Extra Crunch Live: Join Alexia and Niko Bonatsos for a Q&A May 19th at 2 pm EDT/11 am PDT

The Extra Crunch Live series rolls along next week with something special: My old boss is taking part.

Let me explain. Alexia Bonatsos was once co-editor of TechCrunch and was part of my interview circuit when I first joined the publication. She taught me more than I can write down; Alexia is one of my favorite people.

She’s joining us for an Extra Crunch Live session as she’s now a venture capitalist at Dream Machine VC, a firm she started. Her partner, Niko Bonatsos, is taking part as well. Niko works for General Catalyst, where he’s a managing director.

Dream Machine is a self-described “opportunistic seed fund,” meaning it makes early bets. General Catalyst tends to invest a little later but also has a seed effort that’s worth a few dozen million dollars each year. So, the two are likely focused on different parts of the market, even if there is some overlap.

I won’t lie; I’m excited about this conversation. Alexia is someone who always challenges my thinking, and Niko is a curious VC in that I don’t think he’s ever tried to bullshit me. (Indeed, he swung by the other week to chat with my Equity co-host Danny, which went pretty well. But call that a warm-up for this particular chat.)

What will we talk about? We’ll cover the basics quickly — their current investing pace, changes in the face of COVID-19, that sort of thing — but then we’ll dig into the future. General Catalyst has taken part in a few AI-focused funding rounds in 2020, and Dream Machine says that it “hopes to help exceptional founders make science fiction non-fiction.”

I have some questions.

But I won’t be able to draw all the lines that we ask them to color in for us — you’ll be on hand to help. These Extra Crunch Live chats have been a good reminder that you have a lot of ideas and questions that are worth raising. So, I’ll see you on May 19 in the early afternoon on the East Coast, or the late morning if you’re out West.

Details are below for Extra Crunch subscribers; if you need a pass, you can get an inexpensive trial here.

Let’s have some fun and talk about the future.

— Alex