Summation with Auren Hoffman

Vinod Khosla is one of the most successful and contrarian investors alive, first at Kleiner Perkins and then at Khosla Ventures, where he wrote the first institutional check into OpenAI. Forbes ranked him #1 on its 2026 Midas List. Vinod previously co-founded Sun Microsystems and took it from zero to a billion dollars in sales in five years. 
In this episode of Summation, Vinod and Auren discuss:
Why 40 years of radical innovation has come from startups, not big companies
Why he has never once calculated an IRR, including on OpenAI
Why 70-80% of VCs add negative value, and what "brutal honesty over hypocritical politeness" looks like in a board meeting
AI capable of doing 80% of jobs, and how to protect the people instead of the jobs
Why he changed his mind on open source AI, and why "follow your passion" is finally good advice
You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Vinod Khosla on X at @vkhosla

Daniel Chait is the co-founder and CEO of Greenhouse, the hiring platform behind thousands of companies. Before Greenhouse, he co-founded Lab49, a technology consultancy for Wall Street. He's also the author of Talent Makers.
In this episode of Summation, Daniel and Auren discuss:
The AI doom loop
Why "tell me about a time when" beats "what are your weaknesses," 
Why HR quality depends on the CEO, and what Netflix got right
Why "never quit" is bad founder advice
You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Daniel Chait on Linkedin

Noah Glass is the founder and CEO of Olo, the digital commerce platform behind ordering, payments, and loyalty for many of America's biggest restaurant brands. He started Olo in 2005 with ordering by text message, before the iPhone existed, took it public in 2021, and took it private with Thoma Bravo last year in a roughly $2 billion deal.
In this episode of Summation, Noah and Auren discuss:
The $65 million sale that collapsed the night before he told his team
How Five Guys strong-armed point-of-sale companies into opening up to Olo
Why 75% of restaurant meals are eaten outside the restaurant, and only 10% are delivery
The right to be known, and why you favorite the salad but reorder the milkshake
You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Noah Glass on X at @nhglass

Bobby Samuels is the co-founder and CEO of Protege, a platform that licenses real-world data from industries like healthcare and media to companies building AI. Protege has raised $65 million from Andreessen Horowitz, CRV, and Flex Capital. Before Protege, Bobby led partnerships at LiveRamp and ran Privacy Hub at Datavant.
In this episode of Summation, Bobby and Auren discuss:
The auction for Spirit Airlines' emails, and what a model learns from a failed airline
Why synthetic data has been "18 months away" for six years
Why every data pitch deck with "hedge funds" on the customer slide is wrong
The genome as the most valuable dataset nobody has unlocked
Why the smartest buyers are the easiest ones to sell to
You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Bobby Samuels on Linkedin

Roy Schwartz co-founded Axios, the news company known for smart brevity, and helped grow it to a $525 million sale to Cox Enterprises. He's now co-founder and CEO of Axios HQ, an AI-powered internal communications platform spun out of Axios. He co-wrote Smart Brevity, and his new book is Simplify. Before Axios, he was chief revenue officer of Politico.
In this episode of Summation, Roy and Auren discuss:
Meeting bankruptcy: wiping every recurring meeting off the calendar twice a year
AI as a complexity machine and the slop it's adding to every email and deck
The end of well-rounded, and why AI eats anyone who is average
Building Axios for influencers instead of casual readers, plus 200 events a year
You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Roy Schwartz on LinkedIn