Term Sheet

Reed Jobs, the son of Steve Jobs, wants to prevent deaths caused by cancer. Fortune’s Allie Garfinkle sits down with the Yosemite founder to discuss his $350 million VC fund, why nearly 95% of cancer drugs fail and how philanthropic grants can reduce risk in early stages of scientific research. They also explore AI’s role in drug discovery, the potential of GLP-1s, and why Jobs says making cancer non-lethal, rather than curing it, is the key to saving lives. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can the U.S. replenish weapons stockpiles fast enough for modern conflicts? Fortune’s Allie Garfinkle sits down with Anduril CEO Brian Schimpf to discuss weapons production, the challenges of scaling manufacturing, and the testing needed to make complex systems reliable in the field. They also explore AI’s role in defense, lethal autonomous weapons, and why Schimpf says human commanders must remain accountable for decisions to use force. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Soda is one of the hardest categories to break into, where a few legacy giants dominate shelf space. Yet Poppi, the prebiotic soda company, turned a Texas farmers' market side hustle into a $1.95 billion sale to PepsiCo. On Term Sheet, Fortune's Allie Garfinkle sits down with co-founder Allison Ellsworth to unpack how she cracked the Gen Z code, how she turned three-day TikTok trends into lasting demand, and why incumbents are still struggling to win over the next generation of soda drinkers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A hidden market for shares of the world's hottest private companies has quietly grown to an estimated $112 billion, and most of it happens off the books. As SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic edge toward going public, the investors who poured billions into pre-IPO shares may not actually know what they own. Larry Aschebrook founded G Squared in 2011, when trading secondaries made you a "bottom feeder" who got cease-and-desist letters. Today the firm manages north of $8 billion and holds stakes in SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic. Fortune's Allie Garfinkle sits down with Larry to talk about the shadow market behind the biggest names in tech, why layered SPVs could leave investors with nothing, and the reckoning he sees coming when these companies finally go public. 0:00 The $4 Trillion Problem Nobody's Talking About 0:56 Hot IPO Summer Is Here 1:58 They Wouldn't Return His Calls 3:15 His First Trade? Twitter Stock 6:06 What Secondaries Actually Are 7:26 The SPV Trap: Fees Stacked on Fees 14:27 The Doctors and Dentists Problem 18:55 Back When This Was Taboo 21:35 What Facebook's Lockup Should Teach You 23:56 "SpaceX Could Force a Reckoning" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

An automated assembly line inside a Wonder kitchen can churn out 500 customized burrito bowls with zero order errors. This is a system CEO Marc Lore views as merely the baseline for his $9 billion food-tech enterprise. Fresh off acquiring Sweetgreen’s robotic kitchen technology, Wonder told Fortune's Allie Garfinkle it might go public early next year. Listen to Term Sheet to find out more. 4:06 — The Biggest Risk Isn’t Taking a Risk 6:16 — Why NBA Teams Could Be the Ultimate Investment 10:40 — The Billion-Dollar Bet on the Future of Food 17:37 — Inside Wonder’s Radical New Management System 22:12 — AI Could Turn Anyone Into a Restaurant Owner 24:39 — The “Infinite Bowl Machine” Is Coming 26:06 — Millions of People Could Soon Own Their Own Restaurants 28:17 — The Future of Food Delivery Is Coming From the Sky 30:43 — The M&A Mistake That Can Cost Companies Millions Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mentalist Max Major has spent decades hypnotizing people. Now, he says he's training a ChatGPT voice model to do it too. As people turn to AI for advice, therapy, companionship, and everyday decisions, a bigger question is emerging: Could AI become persuasive enough to shape human behavior? If AI can reliably influence our decisions, the implications stretch far beyond chatbots, affecting advertising, consumer spending, investing, and financial advice. Fortune's Allie Garfinkle sits down with Max Major to explore the emerging world of AI hypnosis, why he believes it works, and what it could mean for the future of business and human decision-making. