The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal

Founded 6+ years ago by Vidit Agarwal, The High Flyers Podcast (THF) is a global top ranked show exploring the personal and professional journeys behind the most relatable role models shaping our world. Enjoy 250+ in-depth (and often rare) conversations with the world’s most influential and relatable role models in business, tech, finance, government and sport -- going beyond the headlines to explore their life and work including their formative years, inflection points, industry insights, and how they think, lead and build. Episodes are listened to by CEOs, C-Suite Executives, Investors, Founders, and Government Leaders across Australia, USA, India, UK, Singapore, Canada and New Zealand. Alongside the podcast, we host an annual High Flyers Growth Summit in Sydney and San Francisco. This podcast is one of five products under our parent company, Curiosity Centre. We're proud that more than 60% of our 250+ guests have trusted us for their first-ever public interview — or to go in-depth on their personal story for the first time. These include: Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Jason Collins (CEO, BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths), Michael Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), Elena Verna (Head of Growth, Lovable), David Haber (a16z Partner), Vandita Pant (CFO, BHP), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Gautam Chari (Head of Capital Commitments, Bank of America), Mel Silva (Managing Director, Google), Jean-Michel Limieux (CTO, Shopify and Atlassian), David Eckstein (CFO, Legora), Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Mark Suster (Partner, Upfront Ventures), Niki Scevak (Partner, Blackbird), Craig Tiley (CEO, USA Tennis), Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel), Paul Bassat (Partner, Square Peg), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Sam Sicilia (CIO, Hostplus), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Tim Doyle (CEO, Eucalyptus), Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Xero), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica), Philip Green (Australia's Ambassador to India), Vivek Bhatia (CEO, MUFG), Cristina Cordova (COO, Linear) and more. Engage with us via: Email: contact@curiositycentre.com Website: https://highflyerspodcast.com X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/vidags10 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thehighflyers Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thehighflyerspodcast/ Follow us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 277 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Unknown Host hosts The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal, a business show with 277 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

• 

  The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal

  #278 Ellen DaSilva: Scaling Twitter, Hims Employee #8, Sequoia Scout & building Summer Health on “Maximum Mode”

  Sep 11, 20261h 13m

  This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers .  ________ Ellen DaSilva is the Founder and CEO of Summer Health, the pediatric healthcare company that served 30,000+ families before being acquired by Doctronic in 2026. Earlier, she was employee #8 at Hims & Hers and worked at Twitter during its hyper growth years. She is an active angel investor and Sequoia Scout, and earned her MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School. In this conversation, Ellen joins Vidit to unpack the ambition behind her extraordinary career, the leap from Wall Street to scaling Twitter during its hyper gowth years, why she nearly became a Hims competitor before joining as employee #8, and what happened when she finally took the founder leap with Summer Health. They also explore how consumer software has changed, what makes great companies feel “inevitable”, why Ellen is “incapable of turning off founder mode”, and the philosophy behind living life on “maximum mode” and lots more.  Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. _______ Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG,, Allens, Macquarie Capital, Xero, JP Morgan and more.  Show notes and more episodes here Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here Contact us via our website This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers .  ________ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Ellen’s “hot take” on consumer AI 02:00 From Barclays to selling Summer Health 05:00 Growing up ambitious in New York 09:00 The family behind Ellen’s drive 11:00 “CEO of Coca-Cola” at age five 13:00 Politics, Bloomberg & an early obsession with change 15:00 Why Ellen studied English literature 18:00 Raising three intensely curious kids 19:00 China vs Wall Street 23:00 “I knew I was going to marry him” 26:00 Discovering tech from a Wall Street desk 29:00 The 10-day leap from Barclays to Twitter 31:00 Scaling Twitter during hypergrowth 33:00 Why “every job becomes sales” 35:00 How Twitter shaped Summer Health 38:00 HBS, ambition & “colouring outside the lines” 42:00 How Ellen spots exceptional companies early 45:00 The startup she nearly built before Hims 47:00 employee #8 at Hims to IPO 48:00 Building healthcare like consumer software 49:00 Why Summer Health removed the interface 51:00 Why text-based products may win 52:00 What Ellen would build next 54:00 Why Summer Health sold to Doctronic 57:00 Ellen’s fundraising playbook 01:02:00 The 5 people in her "hall of fame" room 01:08:00 The hardest period of her career 01:11:00 “I’m incapable of turning off founder mode” 01:13:00 Parenting without slowing down 01:14:00 Living life on “maximum mode” 01:17:00 Food, health & learning Mandarin 01:18:00 Vibe coding, robotics & what Ellen wants to learn next 01:19:00 “Where are you an outlier?” 01:20:00 Ellen’s pet peeve ________ The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world’s most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW. Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Keith Rabois (Managing Director, Khosla Ventures), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths), Michael Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), David Eckstein (CFO, Legora), Kevin Hartz (Partner, A*; Founder, Eventbrite), Shiv Rao (CEO, Abridge), Jesse Zhang (CEO, Decagon), Vandita Pant (CFO, BHP), Elena Verna (Head of Growth, Lovable), David Haber (a16z Partner), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Limieux (CTO, Shopify and Atlassian), Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta), Cristina Cordova (COO, Linear), Gautam Chari (Head of Capital Commitments, Bank of America), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Mark Suster (Partner, Upfront Ventures), Niki Scevak (Partner, Blackbird), Craig Tiley (CEO, USA Tennis), Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel), Paul Bassat (Partner, Square Peg), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Sam Sicilia (CIO, Hostplus), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Tim Doyle (CEO, Eucalyptus), Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Xero), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica) and Philip Green (Australia's Ambassador/High Commissioner to India). 

