Village Global Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Web3 Series: JD Ross and 3LAU on How Royal is Transforming The Artist-Fan Relationship Jul 01, 2022

Show notes

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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Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.
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Erik Torenberg on How Startups Can Help Save The World Jun 29, 2022

Show notes

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.
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 onthe latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Web3 Series: The State of Crypto in 2022 with Tushar Jain Jun 23, 2022

Show notes

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.
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 Future Industrial Network with Hondo Geurts Jun 21, 2022

Show notes

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.
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

Web3 Series: Haseeb Qureshi on Navigating The Bear Market and The Next Chapter for Crypto Jun 16, 2022

Show notes

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.
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

Noah Smith's Deep Dive on the Chinese Economy Jun 14, 2022

Show notes

- 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.
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

Jacob Helberg on China’s Global Influence Jun 07, 2022

Show notes

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.
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

Tyler Cowen on Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World Jun 03, 2022

Show notes

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.
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

Back to the Basics: Building in a Downturn with Geoff Lewis Jun 02, 2022

Show notes

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.
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

Bilal Zuberi on Unifying America May 26, 2022

Show notes

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.
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

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