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David J. Phillips
CEO at Fondo and Angel Investor
David J. Phillips is the Founder and CEO of Fondo, a company he established in January 2020.1 Fondo provides bookkeeping, tax, and tax credit services for startups, offering an all-in-one accounting platform specifically geared towards founders in early-stage companies.23
Professional Background
Prior to founding Fondo, Phillips had a diverse career spanning various roles and industries:
- Angel Investor: Since 2016, he has invested in numerous startups, including Rippling, Turntide Technologies, Flexport, and Liquid Death.2
- Co-founder of BloomJoy: From January 2018 to November 2019.2
- Angel Track at First Round Capital: From March to December 2019.2
- Co-founder and CEO of Hackbright Academy: From April 2012 to May 2016, he led this coding bootcamp focused on gender equality in tech.2
- Co-founder of safeXai: From 2010 to 2011, working on advanced signal processing and AI for safety applications.2
Earlier Career
Phillips also held positions as:
- Public Accountant & Auditor at Deloitte (2009-2010)
- Founder & CEO of UniverCity Tutors (2008-2010)
- Accountant at Imerys (2008-2009)2
Education
- Software Development at Dev Bootcamp (2012)
- B.A. in Economics & Accounting and Technology Management from UC Santa Barbara (2009)
- Attended Y Combinator (year not specified)2
Current Role at Fondo
As the CEO of Fondo, Phillips leads a company that aims to simplify accounting and tax processes for startups. Under his leadership, Fondo has grown to serve over 1,000 startups, providing automated accounting services.35 The company has experienced significant growth, tripling its Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and team size with the help of alternative financing options.3
Personal
Phillips is bilingual, with native or bilingual proficiency in both English and Spanish.2 He is active on social media platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn, where he shares insights about entrepreneurship and startup finance.46
Highlights
The entire vibe coding wave got one thing backwards
Everyone optimized for speed
Prompt in, app out, as fast as possible
But the bottleneck isn't just speed It's context
Give coding agents better context and everything improves.
Lower cost Faster execution Better output
@WithWoz1 is built for that shift.
A Claude Code plugin that makes coding agents faster, cheaper, and higher performing
Up to 55% cheaper Up to 40% faster Higher benchmark scores than Claude Code alone
And the timing matters:
The age of tokenmaxxing is fading. The age of more measurable ROI is emerging.
🎙️ Ben Collins (@BenjaminT007), CEO & Co-Founder, Woz (@WithWoz1) on @fondocom @thestartpod
Huge thanks to @EragonAI for making this episode possible!
Speed to lead sounds like a sales tactic
It's actually the whole game
Ruben Harris knows this better than anyone
He built a 300-person call center across 3 countries to reach 1M people a month
...and saw exactly where the ceiling was
The problem isn't effort. It's physics.
A working-class student fills out a form at 10 PM. Nobody's staffed at 10 PM
So 90% of leads go cold Not because they weren't interested Because nobody got back to them fast enough
Outrival's AI agents respond in under a minute
They call, text, email, and follow up
One client made $ 10M in new revenue from leads they already had
The best outbound AI isn't replacing humans It's doing the work humans never had time to do
🎙️ @rubenharris, CEO & Co-Founder, @outrivalAI on @fondocom @thestartpod
Huge thanks to @Rippling for making this episode possible!


