I Got Interviewed! The Story Behind Sourcery, Alex Karp, Sam Altman Clip..

I got interviewed! Paige Finn Doherty of Behind Genius sat down with me in the yard to look back on Sourcery's insane growth for her 100th episode. Copy below is from her post, check out her podcast Seed to Harvest. (https://open.spotify.com/show/1TcSnOcmeCG82HnXwNZwM0?si=452aee7408c1489c) In just one year of full-time building Sourcery, Molly O’Shea has interviewed over 200+ founders, CEOs, execs & investors across public co's, startups, VC, growth equity, PE, hedge funds on her show, Sourcery - including Alex Karp, the CEO of Palantir ($PLTR), Palmer Luckey, CEO of Anduril, Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase. In today’s episode, we talk about how an art degree led her into venture, how an internal deal newsletter became Sourcery, and why she went all-in on X when Elon bought it. She also shares her contrarian take on funding-announcement exclusives and how a Top 100 dream-guest list landed her the Alex Karp interview that went viral. And yes, we talk about the Alex Karp sword swinging moment. My mission is to educate and inspire the next generation of CEOs and builders, and the reason why I wanted to share a conversation with Molly is she’s one of my favorite creators in the technology space!00:25 Intro01:26 Lemonade stands in Connecticut and growing up with two entrepreneur parents03:59 Drawing houses in Moleskines and teaching herself dimensions06:14 Using art to stand out08:32 Why the USC Architecture program failed her ROI test11:17 Discovering VC at Google’s 30 Weeks incubator15:12 Breaking into VC18:44 How Sourcery started as an internal deal newsletter22:53 Why she went all-in on X when Elon took over27:41 Breaking news vs. timeless content, and a funding-announcement playbook31:34 What frustrates her: companies that don’t amplify their own interviews34:21 Her Top 100 dream-guest list38:06 How the list landed Alex Karp40:55 Alex Karp: The first walking interview and the sword46:17 Jack Altman: “It’s my brother”48:28 Dry humor, Will Ferrell, and learning to smile49:53 The next list, and landing 20%+ of the first one in a year51:24 How Molly chooses guests55:41 Her vision for Sourcery: more walk-and-talks, factory tours, future list1:01:36 Molly asks Paige about Behind Genius Ventures1:05:28 What we’re each manifesting for the next 12 months

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  What was going through your head as Alex Karp is swinging his sword around?

• 0:05Molly O'Shea?

  He just starts, you know, yeah, using his skills. And I'm just, you can see my eyes, I'm like.

• 0:14Speaker 00

  That was your first time discovering that Jack and Sam Altman were brothers?

• 0:18Molly O'Shea?

  Was it, was it, oh my god.

• 0:22Speaker 00

  Was it a bet?

• 0:24Molly O'Shea?

  Paige.

• 0:25Speaker 00

  Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Seed to Harvest. My next guest is someone very special to me. In just one year of full-time building, she's interviewed over 200-plus founders, CEOs, executives, and investors across public companies, startups, VC, growth equity, PE, hedge funds, on her show, Sourcery, including Alex Karp, Palmer Lucky, the CEO of Anduril, and Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase. I'm really excited today to be sitting down with the wonderful Molly O'Shea to hear more about her transformation from an NYU art student to VC to one of tech's top podcasters, and the lessons she's learned along the way.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  Molly, welcome to the show, and thank you for joining me today.

• 1:12Molly O'Shea?

  Thank you, Paige, and thank you for this amazing setup. This is gorgeous.

• 1:17Speaker 00

  This is gorgeous.

• 1:18Molly O'Shea?

  This secret enclave, I don't know where we are.

• 1:22Speaker 00

  Unclear. So I'm excited to get into it. I actually was, I was listening to some of your podcasts. You grew up in Connecticut, and I remember you were telling me this, or not telling me, but you were telling the interviewer this story about how you would hustle in middle school, like you were super excited to sell things, make money. Can you talk a little bit about your early entrepreneurial origins? And then we'll get into the NYU art story.

• 1:51Molly O'Shea?

  Of course. So this brings me back to living at the beach in Westport, Connecticut, and starting a lemonade stand with my sister.

• 1:58Speaker 00

  No way, you're a lemonade stand?

• 1:59Molly O'Shea?

  Of course, I think every great, did you?

• 2:03Speaker 00

  No.

• 2:03Molly O'Shea?

  Then I'm not gonna say that.

• 2:04Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 2:06Molly O'Shea?

  I think like, you know, starting off entrepreneurial pursuits, like, and like being independent as a kid, and like, we grew up in Westport, Connecticut, which is gorgeous, it's right on the water, down by Campo Beach, which is like densely populated. And you could just go to the beach, and we're cute, you know, little kids, and we're like, wheelbarreling our like lemonade down to the beach. And we're hustling people, we're like, you know what? No, I think we're gonna raise prices, five dollars a cup.

• 2:37Speaker 00

  Yeah, like that, supply and demand.

• 2:39Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, exactly. So kind of a little bit of a taste there, but, you know, I grew up, and both my parents were entrepreneurs, they both had their own businesses. So I kind of shadowed them as a kid. I remember driving around with my mom while she's like building and designing homes. I'd be at my dad's office, and he had a marketing agency. And so he was working with lots of clients and doing all this stuff. And my brothers had worked for him for a little bit. Like, my sister and I always were talking about like taking over the business and that kind of thing. So even from a young age, I just like saw what it takes and what it's like building a business, and I didn't see any other reality. Like, I didn't know like what being an office worker or whatever would be. I just like know, okay, like, you're the main character, right?

• 3:24Molly O'Shea?

  Like, the world kind of conforms to you, and you get to do what you want. Like, if nails end up in the middle of the day, they just do. Not to say that I literally don't do that at all, like, I'm really bad with that stuff. I am bad at that. I will go for walks and have calls, but, no, I just like saw from a young age like that. And so I think it was just like ingrained in my DNA, seeing both my parents build their businesses and, you know, do things, make money, do all this stuff, like grow and grow and grow, and like provide for our family.

• 3:57Molly O'Shea?

  That, and so it was like the only thing I knew. And I started doing my own little things, like in middle school. Like, I remember, I would like.

• 4:07Speaker 00

  When did you start painting?

• 4:09Molly O'Shea?

  I started, so I started art as a young, like a young kid. Like, I probably, yeah, I probably had always done it. Like, my great-grandfather was a painter. My, my mom's side of the family, they're all artists. Or at least like practice art. My brother's an artist, he's really talented, my mom's an artist, and then she did the homes thing. And I naturally had that gift too. And I started, and this was like funny, and like my like act to whatever it might be, will probably be like building homes and designing homes. But ever since I was little, I would like draw houses and like books. And I have like pens, if not like 20 plus of these like little black, you know, those like moleskin books?

• 4:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:55Molly O'Shea?

  And I like taught myself dimensions, like.

• 4:59Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 4:59Molly O'Shea?

  And I, I give myself credit, because I think that's pretty fucking cool.

• 5:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:03Molly O'Shea?

  I taught myself how to build a house with 3D and like dimensions and like all this stuff, and like make it right. And I would build these like little towns, and I'd make like these books full of towns, and.

• 5:14Speaker 00

  That's so cool.

• 5:14Molly O'Shea?

  So cute, it's like really cute, because you can go back, like my mom has a bin. I hope she didn't throw them out, but she has like a bin of like all of my old like books, and like drawing books. And so I did that, and then like, you know, down the line, I started doing painting, and more drawing, and like portraits, and I obviously went to college for that. But like, it really like started with like drawing houses.

• 5:36Speaker 00

  Wow, that's so cool, I didn't know that. I knew you wanted to be an architect, like you were considering that. And then you started doing commissions in the homes that your mom was designing. Can, what inspired you to go to college for art? How'd you make that decision?

• 5:51Molly O'Shea?

  Because it was gonna get me.

• 5:54Molly O'Shea?

  Honestly, like, it's like a fair point, but, I mean, like, I went to school, it like, at a very competitive school.

• 6:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 6:04Molly O'Shea?

