The Table
Who's sat down
Founders, early investors, and poker players — each reconstructing one bet they made when the information was thin.
Mark Phillips
Venture Capitalist
“The only thing that will remain constant is the founder.”
Martin Jacobson
WSOP world Champion Poker Player
“With risk comes opportunity—and there’s no opportunity if you never take any risk.”
Mahesh Narayanan
Venture Capitalist
“How much do I believe that this founder is not going to give up on this idea, even if I do?”
Eric Jorgenson
Idea Guy, Author, Investor, CEO
“You can make these relatively cheap asymmetric bets over and over and over again… any one of the individual ones failing is not catastrophic.”
Greg Raiz
Managing Partner
“Pitch decks are theater, execution is the truth.”
Kirby Winfield
Managing Partner
“It’s not my job to be smart about what you’re doing. It’s my job to be smart about you and your capacity to build something meaningful.”
Sohun Sanka
CEO
“Virtually, it was a zero-risk decision on my part.”
Howard Lindzon
General Partner
“If you build it, my users will come.”
Mike MA
Managing Partner
“Don’t tell me, show me. And I’m very interested in the action.”
Alex McNaughten
CEO
“This wasn’t a reckless leap, it was an asymmetric bet — with capped downside and massive upside.”
Brian Bell
Venture Capitalist
“AI is not going to replace venture capitalists.”
Ihar Mahaniok
Managing Partner
“Lessons from being early in Instacart”
Aram Attar
Founder
“Intuition—the tool most investors treat as a superpower—is demonstrably unreliable in early-stage VC. Intuition only works in environments with clear feedback loops. Early-stage ventures? Not exactly that environment.”
Arkady Kulik
Managing Partner
“Just talk to people openly about everything.”
Simon Lancaster
GP, Omni Ventures
“The unlikely Manufacturing VC”
Shaun Gold
Venture Comedian
“Everyone's a gangster until they gotta wire the money.”
Alec Torelli
Professional Poker Player
“I'm not a risk taker. I'm a risk trader.”
Know someone who made a great bet on thin information? Pitch a guest →
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