Village Global Podcast

Auren Hoffman and Ben Casnocha on Career Strategy, Undiscovered Talent, Networks, and more Oct 31, 2024

Auren Hoffman, CEO of SafeGraph and GP of Flex Capital, interviewed Ben Casnocha, Village Global co-founder and partner, on Auren's World of DaaS podcast. They are longtime friends and had a wide-ranging discussion on career strategy, evaluating founders, serendipity, wealth, and much more. We've cross-posted that conversation here.
Highlights:

The relevance of what you know vs. who you know has been a debate in the career strategy space for decades. Ben believes that the “what you know” is often dependent on the “who you know” because with the advent of the internet, public information is accessible to all but the insights that live in the heads of the smartest people are not shared widely and require a personal relationship with someone to be able to access that information.
Talent spotting is about finding value in the unexpected and recognizing the strengths in those who may not fit the typical mold. Sometimes people who have clear and obvious flaws in one area are overlooked by people who can’t see the brilliance beyond that particular flaw.
Certain seasons of life are good for maximizing for serendipity and taking random coffee meetings. The key is to know what season of life you are in and whether it’s better in the long-term at that moment to be maximizing for serendipity or not. The pendulum will swing back around at some point.
There’s a certain level of wealth where your wealth actually starts to detract from your level of happiness. Sometimes people are better served by aiming for a lower level of wealth in order to maximize for happiness.

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Howie Liu on Airtable's Early Days, Scaling, and AI Oct 23, 2024

Howie Liu, founder and CEO of Airtable, was interviewed by Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha live in downtown San Francisco in front of an audience of Village Global founders and friends of the firm.
Highlights:
- Embracing discomfort is part of the founder's journey. Learning to tolerate and even appreciate this discomfort is important.
- Making decisions when you feel "almost ready" rather than waiting for perfect readiness is often necessary.
- It's crucial to understand the underlying problems customers are trying to solve, not just their feature requests. Founders should resist the temptation to become "feature checklist machines" and instead focus on core problems.
- There's growing fatigue around AI hype in enterprises. Successful AI implementation requires focusing on specific, valuable use cases rather than broad promises.
- Airtable spent 2.5 years building their initial product, focusing on creating a platform rather than just a simple collaboration tool. They balanced building a horizontal platform with targeted use case marketing to appeal to different users.
- It's crucial to understand the context and biases of advice-givers, no matter how successful they are. Having strong conviction in your vision, while being open to feedback, is essential for success.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Guillermo Rauch on AI, Scaling Vercel, and The Future of Web Apps Aug 16, 2024

Guillermo Rauch is founder and CEO of Vercel, a company that provides the developer tools and cloud infrastructure to build, scale, and secure a faster, more personalized web. He was interviewed by Ben Casnocha, co-founder and general partner at Village Global, an early stage venture capital firm backed by some of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs.
Takeaways:
- Any modern cloud-native app is a nexus of services that all work together to create a coherent interface for the user. For example, Auth0 handles login, Stripe handles billing, React is used for the interface, among many more services all working in concert. Vercel helps ensure that the user has an amazing experience no matter what services are all working together on the back end.
- Guillermo tells the story of open source Unix winning out over proprietary versions of Linux, even though the proprietary versions had an early lead. He suggests that over the long term, open source will win, more often than not, and that the same story will likely play out when it comes to AI models, with open source models winning out in the end.
- When it comes to investing, Guillermo loves to bet on someone who has been obsessed with a topic for years and years. He recounts the story of the Auth0 team who had written books and given talks and spent years of their lives just on logging in and logging out. He also says that he prefers a leadership team that lives and breathes a company’s problem space. He says that he's allergic to the idea of a professional leadership team swooping in at a certain stage.
- Rauch was born and raised in Argentina. He says that he has a sense of urgency and that tomorrow is not promised that stems from his childhood experience growing up in Argentina. He tells the story of Mark Zuckerberg keeping the Sun Microsystems logo on the back of the Facebook sign at their headquarters when they moved in to cultivate a sense that tomorrow is not promised to anyone.
- Guillermo believes in giving his team leads radical ownership of their products. He provides the leads with frameworks that explain clear principles for how they build products at Vercel but beyond that he gives the leads a long leash and a sense of ownership over the product.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Encore: Secrets of Public Speaking and Oral Communication from Renowned Speaking Coach Jun 12, 2024

Michael Balaoing, founder of Candlelion, joins Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha on this episode to discuss:
- The importance of the acronym WTF (what’s the feeling?) when you’re giving a presentation.
- The four roles that you take on as a speaker: captain, pilot, guide, and game show host.
- The five questions to ask when seeking feedback on a presentation.
- How to keep the audience engaged throughout a talk, not just during the Q&A at the end.
- How to bake stories into your presentations and remix your talks for different audiences.
- The keys to virtual communication.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Encore: Brad Feld on What Nietzsche Can Teach Entrepreneurs May 17, 2024

Brad Feld (@bfeld), VC at Foundry Group and co-author with Dave Jilk of The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche, joined Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha to discuss:
- Common misconceptions about Nietzsche and why being misunderstood makes him an especially interesting philosopher.
- What Nietzsche can teach entrepreneurs deciding whether to pivot or persevere. Brad says that founders should view their entrepreneurial journey not in terms of a single company, but as the next 30-50 years of their life.
- Why Brad hates the term “passion” and says it’s overused in entrepreneurial circles.
- Why to focus more on whether someone’s words and actions line up rather than the strength of their beliefs.
- The lessons that Brad has for making decisions among groups today given Nietzsche’s aphorism that “insanity in individuals is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.”
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Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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How to Nail Product-Market Fit and Scale a B2B Company with Thejo Kote of Airbase Apr 25, 2024

Thejo Kote (@thejo) talks to Village partner Ben Casnocha. Thejo is a two-time founder and CEO. His current company, Airbase, is a spend management platform serving companies with 100 and 5,000 employees like Coda, 15Five, Front, Marqueta, CaptivateIQ, Abnormal, and more. Airbase has raised over $200 million, has tens of millions in ARR, and is consistently ranked as a top spend management company by G2.
Highlights:
- Rather than jumping into building Airbase, he built high-fidelity mockups and went back to prospective customers and asked if they’d buy it to “pre-sell” it.
- In B2B, build for a specific, recognizable buyer. You want to sell to a specific role within the org who will be your champion. Ideally this is someone who also has influence within the org.
- Select the kinds of customers who aren’t likely to switch in the early days. Team with early customers who actually want to be partners and are motivated by the relationship. Flatter them by asking: “are there any other innovative, forward-thinking leaders you know who I should also talk to?”
- 6-8 months later after proving value and showing they could be a good partner, he said “hey, I want to get your feedback on our pricing model. Is this fair for the next set of customers?” 100% of the customers converted when he asked if they were willing to opt in to the pricing structure with a significant discount for their initial partnership.
- When hiring salespeople, Thejo focuses more on personality traits rather than prior experience selling to the same segment. Also, if candidates are drawn to the liquid comp at a large, public company, they’re likely going to have a hard time transitioning to a startup. Find people who have been comfortable taking risks.
- Airbase is fully remote and Thejo doesn’t think in terms of onshore vs. offshore within the company because that instantly creates a class system. Anyone anywhere in the world is part of their single, remote team, which has the internet as its headquarters. Each member of the team is “equitably inconvenienced” in his words.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Encore: Cloudflare Co-Founder Michelle Zatlyn’s Advice on Hiring, Fundraising, Scaling, and more Apr 17, 2024

Michelle Zatlyn (@zatlyn), co-founder, president, and COO of Cloudflare, joined Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha for a masterclass with our founders in late 2020.
They discussed:
- The origin story of Cloudflare, including how the co-founders met, and how Michelle realized that she too could start a company.
- Her advice on fundraising after raising more than $300M for Cloudflare, including why you should keep the rest of the VC partnership in mind, and how to show rather than tell in your pitch.
- How they found the best talent, including why their blog brought them plenty of inbound interest, and why searching far and wide around the globe for engineers helped them build their team quickly.
- Why they don’t use recruiters at Cloudflare.
- How to turn a weakness into a strength.
- How to process feedback and when it makes sense to ignore it.
- Stories of extreme frugality in the early days of the company, including building their own Ikea desks.
- How an emotional response by customers helped them know they had product-market fit.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Lessons from the Early Days at Uber and Advice for Founders with Kevin Novak Apr 05, 2024

We're excited to launch a new EIR program for data science founders in partnership with Rackhouse Ventures, founded by Kevin Novak. Learn more about the program: https://www.villageglobal.vc/rackhouse-village-global-eir-program
Kevin Novak (@novakkm), an early Uber employee, was instrumental in developing their data science program and was the creator of surge pricing.
Highlights:
- Kevin, originally a nuclear physicist, applied his analytical skills to develop Uber's first surge pricing model in three weeks—a task that would typically take six months in academia.
- He says that founders shouldn’t wait until they have plenty of data to make decisions — instead, start with first principles thinking while also building a virtuous data cycle by ensuring you are collecting data that will inform future decisions.
- He comments that AI might be “overhyped on average” at the moment. The first breakthrough product is essentially an API, which has led to incumbents responding more quickly and more aggressively. Kevin argues that if you are founding a generative AI company, you are effectively making the claim that incumbents won’t be able to respond and implement an LLM themselves.
- Kevin cautions founders not to fall in love with any one idea too early. It’s better to hedge your bets and experiment with one or two. Through trial and error, you can eventually decide on one idea that has the potential to be a strong business.
- For the Village Global-Rackhouse EIR program, we’re looking for founders with deep passion for founding a company. We don’t require you to have your idea and team established.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Encore Episode: John Donahoe’s Lessons on Leadership and Being a Better CEO Mar 15, 2024

This encore episode is a recording of a special masterclass roundtable session for our founders with John Donahoe. John is CEO of Nike and was previously CEO of ServiceNow and eBay. He is known as one of the most inspirational leaders in Silicon Valley and is a highly sought-after mentor to CEOs including Brian Chesky at Airbnb, Drew Houston at Dropbox, and Ben Silbermann at Pinterest. We’re honored to have him among our small group of world-class executives and collaborators whose time and expertise help power our network of founders at Village Global.
He shared advice on when to hire ahead, invest in and train, or replace personnel on your team and gave insight into his most common piece of advice on professional growth when advising CEOs.
Quotes From This Episode
"When you talk about priorities at an aspirational level, they overlap a lot. People start realizing we're more similar than we're dissimilar."
"Adversity never feels fun. I don't seek adversity. But I'm no longer scared of adversity. When it emerges, instead of trying to run from it, I now accept that it is a reality and I say, 'well, at least I'm going to learn and grow.'"
"My experience has been that around any issue that involves change, you have roughly 20-25% of people who want to be part of it, no matter what the topic is, you have 25-30% of people who want to fight it, and you have the 50% of people in the middle saying 'which side is going to win?'"
"[When someone is let go] The fear is humiliation usually. That's almost a bigger fear than actually leaving the company."
"We're never as good or as bad as labels make us out to be."
"I would say in general, for every 10 hours of business development conversations, 8 of them are a waste."
"I do gratitude practice driving into work every morning. It's proven in brain science that your brain becomes more negative over time. But it's also been proven in brain science that you can counteract that."
"The older I get, the more I've made friends with uncertainty. I don't avoid uncertainty. Uncertainty is as present to me today as it was before but I'm a little more comfortable with it today."
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Identifying 275M Unreported Genetic Variations To Improve Healthcare with NIH All of Us Program CTO Chris Lunt Mar 01, 2024

Chris Lunt is a technology executive with more than 25 years of experience building web services and data platforms. He is in his seventh year as the CTO for the NIH's All of Us Research Program. He joined the NIH from GetInsured, where he worked to improve health insurance shopping and enrollment systems. Previously Chris ran VC-backed internet startups, with one IPO.
Highlights:
- Chris is hopeful about Silicon Valley going back to its roots to create sociological change by uniting people and being thoughtful about what the world should look like. Over the last couple decades it has become more venal.
- Chris believes in the power of investing public money to create opportunities. He says that Silicon Valley is largely the story of a public private partnership and that it’s hard to do certain fundamental research in a purely market-based economy.
- Chris says that the initiatives around Web3 weren’t grounded in a realistic understanding of human nature and the result was not a good outcome.
- Healthcare is one of the most conservative industries but a way to drag it into the future is for the government to mandate change. Health records are currently built for billing purposes rather than for improving health. It’s also not all that long ago that hospitals were using paper records until the Affordable Care Act required that they digitize.
- There is a moment coming soon where there is an opportunity to completely reimagine healthcare delivery. A generalist will be able to help a person navigate between various providers and specialists instead of the current fragmented approach.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Building Hardware Companies and Choosing Co-Founders with Michael Hochberg Feb 16, 2024

Michael Hochberg (https://www.linkedin.com/in/hochberg/) is a physicist and a founder of four successful startup companies in semiconductors and telecommunications, including Luxtera, acquired by Cisco in 2019, and Elenion, acquired by Nokia in 2020. He won the highest awards for young scientists in Singapore (NRF Fellowship) and the United States (PECASE), is an author on over 60 patents, and has been involved in the creation of over 30 companies in biotech and applications of silicon photonics.
Highlights:
- In college Michael would tie together clusters of Dell machines to replicate the performance of supercomputers.
- The core of building a successful company in Michael’s view is hiring the best people. The best can solve really hard problems but hiring mediocre people results in even trivial problems being unsolvable.
- Silicon photonics chips are replacing things that could previously only be done in silicon. Data centres and telecom systems are now dominated by silicon photonics.
- There’s a fundamental difference between co-founders and early employees but that line can often be blurred, often at the peril of the founding team.
- Michael says that founders don’t do enough diligence on their co-founders. Companies often last longer than most marriages so it’s important to throughly reference check your co-founders, ask specific and tactical open-ended questions of them, and see them deliver tangible results before you start a company together.
- It’s important to be aligned on what success means to you and your co-founders. Two people may have very different definitions of what “a lot of money” means — that could be enough money to buy a house for one person and $100M for another.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Secondaries with Matt Pellini of Hamilton Lane Feb 09, 2024

Matt Pellini, Managing Director at Hamilton Lane, joins Olga Serhiyevich on this episode. Highlights:
- Matt says the secondaries market has grown over 5x from 15 years ago to now.
- Selling in the secondary market used to be a sign of distress but is no longer. There are many different reasons for doing so and it’s mostly a sign of a manager being more active in the overall management of the fund.
- Secondaries, in contrast to other asset classes in the private markets, are typically lower risk, shorter duration, and are more IRR-focused.
- It’s key for LPs to understand the motivations behind a GP’s intentions to engage in secondaries transactions. There are very good reasons for doing so but transparency is key.
- AI is in vogue but technology is only as good as the data that it’s using. The most sophisticated data analysis is not going to give a firm much of an edge if it's using incorrect data or publicly available data.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Lessons Learned From Running CalSTRS with Chris Ailman Feb 02, 2024

Christopher Ailman (@CJAtheCIO), Chief Investment Officer at CalSTRS, joins Olga Serhiyevich on this episode. Highlights:
- CalSTRS, the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, was created in 1913 and is actually older than Social Security. It has over 400 members who are over 100 years old who are still receiving their pension.
- Chris says no bear market is alike and that the key is to have the discipline during that time period to actually start buying.
- Chris says the key to success as an investor is in being intentional about the culture you create. When Chris is evaluating a portfolio manager he likes to and sit on the floor with the employees and see what the vibe is like.
- A lot of investors take a lot of econ and business classes but should take more psychology classes to deal with the human side of things (vs. the numbers side). He says that selecting portfolio managers is much more difficult than picking stocks.
- Chris says that the energy transition will dwarf all trends over the next fifteen years. He says that by 2035 parts of the earth will start to become uninhabitable and there will be mass migrations to other areas.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Encore: Mark Pincus on Product Management, Raising Capital, and Building Zynga Jan 26, 2024

This encore episode is a recording of a special event where Mark Pincus (@markpinc) was interviewed by Ben Casnocha in San Francisco in front of a live audience of portfolio founders, friends of the firm, and LPs.
Mark is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Zynga, and is an angel investor in Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and other companies. He talked about about raising venture capital, his philosophy of product management, the early days at Zynga, and much more. He also took time at the event to meet with Village Global founders to give them his advice on growing their companies.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Encore: Bill Gates on Advice For Founders, Mistakes, and Philanthropy Jan 19, 2024

This encore episode is a recording of a special event where Bill Gates was interviewed in San Francisco by Julia Hartz, co-founder of Eventbrite. It originally took place in 2018 in front of a live audience of Village Global founders and friends of the firm. We are honored to count Bill Gates among our luminary LPs whose financial capital and engagement power the next wave of Village Global founders.
They covered:
- Gates’s entrepreneurial journey starting Microsoft, including the most important turning points in the early years of the company.
- His thinking on work-life balance for founders and what he would do differently if he was starting again.
- What he’s learned from the next generation of founders.
- His perspective on the current tech landscape.
- His views on philanthropy, global development, education, and much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Encore: Jerry Yang on Yahoo!, Early-Stage Investing, and China Jan 12, 2024

Jerry originally joined us on the podcast in 2019. He is co-founder of Yahoo! and founding partner of AME Cloud Ventures. He was interviewed in front of a live audience in San Francisco by Village Global co-founder and partner, Ben Casnocha.
Jerry told stories from the early days of Yahoo! and explained his lessons learned from the experience. He also talked about what American entrepreneurs can learn from China and his thoughts on early stage investing.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

How Superplastic Built a Social Media-Native Character Universe Jan 04, 2024

Paul Budnitz, founder of Superplastic, and Jennifer van Dijk, CEO of Superplastic, join Christina Des Vaux, head of marketing and platform at Village Global, on this episode. Takeaways:

Superplastic is a creatively-led company that has managed to maintain its unique identity and artistic integrity while nevertheless running a thriving business.
The team comes up with ideas for characters but the characters grow and change as the audience gives them their own identities.
They’ve learned a lot from the people who make games and are willing to iterate and make changes quickly.
They shy away from initiatives that would make money fairly easily but don’t grab the attention of the creative team.
Paul says there is always a solution to everything and their job is to keep looking for it, whether that’s a creative solution or a business solution.
They’ve created their own tech stack that enables them to create animations in hours that used to take weeks.
Paul and Jennifer say that the edge is the new center of culture. The characters they’ve created are weird, but likeable.

Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Reference Checking and Personality Assessments with Investor Graham Duncan Sep 22, 2023

Graham Duncan (@GrahamDuncanNYC) is a longtime investor and author of a legendary essay on reference checking: https://grahamduncan.blog/whats-going-on-here/ He was interviewed by Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha (@bencasnocha) during a special masterclass for Village Global founders and friends of the firm.
Takeaways:
- Be aware of how your own mindset and mood affects your analysis of a candidate as well as how it impacts how the candidate shows up in the interview. For example, you might be anxious and stressed yourself and that makes the candidate nervous — you may end up experiencing them as nervous, but in fact you are the one that has created that dynamic in the interview.
- Ask the candidate: “If you were hiring someone to fill this role, what criteria would you use?” When someone is particularly good, they are skilled at capturing the essence of what makes someone good at it. This also lets you see how they respond without initial priming and framing.
- The ideal reference check call should take longer than you might think (e.g. 45+ mins). You sometimes need to wear them down over a long period of time before they open up about their real concerns.
- If you aren’t aware of or can’t imagine the downside of working with this person, you haven’t done enough reference checking.
- Ask: “How strong is your endorsement of Jane on a scale of 1-10? (If they answer 7, say actually sorry 7s are not allowed, 6 or 8? If the answer is an 8, ‘What is in that two points?’)”
- When someone comes from a prestigious company, we often fail to control for the weight that the reputation of the company carries when we form our impression of them.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Insights on Capital Power Brokers from Hedge Funds to Venture Capital with Sebastian Mallaby, author of The Power Law Sep 19, 2023

Sebastian Mallaby (@scmallaby) is the Paul A. Volcker senior fellow for international economics at the Council on Foreign Relations and a contributing columnist for The Washington Post. He is the author of five books, including most recently The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the New Future. He joined Olga Serhiyevich, head of investor relations, for this conversation.
Takeaways:
- Sebastian wrote a book about hedge funds prior to The Power Law and he contrasts VCs and hedge fund managers by saying that VCs are much more extraverted. VCs and others around the startup world are eager and willing to make introductions and actually follow through where others say they will make an intro and don’t follow through.
- Venture is a fun and exciting business to be in because you’re dealing with bold visions of the future, highly talented and optimistic founders, and you get to see the progress and outcome of each startup that is trying to do something novel and ambitious.
- Sebastian says that bubbles are inevitable in venture capital because of the nature of the business. He says there’s no “off switch” or equivalent of shorting a company. There are also so many connections among venture capitalists that no one is willing to say anything negative about anyone else’s investments.
- He predicts a significant expansion of startup funding outside of Silicon Valley post-pandemic. Being able to deals over Zoom significantly expands the scope of where a VC can invest.
- He is bullish on Europe especially because it has a consumer market that is even bigger than the US and the entrepreneurial mentality is growing among prospective startup founders in Europe.
- Sebastian says that AI is the biggest development on earth since humans first developed the capacity for abstract thought. Some compare it to the printing press and he says it will be way bigger than that.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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LatAm Digital Transformation Report from Atlantico Aug 30, 2023

Julio Vasconcellos (@JulioV), managing partner at Atlantico, and Ana Martins (@martinsg_ana), partner at Atlantico, join Anne Dwane (@adwane), co-founder and partner at Village Global, to discuss Atlantico’s 2023 report on digital transformation in Latin America.
Takeaways:
- If Latin America was its own country it would be #3 in the world in terms of population and GDP.
- Brazil and Mexico combined make up over half of the population of all of Latin America.
- In the US about 60% of public market capitalization is made up of technology companies but in Latin America that proportion is only 1.8%.
- Latin America is about 10-15 years behind where China is, which is itself about 5-7 years behind where the US is. There is a ton of catch-up that will happen over the next couple decades and that presents a huge opportunity.
- Latin America has some deep scars from hyper-inflation decades ago. They were some of the first countires to quickly raise rates in order to tame the inflation that we've been seeing globally in the last few years. That has paid off with some countries in LatAm starting to lower rates already.
Check out the full report here: https://www.atlantico.vc/latin-america-digital-transformation-report-2023
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Opportunities in Public Health Investing with Gurdane Bhutani and Zeshan Muhammedi Aug 24, 2023

Gurdane Bhutani and Zeshan Muhammedi are co-founders and GPs at MBX, a VC firm investing in early-stage bio/healthtech companies tackling major public health threats. Prior to that they co-founded healthcare and life-science venture capital firm FundRx, where they championed the firm's build-out of its community-driven investment infrastructure, modeled on the scientific peer-review process.
Takeaways:
- Pharma companies have realized that it makes sense to develop drugs that will have a population-level health benefit rather than developing drugs for small numbers of people that cost exorbitant amounts.
- Noise pollution is actually a big public health issue that is linked to various diseases. Companies are working on making society less noisy using things like concrete that is quieter when cars drive over it.
- Gurdane and Zeshan have learned from working together for a long time how to engage in productive disagreement well by acknowledging what their respective strengths and weaknesses are and weighing the strength of one person’s enthusiasm against the strength of the other person’s skepticism.
- Genomics has been a huge story in medicine in the last several decades but hasn’t lived up to its promise because we’ve been missing an understanding of how environmental triggers drive diseases that our genes prime us for.
- In the future, given changes at the FDA and EPA, drugs and chemical products will be tested on “organoids on a chip” or high-throughput systems that can give us higher fidelity data than actual tests on living animals.
- Studies are often powered to look for benefits of a drug rather than find rare long tail side effects. It often takes years and years for the downsides of a treatment to become apparent.
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The Future of Retail with Lee Hnetinka Aug 17, 2023

Lee Hnetinka, founder and CEO of Future and Darkstore, joins Olga Serhiyevich, Head of Investor Relations at Village Global, on this episode. Lee and his companies are building innovative solutions in retail and e-commerce and have worked with world’s most admired brands like Nike, Adidas and Disney where they enabled same-day and 1-hour delivery for customers nationwide. They’ve also worked with tech companies like Snapchat, Shopify and Stripe to enable next generation payments and loyalty program solutions.
Takeaways:
- Lee says cities will look completely different in a few decades. Retail has been the backbone of cities for a very long time but as more and more commerces goes online, physical stores will transform into more of a place to go to have an experience.
- In the old days loyalty programs used stamps to provide a potential discount on a future purchase but now provide the customer with more convenience and a better experience.
- Loyalty programs have been transforming into tiered programs where a customer can pay for status. Lee predicts that every single loyalty program will turn into a tiered program with multiple paid options in the future. For example, there may be multiple levels of Amazon Prime in the same way that there are multiple tiers at American Express.
- Dark stores were pioneered in the UK and leveraged existing stores that had excess space to carry products from many different retailers in one place. Lee partnered with companies like Office Depot, Mattress Firm, and Iron Mountain to make Darkstore a reality. Fun fact: 90% of the population of the US lives within 5 miles of an Office Depot, and on average only three people a day walk in to a mattress store.
- FastAF, the consumer-facing brand at Darkstore, provided high-end versions of the products that someone would typically find in a convenience store. A lot of the core value was the curation that went into which products to carry.
- One of the keys to success for a business like Darkstore is to consider unit economics on a per-building basis and to make sure that there is enough population in any one place to support a physical location.
- Running two companies has made Lee better at both of them as compared to running only one. He says that many insights are transferrable between them. Also, when making decisions, Lee asks whether a decision is reversible or not and spends most of his time on the irreversible decisions and errs towards moving quickly on the reversible ones.
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CIO Series: Wealth Management Platforms, Private Investment Strategies, and the Current (non-Twitter) Macro Outlook with Cameron Dawson Aug 10, 2023

Cameron Dawson, Chief Investment Officer at NewEdge Wealth, joins Olga Serhiyevich, Head of Investor Relations, on this episode. Prior to joining NewEdge Wealth, Cameron was the Chief Market Strategist at Fieldpoint Private Securities and a Senior Equity Analyst at Bank of America.
Takeaways:

Cameron says that wealth management firms can provide the next chapter of growth for VC. There’s a notion that clients at wealth management firms are less sophisticated but in fact managing their assets is often much more complex than managing money for an institution. At wealth management firms, each client is very different and each one is managing their own money rather than that of other individuals, which adds a new dynamic.
The law of large numbers is a drag on funds. As they get larger the alpha that they used to be able to get decays into beta when they become less nimble.
Being a jack of all trades is key to succeeding as a CIO. The last 16 months have been a whirlwind but have also provided a huge amount of learning and have helped Cameron expand an already large skillset.
Cameron doesn’t expect interest rates to fall anytime in the next six months or so. She says a recession is still a possibility but they usually take you by surprise and people have been expecting one for a long time and it still hasn’t materialized.
Cameron has done a number of media appearances and says that the key to public speaking is practicing over and over again. She says that she works on distilling concepts down into simple explanations and practices them out loud in the mirror all the time.
Both Olga and Cameron love ballet and Cameron explains why she loves it and how practicing ballet has helped her career. She says that there is a powerful artistry, history, and beauty to it and that the gruelling training regime prepared her well for other pursuits in her life.

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Opportunities at the intersection of software and hardware in national development projects with Prescott Watson Aug 03, 2023

Prescott Watson (@prescottwatson) joins Olga Serhiyevich (@olgaserhi), head of investor relations at Village Global, on this episode. Prescott is co-founder of Port Power, a software platform that aims to de-risk commercial fleets’ adoption of electric vehicles by ensuring their charging infrastructure functions flexibly and reliably. Takeaways:
- With gas or diesel-powered vehicles, drivers take the car to the energy source (the gas station). With electric vehicles, that paradigm doesn’t work for fleets of commercial vehicles that need to be charged up overnight. This means that a fleet operator needs to build charging infrastructure to charge 30, 50, perhaps 100 vehicles simultaneously.
- Building the charging infrastructure requires huge efforts by multiple players and right now the grid can only support a small fraction of the power that is required. Full support all of the charging that needs to happen is many years away.
- Prescott says there are real “sticks” coming for fleet operators. As early as 2026, there will be restrictions on the ability of fleet operators to buy diesel vehicles.
- Moving to electric vehicles requires a huge effort on the part of the government as well as private operators who build and co-fund the infrastructure required. Prescott says that there has been a significant brain drain from government. It needs to attract many more talented people in order to solve these challenges.
- Access to electricity will play a key role in commercial development and real estate in the future. This provides a significant opportunity for capital allocators.
Links mentioned in this episode:
Abundance Agenda: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/01/scarcity-crisis-college-housing-health-care/621221/
Green Police Ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml54UuAoLSo
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Mark Cuban on Disrupting Healthcare, Trends in AI, and Randomness Jun 15, 2023

Mark Cuban (@mcuban) joins Olga Serhiyevich (@olgaserhi), head of investor relations at Village Global, on this episode. Takeaways:
- In the US healthcare system the interests of patients, providers, and payers are not aligned. This drives many of the problems in the system today and is part of what inspired Mark to get involved in trying to disrupt the system.
- Mark started Cost Plus Drugs to try to address some of the pricing issues with prescription drugs in the US. The company's pricing is completely transparent and shows their costs along with the exact fees they charge. He says that they do zero marketing and their growth comes from earned media and referrals from their existing patient base.
- Mark advises founders not to try to optimize the current healthcare system but rather to work outside of the system to bring about real change. Working within the system can bring change around the edges but commits you to working inside a system that is already broken in the hopes that an incumbent player might buy you.
- Every pitch deck that Mark sees now has an AI angle to it. He’s gone deep on the field over the last several years and says that when a person digs into many of these pitches the companies are using off-the-shelf large language models and have little defensibility.
- Precision medicine is one of the most exciting and scary emerging technologies. Mark says that in the next 50-100 years we will be able to compile all the variables that drive how our bodies and minds work and AI will be able to create a precise simulation of our bodies and how to treat them to improve our health.
- One of Mark’s favourite sayings is that “life is half random.” The conditions around a person are continually changing and contribute greatly to a person’s success.
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Disrupting VC Benchmarking and Closing The LP-GP Information Gap with Eric Woo and Spencer Tyson Jun 01, 2023

Eric Woo (@ericjwoo), co-founder and CEO of Revere, and Spencer Tyson (@SpencerGTyson), Head of Investment Ratings at Revere, join Olga Serhiyevich (@olgaserhi), Head of Investor Relations at Village Global. Revere has pioneered the world’s first rating system for venture capital funds.
Takeaways:
- Venture has changed a lot over the last couple decades and continues to evolve quickly. In the last decade emerging managers has become its own sub-category, and venture as an asset class has bifurcated into specialist and generalist investors.
- Revere has found through their extensive data analysis that funds that are diverse outperform, funds with a female GP outperform, solo GPs outperform, and career operators outperform those with a fund management background.
- Fund benchmarking requires more scrutiny. The same data can be presented in very different ways depending on the use case. For this reason, Revere uses a standardized rating system to equip allocators with the tools to evaluate funds.
- At the median, first funds do reasonably well, second funds do worse than the first, but third funds shoot up in terms of performance.
- Revere looks at data, process, and repeatability when they are evaluating managers. They consider sourcing, qualifying deals, winning deals, value add, as well as whether firms stick to their stated portfolio construction.
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Investing Across Cycles, Tech Transformation, and Partnering Effectively with Entrepreneurs with Jon Korngold May 18, 2023

Jon Korngold joins Olga Serhiyevich, Head of Investor Relations, on this episode. Jon is the Global Head of Blackstone Growth (BXG) and Co-Head of Technology Investing at Blackstone. Prior to joining Blackstone, Jon was Head of General Atlantic’s Global Financial Services and Healthcare sectors.
Takeaways:
- The vast reach of Blackstone, as one of the biggest asset managers in the world, allows them to apply their huge base of operational infrastructure to “make the winning company, not just find the winning company.”
- Entrepreneurs have accepted that we are not going back to 2021 valuations. There will be many casualties on the road ahead. Jon worries that VCs are doing certain complex deals to protect their marks and that there will be a number of zombie portfolios coming out in the next few years.
- The correction has a silver lining: lots of tech transformation comes out of a downturn. This is a healthy thing, like a brush fire in a forest. Also, startups have more and more talent available to them as the cost of leaving an existing job has never been lower.
- When Jon meets founders he pays attention to how often they let the people around them speak. Great founders are humble and surround themselves with people who challenge their thinking.
- Jon recommends that people spend time working and living abroad if they can. He says that his time spent overseas has informed his thinking on markets and given him a competitive advantage at work.
- The sign of a good board member is that they never show up to a board meeting and learn something they didn’t already know. They sit on a low number of boards, are actively keeping up to date on the company, and are deeply involved with the company.
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Tokenizing Film Finance with Marc Iserlis May 09, 2023

Marc Iserlis is a film/TV producer and documentary filmmaker joins Village Global's Head of Investor Relations Olga Serhiyevich (@olgaserhi). Marc is currently building tokenized film financing at Republic, an alternative fundraising platform.
Takeaways:
- Marc’s ambition is at Republic is to allow individuals to join in the success of film production through an equity "fan raise" that allows fans of a particular project to invest directly in its production and share in the project’s success.
- The rise of streaming platforms and recent changes in how films are financed has resulted in commoditization.
- China and India’s film industries are rising stars but the US is still the global leader in big films.
- Telling a good story is perhaps the hardest thing in the world to do.
- An audience appreciates subtlety in storytelling. Writers know the right things to withhold from an audience to make it satisfying.
- Stage is an actor’s medium, film is a director’s medium, and TV is a writer’s medium.
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The Startup of You: Navigating Status Dynamics, Name Dropping, and Lessons on Hustle Apr 18, 2023

Ben Casnocha (@bencasnocha) and Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) are co-authors of The Startup of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career. In the book, they look at the best of Silicon Valley startups and derive entrepreneurial principles that can transform the career of any professional across all industries. They revised and updated the book for the new world of work in 2022 and released a podcast series about it which you can listen to at thestartupofyou.com.
This episode of the Village Global podcast shares a few select segments from the Startup of You podcast relevant to founders, investors, and anyone working in tech.
They discuss:
- Hustle, and investor Chris Sacca's creative way of getting his foot in the door when he was first starting out in his career.
- Name dropping. Your network is a key part of your career. If you have a powerful person in your network you might be eager to let others know that, but they talk about how to let others know about your network thoughtfully and with tact.
- Navigating status. Like it or not, status matters. We talk about how status dynamics play out in the workplace and how you can skillfully navigate them.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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The Startup of You: How To Reference Check, Taking Smart Risks, and Lessons from Airbnb Apr 14, 2023

Ben Casnocha (@bencasnocha) and Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) are co-authors of The Startup of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career. In the book, they look at the best of Silicon Valley startups and derive entrepreneurial principles that can transform the career of any professional across all industries. They revised and updated the book for the new world of work in 2022 and released a podcast series about it which you can listen to at thestartupofyou.com.
This episode of the Village Global podcast shares a few select segments from the Startup of You podcast relevant to founders, investors, and anyone working in tech.
They discuss:
- How the founders of Airbnb were relentlessly resourceful and hustled to overcome hundreds of rejections when they first conceived of the business that today is worth tens of billions of dollars.
- Reference checking — why it’s important and how to do it well.
- Risk — why we're evolutionarily wired to overestimate the risks involved in a given decision, why it's important to take smart risks, and a few frameworks for thinking more rationally about them.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The Intersection of Technology and Media with Louise Story Apr 11, 2023

Louise Story (@louisestory) most recently was the Chief News Strategist and Chief Product & Technology Officer at The Wall Street Journal. Louise also spent more than a decade at the New York Times. She joins Olga Serhiyevich on this episode to discuss:

Her unique role at the Wall Street Journal and some of the products that she built, including AI/ML models to alert reporters when stocks were moving in certain ways that let them get ahead of emerging stories, as well as an early version of ChatGPT that let a user ask a question about what a political candidate thought on a given issue which pulled an answer from transcripts of their interviews and speeches.
The shift to following people rather than news outlets.
The importance of a strong legal department at a news outlet that protects journalists and stands up for freedom of the press.
Her forthcoming book on the black-white wealth gap and the fact that at the median, black individuals in America have 12 cents in wealth for every one dollar that a white person has.
Why telling stories through people is the best way to keep an audience’s attention.

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Creating a Talent Marketplace with David Boehmer Mar 16, 2023

David Boehmer (@DavBoehmer) speaks to Olga Serhiyevich (@olgaserhi) about the talent intermediation industry, the evolution of business models in the sector, and creating a talent marketplace at Banff.
Takeaways:
- Chance often has a significant impact on a person’s career but David says that a life’s impact is too important to be left to chance.
- David likes to think of a career as a river. You can be swept downstream by momentum and wake up 20-30 years later without realizing that there might have been a different river that could have been better suited to you.
- It’s important to manage your career proactively, the same way that you save for retirement before you need the money.
- You should give the people around you explicit permission to give you direct feedback.
- Sometimes his clients convince themselves that they want a job because they are in demand for it but they should instead think hard about what they really want and not just take a job because they are wanted.
- Some people say that if you put your head down and work hard you will get discovered by the right types of people. David says “throw that out.” Your LinkedIn profile, your reputation, and your network matter immensely.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Talent Identification, Hierarchies, and Clustering with Rohit Krishnan Feb 07, 2023

Rohit Krishnan (@krishnanrohit), venture capitalist and author of the blog Strange Loop Cannon, joins Erik on this episode. Takeaways:
- Many of the people at the top of their fields today say they would never get hired if they were just starting out today. Today’s selection process at elite institutions has become more stringent but has dropped the interesting variance that exists at the top of the pyramid. Plenty of people have gamified the selection process. If you’re hiring, you want to find the interesting misfits.
- Higher ed used to be fantastic but now it is groaning under its scale. There should be more of a focus on job training rather than general liberal education.
- Billionaires should be more eccentric and experimental. There aren’t enough idiosyncratic billionaires in the world.
- It’s easier than ever for information to get from one place to another with the rise of the internet but it also means that it’s easier than ever for ways to use that information to make money to get from one place to another. This has resulted in the barbell distribution of outcomes that we see these days.
- Clustering has important benefits. There’s something about bouncing ideas off of other people and egging them on in person that is special, despite the connectivity that the internet has brought.
- Hierarchies make it easy to get things done in general, but hard to get any one thing done.
- There are many more areas where we are not polarized than where we are polarized these days. Changing someone’s mind is a function of time and encouragement and repeated explanations, rather than forcefully convincing someone you are right and they are wrong.
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Thematic investing in fertility and semiconductor sectors at Recharge, technonationalism, and lessons from David Swensen with Lorin Gu Jan 26, 2023

Lorin Gu, founding partner of Recharge Capital, joins Olga Serhiyevich, Head of Investor Relations at Village Global to discuss:
- Why Recharge structures its investing thematically, rather than by asset class.
- The three themes that they believe have multi-decade headwinds behind them: semiconductors, women’s health, and fintech/crypto.
- What Lorin learned from working with David Swensen, including the importance of the qualitative measurement of the people running the fund alongside any quantitative analysis of fund strategy.
- How asking fund managers about their motivations and how they make decisions can determine the outcome of an investment.
- The current wave of technonationalism around the globe.
- Lorin's media diet and his interest in art.
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Alex Chalunkal on Structured Equity and The Current Investing Environment Jan 12, 2023

Alex Chalunkal is Chief Investment Officer at a family office where he manages a $1B+ portfolio focused on impact, venture, and climate tech investing. He was interviewed by Olga Serhiyevich, Head of Investor Relations at Village Global.
Takeaways:
- Alex says that the consensus is that there will be a mild recession in 2023.
- He says that the energy transition, health, and climate are key sectors he is focusing on.
- Technology is an important tool to help improve the labor shortage in the US because tech creates more productive workers who can get more done with less.
- Structured equity can be an important tool for companies with stable revenue and cash flow. There are many covenants that are often added to a debt product so it’s not necessarily the right tool for a company that has lots of potential volatility in revenue, product, or pricing.
- Alex is excited about climate tech investing. He says that in the US we have the raw materials but not necessarily the policies in place to combat climate change so investing in areas that are aligned with policy is key.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Ian Bremmer on The Intersection of Geopolitics and Technology Dec 13, 2022

Ian Bremmer (@ianbremmer), president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media joins Olga Serhiyevich (@olgaserhi), Head of Investor Relations at Village Global for a conversation about global geopolitical trends and their impact on technology.
Takeaways:
- Ian has been in the room with world leaders as they make decisions about how to prepare for potential wars. He says that it’s easy to criticize their decisions afterwards but having been there has given him an appreciation for just how difficult it is to make those decisions under constraints and how little ideology plays into those decisions.
- The US is no longer willing to act as global policeman, architect of global trade, or cheerleader for values the way it has in the past. No other country is wiling or able to fill that void, which leads us to a “GZERO” world where there is no clear leadership.
- Tech companies like Microsoft and Starlink acting as sovereigns in Ukraine helped the country stay independent and likely kept Zelensky in power.
- Ian says that the US and China are not in a Cold War and are not headed for a Cold War. He says that the leadership of both countries isn’t interested in a Cold War from a political perspective and that there is too much interdependence between the two nations for tensions to be ratcheted up.
- Ian says that AI and algorithms have become deeply political without us realizing it. Tech companies have been A/B testing not for what makes for a better society but for what leads to more addiction. He says this is the most disturbing and destabilizing trend in tech today.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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The Future of the Space Economy with Mo Islam Nov 10, 2022

Mo Islam (@itsmoislam), co-founder of Payload Space, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode. Takeaways:
- There is no doubt that we are in the early stages of the space economy, Mo says.
- The cost to go to Mars will be paid many times over by the young engineers who will be inspired by the mission.
- There are three main buckets in the space economy: space for earth (companies creating products for humans on earth via their space endeavors), space for space (companies serving other companies in space) and beyond earth (“science fiction”-type activities like colonization, mining, and exploration).
- The International Space Station cost $100B to build.
- SpaceX built the Falcon 9 at 1/10th the cost that NASA estimated.
- In the 1960s there were only two space programs but now there are 80+ and they are all trying to get an economic return on investment.
- Mo’s contrarian take is that launch is actually underhyped. Very few companies have a launch vehicle that has made it to orbit with a significant payload capacity.
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Dual Use Tech with Ari Schuler and Andrea Garrity Nov 03, 2022

Ari Schuler, CEO of goTenna, and Andrea Garrity, Chief Growth Officer of goTenna, join Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon join us on this episode of Solarpunk. Takeaways:
- goTenna was founded after Hurricane Sandy when a brother and sister didn’t know if the other was safe because the cell network weren’t working. It has since grown into the company that it is today, selling to government as well as consumers.
- Ari and Andrea suggest that startups refrain from complaining or dwelling on how tough the procurement system is to navigate in the US government. They say “pass the test, don’t fight the test.”
- Andrea says that much of innovation is personality driven — finding the right people who will run through walls when everyone else gives up.
- There is plenty that they would change about the government procurement system. If one agency has found a tech useful, other agencies should be able to also use that tech without going through all the paperwork and bureaucracy over again.
- The fact that US doesn’t manufacture much at home and would be stranded if a major war started tomorrow is of concern to them.
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Unbundling K-12 Education with Joe Connor of Odyssey Oct 26, 2022

Joe Connor (@josephjconnor), founder of Odyssey (@WithOdyssey_), joins Anne Dwane and Lucas Bagno on this episode. Takeaways:
- ACT test scores are at the lowest level in 30 years. 42% of students met none of the college readiness benchmarks.
- District schools are not providing what parents need so children are leaving them in large numbers.
- Parents have realized that they would be better off unbundling education so that children receive different parts of their education in different places, not just at a single district school.
- Odyssey is fundamentally changing how education is funded in the US.
- The US has 132,000 K-12 schools. For context, there are 13,000 McDonald’s locations. Teachers are the second largest occupation category in America after retail clerks.
- Parents have been able to successfully push for programs like Odyssey’s by contacting their state senator or congressperson.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Spacecraft Manufacturing with Apex’s Ian Cinnamon and Max Benassi Oct 24, 2022

Ian Cinnamon (@iancinnamon), co-founder and CEO of Apex Space, and Max Benassi (@mxbenassi), co-founder and CTO, join Lucas Bagno on this episode of Solarpunk. Takeaways:
- The cost per kilogram to get things into space has gone down dramatically over the last several years.
- Satellites have two parts: a payload and a bus. The bus is the actual structure of the satellite and despite all the hundreds of billions of dollars invested in launch companies, basically no venture money has gone into satellite bus manufacturing.
- Satellite buses are currently designed from the ground up and assembled by hand in small volumes.
- Apex (apexspace.com) is working on building scalable and reliable satellite buses.
- The founders fundamentally believe that humans will be a multi-planetary species and that in the future all these spacecraft that will be carrying people around the solar system will not be made by hand.
- Despite the economic downturn, there has never been a better time to be a founder.
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A Deep Dive on SBIRs with Ben Van Roo Oct 20, 2022

Ben Van Roo (@DavidNorthStar), co-founder and CEO of Yurts AI, joins Lucas Bagno on this episode of Solarpunk. Takeaways:
- The Small Business Innovation Research program was originally developed as a grant program to allow small companies do innovative research. The gene for cystic fibrosis was discovered from the program.
- If you’re a small company and you get an SBIR contract, you should not count on getting a government contract.
- It has been very difficult for software companies to get a program of record contract because that has not been the typical model of defense in the past.
- The nature of war is shifting away from large platforms and big garrison-style bases.
- There have been 20-30 “SBIR mills” that have taken $3.5B combined in phase 1 and 2 contracts. Ben would put hard caps on the amounts that companies can get from the program and the types of companies that can apply to the SBIR program.
- Commercial technology has outpaced the defense industry by far.
- It’s very difficult for small companies to even fill out the forms required for the SBIR program. Making it more friendly for newcomers would make a big difference to the program.
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Deep Nishar’s Lessons From Building Products at Google and LinkedIn Oct 18, 2022

Deep Nishar (@deepnishar), Managing Director at General Catalyst and formerly of LinkedIn and Google, joins Anne Dwane on this episode. Takeaways:
- The best product hires have the brain of an engineer, the heart of a designer, and the speech of a diplomat.
- When you’re interviewing people for product roles at startups, don’t ask people what they would do but rather what they have done in the past. You want people who have a sense of adventure and can work without a lot of structure.
- The first fifty hires at a company completely define the company culture.
- Tech debt is a fact of life. Don’t worry about it until you get to MVP.
- When you’re a founder, consider whether you want a poet or a librarian as a product leader. A poet will take on product strategy as well as execution, while a librarian will take product direction from you and implement it.
- Truly world-class product leaders can build not just a product, but a product operating system — the product that builds more products.
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Reimagining The Kill Chain with Christian Brose Oct 06, 2022

Christian Brose (@cdbrose), Chief Strategy Officer at Anduril and author of The Kill Chain, joins Lucas Bagno on this episode. Takeaways:
- The US military and its procurement system has been built for equipment that is big, heavy, and hard to replace — things like ships and aircraft carriers and tanks.
- Commercial technologies can contribute to a military with equipment that is more agile, lower cost, and easier to replace.
- People in the government are, in 2022, trying to figure out what the military is going to need in 2032. This eliminates incentives for disruption and surprise. The military gets what it wanted, even if what it wanted doesn’t solve the problem.
- It would be ideal to bring capitalism into the procurement process so that there are new incentives and real competition.
- China has been using a systematic, methodical strategy since the 1990s with the aim of displacing the US.
- There has never been a competitor to the US with the scale that China has in more than a century.
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Restoring Dynamism in a Decadent Society with Ross Douthat Sep 29, 2022

Ross Douthat (@DouthatNYT), New York Times columnist and author of The Decadent Society, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode. Takeaways:
- Since the moon landing, we have entered a period of stagnation. Confidence and optimism have declined and culture has entered a repetitive spiral where patterns from the 60s/70s have been repeating themselves.
- Government has become less effective and more gridlocked over time.
- The world’s richest societies are dealing with a population problem. They are not reproducing themselves, which has led to aging societies that are “stable but stuck” because they are resistant to change.
- The internet has been more of a conduit to cultural repetition than people think — old music is often most popular music on streaming services.
- The traditional story of science has been that it triumphed over religion but science emerged from an extremely religious society and it would be no surprise to Ross if as religion decays scientific progress might as well.
- Ross says that we need a renaissance to get ourselves out of the age of decadence — a reaching back into the past while synthesizing all the advancements that have come about in the meantime.
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Data-Driven Insights on Venture Capital with Steve Kim Sep 27, 2022

Steve Kim (https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenrkim/), Partner and head of Investment Strategy at Verdis, a 9-generation single family office, joins Olga Serhiyevich (@olgaserhi), Head of Investor Relations at Village Global, on this episode.
Takeaways:
Early stage venture is a power law asset class where the returns of the asset class are driven by outliers. The best way to increase probability of getting asset class rate of return is by increasing variance in the portfolio through diversification. Pattern matching tends to reduce variance and contrary to industry’s beliefs, is undesirable from the systematic approach perspective.
There is no limit to diversification beyond practical limitations of being able to see and invest in all the relevant deals for GPs. 20-30 portfolio companies is a typical level of diversification in other asset classes including growth equity and buyout where returns are normally distributed. In early stage venture (pre-seed to Series A) this level of diversification is less likely to produce industry average returns on a consistent basis.
The average rate of unicorn production is 1-2% in the industry but it varies across sectors, vintage years and geographies. So, Verdis chooses to maximize diversity across the number of companies, sectors and vintages because there is no clear indication in data that subsets of those are more likely to produce outliers but invest with a bias towards key geographies due to higher concentration of unicorns there.
Most of the outliers in the US of the last decade came from two geographies - California and New York. The magnitude of these outliers was also significantly greater than unicorn companies built elsewhere. For example, on average it takes 4 non-California outliers to equal the magnitude of outcome of a California unicorn.
Startup exit data from other geographies looks a lot more normally distributed which calls for a different approach.
Data-driven investment strategy’s main drawback is the backward-looking nature of the approach. But it’s useful in that it provides a systematic approach to guide portfolio construction.
If managers believe that the part of the VC asset class they focus on follows power law distribution, then they would want to have the most diversified portfolio as possible with a lot more than traditional 10-20 companies. In the power law world, losses don’t matter.
One of the key insights from investing in venture for almost two decades is that most managers are going to stage-drift. Allocating to emerging managers who often focus on early stage due to smaller fund sizes and comfort with first check investing is one way for LPs to hedge against stage-drift.
In Verdis’s view, low reserves and quick capital deployment cycle is advantageous to LPs focused on multiples not IRRs.
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Innovating in National Security with Raj Shah Sep 22, 2022

Raj Shah, Managing Partner at Shield Capital, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode. Takeaways:
- Raj and Shield don’t care whether a founding team has experience selling to government, because the firm can help with that. They evaluate the team, the market and the tech when they’re looking at an investment.
- Ash Carter was the first sitting Secretary of Defense to come to Silicon Valley in decades when he visited to jumpstart new initiatives to encourage startups working with government.
- Raj recommends that startups work with organizations within the government that have a mandate to move quickly.
- If a company decides to work with consultants, ensure that incentives are aligned such that the consultant benefits when the company benefits, rather than the consultant receiving a large payment regardless of the outcome.
- Many more generalist investors have been investing in defense, but it’s a very difficult space to invest in. It takes time for investors to learn the jargon and the players.
- When a company is evaluating and investor, it should ask two primary questions: 1) Does this investor truly understand the customer set? 2) Can this investor be helpful in company building in the boardroom?
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The State of Digital Transformation in Latin America in 2022 Sep 20, 2022

Julio Vasconcellos and Ana Martins, partners at Atlantico, join Anne Dwane and Lucas Bagno on this episode to discuss Atlantico's Latin America Digital Transformation Report 2022. Takeaways:
- In the rest of the world, digital adoption has reverted to the pre-pandemic mean, but digital transformation has continued at the same pace in Latin America.
- Developers in Latin America are more likely to accept remote job offers and people working remotely have more satisfaction in their jobs than those working in-person.
- Fintech deals continue to be 40-50% of volume in the region.
- Latin America has a higher proportion of SMBs than any other region but they contribute less to GDP comparatively.
- Brazilians are some of the most active internet and social media users in the world.
- Julio and Ana say that there is an immense opportunity in this digital transition but that it still requires a lot of caution. Funding has been drying up as public market multiples trickle down to earlier stages. They recommend that founders be very mindful of cash and runway.
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Mike Brown on How To Ensure The US Leads Defense Innovation Sep 15, 2022

Mike Brown, former director of the Defense Innovation Unit, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode. Takeaways:
- It can easily take 10-20 years for tech to make its way into the Department of Defense. The Defense Innovation Unit helped speed that process up dramatically.
- Some of the most important technologies being used in the war in Ukraine are commercial technologies. Mike thinks that the Department of Defense should be focusing on commercial technology much more often.
- Many founders don’t realize that government dollars are allocated for specific uses, i.e. marketing, or research and development, and those dollars can’t be used in another area, even within their company.
- Commercial synthetic aperture radar technology used in satellites made a big difference in Ukraine. The US played a large role in developing that game-changing technology and Mike wants to keep it that way.
- It’s estimated that there will be 1000 commercial satellites for every government satellite in the future.
- Defense primes are great at integrating several technologies into a single solution.
- Mike says that CIFEAS should be harmonized with our allies so that China and other countries can’t go to a different country and find the same tech.
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Investing in Defense with Alex Moore Sep 01, 2022

Alex Moore (@AustinGiraffe), investor at 8VC and board member at Palantir, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode of Solarpunk. Takeaways:
- Alex was one of the original team members at Palantir. He says that helping build the company helps him pattern match today to find the best founders.
- Defense investing is not like normal VC investing. The usual model of investing $2M, then $10M, then $30M to give a company momentum doesn’t work when you have to deal with budget cycles, lobbying, and politics.
- It typically requires $1B to get a defense company to IPO.
- Alex would like to see procurement officers in the US government be allowed to be more entrepreneurial and for the government itself to move away from rigid line item budgeting, so that it wouldn’t take 2-3 years for high priority items to make it into the budget.
- He would like to radically expand the SBIR program so that more contracts go to startups.
- Governments should be picking winners, in his opinion. The best tech should win the whole market and the government should invest in the one big startup that will deliver massive scaled solutions.
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Web 3 Series: Bringing Smart Contracts to Bitcoin with Muneeb Ali Aug 30, 2022

Muneeb Ali (@muneeb), co-founder of Stacks, joins Erik on this episode. Takeaways:
- Muneeb says that Bitcoin is winning as money, and that he wants to make that capital productive. He’s "bringing smart contracts to where the money is."
- Bitcoin’s architecture implies that there shouldn’t be much flexibility and programmability on the base layer blockchain.
- A criticism of Ethereum is that it is trying to be too many things to too many people.
- There is a basket of Layer-1s that are gaining market share against Ethereum.
- One criticism of Bitcoin is that there are only two things you can do with a wallet — sit on your BTC or send it to someone else.
- Bitcoin has the most mainstream adoption and has “crossed the chasm” more than any other cryptocurrency.
- All of the forks of Bitcoin are worth less than 1% of the current market cap of Bitcoin.
- Bitcoin is very durable and resilient. Software created years ago for Bitcoin still works today, something that can’t be said about other chains.
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Web 3 Series: Building a Decentralized Social Network with Dan Romero of Farcaster Aug 23, 2022

Dan Romero (@dwr) of Farcaster joins Erik on this episode. Takeaways:
- Dan says that his first love was information. He loved RSS and the goal with Farcaster is to improve RSS enough so that it can compete with Twitter.
- He aims to grow Farcaster large enough so that developers can innovate using their API and data permissionlessly.
- Any developer can build whatever they want on Farcaster — features are not limited to what the core team wants to see built.
- Eugene Wei’s Status as a Service theory is correct in Dan’s opinion.
- They doubled down on the client and having a polished UX at Farcaster. Dan says that the platform is only as good as the number of people using it. The client helps grow the user base.
- Dan believes in first principles thinking when it comes to product decisions. He strongly believes that the average user is not going to spend money to take action on a social network.
- According to Tim Wu’s The Master Switch, all major communication technologies typically start out decentralized and become more centralized over time because centralization has tended to provide a superior consumer experience.
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The Rare Earths Threat with Nathan Picarsic Aug 11, 2022

Nathan Picarsic, co-founder of Horizon Advisory, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode of Solarpunk. Takeaways:
- There are 17 rare earth metals that are of immense strategic importance. They are used in a vast array of everyday products like consumer electronics, medical devices, electric vehicles, and more.
- China has a strong influence in this space. They have many mines but are even more dominant downstream — they control much of the processing of these metals and the manufacturing of products from them.
- Nathan says there should be more awareness of the geopolitical risks associated with rare earth metals, there should be more investment in the space within the US, and the US should work with its partners and allies to help secure the supply chain.
- China’s ambitions to control rare earth metals intersect with their Belt and Road initiative and their Made in China 2025 strategies.
- Nathan says that the US needs policy changes to combat this threat, including changes to the tax code to incentivize investment, encouraging more domestic and allied materials in the supply chain, using the Defense Production Act, and monitoring market manipulation by China.
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Web 3 Series: The Transformative Power of Smart Contracts with Joel Monegro Aug 09, 2022

Joel Monegro (@jmonegro), partner at Placeholder, joins Erik on this episode. Takeaways:
- Every financial asset is a contract between two or more people. The world economy is basically a set of contracts on a ledger.
- A smart contract is like an API, but on-chain, so it can’t be taken down. In many cases, not even the developers can retract a smart contract.
- Value capture and value accrual are two different things — capture is where the value is stored and accrual is where it is going. This is something that is often misunderstood about the fat protocols thesis.
- The best way to think about smart contract networks is as nations. They enforce contracts the way nations do and in Joel’s opinion the ones that are most sovereign are the ones that are most decentralized.
- Over time functionality and performance will come to be similar between networks and it is trust and governance that will differentiate them.
- Joel expects 4-6 very large smart contract networks to emerge.
- The core of decentralized social will be NFTs. The recent NFT craze reminds Joel of the ICO boom of 2017. Many were useless but there were lots of protocols and communities that remained.
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Steve Blank on Rebuilding the Department of Defense Aug 04, 2022

Steve Blank (@sgblank), creator of Hacking For Defense and author of 4 Steps To The Epiphany, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode of Solarpunk. Takeaways:
- The secret history of Silicon Valley is that it emerged from the government’s desire to develop advanced technology and weapons in universities during World War II.
- Stanford became a powerhouse in microwaves and electronics post-WWII. People were encouraged to leave to start companies, which kickstarted Silicon Valley.
- The Department of Defense needs a radical redesign. Steve says the US can’t even keep pace with innovation in North Korea, let alone China.
- The DoD was designed for a different world. China currently operates like Silicon Valley and the DoD operates like GM.
- The “game is fixed” against small startups trying to sell to the government.
- Steve says things typically don’t change unless there’s a leadership change or a crisis, and that the US is lying to itself about China and how fast it is advancing.
- Billionaires like Peter Thiel, Palmer Luckey, and Elon Musk have accomplished “miracles” building companies in the defense space in spite of how the system is designed.
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Antonio Garcia-Martinez on Why Ads are an Inevitable Part of Web 3 Aug 02, 2022

Antonio Garcia-Martinez (@antoniogm), author of The Pull Request, joins Erik Torenberg and Ian Cinnamon on this episode. Takeaways:
- The first version of ads on the web, banner ads, looked like ads in the newspaper, because often the new version of media looks like the last version of media — that’s skeuomorphism.
- Apple’s app tracking transparency is breaking the model for Facebook and Snap.
- Antonio says there won’t be a media ecosystem in Web 3 without attribution.
- The advent of balanced and nuanced journalism decades ago was a luxury born of ads.
- We will likely live in a Web 2.5 world for a while where incumbents won’t lose their fiefdoms but there will be new experiences and new spaces to conquer.
- Web 3 is both private and public — Visa doesn’t post all your transactions the way on-chain payments reveal them.
- The average user trades privacy for other things and as the scale of Web 3 grows, privacy will likely become less of a focus.
Antonio’s posts on ads and Web 3:
Attribution rules the world (and it'll rule Web3 too)
https://www.thepullrequest.com/p/attribution-rules-the-world-and-itll
Everything is an ad network: How to pay for Web 3
https://www.thepullrequest.com/p/everything-is-an-ad-network
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Web 3 Series: The Trillion Dollar Opportunity to Reshape Money with Avichal Garg Jul 26, 2022

Avichal Garg (@avichal), founder of Electric Capital, joins Erik on this episode. Takeaways:
- Downturns impact large companies much more than founders and early stage investors because the companies are so small relative to their total addressable market.
- Managing your own psychology in a downturn is the most important skill for a founder in these times.
- Crypto is like a platypus — it has properties of growth tech, a store of value, and commodities.
- People in the US sometimes look at crypto and don’t see the use case but for those people around the world who are not on the US dollar, the use cases for crypto are clearer.
- Crypto is an important technological breakthrough but more importantly is also a social science breakthrough: people are exchanging money for ones and zeros.
- The transformation of money by crypto will start at the fringes rather than replacing conventional money all at once. It will start with young people, the wealthy, and the underserved.
- An AI with a smart contract acting on chain managing a billion dollars in a non-jurisdctional way will be very disruptive.
- In the future people will signal status in digitally, with NFTs rather than watches.
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Web3 Series: The Next Chapter for DAOs, Gaming, and Crypto Communities with Jeff Morris Jr. Jul 19, 2022

Jeff Morris Jr. (@jmj), investor at Chapter One, joins Erik Torenberg and co-host Ian Cinnamon. Takeaways:
- Jeff realized the power of subscriptions during his time at Tinder. He says that digital goods are an even better version of subscriptions.
- Web3 is almost entirely missing mobile usability.
- Crypto apps could add a reputation layer to existing Web2 use cases, like dating apps.
- People are still using Web 2.0 community products to create communities for Web3.
- Web3 games need to move away from speculation and towards building genuine player enjoyment.
- Seed investors need to be creative but also mindful of what other people will invest in. It’s important to understand business models and what is sustainable.
- Corrections help to reset the whole ecosystem.
- It’s hard to unseat the dominant marketplace, whether in Web 2.0 or Web3.
- Crypto is big enough that even if you aren’t a crypto investor, you should be spending some time in the space.
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Our Hypersonic Future with Hermeus’ AJ Piplica Jul 12, 2022

AJ Piplica (@AJ_Piplica), founder and CEO of Hermeus, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode. Takeaways:
- Every time there has been an acceleration in the speed of transportation in history, high GDP growth has followed.
- A switch to hypersonic transportation would unlock $4T in growth.
- In the future the key differentiator in air travel will be speed, rather than comfort.
- It’s currently extremely expensive to do flight testing at hypersonic speeds — $5-10M for only a few seconds of data.
- In the 40s and through the Cold War, there were new aircrafts released every few years, but since then the pace of innovation has slowed significantly.
- Cost-plus contracts are very comfortable for companies and create perverse incentives.
- We are in the midst of a techno-economic pursuit in hypersonic transport and whichever country gets there first gets to write the rules.
- The immense amount of political strife in this country keeps AJ up at night but unity amongst smaller cohorts of people working on challenges at a global scale keeps him optimistic.
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Building a World-Changing Labor Marketplace with Mike Shebat of Traba Jul 07, 2022

Mike Shebat (@mike_sheb), co-founder and CEO of Traba, joins Erik Torenberg and Lucas Bagno on this episode. Takeaways:
- There is a huge problem with meeting demand for workers at warehouses and fulfilment centres. There are 75% more jobs in those fields after the pandemic.
- Mike worked in warehousing and helped scale UberEats so has strong founder-market fit. Traba’s mission of connecting people to work is very meaningful to him.
- Mike met his co-founder Akshay through the On Deck Fellowship and they started working on projects together and did an extensive values questionnaire, both of which were very helpful when it comes to founder cohesion.
- They have emphasized company values from day one and hired for people who share those values, which has paid dividends.
- Mike recommends building trust with your existing investors by sharing challenges and how you plan to solve them. He recommends bringing your existing investors along for the ride into future rounds.
- Mike calls Miami “Singapore and New York in Latin America” and loves the optimistic attitude of the people there.
- When hiring, Mike looks for people with a high slope and asks them “what was something your manager wanted you to improve on a few years ago and what did you do to become better at it?”
- Mike’s vision for a Traba mafia, akin to the PayPal mafia, some of whose members are backing Traba.
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SBIRs, PORs, and Lobbyists with Peter Newell Jul 05, 2022