  All my friends were taking AP courses, like going and, you know, studying with a tutor for fun, like competitive, you know, it was just like that kind of dynamic. And I was like, what? What is going on? Like, you know, I'm a competitive person, but like I have to like inherently feel like comfortable and competitive in some sort of nature. And like, it just like wasn't studying, like I knew I was really good at art, so I just put all my time and attention to that. I was taking like courses at Silvermine Art Center, which is in like Norwalk, and I would go there after school. And I remember this because like, I would, you know, like in the fall, and we're approaching fall, and it's gonna get dark really early. Like, I would go to this place, this like art center after school and stuff,

• 6:49Molly O'Shea?

  and do many different classes from photography to drawing, like figure drawing, which is like really important for learning the skill of drawing, and like sculpture and all this kind of stuff. But once I knew that that was obviously my talent, I was like, well, I obviously gotta use that to get into school. If you know your asymmetric advantage, you have to pour into that, and then use it to get into, because like everybody were going into college, right? It's like Charlotte, who has been helping me, she's 16, 17, she's like applying to go to college right now. And she's like phenomenally well-educated, she has so many great extracurriculars, right? And so like, she has like her own path, but like I'm seeing through that process, it's like,

• 7:34Molly O'Shea?

  you know, like probably the kids at her school, like a lot of these kids are like packing in all these things, and it's like, what makes you different?

• 7:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 7:41Molly O'Shea?

  And so what made me different was the whole art thing, and then like pursuing like entrepreneurial things, whether it was making commissioned paintings for my mom's clients, doing graphic design on my own. In middle school, I would like, this was like probably not legal, but like,

• 8:00Molly O'Shea?

  pick the corners, these like metal corners off of the chorus folders, and I'd make little pendants into them, I'd go to the like, the chain store, and I'd buy chains, and I'd make necklaces, and I'd sell the necklaces. But like, I just loved the process of like making something, like refining it and selling it, making it, refining it, selling it, and like making like money to in order to fuel the next thing. And it's just like this generative like cash flow process.

• 8:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:25Molly O'Shea?

  And it's creative, it's like fun, it's exciting, and I just like kept on doing that. But for art, it was like really clear, like, you know, art was my thing. I, before college, like also did this summer architecture course at USC.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah.

• 8:40Molly O'Shea?

  Because I didn't know, like, do I want to be a creative director like my mom was? Or do I want to go into architecture? And I did this program, and it's like nine hours a day, it's intensive, like, architecture is really difficult, like it's, you have to do like five to six years of school.

• 8:57Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:57Molly O'Shea?

  And for me, how I calculate things is like, it doesn't have like an efficient ROI. Like, will I be able to achieve what I want to achieve in the amount of time? Or will this like actually take longer than I think?

• 9:11Speaker 00

  I love that, an efficient ROI.

• 9:13Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, and like, what will the actual options be for me at the end of this? Like, it's not for me. And so I did that, and it was like fucking awesome, like it was really cool, and I loved it. And I love architecture, and I love home design, and I love like buildings and all this kind of stuff.

• 9:29Speaker 00

  There's a but coming.

• 9:30Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah.

• 9:30Speaker 00

  But.

• 9:31Molly O'Shea?

  But. Hear me out. You do this for like, and like at USC, right? I would be in the studio, probably making little like, you know,

• 9:41Speaker 00

  Models.

• 9:42Molly O'Shea?

  Models and like drawings and you know, by hand, like all day and like watching the kids go to the football games and all the social things. And I'd just be like, you know, slaving away in there. And I was like, nah, it's probably not for me. And then also, this is, this is another thing you probably heard from that podcast is like, I found out you don't even make that much money.

• 10:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:01Molly O'Shea?

  Like, okay, so you pour all this money into the education, all this time that you can't take back. And then you don't actually make that much money? Like, that doesn't make any sense to me, none. So like, I just wanted to like, figure out, okay, I could get myself into school for art. I had amazing portfolio.

• 10:20Speaker 00

  Good to go.

• 10:21Molly O'Shea?

  I like won all these awards, like state awards, like all this kind of stuff. Like, I'm really fucking good at art, like I am. And, uh, and so I used that to get into college and NYU was the college. I went there and I went to like, one of their like orientation days and uh, what stood out to me and like plug for NYU. It's like, of course they have Gallatin where you can pretend like, you know, you want to study grass and like, you know, uh, like, I don't know, wood and um, uh, or like, you know, there were kids there that were theater majors that ended up in finance. And then there were like, you know, athletes that ended up in like marketing or you know, you just like saw like dimensionality.

• 11:01Speaker 00

  Crossover.

• 11:01Molly O'Shea?

  And people could try things and do lots of stuff. So like, for me, that was perfect. It was like, okay, I know how to get into like, I don't know how to get in school. I have a, you know, a skill set or like something that could get me into the school. And then I get in and then I can figure it out as I go, because I have no idea.

• 11:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. Okay, so I want to switch gears a bit to talk about like the skills and figuring it out. Can you talk a little bit about the first time you heard about venture capital?

• 11:26Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, so I think I was in my sophomore year of college. I was at Google 30 Weeks, which was their incubator for designers. I was a project manager there. It was a very small team. There were probably like four or five of us. And um, I had my own company at the time and it was called Blue and Tuck. It was a sports bra company.

• 11:45Speaker 00

  Cool.

• 11:45Molly O'Shea?

  It used technical fabrics, like people are all about space now, but I was about space back then.

• 11:53Speaker 00

  So you're using like space textiles.

• 11:55Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, so it was like a NASA derived like fabric. It was silver ionic plated. It, it blocked RF shielding, like radio frequencies and stuff because like the interior liner, like, this was at the time when like phones weren't that big. And this was just like a functional like product. I made a sports bra, you could put your phone in.

• 12:12Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 12:12Molly O'Shea?

  And I was like, okay, but like you don't want any potential harm, radiation, breast cancer, bad. So like, I went on this huge like, you know, study and trying to understand material science. So I did that and I was like, well, at first I was talking to my dad and we're like, we have to invent a fabric. Turns out it's usually probably exists, right? Um, so it did. And like, then I just like found all these suppliers of it and like, this was awesome. And so anyways, I got into Google 30 Weeks um, uh, as a project manager because of that. And like the knack for like building businesses and the creativity, because it was for designers. Um, and uh, you know, building a business is hard. And I wanted to be exposed to as many as possible.

• 12:56Molly O'Shea?

  And there was a venture capitalist on the team. And once I understood what that job was.

• 13:01Speaker 00

  You're kind of like some, the serious start term.

• 13:04Molly O'Shea?

  This is awesome. This is awesome. This is gotta be an easy job.

• 13:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:09Molly O'Shea?

  All you do, it can't be that hard, like not at all. For me, no. And so like, I know you're laughing because you understand. Um, but it's like a real reality, like, you know, um, I saw this person, like what you do as a venture capitalist seems very simple at, at its base level. It's you find companies, you research them, you do a lot of diligence. Um, and you choose which ones you want to invest in. And then over time, like you get to see them grow. You get to see all the mistakes and challenges, like, um, hopefully they're like really good teams. Um, sometimes, you know, you have to learn hard lessons and then you make a return maybe one day. Hopefully that's the goal, right? Sometimes.

• 13:54Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 13:56Molly O'Shea?

  Um, and so once I saw that, I was like, oh, obviously like, if I want to build a business, you know, I'm in, I was probably like 18, 17, 18, 19 at the time, right? Like young and I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I did not have the risk appetite to actually go all in. I'm like, I don't have any money, like I don't have any money, like.

• 14:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:19Molly O'Shea?

  There's no, like, I am working like 10 jobs right now and I go to NYU and I have to live in an apartment in New York City as like a kid, right? Like, this is so expensive and I'm like eating cafeteria food, like, and like frozen food from Trader Joe's. And uh, like, there's no way I can like, just do something for free for a while. And like, just bask in unemployment, right? Like, it just doesn't make sense. And so I was like, logical sense, I need to be a VC. And so I can learn all this stuff.

• 14:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 14:50Molly O'Shea?

  Invest into these companies, make money. Obviously you don't make that much money as a VC, uh, unless like, you know, you're like a GP somewhere. Um, or you have major exits. But you know, the goal would be like, in my 30s, maybe I use all those learnings to start my own company and do that, so.

