His name is Victor Cardenas, founder of Slash.$250M in revenue. 65 people. Profitable.2% of all Facebook ad spend runs through Slash. More than 5,000 businesses spend almost $10B a year on its corporate cards.A year ago, Mickey Malka of Ribbit Capital, the world’s #1 fintech investor (Robinhood, Nubank, Coinbase), said, “fintech is dead.”Today, Ribbit is leading Slash’s $100M round at a $1.4B valuation.Also in this episode:

• How Slash found a new opportunity when “fintech was dead”
• Why the real advantage in the AI era isn’t in software
• How they’re using internal agents to multiply team productivity
• What to do when your startup loses 60% of its revenue overnight
• Why building for one person is better than building for a market

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Victor's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/victor-d-cardenas/

Enzo's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/enzo-cavalie/

David Cohen (founder of Techstars) was an angel investor in Uber. He also had the opportunity to invest in Lyft — and passed. Same market. Same timing. Two completely different outcomes in his portfolio.

The difference? At Uber, he met Ryan Graves (the first employee) through Techstars. “I clicked with him.” He invested without ever meeting Uber’s founders.

At Lyft, Matt Van Horn was a mentor at Techstars. They were friends. But the idea seemed stupid to him: “Intercity transportation for college students? I didn’t get it.”

That same team pivoted, followed Uber, and built a multi-billion-dollar company.

After 20 years evaluating startups, the pattern behind his misses is always the same.

Also in this episode:

• Why AI creates a "barbell effect" for startups — the middle gets stuck

• Techstars’ internal meme: “Replace ‘AI’ with ‘software’”

• Why AI agents will do venture capital — and probably better than humans

• Jack Bogle’s philosophy applied to VC: “The financial industry only subtracts value”

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David's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidgcohen/

Enzo's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/enzo-cavalie/

Joaquín Cuenca, CEO and founder of Freepik, had built a $70M revenue company with a team of 500 people. For over a decade, Freepik focused on building the largest image library on the internet. Then DALL·E 2 arrived and overnight, everything they had built suddenly felt at risk.Instead of freezing, Freepik became one of the first major image platforms to integrate generative AI. Today, Freepik is one of the most widely used AI creative apps, according to a16z.

This is exactly how they did it.

• Why launching AI without a clear strategy beat staying frozen
• The “Humans vs AI” framework and what machines will never replicate
• The hardest conversations with artists who thought their careers were over
• The strategic mistake that made Adobe, Getty, and Shutterstock fall behind on AI
• Why distribution is a temporary advantage, not a real moat
• How building Freepik from Málaga—not Silicon Valley—became a competitive edge

GET THE BEST OF THE INTERVIEWS IN OUR NEWSLETTER🗞️Read it: https://rebrand.ly/tssnwsrssJoaquin's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joaquin-cuenca-abela-905717a/Enzo's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/enzo-cavalie/