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal

  #277 Shiv Rao: Abridge’s CEO on Skateboarding, “Languishing” Founder Pressure & Reinventing How Doctors Work

  Sep 10, 20261h 8m

  This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers .  ________ Dr. Shiv Rao is the Co-Founder and CEO of Abridge, one of the world’s leading healthcare AI companies, turning clinician-patient conversations into clinical intelligence across 300+ health systems and 100M+ conversations annually. A practising cardiologist, Shiv previously worked across healthcare technology and investing at UPMC before founding Abridge in 2018. In this rare in-depth conversation, Shiv joins Vidit to unpack his unconventional path: moving from Pittsburgh to India at nine, skateboarding, programming synthesizers, selling records in Japan and nearly quitting medical school before becoming a cardiologist. He shares how a seemingly perfect career across medicine, technology and investing left him “incredibly restless”, eventually leading to Abridge. But success was far from immediate: Shiv spent nearly four years as a “languishing founder” before generative AI arrived, “the sky just opened up”, and Abridge made its pivotal move into enterprise healthcare. They also explore why “pressure makes diamonds”, the family sacrifices behind building when “every minute matters”, what changes when a company passes 500 people, why Shiv still practises medicine, and what he’s learned from unlikely influences including Jensen Huang and Rick Rubin. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. ________ Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG,, Allens, Macquarie Capital, Xero, JP Morgan and more.  Show notes and more episodes here Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here Contact us via our website This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers .  ________ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 Meet Shiv Rao 02:00 Living on planes  04:55 Xero 07:00 Pittsburgh and India 12:00 Identity, India & belonging 17:00 Skateboarding, music & creativity 19:00 The moment that led Shiv to medicine 23:00 Selling records in Japan 25:00 Nearly quitting medical school 28:00 Medicine’s complicated relationship with technology 30:00 Teaching himself to code & early product-market fit 35:00 Why “pressure makes diamonds” 39:00 Medicine → healthcare investing 44:00 Leaving the “dream job” to build Abridge 48:00 Family sacrifice & the reality of building 50:00 Why “every minute matters” in AI 54:00 Abridge’s years as a “languishing” startup 59:00 When “the sky just opened up” 1:01:00 Abridge’s YOLO move into enterprise 1:03:00 The first customer “Love Stories” 1:10:00 Why enterprise healthcare is so defensible 1:15:00 Building AI that enterprises can’t replicate 1:21:00 Hiring, loyalty & scaling the team 1:23:00 Leading 500+ people 1:26:00 Lessons from Jensen Huang & Rick Rubin 1:30:00 What everyone is missing about AI 1:32:00 Rapid fire ________ The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world’s most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW. Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Keith Rabois (Managing Director, Khosla Ventures), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths), Michael Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), David Eckstein (CFO, Legora), Kevin Hartz (Partner, A*; Founder, Eventbrite), Jesse Zhang (CEO, Decagon), Vandita Pant (CFO, BHP), Elena Verna (Head of Growth, Lovable), David Haber (a16z Partner), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Limieux (CTO, Shopify and Atlassian), Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta), Cristina Cordova (COO, Linear), Gautam Chari (Head of Capital Commitments, Bank of America), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Mark Suster (Partner, Upfront Ventures), Niki Scevak (Partner, Blackbird), Craig Tiley (CEO, USA Tennis), Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel), Paul Bassat (Partner, Square Peg), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Sam Sicilia (CIO, Hostplus), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Tim Doyle (CEO, Eucalyptus), Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Xero), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica) and Philip Green (Australia's Ambassador/High Commissioner to India). 