Peter Newell (@PeterANewell), CEO of BMNT, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode of Solarpunk. Takeaways:
- Peter was “handed the Ferrari of skunkworks” when he came to be in charge of the Rapid Equipping Force. It was a program that handled over a billion dollars to deploy new technologies.
- He became more of an entrepreneur after his time at the REF and that led to starting BMNT.
- Often times procurement in the US military is HQ-centric and product-centric and does not take into account the needs of the people on the ground.
- The acquisition system that was built in the 1950s in the US presumes that the military can perfectly understand the problem and build a perfect solution for it. However, this takes much too long to deploy and isn’t suited for modern times.
- A founder can’t go all-in on selling to government — they have to be able to build for both government and commercial.
- Often times companies will receive indefinite delivery contracts where it is unclear how much money they will actually receive. You might land a budget with SOCOM but it’s hard to actually get the dollars out of Congress.
- Hiring a lobbyist to educate you on the processes and people within the US government is a good idea but hiring a lobbyist to do business development for you is often not the right approach.
- It’s best to invest in building networks in VC and at DoD before hiring consultants.
- Not having enough people to do the advanced manufacturing that the US needs keeps Peter up at night.
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Web3 Series: JD Ross and 3LAU on How Royal is Transforming The Artist-Fan Relationship Jul 01, 2022

JD Ross (@justindross) and Justin Blau (@3LAU), co-founders of Royal, join Erik Torenberg and co-host Ian Cinnamon for this episode of our web3 series. Takeaways:
- Royal stems from their vision to invest in talent early on.
- Streaming increased by 60-70x in about 5 years from 2015 on.
- The barrier to entry for artists is much lower — they no longer need a studio, they just need a laptop.
- Royal is trying to enable the fan-artist relationship to be more of a partnership.
- When fans own a part of an artist’s song, they are tied for life.
- Justin has sold a ton of tickets in his career but he has zero idea of who those fans are and doesn’t have the ability to contact them. The data layer built into Royal helps artists connect with their fans.
- In the future, music labels will become much more competitive for artists than they have been in the past.
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Erik Torenberg on How Startups Can Help Save The World Jun 29, 2022

Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg), co-founder and general partner at Village Global and co-founder and co-CEO of On Deck join Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode of Solarpunk. Takeaways:
- Startups are the most effective organizations for solving our biggest problems.
- Startups disproportionately contribute to economic growth.
- Governments and startups need to work together, not against each other.
- China has the GDP per capita of Mexico but they have power because of how big their population is.
- Increasing population should be an aim of the US government.
- Humans are a naturally technological species and the only way out of our current problems is through technology, not without it.
- People in Silicon Valley need to invest in storytelling and capturing hearts and minds. They have a new appreciation for how important politics is.
- Ideas from Silicon Valley are being exported around the world —among them are giving without asking for anything in return, alignment via equity, and decoupling where you live from where you work.
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Web3 Series: The State of Crypto in 2022 with Tushar Jain Jun 23, 2022

Tushar Jain (@TusharJain_), co-founder and managing partner of Multicoin Capital, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The history of crypto over the last several years and the various moments that different technologies like Bitcoin, NFTs, tokens, and others have had.
- What the world looks like if the predictions for crypto’s impact comes true.
- Why Tushar thinks that Ethereum has gone past the point of diminishing returns to decentralization.
- Why it’s so hard to predict which chains will win.
- How crypto can help coordinate millions of people to accomplish big projects.
- What we’ve learned about stablecoins in the last few years.
- Why this is a “golden era of investing in crypto” and why we’re at a place that is equivalent to mobile in 2012.
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The Future Industrial Network with Hondo Geurts Jun 21, 2022

James “Hondo” Geurts, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode. Takeaways:
- What kept Hondo up at night was that there was a good idea out there that wasn’t passed on to him and thus wasn’t used on the battlefield.
- A society can’t be secure without prosperity and can’t have prosperity without security.
- The challenge for startups working with government is that the public is a fickle venture capitalist. They don’t like to fund things that don’t go anywhere.
- It tends to be small and large companies (but mostly large) supplying the Department of Defense. The “middle has been lost.”
- The DoD overvalues standardization.
- Often in government, the user of the product is not the same as the buyer. Commonly startups make a mistake by not having buyer fit even if there is user fit for a product.
- Government values past performance to a fault.
- The United States, both via government and private enterprise, needs to build the industrial network of the future.
- Commercial technology companies will be on the front lines of the next conflict and need to adapt features to make them resilient.
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Web3 Series: Haseeb Qureshi on Navigating The Bear Market and The Next Chapter for Crypto Jun 16, 2022

Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb), managing partner at Dragonfly Capital, joins Erik for an episode of our Web3 series. Takeaways:
- This bear market is driven by macro factors rather than endogenous ones.
- It turns out crypto is in fact correlated with other assets, largely because in 2020 institutions started buying crypto.
- Projects searching for yield in a yield-starved environment drove growth in crypto. That may change with rising interest rates.
- Adoption will drive the next chapter of crypto. Gaming and NFTs will lead the way.
- Sometimes boring, stable governance is best. ETH has that today. It’s like Manhattan — it’s old and kind of pricey, but it’s the most important place that things are happening today.
- Governments could ban Bitcoin, but they haven’t, likely because it’s not actually all that threatening to them.
- Blockchains are like cities. They each have their own unique and vibrant cultures.
- More decentralization is not always better in practice.
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Noah Smith's Deep Dive on the Chinese Economy Jun 14, 2022

- The narrative that China can do no wrong and why Noah says it is out of date at this point.
- The long-term headwinds that China is facing, including demographic changes, resource limitations, and real estate challenges.
- Why America should raise tariffs on anything made in China where it would be strategically important for those goods to be made somewhere else.
- The state of real estate in China, including the fact that China’s economy is 30% real estate (double the percentage in the US) and that cities in China are sprawling and more akin to Chicago than Tokyo or Seoul.
- Xi Jinping’s performance to date, why he’s “picking losers” in the Chinese stock market to try to bolster certain industries, and why the Zero COVID push is about Xi trying to appear strong.
- The fact that China could be moderately competent and could still take over the world because of its sheer size.
- Noah’s book recommendations for people who want to learn more about China.
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Jacob Helberg on China’s Global Influence Jun 07, 2022

Jacob Helberg (@jacobhelberg), foreign policy expert and author of The Wires of War, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss:
- Why he says peace through trade was the biggest foreign policy miscalculation in US history.
- How US companies have approached operating in China and why Jacob would advise them to proactively work to decouple themselves from the Chinese market.
- Why Jacob would prefer that American laws change to restrict Chinese investments in US companies.
- Why the Belt and Road Initiative has come to be seen as a debt trap.
- What keeps him optimistic and what ordinary Americans can do if they are concerned about China.
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Tyler Cowen on Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World Jun 03, 2022

Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen) is an economist, professor, and best-selling author. His latest book, Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World, written with co-author Daniel Gross, is available now. Tyler discusses how to discover undervalued talent, the importance of stamina, the best interview questions, peer ratings, late bloomers, and more.
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Back to the Basics: Building in a Downturn with Geoff Lewis Jun 02, 2022

Geoff Lewis (@GeoffLewisOrg), founder at Bedrock, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss:
- His thoughts on the markets and the advice he has for founders operating in a market like this one.
- What is driving financial nihilism and how it has changed society.
- Why he’s only investing in founders where their company is their life’s work.
- Bedrock’s investments in hardware and companies making things in the physical world.
- The perils of politics replacing religion as our mechanism for forming community.
- The crisis of meaning in society.
- The institutionalization of venture capital over the last decade and why he’s an advocate of going back to basics with small teams making fewer high conviction investments.
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Bilal Zuberi on Unifying America May 26, 2022

Bilal Zuberi (@bznotes), partner at Lux Capital, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss:
- Bilal’s investing thesis of finding companies building solutions to interesting problems that impact a lot of people.
- Why he’s investing in space and defense companies.
- What keeps him up at night and how his investments are working on those areas.
- Why he’s optimistic about unifying America.
- How to solve the problem of different people having different sets of facts.
- Whether there will be a reckoning for American firms that have invested in Chinese companies.
- His advice to founders building in complex markets and working with the government.
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Hemant Taneja, General Catalyst on Responsible Innovation, Un-scaling & Thriving in regulated industries May 17, 2022

Hemant Taneja (@htaneja), managing partner at General Catalyst and author of Intended Consequences, joins Anne Dwane and Village Global’s newest partner, Prateek Alsi, to discuss:
- What responsible innovation is and how tech can do good in the world using the framework.
- How founders should think about responsible innovation at the earliest stages of a company.
- The importance of thinking from first principles.
- Lessons from the creation process of the companies Hemant has been involved in.
- A better alternative to “move fast and break things.”
- Which areas he excited about investing in, including healthcare and India.
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Laura Crabtree on Space Software May 12, 2022

Laura Crabtree (@llcrabbie), founder and CEO of Epsilon3, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode to discuss:
- What she accomplished during her time at SpaceX and her journey to starting Epsilon3.
- Whether the biggest contribution of SpaceX to the industry will be all the amazing people leaving to start their own space companies.
- How to get into the space industry if you don’t already have a background in it.
- Why a company like Epsilon3 hasn’t been built before.
- The importance of being vulnerable as a founder.
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The PayPal Story: What can we learn from the journey of Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Reid Hoffman, David Sacks, and others? May 10, 2022

Jimmy Soni (@jimmyasoni), author of The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley, joins Ben Casnocha on this episode to discuss:
- How diversity and variety of backgrounds and opinions helped PayPal become successful.
- The fact that PayPal’s leading product was not solving a problem that they had set out to solve, but rather a problem they discovered along the way.
- The importance of sitting with your customers and really understanding their perspective and their problems.
- What he learned about Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, and David Sacks.
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Joshua Steinman on Unrestricted Warfare May 03, 2022

Joshua Steinman (@JoshuaSteinman), founder and CEO of Galvanick, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss:
- The history of cybersecurity at big industrial companies and how he is building “Splunk for industrial systems” to solve that problem.
- His time at the National Security Council, what motivated him to work in government, and his work creating an “embassy in Silicon Valley.”
- Why, with internet-connected devices, we’ve traded predictable downtime for unpredictable downtime. He gives the example of a Cadbury plant that was completely shut down by malware.
- The different types of cyber attacks, the evolution of war over time, and how to “defend forward” by disabling malware before it shows up on systems.
- The concept of “unrestricted warfare” and the fact that the Chinese government thinks about war as a continuous process across many dimensions while the US typically thinks of war on only one dimension.
- Information operations and how they have affected public opinion in the US on various topics.
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Alex Iskold of 2048 Ventures and 1kproject.org to support Ukrainians Apr 28, 2022

Alex Iskold, co-founder and managing partner at 2048 Ventures and creator of 1kproject.org, joins Anne Dwane and Lucas Bagno on this episode to discuss:
- What he is doing with 1kproject.org to help the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
- How he and a team of volunteers are empowering families in the US to send $1,000 directly to the bank card of a Ukrainian family.
- How they use tech to vet applications to make sure the most deserving families receive funds.
- What the money that is sent to Ukrainian families is typically used for.
- The impact of the war on the startup ecosystem in Ukraine.
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Martin Gurri on Authority’s Reaction to The Revolt of the Public Apr 26, 2022

Martin Gurri (@mgurri), author of The Revolt of the Public, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss:
- The genesis of the thesis about the revolt of the public while Martin was working at the CIA analyzing communications as social media and blogging began to take off.
- The challenges to authority that the free flow of information has presented and why those societies that allow for open communication have been winning.
- The internet’s reactionary moment and whether there will be a “revolt of the revolt.”
- Why he says that China is “the 20th century gone digital” and why he thinks that will not last.
- His belief that democracy will survive and why he thinks that the “psychotic conditions” in American society will not last.
- Why elites need to have humility about their ability to solve problems in society.
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Manufacturing The American Dream with Chris Power of Hadrian Apr 19, 2022

Chris Power (@2112Power), founder and CEO of Hadrian, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss:
- Why manufacturing is key to a strong position in the world order.
- The changes in the landscape that have enabled a company like Hadrian to be possible now, where it wasn’t five years ago.
- What Chris would do if he was running the United States to win the new space race.
- How to change the culture in the US so that more serious people can work on serious problems.
- Why it’s easier than you think to get involved in deep tech.
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Reinventing American Manufacturing: Katherine Boyle (a16z), Josh Wolfe (Lux), Chris Power (Hadrian) Apr 14, 2022

Chris Power (@2112Power), founder and CEO of Hadrian, Katherine Boyle (@KTmBoyle), partner at a16z, and Josh Wolfe (@wolfejosh), co-founder and managing partner at Lux Capital, join Anne Dwane and Erik Torenberg on this episode to discuss:
- How Hadrian is abstracting the supply chain for space, aerospace, and defense manufacturing, and how it is analogous to AWS and Twilio in the software world.
- Why Chris is the right person to tackle this problem. He wants to do this for geopolitical and moral reasons and also has the ability to get into the weeds on a micro level.
- How tech can help people move into higher-skill jobs and how it can increase the total number of jobs in a given field.
- How COVID has made people realize that the world is no longer post-nation state nor post-borders.
- Which policy changes the US government can make to advance its position in the world, technologically and otherwise.
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America Next with Mike Maples Apr 05, 2022

Mike Maples (@m2jr), founding partner at Floodgate, joins Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) and Ian Cinnamon (@iancinnamon) to discuss:
- Why there has been an “epidemic of fakery” in society over the last 50 years or so. Mike says that institutions are pretending to be working rather than doing actual work.
- Why the right “angle of attack” for societal problems is not head-on but rather to create something completely different than changes the subject entirely.
- Why he advises founders to make sure they are working on an idea that is worthy of their time and why as a founder you need to “get out of the present and start living in the future.”
- How Silicon Valley can have more empathy and make the case for broader prosperity.
- How to build connection and shared purpose in an American society that is increasingly tribal.
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Why Healthtech Today is Like Fintech 5 Years Ago with Ayo Omojola Mar 31, 2022

Ayo Omojola (https://www.linkedin.com/in/omojola/), SVP of Product at Carbon Health, joins Anne Dwane (@adwane) and Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) to discuss:
- What he noticed moving from fintech to healthtech.
- Advice for people working in a highly regulated industry like healthcare.
- What’s unique about Carbon Health and why healthtech is so promising.
- Why he likes to hire former founders and his favorite interview questions.
- How he thinks about angel investing as an operator and why “angel investing is like a really expensive email newsletter.”
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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The Space Economy with Delian Asparouhov Mar 29, 2022

Delian Asparouhov (@zebulgar), co-founder of Varda Space Industries and principal at Founders Fund, joins Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) and Ian Cinnamon (@iancinnammon) on this episode to discuss:
- Why he says that VCs have a moral obligation to fund companies that help keep America a step ahead of its adversaries.
- Why space matters for him personally and why expanding the economic bounds of humankind is the best way to achieve all of humanity’s other goals.
- The current state of the space economy and the space supply chain, and how he sees them evolving in the future.
- Why the US is in a new space race with Russia and China.
- His advice on building a space company for aspiring founders.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Tech, Federalism, Procurement, & Starlink with Katherine Boyle, a16z Mar 22, 2022

Katherine Boyle (@KTmBoyle), GP at a16z, joins Anne Dwane (@adwane) and Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) on this episode to discuss:
- What needs to change inside the federal government for more contracts to go to startups.
- How startups should think about working with state and local governments.
- How trust has declined in public institutions over the last several decades and how companies can credibly step into that void by building in public and telling their own story.
- How Starlink will change where people live and how they live their offline life.
- Why, if people are laughing at you, you’re probably taking yourself seriously enough.
- What tech misunderstands about government and vice versa, including how Silicon Valley came to have a positive sum mindset and Washington ended up with a zero sum mindset.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Lessons From Top Execs: Cristina Cordova (ex-Head of Platform & Partnerships at Notion) Mar 17, 2022

Cristina Cordova was the 28th employee at Stripe and grew their partnerships arm from the ground up. Most recently, she led platform & partnerships at Notion, which included starting the Growth Product Team.
In this episode, we discuss how to build a partnerships team, what to look for in BD hires, and the ins and outs of successful deal-making.
Cristina is an active angel and advisor. You can hear more from her by following @cjc on Twitter.
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Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. To engage further:
Hosted by: @eriktorenberg  
Produced by: @jacksonsteger

Why Defense Matters with Trae Stephens Mar 15, 2022

Trae Stephens (@traestephens), co-founder at Anduril and partner at Founders Fund joins Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) and Ian Cinnamon (@iancinnamon) to discuss:
- What keeps him up at night when he looks at the US today.
- What he would change about the US government if he could wave a magic wand.
- Common mistakes made by people selling to government.
- How they think about acquisitions at Anduril.
- Advice for people looking to build in the defense space.
- What gives him hope when he thinks about the future of the US.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Lessons From Top Execs: Richard Ni (Head of People at Scale AI, ex-Head of Recruiting at Cruise) Mar 11, 2022

Richard Ni is the current Head of People at Scale AI after being the first recruiting hire at Cruise Automation, where he helped bring the team from 10 to 700 in three years.
Prior to leading people teams, Richard was a Software Engineer at Venmo and a Computer Science major at MIT. We discuss the unique perspective that his technical background gives him in recruiting, how to solicit genuine feedback from employees, and build a leveling system.
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Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale.
Share your thoughts with us on Twitter:
Hosted by: @eriktorenberg
Produced by: @jacksonsteger

How Tech Can Help Defend The US with Josh Wolfe Mar 08, 2022

Village Global's Solarpunk is a new podcast series about technology, space, and defense. We discuss how western society will use technology to adapt to the changing global landscape. We’re inspired by the theme of solarpunk — the mindset of what the planet will look like when humanity succeeds in solving major contemporary challenges through technology.
Josh Wolfe (@wolfejosh), co-founder and managing partner at Lux Capital, joins Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) and Ian Cinnamon (@IanCinnamon), investors at Village Global, to discuss:
- The problems that some of the leading companies working with the US government have been trying to solve.
- The threats that America faces today and how technology has been used by its adversaries against it.
- New domains where America is in conflict with other countries, including cyber, financial warfare, and space.
- The reinvigoration of space that has been led by SpaceX.
- Josh’s thoughts on polarization and tribalism in the US.
- What people who want to get involved in improving society should do to make a difference.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Fundraising and The State of Seed Investing with Semil Shah Mar 03, 2022

Semil Shah (@semil), investor at Haystack and venture partner at Lightspeed, joins Lucas Bagno to discuss:
- The trends Semil sees in the entrepreneurial landscape today: the ease of getting started as a founder, the fight for ownership among funds, and renewed attention to dilution from founders.
- How he raised his most recent fund at Haystack and how he determined what size of fund to raise.
- The lessons he’s learned about deploying funds.
- What the downturn means for fund managers.
- The state of seed investing.
- The impact of the changes to YC’s standard offer.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Lessons From Top Execs: Michal Cieplinski (CBO Pipe, ex-General Counsel at Fundbox) Mar 02, 2022

Michal Cieplinski is the Chief Business Officer at Pipe. He has also spent time as General Counsel and CCO at Fundbox as well as a Senior VP at Lending Club, among other roles.
He describes himself as a lawyer who has never really been a lawyer - meaning that “no” is a rare answer for him to give his fast-moving colleagues.
In this episode, we discussed the important role that a CBO plays at a high growth tech company. Michal shares tips on building legal teams, hiring speed for the rest of the org , and why you should hire for a plan, not a problem.
For anyone thinking deeply about their team’s legal function, this should be a great one.
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Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale.
Share your thoughts with us on Twitter:
Hosted by: @eriktorenberg
Guest: @m_cieplinski
Produced by: @jacksonsteger

Tokenization, Ownership, and Web3 with David Sneider and Stephen McKeon Feb 24, 2022

David Sneider (@davidlsneider), of Lit Protocol, and Stephen McKeon (@sbmckeon), partner at Collab+Currency, join Anne Dwane to discuss:
- What Lit Protocol is, what it enables, and how it is being used today.
- The vision for a different architecture of the internet.
- How user-owned networks would work and their prospects for achieving scale.
- How tokenization allows all stakeholders to capture more of the network effects of a project.
- The biggest challenges present in Web3 and how they might be solved.
- Predictions for the progress of Web3 in the next decade.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Lessons From Top Execs: Olivia Chen (ex-Head of Supply, Product at Faire) Feb 24, 2022

Olivia Chen was most recently Head of Product at Faire. She joined Faire as their first ops/business hire. By the time she left four years later, Faire had grown to over 750 employees and Olivia was managing a cross-functional team of more than 60 people.
In this episode, we discussed how to build successful referral programs, how to grow a product team, how to navigate hyper-growth as an early-stage employee, and much more.
Andrew Yu, Director of On Deck’s Product Management Fellowship, joined as a guest co-host. We hope you enjoy.
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Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale.
Share your thoughts with us on Twitter:
Hosted by: @eriktorenberg 
Guest: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olivia-chen-22b38960/
Guest co-host: @andrewcyu 
Produced by: @jacksonsteger
 Brought to you by: @beondeck

Lessons From Top Execs: Sarah Smith (Partner at Bain Capital Ventures, ex-VP at Quora, ex-Director at Facebook) Feb 17, 2022

Sarah Smith is currently a partner at Bain Capital Ventures after an early career of building elite HR teams for huge tech players, including Facebook and Quora, where she helped scale Quora from 40 to 160 people in 3 years.
In this episode, we discussed hiring that first crucial people person, how to train first-time management, how to nail goal setting, and how to improve vesting schedules.
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Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale.
Share your thoughts with us on Twitter:
Hosted by: @eriktorenberg
Guest: @sasmith4
Produced by: @jacksonsteger

The State of Fintech in 2022 with Sheel Mohnot Feb 15, 2022

Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi), founder of Better Tomorrow Ventures, joins Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) of Village Global to discuss:
- Sheel’s reflections on raising a fund and the opportunities he sees in fintech today.
- The importance of ownership in seed investing.
- How the fintech landscape has evolved over the last year.
- Why non-fintech companies are integrating fintech into their business.
- Whether banks can be disrupted and the unique regulatory environment that influences the financial market.
- The advice he gives to founders on which investors to work with.
- Opportunities in fintech globally.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Lessons From Top Execs: Anne Dwane (co-founder Village Global, ex-CBO at Chegg) Feb 10, 2022

Anne Dwane is co-founder and partner at Village Global. She was previously CEO at Zinch, a network connecting students with colleges and scholarships. Zinch was acquired by Chegg, where she served as Chief Business Officer, before and after the IPO. Previously, Anne co-founded Military.com, a social and professional network for service members and veterans that was acquired by Monster.
In this episode, they discussed how to do annual planning, how to figure out comp, why the role of a CBO is an allocative role, and much more.
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Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale.
Hosted by: @eriktorenberg 
Guest: @adwane 
Produced by: @jacksonsteger

Lessons From Top Execs: Ben Braverman (Chief Customer Officer at Flexport) Feb 01, 2022

Today’s guest is Ben Braverman. Ben is currently Chief Customer Officer at Flexport after 6 years of being their Chief Revenue Officer during Flexport’s hypergrowth period.
In this episode, we discussed how to build a good sales machine from the ground up. Ben also shares his thoughts on all things revenue - from marketing to BD to forming early SDR teams.
On Deck and Flexport are co-building the future of logistics — learn more about their joint accelerator at www.beondeck.com/x/flexport.
Adam Gelman, On Deck’s Head of Go-To-Market, joined Erik in this episode as a guest co-host. We hope you enjoy.
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Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. We will be simulcasting the podcast on the Village Global feed.
Share your thoughts with us on Twitter:
Hosted by: @eriktorenberg
Guest: @braveben
Guest co-host: @Adam_Gelman
Produced by: @jacksonsteger
Brought to you by: @beondeck

Lessons From Top Execs: Anand Chandrasekaran (EVP Five9, ex-Director at Facebook, ex-Chief Product Officer at Snapdeal) Jan 26, 2022

Execs is a show from Erik Torenberg and On Deck for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. We're simulcasting the series on the Village Global podcast.
Anand Chandrasekaran is a full-time angel and advisor with extensive executive experience at some of the biggest names in tech. Prior to being EVP to Five9, Anand worked at Facebook, Yahoo, and started several of his own companies.
He was most recently EVP at Five9 after three years as director of Facebook’s Messenger platform and five years at Yahoo. He has extensive founding, advisory and C-Suite experience with both American and Indian companies.
In this episode, Anand shares incredible frameworks for product leadership. You can read his thoughts in more detail @anandc on Twitter.
Rishi Tripathy, group product lead at On Deck, joined Erik in this episode as a guest co-host. We hope you enjoy.

Lessons From Top Execs: Gina Gotthilf (ex-VP of Marketing/Growth at Duolingo) Jan 26, 2022

Execs is a show from Erik Torenberg and On Deck for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. We're simulcasting the series on the Village Global podcast.
Gina Gotthilf spent five years at Duolingo and helped the company grow from 3 million to 300 million users. She is the kind of VP of Marketing that isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.
Gina is an A/B testing vet, and shared her best frameworks and lessons for how to A/B test well. She also shares her PR and influencer strategy tips, as well as her thoughts on how to hire your first marketing person.
She is now cofounder of Latitud, which supports early-stage entrepreneurs in Latin America solving some of the biggest problems in emerging markets across the globe.
Her passion for her job and life are evident throughout this episode. We hope you enjoy.

Lessons From Top Execs: Jared Fliesler (ex-VP at Square, ex-COO at Scribd) Jan 26, 2022

Execs is a show from Erik Torenberg and On Deck for founders, operators, and pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. We're simulcasting the series on the Village Global podcast.
The first guest on Execs is Jared Fliesler. Most recently, Jared was COO at Scribd. Prior to Scribd, Jared was a VP at Square, and director at Google, and a GM at Slide (acquired by Google), where he worked closely with Keith Rabios and Max Levchin
In this episode, we discuss symmetry in execs’ ability to hire and fire, how to build world-class onboarding experiences, what it means to be vulnerable as an exec, and much more.

Inflation, Debt, and The Fed (Part 2) with Scott Sumner and Lyn Alden Jan 18, 2022

Scott Sumner (@scottsumnertmi), economist and author of The Money Illusion, and Lyn Alden (@LynAldenContact), investment strategist, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Whether monetary policy has been too expansionary.
- Where Lyn and Scott differ on inflation.
- Why interest rates have declined over the last several decades.
- The nuances of the correlation between growth in money supply and CPI.
- Potential downsides to being the global reserve currency.
- Why the US has been able to run trade deficits without a day of reckoning (so far).
- The bull and bear cases for the US and China.
- Why the US has been able to dominate the world in high-tech industries.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Inflation, Debt, and The Fed (Part 1) with Scott Sumner and Lyn Alden Jan 11, 2022

Scott Sumner (@scottsumnertmi), economist and author of The Money Illusion, and Lyn Alden (@LynAldenContact), investment strategist, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Lyn’s position that the US needs to inflate its debt away and the mechanics of how that works.
- The similarities and differences between the 1940s and the 2020s, when an external shock hit a highly leveraged economy.
- How to monetize debt.
- Why interest rates have remained low.
- How the fed can keep inflation at bay.
- The transitory inflation hypothesis.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Building a World-Class Team with Elias Torres of Drift Jan 04, 2022

Elias Torres (@eliast), co-founder and CTO at Drift, joins Lucas Bagno for this episode, which was recorded as part of a special event for Villagers. They discussed:
- Why Elias is so grateful for the US and the differences he noticed when he came here from Nicaragua.
- How he has forged a great relationship with a co-founder who is the opposite of him in many ways.
- Why people should be taking more risks.
- Why they hired a recruiter as their first employee at Drift.
- Why they place less emphasis on resume and more on culture fit, as well as how to test for fit.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Market Monetarism and The Future of Monetary Policy with Scott Sumner Dec 28, 2021

Scott Sumner (@scottsumnertmi), economist and author of The Money Illusion, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Why Scott says that the fed should have been more expansionary during the Great Recession.
- The usefulness of level targeting.
- Why house prices are going to remain permanently high for the 21st century.
- An explanation of market monetarism and its implications for monetary policy.
- Why he is forecasting low inflation in contrast to many of his peers.
- How market monetarism differs from modern monetary theory and Austrian economics.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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How To Solve The Cold Start Problem with Andrew Chen Dec 21, 2021

Andrew Chen (@andrewchen), partner at Andreessen Horowitz and author of The Cold Start Problem, joins Erik Torenberg and Lucas Bagno on this episode to discuss:
- Why the secret to why Bay Area tech companies have been so successful is their ability to connect people in different ways.
- Stories of how different tech companies solved the cold start problem in the earliest days. For example, Tinder threw a party at USC and required people to install the app to get in.
- Why colleges are such a fertile environment for consumer tech.
- The promise of Web 3 and how it differs from previous eras of the internet.
- His requests for startups.
- Andrew's thoughts on the metaverse, the passion economy, gaming, and more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The Future of Education with Wesley Samples and Nick Grandy Dec 14, 2021

Wesley Samples (@wesleysamples), founder and COO of Sora Schools, and Nick Grandy (@ngrandy), co-founder and Head of Product at Outschool, join Anne on this episode.
- How the pandemic has “fractured the status quo” and how it will lead to a period of rapid change for education systems around the world.
- How they’re building a world where kids love learning and why autonomous learning is so important.
- How Sora and Outschool are partnering to support learners.
- Why kids want, above all else, to engage with others who share their interests.
- How they’ve overcome early ideas of what an online school would look like.
- The explosive growth they’ve seen over the course of the pandemic and how they’ve kept up.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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LatAm: Digital Transformation, Opportunities, and Investing with Julio Vasconcellos Dec 07, 2021

Julio Vasconcellos (@juliov), managing partner at Atlantico, joins Anne Dwane and Lucas Bagno to discuss:
- The state of venture capital in Latin America and its vibrant yet nascent ecosystem.
- Why companies shouldn't underestimate the difficulties of expanding from one country to another within LatAm.
- The fact that Latin America is one of the earliest adopters of tech. Internet penetration is 75% in Brazil and 81% in Mexico, both higher than China and India. Brazil also leads the world in number of hours a day the average person spends online.
- Advice on pitching, including why Julio needs to see authentic excitement from a founder for a company to last for the long term.
- Why he had half local and half global investors on his cap table when he was building his companies in LatAm.
- The bull and bear case for LatAm.
- How the rise of distributed teams has impacted the region and the talent landscape in LatAm.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The Future of Insurtech with Travis Hedge and Nick Shalek Nov 30, 2021

Travis Hedge (@the_hedgefund), co-founder of Vouch Insurance, and Nick Shalek (@nshalek), partner at Ribbit Capital, join Erik Torenberg and Lucas Bagno to discuss:
- How Vouch came to be and their vision to be insurance for the innovation economy from inception to IPO.
- What Travis and Nick are most excited about in insurtech.
- The enormity of the market and the fact that there are so few entrepreneurs with the ability to build in the space.
- How companies can grow the size of the market and why this has led to investors missing out on companies like Coalition.
- Requests for startups in the space, including opportunities in crypto.
- Why it’s never too early to have a board if you’re building in insurtech, even if it’s a synthetic one.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Transforming Corporate Finance and Working with Investors with Joe Garafalo and Trevor Oelschig Nov 23, 2021

Joe Garafalo, co-founder of Mosaic, and Trevor Oelschig, managing director at General Catalyst, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How Mosaic is building the future of tooling for modern finance teams and how it started from the team’s time at Palantir.
- Why finance has to be the connective tissue for the organization, given that they have a vantage point on the whole company.
- Why a CFO needs to have a skillset in data science or computer science.
- How to work with your investors effectively and what companies should expect from their venture firm.
- Why to think of your relationship with investors as a marriage, the importance of transparency, and the concept of the “trust battery” that gets recharged or depleted as you work with someone.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Crafting Company Culture with Brie Wolfson Nov 16, 2021

Brie Wolfson (@zebriez), founder of the The Kool-Aid Factory, joins Erik to discuss:
- Why there are detailed playbooks for creating products and other tactical advice for startups, but very little on building culture at your startup.
- Why culture is “how it feels to get the work done” and why it’s a set of actions rather than beliefs.
- Why it always starts with the founders.
- What she learned from Stripe’s approach to crafting their company culture.
- The power of setting your company’s “non-values.”
- The importance of treating internal comms as a first class product.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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A Compensation Deep Dive with Matt Schulman of Pave Nov 09, 2021

Matt Schulman (@Matthewschulman), founder and CEO of Pave, joins Erik to discuss:
- Why your company needs a compensation philosophy.
- How COVID and The Great Resignation have wreaked havoc on employee compensation.
- The fact that employee churn is up 2X over last year and software engineering salaries have increased by 20%.
- Competing philosophies on remote employees: “cost of labor” which pays employees based on where they live and “free market” which pays employees the same regardless, and why the “free market” philosophy is gaining ground.
- Why consistency is key when it comes to granting equity to candidates.
Get access to Pave's benchmarking data for free: https://www.pave.com/benchmarking/village-global-venture-stories
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Lessons From Stripe, Mixpanel, and First Round with Meka Asonye Nov 02, 2021

Meka Asonye (@BigMekaStyle), partner at First Round Capital, joined Ben Casnocha at a Village Global event to discuss:
- Meka’s time with the Cleveland Indians and what it taught him about finding hidden talent.
- Why customer obsession is so important to Meka when looking at a potential investment and concrete examples of what that looks like in practice.
- Lessons on customer obsession from Stripe and Mixpanel. He says that the Collisons had lunch with users every Friday and evangelized “teaching with every touch,” meaning leaving every user with more knowledge about the product at every interaction.
- How an early-stage startup can get in the door at a large organization. He says to make sure to target the right person at the organization and offer tidbits about how other organizations are looking at a problem.
- Common mistakes that founders make when pitching investors, including why having all the answers can be a red flag, and how to nail the right balance of confidence and humility.
- How much money to raise at the early stage, including why you shouldn’t just raise as much money as you possibly can and instead should be most concerned with finding the right fit with the right firm.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The Wires of War with Jacob Helberg Oct 28, 2021

Jacob Helberg (@jacobhelberg), author of The Wires of War, joins Erik to discuss:
- The “gray war” that Jacob believes the US is in with China, and why he feels it’s important to call it a war rather than a competition.
- Technology and cyber weapons and how they can be used for political warfare with plausible denability.
- The window of opportunity that the US and its allies have to take a proactive approach to China.
- The bull case and bear case for China.
- What’s at stake in Taiwan.
- Why countries involved in China’s belt-and-road initiative are having second thoughts.
- What actions Jacob would like to see the US take in the future to counteract China.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Unlocking Unprecedented Amounts of Generosity with Vance Roush Oct 26, 2021

Vance Roush (@vanceroush), founder and CEO of Overflow, joins Erik to discuss:
- Overflow, the online donation platform for non-cash assets, and the story behind its creation.
- Why the market is actually “sneakily big” and how he plans to create a new category that unlocks net new generosity by making donating shares, crypto, or other non-cash assets as easy as Venmo.
- How the internet has changed philanthropy, the fact that philanthropic giving has never exceeded 2% of GDP, and how to increase that percentage.
- The concept of tithing, why the church is a driver of charitable giving, and the idea of giving back instead of out of obligation.
- Why philanthropy needs a rebranding, and how AngelList and Teach For America provide models for how that could be done.
- Why there should be a stock market-like leaderboard for non-profits and why we need more seed stage philanthropists.
- How he sees the future of philanthropy evolving.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Accelerating the next wave of global founders: ODX in partnership with Village Global Oct 21, 2021

Ben Casnocha (@bencasnocha), Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg), Anne Dwane (@adwane), partners at Village Global, and David Booth (@david__booth), co-CEO of On Deck, discuss:
- ODX in partnership with Village Global, the $100M+ community-backed accelerator that plans to invest in 1000 companies over the next few years: https://beondeck.com/x
- The key differentiators of ODX: a dedicated partner for each company, an all-access pass to the On Deck community, and the fact that the entire community has upside in the fund.
- Examples of how founders have taken advantage of On Deck’s unique structure, including some examples of their most successful companies to date.
- Why Erik has been so inspired by “putting people in business.”
- On Deck’s belief that humanity primarily progresses through tech, that tech primarily comes from startups, and that there are not enough founders starting startups today.
- How to get started with ODX.
Read more about the announcement:
https://medium.com/village-global/re-imagining-the-accelerator-in-partnership-with-on-deck-11871f129f7b
https://beondeck.com/post/announcing-odx
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Andy Rachleff on Investing, Company-Building & Product Market Fit… Lessons from Wealthfront & Benchmark Oct 19, 2021

Andy Rachleff (@arachleff), president and CEO of Wealthfront, joins Anne Dwane and Lucas Bagno to discuss:
- What Andy learned from endowment investing and his quest to democratize excellent investing advice at Wealthfront.
- Why you shouldn’t try to time the market and why in his opinion all-time highs are “absolutely irrelevant.”
- Andy’s lessons from witnessing four day-trading frenzies in his career and why you should think about absolute return rather than relative returns.
- How his position on crypto has evolved over time and why he’s optimistic about its ability to revolutionize commerce but skeptical about its place in an investment portfolio.
- His learnings on product market fit from Don Valentine, and why Don said that if a startup can screw something up, it will. He also said that to succeed, it needs the market to pull the product out of the startup’s hands.
- Why operating investors often make better investment decisions because operating experience is a proxy for network rather than because of the operating experience itself.
- His top book recommendations.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Turning Science Fiction Into Reality with Ben Reinhardt Oct 12, 2021

Ben Reinhardt (@Ben_Reinhardt), Research Fellow at the Astera Institute and host of Idea Machines Podcast, joins Erik to discuss:
- Why we don’t have as much science fiction-like technology in the world as we could, and how to turn more of it into reality.
- Why venture capital does a poor job of funding new physical technology and why ten year venture cycles are too short for breakthrough technologies. Ben points out that the transistor took 15 years between the kick-off of the project and the first prototype.
- The article Ben wrote on how a private ARPA, or “PARPA” could help bring more breakthrough technology into the world.
- The unique strength of corporate labs at bringing together academics, engineers, and manufacturing, which gave the world plastics, the transistor, and modern computing.
- Ben’s idea of the rich tithing 10% of their income to technological research.
- How philanthropy would need to change in order to help small researchers experiment on longer-term timescales than they do currently.
- The impacts that PARPA would have if it was successful. Read more about the idea here: https://benjaminreinhardt.com/parpa
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The State and Future of Data Tooling with Leigh Marie Braswell and Erik Bernhardsson Oct 05, 2021

Leigh Marie Braswell (@LM_Braswell) of Founders Fund and Erik Bernhardsson (@bernhardsson), who built the music recommendation system at Spotify, join Erik to discuss:
- How data flows through a company and the business decisions that can be made based on data.
- The waves of change in the data tooling landscape over the last decade and why we’re only a quarter of the way to easy-to-use tools.
- Why there are so many data roles and how the commercialization of open source projects drives fragmentation and specialization in the industry.
- The exciting opportunities and potential pain points to build around in data tooling, including workflow scheduling, LTV predictions, and collaboration.
- Why people building in the space shouldn’t index to existing roles, structures, and platforms, since those platforms may not be around in a few years.
- Why AI and ML are just one tool in the data toolbox and the fact that there is more room to build around other, boring data science tasks.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The Present and Future of Deep Tech with Abhijeet Patra Sep 28, 2021

Abhijeet Patra (@abhijeetpatra88), former Deep Tech entrepreneur and venture fellow at Susa Ventures who is now leading Deep Tech at On Deck, joins Erik to discuss:
- What exactly Deep Tech is and some of the examples of technologies involved, including nanotechnology, quantum computing, hardware, autonomous vehicles, space, manufacturing, machine learning, and more.
- Why there’s been an explosion in talk about Deep Tech over the last several years.
- The fact that there’s almost always a market for a technology, if you can get the technical side figured out.
- Democratization of technologies and how the trajectory of sequencing DNA is representative of the typical path of Deep Tech — first a technology is expensive, then it goes down dramatically in cost, then it becomes easy to build on top of.
- Why it’s difficult to find enough talent in the field these days. He says that Deep Tech is still a niche.
- How On Deck is aiming to 100X the number of people working in the space and how you can get involved.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Greatest Hits: What Tyler Cowen Thinks About Basically Everything Sep 21, 2021

In this extended episode of Venture Stories, Erik interviews Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen), professor of economics at George Mason University. They discuss about a wide range of topics, including Tyler’s book Stubborn Attachments, the value of watching sports, travel, Bitcoin, the Knicks, and Effective Altruism — among many, many others.
Tyler explains why he has only two “stubborn attachments” — human rights and economic growth. He takes us through his argument that there’s a moral imperative for economic growth. He talks about why economic growth is the greatest force for good in the world, why redistribution isn’t as effective as Effective Altruists would like, and why we dramatically underestimate the effects of compounding. He discusses some of the reactions to the book and why he says he’s “poked the left in the eye and poked the right in the eye” with Stubborn Attachments.
They discuss the reasons for the extraordinary economic growth of East Asian countries and what kinds of lessons the West could take from those examples. Tyler talks about whether religion has an impact on economic growth and why inequality isn’t as big a deal as it’s made out to be.
Erik asks Tyler what he would do if he could wave a magic wand and change a number of entities, including the US healthcare system, the Knicks, and the Department of Education. Tyler tells Erik whether he would buy Bitcoin and gives his thoughts on central banking and Austrian economics. He also explains why travel is so valuable and why “at the margins people should be more like anthropologists.”
Erik asks Tyler where his views diverge from those of a number of prominent intellectuals, including Thomas Piketty, Russ Roberts, Ayn Rand, and Glen Weyl. Tyler explains why he suspects the environment in which someone grew up influences their thinking style.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Play-To-Earn, DAOs, and Crypto Governance with Gabby Dizon and Linda Xie Sep 16, 2021

Gabby Dizon (@gabusch), co-founder of Yield Guild Games, and Linda Xie (@ljxie), co-founder of Scalar Capital, join Erik Torenberg and Lucas Bagno on this episode to discuss:
- Why Gabby started YGG and the evolution of play-to-earn and blockchain in gaming.
- Why gaming is a great way to onboard someone to the crypto ecosystem, as NFTs have done.
- The key players in the crypto gaming ecosystem.
- Why there is renewed hope that crypto governance can be solved.
- Use cases for DAOs and how they can change the future of work.
- Why Linda welcomes regulation and how it can actually encourage more projects in the space.
Documentary on play-to-earn that Lucas mentions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yo-BrASMHU4
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Greatest Hits: The State and Future of Fintech with Zach Perret and David Haber Sep 13, 2021

Erik is joined by Zach Perret (@zachperret), co-founder and CEO of Plaid, and David Haber (@dhaber), former co-founder and CEO of Bond Street, now at Goldman Sachs.
Zach and David talk about how they met and how they started their respective companies. They explain how to find out whether you are passionate enough about an idea to start a company around it: are you passionate about it enough to be willing to pound the table to get your mother-in-law to invest?
David points out that 90% of your work as a founder is selling — to investors, employees, customers, and many others. They talk about the future of financial services and fintech and make some predictions about what to expect in the space over the next several years. David and Zach share some tips for people building a company in the space on what works and what doesn’t, and how the space has evolved since they started their companies.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Greatest Hits: Elad Gil and Kevin Hartz on Angel Investing, SPACs, and The Evolution of Venture Sep 10, 2021

Elad Gil (@eladgil), entrepreneur and investor, and Kevin Hartz (@kevinhartz), investor and co-founder of Eventbrite, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What they think is special about each other’s investing abilities.
- How certain people are able to stay relevant in every investing cycle.
- Kevin’s latest venture and the path he took to start it.
- SPACs and their advantages.
- How to find your own angel investing style.
- How venture will change in the next ten years.
- Elad’s COVID investment thesis.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Greatest Hits: John Donahoe’s Lessons on Leadership and Being a Better CEO Sep 06, 2021

We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer.
We were thrilled to host a masterclass roundtable session for our founders with John Donahoe when he was CEO of ServiceNow. John is now CEO of Nike and was CEO of eBay for more than seven years. He is known as one of the most inspirational leaders in Silicon Valley and is a highly sought-after mentor to CEOs including Brian Chesky at Airbnb, Drew Houston at Dropbox, and Ben Silbermann at Pinterest. We’re honored to have him among our small group of world-class executives and collaborators whose time and expertise help power our network of founders at Village Global.
He shared advice on when to hire ahead, invest in and train, or replace personnel on your team and gave insight into his most common piece of advice on professional growth when advising CEOs. John also did an in-depth demonstration of how to let someone go with dignity and grace.
Quotes From This Episode
"When you talk about priorities at an aspirational level, they overlap a lot. People start realizing we're more similar than we're dissimilar."
"Adversity never feels fun. I don't seek adversity. But I'm no longer scared of adversity. When it emerges, instead of trying to run from it, I now accept that it is a reality and I say, 'well, at least I'm going to learn and grow.'"
"My experience has been that around any issue that involves change, you have roughly 20-25% of people who want to be part of it, no matter what the topic is, you have 25-30% of people who want to fight it, and you have the 50% of people in the middle saying 'which side is going to win?'"
"[When someone is let go] The fear is humiliation usually. That's almost a bigger fear than actually leaving the company."
"We're never as good or as bad as labels make us out to be."
"I would say in general, for every 10 hours of business development conversations, 8 of them are a waste."
"I do gratitude practice driving into work every morning. It's proven in brain science that your brain becomes more negative over time. But it's also been proven in brain science that you can counteract that."
"The older I get, the more I've made friends with uncertainty. I don't avoid uncertainty. Uncertainty is as present to me today as it was before but I'm a little more comfortable with it today."
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Greatest Hits: Bill Gates on Advice For Founders, Mistakes, and Philanthropy Sep 02, 2021

We’re re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer.
On this special live episode of Venture Stories, Bill Gates was interviewed in 2018 at San Francisco’s Exploratorium by Julia Hartz, co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite.
We are honored to have Bill Gates, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time, among our luminary LPs whose financial capital and engagement power the next wave of Village Global founders.
They covered:
- Gates’s entrepreneurial journey starting Microsoft, including the most important turning points in the early years of the company.
- His thinking on work-life balance for founders and what he would do differently if he was starting again.
- What he’s learned from the next generation of founders.
- His perspective on the current tech landscape.
- His views on philanthropy, global development, education, and much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Greatest Hits: What Keith Rabois Thinks About Basically Everything Aug 30, 2021

We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer.
Erik and co-host Anuj Abrol (@nujabrol) interviewed Keith Rabois (@rabois).
Keith starts out by talking about why he joined Founders Fund and the reason that the structure of VC means we don’t see more people moving from one fund to another. They talk about the future of venture and whether there will be more M&A in the space and where he sees things going in the next 10 years. Keith explains why being an effective VC is much more an art than a science.
Erik asks about Keith’s goals at this point and why thus far it’s not been possible to scale one’s investing model beyond one’s self. Keith also has a well-known theory about breaking down businesses into equations and Erik asks whether one can do the same with careers as well.
Keith recounts the story of working for Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel at PayPal and how he has learned to trust his instincts in the absence of specific quantitative metrics. He talks about why being vertically integrated is important for a startup, why getting the timing right is part of a founder’s job (and can’t be a founder’s excuse for failure), and why in his view founder quality trumps all other factors when evaluating a business.
He also talks about some of his requests for startups, including an integrated fitness and nutrition company. They also talk about some of the places where he agrees or disagrees with prominent thinkers in tech and how Keith’s politics and contrarianism have evolved.
Quotable Lines From This Episode
"You want to solve your biggest risks first. Mediocre founders solve the easiest risks first. Take the three most risky things and conquer them. I always counsel a founder to address risks in order of difficulty not in order of ease."
"To me when a founder says they didn’t get the timing right, that means they just didn’t do their job."
"I focus all on the people and a lot less on the market, a lot less on the product and a hell of a lot less on the technology."
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Greatest Hits: Mike Maples on Value Hacking and Avoiding The Fake Growth Epidemic Aug 25, 2021

Erik is joined on this episode by Mike Maples (@m2jr) of Floodgate.
The discuss:
- The difference between fake growth and real growth, and how to know which one your company is experiencing.
- Why fake growth has taken hold in so many companies in the Valley, and its broader systemic causes.
- The difference between value hacking and growth hacking.
- Why once you’ve entered the growth stage, it’s next to impossible to go back to the value hacking stage.
- His thoughts on the Thiel vs. Rabois philosophies of markets.
- His tips for growing SaaS companies.
- How to think about incumbents.
- Why a pivot is not the same thing as a mulligan.
- The reasons for the fact that, in Mike's opinion, there is too much money in VC.
- Why companies are staying private longer.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Greatest Hits: Eric Schmidt and Tyler Cowen on The Future of Technology and Society Aug 18, 2021

We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer.
This episode was recorded in front of a live audience in San Francisco, featuring Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen), professor of economics at George Mason University and Eric Schmidt (@ericschmidt), former executive chairman and CEO at Google/Alphabet.
Cowen talks to Schmidt about a wide range of topics, from Schmidt’s college years, to his time as an intern at Bell Labs, to working for Scott McNealy at Sun Microsystems, to the early days of Google, to today.
Cowen asks about Schmidt’s formative intellectual experiences as a young person and we hear the story of Schmidt studying as an architect prior to entering into a computer science program. After graduation, Schmidt interned at both Xerox PARC and Bell Labs. He recounts stories of his time at the research labs and discusses to what extent the lab model does or doesn’t work today. Cowen points out that Schmidt is one of the few people around whose career spans several significant eras in the history of computing.
They move on to talking about the early days at Google, where it turns out that Schmidt was hired to run the company after a skiing trip with Larry and Sergey, whose first concern in hiring “adult supervision” was to find someone they enjoyed hanging out with. Schmidt says that he initially assumed that search wasn't very important and that Google’s ads didn’t work. He reveals that during his first year he was so terrified that their "ruse would unravel" that he made anyone who wanted to spend money come to him personally on Fridays at 10am to justify the expense.
Cowen asks about Schmidt’s insights on hiring and managing talent. Schmidt explains that in the beginning Larry and Sergey primarily hired their classmates and friends, but over time Google’s hiring became highly structured. He tells the story of interviewing a single candidate 16 times and explains the logic of why initially they were so focused on school and GPA, rather than industry experience.
Cowen and Schmidt also talk about in which areas even Schmidt himself has been surprised at the extent of technological progress and where he'd like to see more innovation. They discuss social media and why Schmidt says that it amplifies human weaknesses rather than strengths. The two of them also talk about transforming cities, including Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto and the Bay Area's housing crisis.
They also have a round of rapid-fire “overrated vs. underrated,” covering subjects like Antarctica, Picasso, effective altruism, Yellowstone and North Korea. Cowen also asks about the Eric Schmidt "production function" and how Schmidt is able to be so productive.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Greatest Hits: Reid Hoffman and Chamath Palihapitiya on Angel Investing and The Future of Venture Aug 15, 2021

We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer.
Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath), CEO of Social Capital, and Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman), partner at Greylock, joined Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha at a special Village Global event.
Angel Island brought together 100+ angel investors for talks from world-class investors, discussions, and opportunities to make new connections.
In this session they discussed:
- What is broken about venture and how to fix it.
- Why Reid is backing new experiments in venture.
- Their thoughts on the solo GP phenomenon.
- How to think about risk when evaluating an investment.
- Whether they're long or short Silicon Valley.
- Why SPACs are here to stay.
- How to think about diversification in an angel portfolio.
- The state of pricing across different rounds.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Greatest Hits: Investing in Marketplaces with Sarah Tavel and Nabeel Hyatt Aug 11, 2021

We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer.
Sarah Tavel (@sarahtavel), partner at Benchmark, and Nabeel Hyatt (@nabeel), partner at Spark Capital, joined Erik on this episode.
They discussed:
- Why they love investing in marketplaces and the evolution of marketplaces over the last decade.
- Why the wave of Uber For X startups didn’t take off.
- How they evaluate marketplaces, and why founders get confused about “which race they’re running” when creating a marketplace startup.
- Where they’re excited about seeing more marketplaces and which spaces they advise founders to avoid.
- The impact of SoftBank and their analysis of the current crop of public marketplace companies.
- Common mistakes they see founders making in marketplace startups.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Psychology of Personal Finance with Ramit Sethi Aug 08, 2021

Ramit Sethi (@ramit), founder and CEO of I Will Teach You To Be Rich, joined Ben Casnocha to discuss:
- Ramit’s philosophy of personal finance. He says he focuses on $30,000 questions as opposed to $3 questions because there’s no limit on how much you can earn, but there is a limit on how much you can save.
- How “invisible scripts” rule how you think about money. Ramit talks about how to figure out and interrogate what those invisible scripts are so you can move past them.
- How to figure out what your “rich life” looks like. He suggests writing down in great detail and texture exactly what you aspire to when it comes to your financial goals. For example, when you go on vacation, what kind of hotel are you staying in? Are you flying in business or economy class?
- The fact that people often have a prime twenty years between ages 40 to 60 to spend their money and why you shouldn’t defer your goals until late in life.
- Why he decided to start a podcast about love and money and the challenges inherent in dealing with differing approaches to personal finance in relationships: https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/podcast/
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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How to Have Better Virtual Meetings with Max Greenwald Aug 05, 2021

Max Greenwald (@MaxPGreenwald), founder and CEO of Warmly, joins Erik to discuss:
- Max’s journey navigating the idea maze to start the company.
- The problems with virtual meetings and why they lead to fatigue.
- How to ask questions of prospective customers without leading them into providing the answers you want to hear.
- Why he says that all interviews, first-time meetings, and team meetings are better done virtually than in-person.
- The future of work post-pandemic.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Greatest Hits: What Alex Danco Thinks About Basically Everything Aug 03, 2021

We’re re-releasing some of the best episodes of the podcast this summer.
In this episode Alex Danco (@alex_danco) of Social Capital joined Erik to talk about Silicon Valley, economics, innovation, crypto, software and more.
Alex explains the influence of Peter Thiel and Rene Girard on his thinking. He explains what he means when he says the key to understanding the world is asking, "what is everyone is compelled to lie about?"
He gives a history of how innovation has traditionally proceeded in the world and explains how Silicon Valley — via software specifically — has changed the mechanism of innovation. He talks about how this has resulted in disproportionate gains accruing to the huge tech companies.
Alex also talks about the economics of the Valley and why gains in productivity from technology have not resulted in increased leisure for the Valley's inhabitants.
He also talks about crypto, career strategy, cost disease, scooters, and much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Village Global Accelerator: Inside Scoop with Santiago Suarez, CEO Addi.com Jul 30, 2021

Santiago Suarez (@SantiaSua), co-founder and CEO of ADDI, joins Village Global co-founder and partner Anne Dwane on this episode. They discuss:
- What he wish he knew when he started ADDI.
- Why hustle alone has never made a company successful, and why he says it’s necessary but not sufficient.
- His experience going through the Village Global Accelerator, and now mentoring founders in the program.
- Where he’s looking to invest in fintech.
- Startups he would like to exist that don’t yet.
- Why he has changed his mind on investing in founders working in a space he doesn’t like.
Companies Santiago has invested in:
ProTalento - https://protalento.org/english-version/
Kolors - https://kolors.com.mx/
Rubik - https://www.getrubik.com/
*The deadline to get your application in for the fall vintage of the Village Global Accelerator is August 10th! It’s a personalized and tight-knit program with an amazing network of peers, advisors, and experts. Companies that have been through the accelerator have raised from some of the top venture funds in the world, like a16z, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, True Ventures, Felicis and more.
Learn more and apply at www.villageglobal.vc/accelerator!

Greatest Hits: Mike Maples on Building Successful Startups and Venture Funds Jul 26, 2021

Erik was joined on this episode by Mike Maples (@m2jr) of Floodgate. We're re-releasing some of the best episodes of the podcast from over the years.
They discuss:
- How the best founders approach entrepreneurship.
- The power of “change events” for startup creation.
- How important is it for your idea to be non-consensus.
- What makes a great founding team.
- How you know when you have an insight that’s worth pursuing.
- What VC could look like a decade from now
- The relationship between VCs and their LPs.
- Mental models for what makes a successful investor.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Greatest Hits: James Currier on Network Effects, Education, and Evaluating Startup Ideas Jul 22, 2021

We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the last few years.
James Currier (@JamesCurrier) of NFX joined Erik on this episode. They discuss:
- Why LinkedIn hasn’t been disrupted yet
- Where are today’s opportunities in consumer social
- Market networks and how they’ve evolved over time
- What’s wrong with education and whether homeschooling can be a solution
- Commoditization of higher education
- How to evaluate startup ideas
- How venture will evolve over the next decade
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Greatest Hits: What Kevin Kwok Thinks About Basically Everything Jul 19, 2021

Kevin Kwok (@kevinakwok) joined Erik in 2018 to discuss a wide range of topics. We’re re-releasing some of the best episodes of the podcast this summer.
They talked about:
- Why the stock market exists and why after the crash of 2008 no one said that we should shut it down.
- The ideas of "loops and funnels" and "constraints and compounding" — and how Kevin thinks about those mental models.
- The history of corporate structures and what they might look like in the future.
- What might be possible with crypto that was previously impossible without crypto, and why people seem to be only trying to replicate already-existing tech using crypto.
- Twitter, and why it's like being "on chain."
- How to think about your career and how the Valley's unique work culture has contributed to its success.
- The idea of personal ICOs.
- Why most companies think about the impact of PR on consumers when in reality they should think about PR's impact on recruiting.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Greatest Hits: Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan on Crypto Jul 15, 2021

This special live episode was recorded in 2018. We’re re-releasing some of the greatest hits this summer. Erik interviewed Naval Ravikant (@naval) and Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis).
They start with an overview of the history of organizing societies and the role of centralized decision-makers from kings to democracies and why decentralization — where no one in particular is in charge but everybody follows the rules — has so much potential. They talk about how this could be disruptive to a wide swath of society today, including areas like money, electricity, social networks, storage, and more. They explain why decentralization will "fulfill the original promise of the internet."
Erik asks how each of them got into the space after having had success in other areas. It’s pointed out that it’s very rare that something comes along that is “technologically interesting, socially revolutionary, and that can also make you very rich.” They move on to a discussion of the history of money, the three key functions that money provides (store of value, unit of account and medium of exchange) and how good a job current cryptocurrencies are doing at fulfilling those three functions.
They move on to what they see in the future for crypto and how it will change society at large. They paint a picture of a world where there might be virtual “instant jobs” available on-demand in a feed akin to the feeds in current social networks and where the “99%” will be investors, as opposed to the present where only 1% of individuals are investors. There might also exist in the future “instant companies” that can be created as easily as someone can create an account on a social network today and that programmable smart contracts might spread opportunity far and wide without the need for armies of lawyers and judges.
They explain what it means when they say that blockchain will create “an open financial system” and what they mean when they say it will be to the current financial system what Linux was to Windows. They also talk about what kinds of facts would change their mind about blockchain, the role of identity and anonymity in a crypto world, and the concept of a “personal burn rate.”
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Greatest Hits: What Daniel Gross Thinks About Basically Everything Jul 12, 2021

Daniel Gross (@danielgross), founder of Pioneer, joined Erik in 2018 for a wide-ranging conversation. We're re-releasing some of the greatest hits this summer.
Erik and Daniel discuss a wide variety of topics, including why saying something is “insanely great” isn’t necessarily a compliment for a founder, how to play “the video game that is life,” why the best way to get the physique you want is to move (cities), and how Twitter has reshaped the human psyche.
They also cover a number of other topics, including how Daniel thinks about friendships, the parallels between Pioneer and religion, how Daniel would change the education system, and why people will compete against each other but cooperate against an AI. They close with a game where Erik names a number of prominent individuals and Daniel talks about what he’s learned from that person.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Greatest Hits: Keith Rabois on Career Strategy, Identifying Talent, and Evaluating Markets Jul 07, 2021

We're re-releasing some of the greatest hits from the podcast over the years. This episode was recorded in front of a live audience in San Francisco in October 2018.
Keith breaks down some of the successes that mentees of his have had over the past few years. Many of them came from non-technical backgrounds and non-elite schools. He talks about their career trajectory and the inflection points that led to their advancement.
Erik explains the four dimensions of career building and where he thinks people early in their careers are over-optimizing.
Keith shares what Peter Thiel told him about hiring while the two were on a run around the Stanford campus shortly after Keith joined PayPal. He talks about how he challenges the people working for him, and why as an employee you always want to feel like you’re pushing the boundaries of what you’re capable of.
They also talk about what makes a good startup idea and the three factors that Keith uses to evaluate business ideas.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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The State and Future of Longevity with Nathan Cheng Jun 29, 2021

Nathan Cheng (@realNathanCheng), program director for On Deck Longevity, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The key breakthroughs in aging research in the past.
- Why we're still waiting for the first success story in humans, and why he predicts the first drug will be approved in the next ten years.
- Why the space has plenty of capital but not enough founders.
- The challenges and roadblocks in the space.
- Common misconceptions about longevity.
- Who should think about applying to the program.
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How Open Innovation Can Transform R&D with Kevin Leland and Phil Taylor Jun 10, 2021

Kevin Leland (@kmleland), founder and CEO of Halo, and Phil Taylor, Bayer’s Open Innovation Lead, join Erik to discuss:
- Why the current RFP process resembles recruiting in the 1990s pre-LinkedIn and Monster, and how Halo can change that.
- What open innovation is and some of its success stories.
- How to connect companies and scientists to drive innovation.
- How to create an innovation ecosystem.
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Education, The Great Stagnation, and Innovation with Noah Smith Jun 08, 2021

Noah Smith (@noahpinion), Bloomberg Opinion writer and author of the Noahpinion Substack, joins Erik to discuss:
- Why colleges should try to emulate the Cal State and CUNY systems, which Noah says provide the best value for dollars in education.
- Why the US should want to copy the Japanese and Korean healthcare systems, and the power that a national health insurance program has to drive cost down.
- Why the oil shock precipitated the great stagnation, and the evolution (and non-evolution) of energy sources over the years.
- What climate economics got wrong and why the revolution in green energy is will not only be about reducing carbon emissions but rather the abundance of cheap energy.
- What people get wrong about inflation and monetary policy and how the fed really works.
- What the US should do to increase innovation, and Noah’s take on whether science and commercialization of discoveries is slowing down or not.
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Cracks in The Great Stagnation with Caleb Watney Jun 06, 2021

Caleb Watney (@calebwatney), Director of Innovation Policy at Progressive Policy Institute, joins Erik to discuss:
- How views have changed on whether we are in a great stagnation, and what someone from the 1970s who was brought to 2021 would think about the technological changes in the interim.
- Whether a technological slowdown is inevitable or a choice that a society makes.
- The fact that COVID drastically accelerated adoption of technology that was already in existence.
- Caleb’s view that there has been a slowdown in both the pace of scientific discoveries as well as the commercialization of those discoveries.
- The decline of the industrial research lab and the fact that there is more competition in technology today.
- Whether certain institutions need to be “retired” after a certain period of time.
- The incentives that distort immigration policy and the possibility of turning immigration officers into “talent scouts.”
- Why fertility rates are falling and how to allow people to have the number of kids that they say they want to have.
- The power of agglomeration clusters and what portion of work will revert back to in-person once the pandemic ends.

