Metals, at their new 75,000-square-foot facility. It’s so funny—you were talking about how walking tours can be harder for some people, and I was like, “Oh, I actually really liked it,” because I could say, “Here’s the thing. Can you talk about this block of metal or this saw?”

I love that format. I’m looking forward to doing more of them.

For me, I’m used to sitting in one spot, being stationary, and just talking about topics. When you’re walking around things, it’s like, “Oh, wait, I have to talk about…” I’m coming from a different perspective, where I’m thinking, “Wait, we should talk about—”

Yeah.

—you know—

It is so funny, because we were talking about it earlier. I focus a lot on being in my body and embodiment, and I feel like that brings a real concreteness. I was on a walk with one of my LPs, and we were talking about something else when I said, “Oh my God, look at that leaf. What a beautiful leaf.” To this day, she always talks about the fact that I looked at the leaf during our walk. Anyway, I’m excited.

Is there anything—we talked about me manifesting things—is there anything—

Oh.

—you’re manifesting for the next 12 months?

This is my 100th episode of Seed to Harvest, which is such a special milestone. I’m excited to go harder on video storytelling for Seed to Harvest and have some incredible guests. Maybe even put out a top 100.

You should.

But yeah: health, monumental abundance, and good times with family and friends.

All the good things.

Yeah.

Very grounded.

Very, yeah. Very grounded.

Well, cool. Thank you so much for coming and doing this with me. I really appreciate it.

Molly, thank you so much for coming on Seed to Harvest. It’s been an honor. It’s been a pleasure.