10X Growth Strategies

In this episode of 10X Growth Strategies recorded live at SF Climate Week, founder and host Preethy Padmanabhan sits down with Rajesh Swaminathan, Partner at Khosla Ventures. Drawing on decades of deep tech and climate investing experience, Rajesh breaks down how AI and energy infrastructure have become deeply intertwined, why Climate 2.0 requires a fundamental focus on techno-economics, and how startups can successfully integrate into existing legacy infrastructure.   In this episode, we discuss:   Why baseload clean energy is the ultimate bottleneck for AI scale and data centers Super hot rock geothermal and nuclear fusion as game-changers for 5-cent kilowatt-hour clean power Solving compute limitations through chip stacking, panel-based approaches, and photonic interconnects Rebuilding U.S. manufacturing leadership across semiconductors, photonics, and energy Strategic learnings moving from CleanTech 1.0 to Climate 2.0 "David AND Goliath": Why integrating into legacy infrastructure beats trying to replace it Top investment themes for the next 3 years: digital grid management, critical minerals, cement, and bio-manufacturing What transforms high-risk science into a venture-scalable company with massive impact Whether you are a deep tech founder, investor, or policy strategist navigating the intersection of AI, climate, and energy—this conversation offers critical insights for building enduring companies.   10X Growth Strategies is a community founded by Preethy Padmanabhan, started as a podcast five years ago and now grown into a community of over 14,000 founders, investors, and executives across Luma and LinkedIn. The community hosts monthly events on timely topics in tech, AI, and entrepreneurship.   Connect: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/10x-growth-strategies/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/preepadu/ Website: https://grow10x.podbean.com/ Luma: https://luma.com/user/preepadu   #AI #Energy #ClimateTech #DeepTech #AIInfrastructure #Geothermal #NuclearFusion #Semiconductors #VentureCapital #10XGrowthStrategies Chapters: 00:00:09 - 00:01:10 - Welcome to SF Climate Week & 10X Community Intro 00:01:11 - 00:02:25 - The 10X Growth Strategies Mission & Sponsorships 00:02:26 - 00:03:33 - Introducing Rajesh Swaminathan (Khosla Ventures) 00:03:34 - 00:04:26 - 18 Years in Deep Tech: Journey into Climate Investing 00:04:27 - 00:06:00 - Climate 1.0 vs. 2.0: The AI + Energy Paradigm Shift 00:06:01 - 00:09:02 - Geothermal & Fusion: Energy as the Deciding Factor in the AI Race 00:09:03 - 00:11:43 - Next-Gen Compute: Chip Stacking, Photonics & U.S. Manufacturing 00:11:44 - 00:13:34 - Geopolitics, Policy Inconsistency & Building Resilient Infrastructure 00:13:35 - 00:16:12 - Techno-Economics: How Khosla Ventures Structures Seed to Late-Stage Risk 00:16:13 - 00:18:44 - The "David and Goliath" Integration Strategy for Hard Tech 00:18:45 - 00:19:35 - High-Priority Themes: AI for Digital Grid, Critical Minerals & EV/Robotics 00:19:36 - 00:23:25 - Audience Q&A: Geopolitical Friction vs. Founder Execution 00:23:26 - 00:24:38 - Vertical Integration vs. Partnering with Legacy Industries 00:24:39 - 00:25:39 - Audience Q&A: Bio-Based Compute and Manufacturing 00:25:40 - 00:27:20 - What Separates a Venture-Scale Startup from a Science Project

A single customer request can now generate 10,000 fake documents in under five minutes - and that's just one signal of how fast AI is reshaping trust across cybersecurity, identity, and engineering. In this episode of 10X Growth Strategies, host Preethy Padmanabhan talks to Purvi Desai (VP Engineering, Zscaler) and Raul Liive (Product Director, Marketplaces, Veriff) about what it actually takes to build - and defend - AI systems that enterprises can trust. In this episode, we discuss: Why has the question shifted from "can AI do this?" to "can AI do this predictably, accurately, and with the right governance?" How AI has scaled document fraud from a manual editing job into a mass-produced, minutes-long process Why identity verification now has to answer not just "who are you" but "are you still you tomorrow, with good intent?" The move from AI-as-copilot to full agentic engineering, spec-driven development, and multi-agent workflows Why unscoped agentic commands and LLM context limits create new engineering risk What trustworthy AI actually requires: accuracy, predictability, traceability, and data segregation The role of offline and live evals, judges, and adversarial testing in validating AI output How enterprises are evaluating AI vendors on leading-edge capability, compliance, and ease of integration Why trust, not just capability, is becoming the hardest problem to solve for AI-driven companies The real story behind "15x productivity" claims and how gains actually compound over time Whether you're a founder, an engineering leader, or someone trying to understand where AI, identity, and cybersecurity intersect - this conversation is for you. 10X Growth Strategies is a community founded by Preethy Padmanabhan, started as a podcast five years ago and now grown into a community of over 7,500 founders, investors, and executives across Luma and LinkedIn. The community hosts monthly events on timely topics in tech, AI, and entrepreneurship. #cybersecurity #AItrust #AIsecurity #identityverification #enterpriseAI #AIagents #deepfake #zerotrust #growthstrategies #10xgrowth Chapters: 00:00:06 - 00:01:14 - Meet the Speakers: Purvi Desai (Zscaler) 00:01:15 - 00:01:40 - Meet the Speakers: Raul Liive (Veriff) 00:01:42 - 00:02:56 - How AI Has Changed Customer Trust 00:02:57 - 00:04:13 - The Rise of AI-Generated Fake Documents 00:04:14 - 00:07:18 - AI's Impact on Engineering Workflows 00:07:19 - 00:09:09 - Identity Verification in the Age of AI Agents 00:09:10 - 00:12:17 - What Trustworthy AI Looks Like (Evals, Guardrails, Compliance) 00:12:18 - 00:12:53 - New Opportunities for Startups 00:12:54 - 00:16:31 - Inside Veriff: Securing Identity Without Compromising Trust 00:16:36 - 00:18:38 - Audience Q&A: Evaluating AI Vendors 00:18:40 - 00:20:29 - Why Trust Is the #1 Vendor Selection Criteria 00:20:30 - 00:22:43 - Audience Q&A: Productivity Gains & Validating AI Output

A customer discovered 11,000 AI agents running in their environment - and most weren't even built by developers. In this episode of 10X Growth Strategies, host Preethy Padmanabhan talks to Ankur Shah (CEO, Straiker) and Nick Shevelyov (CEO, vCSO.ai) on how AI is reshaping cybersecurity for enterprises and startups alike.   In this episode, we discuss: The two sides of AI and cybersecurity: using AI to improve security, and securing the AI itself Why LLMs and AI agents can be socially engineered just like humans and why that's a fundamentally new attack surface The discovery of 11,000 "citizen agents" inside a single enterprise, built without developer oversight Why visibility, governance, and guardrails are the new foundation of AI security What "YOLO mode" is, and why human-in-the-loop approval matters for high-risk agent actions How CISOs are thinking about traceability, accountability, and blast radius when deploying agentic AI Why distribution and trust are now the hardest problems in cybersecurity How MYTHOS and AI-discovered vulnerabilities are changing patching cycles and concentration risk Founder advice on building enduring companies in a crowded, fast-moving cybersecurity market Whether you're a founder, a CISO, or an investor trying to understand where AI and cybersecurity intersect - this conversation is for you. 10X Growth Strategies is a community founded by Preethy Padmanabhan, started as a podcast five years ago and now grown into a community of over 7,500 founders, investors, and executives across Luma and LinkedIn. The community hosts monthly events on timely topics in tech, AI, and entrepreneurship. Chapters: 00:00:10 - 00:00:55 - Introduction & Community Milestone 00:00:56 - 00:01:43 - Sponsor & Partner Shout-Outs 00:01:44 - 00:02:52 - Audience Check: Founders vs. Investors 00:02:53 - 00:03:38 - Meet the Speakers: Ankur Shah (Straiker) 00:03:39 - 00:05:01 - Meet the Speakers: Nick Shevelyov (vCSO AI) 00:05:02 - 00:06:44 - How AI is Changing Cybersecurity 00:06:45 - 00:08:36 - Why AI Agents are Hard to Secure 00:08:37 - 00:26:26 - Variables vs. Invariables in Cyber Strategy 00:26:27 - 00:28:40 - Audience Q&A: Standing Out in a Crowded Market 00:28:41 - 00:31:00 - Audience Q&A: Is Your Data Safe with ChatGPT & Claude? 00:31:01 - 00:33:19 - Closing Advice for Founders Connect: LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/preepadu Website: https://grow10x.podbean.com/ Luma: https://lu.ma/10xgrowthstrategies

