Axios Co-founder Roy Schwartz: why average is worthless now

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

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

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

David Kirtley is the co-founder and CEO of Helion Energy, the fusion company. Helion has raised more than $1.5 billion at a $15.5 billion valuation, and Sam Altman is its biggest investor and former chairman. Before fusion, David worked on rocket and space propulsion.In this episode of Summation, David and Auren discuss:Skipping the steam turbine and pulling electricity straight out of a starHow a Best Buy network card helped make fusion possibleRegulating a 150 million degree machine like a hospital proton beamOne cent power, and what happens when AI stops being limited by electricityYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and David Kirtley on X at @Dkirtley

Alex Rampell is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he leads the firm’s $2.7 billion Apps practice and has driven much of the firm's fintech investing, including Plaid, Mercury, and Opendoor. Before a16z, Alex co-founded multiple companies including Affirm (NASDAQ:AFRM), FraudEliminator (acquired by McAfee in 2006), Point, TrialPay (acquired by Visa in 2015), TXN (acquired by Envestnet in 2019), and Yub (acquired by Coupons.com in 2013).In this episode of Summation, Alex and Auren discuss:Why Visa is the purest network effect business in the world and why it's still a duopolyThe reverse Robin Hood hidden inside every rewards credit cardThe "hostages, not customers" test for which software companies survive AIWhat was once payroll becoming payments and the businesses it unlocksYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Alex Rampell on X at @arampell

Chris Hulls is the co-founder and executive chairman of Life360 ($LIF), the family safety and location-sharing app now worth over $5 billion. He was CEO for 17 years before stepping back last year. Before Life360, he served in the Air Force in Afghanistan.In this episode of Summation, Chris and Auren discuss:Why he took Life360 public in Australia and why he'd never run a public company againWhy "you want to sound smart, but not interesting" is the secret rule of corporate speakWhy nobody actually cares about privacy, and what finally scares him about AIWhy the work of keeping a home never ends, no matter how rich you getYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Chris Hulls on X at @chrishulls

Aydin Senkut is the founder and managing partner of Felicis, the venture firm he started in 2006, with over $4B under management and early bets on Shopify, Notion, Canva, and Adyen. He was Google's first product manager and has been on the Forbes Midas list of top investors for 13 years running.In this episode of Summation, Aydin and Auren discuss:Why the best platform companies came from Ottawa, Sydney, and Amsterdam and not Silicon ValleyHow capital became a commodity and people are the only real moat leftWhy the trait he bets on is the willingness to reset your priorsHow defense went from an optional purchase to a matter of survivalYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Aydin Senkut on X at @asenkut

Nir Eyal is the author of Hooked, which became Silicon Valley's playbook for building habit-forming products, Indistractable, on taking your attention back, and the new book Beyond Belief. He taught at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and is one of the sharpest thinkers on what to do with technology.In this episode of Summation, Nir and Auren discuss:Why to-do lists set you up to feel like a failure and what to do insteadWhy 90% of the time you check your phone, it's an uncomfortable emotion, not a notificationWhy beliefs are tools, not truths, and how swapping one can end your sufferingWhy this is the safest generation of kids in history and still gets a moral panicYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Nir Eyal on X at @nireyal

Geoff Mattson is the CEO of SecureAuth, an identity security company that has raised over $200M and protects more than 50 million identities for enterprises. Before SecureAuth he was CEO of Xage Security. His work now centers on how you prove an AI agent is who it says it is.In this episode of Summation, Geoff and Auren discuss:Why an AI agent is like an Uber driver who might randomly turn into a psycho killerThe deepfake fraudpocalypse, and the simplest thing that defends against itWhy your agent impersonates you instead of working for you and how to fix itWhy the password is finally, actually dyingYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Geoff on Linkedin

Cory Gardner is a former U.S. Senator and Congressman from Colorado and was one of the Senate's leading Taiwan and China experts, chairing the Foreign Relations subcommittee on East Asia and authoring the Taipei Act. He is now president and CEO of NCTA, the Internet & Television Association, whose members built the nation's largest broadband platform.In this episode of Summation, Cory and Auren discuss:Why the AI race gets won on spectrum, fiber, and memory chipsThe bottleneck raising the price of your iPhone, PlayStation, and routerWhy an open society is vulnerable to a campaign to turn Americans against AIWhat a China expert thinks about our dependence on chips made off China's coastYou can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Cory Gardner on X at @CoryGardner