Village Global Podcast

Latest Episodes:

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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.

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