TBPN, Jack Altman, a16z, Now It’s Lightspeed's Media Move

**Claire Zau** (0:00)
Claire Zau, an investor, who's also a creator. I've taken the most productized, techie approach to building content. When I first started, I told myself, I can just build this to 10,000, 20,000 people who care deeply about tech and innovation. I'll be happy. I think across all platforms, I reached 350,000 plus people across all platforms. We've got 10 million impressions monthly. I had brands like Vanta, Perplexity, Meta, like all of them knocking my door, being like, please, can you share what we're building with our audiences and formal partnerships with them?

**Molly O'Shea** (0:28)
Are you going to keep doing Zauey Talks?

**Claire Zau** (0:30)
It wasn't honestly even a point of discussion. They're like, obviously, you'll continue to have your own platform in the same way that I think Fred Wilson at USV can use their own blog or Bill Gurley and BG2.

**Molly O'Shea** (0:41)
And the army of A6CG.

**Claire Zau** (0:42)
Yes, and that too. Yeah, yeah.

**Molly O'Shea** (0:54)
Well, that was a dramatic reveal.

**Claire Zau** (0:56)
I know, I felt bad, because I was like, what if it is underwhelming? But they were like, we want to capture what it's like when someone sees it for the first time, and it's been fun.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:06)
It's so fun. I feel like I could look at everything for an hour.

**Claire Zau** (1:09)
I know, I feel like this could be Lightspeed's little museum of- It's like a toy room. Yeah, and everything, I mean, they have all, I actually think we have little bits and pieces that are nods to portfolio companies, so yeah.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:23)
Does anybody call you Zauey Wauey?

**Claire Zau** (1:26)
Okay, you're not the first person. The whole name actually started because in middle school, that's what people would call me.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:32)
Really?

**Claire Zau** (1:32)
Yeah, and then I just kept it as Zauey, and when you're in middle school, you have your jerseys and it would be Zauey, and so that was my handle on Instagram for my personal account, and then I started posting in Spelv. I was like, I don't know what to do, I don't want to put Claire Zau Talks or Claire Zau Tech, so I used Zauey, yeah.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:52)
I just hear the song in my head, like Mowie Wowie, Zauey Wowie.

**Claire Zau** (1:56)
Maybe that should be my theme song.

**Molly O'Shea** (1:58)
Yeah, make it your theme song. Okay, so we have to talk about what we're doing in here. So what is going on right now?

**Claire Zau** (2:05)
You are one of our first external guests in the Lightwork podcast room, and we've actually been teaming this up for a while. Josh, who you met a couple of weeks ago, had joined Lightspeed and he wanted to introduce this next generation of what Lightspeed would look like. And part of that was having obviously a new media presence. So a big part of that was this podcast, and in order to have a podcast that represented all the things Lightspeed was working on, the taste behind it all, we have this space now.

**Molly O'Shea** (2:38)
So why and how did he manage to bring you in?

**Claire Zau** (2:42)
Yeah, it's funny because he found me through TikTok, I think, which is actually was one of my earliest platforms. I started posting in March of 2025, and then on Instagram in June of 2025, and then-

**Molly O'Shea** (2:58)
That's it?

**Claire Zau** (2:59)
Yeah, that's been a year.

**Molly O'Shea** (2:59)
I feel like you've like completely just dominated this base for this.

**Claire Zau** (3:04)
That's it? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, part of me sometimes feels like it's just this like internet side quest that I have, and it's not real. Like I'm like, oh, that's just my like fake side job. But yeah, through it in the fall, I got an e-mail from Josh and he had just joined Lightspeed, and I think seen him on TBPN, and I was like, oh, this is cool.
Obviously, a lot of noise around new media. I thought he just wanted to chat about the space, like exchange notes. I thought he was thinking about building out TikTok and Instagram, and I was like, happy to yap about it. There are not that many people who are thinking about short form, who are thinking as deeply about new media as Josh does. So I had the conversation and that kick started our discussions of what this could look like. Yeah, that's how I got brought into all this.

**Molly O'Shea** (3:51)
Yeah, Josh is a legend.

**Claire Zau** (3:53)
Yes. Yeah. I had obviously seen all of this stuff at Redpoint and had been entertained by a lot of the Redpoint content. So when he came to me, there was this interesting opportunity to think a lot about how we could extend Lightspeed's brand beyond the tech and venture ecosystem, because it does have a really strong brand even for me as someone who started an venture six years ago. Obviously, New Lightspeed, as I was just starting, has followed a lot of its journey over the years.