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal

  #276 John Willett: Rogo’s COO on Princeton, Being Ignored for Years to Winning the World’s Biggest Banks

  Sep 7, 202655 min

  This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers .  ________ John Willett is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of Rogo, one of the fastest-growing AI companies in global finance, used by leading institutions including Lazard, Jefferies, Rothschild & Co, Moelis and Nomura. Rogo has raised more than $300 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Sequoia, Thrive and Khosla, was valued at $2 billion in 2026, and John now leads its expansion across Europe and APAC. In his first in-depth interview ever, John joins Vidit to tell the story behind Rogo and the person behind the company. He reflects on growing up in Connecticut in a family of engineers, being academically far ahead of his peers, meeting co-founder Gabe Stengel at Princeton, and experimenting with AI for finance years before ChatGPT made the category obvious. John shares how early investor Kevin Ryan convinced them to quit investment banking and go all in, why Rogo spent its first two years with little external validation, and how ChatGPT changed enterprise demand almost overnight. He also explains how Lazard became the first major customer, what it took to earn the trust of global banks, and how Rogo evolved from an early product into a platform tackling some of finance’s most complex workflows. They also unpack John and Gabe’s co-founder dynamic, why Gabe became CEO, how Rogo recruits former bankers into operating roles, and what John has learned scaling the company from roughly 40 to 200 people while building out Europe and APAC. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. ________ Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG,, Allens, Macquarie Capital, Xero, JP Morgan and more.  Show notes and more episodes here Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here Contact us via our website This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers .  ________ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 – The Real John Willett 04:33 – Xero 06:01 – The Family of Engineers Behind John 11:11 – Meeting Gabe at Princeton 12:22 – The Idea Before Rogo 17:16 – Building AI Before ChatGPT 18:46 – The Investor Who Told Them to Quit Banking 20:11 – Rogo’s First Fundraising Deck 24:31 – Two Years Nobody Wanted Rogo 27:16 – The ChatGPT Inflection Point 29:16 – Landing Rogo’s First Major Customer 34:11 – When Enterprise AI Started to Click 38:11 – Why Big-Name Customers Matter 43:10 – Deciding Who Should Be CEO 45:22 – Convincing Bankers to Join a Startup 50:09 – US vs Europe vs APAC 55:04 – Scaling Rogo From 40 to 200+People 01:00:04 – Becoming a Better Manager 01:02:44 – Rapid Fire ________ The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world’s most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW. Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Keith Rabois (Managing Director, Khosla Ventures), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths), Michael Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), David Eckstein (CFO, Legora), Kevin Hartz (Partner, A*; Founder, Eventbrite), Jesse Zhang (CEO, Decagon), Vandita Pant (CFO, BHP), Elena Verna (Head of Growth, Lovable), David Haber (a16z Partner), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Limieux (CTO, Shopify and Atlassian), Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta), Cristina Cordova (COO, Linear), Gautam Chari (Head of Capital Commitments, Bank of America), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Mark Suster (Partner, Upfront Ventures), Niki Scevak (Partner, Blackbird), Craig Tiley (CEO, USA Tennis), Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel), Paul Bassat (Partner, Square Peg), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Sam Sicilia (CIO, Hostplus), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Tim Doyle (CEO, Eucalyptus), Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Xero), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica) and Philip Green (Australia's Ambassador/High Commissioner to India). 

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal

  #275 Mukund Narayanamurti: From $8.5B Deals to Diplomacy, Brutal Feedback & What He Learned Across Asia