Marketing Operations 101 with Chris Toy Jun 03, 2021

Chris Toy (@ChrisToy), co-founder and CEO of MarketerHire, joined Anne Dwane in a special session for Villagers. They discussed:
- Why if you don’t know who your customer demo is, you need a marketer on your team earlier than you think.
- The misconception that marketing is something to be done at a later stage, or is expensive, or is only about customer acquisition.
- Why marketing is part of the de-risking process for your company.
- The tech stack to use at the early stage.
- The ideal marketing budget for startups.
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Emotional Fitness For Founders with Emily Anhalt Jun 01, 2021

Emily Anhalt (@dremilyanhalt), co-founder of Coa, joins Erik to discuss:
- Why people should have a proactive approach to emotional fitness and should think of it like to going to a gym on a regular basis, rather than only seeking help when things go wrong.
- The seven traits of emotional fitness and how to get them.
- Why the true mechanism of healing is relationships.
- The fact that sometimes a founder’s biggest strength and can become a weakness.
- Why so many founders aren’t happy even after achieving significant success.
- Therapy vs. coaching and the main schools of thought in therapy today.
- Why group therapy is effective and the fact that people in group therapy actually find that helping others was the most helpful part of going to therapy.
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Brad Feld on What Nietzsche Can Teach Entrepreneurs May 29, 2021

Brad Feld (@bfeld), VC at Foundry Group and co-author of The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche with Dave Jilk, joins Ben Casnocha to discuss:
- Common misconceptions about Nietzsche and why being misunderstood makes him an especially interesting philosopher.
- What Nietzsche can teach entrepreneurs deciding whether to pivot or persevere. Brad says that founders should view their entrepreneurial journey not in terms of a single company, but as the next 30-50 years of their life.
- Why Brad hates the term “passion” and says it’s overused in entrepreneurial circles.
- Why to focus more on whether someone’s words and actions line up rather than the strength of their beliefs.
- The lessons that Brad has for making decisions among groups today given Nietzsche’s aphorism that “insanity in individuals is rare, but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.”
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Erik Torenberg on Higher Education May 26, 2021

This is a special cross-posted episode of The Deep End, a new podcast from On Deck. Erik Torenberg is interviewed by Marshall Kosloff about:
- What’s causing incumbent universities to fail.
- The opportunities that exist for new institutions to chart a different path.
- Unbundling and cost disease in education.
- Talent identification and credentialism.
Subscribe to The Deep End: https://ideas.beondeck.com

Fintech and Investment Strategy with Addie Lerner May 24, 2021

Addie Lerner (@addielerner), founder of Avid Ventures, joins Erik to discuss:
- Why she started Avid Ventures and how her experiences at growth-stage funds influences her investing strategy at earlier stages.
- Her take on the “great barbell” in venture capital and how she thinks about investing in an environment with outsized valuations. She says that firms are now investing in seed stage companies at Series B prices.
- The origins of her bullishness on fintech and why “every company is becoming a fintech company.”
- Why she thinks there can be multiple winners in the global remote work space.
- Why X for Y businesses in international geographies can work, if there is a local angle to the business that makes it uniquely suited for a particular geography.
- How she thinks about crypto and why she’s looking to back eldercare companies.
- Her investment thesis and why she wants to back founders who "believe they were put on earth to build their company."
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Incentive Misalignment in Higher Education with Jason Brennan May 20, 2021

Jason Brennan, author of Cracks in the Ivory Tower, joins Erik to discuss:
- The fact that students who finish college are actually more pro-market than students who don’t.
- Why general education requirements are often pushed by departments that are struggling, and how that leads to rent-seeking.
- The idea of “transfer of learning” and why students don’t transfer lessons from their English Literature classes to become better writers in the workplace, even though in theory they should.
- Why the cost of college has gone up so much and the incentives that prompt administrators to hire more administrators.
- Where he agrees or disagrees with Richard Vedder and Bryan Caplan.
- What Jason thinks should happen versus what he thinks will happen to higher ed in the next ten years.
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How To Fix Credentialism and The Student Debt Crisis with Todd Zywicki May 18, 2021

Todd Zywicki (@ToddZywicki), law professor and author of Unprofitable Schooling: Examining Causes of, and Fixes for, America’s Broken Ivory Tower, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The fact that 65% of funding increases to colleges gets passed through to students.
- How the accreditation system got its start after the GI Bill incentivized diploma mills.
- Why student loan defaults are inversely correlated to the amount of debt a student has taken on.
- Why proposals from both sides of the political aisle to address student debt have serious drawbacks, and why Todd would propose a one-time payment to all individuals instead.
- Why ISAs work for a subset of people but won't fix the overall problem, which is that a lot of people are going to college who shouldn't be.
- Todd's hope that eventually the labor market and skills-based certification will replace the current "credentialism arms race."
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Keith Rabois on Miami and Company-Building in 2021 May 16, 2021

Keith Rabois (@rabois), partner at Founders Fund, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Why he decided to move to Miami and why it’s made him 30-40% happier.
- The benefits of clustering when you’re at the earliest stages of building a company, and why remote works better for a later-stage company.
- Why he suggests you don’t visit a place you’re considering moving to for just a weekend and instead you go for a full Monday to Friday cycle.
- What he’s learned from people organizing digitally to make change in the physical world.
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How To Build an AI-First Company with Ash Fontana May 13, 2021

Ash Fontana (@ashfontana), author of The AI-First Company and partner at Zetta Venture Partners, joined Erik for a fireside chat for Villagers in May 2021. They discussed:
- Why AI creates defensibility and a true, compounding, first-mover advantage.
- Why AI should be part of all conversations at your startup: about products to build, people to hire, what price to charge — it should all involve AI.
- The difference between Lean Startup and Lean AI.
- Common mistakes that early AI companies make, like spending too much on marketing and not enough on sales.
- The impacts of AI on hiring and the differences between a data PM and an ordinary PM.
- What you can do tomorrow to get started building an AI-first company.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Consumer Social, Marketplaces, and Becoming a Better Investor with James Currier May 11, 2021

James Currier (@JamesCurrier), partner at NFX, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an On Deck Angels event. They discuss:
- Why founders are more authentic at the accelerator stage than at the seed stage.
- Why San Francisco will remain the centre of tech in the future, just as New York and LA have remained the centre of banking and movie-making, respectively.
- James’s thesis that founders in consumer social need to be a really special type of person — someone great at the analytical side of things as well as at language and psychology.
- Why there will always be plenty more marketplaces to be created, but why he’s skeptical about B2B marketplaces and fitness marketplaces.
- How they think about investments and make decisions at NFX.
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How Tech Can Transform Education with John Katzman May 09, 2021

John Katzman (@johnkatzman), CEO of Noodle, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- John’s theory that tech has had less of an impact on education than people thought it would because it’s been grafted on rather than causing a rethinking of how education is delivered.
- Why the “fundamentalist capitalists” were wrong about markets solving the problems with education.
- His thoughts on income share agreements.
- Why any degree should always involve active learning throughout a person’s life.
- The fact that he thinks post-COVID no less than 50% of the grad school experience will remain online and will progress towards being completely virtual.
- His requests for innovation in the space.
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Lessons Learned as an Investor and The Future of PropTech with Pete Flint May 04, 2021

Pete Flint (@peteflint), partner at NFX, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an On Deck Angels event. They discuss:
- Pete’s journey from Trulia to investor.
- Why over time he became less focused on the idea and strategy of a team and more on the team itself and its ability to execute.
- Why it’s a mistake to have a portfolio of growth channels, and why instead a company should be world-class at one channel.
- His information diet.
- The two phases of PropTech and the problems worth solving today.
- Why when it comes to content, frequency beats quality.
- The new wave of marketplaces and why creating a UX that’s 5-10X is a great way to attract supply.
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The State and Future of Space in 2021 with Delian Asparouhov and Chris Power May 02, 2021

Delian Asparouhov (@zebulgar) of Varda and Founders Fund, and Chris Power (@2112Power), founder and CEO of Hadrian, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- What they're working on and how they're bringing tech to industrial manufacturing.
- How Chris navigated the idea maze with Hadrian, a company with aims to build space and defense components 2X faster.
- The three types of space companies: satellite operators, launch operators, and supply chain companies.
- Where they would be investing in space today.
- Their requests for startups, including a "Dell for satellites."
- The challenges of low-frequency iteration cycles.
- The aim to create software that provides "an API for the supply chain."
- Why it's important to build full-stack solutions in low NPS industries.
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The State and Future of EdTech with Mercedes Bent and Anne Dwane Apr 29, 2021

Mercedes Bent (@mercebent), partner at Lightspeed, joins Erik and co-host Anne Dwane to discuss:
- What Mercedes and the EdTech space in general learned from General Assembly, a company ahead of its time.
- Her market map of EdTech and why she says it should perhaps be called LearnTech rather than EdTech.
- The future of community and social-driven learning, including why peer-to-peer learning is so effective.
- Her thoughts on corporations as credentializers and why she hasn’t been optimistic in the past about credentialling moving away from universities.
- Mercedes, Anne, and Erik’s requests for startups in the space, including a TikTok-like community for career development, a ubiquitous child care company, and a talent marketplace that builds its own supply.
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Andrew Wilkinson’s Lessons Learned From Building Tiny Apr 27, 2021

Andrew Wilkinson (@awilkinson) co-founder of Tiny, was interviewed by Andrew Barry of On Deck at a special event. They discussed:
- His start as a designer and how great product and design became the common thread that runs through the businesses he tries to buy.
- How to think about building a moat around you when you’re an individual versus a brand.
- What he means when he says he “tries to buy businesses that are like New Zealand — in the middle of nowhere, quietly successful, and away from nuclear war.”
- How he analyzes businesses and the diligence that he does on them.
- How to think about customer acquisition when you don’t have a big budget.
- His advice for first-time founders.
- Why he’s excited about the podcasting space.
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Restoring The Promise of Higher Education with Richard Vedder Apr 25, 2021

Richard Vedder, author of Restoring The Promise: Higher Education in America, joins Erik to discuss:
- The origins of the myth that higher education is the key to career success.
- The unintended consequences of student loans, including the fact that colleges raised tuition dramatically in response to the increase in borrowing.
- The key pieces of government regulation that impacted higher education and why the GI Bill led to an explosion in the number of universities.
- Where he agrees and disagrees with Bryan Caplan and Peter Thiel.
- The history and evolution of colleges in the US.
- The fact that the earnings gap between college and non-college educated workers is not due to what a student has learned but rather that they have demonstrated the determination to get in to college in the first place.
- Why colleges have been so resilient.
- What he would do if he was starting a new university from scratch today.
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How To Grow as a Customer Success Professional with Kelly Hook Apr 20, 2021

Kelly Hook (@KellyHook), program director of the On Deck Customer Success program, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How she got into customer success.
- How the field of customer success got its start, just 25 years ago.
- Common misconceptions about the field.
- Why you need to have empathy, a collaborative spirit, and data analysis skills to be successful.
- What the On Deck Customer Success program will look like and who it is for.
- How customer success professionals can grow in their careers and how the field is evolving.
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Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups with Ali Tamaseb Apr 18, 2021

Ali Tamaseb (@alitamaseb), investor at DCVC and author of Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups joins Erik to discuss:
- His learnings from gathering data on unicorns and comparing them to a random selection of startups that didn’t succeed.
- Why the age of a founder doesn’t correlate to success.
- Why successful founders aren’t necessarily solving personal problems and are often going through a deliberate ideation process.
- How data could make someone a better investor.
- Why competition is actually good for startups.
- Why successful founders are often opportunistic.
- Why there is resistance to these conclusions.
- Why being a solo founder doesn’t make you less likely to succeed.
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Scott Belsky’s Angel Investing Lessons and Requests For Startups Apr 15, 2021

Scott Belsky (@scottbelsky), angel investor and Chief Product Officer at Adobe, joined Erik for an On Deck Angels event to discuss:
- How he came to make his first investments in Uber and Pinterest.
- How his thinking on investing has evolved and the principles he’s picked up over time.
- Why being an operator-investor is the greatest opportunity in the space today, and why founders are drawn to operator angels.
- Why he gravitates to the pre-momentum stage — Scott says he likes to focus on the potential of a team rather than the present.
- His requests for startups, including for a social network based on receipts, a newsfeed that lets you follow a story, and a way to give developers more credit for their work across the web, and more.
- He also talks about which areas he's bearish on, including productivity tools and video for work.
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How To Grow as a Product Manager with Andrew Yu Apr 13, 2021

Andrew Yu (@andrewcyu), who is running the On Deck Product Management program, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- His non-traditional route to becoming a product manager. (Fun fact: He recently worked on the Biden campaign and inauguration).
- What the ODPM program will look like, including the “intentional networking” they have planned.
- What “productizing yourself” as a product manager looks like.
- How the field has evolved over time.
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The Future of the Creator Economy, Social Media, and Internet Culture with Rex Woodbury Apr 11, 2021

Rex Woodbury (@rex_woodbury) of Index Ventures joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Where he’s looking to invest in the creator economy.
- Why authenticity and vulnerability are replacing performative and status-driven social media.
- The shift away from an ad-based model on the web.
- Why we won’t see mega-celebrities like Oprah ever again.
- What the financialization of culture means and how NFTs and staking fits into it.
- His learnings as a student of meme culture.
- The future of work and education as work gets disaggregated.
- Why gaming is underrated.
- His requests for startups.
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Risk, Confidence, and Seriousness: Katherine Boyle’s Advice For Founders Apr 08, 2021

Katherine Boyle (@KTmBoyle), partner at General Catalyst, joins Erik on this episode recorded as part of an event for Villagers. Due to technical difficulties, Mustafa Khan, part of the team at Village Global, conducted the first part of the interview. They discuss:
- Katherine’s focus on narrative when evaluating founders: “who’s the protagonist and what are they solving?”
- The fact that Katherine doesn’t have strong frameworks for investing — for her it’s about how the story makes her feel.
- How she spots extraordinary founders by looking for people who “don’t have a talk track.” These founders think about everything from first principles.
- Katherine’s idea that: “The most extraordinary founders are also historians. They get information obsessively because they are so paranoid they might be missing something."
- Why founders shouldn’t be afraid to be serious. "You know you're being serious when people are laughing at you."
- Why founders should always be transparent about the state of the business. “Authentically owning what is weak but having a plan for making it not weak is something I don't see enough in founders,” Katherine says.
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The Future of Investing with Kyla Scanlon and Tom White Apr 06, 2021

Kyla Scanlon (@kylascan) and Tom White (@ TomJWhiteIV), who are running On Deck Investing, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Why managing your own psychology is as important as your asset allocation.
- How to think about your own “life portfolio” holistically, instead of just paying attention to your investment portfolio.
- Why it’s “never been a better or worse time to be an investor” and how On Deck Investing can help.
- Why investing is like a liberal art, and how you can become a better investor by learning from economics, psychology, philosophy, and more.
- What they wish they knew about investing when they got started.
- What the On Deck Investing program will look like and who is a good fit for it.
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The Scout Mindset with Julia Galef Apr 04, 2021

Julia Galef (@juliagalef), author of The Scout Mindset, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Why everyone, including entrepreneurs, should want to see reality more clearly.
- The fact that the bottleneck to more rationality is not lack of knowledge, but lack of motivation to see the world as it really is.
- Why the “soldier mindset” is the default mindset and why signalling keeps it that way.
- Why thinking probabilistically has a calming psychological effect.
- How to adopt the scout mindset by thinking in bets, considering what you’d do if another person was in your shoes, and noticing where you’re defensive of your beliefs.
- How to get your organization to adopt a scout mindset.
- Her thoughts on changing minds with mistake theory vs. conflict theory.
- The evolution of the rationality space over time.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Navigating Your Startup Through a Crisis with Pete Flint Apr 01, 2021

Pete Flint (@peteflint), partner at NFX, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an event for Villagers. They discuss:
- How to gain ground in a downturn as a startup by doubling down on the things that are working.
- Lessons from starting Trulia during the Great Recession, when no one was buying homes.
- How and why to “turn all fixed costs to variable costs.”
- Ideas for how to do teambuilding in an all-remote environment.
- Predictions for the future of work post-COVID.
- The differences in the fundraising landscape during COVID.
- Why founders should be transparent about the state of their business with their investors and board.
- How to go from a product manager (founder) to company manager (CEO).
- Where he’s investing these days and why he’s excited about labor marketplaces.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The State of Direct-To-Consumer in 2021 with Austin Rief and Nik Sharma Mar 30, 2021

Austin Rief (@austin_rief), co-founder of Morning Brew, and Nik Sharma (@mrsharma), investor, advisor, and operator at Sharma Brands, join Erik to discuss:
- Their direct-to-consumer investment theses.
- Interesting ways that media companies are starting to get into commerce, like the hockey podcast that created a bestselling flavored vodka.
- Why it's a "game of audience in the direct-to-consumer world." They say that distribution is the key now.
- The difference between community and fandom and why people often confuse the two.
- Where the whitespace is and their requests for startups.
- The three stages of direct-to-consumer and examples of great DTC 3.0 brands.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Justin Kan on Happiness, Hiring, and Time Management Mar 28, 2021

Justin Kan (@justinkan), investor and entrepreneur, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of a special event for Villagers. They discuss:
- The evolution of how Justin approached mental health.
- His playbook for being happier.
- Why he decided to pull the plug at Atrium with money in the bank.
- Why you should “go slow to go fast later” when you’re running an early-stage company.
- How to know if you’re hiring at the right speed.
- Why you should regularly do a calendar audit.
- How to deal with an employee who is unhappy.
- How to be authentic and transparent at work.
Check out Justin's podcast at https://listen.justin.quest and YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfRtwc6K_VU9N4OjNnU2P7g
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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How No-Code is Enabling Entrepreneurship and the Creator Economy with Emmanuel Straschnov and KP Mar 25, 2021

Emmanuel Straschnov (@estraschnov), founder and co-CEO of Bubble, and KP (@thisiskp_) of On Deck, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The story of Bubble, which was founded in 2012.
- How no-code is changing the creation process for startups and the fact that they've seen companies raise millions of dollars without a single engineer.
- The phases of the evolution of no-code.
- Why they hope that in five years people don't talk about no-code as a separate category anymore.
- Some of the cool projects started by On Deck No-Code Fellows.
- Their advice on getting started in no-code.
- Where they would be investing if they were running a fund focused on the space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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The 2020s, Economic Growth, and Deep Tech with Eli Dourado Mar 23, 2021

Eli Dourado (@elidourado) of the Center for Growth and Opportunity, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Why Eli wants to radically increase GDP per capita and the current bottlenecks to achieving that.
- Why he thinks the 2020s will be the decade of atoms.
- Why amazing scientific breakthroughs like CRISPR haven't translated into new products or treatments.
- Why he's excited about geothermal power and how it could change geopolitics if its potential is realized.
- His breakdown of his position as a technological optimist and cultural pessimist.
- Where he agrees or disagrees with Tyler Cowen, Bryan Caplan, Peter Thiel, and Samuel Hammond.
- Why entrepreneurs shouldn't shy away from areas with regulatory risk, since "that's where all the action happens."
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The Future of Sleep Fitness with Matteo Franceschetti of Eight Sleep Mar 21, 2021

Matteo Franceschetti (@m_franceschetti), founder and CEO at Eight Sleep, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The differences between deep, light, and REM sleep, and how to "compress sleep" so that it takes up less time.
- The new wave of predictive health and how Eight Sleep fits into it.
- His thoughts on the book Why We Sleep.
- The importance of temperature and how it affects sleep.
- Where he would be investing if he was running a fund focused on the category.
- How they think about what to build next.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Crypto, Gaming, and Space with Alice Lloyd George Mar 18, 2021

Alice Lloyd George (@alice__LG), VC at Rogue, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Why she loves studying Silicon Valley history and what she's learned from it.
- What she's learned being part of the crypto community since 2013.
- Why she's excited about the current crypto wave and her assessment of the impacts of NFTs.
- Where she's excited in climate tech.
- New opportunities arising in space after the cost to reach low-earth orbit went down by 90% in the last decade.
- The fact that the vision that people had for the internet from decades ago seems to be making a return.
- Her analysis of Roblox, game engines, and AR/VR.
Flux Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/flux/id1192848099
Rogue: http://roguevc.com/
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Accelerating The Talent of The Future with Shriya Nevatia and Anirudh Pai Mar 16, 2021

Shriya Nevatia (@shriyanevatia) and Anirudh Pai (@ani_pai) of On Deck Catalyst join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Why you should look for a mentor a few steps ahead of you rather than seeking out the most successful person you can think of.
- Why young people need to remember that the people around them at their level can teach them a lot and will become the next unicorn founders — probably sooner than you think.
- Erik's breakdown of the career version of the Innovator's Dilemma and why you should take more risks earlier in your career.
- What they've learned about mentor and mentee relationships.
- Why being willing to look silly early for a small period of time is a big arbitrage opportunity.
- What people can expect from the On Deck Catalyst program.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The Business of Belonging with David Spinks Mar 14, 2021

David Spinks (@DavidSpinks), author of The Business of Belonging, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The evolution of the different movements in this space, from customer service to customer success to community.
- How to make your users feel like they’re a part of the business.
- His requests for startups in the space.
- How to earn the trust of your users.
- How to get a community off the ground.
- How to enable your community to engage itself.
- What to do when excitement wanes.
- Common traps to watch out for.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The State and Future of NFTs with Cooper Turley Mar 11, 2021

Cooper Turley (@Cooopahtroopa), head of crypto strategy at Audius, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss:
- How he got into the space and how it has evolved over the last few years.
- Why NFTs are taking off now.
- The market map of the different players in the space at the moment.
- How a personal token works.
- Advice for people doing an NFT.
- How NFTs will reshape the music industry.
- His predictions for the future of NFTs.
- How tokens will become equity.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Unbundling Higher Education with Megan O’Connor Mar 09, 2021

Megan O’Connor (@MeganMOConnor), Head of Strategic Partnerships at Chegg, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- What she saw change in education when the pandemic hit.
- Whether incumbent universities will adapt to a more value-oriented student.
- How to unbundle a credential.
- The idea of digital guilds.
- What Megan would do if she was building a brand new university today.
- The state of homeschooling.
- The prospects of a Facebook University or Walmart University.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life with Luke Burgis Mar 07, 2021

Luke Burgis (@lukeburgis), author of Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How he’s making the audience for Rene Girard’s work bigger.
- Why innovation became high status while imitation was high status earlier in history.
- What is most often misunderstood about mimetic desire.
- The difference between internal and external mediators.
- What all this has to do with entrepreneurship.
- How leaders can manage mimesis in their company.
- The difference between mimetic and objective value.
- The founder’s mythology and mimetic theory.
- Why Nietzsche was right about resentment.
- Luke’s relationship with Tony Hsieh.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Secrets of Public Speaking and Oral Communication from Renowned Speaking Coach Mar 04, 2021

Michael Balaoing, founder of Candlelion, joins Ben Casnocha on this episode to discuss:
- The importance of the acronym WTF (what’s the feeling?) when you’re giving a presentation.
- The four roles that you take on as a speaker: captain, pilot, guide, and game show host.
- The five questions to ask when seeking feedback on a presentation.
- How to keep the audience engaged throughout a talk, not just during the Q&A at the end.
- How to bake stories into your presentations and remix your talks for different audiences.
- The keys to virtual communication in the COVID era.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Transforming Higher Education with Ryan Craig and Daniel Pianko Mar 02, 2021

Ryan Craig (@ryancraigap) and Daniel Pianko (@danielpianko) of Achieve Partners join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The multiple crises in higher education: of affordability, of completion, and of employability.
- Why there doesn’t yet exist a Walmart University.
- Why they think that big companies will be some of the great educational institutions of the 21st century.
- Their thoughts on ISAs.
- What they would change if they could change anything about higher ed.
- How to fix the fact that half of people entering a degree program don’t complete it.
- Why we should make higher education free.
- How they foresee the unbundling of college happening.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Relationship Coaching, Bloated MVPs, and Evaluating Startup Ideas with Liron Shapira Feb 28, 2021

Liron Shapira (@liron), co-founder of Relationship Hero, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How they are creating a new industry and new a field of study in relationships.
- Why people are becoming more goal-oriented and analytical in general in society and how this applies to dating and relationships.
- His thoughts on unbundling venture capital.
- The bloated MVP thesis and the idea of a “Great Filter” for startups.
- Misconceptions that people have about building an MVP.
- The future of dating apps.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Making It Easier For Startups To Get Started with Capbase with Greg Miaskiewicz and Sheel Mohnot Feb 25, 2021

Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi), and Greg Miaskiewicz (@miaskiewicz), join Erik on this episode. Sheel is a Network Leader at Village Global, and Greg is CEO and co-founder of Capbase.
They discuss:
- How Capbase can help streamline the workflows involved in getting a company off the ground.
- How Greg navigated the idea maze and validated his hypothesis.
- Why there should be more transparency in investing and startups.
- The pros and cons of transparency within a company.
- Ethical investing.
- How to give feedback as an investor.
- How the pandemic changes company formation.
- The future of Capbase.
*The deadline to get your application in for the spring vintage of the Village Global Accelerator is March 1st! It’s a personalized and tight-knit program with an amazing network of peers, advisors, and experts. Companies that have been through the accelerator have raised from some of the top venture funds in the world, like a16z, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, True Ventures, Felicis and more.
Learn more and apply at www.villageglobal.vc/accelerator!
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The Future of the US Dollar as the Global Reserve Currency with Lyn Alden, Nic Carter, Brent Johnson, and Luke Gromen Feb 23, 2021

Erik is joined on this episode, recorded as part of a Big Ideas Clubhouse, by:
- Lyn Alden (@LynAldenContact), founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy
- Nic Carter (@nic__carter), partner at Castle Island Ventures
- Brent Johnson of Santiago Capital
- Luke Gromen (@LukeGromen), founder of Forest for the Trees
- Katherine Boyle (@KTmBoyle), partner at General Catalyst
- Dan Romero (@dwr), angel investor
They discuss:
- Whether the US dollar being the global reserve currency has led to a hollowing-out of the American manufacturing base.
- Whether the US should be looking to move on from being the global reserve currency.
- Why the pandemic has pulled forward American loss of leverage in the world.
- How Bitcoin relates to this and whether there will be a transition to it as the global reserve currency.
- Thoughts on China and its behavior in global currency markets.
*The deadline to get your application in for the spring vintage of the Village Global Accelerator is March 1st! It’s a personalized and tight-knit program with an amazing network of peers, advisors, and experts. Companies that have been through the accelerator have raised from some of the top venture funds in the world, like a16z, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, True Ventures, Felicis and more.
Learn more and apply at www.villageglobal.vc/accelerator!
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Principles of Product Management and Growth Marketing from Legendary PM Who Helped Build LinkedIn, Wealthfront, and Instacart Feb 20, 2021

Elliot Shmukler (@eshmu), of Anomalo, joins Ben Casnocha on the podcast to discuss:
- How growth marketing has evolved over the last decade or so since he was an early pioneer of the field at LinkedIn in 2008.
- What people misunderstand about A/B testing, and the right way to go about it.
- Why he doesn’t like the term “growth hacking.”
- Why people should both be more humble and more ambitious with their growth marketing program.
- Lessons from his time at LinkedIn, eBay, Wealthfront, and Instacart.
- Finding a co-founder before finding the idea that became Anomalo.
- The perils of bad data and how Anomalo is helping to fix that problem.
*The deadline to get your application in for the spring vintage of the Village Global Accelerator is March 1st! It’s a personalized and tight-knit program with an amazing network of peers, advisors, and experts. Companies that have been through the accelerator have raised from some of the top venture funds in the world, like a16z, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, True Ventures, Felicis and more.
Learn more and apply at www.villageglobal.vc/accelerator!
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

The New Frontiers in Fintech with Sar Haribhakti Feb 16, 2021

Sar Haribhakti (@sarthakgh), program lead for On Deck Fintech, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How fintech has evolved over time, from PayPal to Stripe to now.
- How fintech is different from other areas in tech.
- The most frontier themes in fintech today.
- Why the lines between what is fintech and what isn’t are blurring.
- How On Deck has been expanding opportunity for people.
- Sar’s experience going from outsider to insider in fintech.
- The biggest misconceptions people have about fintech.
- What people will get out of the On Deck Fintech Fellowship (https://www.beondeck.com/fintech) and who should apply.
*The deadline to get your application in for the spring vintage of the Village Global Accelerator is March 1st! It’s a personalized and tight-knit program with an amazing network of peers, advisors, and experts. Companies that have been through the accelerator have raised from some of the top venture funds in the world, like a16z, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, True Ventures, Felicis and more.
Learn more and apply at www.villageglobal.vc/accelerator!
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Founder Tips, Focus, and Fintech with Santiago Suarez, CEO Addi.com Feb 16, 2021

Santiago Suarez (@SantiaSua), co-founder and CEO of ADDI, joins Village Global co-founder and partner Anne Dwane on this episode. They discuss:
- What he wish he knew when he started ADDI.
- Why hustle alone has never made a company successful, and why he says it’s necessary but not sufficient.
- His experience going through the Village Global Accelerator, and now mentoring founders in the program.
- Where he’s looking to invest in fintech.
- Startups he would like to exist that don’t yet.
- Why he has changed his mind on investing in founders working in a space he doesn’t like.
Companies Santiago has invested in:
ProTalento - https://protalento.org/english-version/
Kolors - https://kolors.com.mx/
Rubik - https://www.getrubik.com/
*The deadline to get your application in for the spring vintage of the Village Global Accelerator is March 1st! It’s a personalized and tight-knit program with an amazing network of peers, advisors, and experts. Companies that have been through the accelerator have raised from some of the top venture funds in the world, like a16z, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, True Ventures, Felicis and more.
Learn more and apply at www.villageglobal.vc/accelerator!
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Learning in Public with Anna Gat and Anne-Laure Le Cunff Feb 13, 2021

Anna Gat (@TheAnnaGat), founder of Interintellect, and Anne-Laure Le Cunff (@anthilemoon), founder of Ness Labs, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- What it’s like putting on virtual events in the COVID era.
- The difference between public and private language.
- How to scale a community while keeping it human, including the best tools to use.
- The importance of documentation in community-building.
- The community architect role.
- How to think about which topics are off-limits for a group.
- The advent of the generalist.
- The secret to great meetups.
*The deadline to get your application in for the spring vintage of the Village Global Accelerator is March 1st! It’s a personalized and tight-knit program with an amazing network of peers, advisors, and experts. Companies that have been through the accelerator have raised from some of the top venture funds in the world, like a16z, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, True Ventures, Felicis and more.
Learn more and apply at www.villageglobal.vc/accelerator!
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Transforming Metabolic Fitness with Josh Clemente of Levels Feb 11, 2021

Josh Clemente (@joshuasforrest), founder of Levels, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The personal story that led him to start the company.
- The fact that most people in America are metabolically unhealthy and what Levels is doing about it.
- How they are taking huge amounts of complex data and distilling it down to a single score.
- The history of nutrition research and the debates in the space.
- What’s coming up from Levels.
*The deadline to get your application in for the spring vintage of the Village Global Accelerator is March 1st! It’s a personalized and tight-knit program with an amazing network of peers, advisors, and experts. Companies that have been through the accelerator have raised from some of the top venture funds in the world, like a16z, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, True Ventures, Felicis and more.
Learn more and apply at www.villageglobal.vc/accelerator!
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

How To Build a Health Tech Company with Owen Willis and Nikhil Krishnan Feb 09, 2021

Owen Willis (@jowenwillis), lead of the On Deck Health Tech Fellowship, and Nikhil Krishnan (@nikillinit) of Out-of-Pocket, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How health has evolved from a historical perspective.
- How the environment has changed for companies in the space in the last decade.
- Common misconceptions about building a company in healthcare.
- Why in healthcare no one cares about reducing costs but instead only about increasing revenue.
- The purpose of the fellowship and what you will get out of it.
- Which kinds of companies would be a good fit for the fellowship.
*The deadline to get your application in for the spring vintage of the Village Global Accelerator is March 1st! It’s a personalized and tight-knit program with an amazing network of peers, advisors, and experts. Companies that have been through the accelerator have raised from some of the top venture funds in the world, like a16z, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, True Ventures, Felicis and more.
Learn more and apply at www.villageglobal.vc/accelerator!
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Tether, Bitcoin Double-Spend Allegations, and The Weaponization of the Market with David Fauchier Feb 07, 2021

David Fauchier (@dfauchier), of Nickel Digital Asset Management, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The philosophy at Nickel Digital and the strategies they’re looking to back.
- A primer on market making.
- His thoughts on the Tether controversy.
- His explanation of the allegations of Bitcoin double-spending and the cascade of effects from it.
- An explanation of the self-reinforcing market dynamics in the GameStop saga.
- What changes and what doesn’t because of GameStop, and how it relates to crypto.
*The deadline to get your application in for the spring vintage of the Village Global Accelerator is March 1st! It’s a personalized and tight-knit program with an amazing network of peers, advisors, and experts. Companies that have been through the accelerator have raised from some of the top venture funds in the world, like a16z, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, True Ventures, Felicis and more.
Learn more and apply at www.villageglobal.vc/accelerator!
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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What the Science of Relationships Can Teach Founders with Behavioral Scientist Logan Ury Feb 04, 2021

Logan Ury (@loganury), Director of Relationship Science at Hinge and author of How To Not Die Alone, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Why a great relationship is really just a culmination of a series of small decisions, and how to be “intentional every step of the way.”
- How the three dating tendencies apply to cofounders as well as to romantic partners.
- What leads to external CEO candidates being paid more but performing worse than internal ones.
- Why life is happier for satisficers than for maximizers.
- When to end it versus when to mend it.
- Why people love optionality but are much happier after having made permanent decisions.
Order Logan's book here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1982120622/ref=tsm_1_tp_tc
*The deadline to get your application in for the spring vintage of the Village Global Accelerator is March 1st! It’s a personalized and tight-knit program with an amazing network of peers, advisors, and experts. Companies that have been through the accelerator have raised from some of the top venture funds in the world, like a16z, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, True Ventures, Felicis and more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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How To Create a Successful Online Course with Andrew Barry Feb 02, 2021

Andrew Barry (@Bazzaruto), program director for On Deck Course Creators, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The history of online courses and why they’ve exploded in the past few years.
- What the On Deck Course Creators program is and what people can expect to get out of it.
- The two key things you need to get right when creating an online course.
- Common misconceptions that people have about what it takes to build one.
- How to think about monetization.
- The future of the ODCC program.
*The deadline to get your application in for the spring vintage of the Village Global Accelerator is March 1st! It’s a personalized and tight-knit program with an amazing network of peers, advisors, and experts. Companies that have been through the accelerator have raised from some of the top venture funds in the world, like a16z, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lux Capital, True Ventures, Felicis and more.
Learn more and apply at www.villageglobal.vc/accelerator!
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Investing in New Asset Classes and The Future of Venture with Ali Hamed and Brian Harwitt Jan 31, 2021

Ali Hamed (@AliBHamed) and Brian Harwitt (@bharwitt) of CoVenture join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Their new fund, Crossbeam Venture Partners, and what they’re investing in.
- The types of new asset classes they’re looking at and why these are often “a better version of something old school.”
- Their thoughts on investing in creators.
- The merits of equity vs. other forms of capital from a founder’s perspective.
- Why they’re excited about roll-ups.
- How venture is evolving and their thoughts on valuations.
- The future of ISAs.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Online Communities, Hardware, and Investing Frameworks with Nabeel Hyatt Jan 28, 2021

Nabeel Hyatt (@nabeel), investor at Spark Capital, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an On Deck Angels event. They discuss:
- His path to becoming an investor.
- Why he likens being a VC to being a middle manager at a large conglomerate company.
- How he thinks about frameworks for investing.
- How to quickly get up to speed on spaces that are new to you as an investor.
- Why there are so few hardware companies at scale and why he’s investing in the space.
- Why he’s long on online communities.
- Why gaming pioneers so many new business models.
- Thoughts on his anti-portfolio.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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How To Become a Great Speaker and Storyteller with Robbie Crabtree Jan 26, 2021

Robbie Crabtree (@robbiecrab), founder of On Deck Performative Speaking, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The importance of conveying emotion to an audience.
- Communicating in a Zoom world.
- How he uses pop culture as inspiration.
- Common misconceptions people have about being a great speaker.
- The ingredients of a great story.
- What people can expect to learn during the On Deck Performative Speaking Fellowship.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Cloudflare Co-Founder Michelle Zatlyn’s Advice on Hiring, Fundraising, Scaling, and more Jan 24, 2021

Michelle Zatlyn (@zatlyn), co-founder, president, and COO of Cloudflare, joined Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha for a masterclass with our founders in late 2020.
They discussed:
- The origin story of Cloudflare, including how the co-founders met, and how Michelle realized that she too could start a company.
- Her advice on fundraising after raising more than $300M for Cloudflare, including why you should keep the rest of the VC partnership in mind, and how to show rather than tell in your pitch.
- How they found the best talent, including why their blog brought them plenty of inbound interest, and why searching far and wide around the globe for engineers helped them build their team quickly.
- Why they don’t use recruiters at Cloudflare.
- How to turn a weakness into a strength.
- How to process feedback and when it makes sense to ignore it.
- Stories of extreme frugality in the early days of the company, including building their own Ikea desks.
- How an emotional response by customers helped them know they had product-market fit.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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The Psychology of Money with Morgan Housel Jan 21, 2021

Morgan Housel (@morganhousel), partner at Collaborative Fund, and author of the book The Psychology of Money, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Why it’s not realistic to be rational and an investor should aim to be merely reasonable instead.
- What people don’t understand about compounding.
- The difference between getting wealthy and staying wealthy.
- Bets on what is going to change vs. what is not going to change.
- Why people overestimate the benefit that money brings to them.
- The value of owning your time.
- What we can learn from the partnership of Buffett and Munger.
- His advice on resisting the allure of pessimism.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Marc Andreessen and Erik Torenberg on How To Fix Higher Education Jan 19, 2021

Marc Andreessen of a16z (@pmarca) and Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) joined Sriram Krishnan (@sriramk) and Aarthi Ramamurthy (@aarthir) on their Good Time show on Clubhouse.
Topics discussed:
- Why college is broken.
- The reasons for the lack of innovation.
- Why it’s so hard for colleges to be disrupted.
- How college could be unbundled.
- New approaches that are being tried in the space.
- How On Deck is creating a new type of education experience.
To listen to Marc speak more fully on the topic of education, please go to a16z.com/educationquestion.
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Calm.com CEO on How He Built the World's #1 Meditation App Jan 16, 2021

Michael Acton Smith, co-founder and co-CEO of Calm, joined Ben Casnocha, co-founder and partner of Village Global, at a special virtual masterclass for Village Global founders, Network Leaders, and friends of the firm. They discussed:
- How Michael got into meditation, his personal practice, and meditating together as a company.
- The story of the early days of Calm, including their fundraising journey and how they acquired their first users.
- How to maintain confidence when everyone thinks what you’re doing is crazy, and how a great co-founder can help you.
- Why business is like surfing and how to balance the tension of pursuing a huge market with remaining focused on a specific use case.
- How to build a mentally healthy team.
- What he would have done differently if he was doing everything over again.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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How To Supercharge Your Career in Design with Mindaugas Petrutis and Jeff Anders Jan 12, 2021

Mindaugas Petrutis, head of the On Deck Design Fellowship, and Jeff Anders (Hilnbrand) (@jeffand_), Co-Founder of Ambrook, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The On Deck Design Fellowship.
- The five I’s of design.
- How to think about the forks in the road you’ll face as a designer.
- Whether to move into management or continue as an individual contributor.
- What you will get out of the ODD Fellowship.
- How to think about transitioning to a specific vertical as a designer.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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The Future of Online Advertising with Hikari Senju of Omneky Jan 11, 2021

Hikari Senju (@hisenju), founder of Omneky, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The state of online advertising today.
- Why Hikari started Omneky, how it works, and how it’s helping small businesses.
- Advances in AI and computer vision and how they’re impacting advertising.
- What it means when he says the cost of attention is getting to be higher than the cost of content.
- How antitrust is changing the marketplace for online ads.
- Opportunities for investors in the space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The Rise of Contract-To-Hire with Peer Richelsen and Andreas Klinger Jan 10, 2021

Peer Richelsen (@peer_rich), founder of Lean Hire and Head of Product at On Deck, and Andreas Klinger (@andreasklinger), CTO at On Deck, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Why global hiring is broken.
- How companies should get started with contract-to-hire and common challenges they may face.
- The background of Lean Hire.
- What needs to happen for this to become a norm for companies.
- The problems with the existing hiring process.
- Why you need to remember that the “people you hire will hire the next people” at your company.
- Where On Deck is going in the future.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Investments as Products, Asking Better Questions, and Improving as an Investor with Phin Barnes Jan 06, 2021

Phin Barnes (@phineasb), venture capitalist, most recently at First Round, joins Erik on this episode which was recorded as part of an On Deck Angels event.
They discuss:
- Why he thinks of an investment as a product.
- Advice for founders working with investors.
- The reasons he has changed his mind after a meeting with an entrepreneur.
- How to ask better questions.
- Why he loves “seeing something in someone they don’t see in themselves” and amplifying their success.
- Why making more smaller investments is the best way to get better as an investor.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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A Playbook For Fundraising with Marc McCabe Jan 03, 2021

Marc McCabe (@mccabe), partner at Oyster Capital, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- What people get wrong when they’re preparing to fundraise.
- The importance of stress-testing a deck, and how to do it.
- The right investor to pitch first, and the right time to follow-up.
- Whether to give a VC a deadline or not.
- Common mistakes people make when fundraising and how to avoid them.
- Lessons from his time at Airbnb.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Increasing Scientific Progress and Improving Institutions with Alexey Guzey Dec 31, 2020

Increasing Scientific Progress and Improving Institutions with Alexey Guzey
Alexey Guzey (@alexeyguzey), independent researcher, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- His thoughts on how to make scientific institutions work better.
- What people get wrong most often when analyzing institutions.
- How he would change the FDA and academia.
- Why people under appreciate scientific progress.
- Where he agrees or disagrees with Tyler Cowen, Peter Thiel, Patrick Collison, and
- What he thinks about Effective Altruism.
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How To Be Unapologetically Ambitious with Shellye Archambeau Dec 29, 2020

Shellye Archambeau (@ShelArchambeau), one of tech’s first black female CEOs and author of Unapologetically Ambitious, joins Village Global co-founder and partner Anne Dwane for this masterclass held in December 2020. They discuss:
- How to decide what you want in life and your career.
- Why she makes choices but never sacrifices, and what the difference is.
- How to adopt a mentor.
- How to overcome impostor syndrome.
- Diversity and inclusion in your startup.
- How to know whether taking a risk makes sense.
- Why startups shouldn’t fall in love with their product.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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The Rise of the Post-Seed Round with Paul Martino Dec 27, 2020

Paul Martino (@ahpah), co-founder of Bullpen Capital, joins Village Global co-founder and partner Anne Dwane on this episode.
They discuss:
- Stories from his entrepreneurial journey.
- Advice for founders navigating the pandemic.
- How the venture ecosystem today differs from ten years ago.
- What characterizes the post-seed phase.
- Why they look for companies that are “off by one.”
- Their approach to data.
- His tips on hiring.
- Advice for emerging fund managers.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Solving The Student Debt Crisis with Amira Yahyaoui and Deena Shakir Dec 22, 2020

Amira Yahyaoui (@Mira404) of Mos and Deena Shakir (@deenashakir), partner at Lux Capital, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Amira’s part in the revolution in Tunisia.
- How she ended up in tech.
- Why she wanted to solve this issue.
- Lux’s thesis in this area.
- The gap she saw and how Mos will fill it.
- How COVID has impacted higher education.
- Her thoughts on governance and technology.
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How Conversation Analytics is Changing Hiring with Metaview's Siadhal Magos Dec 20, 2020

Siadhal Magos (@smagos), co-founder of Metaview, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- What Metaview can offer and what inspired him and his co-founder to start it.
- Insights from how teams grew at Uber and Palantir.
- The rich data and insights that can be drawn from conversations.
- The hiring lessons to impart to founders.
- Best practices for startups hiring.
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Building Membership-Based Communities with Greg Isenberg and Justin Murphy Dec 17, 2020

Greg Isenberg (@gregisenberg) of Late Checkout, and Justin Murphy (@jmrphy), social scientist and philosopher, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How society got to a place where it lost its collective sense-making abilities.
- Why calibrating what is real is harder than ever.
- Signs that your community is working and what makes it flourish.
- Techniques to build your communities.
- Identity and how it interacts with your community.
- Communities based around people.
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Hacking Communities with Laís de Oliveira Dec 15, 2020

Laís de Oliveira (@isolive), author of Hacking Communities, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The “why now” for her book.
- Why we are more connected than ever but still lonelier than ever.
- How to be a good storyteller and why vulnerability is important.
- The tension between building a community for a business versus for the community’s own sake.
- How to think about monetizing a community.
- How to grow a community.
- What community-building looks like in the COVID era.
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Why Ambitious People Should Write with Max Nussenbaum, Kyla Scanlon, and Jake Singer Dec 13, 2020

Erik is joined on this episode by Max Nussenbaum (@maxnuss), who runs the writing fellowship at On Deck, Kyla Scanlon (@scanlon_kyla), who runs the blog Data Data Data, and Jake Singer (@jakesing_), who runs the blog The Flywheel. They discuss:
- The benefits that writing has brought to them.
- How they got started writing.
- Their advice on how you can get started.
- How to create a flywheel in your own writing.
- The highest leverage ways to improve your writing.
- What the fellowship will look like and why it’s valuable to write with a community.
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Chiefs of Staff in the Tech Ecosystem with Jay Kennedy and Rishi Tripathy Dec 10, 2020

Jay Kennedy (@jameswkennedy), Chief of Staff at Floodgate, and Rishi Tripathy (@rishi_tripathy_), Chief of Staff at On Deck, join Erik on this episode. They discuss:
- The Chief of Staff role and how it has evolved over time.
- What it really means to be a Chief of Staff and how they each became one.
- Why the role has become so popular these days.
- Why it benefits a CEO or founder to have a Chief of Staff and the value they can provide.
- How working as a Chief of Staff can benefit you.
- The On Deck Chief of Staff fellowship and why to be a part of it.
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Creating a Life Improvement Platform with Brent Franson of Most Days Dec 10, 2020

Brent Franson (@brentfranson), founder and CEO of Most Days (mostdays.com), joins Ben Casnocha on this episode to discuss:
- How the company is creating a “Peloton for mental health.”
- The most popular routines that people can cultivate using the app.
- His history as an entrepreneur and lessons learned, including why “not all dollars are created equal.”
- The life experience that informed the creation of Most Days.
- The unique habits that he is cultivating himself with the help of the app.
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Growth and Go-To-Market with Brian Balfour and Pascal Levy-Garboua Dec 08, 2020

Brian Balfour (@bbalfour), of Reforge, and Long Journey Ventures, and Pascal Levy-Garboua (@2pasc) of Long Journey Ventures, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Common mistakes that early-stage companies make in their go-to-market strategy and how to avoid them.
- Advice on partnership strategies and go-to-market.
- Frameworks for who to hire and why.
- Misconceptions that founders have around loops.
- Advice for enterprise companies.
- Advice on building a business development function within the org.
- What the industry has learned about growth over the last several years.
- How community fits within growth.
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Building, Media, and Post-COVID Trends with Joe Marchese Dec 06, 2020

Joe Marchese, media exec and multiple time co-founder of CKBG, Human Ventures, true[X], and Attention Capital, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How he got to where he is and the thread that runs through his career.
- What tech and startup people don’t appreciate about TV advertising.
- What he’s trying to do with Attention Capital.
- What people predicted in the space several years ago and why they didn't come to pass.
- What he expects the landscape to look like for media and attention in the next ten years.
- How a post-COVID world will be different than the pre-COVID world.
- The idea of a purpose economy.
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The State and Future of Crypto in 2020 with Avichal Garg Dec 03, 2020

Avichal Garg (@avichal), Managing Partner at Electric Capital, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- How he came to be running Electric Capital.
- Their perspective and thesis.
- What’s newly possible with computers able to own money.
- Why price fluctuations happen with Bitcoin.
- What Bitcoin is correlated with.
- Debates within crypto.
- Thoughts on China.
- How regulation interacts with crypto.
- How the space will evolve in the next several years.
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The Future of Climate Tech with Candice Ammori Dec 01, 2020

Candice Ammori joins Erik on this episode. Candice is heading the Climate Tech Fellowship at On Deck. They discuss:
- The issue of climate change and how she came to be working on solving it.
- What climate tech means exactly.
- Some of the most interesting companies in the space and what they are working on.
- What founding teams have typically looked like for companies in the space.
- What makes a founder a good fit for the fellowship, and what the fellowship will look like.
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Consumer Social, Gaming, and Pinduoduo with Turner Novak Nov 29, 2020

Turner Novak (@TurnerNovak), general partner (and Chief Meme Officer) at Gelt VC, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How he’s thinking about consumer social as an investor in 2020.
- Where he’s interested in consumer social and his requests for startups.
- New methods of monetizing in consumer social.
- What he learned from studying Pinduoduo and where he’s looking for a “for X” version of it.
- Why he’s excited about gaming and why he says that “gaming is eating the world.”
- What he would do if he was CEO of different social companies.
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Overcoming Fear of Change with Jason Feifer Nov 26, 2020

Jason Feifer (@heyfeifer), editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine and host of three podcasts, including Pessimists Archive, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Why fears repeat over time throughout history.
- The message he’s trying to get through to the world through his work.
- The historical opposition to chess, bicycles, and waltzing.
- His thoughts on The Social Dilemma.
- How he expects social media to evolve.
- New forms of communication throughout history and why they were feared initially.
- Why he says that “you are evidence that change is not inherently bad.”
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Creating Innovation Ecosystems with Dr. Anton Howes Nov 24, 2020

Dr. Anton Howes (@antonhowes), author of Arts & Minds, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How to create conditions where innovation is easier and better.
- Why he wrote the book and the key question he was trying to answer.
- What Silicon Valley could learn from studying the history of Britain.
- Misconceptions that people have about economic growth in the past and future.
- Why people misunderstand what growth is.
- How statecraft relates to economic growth.
- Questions that people in the field are trying to answer and where he agrees or disagrees with prominent thinkers.
- Thoughts on progress studies.
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The State and Future of Food On-Demand with Max Mullen, Mike Duboe, and Brandon Hill Nov 22, 2020

Brandon Hill (@IamBrandonHill), CEO of Vori, Max Mullen (@Max), co-founder of Instacart, and Mike Duboe (@mduboe), GP at Greylock, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- What led Brandon to start Vori.
- Why Max and Mike were excited to invest in the company.
- How the grocery space currently operates and the antiquated technology currently in use.
- How the space has evolved over time and the history of the supermarket.
- How it will change and evolve in the future.
- Why on-demand startups didn’t work out the way people thought they would.
- Doing things that don’t scale.
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Reid Hoffman and Chamath Palihapitiya on Angel Investing and The Future of Venture Nov 19, 2020

Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath), CEO of Social Capital, and Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman), partner at Greylock, joined Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha at a special Village Global event.
Angel Island brought together 100+ angel investors for talks from world-class investors, discussions, and opportunities to make new connections.
In this session they discussed:
- What is broken about venture and how to fix it.
- Why Reid is backing new experiments in venture.
- Their thoughts on the solo GP phenomenon.
- How to think about risk when evaluating an investment.
- Whether they're long or short Silicon Valley.
- Why SPACs are here to stay.
- How to think about diversification in an angel portfolio.
- The state of pricing across different rounds.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Common Early-Stage Scaling Mistakes and How To Avoid Them with Ty Walrod Nov 17, 2020

Ty Walrod (@tywalrod), two-time founder and program director of On Deck Scale, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The On Deck Scale program, how it works, and how it can help founders scale.
- Common reasons that founders get tripped up when hiring.
- Advice for delegating and decision-making in a fast-growing company.
- Thoughts on growth, go-to-market, and product-market fit.
- Advice for fundraising and why a founder should “believe the no, but not the why.”
- Why co-founder relationships end up breaking down.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Keith Rabois’s Advice For Angel Investors Nov 15, 2020

Keith Rabois (@rabois), partner at Founders Fund, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an On Deck event. They discuss:
- How he would compare the state of angel investing when he was getting started years ago to angel investing today.
- His learnings about building a better filter for whether to take a meeting or not, and what he looks for in a person’s LinkedIn profile.
- Portfolio allocation and how much to allocate to angel investing.
- What differentiates people who are an executive and angel versus those who are full-time VCs.
- Whether he plans to invest in crypto.
- Thoughts on pricing and the differences in pricing considerations between angels and VCs.
- How he uses Twitter.
- Trends he sees and ideas he’s exploring.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Unbundling Investment Management with Alex Robinson of Juniper Square Nov 12, 2020

Alex Robinson (@arobinsontweets), co-founder and CEO of Juniper Square (@juniper_square), joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The experience that led him to create Juniper Square and the vision for the company.
- How he navigated the idea maze.
- How investment management will change in the future.
- The vision for unbundling investment management.
- How COVID changed the market and why he thinks the move to remote work is overstated.
- What’s next for the company.
- Where he would be investing if he was running a fund and his requests for startups.
- The company-building principle they implemented that transformed the company.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Getting an Early-Stage Startup Job with Anthony Nardini Nov 10, 2020

Anthony Nardini of the On Deck Team joins Erik to discuss:
- The OD50 Fellowship, what it will be like, and who should go through it.
- Why people don’t leave their existing jobs.
- The advice he gives for people trying to pivot into tech.
- The dimensions of job suitability.
- How to know when it’s the right time to leave a job.
- Whether to start your own thing or find a new job.
- His advice for job-seekers.
- The tools that he wants to exist for job-seekers.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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The State of Healthcare in 2020 with Nikhil Krishnan Nov 08, 2020

Nikhil Krishnan (@nikillinit), founder of Out of Pocket, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How employer-based healthcare came to be and how it might change.
- Comparisons of the US healthcare system to other countries.
- His investing thesis in the space and areas he’s bullish on.
- The dynamics of hospitals.
- Thoughts on randomized controlled trials.
- The excitement around digital therapeutics.
- EMRs and their adoption by patients during COVID.
- The state of telemedicine and what the future might hold for it.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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SaaS Growth, Product Management, Retention, Flywheels: Behind the Paywall with Lenny Rachitsky Nov 05, 2020

Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan), creator of Lenny’s Newsletter and a former PM at Airbnb, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The best bottom-up SaaS metrics to track and why these companies are so sought-after right now.
- What separates great bottom-up strategies from the rest.
- How to think about when to hire your first PM.
- How to increase retention.
- How to think about strategy.
- How to increase your conversion rate.
- How to evaluate marketplaces.
- How to create effective flywheels.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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All Things Communities with Jacob Peters Nov 03, 2020

Jacob Peters (@J__Cub), co-founder of Commsor, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- What makes a great community.
- The difference between a community and a network.
- How to get a community off the ground.
- Phases of communities and how to scale them.
- How companies can build community.
- How to think about monetization of a community.
- His investing thesis around communities and his requests for startups.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Counteracting Climate Change with Carbon Removal with Nan Ransohoff and Ryan Orbuch of Stripe Nov 01, 2020

Nan Ransohoff (@nanransohoff) and Ryan Orbuch (@orbuch), who are leading the climate initiative at Stripe, join Erik to discuss:
- Stripe’s climate change initiative and how it came to be.
- Why they are focusing on carbon removal.
- The technologies that they are looking at.
- What they’ve learned about negative emissions.
- Their requests for action in the space.
- How investors should be looking at these fields and the areas that would be most interesting to them.
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Europe’s Entrepreneurial Ecosystem with Erika Batista and Gonz Sanchez Oct 29, 2020

Erika Batista (@erikabatista) and Gonz Sanchez (@gonsanchezs), of On Deck join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How the European startup scene has changed and evolved over time.
- Fragmentation in tech in Europe.
- Barriers to more people starting companies and how they are being removed.
- Cultural differences between Europe and other geographies.
- What they see as the secret sauce of San Francisco.
- Plans for OnDeck in Europe.
- Sectors and companies in Europe that are exciting.
- What they would change in Europe if they could wave a wand.
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Getting Started with No-Code and Building in Public with Karthik Puvvada Oct 27, 2020

Karthik Puvvada (@thisiskp_), director of On Deck’s No-Code Fellowship, joins Erik to discuss:
- How he got into no-code and how the space has evolved.
- Why he has been building in public and how it has helped him.
- What is holding back the no-code movement from having wider adoption.
- Why no-code is moving past the concerns about reliability and scaling that it has had in the past.
- How investors should approach the space, and the requests for startups that he has.
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Working in Public with Nadia Eghbal Oct 24, 2020

Nadia Eghbal (@nayafia) of Substack joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The background of her book, Working in Public, and the “why now” for it.
- What she’s learned about open source that can be applied to other areas.
- Shifts that she’d like to see in the internet.
- The evolution of thinking around democracy in the world.
- Governance in companies and countries.
- Narratives in tech and the negative attention tech has received recently.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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Privacy and Security for Early-Stage Startups with Shrav Mehta Oct 22, 2020

Shrav Mehta (@shravvmehtaa), founder and CEO of Secureframe, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How he navigated the idea maze to start Secureframe.
- The problem the company is solving.
- Thoughts on recruiting as a space.
- How thinking on privacy has changed over the years.
- Where he’s excited in education.
- How he learns about new spaces.
- Why marketing is getting more technical.
- How to think about marketing and sales in an early-stage startup.
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Reimagining Collaboration For Designers and Developers with Dani Grant of Jam Oct 19, 2020

Dani Grant (@thedanigrant), co-founder at Jam, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How she came to start Jam, the product, and the problem that it’s solving.
- How she navigated the idea maze.
- Why now is the right time for a product like Jam.
- Different waves of collaboration tools.
- The future of the company.
- Where there is whitespace in collaboration tools and where she’d be investing today.
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The Past, Present, and Future of the NBA with Dan Barto Oct 18, 2020

Dan Barto of IMG Academy joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How the game of basketball has evolved over the last few decades.
- What the next changes in the game should be, and will be.
- How coaching has changed over time.
- How team strategy and composition will evolve.
- Players building brands and businesses on their own outside of the NBA.
- Whether the players could start their own league and whether they should own more equity in the business.
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Greg Isenberg on the World of Opportunity in Consumer Social Oct 15, 2020

Greg Isenberg (@gregisenberg), founder of Late Checkout, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How COVID has impacted the space and how it changes what is possible.
- Where the opportunities and white space are in consumer social.
- The possibilities for social experiences based around sports.
- Why there is a plenty of room for many more social apps.
- The potential for future dating apps.
- Why there are plenty of social apps that didn’t work out from 2005-2018 that could still work.
- His advice for creating consumer social experiences.
- How to turn an audience to a community and the dos and don’ts for community-building.
- How to monetize a community.
Airtime Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46-q5fomh_U
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRXBMx4BPWU
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
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When Engineers Run Venture with Jake Ellowitz and Alex Chee Oct 13, 2020

Alex Chee (@alexnchee) and Jake Ellowitz (@wakkadojo), who help run product and engineering at Tribe Capital, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How the product and engineering-oriented mindset at Tribe impacts their investing and why it forms part of their investment thesis.
- The different incentives within a firm and how this creates new approaches.
- Lessons learned from their time at Social Capital.
- Products they’ve built at Tribe and how they’ve helped with the investment process.
- Why other firms haven’t done this so far.
- How their team interfaces with other companies and firms.
- Their philosophy at the firm.
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Redesigning School for Students To Thrive with Rebecca Kaden of USV and Garrett Smiley of Sora Schools Oct 10, 2020

Garrett Smiley (@gw_smiles), co-founder of Sora Schools, and Rebecca Kaden (@rebeccakaden), investor at USV, join special guest host Anne Dwane (@adwane), co-founder and partner at Village Global, on this episode.
They discuss:
- The story of how Sora Schools came about and how they plan to create the best high school in the world.
- How Rebecca and USV evaluated the business.
- Why a new model for education is needed today.
- The role of a school in the 21st century and the importance of community.
- What it was like fundraising during a pandemic.
- Other needs and problems that provide opportunities for entrepreneurs in the education space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

A Deep Dive on Cannabis with Karan Wadhera of Casa Verde Oct 08, 2020

Karan Wadhera (@karanw), managing partner at Casa Verde Capital, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The evolution of the space and how it has changed over the last several years.
- The different types of companies in the space and who they have been investing in.
- Who the winners might be in the delivery space.
- The biggest companies that have emerged over the last few years.
- His requests for startups in the space.
- How the perception of cannabis is changing in culture and the impacts of that change on investing.
- Global and geographic differences in space within the US and around the world.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Building Mind-Controlled Bionic Arms with Tyler Hayes Oct 06, 2020

Tyler Hayes (@thetylerhayes), CEO of Atom Limbs, joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- His mission to create mind-controlled bionic arms at Atom Limbs.
- How the company came to be.
- What enables this technology at this point in time.
- How the tech transfer process works from university to commercial application.
- Lessons learned on commercializing something like this.
- The bottlenecks to innovation in the area.
- Why he is intent on curing death.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Untold History of the Internet with Chris Castiglione Oct 04, 2020

Chris Castiglione (@castig), co-founder of One Month, adjunct professor at Columbia, and author of a new book on decentralization called The Untold History of the Internet.
- Why the launch of the Sputnik satellite spurred the creation of the internet.
- The early days of the internet as a publicly funded program.
- Why innovation has moved from government to private industry over the decades.
- How decentralization became part of the ethos of the internet and why that has changed over time.
- How data network effects led to the oligopolies seen among internet companies and whether this could have been different.
- Recommendation engines and their effects on how we find truth.
- How he would reform the regulation of the internet.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Investing During the Global Crisis with Alfred Chuang and Chris McCann of Race Capital Oct 01, 2020

Alfred Chuang and Chris McCann (@mccannatron) of Race Capital joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Where they were investing during COVID and how to find opportunities in a crisis.
- Where they’re excited in the crypto space in 2020.
- Thoughts on valuations and why they have remained high.
- IPOs, SPACs, and the Long-Term Stock Exchange.
- Why they’re not concerned about a bubble.
- How the enterprise space has evolved over time.
- Their take on remote and how COVID will change how companies operate.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Elad Gil and Kevin Hartz on Angel Investing, SPACs, and The Evolution of Venture Sep 29, 2020

Elad Gil (@eladgil), entrepreneur and investor, and Kevin Hartz (@kevinhartz), investor and co-founder of Eventbrite, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What they think is special about each other’s investing abilities.
- How certain people are able to stay relevant in every investing cycle.
- Kevin’s latest venture and the path he took to start it.
- SPACs and their advantages.
- How to find your own angel investing style.
- How venture will change in the next ten years.
- Elad’s COVID investment thesis.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Keith Rabois and Jacob Helberg on The US-China Cold War, The Election, and Silicon Valley Sep 27, 2020

Keith Rabois (@rabois), partner at Founders Fund, and Jacob Helberg (@jacobhelberg), senior advisor at Stanford Cyber, adjunct fellow at CSIS, and formerly of Google, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Why the US is indeed in a cold war with China.
- The roles of DC and Silicon Valley in this new cold war.
- The reasons for the foreign policy establishment’s dovishness on China.
- How economic foreign policy became decoupled from national foreign policy.
- TikTok, and how tech and geopolitics will intersect in the future.
- How the election might play out.
- SPACs and how going public will change in the next 12-24 months.
- The impact of COVID on valuations in public and private markets.
- How COVID impacts remote work and Silicon Valley.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Building and Investing in Social Entertainment Products For Gen Z with Sacha Lazimi and François Meteyer Sep 24, 2020

Sacha Lazimi (@SachaLaz), co-founder and CEO of Yubo, and François Meteyer (@FrancoisMeteyer), partner at Alven, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The founding of Yubo and the philosophy behind the app.
- What differentiates Gen Z from other generations.
- The future of social networks.
- Lessons for founders building in this space for this audience.
- The future of entertainment, media, and gaming, and where the investment opportunities are.
- The future of Yubo.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Investing in SaaS and Digital Marketplaces with Point Nine Capital Sep 22, 2020

Erik is joined on this episode by Ricardo Sequerra (@ric0seq), Pawel Chudzinski (@pawell), Christoph Janz (@chrija), and Louis Coppey (@louicop), partners at Point Nine Capital.
They discuss:
- The background of the fund and how it got started.
- Their journeys in venture so far.
- Why they have an equal partnership and how to think about when that arrangement works for a firm.
- How SaaS has evolved over the last several years.
- Which large companies might be disrupted by SaaS startups.
- Opportunities in vertical SaaS.
- How machine learning changes the landscape.
- How their thesis on digital marketplaces has evolved and why B2B SaaS is a large market.
- Other spaces they are interested in.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Silicon Valley, Libertarianism, and Lessons From Uber with Flo Crivello Sep 20, 2020

Flo Crivello (@altimor), former product manager and engineer at Uber, and now starting his next thing, joins Erik to discuss:
- Lessons he learned at Uber, and what he might have done differently if he were in charge of strategy.
- How transportation is evolving and who the winners in the space might be.
- Why the decentralized model works at Uber.
- What people misunderstand about the history of tech and Silicon Valley.
- Whether egalitarianism is eating the world.
- Libertarianism, government, and progress.
- His thoughts on Twitter and thinking in public.
- His book reviews and explanations of why several books in particular are powerful.
- The differences between France and the USA and why they have persisted.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Lessons From Building Shyp and Airhouse with Kevin Gibbon Sep 17, 2020

Kevin Gibbon (@kevingibbon), co-founder of Airhouse and formerly co-founder of Shyp, joins Erik on this episode. Airhouse provides modern, all-in-one ecommerce operations for direct-to-consumer companies.
They discuss:
- Kevin’s entrepreneurial journey and how he came to start Airhouse.
- Lessons learned from founding Shyp.
- Why entrepreneurs need to be clear about whether they are building a business that is truly VC-backable.
- COVID’s implications for ecommerce and which changes endure post-COVID.
- Which subspaces in DTC are more likely to be successful than others.
- How to start a DTC brand and how Airhouse helps.
- Why it’s so difficult to start a DTC brand these days.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

How To Start and Grow a Podcast with David Perrell, Jeff Umbro, and Sachit Gupta Sep 15, 2020

Erik is joined on this episode by:
- David Perrell (@david_perell), of North Star Podcast
- Jeff Umbro (@jeffumbro), of Podglomerate
- Sachit Gupta (@sachitgupta), of Conscious Creators
They discuss:
- Why you should start a podcast.
- How to get a podcast off the ground.
- Why having one gives you access to people you wouldn’t otherwise have access to.
- Monetization models and the merits of each of them.
- How to ask better questions and the art of good conversation.
- How to grow your podcast over time.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The State of Innovation Systems with Ben Reinhardt Sep 13, 2020

Ben Reinhardt (@Ben_Reinhardt), independent researcher and host of Idea Machines Podcast, joins Erik to discuss:
- Why we don’t have more cool science fiction-like technology in the world.
- Why there hasn’t been as much innovation or progress as humanity had hoped for.
- How venture should evolve to increase innovation.
- The challenges posed by system decay.
- The way out of overregulation.
- How to fix government grants.
- How China balances innovation and regulation and how that compares to the US.
- The challenges relating to intellectual property.
- Where he agrees or disagrees with other thinkers in the space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Startup Ideas, Finding a Co-Founder, and Lessons From Dropbox with Aston Motes Sep 10, 2020

