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Mantle Mondays

Mantle Mondays

By: Amar Varma and Amit Jethani
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 Hosted by Amar Varma and Amit Jethani, Mantle Mondays brings you authentic conversations with startup founders every week. We dive deep into their entrepreneurial journeys, from the first spark of an idea to scaling challenges and pivotal moments that shaped their companies. Each episode uncovers hardest-won lessons, biggest mistakes, and the advice founders wish they'd received when starting out. Whether you're launching your first venture, navigating growth, or dreaming about taking the leap, tune in for honest, practical wisdom from those who've been in the trenches.Amar Varma and Amit Jethani Economics Leadership Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • The Painkiller Principle: How Zocks Is Giving Financial Advisors Their Time Back (Mark Gilbert)

    The Painkiller Principle: How Zocks Is Giving Financial Advisors Their Time Back (Mark Gilbert)
    Feb 23 2026

    In this episode of Mantle Mondays, Amar Varma sits down with Mark Gilbert, co-founder and CEO of Zocks, to talk about what it really takes to build a product people can’t live without.

    Mark's journey is anything but linear: from programming at Canada Post as a teenager, to interning at Elon Musk's first company Zip2, to building global infrastructure at Microsoft and scaling Twilio through COVID, Mark brings a rare combination of deep technical credibility and hard-won founder instincts.

    Learn more about Zocks: zocks.io

    Learn more about Mantle: withmantle.com
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    41 mins
  • AI Just Killed the Geography Advantage | Tiho Bajic (Fifth Quarter Ventures)

    AI Just Killed the Geography Advantage | Tiho Bajic (Fifth Quarter Ventures)
    Feb 16 2026

    For decades, if you wanted to build a world-class tech company, you had to move to Silicon Valley. AI just changed that. When SF deploys new AI infrastructure today, the entire world gets access within 24 hours. For the first time in tech history, a founder in Belgrade has the same tools on day one as a founder in San Francisco.Tiho Bajic lived this shift firsthand. He went from war refugee at age 9 to first engineer at Rypple (acquired by Salesforce) to founding CTO at Nitro to building the Long-Term Stock Exchange with Eric Ries. Now, as GP at Fifth Quarter Ventures, he's investing in overlooked geographies, particularly the Balkans. In this conversation, we cover his "first follower" philosophy, the distribution hacks that actually scaled Nitro, what pre-seed/seed means in 2026, and why geography still matters—just differently. Silicon Valley still has speed and capital density, but it lost its monopoly on technology. The opportunity now is understanding what each geography uniquely offers.
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    44 mins
  • Running a Family Office Solo: Tools, Data & Contrarian Bets | Joshua Berkowitz

    Running a Family Office Solo: Tools, Data & Contrarian Bets | Joshua Berkowitz
    Feb 9 2026

    Joshua Berkowitz, Managing Principal at Berkocorp, shares how he runs his family's investment office as a one-person investment team—and why that's actually an advantage.In this episode of Mantle Mondays, Josh reveals:- Why most investors are "investing not to lose their job, not to make money"- How family offices win by being contrarian when institutions can't- The data stack and AI tools he uses daily (Mantle, Attio, ChatGPT)- Why top quartile VC returns have never exceeded 3X net—and how to beat that- His approach to "weird" investments that institutions won't touchLearn more about Mantle Portal: withmantle.com/portal
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    35 mins
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