Are your AI agents truly safe to deploy at scale? In this episode, two founders come together to tackle one of the most urgent questions for every AI startup and enterprise today: how do you build AI systems you can actually trust? Hosted by Preethy Padmanabhan and the 10x Growth Strategies community, this panel brings together Tatyana Mamut (WayFound) and Prukalpa Sankar (Atlan) - two founders redefining how enterprises govern, monitor, and scale AI responsibly. In this episode, we discuss: How supervisor/guardian agents help enterprises reach 3-nines and 5-nines reliability Real-world example: a customer service AI agent secretly offering refunds with perfect guardrails in place Why sampling logs isn't enough and why 100% monitoring is now a legal requirement How the OpenAI and Workday lawsuits are reshaping enterprise AI accountability How to architect AI-ready data systems with lineage, traceability, and explainability built in How enterprises across the US, Germany, and Australia are navigating evolving AI regulation Hybrid deterministic + AI system design for production-grade agents Whether you're an entrepreneur, a corporate executive, or a venture capital investor evaluating AI startup opportunities - this conversation on 10x growth, scaling up, and responsible AI is unmissable. 10X Growth Strategies is a community co-founded by Preethy Padmanabhan, built to bring together founders, investors, and executives for meaningful connection and growth. With thousands of members across LinkedIn, Luma, and Partiful, the community hosts monthly events on timely topics in tech, AI, and entrepreneurship. Chapters 0:00 - 3:32 - Introduction 3:32 - 7:59 - Understanding Enterprise Trust in AI 7:59 - 13:47 - Legal Challenges and Compliance in AI 13:47 - 19:00 - Architecting AI systems for Compliance 19:00 - 21:52 - Benefits of Working with this New Technology 21:25 - 25:21 - Proactive vs Reactive Compliance Strategies 25:21 - 41:35 - Audience Interactions 41:35 - 44:04 - What is your Leadership Principle? Connect:  Website: https://grow10x.podbean.com/ Luma: https://lu.ma/10xgrowthstrategies

🎙️ E121: Building From Zero — The Realities of Nearshoring & Global Talent In this episode of 10X Growth Strategies, host Saradha Sriram sits down with Brian Samson, founder of a nearshore staffing firm connecting top Latin American talent with U.S. companies, to explore what it really takes to build a business from nothing — in a country you barely understand. Drawing parallels with Shoe Dog, Brian shares how bold, uncertain decisions — like moving to Argentina with no roadmap — shaped his journey as a founder. From navigating cultural friction and operational chaos to building teams across borders, he explains why founders must adapt to environments instead of forcing familiar systems onto them. The conversation dives into global hiring, nearshoring, and talent arbitrage, unpacking why Latin America is emerging as a powerful alternative to traditional outsourcing markets — and how companies can actually make it work. A grounded, experience-backed look at risk, culture, hiring, and the personal trade-offs behind building something meaningful.  ⏱️ Chapters 00:00 – 00:45 • Intro & Brian’s background 00:45 – 02:20 • Taking the leap — moving to Argentina with no plan 02:20 – 04:20 • Building from zero — early uncertainty & first principles 04:20 – 06:00 • Cultural miscalculations — operating outside your home market 06:00 – 08:00 • The reality of doing business in Latin America 08:00 – 09:45 • Hiring missionaries vs mercenaries — building belief-driven teams 09:45 – 11:30 • Why “top talent” is contextual — culture fit over credentials 11:30 – 13:30 • The rise of nearshoring — LATAM’s growing advantage 13:30 – 15:00 • Remote work, time zones & global collaboration 15:00 – 16:30 • Founder trade-offs — risk, pressure & personal cost 16:30 – 18:00 • From 3 people to scale — what changes as you grow 18:00 – 19:00 • Outro — key takeaways & closing thoughts