• 15:12Speaker 00

  So after graduating, you have the, you had this experience, you encountered venture capital. You're like, I want to go try this out in the real world. Um, can you share a bit more about your experience working in a family office and like continuing to gravitate towards venture and startups?

• 15:26Molly O'Shea?

  So after graduating and getting into VC, you know, it's like, it's a new world. Like even learning about and everything, it's a new world. Like you'd think just because someone has a fund or like a name of a fund, that the fund exists. Like, I really have no, like, I'm just learning about this. Like, I don't know much about the industry. I don't know which firms are good, which firms like have been around for a while, how it works. I didn't know you could just make them and uh, like, you know, what the, the process is for building them up. Obviously there are some long dated legacy funds and like solidified names. But for whatever reason, like, I just thought those were like, you know, not, I would, there's, there'd be no way.

• 16:09Molly O'Shea?

  With an art degree, even though I like finished up my credits really early and then shifted over to like entrepreneurship and business classes and took, uh, I took graduate, I took a graduate class in college, which was really cool. And all this stuff, I was like, there's no way like they would hire me and whatever. Anyway, so I get into VC, um, I'm working for a growth equity fund. We're doing pre-IPO investments, um, all of the hard, you know, spreadsheet, modeling, decks, research, all that good stuff, super fun. Like, it just is such a, like a wild puzzle and like satisfying puzzle to kind of unravel and uncover and figure out like, do we want to do this business? Like, do we want to get into this?

• 16:54Molly O'Shea?

  Does it have like long tail? Like, do we think there's exit, like all that kind of stuff? And so I got obsessed with it. I just thought it was a really satisfying intellectual journey and um, process. And of course, like at the time, I just didn't have the capacity to like, start my own company. I know what it takes. Um, so I just like, I started on this journey and like, you know, the first couple of funds I worked for were emerging managers. Um, I was joking, but you know, if you looked at my LinkedIn, like I probably changed funds like every year or so. And like, those were for some macro factors, like one of the funds couldn't raise another fund. And I was let go, like as a first job out of college, that's wild. I was like, oh my God, harsh reality check.

• 17:40Molly O'Shea?

  But like, I learned really soon, like the world, like you can't depend on it. Like, you have to always be on your toes and like, you know, use your skills to apply to the next thing and like what you want to get out of it. And I was like fortunate enough to get another job, another VC job. In a world where it's really hard to get VC jobs, like I just kept on being able to do it because like I had this really great skillset. I could find companies, I could diligence them, like I had this really good, I know people are like no pattern recognition in VC or pattern recognition. It's like this whole like debate, but it's like, no, like if you can find companies like, and you can understand what trends are going on, you can be ahead of the curve. You can kind of package that together for your team and help them become more knowledgeable.

• 18:20Molly O'Shea?

  So you can find the gaps, whether it's like things you missed, things you want to find, like where there could be a sweet spot, something that's overlooked. Like, those are really important. And like, for me, I'm just like really good at finding lots of stuff. Like, I can find anything, right Brett? Anyways, so.

• 18:39Molly O'Shea?

  Inside, inside story.

• 18:44Molly O'Shea?

  But like, you know, it's a really cool process and like that was when I started Sorcery.

• 18:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. Okay. So you, yeah, tell me about the origin story of Sorcery.

• 18:53Molly O'Shea?

  So Sourcery started when I was working at TMV. They're a fund in New York. They're great. The partners are Soraya and Marina Haji-Pateras. Marina comes from a really cool background. Believe it or not, her family comes from the shipping industry and her name is Marina. She's really cool. So they have like this, like an awesome strategy and you know, they were doing a lot of consumer, early stage kind of stuff. Stuff that I wasn't doing yet and like health and future of work. This was their whole strategy. They're great. And like understand marketing and brand and all this kind of stuff. And so when I was there, small team, like I forced my way into that fund, by the way, like there's never been a fund or a job where I did not force myself.

• 19:33Molly O'Shea?

  Like, except upfront. But like, but anyways, so like when I was there, you know, small team, I was aggregating all this information. I was making it easy for them. People always say, if you want to work for someone, find the jobs that they're doing, they don't want to do. Or find something that helps them and lets them see like five steps forward. And so I've always tried to make myself that person and to do that. And so I did that by starting Sorcery. It was originally just like, you know, a newsletter for our team. And so I would go through all of the deals of the week. At first it was every day. So I would go through every day, whether it was like Fortune, Pro Rata, like all these like FinSmees, I don't know what it's called.

• 20:18Molly O'Shea?

  You know, like, you know, like you just, all these places just great. What companies are being funded? What are getting acquired? What are the exits? What are the IPOs? What funds are getting created?

• 20:29Speaker 00

  You're doing this every day, like internally?

• 20:32Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah. And I would like, you know, set aside an hour, maybe before work, whatever. Ever since I was young, I'd wake up super early. So I have plenty of time during the day to like do more stuff. But, so I was doing this like every day and then at one point it was like, ah, this is too much. I'm going to do this once a week. And I had left and gone to New York Life Ventures. And once I went to New York Life, I, I published it publicly because it was just like an internal thing. And that just like caught like, you know, by organic word of mouth. I have zero clue. I don't know.

• 21:09Speaker 00

  Love that.

• 21:09Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah. It could have been eight years ago or two. I have, I don't remember. But like in my mind, I'm still 23. I have no idea.

• 21:18Speaker 00

  I love that. It's a great age.

• 21:19Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah. So I, yeah, I just like, I started publishing it publicly and like by word of mouth and friends. Like it was a really valuable resource because it was curated.

• 21:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:31Molly O'Shea?

  Like I knew which companies were good. There were signaling, right? Ones that could still be interesting and the signaling by means of like investors or amount of money or like time between rounds. Like those are things you can see optically.

• 21:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:44Molly O'Shea?

  And I also just like started storing a bank of information in my brain, right? Of like all these companies over time. It's like you, you have a better sense of which ones, if you have that like constant exposure and top of mind.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  Was there one where you could kind of see like patterns emerging and be like, this one's going to be, this one's going to hit?

• 22:05Molly O'Shea?

  Definitely not OpenAI.

• 22:07Speaker 00

  Really?

• 22:07Molly O'Shea?

  I don't think I even saw that, like ever. Did you? Like that came out of nowhere.

• 22:13Speaker 00

  Yeah, I guess I kind of did.

• 22:14Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, but I feel like, you know, I think like Stripe was really obvious.

• 22:21Molly O'Shea?

  And these are really cool because like they're now companies that I've interviewed. You know, I've been tracking them for seven years. That's crazy. And Coinbase, like, I mean, there were like a handful of these companies that continued to grow. And like I've been watching Flexport for like years and years and years. Figma, like, you know, a bunch of these companies I've interviewed now. It's really awesome.

• 22:45Speaker 00

  Okay. I have a tangential question on like spotting companies and tracking talent. It's like, at what point did you start committing more heavily to like Twitter X as a platform? Because I feel like you've grown really dramatically on that platform.

• 23:01Molly O'Shea?

  This is a very clear answer.

• 23:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:03Molly O'Shea?

  So it was when Elon took it over.

• 23:06Speaker 00

  Really? Okay.

• 23:07Molly O'Shea?

  Yes. I just, like, I had started doing some, like, I, I didn't, this was all organic. Like I had no reason. I wasn't trying to make like a million dollars off of a newsletter. Like I was not in the newsletter pump marketing game. Like that was not a thing for me.

• 23:22Speaker 00

  You're like, I'm writing a newsletter for my friends who've curated companies.

• 23:25Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, it's a resource for work. And so I was using it as a utility. I wasn't using it to like, you know, create like, not like garbage, but like, you know, clickbait and whatever. Even though like I will make stuff that is funny because I think it is funny clickbait, but it's still valuable information. That's kind of like the irony. So anyways, so like I had started doing a little bit of like marketing and brand building. And this was probably when I was at upfront and like putting it on, and I had never done this before. I was putting it on LinkedIn. Turns out if you put something on LinkedIn, people see it.

• 23:57Speaker 00

  People do see it.

• 23:58Molly O'Shea?

  They subscribe. It grows. Like most of my newsletter subscribers had come from LinkedIn.

• 24:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 24:03Molly O'Shea?

