The J Curve with Olga Maslikhova

Hosted by Olga Maslikhova

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Episodes

113

Latest episode

Jun 2026

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EN-US

About the show

The #1 English-language podcast on Latin American tech, venture capital, and the founders building the region’s next generation of $1B+ companies. Ranked in the top 5% globally on Spotify. Hosted by Olga Maslikhova — venture capital investor and founder of The J Curve. New episodes bi-weekly featuring the founders, operators, and investors building and backing companies across Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and the rest of LATAM.

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June 9, 2026Episode 81 hr 13 min

TJC Debrief: Who Actually Makes Money in AI?

Paulo Passoni, Managing Partner at Valor Capital, and Olga Maslikhova sit down with their first-ever TJC Debrief guest — Ivana Delevska, Founder and CIO of Spear Invest and Portfolio Manager of the Spear Alpha ETF (SPRX, Nasdaq), one of the best-performing actively managed AI ETFs. Ivana spent a decade at Tiger Management, Millennium, and Citadel before founding Spear, where she now runs over $100M in AUM as a one-person fund augmented by AI. This is the June 2026 edition of TJC Debrief — a monthly show covering tech, venture, and capital markets through a global lens.We cover where $1 of AI spend actually goes — 50% to compute, 15–20% to networking, 15% to power and physical build-out — and why networking is the most under-the-radar layer of the value chain, why behind-the-meter power and former Bitcoin mining sites (Applied Digital) are the most overlooked plays in AI infrastructure, why Latin America could become a serious data center alternative to the US given cheaper electricity and faster permits, why hyperscaler-backed offtake deals are solving the cost-of-capital problem for data center build-outs, the SpaceX IPO at $1.77 trillion and 60x forward revenue with only 15% growth — and why Paulo thinks the employee lockup wall is the biggest risk, why Anthropic at ~$1T with $15B revenue scaling to $200B in 2027 is the more reasonable bet on a 12-month horizon while SpaceX is the better 10-year hold, why the application layer is where the next wave of billion-dollar revenue companies will emerge — using Higgsfield as a case study going from $0 to nearly $500M in revenue in one year by orchestrating 30 video models, why speed and revenue per employee ($1–10M is the new bar) are the only real moats left in software, why Elon is the "king of hardware" and what the EPC contractor insourcing playbook actually looks like, why community is the anti-AI moat — from independent watchmaker collector groups to Corgi's coffee shop in Silicon Valley, why the air pocket of AI demand is the real risk to watch (token prices are the early signal), and why wealth concentration from the AI boom is the biggest macro risk of all — and what forced-savings products and intelligent wealth transfer mechanisms could prevent it.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

May 26, 202657 min

Felipe Carvalho, Camu: The Brutal Sales Lesson From Pipefy

Felipe Carvalho is Co-Founder and Chief Revenue Officer of Camu — an AI workflow automation platform. Previously, Felipe spent 10 years building the global go-to-market organization at Pipefy alongside founder Alessio Alionço, scaling a horizontal workflow platform that serves Volvo, Capgemini, IBM, Accenture, Visa, Santander, Itaú, and thousands of other SMBs and enterprises across Brazil, the US, and beyond. Before Pipefy, he built and scaled the fundraising function at Hospital Pequeno Príncipe — Brazil's largest children's hospital — raising over $20M and growing a team of 50.In this TJC Operators episode, Felipe shares the brutal sales lesson from Pipefy — why selling everything to everyone is a GTM trap that hides inefficiency through inbound demand, and why outbound exposed it overnight. He walks through the "who would be crazy not to buy this" framework from Seth Shaw (former CRO of Airtable) that reshaped Pipefy's outbound motion, how Camu got from 1–2% to 17% to 33% conversion by progressively narrowing focus to a single ERP (SAP Business One) and one specific workflow (invoice intake), why charging monthly with no strings attached was the cleanest way to validate true product-market fit, the Sean Ellis "very disappointed" PMF survey methodology and how Camu hit high-50s on a V1 product, why saying no to massive enterprise RFPs is a superpower in the early days, how Felipe now manages 68 active opportunities solo by using Claude and AI to automate 50–70% of sales back-office work (CRM updates, ROI calculations, proposal generation, deal-power scoring), the FCA (Fact, Cause, Action) framework Pipefy used to run monthly results meetings and why analyzing wins matters as much as analyzing losses, why "building a plane is different from flying a plane" — and why founders should nail the sales playbook themselves before hiring senior enterprise sellers, the shift from selling software-as-a-service to delivering recurring impact and how risk has moved from buyer to seller in the AI era, and the lesson he most wants Brazilian founders to learn about building credibility before the market gives it to you.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