Aston Motes (@__aston__), first employee at Dropbox and executive director at /dev/color, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an On Deck Fellowship event.
They discuss:
- The story of how he became the first employee at Dropbox.
- What he learned at the company and how he approached helping to set the culture there.
- How to sell talent on joining your company.
- His frameworks for thinking about startup ideas.
- The possibilities for “bank shot” ideas.
- How to think about finding a co-founder.
- What he looks for in founding teams as an investor.
- Insights on the music industry.
- How to know when it’s time to shut down your startup.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Fintech, Consumer Social, and Transportation with Andy Johns Sep 08, 2020

Andy Johns (@ibringtraffic), investor at Unusual Ventures, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- His thoughts on transportation at short distances and the business model problem that these companies face.
- Where his thinking is at with respect to opportunities in consumer social today.
- His thoughts on low-code and no-code.
- Why he’s interested in fintech and what a financial social network might look like.
- Other areas in fintech that are interesting.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Evaluating Social Capital with Julian Lehr Sep 06, 2020

Julian Lehr (@lehrjulian) of Stripe joins Erik on this episode. He is the author of the blog post Signalling as a Service.
- The background of the post and why he wrote it.
- Signalling as a framework and his breakdown of the component parts.
- Why there is very little luxury software.
- How this intersects with Eugene Wei’s idea of status as a service.
- How monetization and signal amplification works in digital products.
- His requests for startups in the area.
- The next topics that he’s thinking about in the space.
- His thoughts on reputation and financial capital.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Fintech 2.0 and Post-COVID Fintech Trends with Alexa von Tobel and Mark Batsiyan Sep 03, 2020

Alexa von Tobel (@alexavontobel) and Mark Batsiyan (@mbatny) of Inspired Capital join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What fintech 2.0 will look like and their experiences growing a company during the fintech 1.0 era.
- The idea of the self-driving wallet and removing friction for consumers.
- Their investment thesis and the trends they are seeing in fintech.
- How incumbents will react to changes and why they will be just as acquisitive.
- The impact of COVID on fintech.
- How Gen Z thinks about finances.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Institutional Investing in Crypto with Marcos Veremis and David Fauchier Sep 01, 2020

Marcos Veremis, managing director at Evanston Capital Management, and David Fauchier (@dfauchier), CIO at Cambrial Capital, join Erik to discuss:
- How they became interested in crypto.
- How institutions have approached the space.
- How the space has evolved.
- Bitcoin as a store of value in the current market environment.
- The impact of COVID on crypto.
- Crypto investment strategies.
- Why generalist VCs have so far not been able to make good investments in the space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Progress, Cities, and Biotech with Anirudh Pai Aug 30, 2020

Erik is joined by Anirudh Pai (@ani_pai), co-founder of the Conservative Curious podcast and creator of the Dreams of Electric Sheep newsletter.
They discuss:
- Why people don’t crave scientific advancement.
- What the postmodern solution to the desire to be part of religion might look like.
- What “the iPhone moment for cities” might look like.
- His thoughts on stagnation.
- His analysis of Thiel’s idea that “every bubble is a commentary on capitalism.”
- The state of biotech and the future of the FDA post-COVID.
- Why COVID will be an accelerant for crypto.
- His thoughts on the space industry.
- Why he thinks that moreso than “it’s time to build,” it’s time to tinker.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

How To Start and Grow a Newsletter with Lenny Rachitsky and Nadia Eghbal Aug 27, 2020

Nadia Eghbal (@nayafia), of Substack, and author of Working in Public, and Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan), author of a newsletter on product and growth and former Airbnb PM, join Erik on this episode to discuss:
- The On Deck Writer’s Fellowship in partnership with Substack.
- The evolution of newsletters as a medium over time.
- Nadia and Lenny’s journeys on Substack.
- Their advice for people who want to get started writing their own newsletters.
- How they think about what to write about and the right cadence for their newsletters.
- How to improve as a writer.
- How to think about pricing.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

How To Get Started Angel Investing with Nick Caldwell, Sheel Mohnot, and Anne Dwane Aug 25, 2020

Erik is joined by:
- Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi), fintech seed investor
- Nick Caldwell (@nickcald), VP of Engineering at Twitter and angel investor
- Anne Dwane (@adwane), partner at Village Global
To discuss:
- The craft of angel investing.
- How Village Global is trying to decentralize VC with its Network Leader program.
- The benefits of the On Deck Angel Fellowship.
- Nick and Sheel’s journeys to becoming angel investors.
- Why networks appreciate over time.
- The advice they would give to people getting started angel investing.
- Their thought processes around making investments.
- How they think about improving as an investor.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

History Has Begun with Bruno Maçães Aug 23, 2020

Bruno Maçães (@MacaesBruno), author of History Has Begun: The Birth of a New America, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What people don’t appreciate or misunderstand about China.
- His thoughts on Fukuyama.
- The west as a culture exporter.
- Why this moment is a fork in the road for America and how it might play out for the country.
- Twitter as a virtual reality platform.
- How tech will transform society.
- Whether a decentralized future will lead to more freedom.
- Whether the state can be replaced by smart contracts.
- What the legacy of COVID in society might be.
- Some of the thinkers that he admires and where he agrees or disagrees with them.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Building A New Model For Higher Education with Stephen Kosslyn Aug 20, 2020

Stephen Kosslyn (@skosslyn), president and Chief Academic Officer at Foundry College, joins Erik to discuss:
- The current challenges in traditional academia.
- When the purpose of universities changed from teaching to research.
- What he’s working on at Foundry and how it’s differentiated from others in the space.
- His requests for startups in education.
- Why a community connection is important in learning.
- What outsiders don’t realize or appreciate about the dynamics in universities.
- Why the cost of education has gone up so much.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The State of Universities in 2020 with Noah Smith Aug 18, 2020

Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) of Bloomberg joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- Whether the current version of college as a “high tuition summer camp” can be sustained.
- How universities will attract students.
- Where he disagrees with Tyler Cowen on college.
- How college has evolved over time.
- How college will be unbundled.
- Whether there will be corporate universities.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Progress Studies in 2020 with Jason Crawford Aug 16, 2020

Jason Crawford (@jasoncrawford), author of The Roots of Progress, joins Erik to discuss:
- The key aspects of human progress.
- The history of progress over time.
- Whether we’ve traded off progress for safety.
- Why the idea of progress is relatively new.
- What the nature of science fiction writing tells us about our vision for progress.
- Why progress happens differently in different domains.
- How to think about safety with respect to new technologies.
- The impacts of slowing population growth.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Investing in Healthcare in 2020 with Niko Skievaski and Nikita Singareddy Aug 13, 2020

Niko Skievaski (@niko_ski), founder and president of Redox, and Nikita Singareddy (@singareddynm), investor at RRE Ventures, join Erik to discuss:
- How regulation has changed the landscape in healthcare.
- How to figure out what the the next wave in healthcare will be.
- Why in the past government regulation has pulled technology into the present that wasn’t ready.
- The biggest trends in healthcare now.
- Where they would be investing if they were running a fund focused on the space.
- What it takes to be successful in healthcare.
- The state of the EHR space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Everything You Need To Know About SPACs with Anuj Abrol Aug 11, 2020

Anuj Abrol (@nujabrol), founder of Witty Wealth and formerly Chief of Staff at Atrium, joins Erik to discuss:
- Why public stock activity has surged, especially among young people.
- A primer on SPACs and their advantages and disadvantages.
- Direct listings vs. IPOs vs. SPACs.
- Why Slack is such a polarizing company.
- Why there is dissatisfaction with roboadvisors.
- The role of memes in public investing.
- Whether there will be more new betting markets.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The State of Charter Cities in 2020 with Mark Lutter Aug 09, 2020

Mark Lutter (@MarkLutter), founder and executive director of the Charter City Institute, joins Erik.
They discuss:
- The key factors that make countries successful or prosperous.
- The different schools of thought on charter cities.
- What the key factors to get right with a charter city are.
- What Silicon Valley understands and misunderstands about charter cities.
- Why there are few true entrepreneurs in the US anymore.
- His thoughts on Balaji Srinivasan’s ideas about charter cities.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The State of Prediction Markets and Crypto in 2020 with Joey Krug Aug 06, 2020

Joey Krug (@joeykrug), founder of Augur and partner at Pantera Capital, joins Erik to discuss:
- How prediction markets have evolved over time.
- An update on the state of Augur.
- The types of things that people are betting on using prediction markets.
- How to address some of the barriers to prediction markets becoming more widespread.
- The current state of crypto, including smart contracts and stablecoins.
- Whether crypto can disrupt VC.
- Thoughts on ISAs.
- The state of crypto funds.
- Where Web3 will take hold and where it won’t.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Building Startups in the New Normal, Supporting Founders Using a Beginner's Mind with Steve Jang Aug 04, 2020

Erik's chat with founder/angel-turned-VC, @stevejang of @kindredventures, about supporting founders at seed and how building startups has changed in this cycle:
- using a beginner’s mind
- importance of creativity & taste in startups
- no-code and democratizing access
- marketplaces and community-ownership
- a post-smartphone computing paradigm
- post-COVID themes
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Past, Present, and Future of the US-China Relationship with Tanner Greer Aug 02, 2020

Tanner Greer (@Scholars_Stage), author of the Scholars Stage blog, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The differences in perspectives between east and west.
- Why China didn’t liberalize as it got more prosperous.
- How the US’s foreign policy should have been different in the past with respect to China.
- Why people are becoming more hawkish on China.
- His thoughts on Twitter.
- His thoughts on “it’s time to build.”
- How he would renew liberalism.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Unbundling Professorship with Justin Murphy Jul 30, 2020

Justin Murphy (@jmrphy), full-stack professor, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The current problems with academia.
- Challenges that universities are facing today.
- Why teaching should be disaggregated or unbundled.
- The full-stack professor setup.
- What changes if five years from now professors start going D2C.
- His thoughts on Rene Girard and other philosophers.
- How to improve capitalism’s ability to provide for everyone in society.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The State and Future of Education in 2020 with Megan O’Connor Jul 28, 2020

Megan O’Connor (@MeganMOConnor), entrepreneur-in-residence at Kaplan, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The recent waves of innovation in education.
- How college and K-12 evolve post-COVID.
- What will have changed about education in the next 5-10 years.
- Whether she would bet on solutions inside or outside of the existing education system.
- The future of ISAs.
- What the new wave will be in education.
- Whether big companies like Facebook or Google will create their own universities.
- Whether the mechanics of video games can be applied successfully to learning.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Science, Innovation, and Longevity with Jose Luis Ricón Fernández de la Puente Jul 26, 2020

Jose Luis Ricón Fernández de la Puente (@ArtirKel) joins Erik on this episode. He is currently at Twitter and is a researcher in several areas including the science of longevity.
They discuss:
- How science funding works currently and how it would work if he was redesigning the system.
- Whether progress in science is slowing down.
- His thoughts on GDP and how we measure innovation.
- Whether the FDA is too restrictive or too permissive.
- Healthcare costs in the USA, treatments with marginal benefits, and how a publicly-funded system triages patients.
- How to fight aging and improve longevity.
- The cultural problem with longevity research.
- Challenges and opportunities in education and potential solutions.
- His production function and why he puts bounties on his papers for others to find mistakes.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Silicon Valley and the US-China Cold War with Jacob Helberg Jul 23, 2020

Jacob Helberg (@jacobhelberg), senior advisor at Stanford Cyber, adjunct fellow at CSIS, and formerly of Google, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The competition between the US and China.
- The biggest misconceptions that people have about China.
- Common disagreements or unanswered questions about the competition between the two countries.
- Why the principle that as countries become richer they also become freer didn’t pan out in China.
- What to do about TikTok.
- Possibilities for re-shoring and how different tech companies might be affected.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Investing in Chinese Companies with Eric Rosenblum Jul 21, 2020

Eric Rosenblum, partner at Tsingyuan Ventures, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- US-China relations.
- The differences between the internet markets in the US and China.
- The (potential) rise of deep tech and which spaces Eric is excited about.
- Why the commercial rivalry between the US and China has formed the core of the anxiety about China in the US.
- The new wave of companies with Chinese co-founders operating in China but headquartered in the US.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Journalism, Subscriptions, and Podcasting with Li Jin and Nathan Baschez Jul 19, 2020

Li Jin (@ljin18), formerly of a16z and founder of a new firm called Atelier, and Nathan Baschez (@nbashaw), writer of Divinations and co-founder of the Everything bundle, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Where they would be investing if they were running a fund focused on the space.
- The first wave of content companies and the lessons that have been learned from them.
- The key learnings of the last decade for media businesses.
- The future of journalism and journalists.
- The impact of subscription models on the content of a writer’s work.
- Aggregation models for writing.
- Podcasting, including whether there will be a unicorn in the space and the future of subscription podcasts.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

What Dan Romero Thinks About Basically Everything Jul 16, 2020

Dan Romero (@dwr), formerly of Coinbase, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Why startup titles are an unnecessary distraction.
- The lessons he learned from scaling Coinbase.
- Some of the best books he’s read.
- What he learned from his deep dive on communism and why socialism seems popular with young people today.
- What people don’t appreciate about the history of technology.
- His thoughts on crypto.
- Where he agrees or disagrees with prominent Silicon Valley figures.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Technology and Freedom with Michael Solana Jul 14, 2020

Mike Solana (@micsolana), of Founders Fund, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What brought him to Founders Fund.
- Collectivism versus individualism.
- How to make capitalism cool.
- Where to find a philosophy of morality.
- Climate change, altering nature, and nuclear power.
- Thoughts on AI, AR, and VR.
- The problems with San Francisco and why tech workers are leaving.
- How the tech industry can make the world better for everybody in society.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Mark Pincus on Product Management, Raising Capital, and Building Zynga Jul 12, 2020

Mark Pincus (@markpinc) joined us last summer in San Francisco for a town hall with Ben Casnocha, co-founder and partner at Village Global.
Mark is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Zynga, and is an angel investor in Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and other companies.
He talked about about raising venture capital, his philosophy of product management, the early days at Zynga, and much more.
He also took time at the event to meet with Village Global founders to give them his advice on growing their companies.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Lessons from Founding and Scaling Thumbtack with Sander Daniels Jul 09, 2020

Sander Daniels (@sanderdaniels), co-founder of Thumbtack, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of the OnDeck Fellowship.
They discuss:
- The origin story of Thumbtack and how he came together with his co-founders.
- How he went from a founder to an executive and the advice that his coaches gave him.
- His advice on the idea generation process.
- The biggest challenges that they faced.
- How they built supply as a marketplace.
- The key moments in their growth trajectory.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Future of Journalism, Religion, and Polarization with Katherine Boyle Jul 07, 2020

Katherine Boyle (@KTmBoyle), investor at General Catalyst, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Katherine’s piece in the Washington Post about religion and how software can help transform it.
- Polarization in society, politics, news, and the end of the fairness doctrine.
- Journalists as free agents and why she says subscription will be the future of good journalism.
- Why any institution that has existed for a long time is being questioned now.
- Whether there will be increasing uniformity of political views within companies.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Investing in B2B Marketplaces with Kent Bennett and Dhruv Jain Jul 05, 2020

Dhruv Jain (@groovyydhruvy) and Kent Bennett (@kentbennett) of Bessemer join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Why B2B marketplaces version 1.0 didn’t work and how version 2.0 can succeed.
- How to make a vertical marketplace work.
- Shifts happening in industries that are using older technologies to transact.
- Specific sub-sectors they are looking to invest in and which they find most interesting.
- How they analyze different verticals and the key dimensions they look at.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Finding The Right Idea, Co-Founder, and Early Employees with Sean Linehan Jul 02, 2020

Sean Linehan (@seanlinehan), co-founder and CEO of Placement, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an OnDeck Fellowship event.
They discuss:
- How he navigated the idea maze after leaving Flexport before founding Placement.
- How to know when the time is right for your idea.
- Early experimentation with an idea and why you need customers, employees, and investors to all be excited about it.
- How to find the right co-founder.
- His advice on hiring at the earliest stages.
- His philosophy on compensation for early hires, including how to think about equity.
- How to think about competition, product-market fit, and moats.
- How the labor market is changing.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Evaluating Markets and Picking Startup Ideas with Charles Hudson Jun 30, 2020

Charles Hudson, founder of Precursor, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded live as part of an OnDeck Fellowship event.
They discuss:
- How he decides what to invest in.
- Why he says that he is often “looking for good ideas that initially look like bad ideas.”
- Why he has “an allergy to top-down market assessments.”
- How entrepreneurs should think about margins.
- Advice for founders working in frontier tech.
- Whether he invests based on the entrepreneur or on the idea.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Investing in Fighting Climate Change with Dani Grant and Landon Brand Jun 28, 2020

Landon Brand of Wren (@project_wren) and Dani Grant (@thedanigrant) of USV, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Dani’s deep dive on the climate crisis and which solutions might be able to help.
- Requests for startups in the space and where they would be investing if they were running a fund focused on climate change.
- Why cleantech is worth investing in now after the bust in the late 2000s.
- Opportunities for investment in different types of power producers.
- How Wren can become a billion dollar company.
- How carbon-consciousness is spreading throughout businesses and society.
- The role of government and the key disagreements about the direction to take to address climate change.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Cleantech, Globalization, and Climate Change with Ramez Naam Jun 25, 2020

Ramez Naam (@ramez), author of the Nexus series, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The arc of his career and what drove him to work on what he did.
- Why clean energy didn’t realize its potential in the 2000s and why now is a good time to invest in clean energy.
- His market map of opportunities in clean energy and the impact on the space that Moore’s Law is having.
- The influence of Kevin Kelly and Robert Wright on his thinking.
- The future of globalization.
- How to reconcile egalitarianism and meritocracy.
- The state of climate change.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World with Yancey Strickler Jun 23, 2020

Yancey Strickler (@ystrickler), co-founder of Kickstarter and author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World, joins Erik on this episode.
The discuss:
- His experience working on Kickstarter and what he realized about the power of the profit motive in an early-stage company.
- His vision of the world if the ideas from his book become widespread.
- The possibilities for co-op arrangements online and how to organize to ensure that people creating value for a network are the ones capturing that value.
- Why he’s a believer in tech and why he hopes that the power of tech can be used to deliver critical goods rather than to serve ads.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The State of Consumer in 2020 with Jeff Morris Jr. and Henry McNamara Jun 21, 2020

Jeff Morris Jr., founder of Chapter One, and Henry McNamara (@henrylmcnamara) of Great Oaks VC join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The reasons for the change in the D2C market and why companies that were part of “D2C 1.0” would have a hard time scaling today.
- Which spaces they’re excited about and where they’ve been investing.
- Trends and possibilities in consumer social.
- Industries where they see opportunities, including in CBD and consumer fintech.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Lessons From Building a Direct-To-Consumer Insurance Startup with Mike Rudoy and Luke Cohler Jun 18, 2020

Mike Rudoy (@mrudoy) and Luke Cohler (@ljcohler) of Jetty join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The story of founding Jetty and how they got to where they are today.
- The problems around rent affordability in the US and how they’re solving those issues.
- The evolution of insurance over the last two decades and what enabled the changes.
- Where they would be investing if they were running a fund focused on the space.
- How they think about the market and the most appropriate business model differently from other companies.
- How insurance will have changed in 5-10 years from now.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Growth Strategies For Early-Stage Companies with Fareed Mosavat and Jeff Chang Jun 16, 2020

Fareed Mosavat (@far33d), EIR at Reforge and former director of product at Slack, and Jeff Chang (@jeffchang30), growth engineering lead at Pinterest and angel investor, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What’s changed in growth over the last several years.
- How to think about product-market fit and when to start investing in growth.
- Which metrics to pay attention to and which to ignore.
- How to think about payback periods, LTV, and CAC.
- How founders should think about acquisition channels.
- Common misconceptions that founders have about growth.
- How to think about SEO and referrals.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

A Clinic on All Things Sales with Peter Kazanjy Jun 11, 2020

Peter Kazanjy (@Kazanjy), co-founder of Atrium and author of Founding Sales, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The difference between selling to SMBs versus large organizations.
- How founders should think about sales as their company grows and evolves.
- Common mistakes that people make when growing their sales organization.
- What differentiates companies who scale sales successfully versus those who don’t.
- How to think about pricing models.
- How to measure the effectiveness of your sales team.
- How to think about compensation for salespeople.
- The best resources he recommends for learning about sales.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Unbundling Journalism with Chris Best of Substack Jun 04, 2020

Chris Best (@cjgbest), co-founder and CEO of Substack, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss:
- How the idea for Substack came about and the early days of the company.
- How the internet has impacted media and journalism.
- How the world changes if Substack is successful.
- How they are enabling journalists to “go independent.”
- The implications of the subscription model.
- What’s been most popular on Substack and what has surprised him.
- How they are thinking about aggregation and distribution.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Unbundling of Religion with Meera Clark and Annie Kadavy Jun 02, 2020

Annie Kadavy (@akad), of Redpoint, and Meera Clark (@itsmeeraclark), of Obvious Ventures, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The trends behind increasing loneliness and the decline of religion.
- Where they’re looking to invest.
- Why they’re interested in the mental health space.
- Why we should have more new social apps by now.
- Investing possibilities in online dating.
- How all of this changes in a post-COVID world.
The final deadline for applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

All Things Growth in a COVID World with Mike Duboe, Dan Hockenmaier, and Dave Weinstein May 31, 2020

Mike Duboe (@mduboe) of Greylock, Dan Hockenmaier (@danhockenmaier) of Basis One, and Dave Weinstein, also of Basis One, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The impacts of the pandemic on businesses and what will be lasting versus temporary.
- What makes food marketplaces an exciting investment in these times.
- Why there will be a shift away from using data and experimentation in growth teams.
- How to evaluate monetization and a re-thinking of how it interacts with growth.
- The impact of the pandemic on hiring.
- Opportunities in customer acquisition and marketing due to COVID-19.
The final deadline for applications to our Network Catalyst accelerator is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Crypto, ISAs, and VC with Jesse Walden May 28, 2020

Jesse Walden (@jessewldn), formerly of a16z and founder of Variant Fund, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- How he got into crypto.
- What has changed in the space since Bitcoin came out.
- What it means to be an “innovation maximalist.”
- Why he’s excited about co-ops.
- How crypto impacts ISAs and the possibilities for equity to be used where debt currently is.
- What he means when he talks about “crypto-adjacent startups” and their impacts.
- How crypto might change VC.
The final application deadline for our Network Catalyst accelerator is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Future of Wealth Management and Self-Driving Money™ with Chris Hutchins May 26, 2020

Chris Hutchins (@hutchins) of Wealthfront joins Erik to talk about:
- How he became a “huge personal finance nerd.” He tells the story of ordering Domino’s in college and selling it by the slice to earn extra money.
- The history of creating Grove and why Wealthfront was a great fit for them.
- How software is democratizing access to wealth management.
- Passive versus active investing in the time of COVID-19.
- His requests for startups in fintech and where he’s excited in the space.
- What personal finance will look like when their vision of “self-driving money” is achieved.
The final deadline for applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Mike Maples on Navigating the Idea Maze and Building Breakthrough Companies May 24, 2020

Mike Maples (@m2jr), co-founder and partner at Floodgate, joins Erik to talk about:
- Insight hacking as a scientific way to generate insights, including specific steps to take and how to “backcast.”
- The types of inflections that create potentially huge companies.
- How to systematically find those inflections.
- Lessons from founders who have successfully created companies built on inflections.
- Frameworks for thinking through whether a worthwhile company can emerge from a chosen inflection.
- How to lead effectively in the earliest stages through the growth phase.
- Why he says “you don’t want to be the best, you want to be the only.”
- His advice on pitching.
The final deadline for applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Balaji Srinivasan on Navigating the Idea Maze and Finding a Co-Founder May 23, 2020

This episode with Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis) was recorded as part of an OnDeck fellowship session.
They discuss:
- The concept of ikigai and how it can help you plan your next career move.
- How to think about when to leave or join a company, and when to start something of your own.
- How Balaji generates and validates ideas.
- Finding a co-founder and the most important issues to work out before starting a company with them.
- The impacts of COVID-19 on different markets.
The final deadline for applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Bull and the Bear Case for the American Economy with Dan McMurtrie May 21, 2020

Dan McMurtrie (@SuperMugatu) of Tyro Partners joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- His writing on the crisis, how he has analyzed it, and why his view has changed from bearish to bullish.
- The “bottom-up” recovery that’s taking place and all the ways that it might falter.
- What specifically he’s watching for that might change his opinion on the market.
- The impact on politics and society and why he says “it gets weird from here.”
- What Schrodinger’s put means and the implications for the stock market.
- Why he says this reveals the existential problems with the US economy and why he’s bearish on the US over the next twenty years.
The final deadline for applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Future of Higher Education Post-COVID with Lee Edwards May 19, 2020

Lee Edwards (@terronk) of Root Ventures joins Erik on this episode. They discuss:
- The story of how he became interested in the topic.
- His requests for startups in the space.
- The ISA model.
- Which companies he’s interested in in the space.
- Debt financing and possible alternatives.
- Whether it’s possible to build a practical and portfolio-based education in liberal arts.
- Why people remain cost insensitive when it comes to college.
- Whether government should direct more money to education and how that should break down between incumbents and upstarts.
The final deadline for applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

VC and Company-Building in a COVID World with Fred Destin May 17, 2020

Fred Destin (@fdestin), founder of Stride.VC, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What the ideal fund size is in Fred's opinion.
- His thoughts on diversification in venture.
- What his prediction for a possible bounce-back is and why he thinks this is more like '01-'03 than '08-'09.
- Why founders need to reset their mindset in the COVID-19 era.
- Whether there are too many entrepreneurs and if not, how to add more.
- His message for entrepreneurs in this time.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Byrne Hobart on COVID-19 and its Effects on the Financial Markets May 16, 2020

Byrne Hobart (@ByrneHobart), creator of The Diff (diff.substack.com), joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- How have the past few months changed our understanding of institutions and our trust in them
- Is the current environment a win for modern monetary theorists?
- Is the current environment a win or loss for bitcoin maximalists that see the Fed as a huge liability?
- What should the Fed and Congress have done differently?
- Is the government running on autopilot?
- How do we make sense of what’s happening in the stock market?
- Is the stock market dominated by institutional or retail investor sentiment? How should we think about bailouts and stock buybacks?
- Future of Journalism and thoughts on Citizen Journalism
- How will China’s brand evolve over time?
- Byrne’s thoughts on “It’s Time to Build”
- What’s happening with pensions and how do we make sense of it?
- Has COVID accelerated the decline of traditional universities?
- How do we think about the oil markets right now, especially during the asme time as COVID?
- What are the second order effects of COVID?
- Is the stock market pricing in a recession?
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Arnold Kling on Second-Order Effects from COVID-19 May 14, 2020

Arnold Kling (@klingblog), economist and author, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What experts disagree on with respect to COVID-19.
- How Arnold would deal with the pandemic if he was in charge.
- What he would do about lockdowns.
- Where he agrees and disagrees with the government’s fiscal and monetary response to the crisis.
- The difficulty with models predicting cases.
- The effects of the pandemic on globalization, libertarianism, and progressivism.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Understanding The Current Macroeconomic Situation with Scott Sumner May 12, 2020

Scott Sumner, research associate on monetary policy at the Mercatus Center, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What the US has done well and what it has not done well when it comes to fiscal and monetary policy.
- Why there has been a reversal of thinking on inflation between now and decades ago, and his thinking about dealing with inflation.
- Other tools that are available to influence the economy beyond interest rates.
- His thinking on modern monetary theory.
- The future of the economy with social distancing and high unemployment.
- The current debates within the Fed on monetary policy.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Starting a Company in the COVID Era with Ann-Miura Ko May 10, 2020

Ann-Miura Ko (@annimaniac), joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an On Deck Fellowship event.
They discuss:
- Her perspectives on what it was like to start a company in the last several downturns and why this one is different from the others.
- Why they are telling their portfolio companies that they need to be “outlasting, not outspending” their competitors.
- What a “minimal viable company” means and how to avoid “fake growth.”
- What will continue to be different when the pandemic is over.
- Which spaces she’s excited about.
- Her theory on the new social contract emerging between workers and employers.
- How startups should think about competition.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Past, Present, and Future of EdTech with John Danner and Michael Staton May 05, 2020

John Danner (@jwdanner) of Dunce Capital and Michael Staton (@mpstaton) of Learn Capital join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- How EdTech has evolved and the ways that perspectives have changed on the space.
- Their theses about the future of the space and the key challenges that it faces.
- Why the pandemic might be the catalyst for an increase in homeschooling.
- The problems with the current ways that education is delivered and how certain companies are well-positioned to change things for the better.
- Whether there will be an expansion of ISAs to different, more regulated, verticals.
- The challenges that for-profit companies face in education.
- Whether there will be such a thing as a “Walmart University” or “Amazon University.”
- Their requests for startups in the space.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Austen Allred and Rishi Mandal on Turning In-Person Experiences into Digital Form May 03, 2020

Austen Allred (@austen), CEO of Lambda School, and Rishi Mandal (@rmandal), founder of Future, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- How Austen took education that typically happened in person and transformed it into digital form at Lambda School.
- How Rishi is taking fitness training that happened in person and transforming it into digital form with Future.
- What Austen calls the “skeuomorphic” way of translating experiences into digital form and why it doesn’t work.
- How they ensure motivation and accountability on each of their platforms.
- Why relationships with a coach or a teacher are so special and how they can be cultivated digitally.
- How to think about community-building in a digital-only world.
- Why Austen says that it’s important to “compensate for weaknesses by doubling down on strengths.”
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

COVID, Financial Markets, and Bitcoin with Gabe Bassin and Taylor Pearson Apr 30, 2020

Gabe Bassin (@gabebassin) and Taylor Pearson (@TaylorPearsonMe) join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The ins and outs of what each of the fed and treasury are doing at this time.
- The impacts of the pandemic on credit markets and pension systems.
- The disruptions to the demand side and the effects of possible supply-side disruptions.
- How the pandemic exacerbates inequality.
- The impact on Bitcoin and what this says about Austrian economics.
- Whether there’s a bubble in passive investing and the S&P 500 as a savings account.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Creating Tools For Networked Thought with Conor White-Sullivan of Roam Research Apr 28, 2020

Conor White-Sullivan (@Conaw), founder of Roam Research, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What they're working on at Roam and what will be different about the world if they achieves their dreams with the company.
- The different ways of representing the structure of thought and how tools impact thoughts themselves.
- How Roam relates to and is different from Twitter, GitHub, Notion, Quora, and others.
- What it means when he says he wants the product to have a “low floor and a high ceiling” like Excel.
- Some of the current debates in knowledge management and his thoughts on them.
- His requests for tools in the space.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

How COVID Impacts LPs, Venture Funds, and the Macro Environment with Samir Kaji Apr 26, 2020

Samir Kaji (@SamirKaji), managing director at First Republic Bank, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The state of the financial world before COVID and the cracks that Samir saw in the system last year.
- Why this shock is like a “train going 150 miles per hour hitting a brick wall.”
- What venture funds should do in this environment.
- Whether there’s hope for a recovery in the near future, or not — and why this is different than any other previous recession.
- How the behavior of LPs will change and what they will require of fund managers.
- Why he’s been bullish on smaller funds.
- The future of venture and whether there are truly disruptive alternatives to today’s system.
- Why he thinks that the financial world might come out of this in a better place than before.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Future of Direct-To-Consumer in a COVID World with Jesse Genet and Stephan Ango Apr 23, 2020

Jesse Genet (@jessegenet) and Stephan Ango (@kepano), co-founders of Lumi, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- How Lumi works, and how the company changes how a DTC brand does business.
- How community influences the success of DTC brands.
- Which areas within DTC are VC-fundable.
- Where they would be investing if they were running a fund focused on the space.
- What will happen with some of the more obscure consumer products that are sold, and whether they will be sold DTC eventually.
- Who the losers might be among entrenched players.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Andreas Klinger on How To Go Remote Apr 21, 2020

Andreas Klinger (@andreasklinger), head of remote at AngelList and creator of Remote First Capital, joins Erik on this episode. This was recorded as part of an OnDeck session.
They discuss:
- The impact of COVID-19 on remote work and why he says it’s really a “double-edged sword” when it comes to the spread of remote working in the future.
- Whether remote can work for early-stage companies.
- Which types of companies are most suited to remote work.
- What he learned from hiring engineers for Product Hunt five years ago, and what has changed since then.
- Why he says that “most productivity problems have more to do with you than with your team.”
- How to think about comp for remote workers.
- How to be a good interviewer for remote jobs.
- His requests for startups.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Future of Fintech After COVID with Sheel Mohnot and Jayni Shah Apr 19, 2020

Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi) of Better Tomorrow and Jayni Shah (@shahjayni) of Accomplice join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The state of fintech pre-COVID and the high level of activity in the space over the last several years.
- Their thoughts on challenger banks and why they will have a hard time in this environment.
- Which consumer habits will change permanently after the pandemic is over and which companies are best poised to capitalize on those shifts.
- The impact of COVID on SMBs and the startups working with them.
- The trends in fundraising that they’ve seen since the start of the pandemic and the advice they’re giving to founders.
- The impacts on lending, roboadvisors, life insurance, real estate, and more.
- The unique dynamics of fintech in India.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

How COVID-19 is Transforming Digital Health with Kristin Baker Spohn and Deena Shakir Apr 16, 2020

Kristin Baker Spohn (@kbakes) of CRV and Deena Shakir (@deenashakir) of Lux Capital join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What Kristin has noticed about the space after moving from operator to investor.
- How COVID has rapidly accelerated digital health adoption.
- Which spaces and companies they’re more interested in in a post-COVID world.
- Advice for founders trying to sell to large organizations and employers.
- The difference between companies focused on prevention versus treatment.
- The status of data in healthcare and whether it can be a differentiator.
- Other spaces in healthcare that they’re interested in.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

How COVID-19 Impacts Startups and Venture Capital with Ali Hamed and Brent Beshore Apr 14, 2020

Ali Hamed (@AliBHamed), investor at CoVenture, and Brent Beshore (@BrentBeshore), founder and CEO of Permanent Equity, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Their advice for venture firms and companies trying to fundraise in this environment.
- How LPs will change their capital allocations in a post-COVID world.
- Whether it’s a good time to be investing right now or not.
- How this time is different from the 2008 financial crisis.
- How they’re spending their time.
- What will go back to normal in time, and what might not.
- Which spaces will change or accelerate, and where they’re looking at investing.
- The government programs available for startups, and whether startups should be taking advantage of them.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Nir Eyal on His New Book, "Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life" Apr 13, 2020

Nir Eyal (@nireyal), bestselling author of "Hooked" and "Indistractable", joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The psychology behind distraction and discomfort
- The role of willpower and forethought in productivity
- Is willpower a limited resource?
- Why to-do lists backfire
- Becoming indistractable
- Raising indistractable children and forging indistractable relationships
- How you can use technology to prevent technology distraction
- Why do children overuse technology?
- Have smart phones caused increases In teen suicides?
- Nir’s investments in the space
- What is the root of the tech backlash?
Check out Nir's new book "Indistractable"at http://nirandfar.com/Indistractable
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Jo Varshney and Kiran Bellubi on Village Global’s Network Catalyst Accelerator Apr 13, 2020

Village Global co-founder Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) chatted with Jo Varshney (@jo_getter), founder and CEO of VeriSIM Life and Kiran Bellubbi (@smalldozes), founder of Keyo, about their experience with the Village Network Catalyst program.
Jo and Kiran explain what it was like to be a founder in Network Catalyst, including how the team at Village Global helped them with their business model, leveraged Village Global’s unique structure as a network to their advantage, and guided them through the fundraising process.
This is a rebroadcast of a live episode that was recorded at Village Global HQ in San Francisco on June 14 2018. The event was put on in partnership with Xoogler, a network of former Googlers who have come together to help each other with their startup ambitions.
Village Global’s Network Catalyst accelerator is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.

Cultivating More Entrepreneurs For Social Impact with Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck Apr 12, 2020

Matt Clifford (@matthewclifford) and Alice Bentinck (@alicebentinck), co-founders of Entrepreneur First, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What EF is all about and why Matt says that being an entrepreneur is one of the highest-leverage ways to change the world.
- How to do ideation well, and how they think about it differently from traditional VC firms.
- What they’ve learned about good founding teams and what makes a good co-founder match.
- The challenges around changing the culture around entrepreneurship.
- How they think about expansion and what their future will look like.
- How to encourage more people to become founders.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Karan Talati and Keenan Johnson on the Future of Manufacturing Apr 08, 2020

Karan Talati (@ktal90), Co-founder and CEO of First Resonance, and Keenan Johnson (@keenanjohnson), aerospace engineer, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The role of software versus processes in manufacturing innovation
- Why has manufacturing been so slow to innovate and why is now the right time to disrupt it?
- How platform shifts in hardware are changing the way we manufacture products
- The future of manufacturing
- Request for startups in the space
- The role of the public sector in manufacturing
- Are hardware startups compatible with venture funding?
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Building The Berkshire Hathaway of The Internet with Andrew Wilkinson Apr 07, 2020

Andrew Wilkinson (@awilkinson) co-founder of Tiny, joins Erik and co-host David Booth (@david__booth), CEO of OnDeck, on this episode.
They discuss:
- His story of building businesses in high school and how he ended up as the head of a family of 25 different companies with over 400 employees.
- How they think about acquiring or investing in businesses and what they are looking for.
- Where they get their capital.
- How they think about founder liquidity and why they often invest in founders who want to leave the business.
- Where they’re looking to invest and what’s most interesting to them.
- Why they don’t want to be a venture studio.
- How they make sure they have alignment with their CEOs.
- Why private equity is suited to remote work.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

What Life and Startups will Look Like After COVID-19 with Immad Akhund and Jude Gomila Apr 06, 2020

Immad Akhund (@immad), founder and CEO of Mercury, and Jude Gomila (@judegomila), founder and CEO of Golden, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What’s top of mind for them with respect to COVID-19 and the response.
- Decentralized versus centralized approaches to the problem.
- Which underlying problems in American society this has brought to the surface.
- Which trends are going to accelerate because of the pandemic.
- Common mistakes that founders make when fundraising.
- Why it’s important to have balancing forces for certain attributes of the culture at your company.
- Thoughts on futarchy.
- What they disagree on.
Applications for the summer vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are now open! The early decision deadline is May 15th and final deadline is June 5th. Learn more and apply today at www.villageglobal.vc/network-catalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Sahil Lavingia on the Creator Economy, Venture Capital, and Rethinking Success Mar 31, 2020

Sahil Lavingia (@shl), founder and CEO of Gumroad, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The story of starting Gumroad, raising money, and getting featured in the media.
- Going from a twenty person company to a five person company to a single-person company.
- The advice he would give to a younger version of himself if he was starting over again.
- The creator economy and which types of content do well.
- How to think about raising capital.
- Time as a status symbol, the merits of cities, and what it means to “play poker with an open hand.”
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Gaming, Crypto, and Advice For Founders with Gigi Levy-Weiss Mar 29, 2020

Gigi Levy-Weiss (@gigilevy) of NFX joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The history and evolution of gaming and why he’s excited about the space.
- His requests for startups in gaming and what gaming will look like in ten years.
- His thoughts on e-sports and why he’s excited about VR.
- Crypto, blockchain, and how those technologies interface with gaming.
- Why biotech will be transformative and how data and machine learning are enabling new discoveries.
- Common fundraising mistakes that founders make.
- What people misunderstand about product-market fit.
- Startup leadership and what makes a great leader and culture.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

All Things Recruiting with Andy Chen and Jose Guardado Mar 26, 2020

Andy Chen (@andychen), partner at Coatue, and Jose Guardado (https://www.linkedin.com/in/joseguardado/), founder of a new company, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- How hiring has evolved over the last decade.
- Why startups are focusing on recruiting earlier, and hiring people dedicated to the task as some of their earliest employees.
- How to find a co-founder who will work well with you, and how to deal with disagreements between co-founders.
- The most common mistakes made when hiring.
- How to figure out how equity should be distributed between founders and early hires.
- How to source the best candidates at early-stage companies.
- Their best advice for doing reference checks.
- Startups in the talent and recruiting space and potential opportunities for founders.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Ayn Rand, Progress, and Silicon Valley with Jason Crawford and Yaron Brook Mar 24, 2020

This episode was recorded in front of a live audience in January 2020 at Ayn Rand Con. Erik interviewed Jason Crawford and Yaron Brook.
Jason (@jasoncrawford) writes about the history of technology and industry at Roots of Progress.
Yaron (@yaronbrook) is host of The Yaron Brook Show.
They discuss:
- What can destroy — or save — Silicon Valley.
- What Rand would say about Silicon Valley if she could see it today.
- How to reconcile egalitarianism and meritocracy.
- How to make her ideas more mainstream.
- Objectivism, libertarianism, and individualism.
- Progress as a human achievement and how to appreciate it.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Angel-Operator Fund Trend, Building Prosumer Software, and Finding Product-Market Fit with Rahul Vohra and Todd Goldberg Mar 22, 2020

Rahul Vohra (@rahulvohra), founder and CEO of Superhuman, and Todd Goldberg (@toddg777), angel investor, join Erik on this episode. They’ve raised a $7M angel fund together called the Todd and Rahul Angel Fund.
They discuss:
- The nano fund trend, first-time fund operators, and their thinking on fund size.
- How they thought about their next ideas when getting ready to start their companies.
- The spaces they’re most excited about.
- What it means to build “prosumer software” and what Rahul learned from building Superhuman.
- The common mistakes founders make when thinking about product-market fit.
- How to think about raising — and spending — money.
- How to create product experiences that result in flow.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Nick Mehta on The State of SaaS and Customer Success in 2020 Mar 20, 2020

Nick Mehta (@nrmehta), CEO at Gainsight, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- SaaS sub-sectors that Nick is excited about
- Is Customer Success a skillset, function, a software stack?
- What are the most common misconceptions about customer success?
- When should a startup start thinking about the customer success function?
- How do you scale the customer success function?
- What’s the profile of a successful customer success manager?
- How has customer success evolved over the past decade and where is it going?
- Nick’s thoughts on the sales enablement space
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Digital Health and Marketplaces with Angela Tran Mar 17, 2020

Angela Tran (@angelatytran), GP at Version One, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- How digital health is helping to empower consumers.
- The unbundling of healthcare.
- Her requests for startups in healthcare.
- The questions she asks when evaluating marketplace companies.
- Why she looks for marketplace companies that are creating new behaviours for consumers, rather than just unbundling them from their previous providers.
- Her thoughts on fitness, consumer social, and the Toronto Raptors.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

#OpenLP: Platforms, Common Stock, and Disrupting Venture with Alex Bangash Mar 15, 2020

Alex Bangash (@alexbangash), founder of Trusted Insight, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Why and how he wants to disrupt venture.
- How VC is changing and why later stage investing is becoming more private equity-like.
- Why he says common stock is the biggest driver of disruption in the industry now, and why it’s also the most misunderstood.
- The myth of being a great picker in venture.
- If and where data can provide an unfair advantage.
- Why he likes the platform model.
- What he thinks of the nano fund model.
- Trends on the LP side of things, including investing directly in companies.
- How crypto and crowdfunding might disrupt venture in the future.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Building a Venture Firm, Investing Across Stages, and The Future of VC with Amit Mukherjee and Kyle Doherty Mar 12, 2020

Amit Mukherjee (@AmitMukherjee) of NEA and Kyle Doherty (@kydoh) of General Catalyst join Erik on this episode:
They discuss:
- How data is being used in private market investing, how it differs from the approaches used in public markets, and how it will evolve in the future.
- Crossover investing between public and private-oriented firms and why public investors are moving to earlier stages.
- The advantages and disadvantages of going public and whether in the future there will be companies that never go public.
- The importance of founder vs. team vs. market at the early stages versus the later stages.
- Whether VC firms will expand into other specialized practices like real estate, crypto, biotech, and others.
- Their predictions for how VC firms will evolve in the next ten years.
- Their lessons from investing in food companies.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Delian Asparouhov’s Lessons From Keith Rabois Mar 10, 2020

Delian Asparouhov (@zebulgar), principal at Founders Fund, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Delian’s essays on what he’s learned from working with Keith Rabois at Founders Fund, and why he says “osmosis is the best way to learn.”
- How they evaluate talent in general, and specifically founders.
- Why he says that the more technical the company, the better the founder has to be at fundraising and storytelling.
- Why they are more excited about lending these days.
- Companies that help you improve your sleep with personalized solutions.
- What the “business equation” means for a company and Keith’s rules of thumb for figuring out whether it’s viable or not.
- What to look for when interviewing executives, and the difference between value-creating and value-protecting positions.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Shift to Bottom-Up in Enterprise Software with Ajay Agarwal and Kevin Zhang Mar 08, 2020

Ajay Agarwal (@ajay_bcv) and Kevin Zhang (@kevinzhang) of Bain Capital Ventures join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The history of enterprise software and how the way it has been sold has changed over time.
- How SaaS, cloud-based software and changing customer expectations have transformed enterprise software.
- The ways that investors are investing differently in software in a bottom-up world.
- The most interesting places where bottom-up software can go next.
- Why Ajay says that supply chain innovation has been and will be the key to long-term success.
- Some of their requests for startups in the space.
- Predictions for the next 5-10 years.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

What Byrne Hobart Thinks About Everything — Part Two Mar 07, 2020

Byrne Hobart (@ByrneHobart), creator of The Diff (diff.substack.com), joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The fox/hedgehog dichotomy
- Is it better to be a specialist or generalist?
- Do institutions drift leftward over time?
- How will the culture war evolve over time?
- How are financial bubbles created?
- What we can learn from financial bubbles?
- The future of K-12 and higher education
- The future of identity and anonymity
- Why filter bubbles are good
- The future of journalism
- Why we’re polarized
- What should be the role of government and Wall Street?
- The value of social capital and how to think about it
- Are financial bubbles necessary
- The tyranny of the long generation
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

What Byrne Hobart Thinks About Everything — Part One Mar 06, 2020

Byrne Hobart (@ByrneHobart), creator of The Diff (diff.substack.com), joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The role of cost disease in healthcare, education, and construction
- The future of globalization
- Can bitcoin become a reserve asset
- Is Wall Street good for society
- How interest rates will change over the next 5-10 years and the role of negative interest rates
- Mental models for thinking about financial bubbles
- Betting on the future of Silicon Valley
- Reasons for the Tech Lash and how it will evolve over the next decade
- Future of the US-China relationship
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

All Things Marketplaces with Dan Hockenmaier, Casey Winters, and Lenny Rachitsky Mar 05, 2020

Joining Erik on this episode are:
- Dan Hockenmaier (@danhockenmaier), founder of Basis One
- Casey Winters (@onecaseman), Chief Product Officer at Eventbrite
- Lenny Rachitsky (@lennysan), former founder as well as former growth PM at Airbnb
They discuss:
- How marketplaces have evolved over the last several years.
- The trend towards owning more of a user’s experience, and the pros and cons of that approach.
- The possibilities for new vertical marketplaces.
- Where they would be investing if they were running a fund focused on the space.
- Why some of the biggest companies in the space were initially overlooked.
- How to think about building liquidity in a marketplace.
- Some of the interesting debates in the field, and their takes on them.
- The most surprising learnings they’ve had while working in the space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Don Stalter and Ryan Darnell on the Future of Innovation and ISAs Mar 04, 2020

Don Stalter (@westsides) of Global Founders Capital and Ryan Darnell (@ryan_darnell_) of Max Ventures join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Where are the opportunities in the ISA space and the new businesses ISAs will enable
- How ISAs will enable new forms of homeschooling
- The downsides of ISAs
- The evolution of Digital Health and where it’s going
- The evolution of digital commerce
- The potential in the Vertical SaaS space
- The future of U.S. and international innovation
- Long or short Silicon Valley
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Jerry Neumann on Technological Revolutions, Picking Winners, and VC Returns Mar 03, 2020

Jerry Neumann (@ganeumann), founder of Neu Venture Capital, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Carlota Perez’s work and the implications for investors and founders, including what would change if VCs took her ideas seriously.
- What people misunderstand the most about moats.
- Why he wants to invest in situations where there is uncertainty, and what the right kind of uncertainty is.
- Whether you can predict what the next technological revolution will be, and why the predictions themselves end up shaping the future.
- Why he says that the power law distribution in venture is a result of the picking process.
- How he thinks about follow-on investments.
- Venture capital and poker.
- The reasons that the structure of venture funds hasn’t changed.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Daniel Gross and Brett Berson on Breaking Down Common Startup Tropes Mar 01, 2020

Daniel Gross (@danielgross) of Pioneer and Brett Berson (@brettberson) of First Round join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The different types of founders and the different companies they eventually end up building.
- Creating positive feedback loops for aspiring entrepreneurs.
- The psychology of founders, and why at the end of the day they are status and hierarchy maximizers, and why it’s important to find the right hierarchy to maximize within.
- The advice that you can’t truly appreciate until you experience it firsthand.
- The three most harmful structures that keep people from starting companies.
- The best interview questions.
- Why peculiar ways of running a company are celebrated early on, and whether companies succeed because of or in spite of those peculiarities in management.
- Structural changes that could increase the number of founders.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Andreas Klinger on the Future of Remote Work Feb 29, 2020

Andreas Klinger (@andreasklinger), founder of Remote First Capital, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What has led to the rise of remote work
- The recent acceptance of remote work by Silicon Valley VCs
- What companies can now be built because of remote work
- How private equity is driving the transition to remote work
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The State of Biohacking in 2020 with Andy Coravos, Nina Alli, and Beau Woods Feb 28, 2020

Andy Coravos (@AndreaCoravos), Nina Alli (@headinthebooth), and Beau Woods (@beauwoods) join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Software’s role in medical devices and our increasing dependence on it
- What is DEF CON and who attends
- How medical device manufacturers should be working with hackers
- What’s the relationship between regulators and security researchers
- The state of DIY biohacking
- The relationship between the FDA and startups
- What would the FDA look like if you could rebuild it from scratch
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
If you'd like to learn more about the collaborative movement between security researchers and the medical device community, check out https://wehearthackers.org/

What Silicon Valley Doesn’t Get About Hedge Funds with Dan McMurtrie Feb 27, 2020

Dan McMurtrie (@supermugatu), founder of Tyro Partners, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The similarities and differences between hedge funds and venture capital.
- Why “you’re usually competing against yourself” in liquid markets.
- His thoughts on the crypto gold rush in 2016-2017.
- What venture capitalists need to know about short-selling.
- His view of trends in healthcare, housing, and education, and the political implications of those trends.
- Why he’s deeply concerned about the 2024/2028 election cycle.
- How to evaluate management and how to think about leadership styles.
- How to think about risk management when investing.
- His writing on online dating and the future of relationships.
- His thoughts on comedy and why it’s such a powerful medium.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Chris Keller and Ali Hamed on the State of the LP Ecosystem Feb 26, 2020

Ali Hamed (@AliBHamed) of CoVenture and Chris Keller of Moelis Asset Management join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What do LPs look for when investing in venture funds
- How will the LP and VC dynamic shift over time
- Concentration in LP portfolios
- The role of power law in venture capital
- Incentive misalignments for LPs
- How should VCs foster relationships with LPs
- Why hasn’t the VC model been innovated upon much in the past decade
- Will the middleman ever get cut out
- How the LP ecosystem will change in the next decade
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The State and Future of Fintech with Sheel Mohnot and Jake Gibson Feb 25, 2020

Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi), fintech investor, and Jake Gibson (@iamjakestream), co-founder of NerdWallet and Better Tomorrow Ventures, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Why it’s still so hard to start a fintech company.
- The history of retailers moving into financial services, a trend that Sears started back in the day.
- How different categories within fintech have evolved over time and the challenges and opportunities inherent in each of them.
- Why financial education hasn’t worked, why it is likely not to work in the future, and the implications for building personal financial managers.
- Where the opportunities are in the insurance and re-insurance markets.
- Which of the big incumbent tech companies will have made the most progress in the financial space in the next five to ten years.
- Their requests for startups.
- How the space will look different in the next five years.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Rick Zullo on Technology Revolutions and the Golden Age for Investing Feb 24, 2020

Rick Zullo (@Rick_Zullo), General Partner at Equal Ventures, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The different phases of technological revolutions
- Will incumbents become stronger in the next platform shift
- What Carlota Perez’s work means for the venture capital landscape
- Which categories will create the most successful startups in the next decade
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Company Building, Network Effects, and Understanding Different Business Models with Anu Hariharan Feb 23, 2020

Anu Hariharan (@anuhariharan), partner at Y Combinator, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Common mistakes that CEOs make when growing their companies.
- How to think about compensation plans in a growing startup.
- How to think about managing your board, including why you should get to know your board members as people, as well as when to listen to them or not.
- How founders should think about the possibility of a reckoning in the macro environment.
- Her talk on the nine different types of business models and how investors should think about them.
- Her unique take on network effects and the three laws that she learned from Marc Andreessen.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Bridging School and Work: The Future of Higher Education and Employment with Will Houghteling and Paul Freedman Feb 22, 2020

Will Houghteling (@willhoughteling), Founder & CEO at Strive, and Paul Freedman (@pmfreedm), Founder and CEO of Entangled Ventures, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Mental models for thinking about the higher education space
- The future of bootcamps and schools like Lambda
- What does the future of credentials look like
- What’s the role of government in higher education
- Where’s the whitespace in higher education
- Requests for education startups
- Navigating the idea maze for higher education startups
- How will innovation in K-12 happen
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Tyler Cowen on Identifying Talent, Changing Education, and Studying Progress, co-hosted by Jasmine Wang Feb 20, 2020

Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen), economist and author, joins Jasmine Wang (@j_asminewang), technologist and philosopher, and Erik’s co-host for this episode.
They discuss:
- What Tyler has learned about identifying talent and why he thinks that IQ is overrated.
- The forces shaping education today and how Tyler would change it if he could.
- Whether leftism is “eating the world.”
- What will replace cyberpunk and the role of aesthetics in intellectual life.
- How to find the best people for government jobs.
- Why globalization has not led to more innovation.
- And finally, a rapid-fire round where Erik and Jasmine name a person and Tyler explains where they agree or disagree with each other.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Using Data in Venture Capital with Jonathan Hsu Feb 18, 2020

Jonathan Hsu (@jonathanhsu), co-founder and general partner at Tribe Capital, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- His background in data science, how it has impacted (or not) venture, and how using data can help remove bias.
- Why so much of talent evaluation by venture capitalists is instinct-driven instead of data-driven.
- The common misconceptions that people have about product-market fit and how he thinks about it.
- How to pick the right metric when setting strategy for your startup, including common mistakes that people make in early-stage companies when thinking about metrics.
- How to evaluate pre-product-market-fit companies and where he stands on the lean startup vs. “fat startup” debate.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

#OpenLP: Beezer Clarkson and Aydin Senkut Feb 15, 2020

Beezer Clarkson (@beezer232) of Sapphire Ventures and Aydin Senkut (@asenkut) of Felicis Ventures join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Their perspectives on the operator-angel and nano-fund trends.
- How to think about scouts.
- Moats in venture capital and whether they really exist.
- Whether we need more venture capital or more venture capitalists.
- How the LP and GP ecosystems will evolve over the next five to ten years.
- How to figure out what the right fund size is for a firm.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

#OpenLP: Winter Mead and David Booth Feb 13, 2020

Winter Mead (@wintmead), an LP formerly of Sapphire, and David Booth (@david__booth), co-founder and CEO of OnDeck, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Assessing fund managers from an LP perspective, and what it means to be “too diversified” in VC.
- Enabling the next generation of GPs.
- What it means to say that “venture capital is a human capital game.”
- The impact of the current market on LPs’ willingness to invest.
- Whether there will be an alternative to the ten year fund cycle.
- The consequences of power shifting to founders from VCs.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The Art of Great Management with Alex MacCaw Feb 11, 2020

Alex MacCaw (@maccaw), founder and CEO of Clearbit, joins Erik on this episode. He is a co-author of the book The Great CEO Within.
They discuss:
- The power of good management and the lack of a modern handbook for managers.
- Why and how they treat interviewing and hiring as a science experiment.
- What to know for a great reference check.
- Managing conflict effectively.
- Why you only really close a hire after the first ninety days of them working at your company.
- How to think about compensation at a startup.
- How to give feedback and his breakdown of which kinds of words to use or not.
- How to think about building culture at a startup.
- Common management and meeting mistakes.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Sriram Krishnan on Building Consumer Social Platforms Feb 09, 2020

Sriram Krishnan (@sriramk), investor and former product lead at Twitter, Facebook, and Snap, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- His experiences working at the three big social media companies and what he learned there.
- Why each company is a reflection of the founder.
- What people misunderstand or under appreciate about each of them.
- Why he thinks that Facebook missed a golden opportunity when they decided not to build a web browser.
- What he thinks each of Twitter, Facebook, and Snap should do next.
- Some of his mental models for thinking about social media.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The State of Crypto in 2020 with Spencer Bogart and Brayton Williams Feb 07, 2020

Spencer Bogart (@CremeDeLaCrypto) of Blockchain Capital and Brayton Williams (@BraytonKey) of Boost VC, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Their analysis of the different eras of crypto and how the thinking of the people involved in the space has evolved.
- Whether the crypto bubble in 2017 can be compared to the internet bubble of 1999.
- Unpacking the Bitcoin-as-programmable money thesis.
- Specific problems that crypto is solving that they have invested in, as well as their requests for startups.
- How crypto can disrupt VC.
- What might have changed in the crypto space when looking back from 5 years in the future.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

All Things Marketplaces with Fabrice Grinda Feb 05, 2020

Fabrice Grinda (@fabricegrinda), entrepreneur and angel investor, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What Fabrice believes about marketplaces and the trend towards verticalization that VCs don’t believe.
- How they evaluate investments and the four criteria that they use to determine whether they will invest or not.
- His breakdown of some of the failed marketplace startups.
- What you need to know if you’re building a marketplace business in 2020.
- His analysis of marketplaces for home school, child care, therapy, construction, and more.
- How this intersects with the future of work and the future of food.
- Why certain legacy marketplaces have managed to stick around.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Investment Thesis: Owning a Life Stage (Weddings, Babies, and Death) with Marco DeMeireles Feb 04, 2020

Marco DeMeireles (@MarcoDeMeireles), partner at TCG, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- How the firm came to be and how they think about portfolio construction.
- What owning the life stage means and why it makes for better businesses.
- Some of the spaces they’re thinking about, including weddings, fertility, and funerals.
- Marco’s thoughts on e-commerce enablement.
- His other requests for startups.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.