  And I like made a little icon and everything. But anyways, huge fan of Elon. I've obviously been watching Elon's companies throughout the history of time and see how just purely relentless he is as a operator and as like an inventor and as like a technologist. And so I had read like the books on him, the Walter Isaacson book, like, you know, he just studies someone for a period amount of time. It's like he distinctively places and like uses a playbook for all of his companies. It's like, I don't have any money to buy a Tesla, but I'm sure like if I had a Tesla, like I would understand like how he built it.

• 24:46Molly O'Shea?

  Like vertical integration and all that stuff. Like he really like will be maniacal about creating processes and then like deleting things that are inefficient. So I was like, okay. There's definitely some game theory there. Once he took over X, I was like, game on. Like this is going to be a game. It's going to be some sort of like game of words or whatever. Like, you know, I hadn't studied any of the other. I don't care about social media. Like I'm really not like a social media person. I'm sure like I had gotten like into it just through like Instagram and stuff, but like, it's not like I'm like addicted. I just don't have that kind of connection to it. And once he took over X, it was like, oh, this is obviously going to be a game.

• 25:28Molly O'Shea?

  And I'm like a really great writer and a creative and whatever. And I was working at a fund at the time. That was an RIA. So like I couldn't post anything. Like that could have been anything related to our portfolio or companies or whatever. So it had to be PC. Like I don't want to get canceled. Like it was all professional and like made sure it was like on the mark. And so like I used that as a playbook to like game Twitter and like grow. And so I had some advantages.

• 25:55Speaker 00

  Tell me more about that. I'm like, I'm so interested. This is like the first time hearing about the, like the reason for your transition is super interesting. So I'm interested. Yeah.

• 26:04Molly O'Shea?

  And like Twitter has been a huge part of my growth. So like I love it. Like X now, sorry. But, but no, like this was a really important part. Like they open source the algorithms. I'd study that and I'd use it.

• 26:20Speaker 00

  You would go into like the developer docs and study it?

• 26:22Molly O'Shea?

  No, I would like read the summaries like a normal person. I'm not reading developer docs.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  And they're like, I'm just imagining you and they're like really studying that.

• 26:33Molly O'Shea?

  Okay. Press command. No, I don't even know what the terms are. But like, you know, like it would show like how they weight certain things. Like, you know, I'm a good writer. So I can understand like what is a good psychological hook. Obviously like these aren't, I'm not like trying to like, you know, like get you or like that kind of thing. But I'm like crafting good stories. Like it's all about storytelling, which is the same with startups, which is the same with fundraising, which is the same with anything in life, sales. And so like I just started to learn how to like tell really good stories in 140 characters or 280 characters. And more specifically in the first line.

• 27:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. Where did, where did breaking come from?

• 27:17Molly O'Shea?

  I don't know, but I obviously abused that. And like, I think I get, I think I get penalized every now and again for that. Cause like, they specifically said that they would like ban.

• 27:27Speaker 00

  Like we're banning breaking.

• 27:29Molly O'Shea?

  And they're like, if you use it too much, like, we're gonna down rank your content. Well, okay, so I'll just use that for like funding announcements and stuff. Sometimes I'm just like breaking like.

• 27:41Molly O'Shea?

  Page interviews Molly.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  No, I can't wait to post that. I guess my, maybe one of my questions there is uh, kind of like the balance of breaking news versus like uh, more thematic or like timeless content that isn't as grounded on milestones. Like, how do you think about in your interviews, a balance of the two? Cause I feel like you do a great job of that.

• 28:07Molly O'Shea?

  Great question, and this is a constant battle, whether it's like with scheduling or just like anything. So what I saw very early on with the podcast and what broke it out was timing it with announcements. Which goes back to the newsletter, it goes back to all the deals, the funding announcements, which was like a complete obvious, right? It was like, I overlooked this, but then once I started like, you know, posting when a company raised funding.

• 28:38Speaker 00

  Put all their resources towards like highlighting that interview of yours and be like, everyone, please go watch the sorcery episode.

• 28:45Molly O'Shea?

  Yes, but like, there's also like a media storm around it.

• 28:47Speaker 00

  And so this is why like, oh, how do we cover it? And it's like, oh, Molly's interview, like according to sorcery.

• 28:53Molly O'Shea?

  Exactly. And like, I'll have all these different outlets to put it out, but like, also, this is like my hot take. It's like, people who do exclusives or like set a day for exclusives for media around an announcement are shooting themselves in the foot. The internet does not, the internet doesn't work like that.

• 29:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:11Molly O'Shea?

  The internet, you have to post as much as possible, like to some capacity, obviously with quality at hand, like because there's so many different things going on at all times. It's like every day, there's another anthropic or open AI kind of thing, not like breaks the internet or a model release or whatever. And so now it's like, funding announcements, it's not really, like, you have to give a reason for people to care. And sometimes you have to brute force will yourself into the world.

• 29:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:39Molly O'Shea?

  And so like, people have obviously learned this on Twitter and like people, or sorry, X, and like have gotten in trouble with it or just don't do it well because.

• 29:48Speaker 00

  Like the paid partnerships.

• 29:49Molly O'Shea?

  The paid partnerships, the spam posting, like it has to be authentic, like your team should be reposting it. And by the way, like, yeah, so like early on, like I found that this announcement format worked really well because you time it well. It's timely, it's like news, people pay attention, it's novel, it's like, it's something that people haven't seen before and it's important. And people love numbers and they love, you know, excitement and FOMO too. Like FOMO plays a big part of this, especially through VCs, like that's why people are reading the newsletter and watching these, like what deals are going on, what they missed out on, who raised a round without like, you know, letting them know.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  Anti portfolio.

• 30:24Molly O'Shea?

  Exactly. So like, that's a big part of it. And so like, we started to time it around these things. And so one of the big, like, I would say, the best practices for funding announcements. You've heard it here.

• 30:38Speaker 00

  You heard it here.

• 30:40Molly O'Shea?

  Like, sure, if you want to pick an exclusive, like Bloomberg or whatever, do that, but like, don't, don't time out the rest of the media market. You're really not doing yourself a service, like you can get, you know, Wall Street Journal, you can do all these things, maybe get all of them. But make sure that each one of them is like distinctive in some sort of capacity. They all write the same thing roughly, so whatever, but like, um, you know, it does matter to have, you know, as many eyeballs as something because it's like with any sort of advertising. It's like, you won't notice that billboard until you've seen it 20 times. Maybe on your 50th time, you'll actually notice it and read it, right?

• 31:20Molly O'Shea?

  It's like, so like with news and then announcements, it's like, okay, your investors retweeted it, your co-founders did, maybe you had some friends and all this kind of stuff. And so once you start seeing it a little bit more, it's really important. So I get super disappointed, um, sometimes this happens where people will ask to do, like this upsets me. People will ask to do an interview. You know, it's like, is people will ask to do an interview and like, they get really excited and all this stuff and they're like really ready. And like, I put so much time and attention to this, like Brett's here, we have all this equipment, like we do all this stuff. We, we really go out of our way. I only have like so many slots a month to do interviews that are expensive, it requires editing, it requires travel, all this kind of stuff.

• 32:01Molly O'Shea?

  And so these mean a lot to me, like I find it, this is my favorite thing, this is my job, like I love this. And so part of the whole thing is like, with the interview, I share all the files afterwards, I share the posts, you know, I share the file before even. And I'm like, if there's any clips you want, let me know, we'll make them, like, we'll make sure it's like a really great package for you. And um, like, we obviously want it to benefit you and so get as many people to see it as possible, right? Like, that's the goal.

• 32:30Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 32:30Molly O'Shea?

  Expand the reach, especially with the newsletter that has investors, LPs, family offices, many high net worth individuals and operators and talent and people that are interested in tech, people that are looking for jobs, like all this kind of stuff. And so just the one thing that upsets me is when like, the company doesn't engage once we put it out.

• 32:52Speaker 00

  That's tough.

• 32:53Molly O'Shea?

