Representative appearances

• Market Update and Trends w/ Becki DeGraw | Wilson Sonsini Startup Legal Basics

  more down rounds than we've ever seen before.

• What AI Means for Your Startup’s Future | Peter Walker Breaks It Down

  We cover things like why down rounds have become the norm for later stage startups and what that means for founders negotiating rounds today. We talk about the risk founders are taking when stacking safes and the realities on bridge round dynamics. Peter also talks about what VC funds should be thinking about when it comes to their reserve strategies, their check sizes, and portfolio construction, and why AI is inflating the market narrative, and what that means for nonAI founders fighting for capital. Whether you're a founder, fund manager, or LP, this episode is packed with insights on where venture capital is heading, what the numbers really say, and how to stay ahead in a market that's never been more confusing or more data driven. Now, let's jump into the tank for this week's episode with Peter Walker from Carta. [Music] Thanks for joining us in the tank today, Peter. Absolutely, Matt. Thanks for having me. You know, Peter, I'm super excited to talk to you. Obviously, we can nerd out on a bunch of data stuff over a long time. But before we get started, maybe we can share a little bit about your background. You know, where you grew up, what your childhood was like before we jump into your early professional journey. Absolutely, man. Yeah, grew up in Denver. um one of seven siblings. So large family antics were sort of the name of the game. Uh big respect to my mom and dad for putting up with all of us for that long. Uh child was amazing soccer player growing up. Uh went to WashU in St. Louis for for school and then had you know my dad was an entrepreneur. I started a company in college kind of like that was where the bug sort of came from around startups and I've been in and around startups ever since. And when did you become obsessed with numbers? Were you always a number junkie? I got to be honest, my obsession with numbers came in through charts. Like I'm a visual I love numbers, but uh I I care deeply about the way that they're presented and spoken about as opposed to being like deep within spreadsheets every day. That sort of came as a learned behavior over time. But I when I joined this company right out of school, our product was primarily chart based, like visualizations, analytics, etc. And I just found out like it just tickled this designer part of my brain and I I've just gone really really deep on data viz for a long time. Data viz is something I also gravitate towards as well. I'm not very good at analyzing the spreadsheet side of things, but when you show it in a in a nicel looking chart, man, is it appealing, right? It's just such a great way to tell a story. And it's I think it's the number one missing skill for most data scientists is there are incredibly intelligent, thoughtful people who sometimes struggle to communicate their ideas to non-technical audiences. And that bridge is where charting really makes this all the more impactful. Well, before we get into the amazing stuff you're doing at Carter on the inside side, I thought something that was pretty unique in your profile was something you did on the CO tracking project at the Atlantic. It was a part-time gig. Obviously, you were only there for about a year during the height of COVID, but tell us about your sort of work there on the data viz side and how did that opportunity come about so happens I get on Twitter for the first time, right? I don't necessarily recommend getting on Twitter, but hey, there was nothing to do. So, we were all stuck inside and I was just doing what I had been doing for the last call it six years or so, which was taking data, visualizing, putting it out. And because it was COVID, it just started rapidly getting a bit of a following on Twitter. And then The Atlantic, a couple journalists from the Atlantic reached out and said,