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Equity, incentives, and early-stage tradeoffs with Yuri Sagalov, GeneralCatalyst

Build Mode is back. This season we’re breaking down what it really takes to build a world-class founding team starting with your cap table, equity structures, and startup compensation strategy. We kick off with Yuri Sagalov, managing director at General Catalyst and former founder, YC partner, and seed investor at Wayfinder Ventures. Yuri has worked…

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Build Mode is back. This season we’re breaking down what it really takes to build a world-class founding team starting with your cap table, equity structures, and startup compensation strategy.

We kick off with Yuri Sagalov, managing director at General Catalyst and former founder, YC partner, and seed investor at Wayfinder Ventures. Yuri has worked with hundreds of pre-seed and seed-stage startups, and he shares practical advice on how early-stage founders should think about startup equity, cap table design, investor selection, and compensation structures from day one.

He breaks down:

• The 3 types of investors (and which one to avoid)
• Why your cap table is part of your team
• The 20–25% seed dilution rule
• How to split equity with a co-founder
• How to talk to early employees about risk and compensation

No matter where you are in your startup journey, this episode will help you get the incentive structure right from the beginning.

Chapters:

00:00 – Why your first hires deserve more equity
00:31 – Meet Yuri Sagalov (YC → General Catalyst)
02:12 – Your cap table is part of your team
02:50 – The 3 types of investors (avoid this one)
05:02 – How to split equity with a co-founder
07:55 – How much equity to give early employees
09:37 – How to talk compensation and risk
12:31 – Red flags in formation docs and vesting
18:27 – Advisors for equity? Usually a mistake
20:05 – The 20–25% seed dilution rule
26:03 – The shift to 10-year stock options
34:11 – Don’t scale before product-market fit
39:23 – Final advice: Just start and choose your co-founder carefully

New episodes of Build Mode drop every Thursday. Hosted by Isabelle Johannessen. Produced and edited by Maggie Nye. Audience development led by Morgan Little. Special thanks to the Foundry and Cheddar video teams.

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Science & Technology

Building beyond LLMs with Luma AI’s Amit Jain (Live at Web Summit Qatar) | Equity Podcast

LLMs may have kicked off this AI boom, but the ceiling is closer than the hype suggests. As models run out of text data to train on, the companies and investors paying attention are already moving on. The next wave isn’t better chatbots; it’s machines that can understand the physical world. Luma AI, the Bay…

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LLMs may have kicked off this AI boom, but the ceiling is closer than the hype suggests. As models run out of text data to train on, the companies and investors paying attention are already moving on. The next wave isn’t better chatbots; it’s machines that can understand the physical world. Luma AI, the Bay Area lab that raised over $1.4 billion from a16z, Nvidia, and Amazon, is betting on exactly that.

On episode of TechCrunch’s Equity podcast, we’re bringing you a conversation Rebecca Bellan sat down with Amit Jain, co-founder and CEO of Luma AI, at Web Summit Qatar. Together, the pair dug into where the next trillion-dollar AI opportunity actually gets built, and whether the companies chasing it even know what they’re building yet.

Subscribe to Equity on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. You also can follow Equity on X and Threads, at @EquityPod.

Chapters:

00:00 Intro

01:13 Why LLMs are hitting a ceiling

02:43 The data problem & what comes after LLMs

04:30 What actually makes a world model a world model

06:05 Why 3D data is a dead end

07:39 What Luma is building next

09:08 How much humans stay in the loop

10:00 Near-term use cases for agentic video

11:22 Will AI kill jobs in film & production?

13:30 Why the entertainment industry is already dying

15:27 Why we actually need more content, not less

17:46 Luma’s roadmap: generation, understanding, and robotics

19:54 Outro

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CNET

iPhone in Space! Plus 5 MORE Apple Products That Went to Space | One More Thing

The iPhone has been to space a few times now — in fact, Apple products have a long history of space travel. CNET’s Bridget Carey looks back at notable moments, including the Macintosh Portable sending the first email in space. Read more about it on CNET.com Artemis II Astronauts Are Using iPhones to Capture Stunning…

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The iPhone has been to space a few times now — in fact, Apple products have a long history of space travel. CNET’s Bridget Carey looks back at notable moments, including the Macintosh Portable sending the first email in space.

Read more about it on CNET.com
Artemis II Astronauts Are Using iPhones to Capture Stunning Space Images

You can find the products mentioned in this video linked below
iPhone 17 Pro 512GB
Apple 2026 MacBook Neo 13-inch Laptop with A18 Pro chip 512 GB
Nikon Z 9 mirrorless camera
Nikon D5 DSLR 20.8 MP Point & Shoot Digital Camera
*Cnet may get commission on this offer.

0:44 Getting an iPhone 17 Pro Max into space with the NASA Artemis II crew
1:57 Nikon and GoPro Cameras also used in space by NASA Artemis crew
2:48 History of Apple products going to space
2:53 iPhone goes to space in 2021 with SpaceX Inspiration4 crew
3:02 iPhone 4s goes to space in 2011 on space shuttle Atlantis mission
3:26 Fist iPhone in space in 2010 travels by weather balloon
3:45 iPads on the International Space Station
3:47 iPods on the ISS in space
4:00 iPod on space shuttle Discovery in 2006
4:15 Astro Jessica uses AirPods in space on ISS
4:37 Apple Watch in space
4:51 The mac goes interstellar
4:57 Macintosh Portable computer goes to space in 1990
5:26 First email sent in space in 1991 from a Macintosh Portable
5:31 ThinkPads used in NASA missions
5:45 Microsoft Outlook glitches in space for Artemis II crew
6:02 How NASA made cell phone cameras possible
6:20 What Apple tech will go to space next?

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#tech #space #microsoft #apple #spacex #thinkpad #nikond5 #iphone #nasa #artemis2 #onemorething

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Popular Science

Americans loved drinking radioactive ‘miracle water’ in 1920s

Radithor promised to cure everything from wrinkles to leukemia, but its unintended results were deadly. Watch the full video:

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Radithor promised to cure everything from wrinkles to leukemia, but its unintended results were deadly.

Watch the full video:

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