  Sep 2, 20261h 10m

  This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers. Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG,, Allens, Macquarie Capital, Xero, JP Morgan and more. ________ Mukund Narayanamurti has spent more than two decades at the intersection of business, government and Asia. Based in New Delhi, he leads Austrade across six South Asian markets, including India, after previously leading its work across Southeast Asia. Earlier, he founded and led Asialink Business and spent more than a decade at KPMG advising companies across Asia. Born in Bengaluru, Mukund moved to Australia as an international student at 18, later earning an MBA from MIT Sloan and pursuing a PhD at Melbourne Business School. In this conversation with Vidit, Mukund shares his unlikely journey from a cricket-obsessed teenager in Bengaluru to moving to Australia alone at 18 — where he struggled so badly that he almost left after his first year — and ultimately returning to India as a senior Australian diplomat. He reflects on working on an $8.5 billion deal at 23 that “broke” him, losing business pitches for nearly three years before the wins finally came, and being initially dismissed as too young before becoming Asialink Business CEO at 34. Mukund also explains why he still pursues a PhD despite a demanding career, what 55 pieces of “scathing” academic feedback taught him about staying humble, and the leadership lessons he learnt across 750 consultations with Nicholas Moore. They also explore why India offers a front-row seat to global competition, the rapidly growing commercial relationship between India and Australia, and what Mukund has learnt from building a career across some of Asia’s most important markets. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. ________ Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG,, Allens, Macquarie Capital, Xero, JP Morgan and more.  Show notes and more episodes here Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here Contact us via our website This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers .  ________ TIMESTAMPS 00:16 — Meet Mukund Narayanamurti 03:10 — Australian Government Message 04:10 — Bengaluru, Cricket & Growing Up “Unfocused” 09:10 — Leaving India Alone at 18 14:40 — Feeling Lost & Almost Going Home 18:15 — The University Year That Changed Everything 25:00 — Why Senior Leaders Need Brutally Honest Feedback 31:15 — The $8.5B Deal That “Completely Broke” Him 34:15 — Returning to India & Betting His Career on Asia 37:50 — Three Years of Losing Every Business Pitch 40:15 — Why India Is the Ultimate Test of Global Competition 50:00 — The Surprising Scale of Australia–India Business 54:10 — Leaving KPMG to Build Something From Scratch 58:10 — Dismissed as Too Young, Then CEO at 34 01:07:55 — 750 Meetings With Former Macquarie CEO Nicholas Moore 01:13:30 — International Student to Australian Diplomat in India 01:16:30 — “Work Is Worship”, Family & What Drives Him ________ Welcome to the 13th episode in our special series with the Australian Government and their Centre for Australia–India Relations (CAIR), spotlighting the growing Australia–India relationship across technology, business, media, culture and sport. Other guests in this series include BHP's CFO Vandita Pant, Bank of America's Head of Capital Commitments Gautam Chari, Renowned Music Composer Tushar Apte, Australia's High Commissioner to India Philip Green, MUFG's CEO Vivek Bhatia, Australia's Secretary of Foreign Affairs Peter Varghese, NAB's EGM Sweta Mehra, Deputy Secretary of Australia's Home Affairs Brendan Dowling, Orica's CEO Sanjeev Gandhi, Sports Journalist Bharat Sundaresan, Cricket Legend Lisa Sthalekar and CAIR's CEO, Ryan Neelam, reflecting the breadth of Indian-Australian leaders at the most senior levels. ________ The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world’s most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW. Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Keith Rabois (Managing Director, Khosla Ventures), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths), Michael Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), David Eckstein (CFO, Legora), Kevin Hartz (Partner, A*; Founder, Eventbrite), Jesse Zhang (CEO, Decagon), Vandita Pant (CFO, BHP), Elena Verna (Head of Growth, Lovable), David Haber (a16z Partner), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Limieux (CTO, Shopify and Atlassian), Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta), Cristina Cordova (COO, Linear), Gautam Chari (Head of Capital Commitments, Bank of America), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Mark Suster (Partner, Upfront Ventures), Niki Scevak (Partner, Blackbird), Craig Tiley (CEO, USA Tennis), Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel), Paul Bassat (Partner, Square Peg), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Sam Sicilia (CIO, Hostplus), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Tim Doyle (CEO, Eucalyptus), Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Xero), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica) and Philip Green (Australia's Ambassador/High Commissioner to India). 

  ListenShow Notes
• 

  The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal

  #274 Keith Rabois: One of Silicon Valley’s Most Influential Investors and Operators in His Most Personal Conversation Yet

