20Product: Why Most CPOs are Bad | Why You Do Not Need PMs in a World of AI | Why the Design Stage is Dead and How to Use Vibe Coding to Replace It | The Three Roles All Founders End Up Firing on Repeat with Jason James @ Tezi

20Product: Why Most CPOs are Bad | Why You Do Not Need PMs in a World of AI | Why the Design Stage is Dead and How to Use Vibe Coding to Replace It | The Three Roles All Founders End Up Firing on Repeat with Jason James @ Tezi

Author: Harry Stebbings August 29, 2025 Duration: 53:48

Jason James is the Co-Founder of Tezi and one of the leading product minds in the valley. Prior to Tezi, Jason was the VP Product at Instacart and before that was Head of Product and Design at Thumbtack. 

AGENDA:

00:00 Product lessons scaling Instacart to $40B – what really moves the needle

02:15 Why "quick optimizations" won't build billion-dollar products

04:30 MVPs are dead? How AI is reshaping product development

07:00 Do startups even need PMs anymore in the age of AI?

11:30 The biggest product mistake Jason made building Tezi

16:30 Why most hiring managers fail at recruiting

20:00 The resume trap: how to spot if someone was just "on the elevator up"

26:00 The three roles founders always end up firing

28:00 Are most CPOs actually terrible?

36:30 The myth of startup "culture" – why growth is the only thing that matters

43:00 Did DoorDash actually beat Instacart? The inside take

48:00 Fundraising secrets founders never realize until it's too late

 

 


Hosted by Harry Stebbings, The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) pulls back the curtain on the high-stakes worlds of venture capital and startup building. Each episode is a compact, twenty-minute dive into the minds shaping the future of technology. You’ll hear candid conversations with legendary investors, the very individuals who fund and guide the next generation of companies, featuring voices like Sequoia's Doug Leone and Benchmark's Bill Gurley. Beyond the capital, this podcast dedicates time to the founders themselves. Weekly, Stebbings sits down with transformative entrepreneurs such as Spotify's Daniel Ek, LinkedIn's Reid Hoffman, and Snowflake's Frank Slootman, unpacking the real journeys behind their iconic companies. The format is direct and focused, cutting straight to the core insights on funding strategies, pitch dynamics, and the personal philosophies that drive success. Tuning into this podcast means gaining an unfiltered perspective from both sides of the table, all delivered in a concise and accessible style that fits into your day.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
Podcast Episodes
20VC: Why Cursor is Dead | An AI Tsunami is Coming & You Need to Prepare | Systems of Record Become Valueless Databases with Agents | Is This The End of Tech Private Equity with Jerry Murdock, Co-Founder of Insight Partners [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:01:05
Jerry Murdock is the Co-Founder of Insight Partners, one of the most formidable growth investors of the last three decades, with over $90 billion in AUM and a portfolio that has shaped the modern software economy. Jerry…
20VC: Codex vs Claude Code vs Cursor: Who Wins, Who Loses | Will All Coding Be Automated - Do We Need PMs | The Real Bottleneck to AGI | The Three Phases of Agents and What You Need to Know with Alex Embiricos, Head of Codex at OpenAI [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03:44
Alexander Embiricos is the Head of Codex at OpenAI, leading the development of the company's flagship AI coding systems that power automated software generation, debugging and developer workflows. Under his leadership, C…
20Sales: Inside ElevenLabs $330M ARR Sales Machine | The 20x Sales Comp Plan Reps Must Hit | How to Land and Expand in a World of AI | Why Product-Market-Fit is BS, Reps Should Not Be in the Office and Outbound is King with Carles Reina [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:14:44
Carles Reina is VP of Sales at ElevenLabs, where he was the first investor and fourth employee. Carles has scaled the revenue org from Day 1 to over $330M in just 3 years. Carles is also an active investor with investmen…