In Depth Podcast
After publishing 500+ profiles and attracting millions of readers on the First Round Review since 2013, we've learned a lot about what makes for compelling conversations and standout company-building advice. Whether it's an interview with a big-name CEO or a VP you likely haven’t heard of, there's been a common thread across our most popular stories — a willingness to go deeper and an eagerness to share not just what to do, but how to do it. Our podcast, In Depth, takes the very same signature style we've cultivated over the years and gives you a chance to listen in on these deeper conversations firsthand. We cover a lot of ground and a wide range of topics — from hiring executives and becoming a better manager, to finding your first customers, to function-specific playbooks — but every interview will hit the level of tactical depth that dives far below the surface.
All Episodes
What Braintrust got right about product-market fit | Ankur Goyal (Founder and CEO)
Ankur Goyal is the founder and CEO of Braintrust, an end-to-end platform for building AI apps. Before that, he founded Impira, a data management platform that was acquired by Figma, where he went on to lead the AI team. Ankur kickstarted his career when he dropped out of college to join the founding team at SingleStore (formerly MemSQL), a formative experience that shaped his views on building for high-bar users.
How Gusto built a $9.5 billion company by identifying a burning problem
Tomer London is the co-founder and Chief Product Officer at Gusto, the payroll and people platform used by over 400,000 businesses. He grew up helping run his dad’s clothing store in Israel — an experience that sparked his mission to build better tools for small business owners. After moving to the US for a PhD at Stanford, he met his co-founders and started Gusto.
How rejecting conventional wisdom grew Sentry to a $3 billion company | David Cramer (Co-founder and CPO)
David Cramer is the co-founder of Sentry, the leading open-source error monitoring tool used by over 90,000 companies. A self-taught engineer, he went from 9th grade high school dropout and Burger King manager to building one of the most widely adopted developer tools in the world — by working hard and rejecting conventional wisdom. As of 2022, Sentry is valued at over $3 billion. David now serves as Chief Product Officer, after previously holding roles as CEO and CTO. In this episode, we dis...
Inside Linear: Why craft and focus still win in product building | Karri Saarinen (Co-founder and CEO)
Karri Saarinen is the co-founder and CEO of Linear, the project management tool built for high-performance software teams. Since its founding in 2019, Linear has achieved a valuation of $1.25B as of 10th June 2025, and now counts companies like OpenAI, Ramp and Vercel as customers. Before founding Linear, Karri led design at Airbnb and Coinbase, and previously co-founded Kippt, a bookmarking tool acquired by Coinbase.
How to find — and keep — product-market fit | Bob Moore (Co-founder and CEO at Crossbeam, ex-RJMetrics and Stitch Data)
Bob Moore is the co-founder and CEO at Crossbeam, a “LinkedIn for data” platform that helps companies find overlapping opportunities with their partners. Crossbeam has raised US$117M to date and recently acquired Reveal in 2024. Bob previously cofounded RJMetrics (now part of Adobe Commerce Cloud) and Stitch Data (acquired by Talend). He is also the author of Ecosystem-Led Growth.
Lessons from Sentry on scaling DevTools and finding product market fit (again) | Milin Desai (Sentry, VMware, Riverbed)
Milin Desai is the CEO at Sentry, an application monitoring tool for developers. Sentry has recently passed two key milestones: 100K customers and over $100M in ARR. Before Sentry, Milin was a GM at VMware and scaled their cloud networking into a billion-dollar business. Prior to stepping into leadership roles, Milin was a PM at Riverbed and a software engineer at Veritas.
A product-market-fit masterclass | Kareem Amin (Clay)
Kareem Amin is the co-founder of Clay, a lead-generation software that uses AI to scrape 50+ databases and help companies scale their outbound campaigns. Before Clay, Kareem was the VP of Product at The Wall Street Journal. Kareem also co-founded Frame (useframe.com) which was acquired by Sailthru in 2012.
How Vercel found extreme product-market fit by focusing on simplification | Guillermo Rauch (CEO)
Guillermo Rauch is the CEO of Vercel, a frontend-as-a-service product that was valued at $2.5b in 2021. Vercel serves customers like Uber, Notion and Zapier, and their React framework - Next.js - is used by over 500,000 developers and designers worldwide. Guillermo started his first company at age 11 in Buenos Aires and moved to San Francisco at age 18. In 2013, he sold his company Cloudup to Automattic (the company behind WordPress), and in 2015 he founded Vercel.