18VC Podcast - Next Gen Builders

Katie VanArnam was diagnosed with lymphoma at eight. On the night of her first chemo session, her mom Casey Glazer cut open an old T-shirt and sewed Velcro over the port. Thirteen years later, that shirt is Courage Tees, and it just took first prize at USC's New Venture Seed Competition.On Episode 24 of 18VC, we sit down with Katie VanArnam and Casey Glazer, the daughter-and-mother team behind Courage Tees, about adaptive port-access shirts that let patients keep their clothes on, and keep feeling like themselves, during treatment.Highlights & Key Insights:Why the shirt switched from Velcro to plastic snaps, and the diagnostic-test rule that made the change necessary Fox Chase's gift shop already sold a port shirt that nobody bought. One patient's line explains why The "companion shirt," which turned classmates, families and even oncologists into customers Why they stayed for-profit: hospitals and organizations buying shirts for patients turned out to be the best distribution Katie didn't make the finals the first time she pitched. The mindset she borrowed from the previous winner won it the second time Building a company with your mom: who does what, the arguments, and why it has been "weirdly healing"Timestamps: (00:00) Highlights(00:57) Pre-show warm-up(02:47) Welcome: Katie & Casey of Courage Tees(03:56) Diagnosed at eight(06:43) Feeling exposed during treatment(08:17) The first Velcro shirt(09:15) From Snoopy shirts to a business(10:23) Companion shirts & the nurses(12:35) What "Courage Tees" means(13:58) Why start the company in 2025?(15:41) What a chest port actually is(17:13) Competitors, snaps & the design edge(19:05) From homemade to manufactured(20:54) Expanding to adults, babies & toddlers(22:58) Who's buying today(24:49) Nonprofit vs. for-profit(26:58) Michael's Way & the give-back model(28:17) Amazon knockoffs & the community moat(32:33) The five-year vision(33:25) Losing, then winning New Venture Seed(36:33) Journalism meets entrepreneurship(37:26) Co-founding with your mom(39:52) The next 12–24 months(41:12) Advice for young foundersSubscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching.Subscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching.— Connect with Katie VanArnam —LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-vanarnam-6012692b5/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katiee_van/— Connect with Casey Glazer —Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caseyglazer1/— Courage Tees — Website: https://couragetees.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/courage_tees/— Connect with 18VC 18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@18vcpodcast18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/official18vc/18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

A kid learns hide-and-seek in one round. AI needed hundreds of millions of tries. Prof. Saty Raghavachary spent 16 years building the effects tools behind DreamWorks films, and he thinks that gap tells you exactly where AI is headed and where it isn't.On Episode 23 of 18VC, Corbin and Philip sit down with Prof. Saty Raghavachary, USC Viterbi computer science professor and DreamWorks R&D veteran, on what intelligence actually is, why agentic AI is really "LLMs in a loop," and why he'd bet on living neurons over bigger data centers.Highlights & Key Insights:- The two-word definition of intelligence he boiled down from decades of competing definitions- "If it's reversible, it's not real": the one line he says separates AI training from how a brain learns, and the moment he says it's time to get scared- Forget the Turing test: the kitchen test no robot can pass, and his four-letter framework for what machines are missing- Why world models look stunning right up until you try to crush a flower petal or snap a candy bar- Living neurons in a Petri dish that learned to play Pong, and why organoid intelligence is his pick for the real path toward AGI- His blunt advice for CS students: one-trick ponies are already obsolete, so go broad and build on things made of atoms, not bitsTimestamps:(00:00) Highlights(00:42) Welcome to Episode 23(02:36) Metallurgy → DreamWorks → USC(05:49) What academia doesn't teach(12:25) Intelligence = "considered response"(15:45) Agentic AI: LLMs in a loop(18:39) What AI still can't do(20:50) Organoid intelligence & the road to AGI(25:38) "If it's reversible, it's not real"(31:08) The coffee test(35:44) Why world models fall short(43:05) Overhyped vs. underhyped(49:40) Healthy FOMO: his information diet(56:20) Advice for students in the AI era(01:05:52) Go Trojans & staying joyfulSubscribe for the earliest signal on the founders, and the ideas, worth watching.— Connect with Prof. Saty Raghavachary —USC Viterbi Faculty Page: https://viterbi.usc.edu/directory/faculty/Raghavachary/SatyLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/satychary/— Mentioned in This Episode —Cortical Labs (organoid intelligence): https://corticallabs.com/World Labs & AMI Labs (world models): https://www.worldlabs.ai/; https://amilabs.xyz/Lean (proof assistant)"Connections" by James Burke (book & BBC series)— Connect with 18VC —18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/official18vc/18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

