👋 I’m Justin. I run The LA Grind and The SF Grind, host the Ambition Podcast, am building the Ambition Summit, and scout for Headline.

The very first Ambition Summit was last week. After 5 months of prep, being able to actually talk with everyone, interview the speakers, and take in the energy of the day was absolutely incredible.

A week later, the overwhelming emotion is gratitude. I don't take it lightly bringing together ambitious people and fully understand how busy each one of us is and how important our time is. I think that's why it means so much to me when people choose to spend their time at an event I'm hosting and I put tremendous pressure on myself to make it an experience worth being part of.

The Ambition Summit, from all the feedback I heard, was worth being part of, and that meant a lot to me. It’s also why Ambition 2027 is already on the calendar.

We had over 100 founders, operators, and investors in the room. Two-thirds were founders, nearly three-quarters of them raised some outside capital, and we had ~15 investors. This was a great mix and was why I spent so much time trying to get the right people in the room.

Of course, this summit wouldn’t have been possible without our amazing speakers.

Dee Murthy (Ghost)

Dee build Five Four Group to $120M in revenue and now runs Ghost, an AI-native distribution platform for the best brands in the world. One thing that stood out to me about Dee building Five Four Group was how, in the early days, he allowed one of his young employees to test Facebook ads back in around 2012. Within 60 days, they were working so well that he was spending $30,000/day on ads to grow his brand. It reminds me of the Charlie Munger quote, “Take a simple idea and take it seriously.”

Mehul Nariyawala (Matic)

When Wired reviewed Matic, a robot vacuum cleaner, Matic got an all-timer quote, “This is the only 10/10 rating I have ever given in over a decade of reviewing products,” so it’s no surprise that on stage Mehul talked about how when he started the company, he wanted to build a “20-year company,” something he could work on for decades. That long-term thinking, plus years of bootstrapping the company after a prior exit and a relentless focus on product improvements that serve the customer, have led to him creating the world’s best robot vacuum cleaner.

Jessica Chang (Upwards)

Jessica has always been very ambitious, but one of the most shocking days of her life was realizing she had to choose between having a family or having a career. Why? Childcare. In a theme we saw throughout the day, Jessica decided to solve her own problem, one that she felt was one of the hardest problems to solve. I admire that so damn much. Today, more than 3 million families are supported with the platform. I can’t help but be reminded from Jessica of this idea that you can be as ambitious as you want to be. She could’ve only tried to solve the problem for herself, instead, she decided to solve it for millions of families. I love that.

​Dara Ladjevardian (Delphi)

Dara said maybe one of the most surprising things of the day, given that he’s building a fascinating company in the AI space, backed by investors like Sequoia Capital. He told us that he’s trying to get his employees to use AI less. Why? Essentially, to get them to think more and improve their abilities. Too many people have become reliant on AI and are losing the ability to think for themselves. He says it makes people who are 5/10 at a skill think they are 10/10, which is a big problem. He wants to see people create things of craft and taste. AI masks this ability.

Rick Smith (Crosscut Ventures)

Careers are long. When I think about how Rick has succeeded for decades as a venture capitalist, one thing stands out: His ability to continually play games where he has a competitive advantage. Early on, that meant investing in early-stage companies out of LA, not Silicon Valley. It also meant capping the size of the funds he raised instead of continually raising larger and larger ones. I don’t think this point can be emphasized enough… find games to play where you have, or can have, a competitive advantage of some sort.

Jo Phillips (Payabli)

What stood out most to me from Jo was not that Payabli is a company now doing almost $100M a year in revenue, though that is hella impressive, it’s the approach he’s taken to building this company. Not only is he utilizing a somewhat rare executive structure, with the Co-CEO model, but he bootstrapped the business till he was already at around $1M ARR before raising capital, $72M to date. It makes complete sense though when you consider what he said on stage, talking about starting the company to control his own destiny, and also mentioning a book, Small Giants, that had an impact on him.

Shamin Walsh (BAM Ventures)

Shamin went to college with the founders of Sweetgreen and when they decided to start the company, she took a big risk, going against what everyone told her and investing most of her savings early on in the company. Today the company is worth more than a billion dollars. That experience, as we heard on stage, brought home an important lesson: partnering with the right people. She talked about doing just that, joining Brian Lee at BAM Ventures in 2016. Brian, the Co-founder of LegalZoom, was running the Honest Company at the time and his entrepreneurial experience plus Shamin’s desire to run the day to day operations of the fund as a 50/50 partner from day one, ended up being the perfect match. It also was the result of Shamin deciding that the partnership had higher potential than if she started a fund on her own. An important lesson in not only finding the right partner, but having the self-awareness to recognize the benefits.

Shivani Siroya (Tala)

When I think of Shivani’s talk at the Ambition Summit, all that comes through is one idea: think bigger. Not just because of the 15+ million customers Tala has served, but because of Shivani’s discussion about solving a global problem, going country by country, building playbooks and adapting them as she expanded. I found her incredibly inspiring, with an outsized ambition to help billions of people around the globe. Her talk was the perfect way to wrap the speaker portion of the summit.

We had some amazing speakers for the Ambition Summit.

Thankfully, a few of them joined us the night before for our VIP dinner, joining sponsors and some other incredible founders and investors at Barrique in Venice, whose team was so great to work with.

Throughout the summit itself, there were so many conversations happening outside, in the lobby, in the hallways, and throughout the venue.

I knew that would be one of the most valuable parts of the experience and I’m glad it all came together so well, largely because of a great venue, the Illusion Magic Lounge in Santa Monica, and a great group of volunteers who helped throughout the day, with Liz, the founder of washedup, leading the crew (Thanks so much!)

And, of course, we wrapped up the summit with our closing party at Bodega Wine Bar, another favorite of mine, which gave me the opportunity to do something I’ve enjoyed since starting The LA Grind 16 months ago - build deeper relationships with people in this city.

This summit doesn’t happen without the support of my amazing sponsors.

Big thanks to our headline sponsors, DLA Piper and Citizens Private Bank as well as our supporting sponsors Bailey Glasser LLP, Tax Hack, Ardas, Agora, and Venice Inc. (Who did all of the incredible design work!) for making this event possible!

Thanks also to Irina for all of these amazing photos, Randy for the amazing summit venue, Kerry for always taking such good care of us at Bodega, and to all of the attendees, speakers, and volunteers, as well as my mom, who helped me so much. It’s a team effort to pull this off.

This was so fun, we’re doing it all again next year!

Apply to join Ambition 2027 with the lowest prices we’ll have for tickets. We’ve already sold a few for next year which I think is a great sign of just how much people enjoyed their experience. We’re also now open to 2027 sponsorship conversations.

I can’t wait to see everyone soon, many more events to come!

Best,

Justin