Village Global Podcast

Latest Episodes:

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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

Show notes

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.