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Live shopping in China is a massive, multi-billion-dollar market, but for years, American platforms have struggled to crack the format. But in 2019, Grant LaFontaine and Logan Head started a live shopping marketplace for Funko Pops that not many investors believed in. Fast forward to today, Whatnot has transformed into a $11.5B valuation company, hitting 1 billion orders this year, overseeing transactions for everything from Pokémon cards to live seafood. It is now among the nation’s biggest shippers. Fortune’s Allie Garfinkle sits down with CEO Grant LaFontaine to talk about this unforeseen growth and the next steps for the company.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over 3,000 venture capital firms are operating in the U.S. today. Lux Capital's co-founder Josh Wolfe thinks more than half of them won't survive the decade. He has spent 25 years making calls nobody else would make, backing Anduril before defense tech was a category and surgical robotics before it had a market. Now, fresh off a $1.5 billion fundraise, he's warning that the AI boom is headed for a crash that will wipe out trillions in market cap and take most of the venture industry with it. Fortune's Allie Garfinkle sits down with Wolfe to find out who survives the shakeout, where the defense tech bubble breaks, and the predictions he's making for 2027.  0:00 The VC Extinction Has Already Started0:50 Hot IPO Summer: SpaceX's $2 Trillion Debut2:05 The VC Who Bets Against Everyone2:26 Josh Wolfe: Half of VC Firms Are Going Extinct5:24 Why Lux Plays the Middle6:14 Turning Science Fiction Into Billions6:43 Star Wars Inspired a Billion-Dollar Exit8:41 Real-Life X-Men Is Already Here9:41 How He Spots Fake Science in Seconds11:19 Is Venture Capital Eating Itself?13:59 The AI Crash: Trillions Wiped Out16:55 Why a Fruit Fly Could Beat the Big AI Labs17:21 Soon Everything You Say Is Recorded?19:57 The Defense Bet Nobody Would Make22:51 Kill Chains and Moral Precision27:45 Wolfe's 2027 Prediction: A 15% Nasdaq Drop30:41 Why He's Still Betting on the Future Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Gabe Stengel studied computer science at Princeton and started his career as an investment banking analyst at Lazard. Then he did something a lot of bankers think about but never do: he quit at 23 to build the AI that would automate his old job. After 30 VC passes and two grueling years, his company Rogo just raised $160 million at a $2 billion valuation, and 35,000 bankers at firms like JPMorgan, Bank of America, and his former employer Lazard now use it. Fortune's Allie Garfinkle sits down with Gabe to talk about the future of M&A, why some Wall Street workflows will never need a human again, and what AI means for the next generation of investment bankers.0:00 The Banker Automating Wall Street0:16 What "AI for Wall Street" Actually Means3:13 Inside the Billion-Dollar Deal Rooms6:07 Quitting Wall Street at 237:35 The Brutal Early Days & 30 Rejections14:45 Meet Felix, the AI That Never Sleeps19:55 Will AI Kill Banking Jobs?25:52 Competing With OpenAI, Anthropic & Google 30:08 Why a Finance Legend Bet on Him35:30 Does Wall Street Still Matter? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Claire Zau spent six years in venture capital and became the youngest investor to make partner at GSV. Then she did something very few other VCs were doing: she started posting social media videos about AI to inform the general public. A year, 337,000 followers and 1.6 million likes later, Lightspeed Venture Partners hired her in a role that's never existed in venture before: New Media and Investor. Fortune’s Allie Garfinkle sits down with Claire to talk about the AI bubble, AI education, the gap between Silicon Valley and the general public, and why one in three Gen Zers say AI makes them angry. 0:00 — From VC to Viral: How a Lightspeed Partner Built an Audience on Short-Form 0:29 — The Algorithm Is a Feedback Loop and VCs Are Finally Using It 8:37 — Why Some People Are Being Left Out of the AI Story 17:21 — Promethean Fire: The Case for Techno-Optimism When Everyone's Scared 11:23 — AI Literacy Is Like Sex Ed — You Don't Have to Love It, But You Need to Know 13:54 — The Real Problem With How People Are Using AI (And How to Fix It) 23:53 — AI Gives You Leverage, but Only If You Know How to Use It 24:49 — Can You Actually Build a Moat in AI? A VC Answers Honestly 28:21 — Why Early-Stage Investing Is Still a Bet on People, Not Products 30:29 — Bits and Atoms: The New Investment Thesis for the AI Hardware Era Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices