Massive Signals

Maggie Rodney, Partner at Massive and producer of Massive Signals, turns the tables on co-founders David Mandell and Ari Newman, who have spent every episode asking the questions and now take the hot seat. They define an “inflection point” on air for the first time, explain why they launched Massive in 2020 by investing their own capital through SPVs instead of raising a traditional Fund I, and share the “hacking to scaling” lens that guides every investment. They also unpack why they back “inevitable” industries like space, energy, quantum, and cybersecurity, what it means to build a deep tech firm in Colorado, and the founder traits that predict long-term success. In this episode:  How two founders bonded and built Massive on their own capital.  Why the leap from experiment to business is where value is created.  The Deep Tech Summit, honest gaps, and what makes founders succeed.  Connect more with Massive Signals  Website: https://massive.vc/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arinewman  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgmandell

Sassie Duggleby, Co-Founder and CEO of Venus Aerospace, joins Massive Signals to discuss building the world's first high-thrust rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) — and the journey from a jet-lagged conversation in Japan to a $90 million Series B. She shares how Venus cracked a propulsion concept that had eluded the industry for over 40 years, why a single test flight in May 2025 flipped the company from an "academic experiment" into one fielding inbound demand from defense primes, and how that shift is now forcing Venus to reinvent itself from an R&D shop into a scale manufacturer. Sassie also discusses co-founding and running the company with her husband and CTO, Andrew, and why she's built Venus around a culture of getting people "home for dinner." In this episode:  From a Balcony in Japan to a Category-Defining Engine: How a conversation about missing a grandmother's birthday became the founding thesis for Venus, and why "home for dinner" still drives its long-term vision for high-speed travel. Cracking a 40-Year-Old Problem: How 650+ engine tests and a "build a little, test a little, learn a lot" philosophy let Venus become the first to fly a high-thrust RDRE, unlocking up to 15% better combustion efficiency and triple-to-quadruple payload gains. From Hacking to Scaling: How a single test flight flipped customer demand overnight, turned Lockheed Martin from investor into development partner, and pushed Venus to scale from R&D shop to manufacturer after a $90 million Series B.   Connect more with Sassie Duggleby | Venus Aerospace Website: https://www.venusaero.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sduggleby/ Connect more with Massive Signals Website: https://massive.vc/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arinewman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgmandell

In this episode, we sit down with Chris Gladwin, founder and former CEO of Ocient, the company behind the software powering the world's largest data-analyzing systems. A serial deep tech founder who built Cleversafe into a $1.4 billion IBM acquisition, Chris spent over a decade building for the petabyte-scale data generators - telecom, intelligence, adtech - until AI made data volume explode across the enterprise market. We get into why enterprise adoption only happens at 10x better, not 50% better, why he thinks ARR is the most overrated number because it’s bad for customers, and why he handed the CEO seat to John Morris for a second time.   In this episode:   The 10x Rule: Why a database that's 50% better than the competition gets zero customers — and what it actually takes to displace Google, Amazon, and Snowflake.  Sold It Zero Times: How Ocient's machine-learning capability sat unsold for years until AI got better than human analysts and enterprise demand flipped overnight.  Revenue Is a Lagging Indicator: Why Chris calls ARR the most overrated number in a pitch deck — and the enterprise resentment it can mask.  The $189 Billion Comp: How Databricks' pre-money valuation rewrote the old "$100M in, sell for $1-3B" playbook Chris ran at Cleversafe.  Doing It Three Times: The internal metric — every hard thing proven at least three times — that told Chris it was time to hand the CEO seat to John Morris again.   Connect more with Chris Gladwin | Ocient Website: https://ocient.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-gladwin-7ba42b/    Connect more with Massive Signals Website: https://massive.vc/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arinewman  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgmandell

In this episode, we sit down with Zeb King, Managing Director of Endeavor Colorado — the local chapter of a 45-market global network that backs growth-stage founders through mentorship and a rules-based co-investment fund. Zeb makes the case for Colorado as a genuine global leader in quantum, space, and genomics, not a scaled-down Silicon Valley. We get into why founder-market fit beats revenue as a signal in deep tech, why Colorado's real gap is late-stage capital, and what it's like to sit in front of a global selection panel.   In this episode: The SaaS-pocalypse: Why AI has hollowed out software's moat while deep tech's manufacturing and IP moats have never been more defensible.  Giving Away Half the Upside, Still Beating the Market: Endeavor's 50-50 profit-sharing fund splits carry with LPs and still nets a top-quartile return.  The Unanimous Vote: Inside the three-day Athens selection panel, where a founder needs a 6-0 vote to join the network.  Revenue Is a Lagging Indicator: Endeavor weighs customer concentration and government-funding runway over raw ARR growth.  Planting the Flag: How Zeb repositioned Endeavor Colorado around quantum and space — and why international companies are now opening Boulder and Denver offices instead of the reverse.   Connect more with Zeb King | Endeavor Colorado Website: https://www.endeavorcolorado.org/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/zebking    Connect more with Massive Signals Website: https://massive.vc/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arinewman  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgmandell

In this episode, we sit down with Liz Dennett, CEO and Founder of Endolith, a mining technology company using microbes to pull more copper out of the low-grade ore already sitting inside existing mines. Liz makes the case for why mining moves slower than any industry she's touched, why revenue is easy to chase for the wrong reasons in deep tech, and why the world needs more copper by 2050 than humanity has produced in all of history. We also get into her seed-to-Series-A arc, the rule that shaped her cap table, and the discipline of learning what to say no to.   In this episode:   The "Disprove This" Moment: How Liz stress-tested Endolith's first big validation data — replotting it in Python, asking ChatGPT to poke holes in her own results — before it became the industry's watershed proof point.  Earning the Right to Operate: Mining companies are risk-averse by design; winning them over takes repeated, boring, safe proof — not one flashy pilot.  The Copper Cliff: The world needs more copper by 2050 than in all of human history — turning a commodity into a national security issue.  The Charisma Saving Throw: How a seed round built on vibes and early validation became a WSJ-covered Series A, 18 months later.  Revenue Is a Lagging Indicator: Why chasing quick five- and six-figure contracts can quietly derail a deep tech company — and why saying no is the discipline. Connect more with Liz Dennett | Endolith Website: https://www.endolithmining.com/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/microbes    Connect more with Massive Signals Website: https://massive.vc/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arinewman  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgmandell