Village Global Podcast
676 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 1 month ago - ★★★★★ - 79 ratingsThe Village Global podcast takes you inside the world of venture capital and technology, featuring enlightening interviews with entrepreneurs, investors and tech industry leaders. Learn more at www.villageglobal.vc.
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Episodes
Market Monetarism and The Future of Monetary Policy with Scott Sumner
December 28, 2021 13:00 - 59 minutes - 54.3 MBScott 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 mon...
How To Solve The Cold Start Problem with Andrew Chen
December 21, 2021 19:22 - 36 minutes - 33.1 MBAndrew 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 suc...
The Future of Education with Wesley Samples and Nick Grandy
December 14, 2021 19:22 - 39 minutes - 36.1 MBWesley 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...
LatAm: Digital Transformation, Opportunities, and Investing with Julio Vasconcellos
December 07, 2021 21:39 - 52 minutes - 48.1 MBJulio 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...
The Future of Insurtech with Travis Hedge and Nick Shalek
November 30, 2021 18:17 - 50 minutes - 46.2 MBTravis 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 mar...
Transforming Corporate Finance and Working with Investors with Joe Garafalo and Trevor Oelschig
November 23, 2021 13:00 - 31 minutes - 29 MBJoe 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 investor...
Crafting Company Culture with Brie Wolfson
November 16, 2021 13:00 - 39 minutes - 35.8 MBBrie 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 compan...
A Compensation Deep Dive with Matt Schulman of Pave
November 09, 2021 13:00 - 35 minutes - 32.2 MBMatt 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 regardle...
Lessons From Stripe, Mixpanel, and First Round with Meka Asonye
November 02, 2021 12:00 - 45 minutes - 41.7 MBMeka 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...
The Wires of War with Jacob Helberg
October 28, 2021 18:00 - 54 minutes - 49.7 MBJacob 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...
Unlocking Unprecedented Amounts of Generosity with Vance Roush
October 26, 2021 12:00 - 39 minutes - 36.1 MBVance 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 ...
Accelerating the next wave of global founders: ODX in partnership with Village Global
October 21, 2021 18:27 - 23 minutes - 21.9 MBBen 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 communi...
Andy Rachleff on Investing, Company-Building & Product Market Fit… Lessons from Wealthfront & Benchmark
October 19, 2021 12:00 - 43 minutes - 39.4 MBAndy 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...
Turning Science Fiction Into Reality with Ben Reinhardt
October 12, 2021 18:25 - 45 minutes - 41.3 MBBen 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 State and Future of Data Tooling with Leigh Marie Braswell and Erik Bernhardsson
October 05, 2021 18:04 - 38 minutes - 34.9 MBLeigh 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 f...
The Present and Future of Deep Tech with Abhijeet Patra
September 28, 2021 12:00 - 17 minutes - 15.6 MBAbhijeet 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...
Greatest Hits: What Tyler Cowen Thinks About Basically Everything
September 21, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 106 MBIn 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 f...
Play-To-Earn, DAOs, and Crypto Governance with Gabby Dizon and Linda Xie
September 16, 2021 12:00 - 40 minutes - 37.3 MBGabby 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 ...
Greatest Hits: The State and Future of Fintech with Zach Perret and David Haber
September 13, 2021 12:00 - 54 minutes - 50.1 MBErik 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 y...
Greatest Hits: Elad Gil and Kevin Hartz on Angel Investing, SPACs, and The Evolution of Venture
September 10, 2021 12:00 - 28 minutes - 26.4 MBElad 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. - El...
Greatest Hits: John Donahoe’s Lessons on Leadership and Being a Better CEO
September 06, 2021 12:00 - 54 minutes - 49.7 MBWe'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 ha...
Greatest Hits: Bill Gates on Advice For Founders, Mistakes, and Philanthropy
September 02, 2021 12:00 - 59 minutes - 54.8 MBWe’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 st...
Greatest Hits: What Keith Rabois Thinks About Basically Everything
August 30, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 80.3 MBWe'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 V...