  That happens, like, and it happens, like, when people request it. And it happens with huge companies too, like ones that I admire. And we make, then like, we'll be strategizing, you know, where we're doing it, coordinate the date, coordinate the location, all this stuff. And it's like, you couldn't even like repost, like just a simple repost or like a reply. And so that's the one thing I don't get. Um, and some people, I get it, like are like finicky with their socials and like just don't do that. But it's like, still, it's like, if I'm gonna try to change anything today, I'm gonna try to change that. Because you should absolutely be supporting people as much as you can in your career and for their careers. And like, I try to do that as much as possible, especially with these interviews.

• 33:36Molly O'Shea?

  And like these new companies, these later companies, people that are trying to show their new products, all this kind of stuff, that's the point. I'm not a media, like, I'm not like a journalist, I'm not like trying to make, I'm like genuinely trying to support startups. Like, I love tech. And so that's kind of behind it.

• 33:52Speaker 00

  I love that. Well, thank you for sharing your frustration. I'm sorry that has happened to you. It's like, uh, it's very clear how much work that you put into the, yeah, the researching, the scheduling, the editing. Um, I feel like the interview itself is like, I don't know, like you should be spending like an additional 90 plus percent on marketing. Well, that interview after the.

• 34:14Molly O'Shea?

  That is a really, I mean, that's a good point, like maybe like 10% of the work goes into before the interview.

• 34:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 34:19Molly O'Shea?

  90% is afterwards.

• 34:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. Um, okay, so we're, we're in the land of manifestation, we were talking about this before. You posted an image of your top 100 dream podcast guests.

• 34:33Speaker 00

  I have a question I'm really excited to ask, but I'm gonna ask this first. How many of those have you interviewed so far? And I heard you might have a new list coming out.

• 34:44Molly O'Shea?

  You did, you did hear some things.

• 34:47Speaker 00

  I did hear some things, a little very.

• 34:51Molly O'Shea?

  I had this idea last year. I don't know, it really just was one of those like, you know, I'm just like constantly thinking of things, creating things of like, who do I want on? Like, what do I do, blah, blah, blah. And so I like quickly made this list, at first it was like top 20, and then it was like top 35, and then it was like 40, 50, 60, 80. All right, fuck it, let's go to 100. I can't, like, it's so hard, cause you're like, like, the initial process of pro, like, like, it just, it was short, so

• 35:28Molly O'Shea?

  I'm sure if I had more time, I would have thought of that person that I'd been thinking of the whole time that I forgot, right? But um, I had put out this list and it was awesome, I put it out around, this time last year, it was probably in October. And it like, people love lists, like.

• 35:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, they love a list, and then like, wait, you forgot about this person, you forgot about that person. Hey, at person tagged, you should go on Molly's podcast.

• 35:54Molly O'Shea?

  Exactly. And like, what I've learned is people are super helpful and supportive too, like.

• 36:00Speaker 00

  As long as they know what you need, you're like, they're like, I have a quest, I'm ready for my quest.

• 36:05Molly O'Shea?

  Put it in front of people, they will be like, all right, or if they're a VC, they'll be like, I can be helpful.

• 36:15Molly O'Shea?

  So uh, and some of them are VCs, and so shout out to the VCs out there. Um, but, so I put out this list, I put out like, you know, sorcery top 100 when it came out. And uh, immediately like caught storm, people loved it, they're like looking at it, they're like, oh, like Dylan Field's a great call, oh my God, yeah, Bill Ackman, like why is Elon on there twice? Why, yes, and I also put Trey Stevens on there twice, and I was like, that was unintentional, but I ended up interviewing Trey Stevens like three times after that. So maybe it did work.

• 36:48Speaker 00

  Like he was on purpose.

• 36:49Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, yeah. And um, you know, I got a lot of great reception, like, I'm pretty sure like Robin Hood's team like had reached out to me after that. A lot of people just wanted to help and um, Palantir's team was like, it wasn't their team, but it was my friend there.

• 37:05Speaker 00

  I'm so excited to talk about.

• 37:08Molly O'Shea?

  My friend there, uh, was like, yo Molly, what the fuck? Like, uh, where, where is Alex Karp on this list? Like, you're a huge fan, like, what are you doing? Like, we've talked about this, you missed him. I'm like, oh, you're right, like, cause like, when I started doing it, I was like, Forbes Midas list, like, I was thinking investors. And like, you know, some of like the founders and stuff, but like, I was like, oh wow, I missed an entire. Personality, you know.

• 37:40Speaker 00

  But okay, maybe to the point is like if you leave an important name out, people are gonna be like, of course, this person should be on there. And then it's an even stronger draw.

• 37:50Molly O'Shea?

  Exactly. So you're correct Paige, and that's what's happened. I got that text and then like, you know, uh, maybe I need to revise this list. So I made a revised list, and I added a 1B to Ivanka's 1A. And the 1B was Alex Karp. And so my friend over at Palantir, Eliano, like, was like dope, like, great list, I'm gonna send it over to Karp, we'll see how this goes. Turns out, it went well. Karp really liked the list. He was like, this actually like, this makes sense. Like, I like the ordering, like, put Palmer before Marc Andreessen, like, you know, just like all these kinds of things. And, um,

• 38:34Molly O'Shea?

  and so he was like, I think we could, I think we could probably get him on, like, he's interested, he thinks it like, looks good. Like, he has no idea who you are.

• 38:42Molly O'Shea?

  You know, the list looks good.

• 38:43Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 38:43Molly O'Shea?

  Um, and, uh, like, maybe three days later, I get the call and I'm like, I don't know where I was, I was probably like, recording somewhere in like, San Francisco or something, and

• 38:56Molly O'Shea?

  he's like, look, I think we got the interview, like, our earnings is coming out, and there's this new biography written about Alex Karp, philosopher in the valley, and I think you should interview him on that, like, you know, with someone-

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Like, timing it with an announcement.

• 39:13Molly O'Shea?

  But like, with someone like Alex Karp, or anyone, right, like, that is of that stature, and like, you need a reason, you can't just do, like, I'm sure you can do, like, you, but there has to be some sort of novelty or uniqueness to the interview and a reason to do it, so, uh, that was the reason, it's like, let's interview him on this biography that's being written about him, like, look, like, we'll send you, uh, a book beforehand, like, read it, and then we'll get to it, and so, I think I read the book in like, two days. Actually, phenomenal book, really interesting, and it was written by an author who was like, from the New York Times, and

• 39:51Molly O'Shea?

  wouldn't necessarily be aligned with, you know, Alex Karp, Palantir, Peter Thiel, like, the whole kind of world, um, so it gave a bit of a weighted, objective point of view, and, you know, it goes into like, his childhood and upbringing, and his mom's an artist, and like, you know, up into like, you know, uh, getting his PhD, living in Germany, doing all this stuff, and then getting brought in by Palantir, uh, sorry, by Peter Thiel, Palantir and Peter Thiel, same word. Anyways, um, to, to, to lead Palantir, and so, it was a great book, and like, read it, whatever, and had to be in New York to interview him in like, five days, right?

• 40:34Molly O'Shea?

  And so this was a really quick turnaround. Don't know what I'm gonna wear, don't know where it's gonna be, don't know what's gonna happen, and so, I get to New York and I get a call like, the day before, and, you know, I get the, you know, Palantir's team's gonna provide the video service and production, and the crew was awesome, and there was just one,

• 40:58Molly O'Shea?

  there was one caveat.

• 41:00Speaker 00

  One but.

• 41:01Molly O'Shea?

  It had to be a walking.

• 41:04Speaker 00

  Oh, interesting.

• 41:05Molly O'Shea?

  Tour, like, a walking interview.

• 41:07Speaker 00

  We gotta walk?

• 41:08Molly O'Shea?

  Yes, so if you haven't seen,

• 41:11Speaker 00

  Oh, I've-

• 41:12Molly O'Shea?

  Alex Karp is not the best at sitting.

• 41:16Molly O'Shea?

  Like, he's not the best at sitting still, like, he's a very energetic person, just like, gets bubbled up with passion and excitement and everything, and, and so just is not great at sitting still.

• 41:27Speaker 00

  Was that when you first walking tours then?

• 41:29Molly O'Shea?

  What?

• 41:29Speaker 00

  Like, had you done a walking interview before?

• 41:31Molly O'Shea?

  No, this was the first one.

• 41:32Speaker 00

  Oh, okay, so he kinda kicked off like, a walking tour series?

