The Room was founded in 2020 by Madison McIlwain and Claudia Laurie, a funder and a founder who first met as product managers in San Francisco in 2018. What started as a side project between friends has grown into one of the most trusted conversations in tech.

Since launching the podcast, Claudia has founded and exited a venture-backed startup, Prive, while Madison became a VC partner and now serves as an operator at Vercel. Their lived experience on both sides of the table, building companies and backing them, gives The Room its distinctive edge: candid storytelling paired with practical, execution-oriented insight.

In 2024, Madison and Claudia were named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in Media for their work on The Room.

Now entering Season 14, Claudia and Madison have sat down with more than 130 guests, 87% of whom identify as underrepresented in technology. Past guests include Michelle Zatlyn of Cloudflare, Johnny Ho of Perplexity, Guillermo Rauch of Vercel, Ciara, the Grammy Award–winning R&B artist and entrepreneur, and Spencer Rascoff of Zillow, among many others. Collectively, companies founded or led by Room guests are valued in the tens of billions and have raised more than $10 billion in venture funding.

More than a podcast, The Room has grown from a URL into an IRL community. We host curated gatherings in San Francisco, Seattle, Boston, Miami, New York, and beyond, bringing founders, operators, and investors together for meaningful connection.

Our hallmark annual event, the Inside Summit, convenes an invite-only group of top builders and investors for a day of candid conversations and high-trust connection.

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Mercury and Perkins Coie are proud partners of The Room Podcast Season 13.