Greatest Hits: Mike Maples on Value Hacking and Avoiding The Fake Growth Epidemic
August 25, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 70.2 MBErik 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....
Greatest Hits: Eric Schmidt and Tyler Cowen on The Future of Technology and Society
August 18, 2021 12:00 - 53 minutes - 49.3 MBWe'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...
Greatest Hits: Reid Hoffman and Chamath Palihapitiya on Angel Investing and The Future of Venture
August 15, 2021 12:00 - 39 minutes - 36.2 MBWe'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 ho...
Greatest Hits: Investing in Marketplaces with Sarah Tavel and Nabeel Hyatt
August 11, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 56.4 MBWe'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 m...
The Psychology of Personal Finance with Ramit Sethi
August 08, 2021 12:00 - 49 minutes - 45.1 MBRamit 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...
How to Have Better Virtual Meetings with Max Greenwald
August 05, 2021 12:00 - 16 minutes - 14.8 MBMax 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 li...
Greatest Hits: What Alex Danco Thinks About Basically Everything
August 03, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 107 MBWe’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 proceede...
Village Global Accelerator: Inside Scoop with Santiago Suarez, CEO Addi.com
July 30, 2021 02:51 - 21 minutes - 19.7 MBSantiago 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 ye...
Greatest Hits: Mike Maples on Building Successful Startups and Venture Funds
July 26, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 69.3 MBErik 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 be...
Greatest Hits: James Currier on Network Effects, Education, and Evaluating Startup Ideas
July 22, 2021 12:00 - 57 minutes - 52.2 MBWe'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 T...
Greatest Hits: What Kevin Kwok Thinks About Basically Everything
July 19, 2021 12:00 - 2 hours - 110 MBKevin 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 b...
Greatest Hits: Naval Ravikant and Balaji Srinivasan on Crypto
July 15, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 58.7 MBThis 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 wid...
Greatest Hits: What Daniel Gross Thinks About Basically Everything
July 12, 2021 23:19 - 1 hour - 83.9 MBDaniel 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 ot...
Greatest Hits: Keith Rabois on Career Strategy, Identifying Talent, and Evaluating Markets
July 07, 2021 17:23 - 57 minutes - 53 MBWe'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 t...
The State and Future of Longevity with Nathan Cheng
June 29, 2021 14:30 - 39 minutes - 35.9 MBNathan 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 ...
How Open Innovation Can Transform R&D with Kevin Leland and Phil Taylor
June 10, 2021 12:00 - 20 minutes - 19 MBKevin 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. Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podca...
Education, The Great Stagnation, and Innovation with Noah Smith
June 08, 2021 15:34 - 1 hour - 55.3 MBNoah 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...
Cracks in The Great Stagnation with Caleb Watney
June 06, 2021 12:00 - 1 hour - 60.4 MBCaleb 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 vie...
Marketing Operations 101 with Chris Toy
June 03, 2021 12:00 - 42 minutes - 38.8 MBChris 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 idea...
Emotional Fitness For Founders with Emily Anhalt
June 01, 2021 12:00 - 38 minutes - 34.8 MBEmily 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 e...
Brad Feld on What Nietzsche Can Teach Entrepreneurs
May 29, 2021 12:00 - 50 minutes - 46.2 MBBrad 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 ha...
Erik Torenberg on Higher Education
May 26, 2021 17:26 - 47 minutes - 64.5 MBThis 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 14:51 - 46 minutes - 42.7 MBAddie 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 b...
Incentive Misalignment in Higher Education with Jason Brennan
May 20, 2021 12:00 - 51 minutes - 47.3 MBJason 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. -...
How To Fix Credentialism and The Student Debt Crisis with Todd Zywicki
May 18, 2021 12:00 - 25 minutes - 23.1 MBTodd 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 side...
Keith Rabois on Miami and Company-Building in 2021
May 16, 2021 12:00 - 25 minutes - 23.5 MBKeith 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 dig...
How To Build an AI-First Company with Ash Fontana
May 13, 2021 12:00 - 55 minutes - 51 MBAsh 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 compani...