• 41:35Molly O'Shea?

  Oh, he like, literally cascaded the, the, the whole sorcery, like, lore and like, thing, so, like, a lot of credit to that interview, like, I can't speak highly enough about the impact and the reach that that created.

• 41:54Speaker 00

  We gotta talk about the sword.

• 41:55Molly O'Shea?

  Okay.

• 41:56Speaker 00

  What? What hap- like, what was going through your head as Alex Karp is swinging a sword around?

• 42:06Molly O'Shea?

  So, uh, that was like, totally unexpected.

• 42:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, it was.

• 42:11Molly O'Shea?

  Before the interview, uh, also totally normal guy, like, before the interview, like, Eliano was like, hey, like, you know, he just wants to get to know you beforehand, like, you know, like, we chatted for like, fifteen, twenty minutes about like, who I am, like, what I'm doing, like, all that kinda stuff, just so he's like, who the hell is this person, right? I didn't really exist, right, in that capacity, but, you know, sorcery had just started, so we had this, uh, like, just kind of like, catch up, like, chat beforehand, and then we just started, and, um, I think Eliano might have mentioned before the interview, like, you know, he, you know, he obviously does like, the dead hangs thing, so like, there was like, one of those in the office, and he has these quirks, like, he's a big personality, and he's very much himself, which is great, right?

• 42:54Molly O'Shea?

  And so he also just, like, has swords in his offices, and like,

• 42:58Speaker 00

  As one does.

• 42:59Molly O'Shea?

  You know, just as a guy, right?

• 43:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 43:01Molly O'Shea?

  They just like swords, and, um, and so like, he was like, well, at the end, like, maybe I can find it and we can like, do a photo, and I was like, okay. And so, it's so funny, cause you can watch the video, and like, towards the end of the interview, you could see Eliano running behind us with the sword, like, trying to get us, like, and like, be, like, be ready, right? And so we're ending the interview, and, um, and I thought we were just gonna take a picture, and so, their video crew was thankfully videotaping this, because the video is out, right? And, um, you know, he's wearing like, a ski outfit, I'm wearing a dress, like, I'm, I'm ready to go for like, you know,

• 43:41Molly O'Shea?

  a public company CEO, like, interview, right, like, I'm, like, I'm in a dress and heels, and I'm trying to look professional and all that kinda stuff. And so he's in his like, you know, ski outfit, it's a little bit casual, and, um, he has a sword, and I thought we were gonna take a picture, and then he starts, like, he just starts, you know,

• 44:01Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 44:01Molly O'Shea?

  Using his skills, and I'm just, you can see my eyes, I'm like,

• 44:07Molly O'Shea?

  what's going on? And then, the funny part is like, Eliano was like, six feet in front of him. So when he's doing this, like, Eliano's like, oh my god! What is going on? And all of this is like, this is not, no one thought that was gonna happen.

• 44:25Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 44:26Molly O'Shea?

  And it became a meme, and so without that, like, really-

• 44:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, you got like, 4.3?

• 44:31Molly O'Shea?

  Four, it was like, it's, I think it's like, that clip, okay, so, the interview itself shot out of no, like, it seriously went totally viral because of this, and it was the first time, like, I had gotten viral hits for like, million views, two million, like, all that kinda stuff, but this was like, escape velocity, this took over the internet for like, two whole days, like, maybe three, like, crazy, almost a whole week, let's round up, and so-

• 44:58Speaker 00

  It was a whole week.

• 44:59Molly O'Shea?

  It was a month.

• 45:02Molly O'Shea?

  And so, and so, um, and so, uh, so like, the clip, like, or sorry, the, the actual interview got like, four, four million, 4.5 million views on X, it's like, it's pinned to my profile because, it's like, it's the most-

• 45:18Speaker 00

  It's iconic.

• 45:18Molly O'Shea?

  It's the most like, determined thing of like, oh, it's that girl, right?

• 45:22Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:22Molly O'Shea?

  People always know me, and like, every interview I start, they're like, I have a sword, should we, like, and I'm like, yeah, that's okay. But if you want, like, please.

• 45:31Speaker 00

  You're gonna like, inadvertently have a sword collection because people will give them to gifts, give them as gifts.

• 45:36Molly O'Shea?

  Zero at the moment, but, like, we'll see.

• 45:39Speaker 00

  If you're listening.

• 45:41Molly O'Shea?

  And so anyways, like, that one clip, like, just took off, became a meme, I think that one has like, 4.3, whatever, over four million views, but that video and like, that presence alone has easily 50 million plus, like, in that amount of time, had completely gone all over the internet, like, we'd seen it in like, you know, things, every, all over the place, like, someone uses it in like, their trailer for whatever, just, it's just like an iconic Silicon Valley moment.

• 46:12Speaker 00

  It's incredible.

• 46:12Molly O'Shea?

  It's crazy, so, um, yeah, that was awesome.

• 46:17Speaker 00

  Wait, I love that, um,

• 46:21Speaker 00

  I'm trying to think about how to pose this question, so it's funny, I was watching the clip of, uh, of Jack Altman, you, I should've texted him before this, but, um, to ask, I was gonna have a question for you, but, um, that was your first time discovering that Jack and Sam Altman were brothers?

• 46:38Molly O'Shea?

  Was it?

• 46:39Speaker 00

  Was it? Oh my god.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  Was it a bet?

• 46:44Molly O'Shea?

  Paige.

• 46:46Speaker 00

  Was it a bet?

• 46:53Molly O'Shea?

  We will leave that one unanswered.

• 46:56Speaker 00

  It's a bet.

• 46:58Molly O'Shea?

  So, maybe.

• 47:06Molly O'Shea?

  So for context, I interviewed Jack Altman and this was like another thing that ended up becoming a meme and went viral. But I interviewed Jack Altman and you know, it was about his podcast Uncapped, which is phenomenal. Has like incredible guests.

• 47:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 47:21Molly O'Shea?

  Like really like was one of the first like major kind of like breaks on X for this category with that stuff too. And so I wanted to interview him on it as well. And so that was like the basis of the interview. And you know, this like ended up becoming a meme, but

• 47:44Molly O'Shea?

  one of the guests that he interviewed, I asked him, "So you recently interviewed Sam Altman. Were you nervous?" And he goes, "No."

• 47:56Speaker 00

  "Why would I be nervous?"

• 47:57Molly O'Shea?

  "Why would I be nervous?" I'm like, "I don't know." He goes, "That's my, that's my brother, like Jack Altman, Sam Altman." I go, "Your brothers?" And like, like, and he's like, "Yeah." And I was like, "So you've known each other for a long time." And he's like, "Yes, please keep this in, keep this in, like, this is great. Don't cut this out of the podcast."

• 48:21Speaker 00

  It was iconic. I, I really, it was like one of my favorite moments.

• 48:25Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, but the whole thing is like, I have, I have, I have a very large sense of humor. Like all the, like if I'm not working, like I'm watching funny clips and laughing to myself, like you can ask.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  Wait, who are like some of your favorite, like, do you have favorite comedians?

• 48:42Molly O'Shea?

  I love Will Ferrell.

• 48:43Speaker 00

  Oh, okay.

• 48:44Molly O'Shea?

  I love Will Ferrell. He's amazing.

• 48:46Speaker 00

  Or is there gonna be a?

• 48:48Molly O'Shea?

  He's on my list.

• 48:49Speaker 00

  He's on your list.

• 48:50Molly O'Shea?

  So Will Ferrell, please.

• 48:52Speaker 00

  Will Ferrell.

• 48:55Molly O'Shea?

  I would like to interview you.

• 48:56Speaker 00

  When it happens, we're gonna like roll the tape back and be like.

• 48:58Molly O'Shea?

  I might have to do one with Zach Galifianakis.

• 49:01Speaker 00

  Oh, yes, yes, yes. Between, well, you gotta get the ferns, right?

• 49:04Molly O'Shea?

  Two ferns. I mean, this is not a fern, but we got a hedge here.

• 49:07Speaker 00

  We got a hedge.

• 49:08Molly O'Shea?

  And some grass.

• 49:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, I like that. Hmm. Hey, you do have a great sense of humor.

• 49:13Molly O'Shea?

