Jan 14, 2026 · 38 min · 12 segments
The artificial intelligence PhD to VC pipeline may seem relatively obvious now but Jenny Xiao, cofounder of Leonis Capital, forged this path well before the AI boom ever started. She left a PhD…
Jenny XiaoGuest
Allie GarfinkleHost
Fed Chair Jerome Powell came forward and said that he is under investigation by the Department of Justice.
Now, the contours of exactly what this all entails are still evolving as we speak, but I think it's worth saying this out loud, number one, and going back to a couple of basics.
Powell is a famously thoughtful, measured figure in a lot of ways, whether you agree with him or not.
This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.
Trump and Powell have had a lot of tension for years, but what surprised me in that video was the timing and the tone.
Very clearly, this is a situation that isn't actually just about Powell himself, I would argue, but about the Fed as an institution and probably about the independence of Powell's eventual successor.
VCs in particular who I talk to will often say, Ah, yes, what the Fed does doesn't really affect us because it's long term.
We are investing on such a long time horizons to which I say the long term stability of the United States economy actually does matter.
And if we get to the place where the Fed is responding to short term political pressures, that fundamentally changes the economy in ways that affect every single investor and every single startup ultimately.
For those of you who aren't familiar with it, Strava is a fitness tracking app.
I had a really interesting conversation with the CEO, Mike Martin, who's been the CEO for about two years.
about the company's turnaround and how in certain ways Strava was brought back to life, brought back into this new era by female Gen Z runners.
And it's the sort of thing that when Strava does go public, they officially won't comment, of course.
But when that day does come, it will be a tech IPO, but it will also be an IPO at the intersection of a lot of trends around wellness, which I think are going to be a bigger story in 2026 than we even know right now.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell came forward and said that he is under investigation by the Department of Justice.
Now, the contours of exactly what this all entails are still evolving as we speak, but I think it's worth saying this out loud, number one, and going back to a couple of basics.
Powell is a famously thoughtful, measured figure in a lot of ways, whether you agree with him or not.
This is about whether the Fed will be able to continue to set interest rates based on evidence and economic conditions or whether instead monetary policy will be directed by political pressure or intimidation.
Trump and Powell have had a lot of tension for years, but what surprised me in that video was the timing and the tone.
Very clearly, this is a situation that isn't actually just about Powell himself, I would argue, but about the Fed as an institution and probably about the independence of Powell's eventual successor.
VCs in particular who I talk to will often say, Ah, yes, what the Fed does doesn't really affect us because it's long term.
We are investing on such a long time horizons to which I say the long term stability of the United States economy actually does matter.
And if we get to the place where the Fed is responding to short term political pressures, that fundamentally changes the economy in ways that affect every single investor and every single startup ultimately.
For those of you who aren't familiar with it, Strava is a fitness tracking app.
I had a really interesting conversation with the CEO, Mike Martin, who's been the CEO for about two years.
about the company's turnaround and how in certain ways Strava was brought back to life, brought back into this new era by female Gen Z runners.
And it's the sort of thing that when Strava does go public, they officially won't comment, of course.
But when that day does come, it will be a tech IPO, but it will also be an IPO at the intersection of a lot of trends around wellness, which I think are going to be a bigger story in 2026 than we even know right now.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