May 12, 2026Episode 61 hr 14 min

TJC Debrief with Paulo Passoni: The New US-China Tech Split

Paulo Passoni, Managing Partner at Valor Capital, and Olga Maslikhova break down the two forces reshaping tech and capital markets right now — the end of 40 years of global integration as the US-China tech split hardens, and the collapse of the services moat as AI lets companies scale from $0 to $100M in revenue in 24 months by replacing labor. This is the May 2026 edition of TJC Debrief — a monthly show covering tech, venture, and capital markets through a global lens.We cover why China blocked Meta's $2 billion Manus acquisition and what the new US-led versus China-led ecosystem split means for global M&A, how SoftBank's blocked Arm-NVIDIA sale cost half a trillion dollars in value creation and why deals like it will keep happening, Anthropic's $50B round closing in 48 hours with secondary markets pricing ahead of the primary and what it reveals about AI's escape velocity, why Anthropic and OpenAI are forming joint ventures with Blackstone, TPG, Apollo, Sequoia, General Atlantic, and GIC to lock in compute capacity and guaranteed revenue, Plata's $5B round and why Qatar Investment Authority, US endowments, and long-only funds piled in alongside Valor Capital — and what mispriced Russian and Eastern European talent has to do with it, why data is becoming the last real moat and how Nubank, Revolut, CloudWalk, Mercado Libre, and JPMorgan are racing to train proprietary models on their own customer data, the radiologist paradox and what it predicts for tax accountants, lawyers, and every services job AI is supposed to kill, the legal AI startup Enter and the wild story of prompt injections hidden in PDFs filed to courts, why humanoid robots at $600/month today and $100/month in ten years will reshape global labor markets, Elon Musk and SpaceX as the "build potential, then monetize" playbook, and the $0 to $100M in 24 months phenomenon — why early movers in vertical AI are already hitting this scale and where the next opportunities will emerge across legal, wealth management, healthcare, and security.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

April 28, 2026Episode 559 min

Gastón Irigoyen, Pomelo: LATAM Beats India as a Fintech Market

Latin America is the third-largest fintech and payments market in the world — bigger than India, behind only the US and China. Gastón Irigoyen is Co-Founder and CEO of Pomelo, the fintech infrastructure company powering card issuing and processing for banks, fintechs, and global enterprises across eight markets including Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Panama. Pomelo is backed by Index Ventures, Insight Partners, Kaszek, Monashees, and most recently Adams Street Partners in their first-ever Latin American investment.In this episode of The J Curve, Gastón unpacks the contrarian playbook behind Pomelo: why the team went regional from day zero on a $10M seed round instead of nailing one market first, how they built a "plug and play" hiring engine that's stayed at 90%+ since founding, why they tripled revenue without adding headcount, and what it actually takes to win enterprise customers like BBVA, Santander, Bci, Bancolombia, Binance, and Bybit when nobody trusts an infrastructure startup. He also shares the Series B-to-Series C lessons most founders never document — including the end-of-year memo that turned rejections into investor trust — and his framework for the AI transformation a five-year-old company is now being forced to run.This is a masterclass on regional-by-design strategy, B2B fintech go-to-market, founder-led fundraising in down markets, and building world-class companies from Latin America for the world.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

April 14, 2026Episode 41 hr 27 min

TJC Debrief with Paulo Passoni: Only 4 US Companies Can IPO

Paulo Passoni, Managing Partner at Valor Capital, and Olga Maslikhova break down Claude 4.6, Brex’s $5.15B sale to Capital One, and why only 4 US companies can IPO right now. This is the April 2026 edition of TJC Debrief — a monthly show covering tech, venture, and capital markets for Latin American founders and investors.We cover why Claude 4.6 was a bigger “aha moment” than the original ChatGPT for building companies and how it’s rewiring CTO roles, org design, and the question of what a moat even is anymore, how Nubank, Revolut, Tether, and Plata are reshaping consumer finance and why Paulo thinks regional US banks are an “aberration” that shouldn’t legally exist, the Brex x Capital One deal, Ramp’s software multiple, and what the prof stack saving late-stage LPs means for every fintech exit going forward, Brazil’s IPO window cracking open and Mexico’s sudden flood of Sequoia, Founders Fund, and a16z capital, why Paulo thinks many employees are already “worse than AI” and why every salary should now come with a token budget, how he built a working marketplace in three hours on Perplexity Comet without writing a line of code, and the coming collapse of low-ROI universities and what it means for talent in LATAM.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