The State of Consumer Social in 2020 with Michael Galpert and Greg Isenberg Feb 02, 2020

Michael Galpert (@msg) and Greg Isenberg (@gregisenberg) join Erik on this episode. They Discuss:
- What’s changed about consumer social in the past year
- The rise of vertical social networks
- The success and future of TikTok
- The role of startup acquisitions in making a successful social network
- Will there be a new social network for every generation
- Will future social networks incorporate a physical element
- How will consumer social be different a year from now
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

How To Fix Founder Scarcity with Burak Yenigun Jan 31, 2020

Burak Yenigun (@BurakYngn), founder of Stylus Capital (www.styluscapital.com) joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The problem of founder scarcity and why it exists.
- The most effective levers for increasing the number of founders.
- Whether we are in a bubble or not.
- What founders need to know when thinking about interest rates.
- The advantages and disadvantages of risk-sharing arrangements for founders, and how they would work.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

What Silicon Valley Doesn't Get About Private Equity with Brent Beshore Jan 29, 2020

Brent Beshore (@BrentBeshore), founder and CEO of Adventur.es, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- What makes Adventur.es “the inverse of traditional private equity,” including why they don’t add debt to a company’s balance sheet when they purchase a company and intend to keep the existing leadership around.
- What Silicon Valley doesn’t get about private equity, how it’s different from venture, and how VC and PE might interact in the future.
- Some of the industries that Brent thinks are overlooked and the breakdown of some of their past investments.
- The book he wrote, The Messy Marketplace, and the lessons it holds for business owners.
- The state of the macro environment and how they think about it at Adventur.es.
- How they evaluate potential investments and business partners, and his strategies for evaluating people in general.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

The On Deck Phase, Social Capital, and Unbundling The University with David Booth Jan 27, 2020

David Booth (@david__booth), co-founder and CEO of On Deck, joins Erik on this episode.
They talk about:
- Why they started On Deck and the problem they were trying to solve.
- Common misconceptions about successful founding teams and the type of relationship needed between co-founders.
- The importance of community and how to build a positive one.
- Cosign (cosign.co) and the idea of peer-to-peer credentialing.
- Where it’s best to be building a company today.
- How young people today can build their own syllabus and learn outside of a traditional college.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Sam Lessin and Bobby Goodlatte on the Future of Consumer Social Jan 25, 2020

Sam Lessin (@lessin) and Bobby Goodlatte (@rsg) join Erik on this episode. They Discuss:
- The future of consumer social
- How can consumer social startups compete with incumbents
- How do you incentivize user growth on new platforms
- Are Twitter and Instagram going away
- What are the most interesting new ideas in consumer social
- Which new consumer social networks will be successful
- What technologies will enable the next wave of social networks
- Will decentralized social networks ever happen
- How can platforms capture and enable social capital
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Dan Runcie on The Business of Hip-Hop Jan 23, 2020

Dan Runcie (@RuncieDan) of Trapital joins Erik to discuss business and strategy in hip-hop.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

“What’s Not Being Said” with Zack Kanter Jan 20, 2020

Zack Kanter (@zackkanter), founder and CEO of Stedi.com, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- How Zack thinks about Twitter, why from outside it seems absurd, and why he calls it a “text-based role-playing game.”
- How he navigated the idea maze in starting Stedi and the key insight he had that led him to start the company.
- How the legibility problem from the book Seeing Like a State has changed how he approaches company-building.
- Why he says that “code is not an asset, code is a liability” and how AWS Lambda has changed how he built Stedi —and how all of this is related to legibility.
- Why they don’t do performance reviews and what it means to have an “event-driven” culture.
- His perspective on bootstrapping versus taking VC, why he says that founding companies requires domain expertise now, and why he built the company in Boulder.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Nadia Eghbal Thinks About Basically Everything Jan 18, 2020

Nadia Eghbal (@nayafia) of Substack joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- How the internet changes how we find meaning and why new religions haven’t emerged from the internet yet.
- The future of newspapers and publishing, and what happens if people can go direct to the reporters they trust via tools like Substack and others.
- Her interest in the economics of content creators on the internet.
- Shamelessness as a strategy.
- Status on the internet and whether it’s really zero sum.
- Global cooperation and local versus global impacts.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Next Era of Consumer Social with Sarah Tavel and Ben Rubin Jan 16, 2020

Sarah Tavel (@sarahtavel), partner at Benchmark, and Ben Rubin (@benrbn), founder of Houseparty and Meerkat, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Where the white space is in social and the possibilities for vertical-specific social networks.
- Why Facebook looks to young people today the way Yahoo! looked to Sarah’s generation.
- What participatory social looks like and how to solve the problem of presence.
- Their ideas for new social networks.
- What Twitter could have been.
- How social interacts with gaming, audio, dating, and other spaces.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Brett Berson and Phin Barnes on Lessons Learned From Over a Decade at First Round Capital Jan 14, 2020

Phin Barnes (@phineasb) and Brett Berson (@brettberson), partners at First Round Capital, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Why when First Round was started VC was mainly an “anti-network business.”
- How the needs of founders and companies have evolved since First Round was started.
- The four phases of a company and when to think about raising funds.
- How to think about price as an investor.
- What, in their opinion, are the predictors of founder success.
- Some of the projects and initiatives they’ve worked on at First Round.
- How they get up to speed quickly on different spaces.
- The future of the firm.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Hiten Shah on Building an Enterprise Startup Jan 13, 2020

Hiten Shah (@hnshah), Co-Founder of FYI, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Frameworks for picking startup ideas
- Navigating the Idea Maze
- How has the enterprise market changed in the past decade
- Investment outlook for “future of work”
- How has growth hacking and go-to-market evolved over the past decade
- How to select your customers
- Deciding on pricing
- When do you start charging
- How to think about retention
- Can Linkedin be disrupted
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Justin Mares on CPG, Health & Wellness, and Finding Non-Traditional Talent Jan 10, 2020

Justin Mares (@jwmares), founder of Kettle & Fire and Perfect Keto, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The state of CPG, the history of the market, and the problems with the incentive structure today.
- What has led to the decline in the health of the average American and where Silicon Valley goes wrong with its approach to food.
- Where he would be investing if he was running a fund focused on health and wellness.
- How to find non-traditional talent.
- Why he is short San Francisco.
- And much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Santiago Suarez on Building a Great Lending Business Jan 07, 2020

Santiago Suarez (@SantiaSua) of Addi joins Erik on this episode. They Discuss:
- Is lending a cyclical business
- Lending as a form of customer acquisition
- What can fintech lending companies learn from Affirm and Square
- How lending in LatAm differs from North America
- How to develop competitive advantages as a lending business in LatAm
- Lessons to learn from scaling very fast
- How to hire early employees
- How to decide your company’s culture
- How can lending startups compete with banks
- How should lending startups think about balance sheet risk
- How has the lending ecosystem changed in the past decade
- Thoughts on Clearanc
- Common mistakes of finch startups
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Mike Maples on Building Successful Startups and Venture Funds Jan 06, 2020

Erik is joined on this episode by Mike Maples (@m2jr) of Floodgate. They Discuss:
- Have all of the low hanging fruit of startup ideas been picked
- How do the best founders approach entrepreneurship
- Mike’s thoughts on the various conventional wisdoms of building startups
- The power of “change events” for startup creation
- How important is market timing
- How important is it for your idea to be non-consensus
- What makes a great founding team
- Can you predict product market fit
- Why do co-founder breakups happen and how do you prevent them
- How do you know when you have an insight that’s worth pursuing
- Thoughts on the Operator Angel movement
- What does VC look like a decade from now
- The relationship between VCs and their LPs
- Investing in non-tech businesses
- Can crypto disrupt the VC model
- Mental models for what makes a successful investor
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

James Currier on Network Effects, Education, and Evaluating Startup Ideas Jan 04, 2020

James Currier (@JamesCurrier) of NFX join Erik on this episode. They Discuss:
- Why hasn’t Linkedin been disrupted yet
- What does crypto do for generating network effects
- Where are today’s opportunities in consumer social
- Market networks and how they’ve evolved over time
- What’s wrong with education and can homeschooling be a solution
- Commoditization of higher education
- How to evaluate startup ideas
- How will venture evolve over the next decade
- What should founders better appreciate about the psychology of VCs
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Neal Hansch and Liz Keen on Corporate Innovation Jan 03, 2020

Neal Hansch (@nhansch) and Liz Keen (@Liz_Keen) of Silicon Foundry join Erik on this episode. They Discuss:
- How Silicon Foundry is building bridges between communities
- How corporations have interfaced with Silicon Valley over time
- The purpose and rise of Corporate Venture Capital
- How have accelerators evolved and what opportunities have they created for corporations
- The role venture studios play in corporate innovation
- When should startup founders start talking to Corp Dev teams
- What are the most common mistakes of corporations dealing with startups and vice versa
- What does great corporate innovation look like from an organizational perspective
- The role of Economic Development Corporations
- Corporate VCs betting against their core business
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

The State of Crypto with Charlie Noyes Jan 01, 2020

Charlie Noyes (@_charlienoyes) of Paradigm joins Erik on this episode. They Discuss:
- How has the crypto landscape changed in the last year
- The future of Decentralized Finance
- Is Bitcoin likely to be more valuable a decade from now
- The future of Ether
- Will ICOs make a comeback
- How tied is the rise of crypto to global disorder
- Will prediction & idea markets ever happen
- Charlie’s request for startups
- Crypto narratives in 2020
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Ike Lasater on Nonviolent Communication Dec 27, 2019

Ike Lasater (@IkeLasater) joins Erik on this episode to discuss nonviolent communication.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Investing in Tech & Consumer Social with Turner Novak Dec 24, 2019

Turner Novak (@TurnerNovak) of Gelt Venture Capital joins Erik on this episode. They Discuss:
- Can the Vision Fund find product market fit through mega LPs
- The relationship between LPs and VCs and how it’s going to change over time
- How will venture as an asset class change over the next decade
- The future of WeWork
- Is Uber's valuation reasonable
- Who are the winners of micro mobility
- What’s exciting about consumer social
- Should we be bullish on Snapchat and Bitmoji
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Phil Bonello on The Sovereign Individual Dec 23, 2019

Phil Bonello (@PhilJBonello) joins Erik on this episode. They Discuss:
- Building an investment thesis around The Sovereign Individual
- The future of nation states
- Crypto’s role in self-sovereignty
- What will lead to user adoption of crypto
- Why is censorship on the rise
- How has the logic of violence evolved over time
- The future of cities
- How does education need to respond to the Information age
- The future of fiat currencies
- The defensibility of bitcoin
- Valuation models for crypto assets
- The promise of governance tokens
- Why haven’t prediction markets taken off
- What are decentralized networks uniquely suited for
- What’s going to be the biggest milestone in crypto in the next couple of years
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Jonathan Haidt on Polarization, Social Media and its Effects on Society Dec 22, 2019

Jonathan Haidt (@JonHaidt), a social psychologist at NYU-Stern, joins Erik on this episode. They Discuss:
- What are the problems with social media and are they temporary or lasting issues
- How social media has affected Gen Z
- What led to the rise of polarization
- What needs to happen to solve the issues of social media
- When do you design for humanity’s evolutionary flaws
- Has politics replaced religion as a source of identity
- Activism versus truth seeking
- Is Democracy doomed
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Patri Friedman on Charter Cities, Investing, and Society Dec 19, 2019

Patri Friedman (@patrissimo) of Pronomos Capital joins Erik on this episode. They Discuss:
- Why now for charter cities
- The role of Incrementalism versus disruption in creating charter cities
- Request for startups
- Which geographies will be the most important for the charter city movement
- How will geopolitics affect the growth of charter cities
- What’s going to be the spark that allows charter cities to take off
- The role of venture capital in funding charter cities
- How will national identities evolve over time
- How crypto networks will play a role in real world governance
- The future of nation states
- The decline of religion and its role in society
- How will charter cities affect equality
- When to overcome evolutionary instincts versus when to accept them
- What’s the future of cities and suburbs
- The future of Silicon Valley
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Ash Fontana and Leo Polovets on Data Moats and the Future of Venture Capital Dec 17, 2019

Ash Fontana (@ashfontana), General Partner at Zetta, and Leo Polovets (@lpolovets), General Partner at Susa Ventures, join Erik on this episode. They Discuss:
- What does the future of venture capital look like?
- Which firms are leading venture capital and who will be the top venture firms 10 years from now?
- Being a generalist investor versus a specialist
- Portfolio structure and the role of follow-on funding as part of a firm's strategy
- Is it important to have one portfolio company that can return the entire fund?
- Are there moats in venture capital?
- The role of pricing power in venture capital
- How is venture similar and different to company building?
- Compounding Data Moats
- Request for Startups
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Investing in Mobility with Olaf Sakkers and Prescott Watson Dec 15, 2019

Olaf Sakkers (@osakkers), Partner at Maniv Mobility, and Prescott Watson (@prescottwatson), Principal at Maniv Mobility, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- How mobility has changed in the past 5 years
- Investable companies in mobility
- The role of private infrastructure versus public infrastructure
- Buying versus leasing assets in mobility
- When and where do incumbents beat startups
- The incumbents that will still be around 10 years from now
- The winners and losers of the mobility race
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Computational Biology with Nan Li and Zavain Dar Dec 12, 2019

Nan Li (@nanli), Managing Director at Obvious Ventures, and Zavain Dar (@zavaindar), Partner at Lux Capital, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
-How Deep Tech has evolved over time
-The state of Computational Biology today
-What the future of Biology looks like
-What Big Pharma is focused on and the market opportunity for biotech startups
-What’s their request for startups in computational biology
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

The State of Digital Health in 2019 with Malay Gandhi and Nikhil Krishnan Dec 10, 2019

Malay Gandhi (@malayhgandhi) of Evidation Health and Nikhil Krishnan (@nikillinit) of TrialSpark join Erik to talk all things digital health in 2019.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Deeptech, Biotech, and New Computing Platforms with Greg Rosen and John Melas-Kyriazi Dec 08, 2019

Venture capitalists Greg Rosen (@Grosen) at Bedrock and John Melas Kyriazi (@jmelaskyriazi) at Spark join Erik to discuss:
- Deep tech as the answer to the drought of pure play consumer companies.
- Leveraging regulatory arbitrages for deep tech companies to get to market faster.
- Intersection of consumer and biotech.
- Enabling infrastructure for biotech.
- Emergence of food/agtech.
- New computing platforms.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Investing in Marketplaces with Sarah Tavel and Nabeel Hyatt Dec 05, 2019

Sarah Tavel (@sarahtavel), partner at Benchmark, and Nabeel Hyatt (@nabeel), partner at Spark Capital, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Why they love investing in marketplaces and the evolution of marketplaces over the last decade.
- Why the wave of Uber For X startups didn’t take off.
- How they evaluate marketplaces, and why founders get confused about “which race they’re running” when creating a marketplace startup.
- Where they’re excited about seeing more marketplaces and which spaces they advise founders to avoid.
- The impact of SoftBank and their analysis of the current crop of public marketplace companies.
- Common mistakes they see founders making in marketplace startups.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Benchmark and Investing in Open Source with Eric Vishria and Chetan Puttagunta Dec 03, 2019

Eric Vishria (@ericvishria) and Chetan Puttagunta (@chetanp), general partners at Benchmark, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The unique partnership structure at Benchmark and how it has led to the continued success of the firm.
- Why they are purposefully not trying to scale the firm, unlike other venture firms.
- Their investments in open source, why the space is unique, and where the white space is.
- What will change in the future in open source and web infrastructure.
- Biotech as a space and some of the companies they’ve invested in.
- Why entering the healthcare market is fraught with difficulty in the US.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Building Communities in 2019 with Bailey Richardson and Rei Wang Dec 01, 2019

Bailey Richardson (@baileyelaine), partner at People & Company, and co-author of Get Together, and Rei Wang (@heyreiwang), founder of The Grand and former CEO of the Dorm Room Fund Investment Team, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The companies they’re creating and the unique insight about communities that lies behind each company.
- How they define community, and what makes a community different from other things like networks.
- How communities change over their lifetimes.
- The differences between the big companies in the social media space and how they’ve evolved over time.
- Whether community startups can be venture-backable.
- The future of countries and religions as communities.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Investing in the Future of Food with Rob Rhinehart and Brian Frank Nov 28, 2019

Brian Frank (@bfrank) of FTW Ventures, and Rob Rhinehart (@robrhinehart) of Soylent, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Some of the most exciting developments in bioscience these days.
- The possibilities for biohacking and whether there is an “AWS for bioscience” emerging.
- The interplay of startups and incumbents in the space and how incumbents can be more helpful to the startup community.
- What is under- or over-hyped in the space.
- The existing big companies in food and bioscience and what will change in the next 5-10 years.
- The future of retail and how data can transform supply chains.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Joel Monegro on Crypto Networks and Investing in Crypto Nov 26, 2019

Joel Monegro (@jmonegro), partner at Placeholder, joins Erik on this episode.
They talk about:
- The waves of centralization and decentralization in finance, government, and culture over time.
- How value accruing to incumbents has resulted in completely new fields opening up for innovation.
- Why crypto networks are analogous to countries.
- Joel’s thesis that "ultimately capital is control."
- Why crypto is not a new technology revolution.
- How crypto can change the problem of mis-distribution of capital in societies.
- How Joel’s thinking on these topics has influenced his investment thesis.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Keith Rabois on How He Invests, Forming a Founding Team, and Funding “Ridiculous” Ideas Nov 24, 2019

Keith Rabois (@rabois), partner at Founders Fund, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded live at an On Deck Fellowship event in San Francisco.
They discuss:
- The kinds of companies and founders he looks to fund, including why he wants half of his VC friends to laugh at how ambitious and ridiculous the companies he’s funding are.
- Why going from zero to one involves roughly the same amount of pain no matter whether the “one” the company gets to is tiny or a billion-dollar-plus enterprise.
- Some of the different spaces he’s invested in recently and how he’s navigated the idea maze in different sectors.
- Stories from the early days of PayPal.
- Why he likes regulated markets, and why he says “the more legal risk, the better.”
- How to think about creating a founding team, and why you need to absolutely make sure you and your co-founders agree on first principles.
And of course, they also discuss basketball and politics.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Investing in Deep Tech with Katherine Boyle and Bilal Zuberi Nov 21, 2019

Katherine Boyle (@KTmBoyle), investor at General Catalyst, and Bilal Zuberi (@bznotes), partner at Lux Capital, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Their requests for startups in the space.
- The current landscape and the types of companies they are looking to invest in.
- What implications geopolitics has for the deep tech space.
- Their predictions for the next ten years.
- Katherine’s thesis about the privatization of government.
- What to know about how the defense sector works.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Investing in Education, ISAs, and Bootcamps with Ruben Harris and David Phillips Nov 19, 2019

Ruben Harris (@rubenharris), founder of Career Karma (www.careerkarma.com), and David Phillips (@davj), founder of Hackbright Academy and BloomJoy, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The history and evolution of bootcamps, including how and where they got their start.
- Why Ruben thinks that in the long term the cost of education goes to zero.
- Whether bootcamps for non-technical skills can become as big as those for technical skills.
- Why there haven’t been bigger exits in the space.
- Their requests for startups.
- Why big companies like Microsoft or Google haven’t yet created their own bootcamps.
- Their predictions for how the landscape will have changed in the next ten years.
For more on ISAs, check out this report from Career Karma: https://careerkarma.com/blog/income-share-agreements-market-report-summary-2019/
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Future of Credentialing with Isaac Morehouse Nov 18, 2019

Isaac Morehouse (@isaacmorehouse), CEO of Crash, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- His background and why he started Crash.
- What he would change about the incentive structure of the world if he could wave a magic wand.
- What kinds of big companies will possibly emerge in the education space.
- What self-credentialing and peer-to-peer credentialing would look like.
- Why he would like to see markets in everything.
- Why the burden of proof for going to college has reached a tipping point, where students are now mostly skeptics while parents remain believers.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Investing in AR/VR with Greg Castle Nov 16, 2019

Greg Castle (@gpcastle12) joins Erik on this episode. He is managing partner at Anorak Ventures.
They discuss:
- What the future of computing beyond laptops and phones will look like, the obstacles companies will face, and the cultural challenges ahead.
- Why audio will represent the first wave of AR.
- Some of the coolest applications he’s seen in the space, including the work some of his portfolio companies are doing.
- Which of the big incumbents are best poised to take advantage of the transition to AR/VR.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Investing in Science Fiction with Adam Draper Nov 15, 2019

Adam Draper (@AdamDraper), founder and managing director of Boost VC, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Adam’s early involvement in crypto and how the space has evolved over time.
- What he finds unique about the people working in crypto and what he loves about their outlook.
- The science fiction technologies that he’s excited about and looking to invest in.
- AR and VR and the opportunities and challenges for each.
- Why he says the next ten years will be about big tech versus big government.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Investing in Industrial Automation with Kelly Chen and Kane Hsieh Nov 14, 2019

Kelly Chen (@kaychen22), partner at DCVC, and Kane Hsieh (@kane), partner at Root Ventures, join Erik on this episode.
They talk about:
- What exactly industrial automation is and why it’s such an exciting space.
- The market map for industrial automation.
- Some of the coolest companies and applications of technology in the space.
- Advice for companies pitching their industrial automation products.
- Their requests for startups (and their anti-requests for startups).
- How jobs will change with the advent of automation.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Investing In Micromobility with Victor Pontis and Michal Naka Nov 13, 2019

Victor Pontis (@VictorPontis), founder and CEO of Spring, and Michal Naka (@michalnaka), Product at Ride Report, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Comparisons and contrasts between micromobility and rideshare
- How regulations have evolved and how cities are getting involved in the space.
- The possibilities for autonomy in micromobility.
- Possible new form factors.
- Which metrics investors interested in the space should be tracking.
- Who they would be betting on if they were betting on a new operator.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Investing in the Creator Economy with Julia Enthoven and Justine and Olivia Moore Nov 12, 2019

Julia Enthoven (@JuliaEnthoven), co-founder and CEO of Kapwing, and Justine and Olivia Moore (@venturetwins), investors at CRV, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Why the team at CRV was excited about Julia and Kapwing.
- The rise of online video and their analysis of the space.
- What it means to be a B2C2B company.
- The problems with existing video editing tools.
- The confluence of factors that enabled Kapwing.
- Their requests for startups.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Investing in Space with Delian Asparouhov and Felix Ejeckam Nov 10, 2019

Delian Asparouhov (@zebulgar), investor at Founders Fund, and Felix Ejeckam (@felixejeckam), CEO of Akash Systems, join Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The market map of the space space.
- The evolution of the industry and how we got to where we are now.
- The incredible possibilities that can be enabled by the companies working in space today.
- What the “iPhone moment” could be for the industry.
- How the government interacts with the space and the implications for companies within it.
- Their predictions for when people might be living in space.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Daniel Schmachtenberger on Exponential Technology, Transitionary Systems, and Game B Nov 07, 2019

Daniel Schmachtenberger joins Erik on this episode. He is a civilization designer interested in social architecture.
They discuss:
- The unsustainability of economic growth.
- Why what’s best for the long-term is often also best for others.
- Asymmetries in markets and why markets are not actually self-correcting.
- What a healthy version of social media might look like.
- What Daniel means when he says “humans are not evolutionarily precedented creatures” and what the implications of that are.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

YouTube, Hustling, and Austrian Economics with KRAZAM Nov 06, 2019

Comedians Ben Burke and Shiva Kilaru, the creators behind the moderately successful YouTube channel KRAZAM, join Erik on this "unique" episode.
They discuss:
- The creative process.
- Their thoughts on Austrian economics.
- Mental models.
- Violent communication.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Hiring, Retention, and How To Find a Co-Founder with Harj Taggar Nov 05, 2019

Harj Taggar (@harjtaggar), co-founder and chairman of Triplebyte, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Strategies for finding undiscovered talent.
- The vision at Triplebyte and what they’re building.
- Why the recruiting space hasn’t seen huge companies come out of it.
- How building a company has changed over the past decade.
- How to think about finding a co-founder.
- The biggest recruiting mistakes people make.
- How to think about what startup to join as an employee.
- How much founders should think about retention in early-stage startups.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Balaji Srinivasan and Glen Weyl on Identity, Governance, and Radical Markets Nov 03, 2019

Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis), angel investor and entrepreneur, and Glen Weyl (@glenweyl), economist, Principal Researcher at Microsoft, and author of Radical Markets, join Erik for a fireside chat.
They talk about:
- On which topics they agree or disagree.
- Some of their favorite thinkers.
- Glen’s critique of the libertarian view of the world.
- Balaji’s concept of a person’s whitelist, blacklist, and greenlist.
- What they would change about property law.
- Quadratic finance and quadratic voting.
- Why there is almost no area where the nation-state is the optimal governance entity.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Jerry Yang on China, Yahoo!, and Early-Stage Investing Oct 31, 2019

Jerry Yang, co-founder of Yahoo! and founding partner of AME Cloud Ventures, joined us in downtown San Francisco to be interviewed by Village Global co-founder and partner, Ben Casnocha.
They talked about stories from the early days of Yahoo! and lessons learned from the experience, what American entrepreneurs can learn from China, and his strategy for early-stage investing.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Elites, Decentralization, and Economics as Technology with Arnold Kling Oct 29, 2019

Arnold Kling (@KlingBlog), author and economist, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The future of elites.
- The charter city movement.
- His thoughts on Austrian economics.
- How he would approach regulating finance.
- Negative interest rates.
- How to solve the problem of high healthcare costs in the US.
- Universal basic income.
- What an Elizabeth Warren presidency might look like.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Future of Governance with Wolf Tivy Oct 27, 2019

Wolf Tivy (@wolftivy), founder and editor of Palladium Magazine, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The liberal order, including what it specifically entails and the evolution of it over time.
- Why what really defines the liberal order is a public story around what is acceptable and not.
- The superstructure of non-elected power in society.
- Potential alternative systems for order.
- Why even in free societies, there is a small bubble of acceptable ideas that forms an orthodoxy around what one can say and do.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Designing and Developing New Tools For Thought with Andy Matuschak Oct 24, 2019

Andy Matuschak (@andy_matuschak), joins Erik on this episode. He is a technologist, designer and researcher.
They discuss:
- The key thread throughout his work and what he’s trying to accomplish.
- Why people read books despite remembering little of what they read.
- What books should look like and the features they should have in the digital age.
- Why spaced repetition is so powerful.
- His requests for startups in the space.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Revolt of the Public and Silicon Valley with Martin Gurri Oct 22, 2019

Martin Gurri (@mgurri), author of The Revolt of The Public, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Martin’s advice for Silicon Valley elites.
- How to restore trust in democracy.
- Why and how politicians became performers.
- The history of information.
- What will end the techlash.
- The results of government colliding with digitization.
… And much more.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Digital Identities For Physical Things: The Path To a Zero-Waste Economy with Vinay Gupta Oct 20, 2019

Vinay Gupta (@leashless), CEO of Mattereum, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The effects of overconsumption on the environment.
- The breakdown of humanity’s carbon footprint.
- Why we need to optimize waste in the same way that we optimize investment and production.
- How to reduce the perceived fragility of life for those living in poverty.
- Buckminster Fuller’s ambitions and why we’re living in the world that he wanted us to avoid.
- Why Vinay “never trusted the decentralization framework.”
- Why the vast majority of problems caused by poverty can be fixed with half a dozen simple machines but that market capitalism is not able to provide them to those in need.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

How To Make Friends on Twitter with Visakan Veerasamy Oct 19, 2019

Visakan Veerasamy (@visakanv) joins Erik on this episode for a conversation about friendship, Twitter as a global brain, online communities, fame, how we can better relate to others, and more.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Roots of Progress with Robert Tracinski and Jason Crawford Oct 17, 2019

Robert Tracinski (@Tracinski) and Jason Crawford (@jasoncrawford) join Erik on this episode. Robert is an author and creator of The Tracinski Letter. Jason is an entrepreneur and runs Roots of Progress, a blog about the ascent of mankind, from the caves to computers and beyond.
They discuss:
- The idea of a “capitalism appreciation society” akin to an art appreciation society.
- The backward perspectives that people have on economic progress.
- Their answers to the critiques of capitalism as unsustainable.
- How society has changed from biological sources of resources to artificial ones over time.
- Whether automation will mean that people work less in the future.
- Growth and its relationship to democracy.
- The role of business in ensuring the welfare of people in a country.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Bret Weinstein Thinks About Basically Everything Oct 15, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Bret Weinstein (@BretWeinstein). He is a biologist and evolutionary theorist.
They discuss:
- His start in the field of evolutionary biology and how he realized that the big questions everyone thought had been answered actually only seemed that way because the big questions had stopped being asked.
- Why two characteristics of a given creature or object cannot be maximized at the same time, and why thinking in terms of trade-offs explains virtually all of biology and society.
- Why he says “any utopian is not welcome at the adult table to discuss modern civilization.”
- Why we need to get over the idea that we can blueprint a society that works.
- Why markets are excellent at telling us how to do things but terrible at telling us what we should want.
- Game B and some of the stubs of that idea that exist today that could be built out.
- Why “no honorable person would choose to do what natural selection wants us to do.”
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Bill Janeway Thinks About Basically Everything Oct 13, 2019

Bill Janeway (@billjaneway) joins Erik on this episode. Bill is a venture capitalist and economist and is the author of the classic book Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy.
They talk about:
- Bill’s keen interest in the interface of markets and government and how that thread has weaved its way through Bill’s career.
- Why financialization has gone too far.
- The fact that Bill “lived through the last AI hype cycle” and what that means for this one.
- The difference between productive and non-productive bubbles.
- Why free marketeers should “be careful what you wish for.”
- The possibilities for global cooperation on climate change.
- Why it’s important that disruptors take time to understand how the world they’re disrupting came to be.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Meaning, Ritual, and Ambiguity with Sarah Perry Oct 10, 2019

Sarah Perry (@sarahdoingthing), writer and thinker, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Sarah’s writing career and what it means to “work through your politics” early in your career as a writer.
- The purpose of rituals and why democracy is itself a form of ritual.
- Why ambiguity increases meaning.
- What we as a culture don’t understand about meaning.
- The narrative illusion in life, that there’s “nothing but time” and that that is the place from which meaning comes.
- How to have non-zero-sum status in a society.
- What it means to make the “honest decision.”
- Why humor is so powerful.
- Why people (mistakenly) romanticize the past.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Values, Social Networks, and The Wisdom Economy with Joe Edelman Oct 08, 2019

Joe Edelman (@edelwax), philosopher, social scientist, designer, and founder of Human Systems, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- Why the internet didn’t achieve its promise of connecting people on a deeper level.
- Why we’ve become very good at shopping and networking around goals and preferences but not around values, and how this manifests in the differences between Couchsurfing and Airbnb.
- Why he says that philosophers and micro-economists have the best ability to figure out how people make choices, and why their approach is better than that of psychology or neuroscience.
- How a “meaning economy” or “wisdom economy” could work.
- His explanation for what values mean to him, and how his have changed over time.
- How he would change Twitter, Facebook, and Tinder, if he was in charge of product at those companies.
- Why people who break down all their decisions in complicated spreadsheets are fooling themselves into thinking they’ve made a better decision.
- How metrics and values interact, and how to think about metrics in your personal life.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Narrative Bias, Collective Sense-Making, and AI with Paul Bohm Oct 06, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Paul Bohm (@paulsbohm), investor and entrepreneur.
They tackle a variety of topics on this wide-ranging episode, including:
- How Paul became fascinated with self-perpetuating systems.
- Why the European startup scene is problematic, why he is short Silicon Valley, and the idea of importing law from one jurisdiction to another (as companies do with Delaware C Corp designation).
- The idea of narrative bias, what a “zombie field” is, and the rule of “Occam’s Bikini.”
- Why he thinks that the prospects for AI and its impact on the world are overrated, despite the increasing hype cycle around the field.
- His thoughts on collective sense-making and why, if we can’t escape echo chambers, we need a diversity of echo chambers.
- Why he looks to youth as harbingers for how society will evolve in the future.
- Influencer culture and why he says the impact of it is actually underrated.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Meaning Crisis and Silicon Valley with John Vervaeke Oct 03, 2019

Erik is joined by John Vervaeke (@vervaeke_john), a psychology and cognitive science professor at the University of Toronto.
They discuss:
- How John has been working on bridging the gap between cognitive science and spirituality.
- Why he says that we need to “awaken” from the meaning crisis, not “solve” it.
- What he wants people building virtual reality and social media platforms to know.
- Why he says that people these days don’t value democracy the way people did in the past.
- The biggest questions that he has been wrestling with in his research.
- How meaning is distinct from happiness or well-being.
- How “we’ve killed God and replaced it with a marketplace.”
- Whether we will see the emergence of new religions, or “upgrades” to the existing ones.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Sacred Economics and Climate with Charles Eisenstein Oct 01, 2019

Erik is joined by Charles Eisenstein (@ceisenstein) on this episode. He is the author of Climate: A New Story and The Ascent of Humanity, among others.
They discuss:
- The main thread that runs throughout Charles’s works.
- Why technological utopias and the age of leisure have been widely predicted but have never actually come about.
- How humanity shaping its environment has caused problems for humans, and why trying harder and harder to solve those problems has perpetuated them.
- Why the happiest people he meets are in less developed countries.
- What he sees as the limits to scientific inquiry.
- The ideal scale and scope of markets.
- What he would change about society if he could wave a wand.
- Whether the planet really needs “the economy to get going again” even though that seems to be what virtually every politician calls for.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Complexity, Collective Intelligence, and New Ways of Thinking with Bonnitta Roy Sep 29, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Bonnitta Roy (@bonnittaroy), philosopher, author, organizational consultant, and insight guide.
They discuss:
- The new way of looking at the world that she advocates for.
- Why she says that scientific thinking does not serve humanity well in all situations.
- Why people take approaches to problems that result in increasingly complex systems over time.
- The limitations of systems thinking and determinism.
- Insights from cognitive neuroscience about how the body takes in information.
- Her learnings from the organizational consulting that she does and how teams can work more effectively.
- The “malware” that she says is present in our ways of thinking about the world, and whether it is innate to humans or a result of the influence of society.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Past, Present, and Future of Biotech and Longevity with Laura Deming and Will Eden Sep 26, 2019

Joining Erik on this episode are Laura Deming (@laurademing), creator of Longevity Fund, and Will Eden (@williamaeden), entrepreneur in residence with Errik Anderson at Ulysses and formerly of Thiel Capital.
They talk about:
- The history of biotech and the big trends and companies in the space over the past several decades.
- The breakdown of the different areas within biotech.
- The new business model in biotech that’s been driven by VCs.
- How the public market in biotech companies is impacting the private market
- The history of the FDA and how it has evolved over time, including the fact that in the beginning, the FDA only looked at whether a drug was safe, not whether it was effective.
- How they would change the regulatory environment if they could wave a magic wand.
- Why Laura says that the most effective individuals in biotech have a determinate worldview.
- How longevity has emerged over the past several years, and the future of work in the space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Game B in a Silicon Valley Context with Jordan Hall Sep 24, 2019

Jordan Hall (@jgreenhall) joins Erik on this episode. He is founder of Neurohacker Collective and an influential thinker about Game B.
In this episode they discuss:
- His frustrations with Silicon Valley and what he wishes entrepreneurs understood better about the system in which they are working.
- Why he thinks Steve Jobs’ talents could have been put to better use.
- The relation of software eating the world to topics around Game B.
- His explanation of the difference between something with a lot of complexity versus something that is complicated.
- The difference between “valley crossing” and “hill climbing” in modern society.
- Why he thinks humanity will run into a problem of scale around the middle of the century.
- Why he says that “we are all running a lot of malware.”
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Game B, Liquid Democracy, and Complex Systems with Jim Rutt Sep 22, 2019

Jim Rutt (@jim_rutt) joins Erik on this episode. He is an entrepreneur, technologist, research fellow, and host of The Jim Rutt Show.
Note that this episode contains adult language and may not be suitable for listening in all situations.
They discuss:
- The change in the ethos of business over the last several decades, and why it’s now the case in Jim’s opinion that “honesty and good faith is a sucker strategy.”
- Why Jim is no longer an Ayn Randian.
- How to change politics and society via the Game B movement.
- How to design better political systems.
- What liquid democracy entails and how it might be able to solve some of the problems of the current system.
- His argument against the idea of having less voice but more opportunity to exit in political systems.
- The problems he sees with Bitcoin.
- His learnings from his study of cognitive psychology.
- What a “gigantism tax” on huge corporations would look like.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Economic Mobility, The “Experience Economy,” and The Future of Cities with JD Ross and Sean Linehan Sep 19, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by JD Ross (@justindross) and Sean Linehan (@seanlinehan). JD is co-founder of Opendoor and Sean is co-founder of Placement and former VP of Product at Flexport.
They discuss:
- What Sean is doing with Placement and his personal story for where the idea came from.
- How they “navigated the idea maze” and what they learned from the ideating they did.
- What has led to the rise of the ISA and their thoughts on the space.
- How they think about working in spaces that are highly regulated.
- The future of San Francisco as a tech hub.
- Why the next evolution in the US economy will be a shift to an “experience economy.”
- Their thoughts on charter cities, and why JD says there could be a new city built from scratch in the US today.
- The idea of “skills debt” as analogous to technical debt.
- Some of their ideas around new forms of private equity.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Market Failures, Redesigning Metrics, and Human Dignity with Andrew Kortina Sep 17, 2019

Andrew Kortina (@kortina) joins Erik on this episode. He is the co-founder of Venmo and Fin.
They talk about:
- How he became interested in the US tax code and what changes he might like to see made to it.
- The insights from his examination of how the US government spends its money.
- Capitalism, inequality, and how to ensure everyone can live a life with dignity.
- Status signalling through consumption and how to fix the inefficiency of conveying information through goods.
- Tribalism as a predictive model.
- What David Foster Wallace predicted about the internet and culture today, and what he might be writing about if he was still alive.
- Capitalism as an artificial intelligence.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Education, Globalization, and Becoming “Psychologically Sovereign” with Zachary Stein Sep 15, 2019

Zachary Stein (zakstein.org) joins Erik on this episode. He is a writer, educator, and futurist.
They discuss:
- Why he says that all institutions are fundamentally educational institutions.
- The crises that humankind is facing and how to make our way through them.
- The new educational paradigms he foresees.
- What it means to be psychologically sovereign.
- The history of measurement and the fact that prior to a few hundred years ago, no one knew how old they actually were.
- How to resolve the paradox that what matters cannot be measured and yet it is difficult to improve or make progress without measuring.
- Why he says that throughout capitalism there have rarely been true markets.
- His thoughts on globalization and interconnectedness.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Bryan Caplan Thinks About Basically Everything Sep 12, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Bryan Caplan (@bryan_caplan), economist and author. They have a wide-ranging discussion on a number of different topics.
They discuss:
- The case for open borders and the underappreciated benefits of immigration.
- His responses to some of the common arguments against increased immigration.
- Why he thinks that universal basic income is a “terrible idea.”
- His thoughts on the charter cities movement.
- His most impactful (and controversial) policy recommendations.
- Why he says that all politicians have been populists, but without the rough edges that Trump has.
- His opinion on the Hobbes vs. Rousseau debate.
- Gene editing, population growth, Austrian economics, education, and much more.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Why Markets Will Eat The World with Taylor Pearson Sep 10, 2019

Taylor Pearson (@TaylorPearsonMe), joins Erik on this episode. He is an author, entrepreneur, and investor.
On this episode they talk about:
- The basics of the thesis that markets are eating the world and how Taylor became interested in the idea.
- The implications of markets becoming more prevalent in every aspect of life.
- How smart contracts and the blockchain enable markets to eat the world.
- How closely related the idea that software is eating the world is to the idea that markets are.
- Some of the arguments against the idea and Taylor’s responses to them.
- The key questions for the future.
- What an investment firm with this thesis would invest in or what their requests for startups would be.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Future of Markets, Democracy, and Geopolitics in the 21st Century with Samo Burja Sep 08, 2019

Samo Burja (@SamoBurja), founder of Bismarck Analysis, joins Erik for this episode. You can find him on Medium at medium.com/@samo.burja.
They talk about:
- Whether capitalism and democracy are incompatible and what the future holds for democracy.
- Why economists need to look inside companies to learn from their cultures, not just at the relations between companies.
- Why the grey hoody is as much a worker’s uniform as the suit of the 1950s was.
- The coming merger of east and west coast media companies.
- China, the trade war, and the effects of the country expanding its influence in Europe and the Middle East.
- Why the big story of the 21st century that everyone is missing is that the Indian Ocean will become the hub of the world economy.
- Why he’s skeptical about the extent to which crypto will decentralize society.
- What people misunderstand about Henry Kissinger’s approach to geopolitics.
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Building a Second Brain, Productivity, and Trauma with Tiago Forte Sep 05, 2019

Erik is joined by Tiago Forte (@fortelabs), creator of Building a Second Brain, founder of Forte Labs, and writer at Praxis.
They talk about:
- Why productivity is not an end in and of itself.
- Why content creation (not just consumption) is integral to your career.
- How to better deal with the 11 hours of media a day that the average person consumes.
- Why the “average human life is now too complex to be managed by the average human brain.”
- Why hyperfocus and intense productivity are symptoms of trauma, and how to deal with that trauma.
- The theory of constraints and why it’s so powerful.
- Religion and meaning-making for the secular world.
- The future of libraries and why Tiago calls them “digital nomad embassies.”
Remember to apply for the winter vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator! It is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Live Episode: Jo Varshney and Kiran Bellubi on Village’s Network Catalyst Accelerator [Rebroadcast] Sep 03, 2019

This is a special live episode that was recorded at Village HQ in San Francisco on June 14 2018. It originally aired on July 4 2018. The event was put on in partnership with Xoogler, a network of former Googlers who have come together to help each other with their startup ambitions.
Village Global co-founder Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) chatted with Jo Varshney (@jo_getter), founder and CEO of VeriSIM Life and Kiran Bellubbi (@smalldozes), founder of Keyo, about their experience with the Village Network Catalyst program.
Jo and Kiran explain what it was like to be a founder in Network Catalyst, including how the team at Village helped them with their business model, leveraged Village's unique structure as a network to their advantage, and guided them through the fundraising process.
Remember: applications for the winter 2019 vintage of our Network Catalyst accelerator are due September 20 2019 — make sure to apply before then. Check out more info below.
Village Global’s Network Catalyst accelerator is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply before September 20 at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.

Prediction Markets, AI, and Crypto Governance with Elliot Olds Sep 02, 2019

Erik interviews Elliot Olds (@elliot_olds) on this episode. He is a thinker on AI, crypto, economics and prediction markets.
(Remember — applications for the winter vintage of our network catalyst accelerator are due September 20 — make sure to apply before then. Check out more info below.)
They talk about:
- The merits of prediction markets, and why they can be thought of as a “meta solution” akin to a generalized AI
- The technical and political hurdles that prediction markets face
- The most prominent arguments against prediction markets and the responses to them
- The idea that markets are eating the world and its implications
- Whether it would be wise to outsource your personal decisions to the crowd
- Governance in crypto
- What it would take to make prediction markets mainstream
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.
________
Village Global’s Network Catalyst accelerator is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply before September 20 at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.

A Deep Dive on Founder Flourishing with Dr. Cameron Sepah Aug 31, 2019

We apologize for the audio quality of this episode — we had technical difficulties during recording.
Remember: applications for the winter vintage of our network catalyst accelerator are due September 20 — make sure to apply before then. Check out more info below.
Erik is joined on this episode by Dr. Cameron Sepah (@drsepah), founder, investor, entrepreneur, and a clinical psychologist.
They talk about:
- Why founders have to be “chief psychologists” (as popularized by Mark Suster)
- Which frameworks for personality types are helpful and which are not
- Why “to be great you have to be a bit abnormal”
- His recommendations on sleep, physical activity, and nutrition
- What a “dopamine fast” is and why you should commit to one
- Why meditation is not a panacea
- The difference between Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.
_______
Village Global’s Network Catalyst accelerator is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply before September 20 at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.

A Primer on Information Marketplaces with Richard Craib and Riva-Melissa Tez Aug 29, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Richard Craib (@richardcraib), founder of Numerai and Erasure, and Riva-Melissa Tez (@rivatez), part of strategy at Intel.
They discuss:
- What Richard is working on at Numerai, a hedge fund that gives away its (anonymized) data for free.
- The Erasure protocol and the value of information marketplaces.
- Whether prediction markets for stocks can work.
- Whether the Numerai model could work with other types of data, for example, in healthcare.
- Whether the quality of startups in San Francisco is going down or up.
- The future of universities.
- The lack of diversity of political views in San Francisco.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.
______
Village Global’s Network Catalyst accelerator is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.

What Venkat Rao Thinks About Basically Everything Aug 27, 2019

Remember: applications for the winter vintage of our network catalyst accelerator are due September 20 — make sure to apply before then. Check out more info below.
Venkat Rao (@vgr), joins Erik on this episode. He writes at Ribbonfarm, Breaking Smart, and The Art of Gig.
They talk about:
- Why the ambient humour level fluctuates in a society and the “seriousness bubble” in Silicon Valley before 2016.
- Mediocrity and its merits.
- Hannah Arendt, humans as social creatures, and why “to be whole is to be a part.”
- What he thinks libertarians get wrong, and why they “are wrong in an interesting way.”
- How Silicon Valley has been evolving and how it can change to broaden the base of prosperity.
- Why he stays away from utopian thinking.
- The idea of shared reality tunnels and how they are similar to the evolution of television over the years.
- Where humans will derive meaning in the future.
- Why climate change will be the next big cultural battlefield.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.
______
Village Global’s Network Catalyst accelerator is a personalized program that features masterclasses from some of the best in Silicon Valley and a dedicated network leader focused on making the introductions you need to turbocharge your company. You can participate in-person in San Francisco or virtually from anywhere around the world.
Find out more and apply before September 20 at villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst.

A Deep Dive on René Girard with David Gornoski Aug 25, 2019

Erik is joined by David Gornoski on this episode. He is an entrepreneur, speaker, and writer.
They talk about:
- How David came to be interested in René Girard’s work.
- The explanation for why human desires are usually borrowed from each other.
- Mimesis and society’s role models.
- How Christianity has influenced society.
- The human fascination with conflict and drama.
- What religion can teach us.
- How Girardian philosophy applies to criminal justice, foreign policy, and government.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Most Well-Read Person in the World on The Future of Reading with Robert Cottrell Aug 22, 2019

Robert Cottrell (@robertcottrell), editor of The Browser, joins Erik on this episode.
They talk about:
- The two main errors that publications made in the shift to online after the advent of the web.
- Why paywalls are not an effective model.
- The bond that readers have with individual writers rather than publications, and how business models could change to accommodate that.
- Why long form writing is the most under-appreciated form of art today.
- Lessons to learn from his prolific reading habits.
- The potential for curation by algorithm and what he’s working on in this area.
- How to combat fake news.
- The promise that effective machine translation holds for non-English publications.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Future of Consumer, Dating Apps, and ISAs with Jeff Morris Jr. Aug 20, 2019

Jeff Morris Jr. (@jmj), Director of Product, Revenue at Tinder, and investor at Chapter One, joins Erik on this episode.
We sincerely apologize for the audio quality of this episode. We had technical difficulties with the recording.
They discuss:
- Using tech to bridge online and offline experiences.
- The idea of wellness as a status symbol.
- What $10B companies may have emerged ten years from now.
- The future of dating apps.
- Why he’s excited about ISAs.
- Why tech talent might need agents.
- What he’s learned from the best product and monetization people.
- Whether there’s a “Silicon Valley exodus” going on.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Promise of DAOs and Venture Capital in the Age of Crypto with PJ Kershaw Aug 16, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by PJ Kershaw (@pjkershawnz), early stage investor and crypto thinker.
They discuss:
- Why PJ says that the current model of companies with shareholders has “reached its zenith.”
- How DAOs will change the world.
- How public goods can be better delivered using new models.
- Lessons from Singapore.
- The future of venture capital in the age of crypto.
- How VC fund structure will change.
- Who the LPs will be in new forms of funds.
- The difference between investing in Asia and the US.
- His investing thesis.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

How Crypto Changes Corporations, Capitalism and Identity with Lawson Baker Aug 16, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Lawson Baker (@lwsnbaker), head of special projects at TokenSoft. He’s also working on a new company.
They talk about:
* Bitcoin as the future not just of finance, but also of work.
* What the internet and the future of work looks like ten years out.
* The “de-evolution of the firm” and how corporations will become less important in business.
* Where Lawson would be investing if he was running a venture fund.
* Why prediction markets are so exciting to Lawson.
* How identity will change over time.
* The future of capitalism.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. The show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Systematizing Social Capital with Brad Glisson Aug 13, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Brad Glisson (@GlissonBrad), co-founder and CEO of Quilt, formerly Thoughtblox.
They discuss:
- What social capital is, why it is important, and how it is distinctive from other forms of capital.
- The studies around social capital and some of their insights.
- How social capital impacts and intersects with reputation.
- Whether a codified reputation system, like a “Yelp for people” would ever be feasible (or desirable).
- What makes a great community.
- What Brad is working on in this space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Anne Wojcicki on Direct-To-Consumer Healthcare and The Future of Digital Health Aug 11, 2019

We are honored to have Anne Wojcicki (@annewoj23), co-founder and CEO of 23andMe, among our small group of luminary LPs whose financial capital and engagement power the next wave of Village Global founders.
She joined us in Mountain View for an intimate fireside chat with the first Chief Data Scientist for the United States Office of Science and Technology Policy, DJ Patil (@dpatil).
They discussed:
- Why the US healthcare system is broken.
- The state of direct-to-consumer healthcare.
- Tailored medicine and the future of digital health.
- 23andMe’s drug discovery efforts and how continuous data monitoring can change how drugs are developed.
- The problem with clinical trials and how to fix them.
- How Anne would change the US healthcare system if she could wave a magic wand.
- The founding of 23andMe and the company’s philosophy.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The State and Future of Robotics, Machine Learning, and Digital Celebrities with Michael Dempsey Aug 08, 2019

Michael Dempsey (@mhdempsey), partner at Compound, joins Erik on this episode to talk through a wide array of sectors that he has delved into.
(We apologize for the audio quality of this episode. We had technical difficulties during recording).
They talk about:
- The model and approach at Compound, including how writing definitive blog posts about a particular industry fits into their investing strategy.
- The state of robotics today, including why he’s not as bullish on robots in warehouses as he once was, and how robots can potentially transform food and retail.
- Machine learning, its applications, and why it’s so difficult to reproduce the findings seen in research papers in the space.
- Different approaches to making self-driving cars work, and his predictions for the future of the industry.
- The state of the investment landscape for other applications of ML, including radiology, voice and phone calls, image recognition, and animation.
- Digital celebrities, identity, and how self-expression on the internet will change in the future.
- His deep dive into women’s health, family planning and reproductive health, and what kinds of opportunities exist in the space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Government, Technology, and The New Social Safety Net with Nicolas Colin Aug 06, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Nicolas Colin, co-founder and director of The Family, and author of Hedge: A Greater Safety Net For The Entrepreneurial Age.
They discuss:
- Why in the future we can expect more social change from tech companies than from government.
- The key functions of version 1.0 of the social safety net.
- How to solve the problem that most jobs are located in cities, but cities are also mostly unaffordable.
- Why the 21st century will be more like the 19th century than the 20th.
- Why this is the entrepreneurial age, and what that means for workers.
- The story of the Rothschilds and how they prevented potential wars.
- The problems with universal basic income.
- How China is innovating on the social contract.
- The fact that nation-states are a recent invention and are not necessarily the only way to organize in the future.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Thiel Fellowship, 1517, and The Future of Education with Danielle Strachman and Mike Gibson Aug 04, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Danielle Strachman (@DStrachman) and Mike Gibson (@William_Blake), co-founders and general partners at 1517 Fund. They also both worked extensively on the Thiel Fellowship.
They discuss:
- The story of the genesis of the Thiel Fellowship.
- The lessons learned from running the Fellowship.
- Their idiosyncratic paths to running a venture capital fund.
- The signals they relied on to find the right applicants.
- How to change how higher ed works in the US.
- The lessons that the US can learn from other countries when it comes to college.
- How students can have a conversation with their parents about not going to college.
- Whether something like the Thiel Fellowship can scale.
- The lessons that homeschooling has for other forms of education.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Alex Tabarrok Thinks About Basically Everything Aug 01, 2019

Alex Tabarrok (@ATabarrok), economist and author, joins Erik on this episode for a wide-ranging discussion.
They talk about:
- The contributions of economics to society over the past several decades and the biggest challenges ahead for the field
- What “the great forgetting” means in economics and why bad ideas from the past keep coming back
- The arguments for open borders
- Why Alex thinks we should focus on increasing the number of police as opposed to increasing punishment for offenders
- Whether the US or China will pull ahead in the next decades
- Whether capitalism and democracy are compatible
- Why “democracy is not the secret sauce to riches”
- The merits of inductive versus deductive thinking
- Why he thinks too few robots, not too many, is the cause of low wages
- His thoughts on cost disease
- How he would change academia, the FDA, healthcare, the tax code, and other areas if he could wave a magic wand
- The ways in which he thinks differently from other economists
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The State of Fintech in 2019 with Seth Rosenberg and Sheel Mohnot Jul 31, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Seth Rosenberg (@SethGRosenberg), investor at Greylock, and Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi), fintech investor at 500 Startups.
They talk about:
- The biggest opportunities in fintech today.
- How traditional finance can be rebuilt from the ground up using software.
- How to think about different market segments in fintech.
- Their requests for startups in the space.
- Why the big companies in fintech are converging on the same set of features.
- Facebook’s Libra and the impact it might have.
- The “Asia model” as represented by WeChat and Grab, and whether that might transfer to the US.
… And much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Samo Burja Thinks About Basically Everything Jul 27, 2019

Samo Burja (@SamoBurja), founder of Bismarck Analysis, joins Erik for this episode. You can find him on Medium at medium.com/@samo.burja.
In this episode they discuss:
- Why certain societies flourish while others decay
- Where Samo stands on the nature versus nurture debate
- Why he has “yet to hear a satisfying description of human social life”
- The lessons we can learn from places like Singapore
- The difference between the view of government as resource for the people versus the view of people as resources for the government
- Why he’s skeptical of happiness research as it relates to countries
- Why neither Obama nor Trump were inevitable
- The future of China, the US, and globalization
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

How Income Share Agreements Can Help Rebuild The Middle Class with Daniel Pianko and Andy Hall Jul 25, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Daniel Pianko (@danielpianko), co-founder and managing director of University Ventures, and Andy Hall (@AndyHall_SD), COO of the San Diego Workforce Partnership.
They talk about:
- How ISAs have been able to transform lives through Andy’s program in San Diego.
- Why tech titans providing massive amounts of money for scholarships is a suboptimal way of getting underprivileged people into school.
- The chasm between work and school in America.
- The fact that over 50% of all private donations go to 50 schools in the US.
- Potential bottlenecks to ISA adoption and how they can be solved.
- Why only 25% of people end up with a first job related to their degree.
- How to think about public vs. private responsibility to increase access to education in the US.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Next Phase For Income Share Agreements with Chuck Trafton and Will Nelligan Jul 23, 2019

On this episode Erik is joined by Chuck Trafton (@chucktrafton), of FlowPoint and edly, and Will Nelligan (@williamnelligan), of the Education Finance Institute.
They talk about:
- Why there needs to be a marketplace for ISAs.
- How ISAs ensure that schools have “skin in the game.”
- The problems with student loans.
- The mechanics of ISA repayment and the ways in which they are progressive.
- Why ISAs provide a unique opportunity for investors.
- How ISAs can fix some of the perverse incentives that schools have.
- Legislation that will enable ISAs to be more widespread.
- Why it makes financial sense for schools to spend so much money on “customer acquisition” and how ISAs can create a new funding model for higher ed institutions.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Robert Wright Thinks About Basically Everything Jul 21, 2019

Robert Wright (@robertwrighter), author of Nonzero, The Moral Animal, Why Buddhism Is True, and others, joins Erik on this episode.
They discuss:
- The common theme of exploring the meaning of life that Robert says runs through all of his books.
- Whether global governance could be feasible and how positive-sum thinking can play a part in reducing hostilities between nations.
- Why consciousness gives life meaning.
- How to deal with the quest for status.
- The emotional manipulation that political leaders employ.
- Why we shouldn’t rush to bring in new technologies before we know the consequences.
- Why evolution has not programmed us to be happy.
- How to deal with tribalism.
- Why people say that “to explain something is to excuse it” and why not thinking that way can bring about a more compassionate world.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Future of Identity with Glen Weyl and Tomer Kagan Jul 18, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Glen Weyl (@glenweyl), founder of RadicalxChange and co-author of Radical Markets, and Tomer Kagan (@Gradish), co-founder and CEO of Merit.
They discuss:
- What they’re working on in the space and how it will change how identity works in the future
- How to think about what makes up someone’s identity, including elements that are self-declared and those that can be independently verified
- Glen’s point that the internet is missing two crucial elements: a truth function and a dignity function
- How the world will be different if their projects succeed
- Pseudonymous identities
- The problem with large-scale identity or reputation systems, like the Chinese government or Uber have created
- Why blockchain is the wrong answer to the right question when it come to identity, and the idea that “most truth is local, not global”
- What they are still trying to figure out in the space
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Hard Tech with Trae Vassallo and Lee Edwards Jul 16, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Trae Vassallo (@trae) of Defy and Lee Edwards (@terronk) of Root Ventures.
They talk about:
- How their backgrounds and unique experiences have informed their perspectives on investing
- Whether venture capital should go back to funding technical risk
- Their advice for funds and how Trae has seen investing strategies come and go over time
- Why there are big opportunities in areas VCs don’t know much about, like logistics, warehousing, or agriculture
- Why Trae doesn’t differentiate between consumer and enterprise businesses
- Their requests for startups in the space
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Primer on Idea Markets with Mike Elias Jul 14, 2019

Mike Elias (@harmonylion1), crypto consultant, joins Erik on this episode to talk about idea markets.
They discuss:
- How he came up with the idea
- Examples of how this could be implemented in the real world
- The problems with the incentives of the world’s media
- Why it’s “impossible to kill an idea with force”
- How an idea market is like a mix of the Nasdaq and Reddit
- Why, as a society, we want to search for the ideas that are both “outrageous and true”
- Why William James said that we should measure ideas primarily by their usefulness
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Intersection of Financial Services and Marketplaces with Pete Flint and Alex Taussig Jul 11, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Alex Taussig (@ataussig) of Lightspeed, and Pete Flint (@peteflint) of NFX.
They talk about:
- The evolution of marketplaces over time, including a comparison of the characteristics of eBay and Lyft at the time they went public.
- Why the next wave of marketplace businesses will be in financial services, and why they require a unique team with a specific set of experiences.
- Examples of existing startups that are working in this space, as well as their requests for startups.
- The pros and cons of ISAs, and their potential impact.
- Conversational commerce, and why it didn’t live up to the hype.
- How healthcare and other heavily regulated markets might be be attacked by entrepreneurs.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Value Hacking and How To Avoid The Fake Growth Epidemic with Mike Maples Jul 09, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Mike Maples (@m2jr) of Floodgate.
The talk about:
- The difference between fake growth and real growth, and how to know which one your company is experiencing.
- Why fake growth has taken hold in so many companies in the Valley, and its broader systemic causes.
- The difference between value hacking and growth hacking.
- Why once you’ve entered the growth stage, it’s next to impossible to go back to the value hacking stage.
- His thoughts on the Thiel vs. Rabois schools of markets.
- His tips for growing SaaS companies.
- How to think about incumbents.
- Why a pivot is not the same thing as a mulligan.
- The reasons for the fact that, in his opinion, there is too much money in VC.
- Why companies are staying private longer.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The LP Perspective: Alex Bangash Jul 07, 2019

Alex Bangash (@AlexBangash), founder of Trusted Insight, joins Erik as part of our LP series.
They talk about:
- The myth, according to Alex, that there are such things as “good pickers” in venture.
- The fact that in venture, the traditional investment model is turned on its head — assets are picking managers, rather than the other way around.
- Why “the structural advantage of the big funds has all but disappeared” and why he cringes when someone tells him they want to be the next Benchmark.
- How he is trying to disrupt the entire venture model by democratizing access to capital.
- Why he’s bullish on the studio model and which kinks still need to be worked out.
- Where the next big thing in VC will come from.
- What he means when he says he’s “trying to bring a tennis racket to a basketball game” when talking about whether star GPs could be thought of as analogous to big NBA free agents.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The LP Perspective: Michael Kim Jul 04, 2019

Michael Kim (@MKRocks), founder and managing partner of Cendana Capital, joins Erik on this episode to talk about what LPs look for in venture funds and the future of the industry.
They discuss:
- The reasons for the proliferation of seed funds over the past few years.
- The rise of the "super angels."
- Why portfolio construction is so important to Cendana when they're looking at a fund.
- How he evaluates a fund to see whether their thesis can generate the right returns.
- Why he’s “not looking for the ETF of seed investing.”
- In which geographies they’re looking for emerging fund managers.
- The rise of YC and the economics of accelerators.
- What the next 5-10 years will look like for the industry, including whether there’s a “reckoning” ahead.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

The LP Perspective: Beezer Clarkson and Chris Douvos Jul 02, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Beezer (Elizabeth) Clarkson (@Beezer232), managing director at Sapphire Ventures, and Chris Douvos (@cdouvos), founder of Ahoy Capital.
They talk about:
- The state of the venture industry and the industry from the LP perspective.
- Why venture is “either all about access or audacity.”
- How LPs pick which funds to back.
- Whether there is too much capital in the venture capital asset class.
- What “dilettante capital” is and why there are more “clowns” in the industry than ever for whom lightning struck in the form of an outlier investment.
- The three main ways that venture funds are differentiated.
- Why succession is always a threat in venture and how good firms have been able to manage when a GP "calls in rich."
- Why a good venture firm operates like a basketball team and a bad one operates like a tennis team.
- The difference between building a firm and deploying capital.
- Some impromptu book recommendations of classic works on California.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell was our audio engineer for this episode and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Bill Gates on Advice For Founders, Mistakes, and Philanthropy Jun 30, 2019

On this special live episode of Venture Stories, Bill Gates was interviewed at San Francisco’s Exploratorium by Julia Hartz, co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite.
We are honored to have Bill Gates, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time, among our small group of luminary LPs whose financial capital and engagement power the next wave of Village Global founders.
They covered:
* Gates’s entrepreneurial journey starting Microsoft, including the most important turning points in the early years of the company.
* His thinking on work-life balance for founders and what he would do differently if he was starting again.
* His “greatest mistake of all time.”
* What he’s learned from the next generation of founders.
* His perspective on the current tech landscape.
* His views on philanthropy, global development, education, and much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Past and Future of the World Economy with George Gilder and Patrick Stanley Jun 27, 2019

This episode is a conversation between George Gilder (@ScandalOfMoney), author, investor, writer and economist, Patrick Stanley (@PatrickWStanley), head of growth at Blockstack, and Erik Torenberg, partner and co-founder of Village. It was originally released on The Stacks Podcast presented by Blockstack.
They talk about:
- Gilder’s Information Theory, and why it is central to everything, including the world economy and biology.
- Why Gilder says that “wealth is really knowledge,” why money is not wealth, and why using money as anything other than a measuring stick is one of the biggest economic problems of the past and future.
- The problem with the “morbid financialization of the world” and the fact that share buybacks financed by near-zero interest loans from the government have driven economic growth for the last several years.
- Why prices are just measures of time.
- The importance of community and how to measure it in a society and economy, as well as Gilder’s thoughts on the scourge of materialism.
- Why Gilder is skeptical of the potential world-dominating effects of AI and isn’t as concerned about privacy as others are.
- Gilder’s critique of the Bitcoin framework.
- What Gilder looks for in companies when he “puts his VC hat on.”
- The role of the fed, China’s unique economy, trade wars, debt, and the charter cities movement, and much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Sarah Guo on SaaS Investing and Building an Enterprise Company Jun 25, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Sarah Guo (@saranormous), partner at Greylock. It was recorded live as part of a talk Sarah gave at Village Global’s Network Catalyst program in summer 2019.
They discuss:
- Which spaces Sarah is most interested in and where she has been investing
- Her advice for entrepreneurs looking to build a company in SaaS and enterprise, as well as her interest in companies working in security and privacy
- Her investment thesis at Greylock
- Why a company without an initial product is really just a story
- Her thoughts on the consumerization of the enterprise
- The product spec as an imagined future press release
- Her advice on pricing and mistakes that she sees entrepreneurs make when thinking about sales
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Consumer FinTech with Howard Lindzon and Sheel Mohnot Jun 24, 2019

Erik is joined by Howard Lindzon (@howardlindzon), GP at Social Leverage and co-founder and chairman of StockTwits, and Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi), FinTech investor at 500 Startups.
They discuss:
- Which spaces they’re most excited about within FinTech.
- How the space has evolved over the last decade or so.
- Why it’s a very difficult and crowded space to try to build a company in (hint: “CACs are ridonculous”).
- Their takes on crypto and its future.
- Why incumbents like Google and Amazon have done a poor job in FinTech.
- Why Howard likes companies that have “weird angles of attack” into a market.
- Their thoughts on ISAs.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Case For Anarcho-Capitalism with David Friedman Jun 20, 2019

David Friedman (daviddfriedman.com), economist and author, joins Erik on this episode. He is the son of Milton Friedman and the father of former guest, Patri Friedman.
They cover a lot of ground in this episode, including:
- The rationale for privatizing government and the failures of the existing system.
- What it would look like to have a fully privatized government, including how a private substitute for police and defense would work.
- Why he is not a utilitarian and the framework he uses to figure out what is right and wrong.
- How he would approach collective-action problems like global warming and nuclear proliferation.
- His perspective on inequality and his explanation for why people look to relative measures of affluence rather than absolute measures.
- How you would deal with punishment and criminals in a market-based society.
- And much more, including Glen Weyl’s Radical Markets, Tyler Cowen’s Stubborn Attachments, fake news, ISAs and restorative justice.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Journey Through Mental Models with Noah Tye Jun 18, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Noah Tye (@noahlt), developer and a very interesting thinker on Twitter.
They talk about:
- Noah’s advice on taking advice, including why “people give others the advice that they themselves need.”
- The importance of journaling and how to deal with emotions.
- Why he keeps an anticipation journal.
- The difference between burnout and overwork, and their relationship to depression.
- What it means to “shrink the quantum of experience.”
- What happened when Noah gathered a bunch of contrarians for a dinner party and how it informed how he views the roots of contrarianism.
- Why it’s important to be nice, contrary to the popular view of the “asshole genius” in tech.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Human Coordination, Compassion at Scale, and Non-Coercive Social Systems with Freyja (@utotranslucence) Jun 16, 2019

On this episode Erik talks to Freyja (Jess), thinker on human coordination at the Twitter handle @utotranslucence.
They talk about:
- How we should think about the idea of “compassion at scale.”
- Why once a measure becomes a metric, it ceases to be an effective measure.
- Whether it’s possible to build a social system without coercion.
- The distinction between complex and complicated systems.
- Markets, and how they impact communities.
- Her “motivational Turing test.”
- What she would like to see changed about how education is structured.
- How we can be more positive-sum as a society.
- Why a group is not a group without an external threat.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Arnold Kling Thinks About Basically Everything Jun 13, 2019

Arnold Kling (@KlingBlog), economist and former web entrepreneur, joins Erik on this episode for a wide-ranging discussion of tech, politics, business and economics.
They talk about:
- Arnold’s mission to replace neoclassical economics, including his dissection of its flaws.
- How he would change how economics is taught, including his proposal for a better definition of economics than “the study of how to allocate scarce resources.”
- Why capitalism is not more popular, and his responses to what he says are the three main arguments against capitalism.
- Why Arnold says that new experiments in governance that attempt to start from the ground up are missing the importance of the insights embedded in the traditional way of doing things.
- How he would change government, taxation and other areas if he could wave a wand.
- Why countries over 100M typically have poor governance, and why he advocates for smaller units of government.
- His take on inequality and universal basic income.
- Who among prominent thinkers he agrees or disagrees with and why.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Deep Dive on Education with Dani Grant Jun 09, 2019

Dani Grant (@thedanigrant) of USV joins Erik on this episode to talk about education. Dani has been doing a deep dive into education and shares a wealth of insights on how the current system works, its flaws, and the people working on new forms of education for all ages.
They talk about:
- Why the school system is broken and why it’s often thought of as “government-sponsored daycare.”
- How homeschools actually work, and how it is different than what you might think.
- Why religion was a precursor to organized education, and what insights it may have today for the future of education.
- The “free learning” movement.
- Her requests for startups in the space.
- How to address problems of inequality in new forms of education.
- How Dani (and Erik) might think about educating future children.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Deep Dive On InsureTech with Karn Saroya and Sheel Mohnot Jun 06, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Karn Saroya (@karnsaroya), CEO of Cover, and Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi), investor in FinTech.
They talk about…
* How Karn navigated the idea maze in starting Cover.
* The quirks of the insurance market and the real business model of big insurers.
* How insurance is comparable to prediction markets.
* Their requests for startups in the space, where the opportunities are, and what to stay away from.
* Why there has been a trend towards specialty insurance.
* How companies are using new sources of data to make underwriting decisions.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Helping Nontraditional Talent Break Into Tech with Rahim Fazal and Mike Slagh Jun 04, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Mike Slagh (@MikeSlagh), co-founder and CEO of Shift, and Rahim Fazal (@rahimthedream), co-founder and CEO of SV Academy.
They talk about:
* How they “navigated the idea maze” to come to what they are doing today.
* How they are helping people with non-traditional backgrounds break into Silicon Valley.
* Why what they do is valuable both to the employer and the employee changing careers.
* How they came to their business models.
* How they help fix the “massive mismatch between supply and demand” in the job market.
* Their thoughts on ISAs.
* Other potential ideas in the space.
And much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Founder Stories: Nancy Yu and Onno Faber of RDMD Jun 02, 2019

Founder Stories: Sasha Jokic of Formdwell Jun 02, 2019

Founder Stories: Andrew Landau of usejewel.com Jun 02, 2019

Founder Stories: Kevin Caldwell of Ossium Jun 02, 2019

Founder Stories: Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins of Promise Jun 02, 2019

Sarah Tavel on Evaluating Markets, The State of Education, and Crypto [Live Episode] May 30, 2019

Erik is joined on this special live episode by Sarah Tavel (@sarahtavel), general partner at Benchmark. Sarah gave a fireside chat as part of Village Global’s Network Catalyst accelerator program in May 2019.
They talk about:
* The state of education and what Sarah is looking for in the space.
* Why founders need to focus on “getting one thing really right, no matter how big or small.”
* What Sarah sees in the crypto space and why she invested in Chainalysis.
* The promise of vertical marketplaces.
* Why Benchmark say “we are not in the business of predicting the future but rather of seeing the present clearly.”
* How she evaluates markets and some of the verticals that she’s looking at investing in.
* Company-building tips, including why as a company grows the CEO needs to “transition from CEO of the product to CEO of the system that builds a system.”
And much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

How To Be Great at Twitter, The Future of Identity, and Why Meditation is Overrated with Michael Mayer May 29, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Michael Mayer (@micjm), co-founder of Bottomless.
They talk about:
* Pseudonymous accounts on Twitter.
* Whether Twitter should be more ephemeral.
* The dynamics of Twitter and why people seek entertainment instead of facts.
* How to curate your Twitter feed.
* Why Michael says it’s the responsibility of high-profile people to be on Twitter and speak their mind freely.
* Whether college is valuable.
* Capitalism as a moral framework.
* Starting a company with a significant other
And much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Mental Models with Scott Page May 26, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Scott Page (@Scott_E_Page), professor at the University of Michigan and author of The Model Thinker.
They talk about:
* The idea of the wisdom of crowds.
* Why cognitive diversity is important for a wise crowd.
* Whether individual experts or groups of ordinary people make better predictions.
* Which mental models VCs should be using.
* Why Scott says “mastery is knowing when to use the right mental model at the right time.”
* Why, if you’re watching basketball, you may as well be watching people roll a die.
... and much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Augmenting Employees with Artificial Intelligence with Deon Nicholas and Brianne Kimmel May 23, 2019

Erik is joined by Deon Nicholas (@dojiboy9), founder of Forethought, and co-host for this episode, Village Global Network Leader Brianne Kimmel (@briannekimmel).
They talk about…
* How Forethought is “making everyone a genius at their job” through their artificial intelligence platform.
* How Deon navigated the idea maze and came to the idea for Forethought.
* Why customer support is a prime candidate for Forethought’s solution.
* Why Deon says that they aim to “augment employees, not automate them.”
* Lessons on sales, fundraising and recruiting.
* What the future holds for Forethought.
… and much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell was our audio engineer for this episode and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Enterprise Investing with Matt Garratt May 21, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Matt Garratt (@mdgarratt), managing partner at Salesforce Ventures.
They discuss:
* Trends in enterprise software and enterprise investing, including voice, consumerization, and no-code.
* How their thinking has evolved over time and where they’re looking to invest.
* As a corporate VC fund, how to think about the potential for investing in companies that might come to disrupt the “parent” company.
* How their fund is enabling innovation in the enterprise.
* Why everyone seems to have “missed” Zoom.
* How the corporate development and venture teams interact at Salesforce.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Beauty with Bee Shapiro and Natalie Toren May 19, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Bee Shapiro (@BeeShapiro), New York Times columnist and founder of Ellis Brooklyn, and Natalie Toren (@NatalieToren), creative consultant.
They talk about:
* The current landscape in the beauty sector, including the clout of the massive incumbents and some of the up-and-coming brands.
* Whether successes like Kylie Jenner's line or Glossier can be replicated.
* How fragrance is unique from other categories.
* Where Bee would be investing if she was running a venture fund in the space.
* What distribution deals with big companies look like and what the economics are.
* Whether Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs could take on the space.
… And much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Primer on All Things Growth with Mike Duboe, Dan Hockenmaier, and David Weinstein May 16, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Mike Duboe (@mduboe), investor at Greylock, Dan Hockenmaier (@danhockenmaier), of Basis One, and David Weinstein (@dw_stein), working on Special Projects at On Deck and TokenDaily.
They talk about…
* The history and different “eras” of growth as a standalone team.
* Why there’s been a shift in mindset towards growth teams, how they will change in the next 5-10 years, and why relentless optimization has backfired for some companies.
* Why you should think of user acquisition in terms of a loop rather than a funnel.
* Why onboarding is the point that determines whether a user will be retained or not.
* The fact that users acquired organically via word of mouth are much more likely to be retained than users that were acquired through paid channels.
* Why investors should ask themselves, “if you took away any non-organic acquisition, are you still excited about the business?”
* How to tell if a company’s growth is healthy and sustainable or not.
* Stories from the guests’ time working at Tilt, Thumbtack and Stitch Fix.
* The best structure for a growth team.
* Common misconceptions about growth.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The History and Future of Bitcoin with Dan Held May 14, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Dan Held (@danheld), co-founder of Interchange. He was an early advocate of Bitcoin in San Francisco and is an influential writer in the space. Dan and Erik cover the history of Bitcoin, discuss some of Dan’s most interesting blog posts, and talk about what the future might hold for crypto.
Dan explains why Satoshi had a brilliant go-to-market strategy with Bitcoin. He talks about the reasons why various aspects of Bitcoin were set up the way they were, including the hard cap on the number of Bitcoin and why there is no set inflation rate.
Dan explains why mining takes so much electricity, and says that the walls around fiat money that would normally take the form of a vault are instead built virtually using that energy. He contrasts proof of work and proof of stake systems and talks about the trends in Silicon Valley’s perception of the space over the last several years.
They also talk about the future, including a discussion the Lightning network, whether micro-payments will take hold, and why there are so many projects with interesting ideas but without many users (and what might change that).
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The State of Prediction Markets and Crypto in 2019 with Joey Krug May 12, 2019

Joey Krug (@joeykrug), founder of Augur and co-chief investment officer at Pantera Capital, joins Erik on this episode.
A year ago Joey was on the podcast to talk about the launch of Augur, a prediction market platform. In this episode Joey follows up on that conversation to talk about what he’s learned in the last year and to talk about the state of crypto in 2019 more generally.
They discuss the launch of Augur, how it has evolved over the last year and what’s next for the platform. Erik asks Joey what he’s changed his mind on in the past year and what his “requests for markets” are on Augur.
They move on to discussing crypto more broadly, including staking-as-as-service, the state of crypto investing, what he’s excited about in the space, Ethereum, DAOs, and Keynesian versus Austrian economics.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Tim O’Reilly and Parker Thompson on Company Building, Venture Capital, and Inequality May 09, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly), Valley legend and founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, and returning fan favorite Parker Thompson (@pt), partner at AngelList.
They start out talking about Tim’s piece in Quartz about the hazards of the view that scaling one’s company as fast as possible should be one's top priority above all else.
He says that this approach is not for every entrepreneur and that it’s an artifact of the amount of money floating around today chasing returns. He has a biting critique of the companies that are going public without having ever been profitable or cash flow positive — but more importantly, without having a plan for getting to that point.
Parker and Tim discuss the misalignment of incentives that can happen in venture capital, and some of the alternative models that are sprouting up to solve that problem. He gives his advice for what entrepreneurs should do when getting started and how they should approach raising money.
They also discuss policy changes that could lead to longer-term thinking by investors, whether Tim foresees a “Silicon Valley meltdown,” as well as why inequality is such a pressing issue and how to solve it.
We want to apologize for the audio quality of the second half of this episode. We ran into technical difficulties again during recording but are working on getting them sorted out for you.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

A Primer on Life Sciences Investing with Jenny Rooke and Jared Seehafer May 07, 2019

Erik is joined by Jenny Rooke (@drjennyrooke), Managing Director at Genoa Ventures, and Jared Seehafer (@seehafer), Village Global Network Leader and CEO and co-founder of Enzyme.
They start out by talking about how Jenny got to where she is today and her career journey thus far. She explains what makes the team at Genoa unique and why it’s such a competitive advantage to have a team that is able to look at the raw data that a company is putting out and understand whether it’s compelling or not.
They define some commonly misused terms in life sciences and talk about how to differentiate between various areas of the space. Jenny mentions that part of being successful as a startup means choosing to stay focused and aggressively saying no to promising opportunities — and that Genoa follows the same advice.
Erik asks what some of Jenny’s requests for startups in the space would be, what her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is, and which emerging technologies in the space are over- or under-rated.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Software Meets Physical World with Sean Linehan May 05, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Sean Linehan (@seanlinehan), Village Global Network Leader, and former VP of product at Flexport.
Sean explains how he found his way to Flexport, which he says was like “the TurboTax of customs brokerages.” He explains the trend of entrepreneurs building software companies that are not afraid to “get their hands dirty” in areas that involve a lot of people and logistics.
He talks about his study of the history of different industries and why he says that today is analogous to the early industrial revolution. He says that there is a trend of “productizing professional services.”
Erik asks which industries Sean would be most excited about if he was starting a venture capital fund together. Sean explains why he works as a product manager rather than a software engineer in the interest of maximizing his impact per unit of time and talks about why zero-sum thinking is pervasive in the world today but is in most cases, wrong.
We apologize for the audio in this episode and the last couple episodes. We had technical difficulties the day of recording, but we’ve got them fixed now and have some great episodes coming up for you.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Arjun Sethi of Tribe Capital on Data-Informed Investing May 02, 2019

Arjun Sethi (@arjunsethi) of Tribe Capital joins Erik on this episode to talk about Tribe Capital’s approach to investing. He talks about the “first principles” approach they take to evaluating companies and why he says rather than the company pitching their firm to Tribe, instead he tells prospective investments, “we will pitch you.”
He breaks down the data-driven analysis that Tribe does of the companies they look to work with, and talks about the kinds of data that work best for their analysis. Erik asks why the bigger venture capital firms aren’t taking the same approach and runs through a number of industries to get Arjun’s take on what the keys to success are in that sector.
Arjun talks about some of the writing on his blog over the past few years and points out that “any successful company is not successful because they have copied someone else’s framework.”
We apologize for the audio quality of this episode. We ran into technical difficulties during recording.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg.

