Summation (formerly World of DaaS)

John Allen is a retired four-star Marine Corps general who commanded 150,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan and built a 65-nation coalition as Special Presidential Envoy to the Global Coalition Against ISIS. After retiring from the military, he led the Brookings Institution as its president. He co-invented the term "hyperwar," holds five AI patents, and co-authored Turning Point: Policymaking in the Era of Artificial Intelligence. He currently serves as a strategic advisor to Microsoft.
In this episode of Summation, John and Auren discuss:
Why Ukraine's battlefield is accelerating the autonomous weapons timeline faster than any defense department predicted
The single assumption that doomed Afghanistan and why 2,500 troops could have changed everything
What nobody is asking about the US operation in Iran 
How China's one-child military could be the most underappreciated deterrent against a Taiwan invasion
You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and John R. Allen on LinkedIn

Adrian Aoun helped found Torch, a health data platform that was acquired by OpenAI earlier this year. He's also the co-founder of Seneca, which raised $60 million to build autonomous drones for wildfire suppression. Adrian previously founded Forward Health. He previously led special projects for Larry Page at Google, where he founded Sidewalk Labs and helped build Google's AI division.
In this episode of Summation, Adrian and Auren discuss:
Why curing all cancer adds only ~3 years of life but internet access for a billion people is massively more impactful
How AI is turning healthcare from a service into a product -- and why the AMA is the new taxi medallion lobby
The expert investor paradox: why deep expertise makes you a worse angel investor
Why GLP-1s are the closest thing to a miracle drug in our lifetime
You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Adrian Aoun on X at @adrianaoun

Tod Sacerdoti is the CEO and co-founder of Pipedream, which recently sold to Workday. Tod is also a general partner at Flex Capital, where he's invested in over 400 companies including Chime, Vercel, Replit, CodeRabbit, Mercury, and many others. He previously founded BrightRoll, a programmatic video advertising platform that sold to Yahoo for $640 million in 2014. 
In this episode of Summation, Tod and Auren discuss:
Why seed investing has the highest annualized returns of any venture asset class
First-gen AI companies being the most vulnerable to AI disruption
QSBS and why it's the most important tax benefit nobody talks about
The founder code and what happens when people break it
You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Tod Sacerdoti on X at @tod

Nirav Tolia is the co-founder and CEO of Nextdoor (NYSE: NXDR), the neighborhood social network with over 105 million users across 350,000 communities worldwide. After stepping down as CEO in 2018, he returned to lead the company in 2024.
In this episode of Summation, Nirav and Auren discuss:
Why success kills innovation
The death of physical community
Why Nextdoor had to change their stock ticker
Insider vs Outsider entrepreneurs
You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Nirav Tolia on X at @niravtolia.

Lieutenant General Mike Fenzel recently retired as a three-star Army General. He most recently served as the United States Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority, navigating one of the world’s most complex geopolitical landscapes. His career is defined by high-stakes leadership, ranging from the immediate aftermath of the September 11th attacks, where he was stationed in the bunker alongside Vice President Dick Cheney, to multiple deployments to Afghanistan, to commanding an airborne brigade of 5,500 paratroopers. Beyond the battlefield, Fenzel is a scholar of strategic decision-making. His book, No Miracles, analyzes the internal Soviet failures during their occupation of Afghanistan.
In this episode of Summation, Mike and Auren discuss:
Why the Soviets took four years to exit Afghanistan
Lessons from leading security cooperation in Jerusalem
Israel's dominance in security tech
Why US foreign policy experts keep failing
You can find Auren Hoffman on X at @auren and Mike Fenzel on LinkedIn.