  Yeah, so anyways, I have a dry sense of humor and like this was even a problem when I worked at different funds, right? It's like, I would deliver things with a straight face. And so I've been working on the whole smiling thing. I've been getting better at it. My whole, my whole life, like, "Why aren't you, you should smile more." You know, like the whole thing is like, "Girls should smile." I just wouldn't smile. I just wasn't a smiler. And so now I'm getting better at smiling and now I'm getting wrinkles from it, which sucks. But, um, so, so, um, yeah, I delivered that with great poise and no one knows.

• 49:47Speaker 00

  It was incredible. Still to this day, it's a mystery. Um,

• 49:53Speaker 00

  we're speaking of mystery, do you have an upcoming list coming out?

• 49:57Molly O'Shea?

  So I do have a list coming out and I could show it to you beforehand or whenever this comes out. I hopefully this comes out in time, because I want to put the list out this Friday or as soon as possible, maybe even tomorrow. Hard to compete with the Anthropic S1 that just dropped today, the same day as another episode I put out, which kind of sucks, but we'll make sure it goes well. And, um, but yeah, I want to get that list out as fast as possible, because it's like, you know, it's been the most helpful resource to me. You asked like, "How many of the people have I interviewed?" And I interviewed probably over 20% of it.

• 50:31Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 50:31Molly O'Shea?

  I put out a list.

• 50:32Speaker 00

  That was very incredible. It was like dream.

• 50:34Molly O'Shea?

  Dream.

• 50:35Speaker 00

  Guests.

• 50:35Molly O'Shea?

  List of the top 100, like also most hard to reach.

• 50:41Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 50:42Molly O'Shea?

  Powerful people in technology and finance. And I got 20%, that's crazy. And I had just gone full time on it in like a month of putting that out there.

• 50:52Speaker 00

  That's incredible.

• 50:53Molly O'Shea?

  So like, um, so it's great. So I definitely, I want to make this like an annual thing. I like even for that one, I had taken off of some of the people that I had on it, because 100 people gets short really quick. And even with this one, I was like, "Damn, am I gonna have to make it like 150?" But you just got it. It's all about cutting it down, reducing, making it, you know, concise. So we'll have that out soon.

• 51:18Speaker 00

  Hmm. I'm really excited for them. Um, so do you exclusively choose your own guests then? Or do people like pitch you and then what is like the breakdown on them?

• 51:30Molly O'Shea?

  Good question. So this is art and a science. It's incredibly difficult. I of course, like, you asked me before, like, "Will I start a fund? Will I do all this other stuff?" It's like, "I still need to perfect this," like, uh, only because the podcast and everything, we do really great numbers. We do hundreds of millions of impressions a year and views, like even like hundreds and hundreds of millions, like we have so much reach. We have, like, we have become a name and it's like a thing.

• 52:05Speaker 00

  You are one of Tech's top podcasters.

• 52:07Molly O'Shea?

  Yes, I am.

• 52:09Speaker 00

  I'm so happy to be saying it for being you.

• 52:12Molly O'Shea?

  And, uh, and so, and like, because of that, I just, it, it's still not to me like there yet, like.

• 52:22Speaker 00

  Job's not done.

• 52:23Molly O'Shea?

  Job's not, no, I don't know if I can say that, because it's like a, you know, competitor thing, but job's not done yet. You're right. We could say it, it's fine. And, um, and so my, my kind of like, "Am I staying focused?" question at the end of the day, when I'm looking at interviews that I'm doing, that I'm scheduling them, that I'm rearranging them, I have to rearrange things every week.

• 52:46Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, I bet.

• 52:46Molly O'Shea?

  It's really hard. And I feel bad, because sometimes it's like people that I'm, you know, close with or like friends I know and whatever. And I'm like, fuck, like I have to all of a sudden go across the country or go to Europe, like.

• 52:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 52:59Molly O'Shea?

  And I will do this out of drop of the dime. And that's why I keep on winning.

• 53:03Speaker 00

  Getting in there.

• 53:03Molly O'Shea?

  Because I take it so seriously and I hustle my ass off to make sure that I'm getting the top 100. And that I'm prioritizing myself at the end of the day. And I get distractions every week. And I'm not saying all these are like, you know, it's bad or anything, but there are phenomenal companies and like announcements that I have to say no to and whatever. And you know, sometimes those will, and like if you look at it on a metric basis, it's like, sometimes those will perform better because they're in that media storm of like announcements and blah, blah, blah. It'll get attention, like you're guaranteed that. But for me, for building the brand, like building who I want as my like kind of

• 53:44Molly O'Shea?

  like, uh, I wouldn't say like legacy of people that I've interviewed, but like archive, right? Like, like I just have to be maniacally focused on that, or else I will be just, I won't, I just won't be operating like cleanly and like true to myself, because if I keep honing in and filtering and refining, like it'll only make it better in the long term. But I could easily just do announcements all day and do them every day and just be completely full and busy. But the goal is not to be busy and full. It's to be intentional and it's to be crafting a story from all these different points of view.

• 54:28Molly O'Shea?

  And from some of the biggest names, like last week I interviewed Jenny Johnson, CEO Franklin Templeton. She's been on my list for a while. She is a killer. And she was so fun to interview. She, she was awesome. She was like, "I just got back from Uzbekistan." I'm like, "What?" She's like, "I'm not thinking that clearly today." I'm like, "Are you kidding?" Like, and like, we were talking with her team and like her off is like anybody else's on. She was pulling references from like crazy places. And she's a student of history. She loves, she is just such a interesting mind. And so it's like, I just always have to remind myself, like, gear back towards the focus, don't get distracted. I don't need to start a fund right now. I don't need to be like, you know, a scout, like I'm definitely not a scout. I'm way past that.

• 55:13Molly O'Shea?

  Like an advisor, blah, blah, blah, none of these things. Like people have asked me to join their board of directors for public companies. And I'm like, "No," like it, it, it causes a conflict with what I'm doing today, which has been the best job I've ever had and I want to have for as long as possible. I need to stay focused.

• 55:32Speaker 00

  I love that. Well, I feel like, yeah, to speak to your continued like relentlessness, focus, creativity is really inspiring. So I'm really excited to see what you do over the next decade plus.

• 55:45Molly O'Shea?

  Thanks.

• 55:46Speaker 00

  How are you thinking about your vision for sorcery and what success looks like for you?

• 55:53Molly O'Shea?

  That's a good question. So.

• 55:58Molly O'Shea?

  I think like the quick answer is obviously to get the sorcery 100 of the year or wherever, you know, year it is, right? Um, and pushing myself there. Every interview I try to use as much research as possible. I try to refine my skills as an interviewer. Refine my skills as a freaking walking tour interviewer.

• 56:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:26Molly O'Shea?

  That was a 180, like that was hard. Like the Alex Karp one, I had people who have been in the media industry for years and like their whole life. And they're like, you didn't have an earpiece in? You didn't have note cards? How did you do that? You were rolling the whole time?

• 56:46Speaker 00

  That's pretty wild.

• 56:46Molly O'Shea?

  Like, it's because I have a good memory.

• 56:49Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:50Molly O'Shea?

  Um, if I stay focused on one thing, I can easily get ADD if I want to, but like if I'm focused, usually when I go into interviews, it's tunnel vision, like Charlotte, who is head of special ops. I mentioned her before, but she came to a couple of my interviews and uh she was like, holy shit, like, once you start, you're just locked in.

• 57:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:10Molly O'Shea?

  Like, I don't, there's like lots of cameras, there's lots of lights. It's like, it's the same with getting on stage for things, like the first time, I think I was like really on stage in a crazy capacity with Citadel Securities Conference last year. And I had interviewed uh two sorcery's partners at the time, uh co-founders of Calshi. And I was actually so nervous for that. I think it was at like 10 or 11 a.m. I had to take a shot. Like, I really don't even drink ever. Like, I'm embarrassed to say that, but I was freaking out.

• 57:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:41Molly O'Shea?

  You know, I like, you know, had to call up for support, have someone talk me down and everything. But I was so nervous. And then after that, it's like, no, I'm just doing the same exact thing. I'm just, at the end of the day, I'm just asking, asking questions and listening.

• 57:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 57:55Molly O'Shea?