Every music startup is racing to bolt on AI. Kayla and Rila are betting on a pocket-sized synthesizer with none — a piece of hardware that gets total beginners playing their favorite song in about 15 minutes.On Episode 22 of 18VC, Philip and David sit down with the co-founders of Project Play — who also lead SparkSC, USC's entrepreneurship club — on why it had to be hardware, how two founders with no engineering background are getting prototypes built, and why they think the AI bubble in music is already popping.Highlights & Key Insights:- The 24-hour, all-women hardware hackathon Kayla almost walked out of — and the judges' comment that turned a "just for fun" build into a company- A professor told them that if they built it in a week, anyone could. Why four pitch competitions left them burnt out, and how building in public on LinkedIn flipped the script- Hardware with no electrical engineers on the founding team: a high-school friend's referral, a studio in China, and their first 10 prototypes in six weeks- The "Southwest Airlines of music tech" — $50–59 against $600–$1,000+ synths, 30–35% margins today, and the ~$20K tooling bill between them and a premium build- Why they ask for a $1 refundable deposit instead of a free waitlist- Getting rejected by Yamaha's student pitch competition, where every product was AI music — plus the "GG EZ" debate on whether AI can ever replace an artist's storyTimestamps:(00:00) Highlights & Demo(01:39) Welcome to Episode 22(03:57) How they found startups(13:16) The hackathon that started it all(16:55) Choosing a co-founder(20:35) Pitch-comp burnout → build in public(25:14) Why it has to be hardware(27:40) Music's barrier to entry(34:41) How Project Play works(38:42) Hardware without engineers(43:59) A music startup with no AI(47:39) Go-to-market & the $1 deposit(51:00) Margins & the "Southwest" play(55:01) Can AI make real art?(01:07:33) In their own words(01:10:34) Advice & who they're hiringSubscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching.— Connect with Kayla —LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kayla-trinh-2309a6311/— Connect with Rila —LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rui-he-usc-marshall/— Project Play —Website & waitlist: https://projectplay.tech/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/project-play-tech/Founding engineer interest form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeDBQkh2oRfzDQOD-K66N5BEWBPML9lEbqYFnuHuRBcmEBAog/viewform— SparkSC —LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/spark-sc/posts/?feedView=allInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/gosparksc/?hl=en— Connect with 18VC —18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/official18vc/18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

More than 44% of a researcher's time isn't spent on research; it goes to chasing grants and paperwork. USC professor Mayank Kejriwal got frustrated enough to build GRAIL, an AI-agent platform that helps scientists find, write, and manage grants, with one goal: get that number down to 4%.On Episode 21 of 18VC, Philip and Corbin sit down with Mayank Kejriwal, Research Associate Professor at USC Viterbi, Principal Scientist at USC's Information Sciences Institute, and co-founder & CEO of GRAIL, on where LLMs really stand in 2026, what AI means for jobs, and what it takes to switch between professor mode and founder mode.Highlights & Key Insights:- Grants run 100–200 pages, win maybe 5–10% of the time, and take six months to hear back — and why he'd scrap the long written proposal altogether- Why the model is only ~10% of an AI product, where GRAIL's real moat comes from, and why Claude Sonnet beat newer models for academic writing- The customer-discovery finding that pushed GRAIL from selling to professors to selling to whole universities- His theory of why LLMs hallucinate — and why they're trained away from saying "I don't know"- The entry-level catch-22: if AI automates junior jobs, who becomes the next generation of domain experts?- Running two personas — humble researcher and all-in founder — sometimes within the same hourTimestamps:(00:00) Highlights(00:50) Meet Professor Mayank Kejriwal(03:23) Choosing research over Wall Street(04:51) Why a CS professor got a Marshall MBA(08:29) Knowledge graphs & fighting human trafficking(14:03) Where LLMs really stand in 2026(20:41) AI, jobs & the inevitable backlash(27:18) What students should focus on now(32:36) GRAIL's origin: the 44% problem(38:23) Picking models & building a moat(43:45) Why sell to universities, not professors(48:05) Building toward AI scientists(51:52) Will AI get cheaper or pricier?(54:56) Kill the 20-page grant proposal(58:43) Professor vs. founder: two personas(1:07:56) Who should (and shouldn't) found a startup(1:11:30) Wrap-upSubscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching.— Connect with Mayank Kejriwal —LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mayankkejriwal/X: https://x.com/kejriwal_mayankSubstack: https://aiscientist.substack.com/— GRAIL —Website: https://enterprise.grailai.io/GRAIL at IJCAI 2026 (demo paper): https://www.ijcai.org/proceedings/2026/998— Connect with 18VC —18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/official18vc/18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC

A USC freshman is on his third startup, and this one wants your personal AI agent talking to everyone else's. No feed, no followers, no ads. Just agents making the introductions humans used to make themselves.On this episode of the 18VC podcast, hosts Philip and David sit down with Zion Zhang, founder of Humanest, an MCP network that lets personal AI agents talk to each other to engineer serendipity, broker warm intros, and collapse six degrees of separation into one conversation.Highlights & Key Insights:- Why his biggest competitive threat isn't LinkedIn. It's Anthropic or OpenAI shipping this exact network in six months, and the "model neutrality" bet he's making instead- The two hard rules baked into every Humanest agent: it never sends a message without your sign-off, and it treats anything from another agent as data and never an instruction- He built an AI wearable to capture conversations at his own events, then killed it — the one objection about it he could never engineer around- From Figbox's anti-loneliness thesis to Ponder's AI mentors to Humanest: what three pivots taught him about building only for yourself firstTimestamps:(00:00) Cold open(02:05) Welcome to 18VC & meet Zion Zhang(04:07) From Shanghai to a COVID-era Steve Jobs obsession(09:47) Startup #1: Ponder and the AI mentor that never shipped(13:45) Startup #2: Figbox and the anti-social-network pivot(18:13) What Humanest actually is: an MCP network for personal AI agents(23:28) The failed AI wearable — and finding the real moat(33:10) Why Humanest refuses to chase retention(41:08) Agent guardrails: no message sent without human approval(50:03) Why Anthropic or OpenAI — not LinkedIn — is the real threat(55:25) Inside the numbers: 30 daily users, 500 on the waitlist(01:16:41) The Lonely Chapter, being young and stupid, and when to pivotSubscribe for the earliest signal on the founders worth watching.— Connect with Zion Zhang —LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zionzhang/— Humanest —Website: https://humanest.ai— Connect with 18VC —18VC Website: https://www.18-vc.com/18VC Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6b3YoAMLjZLziwqHWy3EXb18VC Podcast on YouTube: https://youtube.com/@18vcpodcast?si=l69vI6hHwLgIvw4N18VC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/18venturecapital/18VC LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/eighteenvc/18VC X: https://x.com/Official18VC