Technology should serve humans during the moments that matter most in our lives. 

I co-founded Vera to help families care for their ageing parents. After building products and teams at Google and Airtasker and advising and investing in numerous startups, I am applying my experience to solve this massive, often overlooked, problem. 

As well as my work at Vera, I co-host The Startup Podcast. TSP aims to provide actionable advice to founders looking to build a Silicon Valley-style startup, wherever they are in the world.

Meet Vera: https://vera.guide

Listen to The Startup Podcast: https://tsp.show


*My connection policy (tl;dr don't sell me stuff)*

I like to use LinkedIn as a way of building a community of interesting and interested people in technology and the technology industry. If you are:

-A software developer, product manager, designer, marketer anywhere in the world
-An organisational leader or manager in engineering or at a tech company
-Otherwise heavily involved in the tech industry

I'd be happy to connect! Even if we haven't met.

Even if you're not one of those things I'm probably happy to connect, as long as you don't immediately turn around and try to sell me something. If you do, I consider that a breach of trust and will block and report you.

Yaniv Bernstein

Sunday night. I'm on a plane, making multiple nontrivial changes to my product using Claude Code Web.

Don't listen to the haters, we live in an age of miracles.

Helping people care for ageing parents | The Startup Podcast

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I had a beer with one of Australia's best founders on Friday night, running a 9-figure company that will become a unicorn in the nearish future.

He was late, and sent me a text: "I have to wait for my agents to finish."

Ten minutes later, he showed up to the pub with an open laptop. "I figured I would just bring my agents with me". Every couple of minutes he would glance over at the screen to see what they were up to.

I wasn't mad. I understood. After all, I had kicked off two changes on Claude Code Web on my phone while I had been waiting.

Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts. And here is a fact:

Every one of the best CEOs, CTOs, and business leaders I know is spending more time building than they have in years. They are AI-pilled, they are obsessed, and they are LOVING IT.

I've been in this game for 20 years now, and this does feel different. The way startups work is changing, and the change is coming from the top, driven by founders who have rediscovered the joy of building.

LinkedIn took away my 🤖 emoji, so I've updated my profile picture to include my little robot friend.

There's a club that more than 10% of Australians are members of...

...yet nobody talks about it.

...most of the members don't even know they've joined.

...and like the Hotel California, members can check out any time you like, but they can never leave.

It's Club Sandwich, the club for folks in the sandwich generation: juggling, work, kids, and ageing parents.

At Vera, Melissa and I are incredibly proud to have created the Club Sandwich podcast and community, hosted by the incomparable Sarah Macdonald.

Serious topics, discussed with warmth and humour by Sarah and our wonderful group of "Clubbers". 

Episode 1 dropped today, and is SO good. Get it in your ears now!

We're back baby!

After a couple of months off, The Startup Podcast is fresh in your feeds for 2026. With AI upending everything in startups, the discussions we are having with some of the best startup folks in the world are more important than ever.

Thanks to our marvellous sponsors .TECH Domains and Vanta for making this season possible.

Still reading? Why are you still here? Go get it in your ears now!

I know a number of you are jonesing for the 2026 season of The Startup Podcast to start.

Not long now! But in the meantime, here's a fun conversation I had with the marvellous Scotty Allen 🚌 on The Bootstrap- Startups from Scratch Podcast about what I've learned so far about building a startup in the AI era.

Tomorrow's episode of The Startup Podcast is with a founder who's started 10+ companies out of Silicon Valley, went through YC, was mentored by Paul Graham and Sam Altman, and regularly sits in rooms with Fortune 500 CEOs and unicorn founders.

She told me that this is the wildest time she has ever seen in Silicon Valley.

A few things we talked about:

The private anxiety among successful people in SF is the highest she's ever seen. 

She has a single interview question that she says now matters more than anything else on a candidate's resume.

She personally shows up at CEOs' offices and gives them three hours to build a working app. No delegating.

She told me why the era of loud, self-promoting founders raising big rounds is giving way to something much quieter.

Drops tomorrow. You do not want to miss it (trust me).

I am an early-stage investor. Active LP in emerging VC funds, and a Managing Partner at Geek Ventures, a venture capital firm that focuses on AI & Robotics by immigrant founders.

Companies I have backed at pre-seed and seed include unicorns such as Instacart, Invisible, PandaDoc, People.ai, Chainalysis, Airbyte, and Jeeves, among other 100+ companies. I am passionate about finding and empowering talented entrepreneurs from diverse backgrounds and helping them achieve their vision and impact. I am always looking for amazing founders from everywhere on Earth who solve old problems in new ways. You can pitch me at https://geek.vc/pitch.

Ihar Mahaniok

The most recent addition to our Geek Ventures family - ZeroDrift - officially launched today.

So happy to work together with Kumesh Aroomoogan and a16z speedrun!

