20VC: Inside Accel's $4BN Growth Investing Machine | Cursor is Dead is Total BS: Here is Why | What Missing Rippling and ElevenLabs Taught Us | Are $2BN-$10BN IPOs Dead | Why Now is a Great Time to be Thoma Bravo with Miles Clements

20VC: Inside Accel's $4BN Growth Investing Machine | Cursor is Dead is Total BS: Here is Why | What Missing Rippling and ElevenLabs Taught Us | Are $2BN-$10BN IPOs Dead | Why Now is a Great Time to be Thoma Bravo with Miles Clements

Author: Harry Stebbings March 9, 2026 Duration: 1:03:02

Miles Clements is a Partner @ Accel where he helps to lead their growth fund. At Accel, Miles has led or invested in Atlassian, Cursor, Linear, and more. 

AGENDA: 

03:38 Where is True Alpha and Value in a World of AI 

05:10 Why it is Total BS that Cursor is Dead

07:55 Why Cursor Were Not Wrong to Build Their Own Models

09:38 What is the Upside When Investing in Cursor at $27BN?

15:12 Do Sub $10BN Outcomes Even Matter to a Fund the Size of Accel?

17:07 Losing ServiceTitan: Investing Lesson Learned…

19:55 Missing Rippling: What We Learned

27:20 What is Accel's Win Rate

30:22 How VCs Approach Ownership Has Changed

35:09 Does Miles Feel Happier or Sadder to be an Anthropic Investor Post Pentagon Debacle

36:45 What Happens to Companies Like Miro and Snyk with High Prices to Live Upto?

38:05 Why it is a Great Time to Be Thoma Bravo and Vista 

38:36 Why Founder-Led Companies Are Always Better

41:12 Why Would Any Founder Go Public Today

43:48 When is the Right Time to Take Chips Off The Table?

45:24 Should VC Firms Have Evergreen Funds and Be Responsible for Public Positions

50:28 You Can Pick Any VC to Join Accel, Who Does Miles Choose…

  

 


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…