Elad Gil on How to Evaluate Markets Apr 30, 2019

Elad Gil (@eladgil), entrepreneur and investor, joins Erik and co-host Anuj Abrol (@nujabrol), Chief of Staff to Justin Kan, for a discussion of all things markets.
They start off talking about Elad’s philosophy of life and career in general, including why he says that “less happens than you think in 2 years, and more happens than you think in 5 years.” He points out that it’s hard to predict the future and says it’s impossible to say where he will be or what he will be doing 10 years from now.
Elad has a different way of looking at potential companies and investments than most investors. Rather than starting with the quality of founders, he starts by evaluating the quality of the market. He explains why this is important and how it has led to success for him as an entrepreneur and investor.
He talks about what makes a good market, and why “most startup markets have to be definitionally non-obvious.” They contrast the “Rabois School of Markets” versus the “Thiel School of Markets” and Elad gives his opinion on which markets are currently being ignored by Silicon Valley.
They finish with a rapid-fire round where they name a market and Elad gives his take on it, including VR, longevity, consumer social, and others.
Quotable Lines From This Episode
“Starting a company, at least for first-time founders, can really be an act of desperation.” — Elad
“Startups tend to fail at thing big companies are good at.” — Elad
“I see a lot of things done in professional services that should just be SaaS software.” — Elad
We apologize for the audio quality of this episode. We ran into technical difficulties during recording.

All Things Scaling, Managing and Hiring with Ryan Delk and Jared Fliesler Apr 28, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Ryan Delk (@delk), COO of Omni, and Jared Fliesler (@JaredSF), COO of Scribd.
They talk about the fact that Chief Operating Officer is a relatively new role in Silicon Valley that has emerged over the last several years. They explain how they make sure they are effective COOs.
They say that being COO is analogous to being a bumblebee in that a COO is always moving from place to place within the company making sure things are running smoothly. They use “how often am I surprised?” as a question to use to take the measure of how well they are doing their job.
They move on to talking tactics, including how to set up your org structure, how to think about recruiting in a growing startup, and the nuances of assigning titles in your company. They also discuss goal-setting within the company, performance reviews, the tough task of letting people go, and much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Michael Nielsen Thinks About Basically Everything Apr 25, 2019

Michael Nielsen (@michael_nielsen), research fellow at Y Combinator Research, joins Erik for a wide-ranging discussion about a variety of topics, including:
* Why the top names in the S&P 500 change over time, but the top names in global university rankings don’t — and how to fix that.
* How Michael thinks about the role of risk in science, and why he'd like to see more risk-taking.
* Memory, including how to improve yours and why professional athletes seem to have such good ones.
* The “compliment deficit” in the world and how to fix it.
* The silver lining of the Bay Area housing problem.
* The reproducibility problem in social science.
* Why he’s a fan of chaos.
…and much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Why What You Know Is More Valuable Than Who You Know, and More with Auren Hoffman and Tod Sacerdoti Apr 23, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Auren Hoffman (@auren), former co-founder and CEO of LiveRamp and Tod Sacerdoti (@tod), former CEO and founder of BrightRoll. They are now working together on a new fund.
They talk about how they came to the idea they’re working on, including how to find the right intersection of ideas among those that are interesting to you, that you are uniquely skilled at, that others don’t yet appreciate, and that are worth working on.
They explain what data co-ops are and the unique value that they can bring. Auren says he believes that the future is about managing vendors rather than people, and points out that WhatsApp didn’t even build their core messaging functionality themselves in the first place.
Erik asks what’s changed in company building since they started their companies in the 2000s and what the next ten years will look like in venture capital. They also talk about why the Valley is flush with cash and whether they are long San Francisco in an era of distributed teams.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Rise of Devsumer/No-Code with Ilya Sukhar and Alex Yaseen Apr 21, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Ilya Sukhar (@ilyasu) of Matrix Partners and formerly of Parse, and Alex Yaseen (@alexyaseen), co-founder and CEO of Parabola.
They start by talking about what exactly “devsumer” is and why it’s important. They discuss some of the biggest names in the space and how these tools are enabling people who are not engineers to have the kind of leverage that engineers typically enjoy.
Ilya and Alex talk about the trends in the space and what they would be looking for if they were running a venture fund focused on devsumer. They discuss some of the common pitfalls founders face and some of the unique forces at play in this market. They talk about why people get excited about what they can build with the tools and how they intersect with some of the more developer-focused applications that exist.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Existential Risks, Ecological Economics, and How The Blockchain Will Transform Capitalism with Vinay Gupta Apr 19, 2019

Erik is joined by Vinay Gupta, CEO of Mattereum, for a wide ranging discussion about crypto, world government, existential risks, science fiction, energy, and much more.
Vinay says that venture capital is a 40-year-old model and that the ICO boom — while having its own significant drawbacks — was a huge innovation in capital formation. He explains why the blockchain is such a huge innovation with wide-ranging applications and laments the fact that people have a hard time seeing past its application in digital currency.
He lays out his thoughts on why reputation systems are broken and why Facebook could in a few years’ time be essentially a credit rating agency and a digital identity system for all aspects of your life.
Vinay discusses the existential risks that the world faces today, and why the lack of environmental sustainability is at the top of his list of fears. He says that he is neither a Keynesian or an Austrian, but instead subscribes to “ecological economics.”
They also talk about the influence of science fiction on engineers, the idea of "network escrow," why we need a nerd in the White House, and novel ideas for generating energy.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Deep Dive on Community Building with Scott Heiferman Apr 16, 2019

Erik is joined by Scott Heiferman (@heif), co-founder of Meetup.
They discuss the reason that IRL (in real life) meetups are important and why in-person contact cannot be replaced by virtual interaction. They talk about some of the most important communities that have started in the past, particularly involving religion, and why the connections they make have been so powerful.
Scott mentions the health benefits of belonging to a community and talks about the importance of network effects in building new groups.
He also talks about what makes a successful community and how people looking to build communities can make theirs grow.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: E-Commerce and Logistics with Laura Behrens Wu and Talia Goldberg Apr 14, 2019

Erik is joined by Laura Behrens Wu (@LauraBehrensWu), co-founder and CEO of Shippo, and Talia Goldberg (@taliagold), venture investor at Bessemer.
They start out by talking about how Laura started Shippo and how the team iterated through different ideas to get to what the company is today. She tells the story of trying to get attention from investors for a space that was not too familiar to them.
Talia talks about Bessemer’s investments long ago in then-new retail companies like Staples and Dick’s Sporting Goods, and where they are thinking about where they want to invest.
They move on to talking about the rise of direct-to-consumer and consumer packaged goods, and discuss how companies like Shippo can help new entrepreneurs get to market. They discuss some of the changes in e-commerce over the years and how new channels like Instagram are helping create a new relationship between consumers and brands.
They also talk about companies that Talia wishes she had invested in but didn’t, their recommendations for entrepreneurs looking at the space, and their requests for startups.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Case For A Gift Economy with Miki Kashtan Apr 12, 2019

On this episode Erik is joined by Miki Kashtan, author and NVC teacher. They discuss the problems of exchange in general as a way of fulfilling human needs, the issues with reciprocity, and what fulfilling needs via “flow” and “natural abundance” means.
Miki talks about some of the more interesting and unique studies that she has seen about societies from the very distant past and what kinds of lessons they may hold for how we should organize societies today. They talk about why in society we are always rationing, whether we realize it or not, and are usually determining how to allocate scarce resources by wealth rather than by need. Miki talks about the idea that shame was once a useful emotion that has been co-opted by the powers that be to keep people in line.
She also talks about the distinction between governments and governance, why we need to innovate on innovation, and why she never does anything for the money, but instead does things for the relationships.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Robert Greene on His New Book “The Laws of Human Nature” Apr 11, 2019

Robert Greene (@RobertGreene), author of The 48 Laws of Power and The Laws of Human Nature, joins Erik on this episode to talk about how we can “penetrate the masks that other people wear” and become effective judges of others' character.
He calls his new book the “codebook for deciphering human behavior” and talks about why being able to look at something through the perspective of others is the most valuable thing you can do. He also says you need to combine empathy with a deep understanding of your mind’s tendencies and your personal psychological quirks.
Robert warns that you should take care not to be seduced by a glittery resume or by those who use their charm to hide their lack of competence. He also discusses the role of identity and the importance of reputation in today’s world, why everyone is an actor (whether they like it or not), and how he has evolved since his first book was published decades ago.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Tyler Cowen On His New Book: "Big Business: A Love Letter To An American Anti-Hero" Apr 09, 2019

Erik is joined by Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen), economist, author, and returning fan-favorite. He talks with Erik about why big business should be celebrated and why capitalism is effective but unpopular.
Tyler explains why he doesn’t quite believe that the main benefit of the firm is to lower transaction costs. He talks about why big business and capitalism have a branding problem, and what benefits they bring to the American people that mean they should be celebrated.
He talks about the tech behemoths and why concerns about their power are overrated, including why people don’t actually care as much about privacy as they say they do. He posits that users want more control over their information, not more privacy.
They discuss the vilification of finance in America, why Tyler says that corporate lobbying isn’t such a big deal in the US, and discuss how Tyler’s views differ from those of some of the most prominent writers on this topic.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Noah Smith and Parker Thompson Think About Basically Every Economic Policy Apr 07, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Noah Smith (@Noahpinion), Bloomberg opinion writer, and Parker Thompson (@pt), partner at AngelList. They cover a wide variety of topics relating to, among many others, labor productivity, the gig economy, healthcare, education, solar power and the Green New Deal.
They start out by talking about productivity and why it hasn’t increased over the past decades, even though technology has in theory enabled higher productivity. Noah explains his pet theory that people waste the time they’re saving by being more productive via technology “dicking around on social media at work.”
They talk about certain sectors like real estate and wealth management ripe for disruption and where technology should result in better value for consumers. They discuss the gig economy and why Noah says it is not actually the future of labor. He points out people in Silicon Valley conflate companies that will make them very rich with companies that are going to take over the world (even though Silicon Valley insists they will).
They discuss why good government health insurance would be one of the best things that could happen for the American worker, and much, much more, including why workers should control a portion of the company they work for, why people have such trouble saving, and why companies aren’t investing in training or educating their workers.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Comparison of Austrian and Keynesian Economics with Noah Smith, Parker Thompson and Stephan Kinsella Apr 06, 2019

On this episode Erik is joined by Stephan Kinsella (@NSKinsella), libertarian writer and patent attorney, Noah Smith (@Noahpinion), Bloomberg opinion writer, and Parker Thompson (@pt), partner at AngelList.
In a spirited debate, the three of them discuss the relative merits of Austrian economics vs. Keynesian economics.
They start out by defining the primary schools of economic thought and explaining where each of the guests sits on the spectrum of economic thinking. They talk about the value of empiricism when it comes to economics and whether economic theories can be derived from first principles.
They discuss inflation and whether centralized control of the money supply leads to better economic outcomes, as well as how one can determine these things in the messy real world. They also touch on a number of other topics, including whether it would be a good thing to get rid of the FDA and pharmaceutical patents, whether antitrust law is “unethical,” and whether the patent system is a net positive for society.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The State and Future of Fintech with Zach Perret and David Haber Apr 04, 2019

Erik is joined by Zach Perret (@zachperret), co-founder and CEO of Plaid, and David Haber (@dhaber), former co-founder and CEO of Bond Street, now at Goldman Sachs.
Zach and David talk about how they met and how they started their respective companies. They explain how to find out whether you are passionate enough about an idea to start a company around it: are you passionate about it enough to be willing to pound the table to get your mother-in-law to invest?
David points out that 90% of your work as a founder is selling — to investors, employees, customers, and many others. They talk about the future of financial services and fintech and make some predictions about what to expect in the space over the next several years. David and Zach share some tips for people building a company in the space on what works and what doesn’t, and how the space has evolved since they started their companies.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Primer on Nonviolent Communication with Newt Bailey Apr 02, 2019

Newt Bailey (@nmbailey), founder of The Communication Dojo, and a nonviolent communication coach, joins Erik on this episode to talk about how the framework of nonviolent communication can help you be more compassionate in your conversations and improve communication at work, and in all aspects of your life.
Newt tells the story of a protracted conflict at work that he was able to overcome with the help of NVC and how that was the basis for his work in nonviolent communication. He breaks down the three key skills in NVC and how it is similar to the martial art of aikido, where you are defending yourself without hurting the aggressor, and also not being an aggressor yourself.
He also talks about restorative justice initiatives based on NVC that are in effect around the world and explains how NVC can be compatible with the seemingly cutthroat world of business and economic growth.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Deep Dive on Housing with Kim-Mai Cutler and Alex Danco Mar 31, 2019

This episode features Kim-Mai Cutler (@kimmaicutler) of Initialized Capital and Alex Danco (@Alex_Danco) of Social Capital.
They start out by talking about the huge rise in housing prices over the last decades in the Bay Area and the fact that there is now net-negative domestic US migration to the Bay Area. They discuss the reasons for this, including the fact that in California, property taxes are paid on the value of the property when it was purchased, not the market value.
They talk about land and property more generally and the fact that at one time in the past property was something that would produce something (like crops or livestock) as opposed to simply remain stagnant but appreciate in value.
They discuss the policies that have led to the housing crisis in the Bay Area and some of the current attitudes in the US towards housing that are counter-productive. They also talk about what would need to change for the housing crisis to abate, new forms of property rights, and why the financial crisis of the late 2000s didn’t fundamentally change anything about the overheated housing market.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Future of Crypto, Capitalism and Governance with Mike Maples and Alok Vasudev Mar 28, 2019

Mike Maples (@m2jr), founding partner at Floodgate, and Alok Vasudev (@alokvasudev), early-stage crypto investor, join Erik on this episode.
They start out by talking about the biggest companies in tech and the discussion about whether they constitute monopolies. Mike points out the parallels between today’s uproar over big tech and similar eras in the past, including when Microsoft was said to be a monopoly that was “theoretically impossible” to break (until Google came along). They predict that crypto will be the next big wave in tech (and finance) and that it is the most likely thing to disrupt the tech giants of today.
They move on to talking in-depth about crypto, including what kinds of use cases will emerge in the next 5-10 years, why it’s in the government’s interest to see the crypto ecosystem thrive, and why the innovation in capital formation resulting from crypto will be at least as big as the innovation in tech that that will come from crypto.
They also talk about how VCs should think about the crypto space, why good governance is so important in crypto projects, and the changes that crypto will bring to the world in general.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

CPG, Defensibility, Finding The Next Instagram - Everything Consumer in 2019 with Rebecca Kaden, Nikhil Basu Trivedi and Jonathan Yoni Regev Mar 26, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Rebecca Kaden (@rebeccak46), investor at Union Square Ventures, Nikhil Basu Trivedi (@nbt), VC at Shasta Ventures, and Jonathan Yoni Regev (@jyonni), CEO and co-founder of The Farmer’s Dog.
They talk about where we are in the evolution of the consumer packaged goods space. Rebecca explains why this is a unique moment where consumers are eager to try new things from new brands. They discuss the three types of defensibility in a CPG startup and Nikhil points out that it’s difficult to figure out whether a business model can really be defensible at such an early stage.
Jonathan explains what they’re trying to do a The Farmer’s Dog and Rebecca and Nikhil talk about why they love the pets space for new investments, including some of the unique forces at play in the pet landscape.
They also talk about communities that have sprung up around certain CPG brands and how communities could be the future of both CPG and consumer social. They discuss the potential for another huge horizontal community like Snap or Instagram to emerge and what they would be looking for in “the next Instagram.”
We apologize for the quality of Jonathan’s audio.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Mental Health and Addiction with Steve Schlafman and David Marcovitz Mar 24, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Steve Schlafman (@schlaf), partner at Primary Venture Partners, and David Marcovitz, addiction psychiatrist at Vanderbilt University.
They talk about the opportunities and challenges facing startups looking to tackle mental health and substance use disorder. They tell Erik what they would focus on if they were building a company in the space and some of the different models for treating addiction that could be amenable to a startup.
The three of them move on to talking about some of the challenges in selling to employers, large health providers and state governments, and how those potential roadblocks affect their view of the best business model for startups in the space.
They also talk about some of their personal experiences with these topics as well as the macro-level changes over the last several years around mental health and substance use disorder.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Future of CPG and Mental Health in Silicon Valley with Ryan Caldbeck Mar 21, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Ryan Caldbeck (@ryan_caldbeck), co-founder and CEO of CircleUp.
Ryan starts out by explaining how he got started in CPG and the mission of CircleUp. He talks about why some VCs don't realize that the market is worth paying attention to and some of their biases when evaluating CPG opportunities.
He explains the data-driven approach that CircleUp uses to predict which companies will be most valuable and explains why a fund needs to have CPG as its only focus to succeed.
Ryan also opens up about his personal experience as a founder dealing with mental health challenges and talks about why it’s so difficult for founders, employees and investors in the startup ecosystem to be vulnerable about what they're facing. He discusses what he thinks needs to happen for mental health to be addressed properly by the Valley.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Dick Costolo Thinks About Basically Everything Mar 19, 2019

Dick Costolo (@dickc), former CEO of Twitter, joins Erik and co-host Jayni Shah (@shahjayni), in this special live episode.
Dick explains why is focusing on travel and tells some stories from a recent trip to Tanzania where he met with a hunter-gatherer tribe. He recounts what it was like trying to make it as a comic in Chicago alongside Steve Carrell and Tina Fey, and how the lessons he learned from improv apply to being a CEO.
He discusses polarization on social media, how it might be ameliorated, and regales us with stories from his days at Twitter.
He also talks about his theory of why digital fitness apps are not compatible with human nature, why you should use more exclamation marks in emails, and some of the most common mistakes that he sees the entrepreneurs he mentors making.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Case For Digital Minimalism with Cal Newport Mar 17, 2019

This episode features Ben Casnocha, Village Global co-founder and partner, in conversation with Cal Newport, author of Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World.
Cal starts out by defining what digital minimalism is exactly. He talks about why he refrains from using social media and explains how the mechanics of social apps create something resembling an addiction.
They discuss Henry David Thoreau’s philosophy of time management as explained in Walden, and why you should “think of your phone like the closet in the Marie Kondo show.” Cal explains why a 30-day reset is necessary and how exactly to use that time to find clarity around what is most valuable to you.
Cal talks about the kinds of offline activities that new digital minimalists start to engage in, his unique definition of solitude, and why solitude is so important.
They also give a sneak peek of Cal’s next book, on digital minimalism in the workplace.
Quotes From This Episode
“Minimalism says if you really want to maximize your quality of life, find the things that are really valuable, focus on those, and miss out on the things — not that are bad — but that are good but not that good.”
“The cost of the clutter is going to overwhelm the benefits that each of these things causing the clutter actually creates.”
“You can think about your phone like the closet in the Marie Kondo show.”
“Never before in human history could we get rid of every single moment of solitude in the day.”
“Clean out the proverbial closet and rebuild your digital life from scratch, but just do it much more intentionally.”
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Live Episode: Lessons on Leadership and Being a Better CEO with John Donahoe and Ben Casnocha Mar 14, 2019

We were thrilled to host a Masterclass roundtable session with our founders and John Donahoe (@Donahoe_John), CEO of ServiceNow. Prior to ServiceNow, John was CEO of eBay for more than seven years. He is known as one of the most inspirational leaders in Silicon Valley and is a highly sought-after mentor to CEOs including Brian Chesky at Airbnb, Drew Houston at Dropbox, and Ben Silbermann at Pinterest. We’re honored to have him among our small group of world-class executives and collaborators whose time and expertise help power our network of founders at Village Global.
When we asked John to deliver a Masterclass to 12 diverse and determined founders in our portfolio, John gladly invited us all to the ServiceNow HQ where he riffed on topics of leadership, culture building, talent development, and how to grow as a CEO in the tech industry.
He shared advice on when to hire ahead, invest in and train, or replace personnel on your team and gave insight into his most common piece of advice on professional growth when advising CEOs. John also did an in-depth demonstration of how to let someone go with dignity and grace.
Quotes From This Episode
"When you talk about priorities at an aspirational level, they overlap a lot. People start realizing we're more similar than we're dissimilar." — John
"Adversity never feels fun. I don't seek adversity. But I'm no longer scared of adversity. When it emerges, instead of trying to run from it, I now accept that it is a reality and I say, 'well, at least I'm going to learn and grow.'" — John
"My experience has been that around any issue that involves change, you have roughly 20-25% of people who want to be part of it, no matter what the topic is, you have 25-30% of people who want to fight it, and you have the 50% of people in the middle saying 'which side is going to win?'" — John
"[When someone is let go] The fear is humiliation usually. That's almost a bigger fear than actually leaving the company." — John
"We're never as good or as bad as labels make us out to be." — John
"I would say in general, for every 10 hours of business development conversations, 8 of them are a waste." — John
"I do gratitude practice driving into work every morning. It's proven in brain science that your brain becomes more negative over time. But it's also been proven in brain science that you can counteract that." — John
"The older I get, the more I've made friends with uncertainty. I don't avoid uncertainty. Uncertainty is as present to me today as it was before but I'm a little more comfortable with it today." — John
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Live Episode: Lean Startup Lessons For Founders with Eric Ries and Ben Casnocha Mar 12, 2019

Eric Ries (@ericries) recently joined Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha (@bencasnocha) in San Francisco to chat with some of the founders of our portfolio companies. Eric is a Village Global LP, friend of the firm, and author of The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses.
Over the nearly 75-minute session, Eric gave a masterclass in Lean Startup techniques, addressed questions from founders on some of the finer details of the framework, and shared what he has learned from his entrepreneurial journey in the early 2000s as well as more recently as founder of the Long Term Stock Exchange.
Eric and Ben start out by talking about uncertainty as the core of a startup and the stark contrast between planning in an early-stage company versus in a large enterprise. Eric points out that those in the startup world take for granted certain startup best practices that “would get you fired in any big company.” He talks about the need for structure around entrepreneurial exploration, including making one’s hypotheses explicit and rigorously testing them.
Eric discusses the difference between customer discovery and customer validation. He tells the story of a founder who interviewed prospective customers and was told that the product was great and that they would use it, but that when he asked those same customers to put their name to a letter recommending their bosses purchase the product, not one would do so.
“The ideas that sound big are usually not the things that end up big.”
They move on to a discussion of pivots and why Eric says that in virtually all cases, after having pivoted, founders say they wish they had done so sooner. He explains why every six weeks is an ideal cadence for a “pivot or persevere” meeting.
MVP (minimum viable product) has become household term that was popularized by Eric. He discusses how founders can get over their fear of shipping something they perceive as incomplete and why he says the ideal MVP has “way fewer features than you think it needs.” He fields questions from Village founders on MVPs and talks about how small companies should think about their MVP when targeting large companies as customers.
“Engineers always think that more features will solve any problem.”
Eric explains what he means when he says that “entrepreneurship is a process of self-discovery” and why managing yourself and your own emotions as a founder can be equally as important as managing those of your team. He also addresses some of the criticisms of the Lean Startup methodology and common misunderstandings of the framework.
“I truly believe that entrepreneurship is a process of self-discovery. I think that two people working on the exact same company, encountering the exact same evidence, and deciding on a pivot, would probably choose two different pivots if they had different values. You discover something about what you really care about.”
Along the way, they discuss some of the seminal works in entrepreneurship, like The Four Steps To The Epiphany by Steve Blank and Crossing The Chasm by Geoffrey Moore.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Consumer Social, The Future of VC and How To Start An Early Stage Fund with Cyan Banister and Niv Dror Mar 10, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Cyan Banister (@cyantist), partner at Founders Fund, and Niv Dror (@Nivo0o0), founder of Shrug Capital.
They start out talking about why they’ve each been successful investors and what their respective “superpowers” are. Cyan tells a story about hearing Chris Sacca talk about his fund on a bus and meeting Travis Kalanick in a hot tub. Niv talks about the playbook for micro VCs and why after suggesting as a joke that he start his own fund, he actually ended up doing so. In contrast, Cyan explains why she would never start a fund of her own.
Cyan talks about how the team at Founders Fund works together, how they hired Keith Rabois even though they thought they never would be able to, and what kind of talent they’re looking for.
They move on to some of the most exciting spaces in consumer social, including AR/VR gaming, virtual celebrities, live, and new applications that are enabled with AirPods.
They finish by talking about career development, why connecting people is such a valuable skill, and Cyan’s unique Twitter photo.
Quotable Lines
“I tend to be a listener, not a talker. I will sometimes be in a room or a party or an event and I hear what someone is working on and I say, hey, tell me more. With Chris Sacca’s fund, I heard him talking about it on a bus.” — Cyan
“Most people just try to shoot down things. I just want to believe and see what can be. I want to say yes. Pessimism is not very good in this business.” — Niv
“The thesis of the fund is things that I’m excited enough to talk about for an hour with a non-technical audience.” — Niv
“We are incredibly lean and nimble. When we want to get something done, it’s a small office, and we just pull whoever needs to be in a meeting into a meeting and it just happens and then it’s done.” — Cyan
“We probably wouldn’t hire Peter [Thiel] when he was just starting. He had to go do PayPal and all the other things that he did to become the Peter that he is today.” — Cyan
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Mental Health with Mark Goldenson Mar 07, 2019

Mark Goldenson (@goldenson), Village Global Network Leader, creator of VentureKit, and formerly founder and CEO of Breakthrough, joins Erik to talk about his requests for startups in the mental health space and in digital health more broadly.
Mark recounts his entrepreneurial journey so far, including his experience at Breakthrough, a mental health startup he created and ran that was later acquired. He talks about the four key problems in mental health and how connecting therapists and clients through the internet can solve those problems.
He explains how they tackled the problem in a unique way at Breakthrough and explains some of the nuances of operating in the health market. He points out that health is not a product-driven market and that at Breakthrough, instead of running a technology company as they had intended, they were running (virtual) clinics.
They talk about telehealth and what opportunities exist in digital health more broadly. He also lists some of his requests for startups, including the intriguing idea of a “Fitbit for mood.”
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Women's Health with Afton Vechery and Anarghya Vardhana Mar 07, 2019

Erik is joined by Afton Vechery (@aaffttoonn), co-funder and CEO of Modern Fertility, and Anarghya Vardhana (@anarghya503), VC at Maveron.
Afton explains how she went from private equity to running a women's health startup and talks about the problems that she saw in the space and how Modern Fertility aims to change the lives of women.
Anarghya talks about their investing criteria at Maveron and what they're looking for in the healthcare space. They talk about the reasons that women's health has been neglected and talk about some of the startups that are working on changing that.
Afton points out that there are a number of companies working in healthcare that have a complete lack of articles published in peer-reviewed journals and Anarghya says that "brand is not enough" and that "you want to win the right way."
They discuss what their requests for startups are and where they would be investing if they were running a fund devoted solely to women's health.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Recruiting with Aline Lerner and Tasneem Minadakis Mar 07, 2019

Aline Lerner (@alinelernerLLC), founder of interviewing.io, and Tasneem Minadakis, Engineering Leader at Google and advisor to interviewing.io, join Erik to talk about recruiting software engineers and opportunities in the recruiting space more broadly.
Aline explains how interviewing.io allows for anonymous interviews, including the story of creating software to mask voices so neither side could tell who exactly the other party was. She talks about some of the correlations they found in their studies between the quality of a resume and likelihood of getting extended an offer, and whether the school you went to or companies you worked for are predictive of success in a job.
Tasneem talks about how they are working on they are working on changing recruitment process at Google and some of the insights she’s gained over the years in various organizations. They also talk about the unique dynamics of recruitment businesses, the potential for disruption in the recruitment space, and whether LinkedIn might be disrupted.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Cannabis with Blaine Hatab Mar 07, 2019

Blaine Hatab (@blainehatab), CEO of Distru, joins Erik to talk all about the cannabis space. He explains what he is doing at Distru, how he got into the business and why the cannabis space is ripe with opportunity.
He talks about the changes that have occurred in the market over the past several years with legalization in various localities and why that has led to a challenge for companies trying to comply with varying and changing rules. He discusses the different types of companies that exist currently, including his assessment of which ones will succeed and which will face challenges.
Blaine also talks about the wide variety of uses of the cannabis plant, including in industrial materials, and some of the potential changes to the market with more widespread legalization of recreational use.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: GovTech with Ron Bouganim Mar 07, 2019

Erik is joined by Ron Bouganim (@ronboug), founder and managing partner at Govtech Fund.
Ron explains his thesis at Govtech Fund and how he got started in the space. He gives us a sense of just how neglected the technical operations of government are and why there are so many ripe opportunities in the space.
He talks about why traditional venture capital wasn’t interested in the deals he was sending his way and why he had to start his own fund. He paints a market map for us in the space and differentiates between civic tech and government tech.
He talks about some of his requests for startups, gives his advice for founders and talks about how government tech products can increase transparency in government around the world.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Marketplaces with Jonathan Swanson and John Kobs Mar 07, 2019

Jonathan Swanson (@swaaanson), co-founder and chairman of Thumbtack, and John Kobs (@johnkobs), co-founder of Apartment List join Erik to talk all about marketplaces.
John and Jonathan talk about their lessons from running their respective companies about what makes a good marketplace, and how prospective founders can find opportunities in the space. They break down what it takes to get initial supply and demand, and the merits of two-sided marketplaces.
They talk about some of the trends in real estate more broadly and the key limiting factors in marketplace businesses. They talk about their requests for startups in the space, where the opportunities are and what they would stay away from if they were a potential founder.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Marketing Tech with Ashu Garg Mar 07, 2019

Ashu Garg (@ashugarg), partner at Foundation Capital, joins Erik for a primer on the marketing tech space. They talk about how Ashu got started in the space and Ashu discusses a blog post he wrote predicting that this decade will be the decade of the CMO. He says that marketing is key in the current business landscape, in the same way sales, finance and IT held that mantle in previous eras.
He talks about some of the big trends in marketing tech over the last several years, which ones are in vogue right now and what waves he expects in the future.
He also talks about his advice for founders in building a marketing tech company and which areas he would avoid.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Cybersecurity with Vincenzo Iozzo and Jamie Butler Mar 07, 2019

Erik is joined by Vincenzo Iozzo (@_snagg), Village Global network leader and director at CrowdStrike, as well as Jamie Butler (@jamierbutler), CTO at Endgame.
James and Vincenzo talk about where opportunities are in the space and what their requests for startups are. Vincenzo says that he’d like to see cybersecurity risk securitized to create financial incentives for companies to insure their operations against cyberattacks.
The two of them create a market map of the space and talk about the thesis they would have if they were running a fund in the space. They talk about where to avoid building and some of the nuances of the security market, including that there are rarely novel ideas, only great execution.
They also talk about how cryptocurrencies and blockchain are spurring developments in the space and the the reversal that is happening with data becoming more important than the code that it runs on.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Playbook For Recruiting and Hiring with Elaine Wherry Mar 05, 2019

Elaine Wherry (@elainewherry) joins Erik on this episode to give us the playbook for recruiting for your startup. Elaine was co-founder of Meebo and is now investing at Edelweiss VC (https://www.edelweiss.vc) alongside co-founder Lee Jacobs (https://www.leejacobs.co).
Elaine explains her superpower — being able to build quantitative systems around qualitative characteristics. She talks about how to evaluate candidates with your team and the way she uses TaskRabbit workers to calibrate her team’s assessment of a candidate. Elaine discusses why work simulations are so important in hiring and breaks down how you create a good simulation.
She explains why she asks behavioral questions exclusively in interviews. She tells founders that it's okay (and ideal) if they are spending more than half of their time recruiting. Elaine points out that an employee’s experience on the first day is the best predictor of the length of their tenure.
She talks about the “recruiter honeypot” that she set up — a fake profile on LinkedIn of a Javascript programmer. She looked at how recruiters approached it in order to potentially hire those recruiters to her company.
She also addresses some of the biggest misconceptions about recruiting and talks through how to deal with some of the thorniest aspects of managing people, including annual reviews, compensation, and having difficult conversations.
Quotes From This Episode
“The test of a work simulation is that any smart, well-intentioned person should fail that simulation.”
“[When interviewing someone] within the first five minutes, you have a tendency to have a reaction. It’s easy to fall into first impressions, but it’s your job to challenge that first response.”
“If people just want to get their review to find out whether they got their raise or their bonus, that isn’t going to be a great conversation, so my goal is to de-couple that.”
“People always seem to care more about where they stand in the organization than they do about where they stand outside the organization.”
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Primer on Personal Tokens with Achill Rudolph and Simon de la Rouviere Mar 03, 2019

Erik is joined by returning guest, Simon de la Rouviere (@simondlr), co-founder at Ujo and ConsenSys, and Achill Rudolph (@AchillRudolph), lead link and initiator at Convergent.
They start with an introduction of what personal tokens are, how they work, and why they have the potential to empower people around the world. Achill explains how they are thinking about them at Convergent and how they’ve been used so far by creators.
Erik asks why blockchain is necessary for an application like this and Achill explains how they’ve been able to replace a long and complicated process with a one-click issuance of a personal token.
The three of them discuss the ideas and issues around trading personal tokens, whether derivatives and short-selling should be enabled, and what kinds of regulations should apply.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Keith Rabois Thinks About Basically Everything Feb 28, 2019

Erik and co-host Anuj Abrol (@nujabrol) interview Keith Rabois (@rabois), newly announced GP at Founders Fund.
Keith starts out by talking about why he joined Founders Fund and the reason that the structure of VC means we don’t see more people moving from one fund to another. They talk about the future of venture and whether there will be more M&A in the space and where he sees things going in the next 10 years. Keith explains why being an effective VC is much more an art than a science.
Erik asks about Keith’s goals at this point after all that he has already accomplished and why it’s thus far not been possible to scale one’s investing model beyond one’s self. Keith also has a well-known theory about breaking down businesses into equations and Erik asks whether one can do the same with careers as well.
Keith recounts the story of working for Reid Hoffman and Peter Thiel at PayPal and how he has learned to trust his instincts in the absence of specific quantitative metrics. He talks about why being vertically integrated is important for a startup, why getting the timing right is part of a founder’s job (and can’t be a founder’s excuse for failure), and why in his view founder quality trumps all other factors when evaluating a business.
He also talks about some of his requests for startups, including an integrated fitness and nutrition company. They also talk about some of the places where he agrees or disagrees with prominent thinkers in tech and how Keith’s politics and contrarianism have evolved.
Quotable Lines From This Episode
"You want to solve your biggest risks first. Mediocre founders solve the easiest risks first. Take the three most risky things and conquer them. I always counsel a founder to address risks in order of difficulty not in order of ease."
"To me when a founder says they didn’t get the timing right, that means they just didn’t do their job."
"I focus all on the people and a lot less on the market, a lot less on the product and a hell of a lot less on the technology."
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Justin Kan Thinks About Basically Everything Feb 26, 2019

Erik is joined by Justin Kan (@justinkan), founder of Atrium, Twitch and others, as well as Anuj Abrol (@nujabrol), Justin’s Chief of Staff and Erik's co-host for this episode.
Justin talks about the wisdom he’s gained over the past few years after selling Twitch and founding Atrium. He explains why it’s important to stay humble, not get too attached to any particular outcome for your startup and why he wishes that someone had told him ten years ago that no amount of accomplishment will create lasting happiness.
They discuss Atrium and the services for startups space more broadly, including some ideas for “Atrium for X” startups. He explains how he came to the idea for Atrium and why he raised funds for the company when he could have bootstrapped it himself. They also cover the fundraising process more broadly and why Justin insists he isn’t that great of an investor.
Justin also talks about his time as a “Snap star,” how Silicon Valley has changed, and what he’s learned from Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Michael Seibel and others.
Quotable Lines From This Episode
“I used to spend a lot of time thinking about, how I am going to be remembered and thought about and optimize the way people thought about me but I don’t care anymore. However you think of me today, as someone who's been an entrepreneur and had some success, maybe you think I’m really smart, it doesn't matter. In 10, 20, 50 years it will fade away and you probably won’t remember me at all. That’s okay, it’s just part of life.”
“Startups in general are a great vehicle for your own personal growth and development, to learn new skills, to learn what it’s like to lead a big organization, to see if you can do it — if you deserve to at all — it’s not a foregone conclusion.”
“You build up these castles in your mind about things that are going to bring satisfaction… none of those things will ever build any lasting long-term happiness. Even if you accomplish them and build a great reputation, it’s going to fade. The sooner you accept that, the happier you’ll be. I wish someone had told me that ten years ago.”
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The State and Future of Software Development with Christina Cacioppo and Amjad Masad Feb 24, 2019

On this episode Erik is joined by Christina Cacioppo (@christinacaci) of Vanta, and Amjad Masad (@amasad) of Repl.it.
They discuss the reasons why developers tools are for the most part “primitive” and the cause of the mess of different technologies and utilities that a developer needs to know how to use in order to create an app. They talk about the concept of “end user computing” and the progress that’s been made in allowing non-developers to do more and more sophisticated things that were previously restricted to developers.
Amjad explains how the way developer tools work can be traced back to the early days of computing with punch cards and Christina talks about why there has been a lack of venture investment in dev tools, even as developers and CTOs have seen a huge rise in their status within large organizations. They talk about the idea that new businesses either involve bundling and unbundling and why although some companies moan about the fact that their product is being used by hobbyists, they are in fact a powerful group of users.
They also talk about some of their requests for startups in the space, which areas they are most excited about, and whether everyone learning to code will be the future or not.
Quotable Lines From This Episode:
“There’s still this artifact coming from an era where computing time was more valuable than human time. We write code in a way that we appease the machine more than we appease the human and this is reflected in our tools and everything we do.” — Amjad
“Software engineering has this weird attribute where people believe in leverage and changing the world and then they put up with just such bad tools for themselves.” — Christina
“If you really think about it, our tools really suck. Being a software engineer is one of the highest leverage things you can do… yet we don’t really invest in the developer tools that much.” — Amjad
“It’s mostly been hobbyists that have driven computing.” — Amjad
“Look, should everyone have to learn what a static class is in different languages? I hope not. There are more interesting things to think about.” — Christina
“Most of the good work that happens, happens in low-hype periods.” — Amjad
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Future of Startup Funding with Andrew D'Souza and Ali Hamed Feb 21, 2019

On this episode Erik talks to Andrew D’Souza (@andrewdsouza), founder and CEO of Clearbanc, and Ali Hamed (@AliBHamed), investor at CoVenture, recurring guest and fan favorite.
Andrew breaks down how Clearbanc works, why now is a unique time to build a new model of funding, and how they are using quantitative metrics in a business that has typically relied heavily on qualitative factors. He says that he would like to see venture capital go back to funding technical risk, and that for a lot of companies raising equity, 50-80% of their equity is going to Facebook and Google (via ad buys).
He explains how Clearbanc is able to plug in to a startup’s finances to model and keep track of their progress in real time. Ali says that he would like to see founders taking the right kind of capital for their company's needs and talks about some of the perverse incentives in venture. Andrew points out that Clearbanc wants and needs all of their companies to succeed, which isn’t always the case in venture.
They talk about the moment that consumer goods are having and some of the insights Clearbanc has gleaned from amassing a ton of data via their investments in a ton of CPG companies. He says that because Clearbanc invests based on a company's metrics and not factors such as where the founder went to school or via introductions, they (without a mandate) have invested in 8X as many female founders as traditional VC.
Finally, Andrew and Ali talk about how the funding landscape will evolve in the coming years, including what the big VC firms will do, what the aspirations for Clearbanc are, and whether tokens can be an effective form of financing.
Quotable Lines From This Episode:
"My perfect utopian future is: all of the money that’s in venture capital goes to solving truly hard problems. Instead of MBAs running spreadsheets trying to figure out CAC to LTV, they’re funding companies that are trying to cure cancer, develop flying cars, extend life, get us to the moon… Those are the outsized bets that equity is uniquely designed to fund." — Andrew
"We have to get out of our heads the idea that the only types of capital in the world are seed, series A and series B rounds and start thinking about: what’s the type of capital that’s right for this situation?" — Ali
"I would love to see venture capital go back to funding technical risk. I would hope that people go back and look at 2018 and 2019 and say I can’t believe that founders sold 50-80% of their companies before IPOs to pay for Facebook and Google ads. You’re basically selling 50-80% of your company to Facebook and Google." — Andrew
"Venture capital branded itself really well, right? You have these really smart people who put together these fancy websites and basically said that if you raise from XYZ firm, you’re going to be successful. We just sort of glamorize the whole asset. It’s so fascinating that venture capital figured out a way to turn their capital into not a commodity. But it was this false promise. It’s caused a lot of people to take on a lot of capital that they otherwise wouldn’t have because of the social validation." — Ali
"Imagine if in the public markets investors said, ‘you should give me shares in GM at a lower rate because I’m such a good investor.’ VCs are intuiting a sort of causation and saying ‘hey, because I invested in Uber, it turned out to be great, rather than saying, hey, I was able to get into Uber and it was great.’ The promise of value-add from VCs often doesn’t materialize and when it does, its something that you could probably get from independent advisors, and other people. It probably doesn’t warrant the cost of that equity." — Andrew
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Primer on Marketing Tech with Anda Gansca Feb 19, 2019

Erik is joined by Anda Gansca (@agansca), co-founder and CEO of Knotch, an independent content intelligence platform for marketers.
Anda starts out by explaining the shift in the marketing world to content, the story of Knotch, and why the company has been in a great position to take advantage of that trend. She says that display advertising, including banner ads, outdoor advertising and television ads, are “basically ineffective.”
She takes us behind the curtain of marketers and advertisers at major brands to tell us how they think about where to spend their money. Knotch moved from Silicon Valley to New York City to be closer to their customers and Anda explains how she made that decision and why. She talks about why blockchain in advertising doesn’t really make sense and why she thinks escaping the echo chamber in Silicon Valley helped them focus on what really matters.
Anda walks us through a market map of marketing tech and talks about why “ad tech” as a sector has been written off by many VCs. She also explains what their ultimate vision is for Knotch — to give back control of ad data to consumers and talks a bit about what she expects when it comes to GDPR-style regulation in other areas of the world.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Evaluating Early-Stage SaaS Companies with Christoph Janz and Brianne Kimmel Feb 17, 2019

Erik is joined by his co-host for this episode, Brianne Kimmel (@briannekimmel), investor, advisor and Village Global network leader. They talk to Christoph Janz (@chrija), investor at Point Nine Capital, a Berlin-based early stage venture capital firm focused on SaaS and digital marketplaces.
Christoph lays out their investing thesis at Point Nine and talks about why they are geography-agnostic when it comes to potential deals. He explains at which stage they like to invest and some of the difficulties in evaluating early-stage SaaS companies.
The three delve into some of the more successful SaaS companies from the past few years and use them as case studies to talk about how to evaluate an early-stage product, team and sales strategy. He discusses why they invested in Zendesk and Typeform, and why he sees product and branding as very important at an early stage.
They discuss some of the merits of SaaS companies that are working in specific verticals and in the enterprise, as well as why being a “SaaS company” is no longer as significant a distinction as it once was. They also talk about when a startup should be focusing on sales and whether it’s even possible to hire the VP of sales that a founder dreams of in a small SaaS company.
Articles Mentioned In This Episode
Jason Lemkin: The 48 Types of VP, Sales: https://www.saastr.com/the-48-types-of-vp-sales-make-deadly-sure-you-hire-the-right-one/
Christoph Janz: There’s More Than One Path To $100 Million: https://christophjanz.blogspot.com/2018/12/theres-more-than-one-path-to-100-million.html
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Primer on Real Estate Tech (PropTech) with Zachary Aarons and Brad Hargreaves Feb 14, 2019

Erik is joined by Brad Hargreaves (@bhargreaves), founder and CEO of Common and co-founder of General Assembly, and Zach Aarons (@ZacharyAarons), co-founder and partner at MetaProp, a proptech venture fund.
The guests explain what exactly proptech is and why it’s an exciting space for entrepreneurs. They go over some of the sub-segments within proptech, some of the existing unicorns in the space, as well as the incumbents that new entrepreneurs might encounter and how they themselves getting involved in the crossover of tech and real estate.
Brad explains how his time at General Assembly informed Common and how he “navigated the idea maze.” He points out that there are a lot of adults living with non-family roommates but that virtually none of the existing structures in real estate and property management are set up for that arrangement.
They discuss the differences between residential and commercial real estate and why “they’re almost like separate industries." WeWork has even had trouble trying to add residential to their existing commercial business.
They also talk about some of their requests for startups in the space and the unique structure of new investment vehicles, given that they are investing in both operating companies and real estate assets and receive returns on each of those investments in the same fund.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Lessons in Tech and Politics from “The Fixer,” Bradley Tusk Feb 12, 2019

Bradley Tusk (@bradleytusk) joins Erik on this episode to talk about the intersection of politics and tech. He’s founder and CEO of Tusk Ventures and author of The Fixer: My Adventures Saving Startups From Death By Politics. He’s also a philanthropist, political strategist, and hosts his own podcast, Firewall.
Bradley has worked with Michael Bloomberg, Chuck Schumer, Uber, and many others. He shares the lessons he’s learned throughout his experience both working in politics and helping guide startups through the political and legislative processes. He explains the psyche of politicians and says that the actions of virtually every one is guided by whether it increases or decreases the chances of winning their next election.
He talks about his work with Uber and how grassroots campaigns on behalf of startups with fervid customers can sway politicians to change existing regulations that tend to benefit entrenched interests. He discusses some of the best policies that legislators can implement to benefit startups and innovation and talks specifically about some of the areas that involve the overlap of governance and tech, including charter cities, co-living, and income-share agreements.
He also talks what Silicon Valley misunderstands about politics, whether a Silicon Valley candidate could run in 2020, and how he is trying to increase voter participation through his foundation’s work on mobile and blockchain-powered voting.
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Quotable Lines From This Episode
“Every single politician I’ve ever worked with, with the exception of Mike Bloomberg, is solely motivated by the next election, and if you can do something that makes them think they’re going to lose the next election, or that you can do something to make them win the next election, they’re going to do what you want — and if you can’t do that it doesn’t matter what you want.”
“It’s especially hard with crypto and probably harder than any other sector — how do you regulate this thing that by design is meant to avoid federal currencies, avoid sovereignty, avoid nationality and is a reaction against all that?”
“The vast, vast majority of politicians, to be blunt, are desperately insecure, often self-loathing people who can’t live without the validation of holding office and running for office and they will do anything to fill that hole in their psyche.”
“In my experience, the vast majority of journalists are just curious people who are trying to figure out in any given situation. Where people get into trouble is in trying to spin them.”
“People in the Valley tend to not know what they don’t know, meaning that because they are very intelligent and because they have had success in some areas in life, they assume that that is applicable to everything they can do.”
“Politics is its totally own world, totally own world language, totally own set of norms, and just because you were a really good engineer or you figured out how to market a product that you could figure out politics too, that’s an incredibly dangerous assumption.”
“The naiveté of people in the Valley in thinking that just because they attend political fundraisers and write checks that they have some level of understanding or influence over the process. They have none.”
“There’s no one in the Valley at the moment who could plausibly be a presidential candidate in 2020.”
“You look at issues in this country like guns or immigration or healthcare or climate change, most polls show that 70% of people agree on the basic tenets of what to do about this stuff, and then there’s about 15% on either side that disagree but unfortunately right now the 15% on either side are the people that vote in primaries, so they really call the shots.”
____
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Making It Through The Messy Middle with Scott Belsky Feb 10, 2019

Scott Belsky (@scottbelsky) joins Erik to talk about his new book The Messy Middle: Finding Your Way Through the Hardest and Most Crucial Part of Any Bold Venture. Scott is Chief Product Officer at Adobe and was CEO and co-founder of Behance. He’s also an early stage investor.
Scott discusses his experience founding, scaling and selling Behance, then working as a venture capitalist, early stage investor and as CPO at Adobe. He talks about what he means by “the messy middle” and talks about the three stages of “navigating the volatility” of the messy middle.
He points out that the mission of the company is not going to keep you engaged eternally and that you need to “hack the reward system” instead. Erik asks how to know whether to quit or keep going and what some of the lessons he learned as an early stage investor are. Scott talks about the crucial importance of honesty and candor among team members and the self-awareness required to decide what one’s next career move should be.
He explains why running a company can be like driving a van with all your team members, but with the windows blacked out — requiring you as leader to keep your team up to date on what is going on and narrate to them where you are as a company. He also talks about the hidden benefits of friction in a company, why when starting a company you should focus on empathy for users rather than passion for solving a problem, and the techniques he uses to remains productive.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The State of Consumer Social in 2019 with Donnie Dinch, Michael Galpert and Greg Isenberg Feb 07, 2019

Erik sits down with Donnie Dinch (@donnie), Michael Galpert (@msg) and Greg Isenberg (@gregisenberg), to follow up on the projects they were working on a year ago when they all got together at the end of 2017 to talk about consumer social on one of our first podcast episodes. They discuss what’s changed since then and what they see ahead in the consumer social landscape.
They discuss some of the unexpected twists and turns their ventures took over the course of 2018 and some of their lessons learned from the year. They talk about some of the trends that emerged during 2018 and which ones they expect to come in the year ahead. Greg points out that the big players in the space are distracted and a lot of people have given up on the space, so opportunity is ripe. He says “there have never been fewer people working on consumer social than in 2019.”
They talk about where they think the next unicorn in consumer social will come from and what some of the most promising existing companies are, as well as some of the ideas they’d like to see built. They go deep on a number of trends, including audio as a medium of communication, the crossover of games and consumer social, and social fitness.
The four of them also talk about why Apple is in such a good position to build something great in social (but that they never will) and play “long-short,” where Erik names a company in the space and they say whether they’re long or short and why.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Why You Need To Feel Your Feelings and Send The Emails with Liz Fosslien Feb 05, 2019

Erik talks to longtime friend and co-author of No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work, Liz Fosslien (@fosslien / fosslien.com). She talks about the importance of “feeling your feelings” and not running away from them, especially at work. Liz gives some practical tips on how to give good feedback, how to approach negotiating, and how to be a good boss.
She talks about the difference between diversity, inclusion and belonging, why it’s so important to strive to make people feel like they belong and how to do so (tip: learn how to pronounce *everyone’s* name, not just the easy ones).
Erik asks how her own experience led her to these insights and how she’s able to find humor in the workplace. She also explains why not being so passionate about your job is actually a good thing, why you should stop feeling bad about feeling bad, and how to acknowledge your anxiety and move on.
Quotable Lines From This Episode
This traditional notion that you should be able to check your feelings at the door when you enter the office is ridiculous, and given that we are going to have emotions at work, it’s time we learned to deal with them.
Envy’s actually a really useful emotion — it really reveals what we value. If you’re jealous of someone, don’t perform all kinds of mental gymnastics to make that go away, try and really figure out what that person has that’s making you jealous.
As a manager, it’s almost as important to manage your emotions as it is to manage other people.
___
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Primer on Remote Work and Distributed Teams with Matt Mullenweg and Andreas Klinger Feb 03, 2019

On this episode Erik is joined by Matt Mullenweg (@photomatt), founder of Wordpress and Automattic, as well as Andreas Klinger (@andreasklinger), VP of Engineering at CoinList and a founding team member of Product Hunt (along with Erik).
At Automattic, Matt works with over 850 employees working remotely in 70-plus countries. The three of them discuss the benefits and drawbacks of a distributed team, and why it is the future for knowledge work. Matt explains his quote that “every company over 100 people is already distributed, they just pretend they’re not.”
They talk about some of the best protocols for managing distributed workers and why being able to pull from worldwide talent is such a big advantage. They mention that Invision, a large and successful company with distributed workers, requires everyone to work on Eastern Time. Matt points out that they don’t use email at Automattic and instead use their own custom tools. They also talk about some of the modifications to current collaboration tools that they’d like to see.
The three of them also talk about why many of the “issues” surrounding remote work are not actually issues unique to remote work but are part of knowledge work in general. They also discuss some of the challenges of remote work, including ensuring clear communication, gauging the quality of potential hires without the usual local signals, and dealing with distractions.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Jd Ross Thinks About Basically Everything Feb 01, 2019

On this episode, Erik is joined by Jd Ross (@justindross), co-founder of Opendoor. They talk about a wide variety of topics, including mental models, cities, governance, travel, founding myths, and “why all of us are solely responsible for western civilization.”
They start with mental models, talking about some of the most useful mental models Jd has seen and how he identifies new ones (a mental model for mental models, if you will). They transition to talking about cities and governance, including why the Bay Area has a housing crisis, why Jd is very long on Oakland, and the policies that he would import from the UK to fix housing in the Bay Area. Jd observes that cities always endure, even through disasters and massive changes in the nation states surrounding them.
He talks about founding Opendoor, the importance of founding myths, and what he’s learned from Keith Rabois. He explains what you need to scale your company effectively and the difference between entrepreneurs and executives. He talks about some of his mental models for company building and why he says “playbooks rule everything around me.” Jd also talks about taking a sabbatical and traveling around the world twice, but in his words “learning nothing.”
They talk about what Jd is looking for in his next opportunity and how he thinks about what to pick. He says that he’s looking at how to create the most good for the human race over a 1000 year time horizon and explains how Carroll Quigley convinced him that all of us are solely responsible for western civilization. They talk about snark as a contagion in the world today, which Jd says emerges when people don’t feel empowered to make changes, so they fall back on sarcasm.
They have a rapid-fire round where they talk about different people that Jd has learned from, and also play a game of long-short, where Erik names something (fitness cults, the Bay Area, etc.) and Jd says whether he’s long or short on it.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Doing For Atoms What AWS Did For Bits with Jesse Genet of Lumi Jan 30, 2019

Erik is joined by Jesse Genet (@jessegenet), co-founder and CEO of Lumi. Lumi is an online platform that handles all of the packaging needs for direct-to-consumer companies. Jesse explains what the typical process for procuring these types of supplies why even huge companies like Amazon still have to navigate a maze of relationships with various brokers and suppliers to fulfill their packaging needs. She compares buying a plane ticket prior to online aggregators to the current state of supply chain procurement.
Jesse explains how she got into the space and talks about the importance of beautiful packaging to companies that, without retail stores, otherwise have very few touch points with a customer. She describes the emergence of a stack of services to serve direct-to-consumer companies and lets us in on some of the ins and outs of the hidden world of supply chain management. She also talks about the consumer goods space in general and what insights she’s gathered on what makes a successful consumer packaged goods company.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Grace Chen was our audio engineer for this episode and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Social Media, Journalism, and New Religions with Antonio Garcia Martinez and Parker Thompson Jan 28, 2019

On this episode Erik is joined by Antonio Garcia Martinez (@antoniogm), author of Chaos Monkeys, and Parker Thompson (@pt), partner at AngelList. Parker is a returning fan-favorite. Erik describes Antonio’s Chaos Monkeys as half Michael Lewis of Silicon Valley and half Hunter S. Thompson. It's a great read.
Parker and Antonio debate whether the corrosion of discourse and the rise of fake news are a result of specific features of social media, like the News Feed, or whether they are a result of humans being interconnected instantly via smartphones. Antonio argues that WhatsApp is “the perfect foil to Facebook” but that it is still a distribution platform for fake news.
They discuss why two people can see the same high-quality video of the same event, but still draw opposing conclusions on who was the “victim” and who was the “perpetrator.” They discuss the need for media literacy, the difference between media and journalism, and how Twitter and Facebook might be fixed.
They talk about the change in sentiment about social media on the left and the right through the years, starting with the election of Obama, through the Arab Spring, to Trump. They also discuss moral relativism between the US's political parties and the dichotomy of Bay Area political views.
The three close with a discussion about the religious instinct that seems to be an innate part of the human psyche, even if it doesn’t always manifest via organized religions. They talk about new manifestations of religion in today’s social movements and talk about the crazy fact that there are actual “religious startups” that pitch new churches to "VCs."
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Political Ideology Diagram Mentioned By Parker
https://twitter.com/hamandcheese/status/991408394941665285
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Books and Articles Mentioned In This Episode
The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America by Daniel Boorstin
The Revolt of the Public and the Crisis of Authority in the New Millennium by Martin Gurri
Amusing Ourselves To Death by Neil Postman
Seven Types of Atheism by John Ray
Marshall McLuhan’s Playboy Interview in 1969: https://www.nextnature.net/2009/12/the-playboy-interview-marshall-mcluhan/
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Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Applying AI and Machine Learning To Retail and E-commerce with Lewis Gyson and Yunus Saatci Jan 25, 2019

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by Yunus Saatci, of Uber AI labs and a founding member of OnDeck, and Lewis Gyson, founder and CEO of Ant, a Village Global portfolio company. They were interviewed recently in downtown San Francisco.
Yunus talks about the unique career he's had so far, with stops at big tech companies as well as in venture capital. Lewis explains what he and the team at Ant are trying to do and how his experience working for New Zealand's version of eBay (New Zealand and China are two countries where eBay doesn't operate) helped inform what he's working on now.
They break down some of the most commonly used (and overused) terms in artificial intelligence, including machine learning, deep learning and others, and explain how those techniques work. They also talk about the relevancy of academic machine learning techniques to commercial applications and why machine learning is called "a solution in search of a problem."
They talk about some of the ways that AI can transform brick-and-mortar retail and direct-to-consumer, and all the advancements in retail that a company like Ant can provide when it comes to supply chain management, delivery, and point-of-sale. They also discuss big companies in AI and their motivations in making AI tools open source.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Austrian Perspective on Healthcare with Vijay Boyapati Jan 23, 2019

On this episode Erik is joined by Vijay Boyapati (@real_vijay), a returning guest who was previously here to talk about Bitcoin and crypto from an Austrian perspective. Today he’s here to talk about healthcare from the Austrian perspective. He breaks down the causes for the dysfunction in the US healthcare system as he sees them and talks about what (if anything) might fix them.
They discuss the factors that are distorting incentives in healthcare and why they result from a lack of free markets. Vijay talks about employer-sponsored healthcare that emerged during World War Two, which has remained the default system “by accident” ever since. He also talks about Medicare and farm subsidies and how those have contributed to consumers paying more but getting less when it comes to healthcare.
Erik asks what Vijay would do if he could wave a wand and change anything about the US healthcare system, but Vijay says that it might take a collapse of the system to change how things work. Vijay talks about why the US system is still superior to single-payer healthcare systems around the world and why he would look to Singapore as an example of a country that the US could learn from. They also discuss the Austrian and libertarian perspectives on governance and monetary policy more broadly.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.
Quotable Lines From This Episode:
“The cost in single-payer healthcare systems is the wait. I’d rather live somewhere where the treatment is available even if it is expensive.”
“Ask a doctor delivering a baby, ‘how much does this cost?’ They can’t tell you because they don’t know. This is the only industry where a provider has no idea what their service costs.”
“Insurance is supposed to be for unexpected catastrophic events, so it’s strange that we use it for all these routine healthcare procedures.”