  Like, that's it. And so I really got over that. I don't, like, it doesn't make me nervous. I don't care. I love it now. I'm like, someone calls me up, they want me to moderate something on stage, let's go. Like, I'm ready to go. Like, it's great. Um, it's like cool to like reach new audiences and like try that out and refine that skill and get better at it. Um, but yeah, it's, it's just making the podcast better, making my skills better. Capturing the best stories, making sure that I can increase the audience in intentional ways. Um, by delivering the best information.

• 58:32Speaker 00

  Mm-hmm.

• 58:33Molly O'Shea?

  I make sure data's incorporated and everything. I am an investor at the end of the day. I've spent my whole career doing research diligence, data, market maps, like insights, collecting like all these nodes of information to understand how a business is growing, how it's working. You know, does it actually have longevity? Is there a durable underlying like model to it? Or is it gonna like zonk out once there's like 10 other, you know?

• 58:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 58:59Molly O'Shea?

  You know, market competitors, or if it's gonna go to zero. So uh, those are like really the things at the end of the day. And like the whole walking tour thing is so important. That type of content alone is like 10, maybe 100 to 1,000x more dynamic and visually like interesting and performs incredibly well on YouTube. Like, if you check out the YouTube channel, it's like, I have categorized out the different types of interviews I do. So it's like, it's like factory tours and HQ tours.

• 59:33Molly O'Shea?

  The walking portions of these interviews. Then I have like investor interviews, and then I have tech interviews. And the walking, like the walk and talks, or I went to Bending Spoons, and they called it a walkie talkie, which I thought was cute, so I have to use that now.

• 59:47Speaker 00

  So cute.

• 59:47Molly O'Shea?

  The walkie talkies, um, they have like hundreds and hundreds of thousands of views. It's a really great format for YouTube because you're just changing your, your environment a lot. And especially for people like on YouTube, they love like tools, they love like factories, they love how things are made. Like, that's just kind of like inherent nature of that kind of platform.

• 1:00:12Speaker 00

  Should we be walking during this?

• 1:00:14Molly O'Shea?

  No, it's fine. I, I actually can't really think very well when I walk, so it's like hard. I don't think I would be speaking this clearly if we were doing that. Um, but, and so that's why it's like hard with like some of these like investor types or like public company CEOs, like some of them, it's just like, it's not an easy format to do.

• 1:00:32Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 1:00:32Molly O'Shea?

  And, but like, you know, the figure AI, like figure robot company, like that walk and talk. Every day I get comments on the YouTube about it. It still is growing. And that one will probably hit like a million views pretty soon on YouTube. YouTube is really hard to hit a million views. It's different for every platform, like X, there's so many social network factors of that. Like, you're, you're much more likely to get it on X. Um, Instagram, I am not an Instagram girly, I'm not an Instagram person, but I'm getting better at it. And so that's just something, I don't know how it works. I'll leave it to the Instagram professionals. At LinkedIn, I have not sure I've ever seen any

• 1:01:15Speaker 00

  Anything hit a million.

• 1:01:15Molly O'Shea?

  Anything hit a million views, except I interviewed um

• 1:01:20Molly O'Shea?

  uh

• 1:01:22Molly O'Shea?

  this investor from Mayfield, Naveen, and he he regularly, like, he is an influencer on LinkedIn, and he hits like millions of views, which is crazy. Um, but yeah.

• 1:01:33Speaker 00

  Dang. Okay, well, I think we've unfortunately hit the end of our time together today. I've so enjoyed this conversation. I feel like it's very clear, like, why you are winning, is you're incredibly devoted to this craft, which is so inspiring. You're sharing these amazing stories of founders, investors, building incredibly impactful companies. Um, and you're building one yourself. So I, I learned a lot today in our conversation. And if you're listening, um, I'd highly recommend following Molly on X and all of our social channels. We'll link those in the show notes. And any, any last words?

• 1:02:11Molly O'Shea?

  Yes. I want to turn it on you now.

• 1:02:14Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:02:15Molly O'Shea?

  Because I'm sure my audience, I'm gonna crosspost this.

• 1:02:19Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:20Molly O'Shea?

  I'm gonna put it on my YouTube and I'll put it in newsletter and everything, but Paige, you are actually doing the thing.

• 1:02:26Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:27Molly O'Shea?

  You have a fund yourself.

• 1:02:28Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 1:02:29Molly O'Shea?

  So can you just share with everyone, like, for my audience, like,

• 1:02:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:02:33Molly O'Shea?

  your fund, your top investments, how you've grown it, you're going to fund three now. So like, what is behind Genius?

• 1:02:41Speaker 00

  Oh my god, wait. Um, so maybe some background. This, this book here is a children's book. I wrote about venture capital. I published it when I was a year out of college. And similar to you, I had an experience is actually watching the show Silicon Valley. And I was like, oh, it just, something clicked to me. I was like, venture capital is what I meant to do. Like, this is my calling and I want to take it as seriously as possible. Um, and I didn't have any network in venture, grew up in San Diego. So I started posting on Twitter just about what I was learning, X now.

• 1:03:18Speaker 00

  Um, and then that blossomed into building behind Genius. And the core behind Genius really is back in these founders I call technical storytellers. So I think a great example of a technical storyteller is Zane Hanksberger from Knox Metals. He has just built an incredible presence as part of the reindustrialization movement. Um, and it's had a huge impact on their business, how many customer orders they get, how many inbound investor interest he gets. Um, so backed over 60 companies across three funds. And I'm incredibly excited for the future to continue telling impactful stories. That's like also something I'm really interested in.

• 1:04:02Speaker 00

  Um, and getting to inspire and educate the next generation of investors and founders, too.

• 1:04:09Molly O'Shea?

  And so we have some factory tours coming up?

• 1:04:11Speaker 00

  Yes, we have factory tours coming up. I was, uh, I was sharing with you before the show, we, uh, I was just out in Detroit doing a factory tour at Knox Metals at their new 75,000 square foot facility. And so funny, you were talking about like the walking tours being harder. I was like, um, or at least like for some people. And I was like, oh, I actually really liked it because I'd be like, oh, here's the thing, like, can you talk about this block of metal or this saw or something? Um, so I, yeah, I love that format. I'm looking forward to doing more of them.

• 1:04:41Molly O'Shea?

  For me, it's like I'm used to sitting in one spot, being stationary and just talking about topics. And so like, when you're walking around things, it's like, oh, wait, I have to talk about, like, you know, it's like, I'm coming from a different perspective where I'm like, wait, I should talk, we should talk, like, and so

• 1:04:57Speaker 00

  So, yeah, it's so funny because you're, we were talking about it earlier, like, uh, I focus on like being in my body and like embodiment. And I feel like that sense brings a real like concreteness. I'm always gonna be like, I was on a walk with one of my LPs and she was like, oh, like, I was like, oh my god, look at that leaf. Like, we were just talking about something else. And I was like, oh my god, what a beautiful leaf. And I, still to this day, she like always talks about the fact that I've looked at the leaf during our, uh, our walk. So, um, yeah, anyways, I'm excited.

• 1:05:31Molly O'Shea?

  Is there anything, we talked about me manifesting things. Is there anything you're manifesting for the next 12 months?

• 1:05:37Speaker 00

  Um, this is my 100th episode of Seed to Harvest.

• 1:05:40Molly O'Shea?

  No.

• 1:05:40Speaker 00

  Which is such a special milestone. So I'm excited to go harder on video storytelling for Seed to Harvest and have some incredible guests. Maybe even put out a top 100.

• 1:05:51Molly O'Shea?

  You should.

• 1:05:52Speaker 00

  Um, but yeah, it's like health, monumental abundance, good time with family and friends.

• 1:06:02Molly O'Shea?

  All the good things.

• 1:06:03Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:06:04Molly O'Shea?

  Very grounded.

• 1:06:05Speaker 00

  Very, yeah, very grounded.

• 1:06:09Molly O'Shea?

  Well, cool. Thank you so much, um, for coming and doing this with me. I really appreciate it.

• 1:06:13Speaker 00

  Molly, thank you so much for coming on Seed to Harvest. Um,

• 1:06:19Speaker 00

  it's been an honor. It's been a pleasure.