March 31, 2026Episode 358 min

Pedro Conrade, Neon: How to Build a $1B Neobank in Brazil

Pedro Conrade is the founder of Neon — a $1B run-rate Brazilian neobank that serves millions of underbanked Brazilians and has raised $924M from General Atlantic, BBVA, BlackRock, and PayPal. In this TJC Originals episode, Pedro shares how he survived the 72-hour crisis that almost killed Neon in 2018, how engagement data beats credit scoring, and the fundraising playbook behind a decade of capital efficiency.We cover how to build a profitable neobank in an emerging market and why serving the underbanked is a better business than it looks, why engagement data beats credit scoring and what that means for fintech underwriting at scale, the 72-hour crisis that almost ended Neon and the real-time decisions Pedro made to save it, how Neon uses AI agents to handle collections, compliance, and customer support and what that means for headcount at scale, the fundraising playbook behind $924M raised from General Atlantic, BBVA, BlackRock, and PayPal, and why M&A destroys more value than it creates — and when it actually makes sense for a startup.Pedro also shares why the constraints of serving Brazil’s underbanked population made efficiency non-negotiable, and why that same constraint became Neon’s most durable advantage.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

March 17, 2026Episode 21 hr 10 min

Stelleo Tolda: Inside MercadoLibre’s Rise to $100B

Stelleo Tolda co-founded MercadoLibre in 1999 and ran Brazil for 25 years — building the $100B company into Latin America’s most valuable publicly traded business. In this TJC Operators series premiere, Stelleo unpacks how MercadoLibre outlasted 80 competitors, declared war on Amazon, scaled logistics from 8% to 95% in-house, and architected a three-year succession that actually stuck.We cover how MercadoLibre outlasted 80 competitors while charging the highest fees in the market, the dot-com crash survival playbook and what scarcity forces you to do right, why MercadoLibre declared war on Amazon and what happened in that war room, the 2010 technology bet of throwing away everything and rebuilding from scratch, the adjacency principle that turned one marketplace into payments, logistics, credit, and advertising, why MercadoLibre chose to build versus buy at every inflection point, investing in logistics CapEx as a public company and how to bring Wall Street along, the Champions League analogy for competing against the world’s best, how MercadoLibre codified its culture at scale, the succession playbook from advisor to board member to gone, what great board members actually do, and why scarcity makes Latin America’s builders better in the age of AI.Stelleo also shares why the worst thing for an entrepreneur is abundance — and why the next generation of iconic Latin American companies is being built right now.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

March 3, 2026Episode 11 hr 28 min

Hernan Kazah, Kaszek: Building LatAm’s $100B+ Companies

Hernan Kazah is Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Kaszek Ventures — Latin America’s largest venture firm, backing Nubank, Kavak, Gympass (Wellhub), and 100+ other LATAM companies. He previously co-founded MercadoLibre, now a $100B public company. In this Season 5 premiere, Hernan shares how Kaszek evaluates founders, why the default outcome in venture is failure, the venture power law behind generational returns, and how AI is reshaping the future of software in LATAM.We cover the early strategic decisions that allowed MercadoLibre to win, why the default outcome for founders is failure, how Kaszek evaluates founders and investment opportunities, the venture capital power law and why investors must be right only a few times, what it takes to build a generational venture capital institution in Latin America, the impact of AI on software and the future of SaaS, how great founders actually get identified, and the evolution of the Latin American tech ecosystem.Hernan also explains why building a startup in Latin America is like “climbing Everest on top of a rollercoaster” — and why the next generation of iconic companies is still ahead.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on LinkedIn and Instagram.

December 23, 2025Episode 251 hr 17 min

Paulo Passoni, Valor Capital: Speed Is the Last AI Moat

Paulo Passoni is Managing Partner at Valor Capital — one of the most active crossover investors in Latin America, with positions in Nubank, Plata, CloudWalk, and dozens of public tech companies globally. This is round two with Paulo, following the most-played episode in J Curve history.We cover why speed is the last real moat in the age of AI, why Anthropic may be a safer bet than OpenAI, the hiring rule at Perplexity that sounds insane until you understand what it unlocks, the 10,000-year clock Jeff Bezos is building inside a mountain and the founder mindset behind it, how capital markets are pricing Ramp vs. CloudWalk at radically different multiples despite similar revenue scale, why the Mag 7 (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla) now sit at the center of global power dynamics, why LPs and capital allocators remain split on LATAM and what each side is optimizing for, and what it means to be deliberately more human in the age of AI.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider newsletter for deeper insights and follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

December 10, 2025Episode 2248 min

Dileep Thazhmon (Jeeves) & Bruno Maimone (Warburg Pincus)

Dileep Thazhmon is Founder and CEO of Jeeves, a global corporate card and expense management platform serving SMBs across Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, and 15+ other markets. Bruno Maimone is Managing Director at Warburg Pincus, a $90B+ AUM global growth equity firm.In this conversation, Dileep and Bruno break down why Brazil went from six $100M ARR companies to thirty in a few years, whether AI is killing SaaS, why growth investors underwrite M&A more seriously than IPOs right now, and what “right to win” means before any LATAM founder goes global. Toward the end, Olga brings in questions from the live audience in the room during the recording.This is the episode to send to your co-founder, your board, and the WhatsApp group where everyone is not fundraising just yet.Subscribe to The J Curve Insider ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and follow Olga on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.