A Primer on Food Tech with Renata Quintini and Brian Frank Jan 21, 2019

On this episode, Erik is joined by Renata Quintini (@rquintini), partner at Lux, and Brian Frank (@bfrank), early stage investor and advisor to food tech companies.
They start out by talking about what food tech really is, why it’s exciting, and what some of the coolest companies in the space are doing. Brian points out that food is an 8.1 trillion dollar market worldwide, and that the industry is “all up for grabs.” They discuss what it takes for new entrants to get into the market and some of the advantages and disadvantages that the massive incumbents have.
They discuss trends in the industry, including mechanization and automation, artificial intelligence, the demand for plant-based and organic food, and the newly health-conscious consumer. Renata and Brian talk about some of their investments in the space. They break down what new entrants in the space need to do to get in front of customers and talk about some of the data advantages that direct-to-consumer companies have that incumbents don’t.
Erik also asks what kinds of opportunities they see in the space, what their requests for startups would be, and what kind of company they would be founding if they were an entrepreneur rather than an investor.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Building a Global Financial Business with Misha Esipov and Ross Fubini Jan 18, 2019

On this episode Erik is joined by his fellow general partner at Village Global, Ross Fubini (@fubini), and Misha Esipov (@mishaesipov), co-founder and CEO of Nova Credit.
Ross and Village are investors in Misha’s company and Ross has been obsessed with fintech for a very long time. Misha tells the story of how his team came upon the idea and why the mission of the company has been resonating with the founding team and subsequent hires. He explains why credit reports are not shared between credit rating bureaus in different countries, making it really difficult to get a credit card, a loan, or even just an apartment, as an immigrant.
Misha talks about going from a three-person founding team to where they are today and what kinds of learnings he has gathered along the way. He talks about the importance of hiring a general counsel and starting with smaller customers before bigger ones. Ross says he’s excited about how big Nova Credit could get and explains what he means when he says he likes to see entrepreneurs “own the whole problem.” Erik also asks about their requests for startups in the space and what kinds of companies they would be looking to invest in if they were running a fintech fund.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Investing in Sports Tech with Deepen Parikh Jan 16, 2019

On this episode, Erik is joined by Deepen Parikh (@deepenparikh), partner at Courtside Ventures.
Deepen explains how Courtside Ventures came to be and the thesis behind the fund. He breaks down the four areas where Courtside invests — all of which involve sports. Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, is one of Courtside’s LPs, and Deepen at one time worked for a family office that was looking to purchase a pro sports team — so Deepen knows a lot about the space.
Erik asks whether sports can really be a venture backable business and where the opportunities are to be in on the ground floor of a new sport and sports league, like UFC, competitive gaming, or drone racing. Deepen shares a number of interesting insights on the economics of professional sports and talks about the idea that “non-helmet sports generate bigger personalities.”
Deepen also talks about some of the transformations we can expect in the sporting world in the next decades, some of his requests for products in the space, and how people will consume sports in ten years.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

DEXes, Liquidity, and On-Chain Arbitrage with Amir Bandeali of 0x and Ivan Bogatyy of Metastable Jan 14, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by Amir Bandeali (@abandeali1), co-founder and CTO of 0x, and Ivan Bogatyy, general partner at Metastable Capital.
Erik and Ivan ask Amir about the background behind 0x and its creation. Amir says that 0x is a protocol, rather than an exchange. He also breaks down how a decentralized exchange is different from a centralized one. Amir predicts that "in the long run the types of assets that are going to be tokenized are mostly non-financial assets."
Amir says that market makers want to port the paradigm of a centralized exchange over to decentralized exchanges, and talks about what kinds of ideas from a centralized exchange could be useful in a decentralized exchange.
They talk about the problem of front-running and how to prevent it. Amir breaks down some of the most common misconceptions about decentralized exchanges and talks about some of his requests for products in the space. They also cover automatic market makers and derivative protocols.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.
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Further Reading:
Can centralized exchanges push DEX adoption? https://messari.substack.com/p/dex-appeal-messaris-unqualified-opinion-10
Front-running, Griefing and the Perils of Virtual Settlement (Part 1)
https://blog.0xproject.com/front-running-griefing-and-the-perils-of-virtual-settlement-part-1-8554ab283e97
Announcing the launch of 0x protocol v2.0! https://blog.0xproject.com/0x-protocol-v2-0-is-live-183aac180149
DEX vs. EX https://messari.substack.com/p/dex-v-ex-unqualified-opinions-21
Frontrun.me http://frontrun.me/

Disrupting Education with Austen Allred and Ray Batra Jan 11, 2019

Erik is joined by his co-host for this episode Ray Batra (@reesesandcoke), founder of Shift_Up, a platform for in-person learning that Ray calls “gyms for learning” and Austen Allred (@AustenAllred), co-founder and CEO of Lambda School, a pioneer in the income-sharing space. Their computing science program is free until a student gets a job, at which point they pay back their schooling with a percentage of their income (up to a capped amount).
By the way, we apologize for the audio quality of this interview. We had to catch up with Austen over the phone while he was on the move between meetings.
Austen talks about some of the other verticals that Lambda School is thinking about beyond computer science, and why they are also looking at taking care of other things in a student’s life like housing and bridge income. He points out that in addition to requiring a significant amount of capital, education just as importantly requires time and space and a clear head.
They talk about Austen’s quote that Lambda School is an education company disguised as a hedge fund. He says that less than 10% of people are at their true economic potential, and that Lambda School is a large-scale bet that human capital is mispriced all over the place.
Austen and Ray debate the merits of in-person versus online schooling and what the benefits and drawbacks of each are. Austen talks about what makes Lambda School unique and how they’ve designed the program to optimize for success. Erik asks whether higher education is a bubble and Austen says it inarguably is — the only question remaining is whether it will pop or simply deflate. They discuss some of the incentive problems around higher education as well.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

A Primer on eSports with John Robinson and Blake Robbins Jan 09, 2019

Erik is joined on this episode by John Robinson (@RohnJobinson), president and COO of 100 Thieves, and Blake Robbins (@blakeir), partner at Ludlow Ventures.
Blake and John talk about how they got into eSports and what excites them most about the space. They run through some of the unicorns in eSports and the venture firms that saw their potential early. They also discuss how big companies like Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook are or are not getting involved in the space.
The three of them compare and contrast traditional sports leagues, athletes, brands and teams with those in eSports and talk about how the revenue streams differ in eSports versus those of traditional sports. They talk about the applicability of a single team like 100 Thieves across a bunch of different games, comparing it to having a Yankees team in every sport, instead of just baseball.
They mention that contrary to traditional sports, there is something to watch 365 days of the year for fans of an eSports team. They also say that the space is getting more attention as billionaires notice their kids are more excited to meet Ninja (a high-profile gamer) than Michael Jordan or LeBron James.
They finish with some of their requests for startups in the space and Erik asks what they think the future holds for eSports.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Present and Future of D2C with Ooshma Garg and Micah Rosenbloom Jan 07, 2019

On this episode Erik is joined by Ooshma Garg (@ooshma), CEO of Gobble, and Micah Rosenbloom, (@micahjay1) partner at Founder Collective.
They talk about big changes in the food landscape over the past several years. Ooshma points out that people in Silicon Valley often underestimate just how massive the food space is until they realize how many component parts it has. They discuss the new wave of vertically integrated food companies acting as both producer and distributor of their product. Ooshma explains how they have differentiated themselves at Gobble and what her vision is going forward.
They break down some of the changes in grocery stores over the past several years and why they are now “more like buffets” in Micah’s words. They also discuss some of the difficulties in an “atoms-based” business that software businesses don't have to contend with.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Artificial Intelligence with Sean Byrnes and Shastri Mahadeo Jan 04, 2019

On this episode of Venture Stories Erik is joined by Sean Byrnes (@sbyrnes) and Shastri Mahadeo (@ShastriMahadeo). Sean is CEO of Outlier, a company using AI to create better business intelligence, and previously founded Flurry Analytics. Shastri is co-founder and CEO of Union Crate, a demand-planning tool for consumer packaged goods companies.
Sean shares an anecdote about how when he was in grad school for machine learning 20 years ago his classmates joked that what they were learning would never be relevant. He says that two things changed to make machine learning one of the hottest technologies of today: 1. the amount of data that companies have access to has exploded, and 2. the cost of computing has gone down dramatically. He also mentions that there have been no new machine learning techniques developed in the last 20 years and that the algorithms from his printed textbook from 20 years ago still encompass the breadth of techniques that are in use today.
Shastri previously ran a consumer packaged goods company for five years before founding Union Crate. He and Sean say that any company in the space needs to start with a solid value proposition that goes beyond just “AI for X.” They talk about why some of the companies in the space have failed to create real value and why Shastri pitches “ROI, not AI.”
They also talk about some of the opportunities in AI and their requests for startups in various verticals, including finance and insurance, healthcare, construction, and manufacturing. Sean talks about marketing being taken over by AI over the past few years while HR is still mostly human-driven.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Building a Company in Preventive Healthcare with Jonathan Gheller Jan 02, 2019

Erik is joined by Jonathan Gheller (@jgheller), founder of OneFix. Jonathan is a former product manager at Facebook and aims to use that experience to create retentive, easy-to-use products that create lasting behavior change. OneFix helps people eat better through a team of individuals who provide personalized support.
Jonathan talks about why preventable disease is such a big problem in the US today and the types of conditions like heart disease, stroke and diabetes that are entirely preventable, yet cause one in three deaths in the US. He explains why he decided to create a startup in the healthcare industry and why he chose nutrition as an area to focus on.
He also talks about the healthcare industry more broadly, including the misalignment of incentives between the parties involved, and why the industry does very well at acute care but not preventive care. He runs through what a prospective founder should think about when deciding what to work on in the health space and some of his requests for startups in the space as well.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

How The Blockchain Can Transform The News Business with Jarrod Dicker Dec 31, 2018

Joining Erik on this episode is Jarrod Dicker (@jarroddicker), who is CEO of Po.et. He has a background in journalism and tech and formerly worked at the Washington Post and the Huffington Post.
Jarrod explains how he came to the idea for Po.et, why blockchain technology is important, and how it can augment journalism. He points out that if the protocol is successful, the company is likely to go out of business since the network will be self-managing. He talks about the idea of “proof of effort” and how it enables third party verification and smart contracts via the blockchain for journalists, photographers, and hopefully in the future all kinds of content creators.
They talk about the news business more broadly, including how the big tech platforms have been encroaching on the businesses of news organizations and why Slate makes more money on 50,000 pageviews on its own site than it would make through 6 million pageviews via Apple News. Jarrod explains why he says that we are in the “Napster era” of the news business.
Jarrod also talks about the future of the news business, and why journalists will become more like free agents. He says that readers and advertisers will have more direct contact with journalists outside of any given news organization, similar to the way that fans attend an artist’s concert not because of the artist's label, but for the artist specifically. This is in contrast to the prominence of the name of the news outlet in a journalist’s work.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Opportunities in Eldercare and Aging with Natalie Dillon, Lisa Marrone and Shawn Xu Dec 28, 2018

On this episode Erik is joined by three guests, each with a personal connection to elder care:
- Natalie Dillon (@ntdillon), investor at Maveron
- Shawn Xu (@shawnxu), managing partner at Dorm Room Fund
- Lisa Marrone (@marronelisa), VC at August Capital
They start off by discussing Lisa's recent post about how we can better care for our elders and how to solve the often-occurring problem of loneliness in the elderly.
Throughout the episode the guests mention a bunch of startups doing great things, such as preventing falls using technology, connect college students and elders, and even detecting Alzheimer's using artificial intelligence.
They talk about the three main categories that they see in the space: digital therapeutics, virtual companionship and new models for residential care. Baby Boomers have different needs than those a decade or more older than them, and the four of them talk about how Boomers plan to age differently. They also point out how connected to technology Boomers are (60% of 65-69 year olds in the US have a smartphone).
Erik asks what their requests for startups would be in the space as well as what some of the challenges are for companies looking to create a business in the area.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

How To Navigate Co-Founder Relationships with Lee Jacobs Dec 26, 2018

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by Lee Jacobs (@leejacobs), partner at Edelweiss Capital. He recently wrote a great post about breaking up with his co-founder at a previous company. Lee and Erik discuss the post, some of the thorny issues around co-founder relationships, and investing strategy more broadly.
Lee tells the story of the startup he co-founded and how he came to realize that he and the company needed to part ways. He talks about what he did well in the situation, including getting third-party coaching, and what he would do differently next time. Lee’s former co-founder was one of his groomsmen at Lee’s wedding, so in his case things worked out for the best in the long-run.
He talks about how to avoid blowing up your startup via a "co-founder breakup" and why open and honest communication is so important. They talk about having a “startup prenup” between the co-founders, how to pick a co-founder, and why these relationships are analogous to other types of non-work relationships.
They also talk about investing more broadly, including how Lee and Erik have gotten into investing globally, how to choose founders to back, why as Lee says “it’s okay to be a generalist,” and why he is sector-agnostic when it comes to companies he backs.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Inside VC: Why Diversified VC Portfolios are Superior with Clint Korver and Adam Corey Dec 24, 2018

This episode is part of a three-part series taking listeners behind the curtain to discuss the inner workings of venture capital. Erik is joined by co-host for this episode, Adam Corey (@frumpy), partner at Village Global, and Clint Korver (@ckorver), managing director at Ulu Ventures.
They discuss Ulu’s approach to portfolio construction and how it is using data to figure out which companies to invest in. As you'll notice, Clint is a wealth of fascinating statistics about venture investing.
Clint explains why venture investing is analogous to other industries like pharmaceuticals and oil and gas extraction that follow a power law distribution. He points out that 100 venture investments out of 4,000 total in a given year create nearly all the profit in the venture industry. Clint explains how, taking cues from other industries mentioned above, Ulu uses data to predict which companies will be worth investing in.
He says that the two main tenets of their investing thesis at Ulu are: 1. Invest early, and 2. Have large portfolios. Clint runs through the rationale for these ideas and why they diverge from VC “conventional wisdom.” Erik and Adam discuss the approach that Village is taking and compare it to what Ulu and other VC firms are doing, in order to flesh out the differences in investing theses.
Clint also talks about the differences in returns between folllow-on and early stage and why Ulu doesn’t have a rigid reserve fund size. The three of them also talk about why the approaches of some of the biggest and most successful firms these days don’t scale down to smaller funds.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Inside VC: A Primer on Scout Programs with Parker Thompson and Dustin Dolginow Dec 24, 2018

This episode is part of a three-part series taking listeners behind the curtain to discuss the inner workings of venture capital. On this episode Erik is joined by Parker Thompson (@pt), partner at AngelList, and angel investor Dustin Dolginow (@dolginow).
The trio discuss the past, present and future of scout programs. They start out by talking about Sequoia’s creation of the scout program nearly ten years ago and why it was considered a “loss leader” for the firm, meaning that it generated goodwill and created a network, but the return on the deals was not actually very good.
The three of them discuss some of the potential pitfalls of the scout program, whether it can create good returns on its own, and the similarities and differences of Village’s Network Leader program to existing scout programs.
Both Dustin and Parker have worked at AngelList, and the two discuss why AngelList’s model, which Parker calls a “1099 VC model.” They talk about how and when we might see a recreation of the consensus decision-making system that pervades the industry today and why that change is needed. They also talk about how someone seeking to get into venture or being a scout for a venture fund can do so.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Inside VC: Masterclass on Portfolio Construction and Fund Economics with Ash Fontana and Parker Thompson Dec 24, 2018

This episode is part of a three-part series taking listeners behind the curtain to discuss the inner workings of venture capital. Parker Thompson (@pt), partner at AngelList, and Ash Fontana (@ashfontana), general partner at Zetta Ventures, join Erik on this episode.
They start off by discussing why topics around VC and portfolio construction in particular are so controversial. Parker and Ash give a rundown of how they invest with their respective funds and what their theses are when it comes to venture investing. They address the perennial debate of how much money to allot to initial round investing versus reserves for follow-on investing.
It gets pointed out that based on the data, new funds are as likely as existing funds to succeed, and they talk about whether there’s a universal answer to the question of how much money under management a VC would ideally like to have. The three of them talk about the possibility of scaling up a fund with operating partners and discuss research that shows that the more companies invested in, the better the returns. That trend continues to hold, in theory, no matter how big the fund gets. However, Parker brings up the "math versus reality dichotomy," and they talk about why in practice scaling up infinitely doesn’t work.
Erik asks both of them how they would set up their fund if they had no constraints, and they talk about why "fund size is destiny" in venture. Ash and Parker explain why even though venture firms say that the founder is their customer, really the LPs are the actual customers. They also talk about why innovation is needed on the standard “2 and 20” model (2% management fees and 20% carry), discuss potential replacement models, and explain why Y Combinator has the best business model in venture, even though there are some pitfalls for entrepreneurs.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Do VCs "Add Value"? What Should Founders Be Optimizing For With Parker Conrad and Parker Thompson Dec 21, 2018

On this episode of Venture Stories Erik is joined by Parker Thompson (@pt), partner at AngelList, and Parker Conrad (@parkerconrad), CEO of Rippling.
In this episode they talk about how much value investors provide to founders, if any at all. They agree that the number one piece of value that an investor provides is as therapist for the founder. They get into the issues around mis-alignment of incentives between investors and founders and discuss some investor horror stories they’ve heard from founders that you typically won’t hear discussed out loud. Parker Conrad says that sometimes investors are value-destroyers.
They discuss why investors need to market themselves as “founder-friendly” and why if someone needs to point out that they “add value” then they likely aren’t adding as much value as they’d like you to think. Parker and Parker talk about the amount of signalling in investing and why VCs do things as much for their LPs as for the founders. They agree that the impact of investors on your company is overrated and that a good investor has about the same effect as a good director-level hire.
They also discuss the idea of a union for entrepreneurs, the effects of standardized deal terms and why the idea of a “Glassdoor for investors” hasn’t found traction yet.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Noah Smith Thinks About Basically Everything Dec 19, 2018

Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) joins Erik on this episode. Noah is an economist and Bloomberg Opinion writer. The two have a wide-ranging discussion on a number of topics around tech, economics, politics, and more.
Noah explains why concern over big Silicon Valley tech companies is perhaps overblown. They discuss cryptocurrency and why in Noah’s opinion the Austrian economists have it wrong. He also explains why he is not a fan of techno-libertarianism and runs through the gun as historical example of why technologists shouldn’t just build new tech to circumvent laws they don’t like.
The two talk about why the government drives more innovation than it commonly gets credit for, what kinds of policies Noah would implement to reduce inequality, including why he would like to see an inheritance tax. Erik also asks about charter cities and Noah explains why they are a great idea in theory but that they will be a “hard sell.”
Erik asks about a blog post of Noah’s from 2015 that seems quite prescient given the current moment, in which he describes a cycle of history involving globalization, financialization, economic decline, political polarization, leading to feuding between the right and the left. He talks about which stage he thinks we are in today and some of the historical parallels between the current moment and earlier eras in which war later broke out.
Erik also asks what Noah would do if he could change anything about how education is delivered in America, why Noah says that UBI could be potentially destructive, and how his criticisms of macroeconomics have evolved.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Present and Future of Longevity with Laura Deming Dec 17, 2018

Laura Deming (@laurademing) joins Erik in downtown San Francisco on this episode of Venture Stories. She is the creator of Longevity Fund, a venture capital firm investing in companies that will let humans live both longer and healthier.
Erik starts by asking about the state of longevity science and which discoveries about aging Laura is most excited about. It turns out that certain animals don’t age the way that humans do and that there are certain animals that are similar to each other (like rats and naked mole rats) that nevertheless have wildly different life expectancies. These discoveries have Laura very excited about the possibilities for extending the human lifespan — in fact, she compares them to “finding gold in your living room” and says they don’t get enough attention.
They talk about why creating a venture fund is the best way for Laura to make an impact on this problem as well as the realities of venture funding in the life sciences space. Laura explains why returns are so important.
Erik asks how those of us who are not scientists can get involved in the space and which companies Laura is most excited about. She also runs through some of her requests for startups in the field.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Daniel Gross Thinks About Basically Everything Dec 14, 2018

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by Daniel Gross, founder of Pioneer, “an online tournament for productivity.” Prior to starting Pioneer, he founded Cue, a machine learning company that was acquired by Apple.
Erik and Daniel discuss a wide variety of topics, including why saying something is “insanely great” isn’t necessarily a compliment for a founder, how to play “the video game that is life,” why the best way to get the physique you want is to move (cities), and how Twitter has reshaped the human psyche.
They discuss Pioneer and how Daniel has thought about the decisions that went into its design. He talks about his aim of creating a “digital Ivy League campus” that harnesses the mechanics of games and applies them to more productive ends. Daniel also discusses why he says that life is like "a series of infinite games.”
They also cover a number of other topics, including how Daniel thinks about friendships, the parallels between Pioneer and religion, how Daniel would change the education system, and why people will compete against each other but cooperate against an AI. They close with a game where Erik names a number of prominent individuals and Daniel talks about what he’s learned from that person.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Charter Cities and Innovative Governance with Mark Lutter Dec 12, 2018

Mark Lutter (@MarkLutter), founder and executive director of the Centre For Innovative Governance Research, joins Erik on this special two-hour episode to talk about charter cities.
They start off by discussing how Mark became interested in the idea of charter cities. Mark explains the two main schools of thought when it comes to new forms of governance and talks about his philosophy for figuring out the best way to govern and how that involves charter cities.
He talks about the recent interest from Silicon Valley in charter cities and some of the projects that have been going on in the space. Mark talks about seasteading and why the promise of that project wasn’t realized. He points out that there are over 200 masterplanned cities being built around the world.
Mark explains the differences between charter cities and special economic zones and the main models for charter cities and special economic zones. Erik asks what forms of government Mark would advocate for if he was building a brand new charter city from scratch.
Mark talks about the reasons for avoiding centralized planning and reasoning from first principles and instead running experiments to see what kinds of phenomena emerge. They also have a lightning round where Erik names an individual and Mark explains where he agrees and disagrees with that individual’s thinking.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Present and Future of Autonomous Vehicles with Qasar Younis and Alexandr Wang Dec 10, 2018

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by two exciting guests: Qasar Younis (@qasar), co-founder of Applied Intuition, and Alexandr Wang (@alexandr_wang), CEO of Scale.
Both Qasar and Alex are creating software that is transforming the way autonomous vehicles are being developed. The three of them have an expansive conversation about where autonomous technology is at today and how the technology and industry might evolve in the future. Throughout the conversation the founders peel back the curtain on the autonomous vehicle development process and put forth are a number of ideas about autonomous technology that run counter to the prevailing narrative in the media today.
They begin by talking about some of the specific ways that software is transforming the auto industry and in what ways the tools the founders are building are being used in the development of autonomous technology. Erik asks about the pros and cons of being a horizontal company vs. a vertical company in the space, and Qasar and Alex discuss the extent to which existing car manufacturers have modularized the parts that go into traditional vehicles and why this trend will continue with autonomous technology.
Qasar and Alex point out that the key question now is not if, but when, autonomous technology will be deployed at mass scale, and say that even three years ago it was unclear whether it was going to happen at all. They compare the industry as it exists now to the early days of the iPhone and say that like the iPhone app explosion, self-driving cars will be only one application that emerges on top of autonomous technology, which will itself be a much bigger market than the smartphone market.
Qasar and Alex both agree that robo-taxis are overly focused on by the media and that other applications of autonomous technology such as in trucking, last-mile delivery and warehouses will arrive sooner and will be both much larger and more consequential than robo-taxis. Alex says that he believes autonomous vehicle technology will be only one part of a broader “robot revolution” in society.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Live Episode: Founders Discuss Village Global’s Network Catalyst Accelerator Dec 06, 2018

Erik Torenberg, co-founder and partner of Village Global, recently hosted an event for entrepreneurs in San Francisco to hear from founders of Village Global portfolio companies who have been through Village’s Network Catalyst accelerator.
Joining Erik were:
Nancy Yu (@nancyyu25), co-founder and CEO of RDMD, a company working to accelerate treatment for patients with rare diseases.
Amrita Saigal, co-founder of Saathi, a company creating fully eco-friendly, compostable sanitary napkins in India.
Jared Seehafer (@seehafer), co-founder and CEO of Enzyme, and a Village Global Network Leader.
Nancy and Amrita talk about what it was like to go through the Network Catalyst program and how it has impacted the growth of their companies. Jared discusses being an advisor to the founders in the program.
They talk about what makes Network Catalyst unique, including the emphasis at Village on the network, Village’s personalized one-on-one work with companies, the willingness to put on events dedicated entirely to one company and the influence that Village’s luminaries have had on the trajectory of the companies.
The founders also share the details of their journey thus far and give their thoughts on some of the thorny issues that founders have to deal with in the course of starting a company, like finding the right co-founder, how to ideate through solutions, and the importance of of founder-idea fit.
To apply to the program, visit www.villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst/
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Influence of the Consumer on Enterprise SaaS with Brianne Kimmel and Josh Stein Dec 05, 2018

Joining Erik for this episode are Brianne Kimmel (@briannekimmel), investor, advisor and Village Global Network Leader as well as Josh Stein (@dfjjosh), partner at DFJ.
They start off by discussing the "consumerization of enterprise SaaS." More and more frequently new software is implemented at enterprises because ordinary employees use a service as a consumer and advocate for its use within the company. Brianne and Josh talk about why the enterprise is such a different animal compared to consumer SaaS and the challenges that fact presents for young founders. Josh tells the story of Aaron Levie, who was only 20 when Josh backed him at Box and had not only not sold to the enterprise but had never worked in a big company.
They discuss how the SaaS landscape has changed, including why $50-100M in revenue isn't enough to go public and why investors are now looking for companies doing at least $1B in revenue. Brianne and Josh also point out the uniqueness of Silicon Valley, and caution that founders from the Bay Area both underestimate the amount of Microsoft lock-in outside the Bay and overrate the impact of the traction they can get by selling to other startups within Silicon Valley.
Erik asks where the opportunities are in SaaS and enterprise, whether it's better to have a vertical or horizontal SaaS company, and where the market is oversaturated. Josh also explains why he says that AI is actually underhyped.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests For Startups: Machine Learning with Ash Fontana and Anthony Goldbloom Dec 03, 2018

In the first all-Australian episode of Venture Stories Erik interviews returning guest Ash Fontana (@ashfontana), general partner at Zetta Ventures, and his fellow countryman, Anthony Goldbloom (@antgoldbloom), CEO of Kaggle.
Ash’s fund is the first fund devoted exclusively to AI and machine learning, and the three talk about how to evaluate companies, founders and ideas in the space. Ash says that the founders he looks for are often pre-traction but post-data, meaning that they have the data but are trying to find a way to make their machine learning work commercially viable. He points out that certain data-gathering techniques just aren’t viable for a startup when “you have to lose money to learn in the machine learning space.”
The trio discuss a number of the coolest current applications of machine learning as well as where they would like to see companies bring machine learning in the future. They talk about the present and potential future impact of machine learning techniques in data labeling, oil and gas, healthcare, and the enterprise.
Anthony and Ash also talk about some of the trends they see coming in machine learning, including moving data and machine learning to the cloud as well as the use of private or disguised data to allow sensitive data sets to be analyzed by a broader group of people. They also discuss which areas prospective founders should avoid and why machine learning is conducive to certain types of problems but not others.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Tyler Cowen Thinks About Basically Everything Nov 30, 2018

In this extended episode of Venture Stories, Erik interviews Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen), professor of economics at George Mason University. They discuss about a wide range of topics, including Tyler’s book Stubborn Attachments, the value of watching sports, travel, Bitcoin, the Knicks, and Effective Altruism — among many, many others.
Tyler explains why he has only two “stubborn attachments” — human rights and economic growth. He takes us through his argument that there’s a moral imperative for economic growth. He talks about why economic growth is the greatest force for good in the world, why redistribution isn’t as effective as Effective Altruists would like, and why we dramatically underestimate the effects of compounding. He discusses some of the reactions to the book and why he says he’s “poked the left in the eye and poked the right in the eye” with Stubborn Attachments.
They discuss the reasons for the extraordinary economic growth of East Asian countries and what kinds of lessons the West could take from those examples. Tyler talks about whether religion has an impact on economic growth and why inequality isn’t as big a deal as it’s made out to be.
Erik asks Tyler what he would do if he could wave a magic wand and change a number of entities, including the US healthcare system, the Knicks, and the Department of Education. Tyler tells Erik whether he would buy Bitcoin and gives his thoughts on central banking and Austrian economics. He also explains why travel is so valuable and why “at the margins people should be more like anthropologists.”
Erik asks Tyler where his views diverge from those of a number of prominent intellectuals, including Thomas Piketty, Russ Roberts, Ayn Rand, and Glen Weyl. Tyler explains why he suspects the environment in which someone grew up influences their thinking style.
Tyler’s own podcast Conversations with Tyler has been a big inspiration to Erik and Venture Stories, so Erik concludes with an homage with a round of overrated vs. underrated and by asking Tyler what his production function is for the podcast.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Health Stories: The Intersection of Blockchain and Healthcare with Nikhil Krishnan and Nick Soman Nov 28, 2018

On this episode of Health Stories, Erik is joined by Nikhil Krishnan (@nikillinit), of CB Insights and Nick Soman (@nicksoman), of Decent.
Today they're talking about “the combination of two insanely complex topics.” They start out by discussing the potential applications of blockchain technology in the healthcare space and why it might not be ready for primetime just yet.
They dive into some of the applications, including unique patient identifiers and why the lack of a system to transfer records between health providers results in a “ludicrously high number of medical errors.” They also talk about the fact that anonymized health data is often sold without the consent of the patient and that there are billion-dollar companies that advertise on the front page of their websites that they can provide anonymized health data for 500M patients.
As with any Health Stories episode, they discuss the distortion of incentives in the healthcare industry. On this episode they discuss the “medical loss ratio” and why it means that “everybody other than the patient makes more money when costs go up.” They point out that healthcare problems aren’t technology problems and are instead distribution and incentives problems. They also tell us that the health industry is the single largest public employer and the single largest lobbyist in the country.
They also talk about the possibility of using cryptocurrency in driving behavior change in patients, what the “remember blockchain?” eulogy for the tech might look like in 2030 if it doesn’t pan out, how Apple, Amazon and Google getting involved in the space might change thing, and why days are (hopefully) numbered for companies whose business models are predicated on a lack of trust and transparency.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Rethinking The Merits of Decentralization with John Backus Nov 26, 2018

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by co-host Tony Sheng to interview John Backus (@backus), founder of Bloom and Cognito, two companies working on decentralized lending and identity.
Co-host Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) leads product at Decentraland. He also publishes analyses on the business and strategy of crypto at tonysheng.com and is one of Village’s Network Leaders.
John recently wrote a popular post about the history of decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He joins Erik and Tony to expand on the post and talk about what that history can teach us about decentralization today.
He takes us through the history of file sharing apps from Napster to Kazaa to BitTorrent. He explains why the way BitTorrent is architected “doesn’t make sense” from a technical point of view and why the legal system has had such an impact on the way BitTorrent works.
John explains some of the legal challenges to peer-to-peer sharing and how they’ve adjusted. The push to decentralize is often considered a recent phenomenon but he describes a number of projects from many years ago that are actually pretty similar to what people are attempting to build today. He even talks about an early version of a token that was created by a decentralized file sharing service back in the early 2000s.
He concludes with why a number of these projects didn’t succeed and what lessons they have for decentralized projects today. He explains that the UX of decentralized services is often very poor, which makes it “an order of magnitude harder to find product-market fit.”
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Past and Future of Upstart and Income-Sharing Agreements with Dave Girouard and Tonio DeSorrento Nov 23, 2018

Erik is joined in this episode by co-host Tonio DeSorrento (@TonioDeSo), CEO and co-founder of Vemo Education, and Dave Girouard (@davegirouard), CEO and founder of Upstart.
They have a lively discussion about the history of income-sharing agreements, the forms in which they exist presently, and how the agreements might change or expand in the future.
Dave gives us an overview of Upstart and why he says they are like “Kickstarter meets LendingClub.” Although Upstart is thriving now, it wasn’t always that way. In the early days of the company, they tried to pioneer the idea of a generalized income-sharing agreement. Dave runs through why that didn’t work out and how they got to where Upstart is today.
Dave and Tonio share some stories about their early work on income-sharing agreements and compare theories on how these agreements might evolve and spread to different areas in the future. They talk about how income-sharing agreements align incentives between two parties and help quantify the value that one party provides another. They lay out a map for how something like an income-sharing agreement could be of assistance to a manual laborer deciding on a hospital in which to have a knee surgery.
They also contemplate the future of higher education, which Tonio points out is a $500 billion dollar industry that has 19 million students enrolled in any given year, and whether disruption will come from outside or from within the institutions themselves. Tonio also explains why income-sharing agreements and the data they produce are so helpful to people trying to decide which education institution to attend.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Income Sharing Agreements in Education with Tonio DeSorrento and Ali Hamed Nov 21, 2018

Erik’s co-host for this episode is Ali Hamed (@AliBHamed) of CoVenture. They are interviewing Tonio DeSorrento (@TonioDeSo), CEO and co-founder of Vemo Education.
They talk about the history of income-sharing agreements, including that Milton Friedman had once proposed the idea and that Yale University had experimented with them at one point.
Tonio talks about starting Vemo and how he has brought income-sharing agreements to more and more educational institutions. They discuss the fact that 88% of students entering college are doing so to improve their early career path but that most institutions would say that providing a career path is not the primary value they provide. Tonio explains that Vemo has helped students find the right institution for them by publishing outcomes from the income-sharing agreements. He says that this transparency of outcomes has in and of itself changed how colleges look at the service they provide.
They move on to talking about the future of higher education in general, why there doesn’t yet exist a Kickstarter for education (and what some of the pitfalls of that model would be) and in which other industries something similar to income-share (or “value-share”) agreements might make sense. Tonio also talks about how Vemo plans to scale and where they go from here.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The World’s First Publicly Traded Person with Mike Merrill and Marcus Estes Nov 19, 2018

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by Mike Merrill (@kmikeym), the world’s first and only publicly traded person, along with Mike’s friend, co-founder and shareholder, Marcus Estes (@marcusestes), co-founder and CEO of Chroma.
We hear the backstory on how Mike became the world’s first “publicly traded person” and hear a funny story about an early 2000s arts group turned their group into a corporation in order to thwart an attempt by an e-commerce company to take over their domain name.
They run through the ins and outs of what life is like for Mike and how having a live market where anyone can buy or sell “shares” in him distinguishes this from other experiments. He says that he originally set up the arrangement to give people input into his side projects but over time their decision-making power has expanded to his personal life. He explains how this has influenced how he thinks about the idea of owning “shares” in other people more generally.
Mike talks about the element of satire present in the project and how it has poked fun at the idea in society that worth in general is tied to financial factors. He talks about how this project has revealed warped incentives for his investors.
They describe the regulatory environment in America, how it has evolved to make things like this possible, and the unique way that Mike has structured this to make it legal. They talk about whether it would make sense for more people to do this, about income-share agreements more broadly and how Marcus and Chroma might get involved.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Live Episode: The Present and Future of Crypto with Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan Nov 16, 2018

In this special live episode of Venture Stories, Erik Torenberg interviews two special guests about the present and future of crypto: Naval Ravikant (@naval), CEO and co-founder of AngelList, and Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis), CTO of Coinbase.
They start with an overview of the history of organizing societies and the role of centralized decision-makers from kings to democracies and why decentralization — where no one in particular is in charge but everybody follows the rules — has so much potential. They talk about how this could be disruptive to a wide swath of society today, including areas like money, electricity, social networks, storage, and more. They explain why decentralization will "fulfill the original promise of the internet."
Erik asks how each of them got into the space after having had success in other areas. It’s pointed out that it’s very rare that something comes along that is “technologically interesting, socially revolutionary, and that can also make you very rich.” They move on to a discussion of the history of money, the three key functions that money provides (store of value, unit of account and medium of exchange) and how good a job current cryptocurrencies are doing at fulfilling those three functions. They also point out that VCs typically didn’t buy Ether, but it has provided a 700X return in just a few years, which is better than VCs returned on Google or Facebook.
They move on to what they see in the future for crypto and how it will change society at large. They paint a picture of a world where there might be virtual “instant jobs” available on-demand in a feed akin to the feeds in current social networks and where the “99%” will be investors, as opposed to the present where only 1% of individuals are investors. There might also exist in the future “instant companies” that can be created as easily as someone can create an account on a social network today and that programmable smart contracts might spread opportunity far and wide without the need for armies of lawyers and judges.
They explain what it means when they say that blockchain will create “an open financial system” and what they mean when they say it will be to the current financial system what Linux was to Windows. They also talk about what kinds of facts would change their mind about blockchain, the role of identity and anonymity in a crypto world, and the concept of a “personal burn rate.”
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Competitive Governance with Patri Friedman Nov 14, 2018

Patri Friedman joins Erik on this episode of Venture Stories. He founded The Seasteading Institute in 2008 with funding from Peter Thiel. His father is political theorist David Friedman and his grandfather is Nobel Laureate in economics, Milton Friedman.
Over the course of their nearly two-hour conversation they cover a lot of ground, including crypto, physical (and virtual) governance, the current state of politics, Silicon Valley, and much more.
Patri starts by explaining why he is both skeptical and optimistic about crypto — and why that position is not incompatible. He says that the tech boom around 2000 had “a lot of junk” but a lot of innovation came out of it at the same time.
He talks about starting The Seasteading Institute, the impetus behind the project and the successes and challenges they have had. He enumerates the issues with the structures of current countries, governments, and legal systems around the world and why by the logic of the market, one would expect countries and legal systems not to be very innovative. With experiments underway involving special economic zones incorporating novel legal systems, that might change.
Patri explains what he means by the phrase “markets eating the world” and points out that platforms and sharing economy companies form half of of all current unicorns. He talks about how in the same fashion as software has been “eating the world,” he expects the same to happen with markets. He points out that the determination of resource allocation involves economics and trade-offs, whether done by a central figure or markets. He explains some of the novel uses of markets in unexpected areas and the two discuss some of the drawbacks and challenges with markets in delicate areas such as healthcare or education.
He talks about some of the flaws present in democracy, including the idea that it provides citizens the illusion of control without providing any actual control and contrasts the potential distorted incentives of a central trusted authority figure versus a more decentralized market-driven approach of distributing resources. Patri says that he views the problem of figuring out the best kind of governance as an engineering problem requiring experimentation rather than a philosophical problem requiring deep thought and persuasion.
They also talk about why he says in areas as varied as food, education and computing, our “desires are being hijacked” by profit-driven entities and why in the future it would be wise to return to more historically-proven strategies in those areas. He also talks about why he expects the pace of changes in the world to continue to increase, why it will take even more skill for someone to eke out a basic living, the past and present culture of Silicon Valley, and what he expects the world will look like when his kids are grown up.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Live Episode: Eric Schmidt and Tyler Cowen on The Future of Technology and Society Nov 12, 2018

This is a special episode of Venture Stories recorded in front of a live audience in San Francisco, featuring Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen), professor of economics at George Mason University and Eric Schmidt (@ericschmidt), former executive chairman and CEO at Google/Alphabet.
Cowen talks to Schmidt about a wide range of topics, from Schmidt’s college years, to his time as an intern at Bell Labs, to working for Scott McNealy at Sun Microsystems, to the early days of Google, to today.
Cowen asks about Schmidt’s formative intellectual experiences as a young person and we hear the story of Schmidt studying as an architect prior to entering into a computer science program. After graduation, Schmidt interned at both Xerox PARC and Bell Labs. He recounts stories of his time at the research labs and discusses to what extent the lab model does or doesn’t work today. Cowen astutely points out that Schmidt is one of the few people around whose career spans several significant eras in the history of computing.
They move on to talking about the early days at Google, where it turns out that Schmidt was hired to run the company after a skiing trip with Larry and Sergey, whose first concern in hiring “adult supervision” was to find someone they enjoyed hanging out with. Schmidt says that he initially assumed that search wasn't very important and that Google’s ads didn’t work. He reveals that during his first year he was so terrified that their "ruse would unravel" that he made anyone who wanted to spend money come to him personally on Fridays at 10am to justify the expense.
Cowen asks about Schmidt’s insights on hiring and managing talent. Schmidt explains that in the beginning Larry and Sergey primarily hired their classmates and friends, but over time Google’s hiring became highly structured. He tells the story of interviewing a single candidate 16 times and explains the logic of why initially they were so focused on school and GPA, rather than industry experience.
Cowen and Schmidt also talk about in which areas even Schmidt himself has been surprised at the extent of technological progress and where he'd like to see more innovation. They discuss social media and why Schmidt says that it amplifies human weaknesses rather than strengths. The two of them also talk about transforming cities, including Alphabet’s Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto and the Bay Area's housing crisis.
They of course also have a round of rapid-fire “overrated vs. underrated,” covering subjects like Antarctica, Picasso, effective altruism, Yellowstone and North Korea. Cowen also asks his signature question about the Eric Schmidt "production function" and how Schmidt is able to be so productive.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Live Episode: An Interview with Erik Torenberg at Venture For America in Detroit Nov 09, 2018

Erik was interviewed by Jacob Evan Smith (@jacobsmith88) at Venture For America in Detroit, which is where Erik attended the University of Michigan before he started his live rap battle app, rapt.fm.
In this episode he talks about founding and running rapt.fm, why it didn’t work out, and how he ended up joining Product Hunt before co-founding Village Global.
Erik explains why it’s not important that entrepreneurs get it right the first time, but instead that they don’t stop trying.
He talks about why lifestyle businesses are unfairly looked down upon in startup world, the usefulness of failing, and why you need to keep your identity separate from your company.
He also talks about why you want to do things that seem hard to other people but easy to you and why when building a network you should give without taking, without thought of what you might get in return.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Health Stories: Computational Care, Computational Biology, and "Taking a Crowbar to the Health System" with Scott Barclay and James Hardiman Nov 07, 2018

On this episode of Health Stories, Erik is joined by James Hardiman (@hardimanjames) and Scott Barclay (@SABarclay) of Data Collective, a deep tech and AI venture fund.
Scott and James are live in-studio with Erik to discuss a number of interesting topics around the health space.
Scott and James explain what they mean when they say innovation in the last 50 years was driven by the semiconductor but the next 50 years will be driven by biotechnology.
The three of them discuss the state of the healthcare in the US and how entrepreneurs and investors can “take a crowbar to the health system.”
They discuss the misaligned incentives in the US healthcare system and how payers might be incentivized to pay for preventative care. They mention that the US pays about 18% of GDP for healthcare while still having poorer health outcomes than countries in Northern Europe that pay about 9% of GDP.
They explain why they are predicting a contraction in the number of hospitals in the US and why there are double to triple the number of hospitals per capita in the US than there are in a country like Denmark.
They also talk about a number of interesting developments in health tech these days, including a company that can verify the integrity of a supply chain by analyzing the microbiome of the resultant products and a company that is using computer vision to detect falls.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

On-Chain Governance with Jacob Arluck and Peter Czaban Nov 05, 2018

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik and his co-host Tony Sheng are joined by Jacob Arluck (@JacobArluck) of Tezos and Peter Czaban of Polkadot and the Web3 Foundation.
The four of them get into the details of the mechanisms of governance, including voting, councils, and other methods of governance.
They discuss hard forks and why they are not ideal but sometimes necessary. The group also discusses common misconceptions around on-chain governance and their requests for products or startups in the space.
They explain what it means to get to the decentralized ideal without re-centralizing when it comes to governance as well as why the best case scenario for crypto users is that they are not thinking about governance at all as it recedes into the background.
Co-host Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) leads product at Decentraland. He also publishes analyses on the business and strategy of crypto at tonysheng.com and is one of Village’s Network Leaders.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Building Network Effects Businesses with NFX’s James Currier and Pete Flint Nov 02, 2018

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by James Currier (@JamesCurrier) and Pete Flint (@peteflint), of NFX. NFX is a great venture capital firm founded on the concept of network effects. Erik, James and Pete cover a bunch of fascinating topics in the interview.
Pete and James explain why network effects make such good businesses — so good in fact, that they don’t have to even be run particularly well to still have great revenue, as James found out when he sold to a big incumbent.
Erik asks whether it’s possible to add network effects to an existing business or whether they have to be baked into the business model from the beginning. He also runs through a variety of verticals like healthcare, real estate, education, travel and others, asking his guests to talk about where the opportunities are to build businesses that leverage network effects in those spaces.
James explains what he means by the phrase “the best entrepreneurs are going to be the best historians” and they talk about why “timing is everything” and why a startup like Airbnb can be founded based on an economic impetus rather than a technological catalyst.
They also talk about why network effects are so important within Silicon Valley and why NFX believes that the best startups will come from inside the Valley, despite efforts to spread the “secret sauce” to other geographies. James says that there might be a lot of failed startups outside of the Valley.
They also talk about distributed teams and whether it’s possible to build a really big business with a distributed team, as well as the often overlooked importance of the name of a company.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Health Stories: Early Cancer Screening with Gabriel Otte Oct 31, 2018

Gabriel Otte (@gabeotte), CEO and co-founder of Freenome, joins Erik on this episode of Venture Stories to talk about cancer screening.
Gabriel starts out by talking about why he got into the cancer screening space and how Freenome got started.
He lays out the different methods of cancer detection and why Freenome has chosen their specific approach to the problem. Erik asks how it compares to other companies working on similar problems and Gabriel helps create a market map of the space.
Gabriel points out that 93 million people in the United States were instructed by their doctor to be screened for colorectal cancer last year but 70 million of them did nothing at all. He talks about why Freenome has chosen to hone in on this specific type of cancer screening and why it lends itself to an improved UX.
They move on to a discussion of the uniqueness of building a product and company in the health space and why the dynamics are so different than those of other tech companies. Gabriel talks about the FDA approval process and why it pays to engage with them early, as well as how a company should go about ensuring that their tests will be reimbursed by payers.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.

Looming Debt Crises, The Fed, and Crypto with Gabe Bassin and Taylor Pearson Oct 29, 2018

Gabe Bassin (@gabebassin) and Taylor Pearson (@TaylorPearsonMe) join Erik for this episode.
They cover a lot of ground in this episode where they explore some of the coming financial challenges that the US faces and how crypto might impact the markets and the economy in general.
Gabe gives an overview of the current state of public debt and future government obligations. He explains how the fed ended up with four trillion dollars on its balance sheet.
He says that “the market’s been programmed to be saved” and talks about the impacts of quantitative easing, or printing more money. Gabe and Taylor discuss volatility in the markets and potential looming financial crises.
Gabe points out that public pension funds are underfunded and that fund managers need to make a 7% annualized return to meet their obligations. Given that these funds are the biggest players in the markets, this has a number of implications both for the market and society in general.
They close out by talking about crypto and Bitcoin specifically, and how it might have an impact on all of this.
Charts mentioned in this episode:
Inflation as it relates to quantitative easing: https://twitter.com/gabebassin/status/1032259327745253376
VIX Futures: http://vixcentral.com/
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Eugene Wei Thinks About Basically Everything Oct 26, 2018

This is a deep dive into the mind of Eugene Wei. Erik and Eugene discuss all kinds of topics, including the unique state of ambition in Silicon Valley, “apprenticeships” for white collar jobs, Eugene’s favorite fiction books, what he would do if he was running the New York Knicks, and much more.
They start by talking about the differences in extent and type of ambition between Silicon Valley and other places like New York or LA, as well as how you might spread the spirit of entrepreneurship that lives in the Valley further afield.
Eugene talks about the progression of his career and what kind of advice he would have for others. He talks about the twists and turns in his career and describes what it was like going back to film school after having worked at Amazon.
They talk about Eugene’s reading habits and the fact that he reads 20 non-fiction books at a time simultaneously. He also gives his recommendations on his favorite fiction books.
Eugene says that Jeff Bezos had a different young executive shadow him for a period of time and explains his idea of an “apprenticeship” for white collar jobs and the value of learning by observing.
They also have a round of underrated vs. overrated and Erik asks Eugene what he would do if he was running Medium, Spotify and the New York Knicks.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Health Stories: Unlocking The Potential of Personal Genomics with Othman Laraki and Alicia Zhou Oct 24, 2018

In this episode of Health Stories, Erik is talking to Othman Laraki (@othman) and Alicia Zhou (@ay_zhou) of Color. Othman is co-founder and CEO and Alicia Zhou is Head of Research.
Othman explains the personal reason that he started Color and why he got involved in the healthcare space after previously working at Google and running a company that was acquired by Twitter.
Alicia and Othman explain the advances Color has made in genomics and how the approach they’re taking is different from that of other companies in the space. You might not have known that 30% of your health is related to your genome. There are also a number of new types of care that can be unlocked by having your genome sequenced.
Othman explains how at Color they are hoping to follow the model of Google or Amazon where early in the company’s life they focus on doing one thing really well, then expand into other areas. He also talks about where he would be building a company in the space if he wasn't working at Color as well as where he might look to invest.
They also discuss the time Othman wore a glucose monitor full-time and how it changed how he thinks about health, why he is hoping for an “iPhone moment” in the healthcare space, and why the future of cancer treatment will be much more about prevention than treatment.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Solving The Blockchain Interoperability Problem with Sunny Aggarwal and Haseeb Qureshi Oct 22, 2018

Sunny Aggarwal (@sunnya97) of Cosmos and Tendermint joins Erik and co-host Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb), GP at MetaStable Capital, for this episode of Crypto Stories.
They discuss how blockchains could be made to be interoperable with one another. Sunny explains why this is an important problem and what he is doing about it with Cosmos. He talks about why different types of tokens cannot yet be exchanged confidently.
Sunny uses the analogy of a multithreaded CPU that we all use these days to explain how interoperable blockchains might work. They compare it to sharding and talk about how it would affect payments.
Haseeb also asks what Sunny would like the crypto world to look like if he is successful with Cosmos and what the potential pitfalls might be.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Alex Danco Thinks About Basically Everything Oct 19, 2018

In this episode Alex Danco (@alex_danco) of Social Capital joins Erik to talk about Silicon Valley, economics, innovation, crypto, software and more. He is a very unique thinker with interesting opinions about the tech space.
Alex explains the influence of Peter Thiel and Rene Girard on his thinking. He explains what he means when he says the key to understanding the world is asking, "what is everyone is compelled to lie about?"
He gives a history of how innovation has traditionally proceeded in the world and explains how Silicon Valley — via software specifically — has changed the mechanism of innovation. He talks about how this has resulted in disproportionate gains accruing to the huge tech companies.
This new model of innovation has also changed how companies are valued. Alex breaks down the new metrics that are being used by VCs and founders to value their firms — and why this could be contributing to a new tech bubble.
Alex also talks about the economics of the Valley and why gains in productivity from technology have not resulted in increased leisure for the Valley's inhabitants.
He also talks about crypto, career strategy, cost disease, scooters, and much more.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Health Stories: Reinventing The Primary Care Experience with Adrian Aoun Oct 17, 2018

Erik is joined by Adrian Aoun (@adrianaoun), founder of Forward, a company that is trying to reinvent how primary healthcare is delivered. His previous company Wavii, was acquired by Google — where Adrian led AI efforts as well as working on special projects for Google’s CEO.
Adrian explains the personal reason for his desire to found a healthcare company. He talks about why he is trying to build something completely outside the traditional healthcare system and gives a rundown of the amazing tech that Forward has been working on.
The two of them also discuss why no healthcare company has achieved the scale that tech companies have — and how Forward might be one of the first companies to achieve that scale.
Erik asks Adrian about his lessons learned when it comes to scaling and Adrian has a number of great tips about how to identify talent.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Bitcoin as Political Technology with Dhruv Bansal Oct 15, 2018

Erik and his co-host Taylor Pearson (@TaylorPearsonMe), author of The End of Jobs, are joined by Dhruv Bansal (@dhruvbansal), co-founder of Unchained Capital.
On this episode they discuss a number of interesting topics, getting progressively “weirder” as they go along. In the beginning they get Dhruv’s take on the contrasts between Bitcoin and Ethereum and how the prevailing narrative around each of them affects how people perceive their strengths and weaknesses.
By the end, they’re discussing if it’s possible to have money if humans are an interstellar species and whether it’s possible that Satoshi is a time-traveller from the future.
In between, they cover a number of (equally) interesting topics, like Dhruv’s idea that blockchains are technologies for building political system” and why blockchain and Bitcoin are not actually a continuation of the internet, as they are commonly portrayed. Dhruv also explains what the “Nakamoto Point” is, where he would be investing, and what his “requests for products” are in the space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Live Episode: Keith Rabois on Career Strategy, Identifying Talent and Evaluating Markets Oct 12, 2018

This episode of Venture Stories was recorded in front of a live audience in San Francisco in October 2018. Keith was interviewed by Village Global partner and co-founder, Erik Torenberg.
In the episode they cover a number of topics, and Keith (as usual) is very insightful.
Keith breaks down some of the successes that mentees of his have had over the past few years. Many of them came from non-technical backgrounds and non-elite schools. He talks about their career trajectory and which inflection points led to their advancement and how young people in similar situations can model their careers after them.
Erik explains the four dimensions over which he thinks about career building and where he thinks young people are over-optimizing.
Keith shares what Peter Thiel told him about hiring while the two were on a run around the Stanford campus shortly after Keith joined PayPal. He talks about how as a manager he challenges the people working for him, and why as an employee you should always want to feel like you’re pushing the boundaries of what you’re capable of.
They move on to what makes a good startup idea and the three factors that Keith uses to evaluate business ideas.
They also take questions from the audience where Keith addresses work-life balance and why creating a startup is like casting and creating a movie.
Quotable lines from this episode:
“You don't want to be the best at what you do, you want to be the only one that does what you do.”
“If you’re going to start a company and if you believe that the team you build is the company you build — you want to have unfair advantage in evaluating people.”
“VC is one of the best jobs in the world if you’re intellectually curious.”
“[Working in VC] is like learning to play basketball with NBA all-stars.”
“When you want to make a decision, optimize on one variable. Don't make a pros and cons list.”
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Health Stories: Solving The Care Coordination Problem with Jay Desai and Joe Kahn Oct 10, 2018

On this episode of Health Stories, Erik is joined by Jay Desai (@jdesai01) of PatientPing (patientping.com) and Joe Kahn (@josephwandile) of Karuna Health (meetkaruna.com).
Both Joe and Jay are working on how to make sure that patient care is coordinated across multiple providers. When patients visit different providers, their care information is not shared between them and Jay and Joe are working to change that.
The two companies are taking different approaches to the problem and the two founders explain why they’ve chosen to attack the problem the way they have and how they got started down this path.
Joe and Jay explain how they are helping some of the most vulnerable individuals in the healthcare system and why this is nevertheless a good business to be in and why optimizing their care is good for providers.
They give their recommendations on where they would be investing if they were running a fund in the healthcare space as well as what opportunities exist in the industry. They also explain why healthcare is not like e-commerce or ridesharing and instead more like advertising, in that we are in general trying to spend less, not more, on healthcare and are trying to get more value while reducing spend.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: ETH as Money, Generalized Mining, and an Exploration of Web3 with Dan Zuller and Ryan Sean Adams Oct 08, 2018

In this episode Erik is joined by Ryan Sean Adams (@RyanSAdams) of Mythos Capital and Dan Zuller (@danzuller) of Vision Hill Advisors.
They talk about their backgrounds, how they became interested in crypto, and how that has informed what they are doing now with their companies in the space. Ryan explains why he’s structured Mythos as a holding company rather than a hedge fund or venture fund. Dan talks about how to bridge traditional finance and crypto and takes us through the current “money stack” that is worth an estimated 80-90 trillion dollars.
Ryan talks about what he calls “maximalist hubris” and why he believes both Ethereum and Bitcoin can co-exist and both have massive upside. He explains why he believes that Ethereum is about 30% finished, Bitcoin is about 80% finished, and why in judging their probabilities of success, one should look at the finished end state and discount from there based on the probability of executing.
They also talk about Web3 and why digital scarcity is the key innovation contained within it. They explain why people tend to overestimate the extent to which Web3 will disrupt Web 2.0 and why Web3 will instead disrupt the industries and companies that weren’t disrupted by Web 2.0 in the first place.
The three discuss why one should think about work or utility tokens as analogous to taxicab medallions, which are similar to money — but that no coffee shop in NYC would accept in exchange for a coffee.
They also talk about what other protocols still have a chance to be the “winning money,” tokenized securities, and the potential drawbacks of stablecoins.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

What Kevin Kwok Thinks About Basically Everything Oct 05, 2018

Kevin Kwok (@kevinakwok) is an investor at Greylock and one of the most expansive and intriguing minds around. In this episode Kevin and Erik talk about... basically everything, from the org chart of the future to the history of religion.
Along the way they discuss a number of topics, including:
- Why the stock market exists and why after the crash of 2008 no one said that we should shut it down.
- Why Amazon is starting to look like Berkshire Hathaway and whether it could be broken up and still run effectively.
- The ideas of "loops and funnels" and "constraints and compounding" — and how Kevin thinks about those mental models.
- The history of corporate structures and what they might look like in the future.
- What might be possible with crypto that was previously impossible without crypto, and why people seem to be only trying to replicate already-existing tech using crypto.
- Twitter, and why it's like being "on chain."
- How to think about your career and how the Valley's unique work culture has contributed to its success.
- The idea of personal ICOs.
- Why most companies think about the impact of PR on consumers when in reality they should think about PR's impact on recruiting.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Health Stories: Go-To-Market in Healthcare and Requests For Startups with Kristin Spohn and Kelsey Mellard Oct 03, 2018

Kelsey Mellard (@KelseyMellard), co-founder of Sitka (trustsitka.com) and Kristin Spohn (@kbakes), partner at Social Capital, join Erik for this enlightening episode of Health Stories.
In it they talk about a number of topics related to go-to-market for startups in the health industry. Kelsey explains what Sitka is trying to do in the musculoskeletal space, which is the #1 cause of disability in the US.
They discuss the misaligned incentives in healthcare and the interplay of the various stakeholders that have an input into an individual's care. They explain why cost of care varies so much based on your ZIP code.
Kristin and Kelsey talk about the types of startups they'd like to see in the healthcare space and where the opportunities are at this point in time. They also talk about some of the potential pitfalls and what founders can do to succeed.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Decision To Hard Fork Sia with David Vorick Oct 02, 2018

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik talks to David Vorick (@DavidVorick) of Sia.
David explains why a fork of Sia became necessary, even though doing so was not ideal or their preferred option.
He talks about what precipitated the fork and how they came to the decision. He recounts his outreach to ASIC manufacturers and why their actions were problematic. They move on to a more general discussion of the philosophy on when to fork or not and how to manage doing so.
David also gives an overview of what it takes to manufacture chips, which incumbent chipmakers might be able to move into ASICs and why a manufacturer might produce $300M worth of wafers before even knowing whether they will be functional.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner Erik Torenberg, and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Aleksandr Bulkin on ADAPT, "Initial Witness Offerings" and Crypto Disruption Oct 01, 2018

Aleksandr Bulkin (@coinfund_al), co-founder of CoinFund and creator of ADAPT (adaptk.it) joins Erik on this episode to discuss:
- How Alex got involved in crypto and why the Ethereum white paper and Augur white paper contributed so much to his interest.
- His time working at Goldman Sachs on human-computer interaction and how he transitioned from Goldman to the crypto world, as well his predictions on where Goldman will be disrupted and where it will stick around in a new crypto-oriented world.
- How he got started on ADAPT, how it works, and what the promise of ADAPT is.
- What an "initial witness offering" is and how it compares to other initial offerings in crypto.
- Why he's skeptical of value capture via TCRs and governance in crypto.
- The reason that he thinks a decentralized, paid Wikipedia will fail.
- What "cost of attack" means and how it affects crypto projects.
- The idea of UX security, and why it is equally as important as technical security.
Articles mentioned in this episode:
Quantifying Decentralization by Balaji Srinivasan: https://news.earn.com/quantifying-decentralization-e39db233c28e
Scalability of value in decentralized networks by Aleksandr Bulkin: https://blog.coinfund.io/scalability-of-value-in-decentralized-networks-795ed9c91eee
Can Tokens Save Lives? by Aleksandr Bulkin: https://blog.coinfund.io/can-tokens-save-lives-8c0f1cf5dfa9
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner Erik Torenberg, and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

On Radical Markets with Glen Weyl and Riva Melissa-Tez Sep 28, 2018

Glen Weyl (@glenweyl) and Riva Melissa-Tez (@rivatez) join Erik for this episode. They discuss Glen’s book, Radical Markets, and a number of topics related to it, including:
- The similarities between Rio de Janeiro and San Francisco when it comes to wealth distribution
- Why Glen has received blame and praise on different issues from both sides of the political spectrum
- Why the book appeals primarily not to the right or the left, but to the open-minded
- The reason that Glen calls himself a social technologist
- How Glen came to meet Vitalik Buterin and how they ended up writing a paper together, which Glen calls “the single thing I’m most proud of intellectually”
- Skeptical perspectives on blockchain and cryptocurrency, and why Glen calls them “a society of absolute private property governed by plutocracy”
- “The problem of funding public goods without having to pre-suppose that it’s all going to be done by some particular democratic government somewhere.”
- Why Glen thinks the news media is the best opportunity for decentralized funding
- The idea that “economics is a disguise for the interests of a narrow part of society.”
- Glen’s relationship with Jaron Lanier and his admiration of Jaron as a thinker
- Glen and Riva’s requests for startups
- Evolving the idea of human capital
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner Erik Torenberg, and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Health Stories: The Economics of Health Insurance with Nick Reber and Kareem Zaki Sep 26, 2018

Nick Reber of Oscar Health and Kareem Zaki (@KareemZaki_) of Thrive Capital join Erik in this fascinating episode exploring the ins and outs of the health insurance industry.
They talk about the misaligned incentives in healthcare and why it maybe shouldn’t be the case that “most people trust their doctor and hate their insurance company.”
Nick and Kareem break down why it’s difficult for new entrants to get a foothold in the market and talk about the barriers to competition created by legislation that dates back to World War II.
They discuss why there is such a difference between the healthcare plans that people get through their employers versus the ones people opt for when they are selecting a plan on their own.
They predict a transition ahead in the health insurance industry that is analogous to the shift from defined benefit to defined contribution pension plans.
They also talk about why insurance "is one of the worst ways to pay for anything" and their requests for startups in the space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