Managing Partner at Geek Ventures. Two 100x exits; 6 of my 60 seed investments became unicorns. Investor in early stage tech companies that change the world. Seed investor in a decacorn (Instacart). Active LP.

Founder and CEO, ZeroDrift / a16z speedrun / Prev. Accern (acquired) / Forbes 30U30

No breaks post-exit. Today, ZeroDrift is out of stealth, backed by a16z speedrun, Andreessen Horowitz's flagship program for early-stage startups. 🚀 

Our mission is to make every communication compliant at the speed your firm actually moves.

The problem: Most teams catch compliance issues after a message is already sent. That worked when humans wrote a handful of emails a day. It breaks completely when AI agents can generate thousands of drafts across email, chat, and social in minutes.

ZeroDrift flips the model. We enforce SEC, FINRA, and firm-specific policies in real-time, before a single message leaves your organization, across every employee and every channel. 

But here's the bigger bet we're making: compliance is becoming a core layer of the AI stack. Every agent drafting client outreach, every model generating marketing content, every tool touching regulated communications. It all needs to be compliant by default, not patched in after the fact. ZeroDrift is the infrastructure that makes that real. 

Our founding team, Ashokkumaar L. and Anand L., led AI infrastructure at Microsoft, Google, and Goldman Sachs. After 12+ years building at the intersection of AI x financial services, I couldn't be more excited to do this again.

Huge thank you to Jonathan Lai and Troy Kirwin at a16z speedrun for backing us from day 0 (and Jennifer Li for sparking the connect). The entire Andreessen Horowitz infrastructure behind the a16z speedrun program is a force multiplier.

If you're running compliance at a financial services firm, or building with AI agents that touch regulated communications, one demo will change how you think about it. DM or email me at kumesh@zerodrift.ai → zerodrift.ai

Andrew Chen, Kenan Saleh, Joshua Lu, Samira Behrouzan, Andrew Lee, Marcus Segal, Emily Bennett, Sam Shank, Fareed Mosavat, Lejla Johnsen, Macy Mills, Emlyn Thompson, Jordan Mazer, Jordan Carver, Bella Nazzari, Lester Chen, Alec Daughtry, Tom Hammer, Kevin Wu

If you are in Boston next week, come by Girls Into VC event where Sarah Romanko from Geek Ventures is one of the judges!

Venture Capital @ Geek Ventures | Investing in Immigrant Founders

I'll be judging the pitch competition at the Girls Into VC 2026 Summit on February 28th at Harvard University!

This summit is a full-day conference designed to expand access to venture capital and gather 250+ female investors, founders, and future leaders all in one place.

In addition to the pitch competition, there will be:
• Investor-led breakout sessions tailored to three tracks: VC Skills, Founder Journey, and Career & Personal Growth
• Keynotes and fireside conversations
• Networking across every stage of the ecosystem

Speakers include: Laura (Bordewieck) Rippy, Silvia Tower, Arielle Rothman, Kimmy Scotti, Jennifer Davis, Sarah D., Jules Pieri, Jaclyn Johnson, Rosanna Gao, 👠 Emily Leahy, Kat Weaver, Joy Marcus, Sarah Young, and Lily Toto.

If you'll be attending the summit, let's meet up!

#VentureCapital #Startups #Founders #EarlyStage #Events

worth visiting if you work in sales and are in London next week!

Co-Founder & CEO @ Scalestack | Autonomous Revenue Engine. Zero Duct Tape.

🇬🇧 London calling! 

We launched our presence in this beautiful city with Thomas Hughes Ellis leading the charge to bring Scalestack to EMEA (welcome to the team, Tom!).

And to kick things off properly, I'm heading to London at the end of February with two of our events, back-to-back. 

February 24th: London CRO Roundtable. We're co-hosting the first London CRO Roundtable on the 50th floor of 22 Bishopsgate (thanks Katherine Joseph and Kenneth Kashif Thomas!). 3 hours surrounded by killer views and an exclusive group of CROs and CMOs sharing experiences and learning from each other, moderated by our very own Warren Zenna.

February 25th: First edition of our Revenue Engine Masters Dinner series across the pond. A great restaurant, ~15 GTM and Product Ops leaders, one conversation at the table, Jeffersonian-style. We'll dig into how teams are actually building revenue engines that work for them and their customers, leveraging AI in the smartest way possible. (as always, no decks, no pitches.)

If you know someone who should be in these rooms, drop a comment or send me a DM. Seats are limited for both (for real).

And thanks Kaan Anit for reminding me about the greatest album cover of all times "London Calling" by the Clash (although the picture, with bassist Paul Simonon smashing his guitar, was taken backstage at The Palladium...in New York City!)

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The Battle

Yaniv Bernstein

Ihar Mahaniok

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Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Yaniv Bernstein's LinkedIn Performance

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Performance ScoreYaniv Bernstein's LinkedIn Performance