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. - Wh...
Aug 06, 2020•59 min
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 vill...
Aug 04, 2020•1 hr 12 min
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 w...
Aug 02, 2020•2 hr 43 min
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...
Jul 30, 2020•2 hr 30 min
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 universitie...
Jul 28, 2020•42 min
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 b...
Jul 26, 2020•3 hr 40 min
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...
Jul 23, 2020•32 min
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 li...
Jul 21, 2020•36 min
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 ...
Jul 19, 2020•59 min
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 li...
Jul 16, 2020•2 hr 42 min
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...
Jul 14, 2020•1 hr 7 min
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 th...
Jul 12, 2020•1 hr 11 min
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 fo...
Jul 09, 2020•53 min
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 uniform...
Jul 07, 2020•54 min
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 listen...
Jul 05, 2020•50 min
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...
Jul 02, 2020•58 min
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 list...
Jun 30, 2020•53 min
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 bil...
Jun 28, 2020•50 min
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 egali...
Jun 25, 2020•53 min
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 ...
Jun 23, 2020•56 min
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 lik...
Jun 21, 2020•38 min
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...
Jun 18, 2020•48 min
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...
Jun 16, 2020•52 min
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 yo...
Jun 11, 2020•49 min
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 distribu...
Jun 04, 2020•46 min
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 N...
Jun 02, 2020•52 min
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 ...
May 31, 2020•1 hr 5 min
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 app...
May 28, 2020•52 min
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 per...
May 26, 2020•48 min
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....
May 24, 2020•57 min