The Bull Case For EOS As Presented By Myles Snider Sep 24, 2018

Myles Snider (@myles_snider), CEO of Aurora EOS and advisor to Multicoin Capital, joins Erik and co-host Tony Sheng to discuss his new role as head of a block producer for EOS.
Co-host Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) leads product at Decentraland. He also publishes analyses on the business and strategy of crypto at www.tonysheng.com and is one of Village’s Network Leaders.
Myles explains how he ended up in that position after working at Multicoin Capital. He gives us an overview of EOS and talks about how it compares and contrasts to Ethereum. He also gives a history of the protocol.
Myles explains what it means to be “decentralized enough” and why he doesn’t think of EOS as either a cryptocurrency or sound money.
They talk about the role of block producers and how the governance structure of EOS is set up, including how financial incentives might lead more people to become involved in governance. Myles explains why he decided to become a block producer as opposed to a number of other things he might have done within the ecosystem. He also talks about why he sees himself as a “usability maximalist.”
Why Decentralization Matters by Myles Snider: https://medium.com/multicoin-capital/why-decentralization-matters-a-response-6b4b9a31367f
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

On Being Sriram Krishnan with Sriram Krishnan and Sriram Krishnan Sep 21, 2018

It's double the Sriram Krishnan for the price of one! Sriram Krishnan (@sriramk) of Twitter and Sriram Krishnan (@sriramkri) of HeadSpin join Erik to talk about dating apps, streaming music, the online advertising business, as well as the hilarious stories about people mixing up the two of them.
They start off by recounting some of the times their identical names have gotten one or the other in trouble for something the other Sriram Krishnan did, as well as the hilarious story of them both showing up to the same meeting where the host only expected one.
The crew talks about Tinder and whether someone else might come along to dethrone the app that's created a whole new way to date. They also talk about the digitization of everything and what else in the relationships space might end up online as well.
They move on to Spotify and streaming music in general, breaking down why Spotify emerged from the other side of the world to take on and beat (for now) huge companies like Apple and Amazon, including all of the music labels.
Next, they talk about India and the unique dynamics inside the country for entrepreneurs and consumers. In many ways consumer tech is more advanced in India than in the USA and entrepreneurs are often looking up to the Chinese companies and founders rather than American ones.
They discuss advertising online with Sriram giving a crash course on how advertising online has evolved from the beginning to now. They also discuss how Facebook was able to lock down the mobile ad market and the path forward for Snap when it comes to ads.
At the end there is some bonus discussion of Lebron and some other basketball-related predictions.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Health Stories: The Intersection of Life Science and Biotech with Rachel Craig and Ed Saltzman Sep 19, 2018

In this episode, Erik is joined by two very smart minds in the health space. He talks to Rachel Craig (@RPCraig), founder and CEO of MotionHall, which a Village Global portfolio company that is building a global platform for biopharma dealmaking, and Ed Saltzman, President and founder of Defined Health, which is a business development strategy consultancy in the life sciences space.
Erik asks why now is such an exciting time to be involved in the life sciences field and how it has evolved over time to this point. Rachel and Ed explain to us why they’re excited and why they also have concerns and describe where they would be investing if they were running a venture capital fund.
They talk about the continuing crossover of life sciences and technology tools, especially in software, and how the two worlds (one almost entirely regulated, the other entirely un-regulated) can better understand each other.
They also talk about what their “requests for products” are and give their advice for founders in the space, including this nugget from Rachel — “run towards hard things and love complexity.”
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Jillian Carlson and Lily Liu on Emerging Markets, Token Business Models, and Self-ICOs Sep 17, 2018

Erik and his co-host Tony Sheng are joined by two special guests for this episode. Lily Liu (@calilyliu) is co-founder of Earn.com which was sold to Coinbase. Jillian Carlson (@_jillruth) is a consultant to projects both big and small in the space.
Co-host Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) leads product at Decentraland. He also publishes analyses on the business and strategy of crypto at tonysheng.com and is one of Village’s Network Leaders.
Erik starts by asking what each of Lily and Jillian are thinking about these days and what's been top of mind for the last while for them. Lily's been thinking about how the blockchain can be used internationally and Jillian has been thinking about how to make blockchain and crypto actually useful to end users.
They have a discussion of Venezuela and its effort to create a state-sponsored cryptocurrency. They discuss the idea of getting blockchain to scale by adding blockchain tech to existing projects that already have scale instead of creating something entirely new.
They have an enlightening discussion about business model innovation compared to protocol innovation. They say that much of the protocol innovation will happen in the US and the business model innovation is likely to happen in Asia. There is discussion of the risks of creating projects on top of Ethereum as well as of the risks of creating your own coin and holding your funds in that coin.
They also talk about why the sharing economy is well-positioned to have blockchain integrated into it and Lily explains why she thinks that despite the correction in prices we're still not in a bear market yet. Finally, they discuss personal ICOs and the rise of crypto hedge funds.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Fintech Fridays: Transforming Web Security with Mahmoud Abdelkader and Ross Fubini Sep 14, 2018

Mahmoud "Rusty" Abdelkader (@mahmoudimus), CEO of Very Good Security and Ross Fubini (@fubini), partner at Village Global, join Erik on this episode to talk security on the web and Mahmoud's company Very Good Security.
Mahmoud explains what he and his team is trying to do at Very Good Security and how they hope to transform the way web apps are secured.
Ross has known Mahmoud for a while now and explains why he decided to invest in Mahmoud and his company. They run through the unique aspects of the business that Mahmoud describes as “an infrastructure business disguised as SaaS.” The three also talk about the opportunities in the space and candidly discuss the challenges that VGS and Mahmoud as CEO see ahead of them.
For example, Mahmoud asks “how do you hire someone to do a job you don’t know how to do yourself?” They discuss going into the trenches to do the job yourself first so you can understand it. Mahmoud also gets into some of the engineering behind VGS and why he had to give up his motorcycle.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Health Stories: Hard-Won Lessons From The Healthcare Ecosystem with Liz Rockett, Jared Seehafer, and Ryan Panchadsaram Sep 12, 2018

Three exciting guests join Erik to reveal what having been in the healthcare ecosystem has taught them that the average tech investor doesn't know:
- Liz Rockett (@liz_rockett), investor at Kaiser Permanente Ventures.
- Ryan Panchadsaram (@rypan), investor at Kleiner Perkins and former US deputy CTO.
- Jared Seehafer (@seehafer), co-founder of Enzyme and Village Network Leader
Erik starts by asking each of them to describe their view on the healthcare industry from their unique individual backgrounds as an investor, a former White House staffer, and an entrepreneur.
They play a game of overrated vs. underrated where they name a technology, sub-sector (or even a piece of legislation!) and discuss whether it's over- or underrated.
The three guests explain why in healthcare "if you build it, they may not come" and why brilliant technology that solves a clinical problem may still fail. They talk about how healthcare is "multivariate complex interactions of people" and why upstarts need to keep in mind how their technology fits into a current workflow, whether it will be used, and who's going to reimburse for it.
They also talk about their "requests for products" that they would like to see built in the space and why "the people who have done the best [in healthcare] have found a way to steep themselves in it before they build too much." They tell prospective founders that they need to build a team that has seen every side of the problem and come to the space with humility and an open, "beginner's mind."
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: The Bull Case For Ethereum with Spencer Noon, Cyrus Younessi and Tony Sheng Sep 10, 2018

The guests on today’s episode are Spencer Noon (@spencernoon), an investor at Doggie Tail Crypto Capital and Cyrus Younessi (@cyounessi1), Director of Research and Trading at Scalar Capital.
Co-hosting today’s episode is Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) who leads product at Decentraland. He also publishes analyses on the business and strategy of crypto at tonysheng.com and is one of Village’s Network Leaders.
Spencer and Cyrus start out by laying out the theses underlying their bullishness on Ethereum. They give some context on Ethereum through a historical lens and discuss the properties that lend it to scaling well. They also debunk some of the common misconceptions about Ethereum.
The four talk about where they would like to see development focused within the Ethereum ecosystem, what obstacles Ethereum faces, and what an Ethereum-killer might look like.
They also discuss smart contracts and where Spencer and Cyrus disagree with the fat money crowd on the relative merits of Ethereum vs. Bitcoin as a store of value or as working capital.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Fintech Fridays: Ali Hamed on Lending, Crypto and Venture Capital Sep 07, 2018

Erik and co-host for this episode Ash Fontana (@ashfontana) of Zetta Venture Partners interview Ali Hamed (@AliBHamed), investor at CoVenture.
Ali gives us a primer on the online lending space and compares and contrasts it to offline lending. He explains why payday lenders with astronomical APRs actually have small margins. He also talks about how government can improve the regulatory environment to allow for more disruption of traditional lending and help new companies get a foothold.
They talk about crypto and whether people will be making loans against Bitcoin anytime soon as well as the idea of personal ICOs and why Ali thinks they are a bad idea.
The trio finish with a rapid-fire round where Erik names a venture firm and Ali talks about what he thinks that company should do in the future.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Request For Startups: Digital Health Sep 05, 2018

Joining Erik for this episode are Robert Mittendorff (@doctorrem), partner at Norwest Venture Partners, and Ambar Bhattacharyya (@AmbarBh), managing director at Maverick Ventures.
In a continuation of the Requests for Startups series, Erik asks Robert and Ambar what they would like to see built in the digital health space.
They discuss which spaces are underdeveloped and are ripe for opportunities versus which spaces don't have room for new entrants. The unique nature of the regulatory environment in health can be a roadblock to new firms so they discuss topics around that and how it impacts startups in the space.
They talk about why AI is actually under-hyped in the health space why they say it's "first half of the first inning" when it comes to digital therapeutics.
The two also discuss former podcast guest Malay Ghandi's article about whether it's better to work within the system or outside of it when building a company in healthcare and explain why "you want to act like a wolf but look like a sheep."
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Headwinds in Crypto and Distributed Global's Investment Strategy with John Cheeseman and Herve Bizira Aug 31, 2018

On this episode Erik talks to Jonathan Cheeseman (@JonathanCheesm4), Chief Market Strategist at Distributed Global and Herve Bizira (@hibizira), CTO of Distributed Global.
They talk about crypto markets and the funds that have been created to take advantage of a new investment opportunity. John and Herve explain what they are trying to do at Distributed Global and the unique combination of tech and finance they use to evaluate crypto assets at the micro and macro level.
They explain what reflexivity means in markets in general and how price and momentum have an outsized impact on crypto assets. They discuss the problem of liquidity in crypto markets and the large percentage of retail investors involved in crypto and the unique forces those factors create in the crypto markets.
They also discuss how traditional finance may or may not be displaced by crypto, why decentralization can be over-hyped and the international crypto landscape.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: "Explain Generalized Mining Like I'm Five" with Andrew Cronk (Follow-Up Bonus Episode) Aug 31, 2018

Andrew Cronk (@ajcronk), partner at Figment, joins Erik again for this bonus episode going into generalized mining. Andrew contrasts sending someone money via PayPal with sending someone money via a decentralized network.
He talks about whether firms with different approaches in the space can co-exist and what it means to be a validator. He discusses why it's important for a firm to be an active participant in a network.
Andrew also explains how and why they've set up Figment to be itself a decentralized firm with no office and individuals working around the world.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Generalized Mining with Nicholas Chirls and Joe Lallouz Aug 31, 2018

Erik is joined by Nicholas Chirls (@nchirls), partner at Notation Capital, and Joe Lallouz (@JoeLallouz), entrepreneur, angel, and founder of Grand St.
They explain how they got their start in the space and the genesis of their respective firms. They talk about generalized mining and how a firm might get into mining.
They discuss the various crypto networks and talk about how the way an investment firm provides value to a crypto company has changed. Nicholas and Joe also talk about traditional VC firms and how theymight get into the mining space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Identity on the Blockchain with Dandelion Mane Aug 31, 2018

Dandelion Mane (@decentralion), founder of SourceCred, joins Erik on this mind-expanding episode about identity. Dandelion explains how they came upon the idea for a decentralized reputation system and how it could change how people live — both online and in the real world.
Dandelion explains some potential improvements that could be made to online communities to improve the level of discourse and avoid the outrage mobs that are currently too prevalent in those communities.
They also talk about a number of other topics around identity in general, like how one's name affects how you think, the many sides of any given person, and why you should choose your own name.
Mentioned In This Episode:
- Seeing Like A State by James Scott
- Black Mirror Season 3 Episode 1: Nosedive
- Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
- Accelerando by Charles Stross
- Homesteading in the Noosphere by Eric Raymond
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Token-Curated Registries with Ameen Soleimani and Jehan Tremback Aug 31, 2018

In this episode Erik and co-host Miles Snyder of Multicoin Capital talk to Ameen Soleimani (@ameensol), CEO at SpankChain, and Jehan Tremback (@JTremback), founder of Althea Mesh.
Ameen is one of the inventors of a token-curated registry. He discusses what a token-curated registry is, what the current use cases for them are and what they could possibly be in the future.
They talk about AdChain and the problem of advertising fraud online. The three of them discuss the "chicken and egg" problem that TCRs face. They also get into what kinds of uses Jehan could have for TCRs for the physical world at his company, Althea.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Consensus Protocols with Aparna Krishnan and Haseeb Qureshi Aug 31, 2018

In this episode Erik talks to Aparna Krishnan (@aparnalocked), co-founder of Mechanism Labs and Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb), GP at MetaStable Capital.
They discuss a number of themes around Aparna's research paper, talk about what it means to find consensus, and they go through the various protocols that exist now to try and do that. They also talk about what kinds of applications these various protocols could have.
They explain what a block is, what proof of work and proof of stake mean, and why the longest chain rule could be a potential pitfall for Bitcoin.
Reading List For This Episode:
Non- Technical:
- MultiChain's blog
- Ashley Lannquist’s blog
- https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/centres/alternative-finance/downloads/2018-08-20-conceptualising-dlt-systems.pdf
- https://eprint.iacr.org/2017/375.pdf
Technical (new to the space):
- cryptoeconomics.study
- Vitalik’s blog posts
- Mechanism Labs blog, GitHub
- Blockchain at Berkeley blog and educational content
Looking to get into research:
- Consensus: https://github.com/Mechanism-Labs/MetaAnalysis-of-Alternative-Consensus-Protocols/blob/master/MetaAnalysis.pdf, https://arxiv.org/pdf/1711.03936.pdf
- Privacy/ Security: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1706.00916.pdf
- Smart Contracts: https://eprint.iacr.org/2018/192.pdf
- IC3!
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on the Layers of BTC and Lightning with Nik Bhatia Aug 31, 2018

Nik Bhatia (@timevalueofbtc), writer and Bitcoin thinker, joins Erik and co-host Myles Snider of Multicoin Capital on this episode to talk layers of Bitcoin and the Lightning network.
Nik explains how he got his start in the Bitcoin world from traditional finance. They explain the various layers of money and Bitcoin.
They also talk about whether there will be fractional reserve ownership of Bitcoin, whether Bitcoin banks might exist someday and when a Bitcoin ETF might make an appearance.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Zero-Knowledge Proofs with Elena Nadolinski and Howard Wu Aug 31, 2018

Elena Nadolinski (@leanthebean), an engineer interested in the privacy space, and Howard Wu (@1HowardWu), co-founder of Dekrypt Capital, talk to Erik on this episode about zero-knowledge proofs and privacy.
They talk about why privacy is important in general and the benefits of privacy in the crypto world. They explain what a zero-knowledge proof is and Howard talks about some of the more recent developments in cryptography.
They get into how ZKPs are being used today and the promise they hold for future applications.
Elena and Howard also get into the differences between privacy coins.
Quotable lines from this episode:
"Privacy is one of those things where people don’t appreciate it until they don’t have it."
-HW
"Just because a friend of mine and I shared a coffee, doesn’t mean I get to have the right to see all of their transactions. If we were to live in a world where all we used were cryptocurrency blockchains to do all our computations, I would basically be able to see all the transactions of all time from all the people I’ve ever interacted with." -EN
"How do you ensure the integrity of a computation, especially one you outsource to a server elsewhere?" - HW
"Zero-knowledge proofs basically allow you to say 'I can’t tell you the secret but I can prove to you that I know the secret.'" - HW
"Scalability is like the offense on a football team and privacy is like the defense on the football team. They’re both equally important but the quarterback is much more sexy than the defense." -HW
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Crypto-Native Funds with Andrew Cronk, Jake Brukhman and Meher Roy Aug 31, 2018

Erik's guests for this episode are:
- Andrew Cronk (@ajcronk), partner at Figment
- Meher Roy (@MeherRoy), co-founder of Chorus One
- Jake Brukhman (@jbrukh), founder of CoinFund
They talk about a number of interesting topics, including the unique way that an investment firm participates in the growth of a company in the crypto world and why it's more important to be a network participant than just a funder.
The four of them go through what a validator is and what being one entails. They talk about the big differences in people composition of a crypto fund versus a typical VC fund and they explain what kind of expertise the people at a crypto fund need to have.
The group also discusses evaluating crypto networks, the relative importance of "user experience" vs. "developer experience" and what it means to have LPs and institutional investors paying attention to the space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Bitcoin For Beginners with Michael Goldstein Aug 31, 2018

Michael Goldstein (@bitstein), president of the Nakamoto Institute and co-host of the Noded Podcast, joins Erik on this episode. Between him and Erik they break down some of the basic concepts around Bitcoin and explain why it's important in general.
Michael explains why he's keen to feast on the tears of nocoiners and breaks down a number of the common misconceptions about Bitcoin. He also talks Austrian economics and potential roadblocks for Bitcoin.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Valuing Crypto Assets with Arianna Simpson and Travis Kling Aug 31, 2018

Arianna Simpson (@AriannaSimpson), VC and managing director at Autonomous Partners and Travis Kling (@Travis_Kling) of Ikigai Asset Management join Erik on this episode.
Arianna starts by explaining her post about false precision and why you don't want to be "very precisely wrong." They talk various models and calculations and how to value different crypto assets.
They also talk about Bitcoin maximalists, what the landscape of crypto networks looks like, and whether the huge trades made in the past few years on crypto merit the creation of a fund to try to replicate those returns in the future.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Privacy Coins with Elena Nadolinski and Avichal Garg Aug 31, 2018

Elena Nadolinski (@leanthebean), an engineer interested in the privacy space, and Avichal Garg (@avichal), Managing Partner at Electric Capital, join Erik on this episode to discuss privacy coins. They break down what a privacy coin is and why privacy is important in crypto.
They talk about the three main privacy coins: Monero, Zcash and Grin — and discuss why it's important or not to have an auditable record of transactions, whether people will pay taxes, and whether the government will be able to penetrate a privacy coin.
They discuss whether people will care about privacy given that less than 3% of all cryptocurrency transactions are done with a privacy coin. Avichal points out that perhaps not a lot of people will care about privacy but a large amount of dollars will.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Distributed Computing with Dani Grant, Dan Desjardins, Chandler Song and Greg Osuri Aug 31, 2018

This episode of Venture Stories is co-hosted by Dani Grant (@thedanigrant), analyst at USV.
She talks with three leaders in the distributed computing space:
- Dan Desjardins, CEO of Distributed Compute Labs
- Chandler Song (@chandlersyf), founder and CEO of Ankr Network
- Greg Osuri (@GregOsuri), founder of Akash Network and CEO of Overclock Labs
They talk about what distributed computing is, why it has so much potential and why this is an exciting time to be involved in the space.
The guests talk about what kinds of applications are enabled by distributed computing and how for example, a hospital can leverage the computing power of all of its computers that are sitting idle at night to do medical research.
They discuss the different ways to compensate users for the use of their computer resources and the different approaches to distributing problems and tasks to distributed resources.
They also discuss the challenges facing their companies and how to think about competing or not competing with incumbents like Amazon and Google.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Stablecoins with Haseeb Qureshi and Myles Snider Aug 29, 2018

Erik's co-host for this episode is Myles Snider (@myles_snider), research associate at Multicoin Capital. They talk to Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb) who is a GP at MetaStable Capital.
They discuss where stablecoins are now and envision what they could be in the future. They compare and contrast stablecoins and fiat and explain why someone would hold a stablecoin that's indexed to fiat.
They talk about some of the applications for stablecoins and the different kinds of stablecoins. The trio also discuss why you would want to invest in a stablecoin, what the Oracle Problem is and how it could be solved, as well as what kinds of hurdles stand in the way of widespread usage of stablecoins.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: The Bitcoin Standard and Beyond with Saifedean Ammous Aug 27, 2018

Saifedean Ammous (@saifedean), the author of The Bitcoin Standard: The Decentralized Alternative to Central Banking, joins Erik for a very interesting and highly quotable interview.
He expands on a number of topics from his book but also gets into a lot that isn’t in the book. He recounts the story of money from an Austrian perspective and describes why the world never really had a complete gold standard. Saif explains how government became addicted to printing money, how Bitcoin could turn out to be a better version of gold and how it might replace central banks entirely.
Saif talks about why Silicon Valley has been and may still be mistaken about Bitcoin and blockchain, and why the analogies of the early days of the internet don’t really apply. He also talks about why the blockchain as a concept has been overhyped and why Bitcoin won’t be as instantaneous and low-fee as you might think.
He also talks about what kinds of threats Bitcoin might face, how the world will change when Bitcoin becomes the new standard, and how personal finance and capitalism might evolve in a Bitcoin world.
(Murray Rothbard is the economist that Saif references early in the episode).
Quotable lines from this episode:
“You can’t omit the fact that you took a sledgehammer to the laptop before complaining that it doesn’t work.”
“Ever since then it’s been a wild ride of governments having discovered this addiction to printing money to finance themselves to do everything.”
“It’s a choice for people to opt-out of the modern nation state with all of its hefty bill that it sends you every year in the form of inflation.”
“Gold’s emergence as a money happens on the market, not because of government decree.”
“You can’t systematize human action and behavior into mathematical equations that allow you do calculations to predict an outcome.”
“The real problem is the fascination with all the buzzwords around all these projects that hang around Bitcoin pretending to be the next big thing, which we’ve been seeing since the beginning of Bitcoin. It’s the same story always and always ends in the same sad way.”
“Everybody wants everything to do everything they’ve ever read in a sci-fi novel.”
“Everybody is not capable of reasoning just beyond an analogy.”
“People think of Bitcoin as a brand… and it’s only natural to think that if it’s Pepsi, it’s going to have its Coca-Cola — but we have the internet, and we don’t have another competitor, because it’s a protocol.”
“All of these other uses that people want to attach to blockchain, I humbly submit the thesis that none of them actually matter.”
“I don’t conduct criminal activity but if I did I would definitely make sure I would not record it on a ledger accessible to millions of people instantaneously around the world.”
“Without a lender of last resort, fractional reserve banking is not going to work.”
“Every cent of investment will have to come from a cent of saving and people think that’s a horrible thing, but that’s a great thing, it’s how any society thrives.”
“The laws of economics don’t stop functioning just because government just said they should stop functioning in that sector.”
“Capital is just a market good like any other, there’s supply and there’s demand.”
“The amount of gold today that is held in global central banks is many times larger than what was held in central banks during the time of the gold standard.”
“If governments want to kill Bitcoin I think the best strategy would be to return to the gold standard and to offer everybody free markets in banking.”
“I know it’s cool to go around on college campuses and talk about destroying capitalism and all of that stuff but really it makes no sense. It’s an insane kind of suicidal death wish.”
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Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Vijay Boyapati on Austrian Economics, Bitcoin and Monetary Policy Aug 24, 2018

Vijay Boyapati (@real_vijay), software engineer, crypto thinker and proponent of Austrian economics, joins Erik on this episode to talk about a number of interesting topics.
They start with a primer on Austrian economics, what makes it different from other schools of economics, and why economics is a unique science with different schools of thought — “there isn’t a Chicago school of physics or a Marxist school of chemistry.”
Vijay speculates on why Austrian economics has become a niche school of economics and analyzes Bitcoin and current economic policy through the lens of Austrian economics. He gives his opinion on the fed, fractional reserve banking and debunks some misconceptions that people have about Bitcoin.
They finish with a lightning round discussing what famous economists like Hayek or Friedman would think about Bitcoin. Vijay also discusses the Bitmain IPO and what Facebook entering the cryptocurrency space might mean for the “incumbents.”
Quotable lines from this episode:
“You look at academia and there’s probably 10 Keynesian economists for every Chicago economist and there’s probably 10 Chicago economists for every Austrian economist.”
“It’s sad that political expediency has trumped the pursuit of truth.”
“There isn’t like a Chicago school of physics or a Marxist school of chemistry.”
“Austrians really believe that an economy grows through investment, capital formation and entrepreneurial activities [rather than through consumption].”
“The monetary premium is the value and purchasing power that it has that isn’t explained by its use value.”
“All monies throughout history are bubbles and the bubbles don’t necessarily need to pop.”
“I think it’s [Bitcoin] the most important innovation in money in a thousand years.”
“The thing that’s exciting about Bitcoin is that it gives you a property right but doesn’t require anyone to enforce that property right.”
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Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Bill Tai and Derek Hsue on Mining, Exchanges and the History and Future of Money Aug 22, 2018

Erik is joined by two very exciting guests for this episode — Bill Tai, venture capitalist and director at Bitfury, and Derek Hsue (@derek_hsue), investor at Blockchain Capital.
The three have a very engaging discussion about the mining landscape in cryptocurrencies, the similarities and differences between now and the early growth of the semiconductor industry, as well as the issues, obstacles and misconceptions standing in the way of new entrants to the mining sector.
They get into the details on mining operations, how the architecture of certain coins impacts the equipment that mining can be done on, and how the underlying math is different between Ethereum and Bitcoin.
There are also a number of impromptu history lessons courtesy of Bill, including how Wall Street got its name and went from a place to trade furs to the NYSE of today.
They also discuss the future of exchanges, why buying into an ICO means buying into a community and a belief rather than something immediately valuable, and why we are headed for a massive reset of capitalism.
Quotable lines from this episode:
“In the start it’s kind of like riding a little bicycle and you see a pothole, you just go around it, but pretty soon you’re driving a freight train on a track and you can’t get off.” - BT
“You’re going to have to come up with a check for 50-100 million dollars to be noticed by a semiconductor fab.” - BT
“An upstart two years from now is probably going to have to take down 1000 megawatts just to start.” - BT
“It’s really hard to get a venture type return from a mining operation, unless you’re really early on in a chain, or just extremely, much better than everyone else at producing hardware.” - DH
“It all boiled down to, can you bribe a politician with an empty city in China to give you his power plant for a bit of money every month? …It turns out that Ethereum is a more concentrated mining ecosystem than Bitcoin.” - BT
“Programming in Bitcoin is a bit like programming in assembly or DOS, where Ethereum is like programming in a high-level language that anyone that has done an iPhone app can work with.” - BT
“If you look at the largest asset managers in the world, they don’t have a huge incentive to trade in a peer-to-peer manner.” - DH
“It’s not about creating a product that is tailored to the world’s current behavior, it’s about providing that option for non-custodial and a trustless financial interaction.” - DH
“We’re at that point today where we’re all standing under that buttonwood tree with our virtual assets, trying to figure out where to go.” - BT
“The total of all debt in the world is 275 trillion, which is 3.18 times world GDP, it’s growing at 25 trillion a year, and is growing way faster than world GDP is growing.” - BT
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Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Nic Carter on Governance, Bitcoin Narratives, and Ethereum Aug 20, 2018

Erik and his co-host Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) of Decentraland interview Nic Carter (@nic__carter), partner at Castle Island Ventures and co-founder of Coinmetrics.io.
Nic explains why Bitcoin might end up like gold, where everyday people have little day-to-day interaction with it but it has a big influence on the monetary system, and how Bitcoin can be a check on the behavior of central banks.
He explains why he started Castle Island Ventures, explains its philosophy and how they plan to invest. He also explains his take on Bitcoin, Ethereum, and whether any of the altcoins will turn out to be worth anything.
He explains why he is bearish on DAOs in the short-term but in the long-term is very bullish. Nic also talks about how projects can improve their governance structures and how users can spot potential governance problems within projects.
Quotable lines from this episode:
“You don’t need the ‘gold standard’ to be the day to day currency, just like in the era of the gold standard people didn’t transact in units of gold.”
“I eventually think we’ll get to this world where we have the advantages of the cryptocurrency capital raise mechanisms together with the guarantees of equity — we just need to marry those concepts.”
“I’m kind of heretical in that I think there is a really big role for financial institutions to play in the crypto asset story.”
“I think that voting makes people feel more comfortable being governed because they think they have buy-in into the governance system.”
“The highest ROI on these projects is transparency — to be so transparent that it hurts.”
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Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: The Intersection of Blockchain and AI with Trent McConaghy Aug 17, 2018

Trent McConaghy (@trentmc0) returns for another interview with Erik. He’s the founder of Ocean Protocol and BigchainDB.
In this episode, he starts by explaining Ocean Protocol’s mission and gives us a history of how the overall philosophy of the web has changed over the years, going from what could be called Web 1 to Web 2.0 to the yet-to-be-written story of Web 3. He explains how the web started out as a tool for democratizing access and how Web 2.0 created some undesirable effects when it comes to the siloing of information, questions about privacy, and the prevalence of advertising. Trent is hopeful though that Web 3 will be a return to the roots of Web 1.
He lays out a compelling case for why several of the web’s biggest names should be tokenized and how that will remedy the current case of misaligned incentives between company and users.
Trent also helps us imagine a world where AI and blockchain are working to amplify each other and what kinds of changes for society that might portend. He explains a number of scenarios related to digitally autonomous organizations, self-driving cars, road infrastructure, medicine and art.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories Live: Balaji Srinivasan and Erik Torenberg on Crypto in a Borderless World Aug 15, 2018

Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis), CTO of Coinbase, joined Erik on stage in San Francisco at the Founders Embassy Borderless Summit in June 2018 for a fascinating conversation about the coming impact of blockchain technology. They discuss how the world will change as work and entertainment — but especially finance — become virtual. Balaji explains why governments will need to compete for the best individuals and explains the new role of government in a “borderless” world.
He also discusses his recent exits and his new role as CTO of Coinbase. Balaji gives his surprising advice for new grads looking to start a company and explains why your “personal burn rate” is one of the most important metrics to track. Erik talks to Balaji about Balaji's lesser known history buff side and they discuss world finance, world history, and China.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Jimmy Song on Bitcoin, Hard Money, and Decentralization Aug 13, 2018

Today’s guest is Jimmy Song (@jimmysong), crypto developer and teacher. He is a venture partner at Blockchain Capital and creator of the Programming Blockchain course.
Jimmy has been a crypto developer for a long time now (in crypto terms), teaches programming blockchain, and has written a number of influential posts on crypto. He talks about how he got into crypto and what about it was so appealing to him. He explains how an economic lens, rather than a technical lens, is what brought him to blockchain.
Jimmy and Erik discuss the merits of Bitcoin versus other coins, why Jimmy believes Bitcoin will win, and what misconceptions VCs have about blockchain. They discuss what makes a good store of value, the biological impulse humans have to hoard that which is scarce and the potential impact of Bitcoin 30 years from now. They also discuss a good amount of economic history, what makes a true “hard money” as well as why war led to the gold standard going away.
To apply for a scholarship for Jimmy’s Programming Blockchain course, visit www.programmingblockchain.com.
Quotable lines from this episode:
“Money is strengthened when it doesn’t change whereas tech is strengthened when you iterate and try different things and see what works for the market.”
“The big thing that Bitcoin brings to the market is hard money, which is what disappeared when Roosevelt seized gold and all that other stuff.”
“It’s not just armies against armies, it’s entire countries against entire countries now, very literally speaking, because the government can take away all the money and wealth away from the populace and use that for their war effort.”
“You don’t have to believe that it has value, it’s enough that other people value it. I might not value Bitcoin but as long as other people value Bitcoin I will value Bitcoin.”
“The things that make it a good medium of exchange are totally different than what makes it a store of value.”
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Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Fat Monies: Anti-Contrarianism in Cryptocurrency Investing Aug 10, 2018

In a first-ever two-hour episode for Venture Stories by Village Global, Erik talks to two of the most interesting crypto thinkers around: Arjun Balaji (@arjunblj), crypto investor, trader and incubator, and Murad Mahmudov (@MustStopMurad), crypto analyst and angel investor.
In this wide-ranging and mind-expanding interview, the three discuss a number of topics relating to cryptocurrencies, effects on government, economic history, and predictions for the future, among many other things including:
- The arguments for Bitcoin over other cryptocurrencies and whether Bitcoin can be toppled
- Why Bitcoin is less like digital gold and more like “digital nuclear weapons”
- Whether Bitcoin will be “the MySpace of money”
- A history of the Austrian school of economics
- The impacts of hard forks on a community
- How competition between monies accelerates capitalism
- Whether blockchain as a technology is overrated or underrated
- The parallels between cryptocurrency and the Asian construction bubble
- Institutional movement into cryptocurrencies
- The psyche of crypto hedge fund managers
- How crypto changes how countries compete for tax revenues
Quotable lines from this episode:
“The creation of a non-sovereign sound money system has the potential to be one of the most significant events in our lifetime.” - AB
“I view money as a good, just like anything else, and I don’t believe we have pure capitalism until we have competition among currencies.” - MM
“Cryptocurrencies in general and in particular Bitcoin are a higher quality form of money.” - MM
“Through the fat money lens, all tokens are cryptocurrencies.” - AB
“The whole market is like a prediction market for which one or few coins will be the long term money winner.” - MM
“Bitcoin is the Schelling point of the market”. - MM
“Despite all the fancy bells and whistles that blockchains enable, the fact that nobody can print more Bitcoin is the greatest innovation here.” - MM
“The idea that money has to be continuously in circulation is completely non-sensical.” -MM
“We’re not trying to build another PayPal here, we’re trying to disrupt central banking.” -MM
“Miners don’t control Bitcoin, businesses don’t control bitcoin, users and full nodes control Bitcoin.” - AB
“As time goes on, everyone is going to become a Bitcoin maximalist whether they like it or not.” - MM
“The number one thing that we can learn from economic history is that if there is an actor that can create more money, they will.” - AB
“If there’s free competition around money then the market would never naturally converge around something [the US Dollar] that is expanding at 6% a year. It’s totally irrational.”
“Just as we witnessed the separation of church and state, in the next 20-30 years we are going to witness the separation of money and state.” - MM
“People who say capitalism is dead or that we are entering the end of capitalism don’t know what they are talking about, because capitalism is going to go into overdrive.” -AB
“What previously took a 200-person team in 2000, took a 100-person team in 2007 and takes a 5- or 10-person team now.” - AB
“We’re entering an era where businesses will be able to be built and run on the internet by one person.” - AB
“These tokens suck as money or are absolutely and utterly useless.” -MM
“Almost all of these tokens were unethical fundraising scams by the founders.” - MM
“This whole thing [the ICO boom] was a form of IQ arbitrage, where people took advantage of these overvalued shit tokens… Do you want to walk around New York and use a different form of currency at each store?” - MM
“Erik, if you’re looking to hold your wealth in the equivalent of gift cards to the Gap, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.” - AB
“The hype around blockchain is nothing more than an indicator that Silicon Valley is largely oriented less around the original counterculture movement and much moreso positioned as a form of opportunistic greed behaviours.” - AB
“The monetary premium that is embedded inside [altcoins] is purely psychosocial, it’s purely cognitive. It’s almost like an ongoing hallucination of our collective unconsciousness.” - MM
“The recurring selling of narratives that Murad mentioned is the core business of most crypto hedge funds. They’re not active traders, they’re just early investors that then sell the dream and then sell their bags on many retail investors.” - AB
“One of my favourite things that Murad has ever said is that blockchains don’t create revenues, they destroy revenues.” - AB
“If your product is open source and your rent is too high, you risk getting forked or re-architected by someone else charging less, and it becomes a race to the bottom.” - MM
“Let’s be honest, on-chain governance is essentially the rule of the rich.” - MM
“No governance is the best governance, or at least for neo-gold.” - MM
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Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer On Open Financial Primitives Aug 08, 2018

Joining Erik for this episode are Felix Feng (‪@felix2feng)‬, founder of Set Protocol and Nadav Hollander (@NadavAHollander), founder of Dharma Protocol.
Felix and Nadav explain their respective companies and what they are looking to do for the open financial system. They talk about how the coming wave of decentralization in financial services will bring the same accessibility and ease of use that individuals are accustomed to with Web 2.0 services to financial services as well.
They discuss the opportunities for blockchain and cryptocurrency to scale given that as big as it has gotten over the past few years, they still account for only a minuscule portion of the value of the entire financial system. A lot of attention is focused on venture capital and how that could be disrupted by blockchain, but they talk about how debt financing is many orders of magnitude larger than VC.
Felix and Nadav explore what the implications of everything being tokenized might be and Erik also asks about what they are excited about in terms of products and protocols in the space as well as what they would love to see built in the future.
Quotable lines from this episode:
“If the cost of issuing an asset goes to zero, what happens when everything is traded? Then things get really interesting when you add derivatives and loans on top of that.”
“Imagine you’re in a virtual reality world and you’ve made a virtual piece of art that’s hanging in a digital museum and you get revenue from people visiting it every so often. Now imagine you tokenize it or draw a loan against it, and pay off your mortgage in the real world.”
“If you look back on this podcast in 20 years, it’s probably not going to age well because everything [that will be tokenized] is going to be even weirder because we have had no idea what these things are going to look like.”
“I think that blockchain is going to create new asset classes that will be tremendously more valuable and will look like almost nothing we’ve seen in the traditional world.”
“If there are going to be monoliths that emerge from this in some capacity, they’re going to have to capitalize on some irredeemably scarce resource that can’t be traded or commoditized, and I think it’s likely that resource will be trust.”
“The high end estimate for the value of all derivative contracts is 1.2 quadrillion. I didn’t even know that was the number after a trillion.”
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Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer On Decentralized Exchanges Aug 06, 2018

Alan Curtis of Radar Relay, a Village portfolio company, joins Erik to talk about what Radar Relay is working on and to discuss what is needed to get bring the world into the token economy. Alan explains the four main categories of tokens: utility, security, collectible and currency. He then compares and contrasts centralized and decentralized exchanges for those tokens.
Alan gets into what a relay is, why it matters, and what the future of Radar Relay will be. He explains market makers in crypto, why he decided to build on top of 0x and discusses the pros and cons of a business built on another company’s platform.
They also discuss what the bottlenecks to widespread adoption of crypto are, what kinds of moats he hopes to build as well as what kinds of moats the incumbents in the traditional finance have.
Quotable lines from this episode:
“The ethos around blockchain is about self-agency — it’s about efficacy.”
“Talent is evenly distributed but opportunity is not.”
“For any cool project online there will always be those 1000 true fans, but if you’re not thinking deeply about how this crosses the chasm and how you get your next users, your project is probably going nowhere fast.”
“I think most people underestimate the power of brand in the long term and overestimate it in the short term.”
“A decentralized exchange is an imprecise term that people have been using as a noun when in fact it is a verb.”
“We’re moving a world where the centralized exchanges become fiat brokerages.”
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Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Non-Fungible Tokens Aug 03, 2018

Amitt Mahajan (@amittm), co-founder and CTO of Rare Bits and investor at Presence Capital, joins Erik and his guest co-host Tony Sheng of Decentraland for this episode.
They dive into all things non-fungible tokens, explaining how they work, why they matter, and why they have so much potential. They explain why you you really only have tenuous ownership of the virtual goods that you purchase online and how the company that sold it to you can unilaterally take it back. Amitt and Tony get you to imagine the potential use cases if you could take virtual goods purchased in one game and take them to another game, re-sell them, or tokenize them.
The three carry on to discuss the issues around the discussion of crypto more generally and how to get a broader audience to use crypto by ending the fixation on the technology itself and instead focusing on the value to the end-user. They talk about how to solve the supply and distribution problems when it comes to digital goods and discuss how marketing of crypto projects might evolve in the future.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Using Blockchain To Find Real-World Consensus with Ryan King and Jehan Tremback Aug 01, 2018

In this episode, Erik talks to Ryan King (@frothcity), co-founder of FOAM protocol, and Jehan Tremback (@jtremback), founder of Althea Mesh.
They explain how the blockchain makes it possible to know for certain where exactly somebody is at a given time and how that enables new technologies. For example, in the area of smart contracts, if someone bought a train ticket and the train is late, they can prove where they are to request a refund. Ryan has been working at FOAM protocol to make things like this a reality.
Jehan’s work at Althea Mesh allows individuals to create their own decentralized access to the internet, which is also newly enabled by the blockchain. He explains how he hopes to create a platform in the spirit of Airbnb to enable people to become suppliers of internet to others.
Ryan and Jehan discuss how their companies are complimentary to each other and how their respective technologies might work together in the future. They also cover the positive impacts of decentralization, the effects of incumbents, and what they would like to see happen in the space in the future.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: The State of Crypto in 2018 and Predictions For The Future Jul 30, 2018

With Erik for this episode are:
- Aaron Batalion (@abatalion), formerly partner at Lightspeed and founder of LivingSocial
- Vinny Lingham (@VinnyLingham), CEO of Civic and GP at Multicoin Capital and Newtown Partners
- David King (@dksf), angel investor and crypto curator
They have a wide-ranging and lively discussion about a number of topics around the state of crypto in 2018 and make some bold predictions for the future. The three cover the geopolitics of cryptocurrency, talk about how digital currency interacts with governments around the world, and the impact of large platforms like Facebook on cryptocurrency.
They debate the merits of various cryptocurrencies and predict which might be able to achieve scale first. They also talk about privacycoins, stablecoins, and the hurdles that each of those forms face. The trio also cover the recent wave of ICOs and speculate on how many of those companies will still be viable years from now.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: A Primer on Tokenized Securities Jul 27, 2018

Erik is joined by Josh Stein, CEO of Harbor, Stephen McKeon (@sbmckeon), finance professor at the University of Oregon, and Parker Thompson (@pt), seed-stage investor, partner at AngelList and token skeptic.
The guests give an overview of all things tokenized securities. Josh tells us why he’s so enthusiastic about the rise of the blockchain and recounts the origin story of Harbor. They talk about why it can be so complex to manage compliance with securities rules and regulations that vary around the world and how the blockchain can solve a big part of that problem.
They discuss why liquidity is so important when it comes to any type of security and how the blockchain can turn illiquid assets into liquid ones. For example, in the future, you might be able to own part of a sports team or part of a famous Monet if the owner decides to tokenize those assets.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Crypto Stories: Kyle Samani and Tushar Jain on the Web3 Stack, Financial Primitives, On-Chain Governance and Value Accrual Jul 25, 2018

Erik and guest co-host Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) of Decentraland interview managing partners of Multicoin Capital Tushar Jain (@TusharJain_) and Kyle Samani (@KyleSamani). They explain why many people are underestimating the potential impact of blockchain on the web and on the world in general. In their words, “tokenizing shares of Apple stock and putting it on the blockchain will be akin to PDF’ing a newspaper and putting it online in 1995 — and thinking this is how the internet will change news as an industry.”
They discuss a number of other topics within the crypto universe and cover some of the more interesting recent developments in the crypto world. Tushar and Kyle also break down their recent blog post about the Web3 Stack and discuss the obstacles that crypto and the blockchain are facing and how they can be overcome.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Shawn Xu is our researcher, Colin Campbell is our audio engineer, and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Requests for Startups: Human Augmentation Jul 23, 2018

Erik is joined by Tim Swift and Ariel Poler on this episode of the podcast. Tim Swift is founder and CEO of Roam Robotics and Ariel Poler (@ariel) is an angel investor.
They discuss how the human body could be engineered for the better and discuss a number of ways to do that, including exoskeletons, brain-computer interfaces and nootropics. They fill us in on who the founders and companies are who are currently working on those difficult problems. Erik asks what those companies promise to do and what obstacles they are facing.
Ethics is an important topic when it comes to bioengineering and the trio discuss some of the more important ethical considerations around these issues and how society’s view of what is ethical or not has evolved over time as new inventions have come about.
They also discuss some of the unique challenges when it comes to building a business in an area where it might take ten years for one’s work to come to fruition. They talk about the type of investor who is interested in the space, plans to invest for the long-term and is willing to be patient to see a return.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Live Episode: Erik Torenberg, Daniel Kan and Qasar Younis on Fundraising Jul 19, 2018

This special live episode was recorded at the Atrium offices in San Francisco on June 20 2018. Village Global co-founder Erik Torenberg hosted a fireside chat with Daniel Kan, co-founder and COO of Cruise Automation and Qasar Younis, former COO of YCombinator.
They discussed all things fundraising, providing an inside look into the world of VC funding and exposing some of the subtler points of fundraising for seed and Series A rounds. They discuss topics like dealing with VCs, refining your pitch and the importance of metrics in a Series A round. They also talked about prepping for meetings with VCs, what motivates VCs, how to efficiently backchannel via your network and transitioning from a seed round to a Series A round.
They finished with an enlightening Q&A session, taking questions from the live audience at Atrium.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

ArtDAOs, Curation Markets and Token Curated Registries with Simon de la Rouviere and Trent McConaghy Jul 17, 2018

Simon de la Rouviere (@simondlr), crypto developer and thought leader, and Trent McConaghy (@trentmc0), founder of Ocean Protocol, join Erik for an enlightening discussion of crypto.
They explain the vast societal transformation that will be brought by blockchain, sometimes in ways that are hard to imagine today. They tell us why we are just at the beginning of a new revolution and how it compares to the rise of the web in the 90s.
They promise that “things are going to get weird.” For example, the future your kids inhabit might be one where they earn money as “meme traders” and where cars are not only self-driving but self-owning as well.
They also explain why in the future “if it’s not on the blockchain, it didn’t happen” and why it might become very difficult for us to discern what reality in fact actually is.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

A Primer On Prediction Markets With Robin Hanson Jul 13, 2018

Robin Hanson, associate professor of economics at George Mason University, joins Erik for a primer on prediction markets. He explains how prediction markets work and why they are one of the best methods of forecasting the future that we have.  Robin explains how useful prediction markets can be in a wide variety of fields, including some unexpected ones.
Robin and Erik speculate on why prediction markets haven’t seen widespread adoption yet and what barriers still stand in their way. They also discuss how to mitigate some of the potential pitfalls of prediction markets and how decision-making based on prediction markets can benefit society in general.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Joey Krug on Augur, Prediction Markets, and The State of Cryptocurrency Investing Jul 10, 2018

Joining Erik for this interview are Joey Krug (@joeykrug) of Augur and Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) of Decentraland. Erik and Tony interview Joey about the process of building Augur, his new startup that launched on July 9 2018.
Joey explains what he envisions for Augur, why it’s “the future of forecasting” and how the process of building it has unfolded over the past two years.
He talks about the wide array of possible uses for prediction markets and why he thinks markets in general are the biggest opportunity in crypto. Joey also explains some common misconceptions about crypto and why he thinks we are not yet in a bubble.
He explains how open source blockchain technology is like NASA giving out the code to control the space shuttle and allowing anyone to write commands for it, and why security and privacy are so important in cryptocurrency. They also have a round of underrated vs. overhyped.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Live Episode: Erik, Jo Varshney and Kiran Bellubi on Village’s Network Catalyst Accelerator Jul 04, 2018

This is a special live episode that was recorded at Village HQ in San Francisco on June 14 2018. The event was put on in partnership with Xoogler, a network of former Googlers who have come together to help each other with their startup ambitions.
Village Global co-founder Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) chatted with Jo Varshney (@jo_getter), founder and CEO of VeriSIM Life and Kiran Bellubbi (@smalldozes), founder of Keyo, about their experience with the Village Network Catalyst program.
Jo and Kiran explain what it was like to be a founder in the Network Catalyst program, including how the team at Village helped them with their business model, leveraged Village's unique structure as a network to their advantage and guided them through the fundraising process.

Requests For Startups: FinTech Jun 27, 2018

Joining Erik on this episode are Maia Bittner (@maiab), co-founder of Pinch, and Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi), FinTech partner at 500 Startups.
They go over the variety of sectors being disrupted by FinTech companies these days, including insurance, credit reporting, personal financial management, capital markets, financial planning, international finance and even banking in the developing world.
Erik asks what kinds of opportunities Sheel and Maia see for founders and entrepreneurs as well as the pitfalls faced by different types of companies in the space. Sheel explains how he subdivides his fund and explains the difference between an “enabler” and a “disruptor.”
They talk about why FinTech startups often have an advantage in distribution as opposed to product, contrasting with the competitive advantage a startup typically has. Of course, they also cover crypto and the opportunities in FinTech that blockchain and tokenization provide — as well as where the crypto hype might be overblown.

Episode #25: The Future of Consumer Products Jun 21, 2018

Erik is joined by Nicole Quinn (@Nik_Quinn), Investing Partner at Lightspeed and Lee Edwards (@terronk), former CTO of Teespring and active angel investor.
They explain why they’re bullish on consumer packaged goods startups and which industries they see startups disrupting in the future. They also discuss why they think there will be so much growth in the space, especially in e-commerce.
They debate the relative importance of having a technically sophisticated founder in a CPG startup and whether a new CPG startup needs to have a strong brand from Day 1. They also talk about the new forms of marketing that CPG startups are taking advantage of.
Erik asks what kind of advice they would give to new CPG founders and what kinds of pitfalls new founders need to avoid.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favourite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode #24: The Future of Hardware and Robotics Jun 14, 2018

Erik is joined by Eric Klein, partner at Lemnos VC, and Sankarshan Murthy (@sancartion), CEO and co-founder of Bumblebee Homes.
They talk about trends in urbanization, housing and storage in America and why changing attitudes towards consumption present a huge opportunity for investors and founders alike.
Sankarshan explains how what his team is working on at Bumblebee Homes will change how and where people choose to live. Eric talks about why he invested in Bumblebee, the other companies he’s invested in so far, and other investment opportunities he's looking for.
They explain why now is a good time to start a hardware startup and how changes in the market have enabled anyone to build a prototype in their garage with off-the-shelf components and free software publicly available on GitHub.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode #23: The Future of Fertility with Tammy Sun and Afton Vechery Jun 07, 2018

Tammy Sun (@tammysun), CEO and co-founder of Carrot Fertility and Afton Vechery (@aaffttoonn), CEO and co-founder of Modern Fertility talk with Erik about this rapidly emerging space.
They explain how they got started in the fertility space, give us a rundown of the corporate landscape as it stands at the moment and explain why the market is changing so quickly. They also give us some insight into why it's difficult to build a business in this space and what kinds of opportunities they would be looking for if they were investors or prospective founders.
Erik also asks what the future might hold for their companies, how they aim to change how women think about their health, and what kinds of implications a new perspective on fertility might have for society in general.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode #22: Democratizing Cryptocurrency Investing with Kendrick Nguyen and Andy Bromberg May 24, 2018

Kendrick Nguyen (@kendrickesq), CEO of Republic and Andy Bromberg (@andy_bromberg), CEO and co-founder of CoinList join Erik to talk about the changing landscape of investing in crypto.
They explain how their companies will allow more people to invest in cryptocurrencies, will change how startups are funded, and will impact the broader securities markets.
They discuss some of the challenges of securities regulation and how conventional investing will change with the rise of cryptocurrencies.
They also make some bold predictions about how the form of cryptocurrencies will change in the future and how individuals, companies, and governments might be involved.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favourite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode #21: Online, Offline or Both? The Future of Direct to Consumer Women's Healthcare with Carolyn Witte and Hans Gangeskar May 16, 2018

Erik talks to Carolyn Witte (@carolynwitte), co-founder and CEO of asktia.com and Hans Gangeskar (@hansois), co-founder and CEO of Nurx.
Carolyn and Hans explain how their companies are creating a new way for women to find healthcare. They recount how a new way of getting care has changed how women feel about their health.
The two founders explain why their business models are different from one another, even though they are in similar verticals. They also talk about what their future roadmap might look like and where the opportunities are for founders and investors alike in this space.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favourite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode #20: The State of Sexual Wellness Startups Apr 23, 2018

Erik talks to Polly Rodriguez (@polly_claire), co-founder of Unbound, Andrea Barrica (@abarrica), founder of O.school, and Gina Gutierrez (@Gina__Gutierrez), founder of Dipsea Stories, about the state of sexual wellness startups.
Just a heads-up — due to the topic of the discussion, there is some adult language in this episode.
These founders are on a mission to serve the half of the population that is currently not well served when it comes to sexual wellness. They explain the quirks of the unique market they’ve chosen to tackle, including little availability of data about the market and the hesitance of investors or partners to work with any company even marginally involved in sexuality.
They discuss how the youth of today are growing up in a very different environment when it comes to sexuality and why more and more have to turn to the private sector for sex-ed when the school system fails them.
The three explain how they reach their customers despite the limitations placed on them by traditional marketing channels, swap fundraising horror stories and explain how they plan to create disruption.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favourite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode #19: How Technology Is Changing Drug Development Apr 10, 2018

Host Erik Torenberg talks to Jo Varshney, founder of VeriSIM Life, a Village portfolio company, and Eric Stefanich, director and senior scientist at Genentech.
They explain how VeriSIM is changing drug discovery and development and why more and more drugs are being developed "in silico." They also discuss how startups can work in harmony with big companies and how big pharma has become much more forward-thinking than it is usually given credit for. Erik asks what opportunities they would be looking at if they were a VC in the space right now and how software-as-a-service (SaaS) in pharmaceuticals has evolved. They also discuss dealing with different types of investors when you're starting a biotech company.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favourite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode #18: The Future of Drones with Adam Bry of Skydio Mar 01, 2018

Erik talks to Adam Bry (@adampbry), co-founder and CEO of Skydio, a company that designs and manufactures autonomous drones. Adam gives us a rundown on where the company is at right now, how it got there and what we should be expecting in the drone space in the future. Erik asks where Adam would be investing if he was running a venture firm focused on the space and what potential roadblocks to the rise of the drones could be. Adam explains what some of the other companies in the space are working on and how an ordinary consumer’s life might change once autonomous drones become more prevalent.
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favourite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode 17: Rethinking The Education To Employment Paradigm with Will Houghteling and Kara Nortman Feb 23, 2018

Erik is joined by Will Houghteling (@willhoughteling), founder of Strive, a competency-based marketplace, and Kara Nortman (@karanortman), the first investor in Strive and partner at Upfront Ventures. Will explains why he started Strive and how the educational needs of the middle 50% of American post-secondary students aren’t being met at the moment. Kara and Will discuss the merits of new forms of career-oriented education that have emerged in the past decade, like bootcamps, income-sharing agreements and employer-paid training. They also take a look at what other companies in the space are doing. Finally, they talk about why Will says "the future of work is emotional labor" and discuss the changes to meaning and identity coming with the advent of AI and universal basic income. And of course, "it's not a tech podcast without blockchain!"
Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favourite podcast platform.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode #16: The Present and Future of Hardware with Shilpi Kumar and Seth Winterroth Feb 06, 2018

Erik talks to Shilpi Kumar (@_shilpikumar), who helps Village Global find hardware investments and Seth Winterroth (@sethwinterroth), partner at Eclipse Venture Capital. They explain how hardware has been changing over the past several years and where they think it's going. They also explain why hardware devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home are being sold at a loss and what might be enabled when machines are able to speak to each other more efficiently. They also talk about some of the coolest companies they've seen recently and how automation will change different industries.
We apologize for the quality of audio in this interview.
If you like what you hear, please review us on your favourite podcast platform. Thanks!
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode #15: Rebecca Kaden of Union Square Ventures on Healthcare, Fintech and Venture Firms Jan 30, 2018

Rebecca Kaden (@rebeccak46) recently joined Union Square Ventures in in her hometown of New York City as a partner. She and Erik (@eriktorenberg) talk about why she joined USV and the three “waves” of investment theses for the firm. They discuss the unique dynamics in a partnership versus a company. She talks about her recent investment in Nurx, a company that specializes in delivery of birth control to women who might otherwise not be able to access it. Rebecca also talks about why network effects apply to more than just social networks and what opportunities are opening up in the consumer healthcare space. They also discuss potential opportunities in fintech and insurance and why now, in the age of Amazon, it’s still a great time to create a consumer brand.
If you like what you hear, please review us on your favourite podcast platform. Thanks!
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode #14: How To Recruit, Assess, and Retain The Best People For Your Startup With Keith Rabois and Jack Altman Jan 25, 2018

Erik talks to Keith Rabois (@rabois), Managing Director at Khosla Ventures and Jack Altman (@jaltma), CEO and co-founder of Lattice. Keith and Jack draw on their experience working at high-growth start-ups to explain how to attract the best people to your startup. They discuss how and when to hire and fire when you’re running an early stage company, the parallels between sports and work, and how to pick a co-founder. Jack says that he can tell a lot about a startup just by walking around the office and Keith tells us why a change in floor plan was the beginning of the end for his former company, Slide. Keith and Jack also discuss why “the best way to retain people is to win as a company.”
If you like what you hear, please review us on your favourite podcast platform. Thanks!
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode #13: How To Disrupt The Insurance Industry With Kyle Nakatsuji of Clearcover Jan 23, 2018

Kyle (@kylenakatsuji) talks to Erik about his company, Clearcover, which plans to offer a new way to buy insurance. Kyle has extensive experience in the insurance industry as an employee, investor and founder, and describes the ins and outs of the insurance industry to us. He explains why insurance companies spend such a big percentage of their revenue on advertising and the antiquated way that most insurance is sold these days. That leads to a discussion of how insurance companies and the industry in general might be disrupted. He tells us what a new kind of insurance company might look like and which companies he’s long or short on.
If you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Thanks!
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast or on Twitter @villageglobal.

Episode #12: How To Build A Startup In The Consumer Fitness Space with Holly Shelton and Selina Tobaccowala Jan 18, 2018

Selina Tobaccowala (@selinato) of Gixo and Holly Shelton (@hlshelton) of MoveWith join Erik for a discussion of the state of consumer fitness apps. The Gixo and MoveWith apps bring fitness to you. Selina and Holly break down the successes of a few other companies in the space and talk about what the business models look like for both online and offline fitness. Erik asks why it’s been so difficult to build a business in this space and they discuss the difficulty of behavior change and how to make fitness something you want to come back to again and again. Selina and Holly also talk about how VR/AR might affect fitness and why competition feels so good — even for non-competitive people.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast.

Episode #11: Finding a Niche in the Consumer Social Space with Winnie’s Sara Mauskopf and Anne Halsall Jan 16, 2018

Erik talks to Sara Mauskopf (@sm) and Anne Halsall (@annekate) about Winnie, the “companion app for parents” which Erik calls the “most slept-on consumer social company today.” Sara and Anne tell us about Winnie’s unique combination of a community and a utility. They talk about how they bootstrapped the company to where it is today and their unique approach to company culture. They also discuss how they approach social media and play Long-Short, where Erik names a company and Sara and Anne say whether they’re long or short and why. They end with the advice Sara and Anne have for new founders.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast.

Episode #10: The Future of Access with Omni's Tom McLeod and Ryan Delk Jan 11, 2018

Erik talks to Tom McLeod (@tmcleod3) and Ryan Delk (@delk) of Omni about the future of access. Omni provides physical storage but is also a marketplace, allowing you to rent what you need on-demand or make extra money renting out the things you’re not using. Tom and Ryan recount their entrepreneurial journey so far and what their plans are for the company in the future. They talk about the changing patterns of consumption by millennials and how those may change consumer goods in the future. Tom explains his theory of the three types of entrepreneurs and why he says in the world of work and entrepreneurship, “everything is like selling t-shirts.”
Disclosure: Erik is an investor in Omni.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast.

Episode #9: The State of Consumer Social with Josh Elman Jan 09, 2018

Erik and his co-host for this episode, Abie Katz of August Capital, interview Josh Elman (@joshelman), partner at Greylock Partners. Josh recounts the twists and turns of his career and how they led to him becoming a venture capitalist. He talks about the unique approach he takes when working with founders and how that has impacted the outcome of his investments. He tells us why you so infrequently find truly visionary founders and how Greylock thinks about their seed stage Discovery Fund. Josh also explains the candid candid career advice he would give to his younger self.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast.

Episode #8: Investing in Machine Learning Startups with Ash Fontana Jan 03, 2018

Erik interviews Ash Fontana (@ashfontana) of Zetta Venture Partners with his co-host for this episode, Abie Katz of August Capital. They talk about how Ash got his fund started and how and why he structured it the way he did. They discuss how to manage growth in a venture fund and the relative importance of being a recognizable brand in the space. They ask Ash what he looks for in a machine learning startup and Ash explains why sometimes it’s better to stay small. He also talks about how and why to be intellectually honest about your investing decisions.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast.

Episode #7: The Future of VR and AR and How To Invest In It with Amitt Mahajan and Abie Katz Dec 27, 2017

Erik and his co-host for this episode, Abie Katz of August Capital, interview Amitt Mahajan (@amittm) of Presence Capital. He talks about the future of both VR and AR, what kinds of companies he’s been investing in and the many novel applications of VR in the enterprise setting. He tells us whether he thinks AR or VR will have a bigger impact on the world and tells us about some of the more interesting advances in the technology as well as what might be coming in the future. He also discusses the possible social implications of VR and AR.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast.

Episode #6: Consumer Social with Donnie Dinch, Michael Galpert and Greg Isenberg Dec 21, 2017

Erik (@eriktorenberg) sits down with Donnie Dinch (@donnie), Michael Galpert (@msg) and Greg Isenberg (@gregisenberg) to discuss the state of consumer social today. They talk about why people call them crazy to try to build something in this sector today and why it’s like “walking up a downward escalator.” They dissect the uneasy relationship between the big players and the smaller companies in the space and why you need to “build with one eye over your shoulder.” They also discuss the emerging trends in consumer social, particularly as they relate to young people.
Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc/podcast.

Episode #5: The State of Biotech with Dylan Morris and Cain McClary Dec 19, 2017

This episode is all about the state of biotech, with Dylan Morris of Charles River Ventures and Cain McClary of KdT Ventures. They discuss the difference in incentives when investing in biotech compared to more traditional venture capital investments and why the timelines for investments in biotech are so different compared to when most venture capitalists expect a return. They explain their respective investing theses and talk about what kinds of opportunities there are for startups in the space. Plus, they speculate on what the future might hold based on what’s happening in biotech today.

Episode #4 - How To Build A Digital Health Company with Malay Gandhi and Christine Lemke Dec 14, 2017

Erik talks with Malay Gandhi and Christine Lemke about the state of innovation in healthcare today, why it’s so difficult to build a company in the space, the blind spots that entrepreneurs and investors from outside the sector have, how to truly change behavior and what opportunities in healthcare Malay and Christine see.
Malay Gandhi is an active angel investor in early stage, health-focused startups and advises a number of leading health tech companies. He serves as an EIR at Greylock Partners and is partner with Christine at Ensemble Labs.
Christine Lemke is co-founder and President at Evidation Health, a company that helps individuals and healthcare companies understand and influence the behaviors that create better health outcomes using data. She is also partner with Malay at Ensemble Labs.

Episode #3: The Future of the Music Industry with Aston Motes, Parker Thompson and Ed Aten Dec 13, 2017

This episode is all about the future of music. Erik sat down with Parker Thompson, Aston Motes and Ed Aten to discuss how music has been regulated in the past and how that might change in the future, the argument for why copyright is a good thing for music, how blockchain might change the industry, why streaming music is a terrible business and what the music industry might look like ten years from now. Ed is CEO of Merchbar, Parker is partner at AngelList and 500 Startups and Aston was the first employee at Dropbox and is now part of UnitedMasters, Steve Stoute’s new company.

Episode #2: How Digital Currency Will Transform The World with Balaji Srinivasan Dec 12, 2017

In this episode, Erik interviews Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis) on cryptocurrencies, the web, building a company, identity, government, and the future in general. They explore the implications of cryptocurrencies on a variety of industries and talk about how society and the world of work might be transformed.
Balaji Srinivasan is CEO and co-founder of Earn.com and Board Partner at Andreessen Horowitz. He has two Master's degrees and a PhD from Stanford, where he occasionally teaches.
Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc/podcast.

Episode #1: Ryan Hoover and David Spinks on Communities Dec 11, 2017

Ryan Hoover, CEO and founder of Product Hunt and David Spinks, CEO and founder of CMX Media talk all things community with Village co-founder and partner, host Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg). They talk about creating a business around a community, the differences between communities online and in real life, the pitfalls that have befallen some online communities and how to keep a company focused on its community as it expands.
Ryan Hoover (@rrhoover) is founder of Product Hunt (sold to AngelList) and investor at Weekend Fund. He was formerly an EIR at Tradecraft and has also written over 150 essays, many of which have been featured in TechCrunch, Forbes, Pando, Fast Company and The Next Web.
David Spinks (@davidspinks) is founder and CEO of CMX Media and above all else, seeks to help and empower community builders. He's been studying and building online communities since he was 13 years old. Before CMX, David co-founded an online cooking school called Feast (part of 500 Startups) and BlogDash, a platform to help businesses with blogger outreach.

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