  Aug 31, 20261h 6m

  This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers .  ________ Keith Rabois is Managing Director at Khosla Ventures and one of Silicon Valley’s most influential technology investors and operators. He held senior roles at PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide and Square, co-founded Opendoor and OpenStore, and has backed more than 15 companies that have gone public, including YouTube, Palantir, Airbnb and DoorDash. A perennial Forbes Midas List investor, Keith has ranked as high as #4 in the US and #8 globally. In this unusually personal conversation with Vidit, Keith goes back to the beginning: growing up in a middle-class Jewish family in Edison, New Jersey, reading the encyclopedia cover to cover and becoming what he calls a “high-credentialist kid.” He explains how that pursuit took him through Stanford, Harvard Law School, a federal appellate court clerkship and Sullivan & Cromwell before he abandoned the path “cold turkey” at 29 to join a startup almost nobody remembers. Keith reflects on the people who changed the direction of his life, including Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Vinod Khosla and Sam Altman. He shares why Peter’s criticism forced him to become more quantitative, why he waited to join LinkedIn until the company needed his particular strengths, and what the rarely discussed Slide chapter taught him about platforms, pivots, organizational design and failure. He also reveals how he identifies top 1% talent, why hiring exceptional people matters more than becoming a better manager, and why “the team you build is the company you build.” Keith explains why he still takes every note by hand, refuses laptops in meetings and measures how he invests every hour of his time. They also explore venture capital in the AI era: how to separate real product-market fit from corporate curiosity, why rapid revenue can conceal a fragile company, and why enduring advantages matter more than momentum. Keith also explains why his greatest edge remains becoming the first institutional investor in exceptional founders, and why launching a competitive venture fund today may require at least $500 million. Please enjoy exploring your curiosity. ________ Get in touch with us via email at contact@curiositycentre.com Join our stable of commercial partners including the Australian Government, Google, KPMG,, Allens, Macquarie Capital, Xero, JP Morgan and more.  Show notes and more episodes here Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram Get in touch with our Founder and Host, Vidit Agarwal directly here Contact us via our website This episode is supported by Xero, helping businesses use AI with more control through JAX, its in-platform AI finance partner. Get 90% off your plan for your first 6 months at xero.com/highflyers .  ________ TIMESTAMPS 00:00 – The Real Keith Rabois 02:51 – His Online Persona 03:25 – Childhood and family 05:45 – Spotting Talent Before Everyone Else 06:50 – Xero 07:40 – The Parents Who Shaped Him 11:05 – The Ultimate Credentialist Kid 13:00 – Why Tech Was Never the Plan 16:10 – Becoming a Lawyer at Six 19:00 – Stanford, Harvard and Status 24:00 – Quitting Law at 29 28:05 – Growing Up With Peter Thiel 31:00 – Learning From Tech’s Best 36:00 – Between PayPal and LinkedIn 39:00 – Peter Thiel’s Career-Changing Criticism 42:00 – Talent Beats Management 44:00 – Finding the Top 1% 47:00 – His Executive Assistant Mistake 51:00 – No Laptops, One Pen 53:00 – The Lessons From Slide 57:00 – Vinod Khosla’s Best Advice 59:00 – Is AI Revenue Built to Last? 01:02:00 – Real Demand or Corporate Curiosity? 01:05:00 – Building a VC Fund Today 01:08:00 – Does Focus Still Win? 01:09:00 – Rapid Fire ________ The High Flyers Podcast features in-depth interviews with the world’s most influential figures in business, tech, finance, government and sport. Launched in 2020, it has ranked in the global top ten for past three years, with listeners in 27 countries and over 200+ episodes released, and featured in Forbes, Daily Telegraph, and at SXSW. Our guests include -- Malcolm Turnbull (Prime Minister of Australia), Keith Rabois (Managing Director, Khosla Ventures), Jason Collins (Head of BlackRock, Asia Pacific), Brad Banducci (CEO, Woolworths), Michael Schneider (CEO, Bunnings), David Eckstein (CFO, Legora), Kevin Hartz (Partner, A*; Founder, Eventbrite), Jesse Zhang (CEO, Decagon), Vandita Pant (CFO, BHP), Elena Verna (Head of Growth, Lovable), David Haber (a16z Partner), Jodie Auster (Uber's Global Head of Travel), Rob Giglio (CCO, Canva), Jean-Michel Limieux (CTO, Shopify and Atlassian), Stevie Case (CRO, Vanta), Cristina Cordova (COO, Linear), Gautam Chari (Head of Capital Commitments, Bank of America), John Haddock (CBO, Harvey), Mark Suster (Partner, Upfront Ventures), Niki Scevak (Partner, Blackbird), Craig Tiley (CEO, USA Tennis), Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (COO, Vercel), Paul Bassat (Partner, Square Peg), Bowen Pan (Creator, Facebook Marketplace), Peter Varghese (Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Australian Government), Sam Sicilia (CIO, Hostplus), Jack Zhang (CEO, Airwallex), Tim Doyle (CEO, Eucalyptus), Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (CEO, Xero), Sanjeev Gandhi (CEO, Orica) and Philip Green (Australia's Ambassador/High Commissioner to India). 

  ListenShow Notes

Recent guests on The High Flyers Podcast with Vidit Agarwal. Study who booked and why before you pitch.

Based on semantic analysis of episode topics and host coverage, this show is a strong guest fit for executives in:

Industry fit is computed by PitchCentric using vector embeddings of the show's episode catalog.