Luke Burgis (@lukeburgis), author of Wanting: The Power of Mimetic Desire in Everyday Life joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - How he’s making the audience for Rene Girard’s work bigger. - Why innovation became high status while imitation was high status earlier in history. - What is most often misunderstood about mimetic desire. - The difference between internal and external mediators. - What all this has to do with entrepreneurship. - How leaders can manage mimesis in their company. - The...
Mar 07, 2021•52 min
Michael Balaoing, founder of Candlelion, joins Ben Casnocha on this episode to discuss: - The importance of the acronym WTF (what’s the feeling?) when you’re giving a presentation. - The four roles that you take on as a speaker: captain, pilot, guide, and game show host. - The five questions to ask when seeking feedback on a presentation. - How to keep the audience engaged throughout a talk, not just during the Q&A at the end. - How to bake stories into your presentations and remix your talks fo...
Mar 04, 2021•43 min
Ryan Craig (@ryancraigap) and Daniel Pianko (@danielpianko) of Achieve Partners join Erik on this episode to discuss: - The multiple crises in higher education: of affordability, of completion, and of employability. - Why there doesn’t yet exist a Walmart University. - Why they think that big companies will be some of the great educational institutions of the 21st century. - Their thoughts on ISAs. - What they would change if they could change anything about higher ed. - How to fix the fact that...
Mar 02, 2021•52 min
Liron Shapira (@liron), co-founder of Relationship Hero, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - How they are creating a new industry and new a field of study in relationships. - Why people are becoming more goal-oriented and analytical in general in society and how this applies to dating and relationships. - His thoughts on unbundling venture capital. - The bloated MVP thesis and the idea of a “Great Filter” for startups. - Misconceptions that people have about building an MVP. - The future of...
Feb 28, 2021•39 min
Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi), and Greg Miaskiewicz (@miaskiewicz), join Erik on this episode. Sheel is a Network Leader at Village Global, and Greg is CEO and co-founder of Capbase. They discuss: - How Capbase can help streamline the workflows involved in getting a company off the ground. - How Greg navigated the idea maze and validated his hypothesis. - Why there should be more transparency in investing and startups. - The pros and cons of transparency within a company. - Ethical investing. - How to...
Feb 25, 2021•39 min
Erik is joined on this episode, recorded as part of a Big Ideas Clubhouse, by: - Lyn Alden (@LynAldenContact), founder of Lyn Alden Investment Strategy - Nic Carter (@nic__carter), partner at Castle Island Ventures - Brent Johnson of Santiago Capital - Luke Gromen (@LukeGromen), founder of Forest for the Trees - Katherine Boyle (@KTmBoyle), partner at General Catalyst - Dan Romero (@dwr), angel investor They discuss: - Whether the US dollar being the global reserve currency has led to a hollowin...
Feb 23, 2021•1 hr 14 min
Elliot Shmukler (@eshmu), of Anomalo, joins Ben Casnocha on the podcast to discuss: - How growth marketing has evolved over the last decade or so since he was an early pioneer of the field at LinkedIn in 2008. - What people misunderstand about A/B testing, and the right way to go about it. - Why he doesn’t like the term “growth hacking.” - Why people should both be more humble and more ambitious with their growth marketing program. - Lessons from his time at LinkedIn, eBay, Wealthfront, and Inst...
Feb 20, 2021•48 min
Sar Haribhakti (@sarthakgh), program lead for On Deck Fintech, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - How fintech has evolved over time, from PayPal to Stripe to now. - How fintech is different from other areas in tech. - The most frontier themes in fintech today. - Why the lines between what is fintech and what isn’t are blurring. - How On Deck has been expanding opportunity for people. - Sar’s experience going from outsider to insider in fintech. - The biggest misconceptions people have abou...
Feb 16, 2021•28 min
Santiago 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 yet. - Why...
Feb 16, 2021•22 min
Anna Gat (@TheAnnaGat), founder of Interintellect, and Anne-Laure Le Cunff (@anthilemoon), founder of Ness Labs, join Erik on this episode to discuss: - What it’s like putting on virtual events in the COVID era. - The difference between public and private language. - How to scale a community while keeping it human, including the best tools to use. - The importance of documentation in community-building. - The community architect role. - How to think about which topics are off-limits for a group....
Feb 13, 2021•55 min
Josh Clemente (@joshuasforrest), founder of Levels, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - The personal story that led him to start the company. - The fact that most people in America are metabolically unhealthy and what Levels is doing about it. - How they are taking huge amounts of complex data and distilling it down to a single score. - The history of nutrition research and the debates in the space. - What’s coming up from Levels. *The deadline to get your application in for the spring vint...
Feb 11, 2021•26 min
Owen Willis (@jowenwillis), lead of the On Deck Health Tech Fellowship, and Nikhil Krishnan (@nikillinit) of Out-of-Pocket, join Erik on this episode to discuss: - How health has evolved from a historical perspective. - How the environment has changed for companies in the space in the last decade. - Common misconceptions about building a company in healthcare. - Why in healthcare no one cares about reducing costs but instead only about increasing revenue. - The purpose of the fellowship and what...
Feb 09, 2021•26 min
David Fauchier (@dfauchier), of Nickel Digital Asset Management, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - The philosophy at Nickel Digital and the strategies they’re looking to back. - A primer on market making. - His thoughts on the Tether controversy. - His explanation of the allegations of Bitcoin double-spending and the cascade of effects from it. - An explanation of the self-reinforcing market dynamics in the GameStop saga. - What changes and what doesn’t because of GameStop, and how it rel...
Feb 07, 2021•42 min
Logan Ury (@loganury), Director of Relationship Science at Hinge and author of How To Not Die Alone, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - Why a great relationship is really just a culmination of a series of small decisions, and how to be “intentional every step of the way.” - How the three dating tendencies apply to cofounders as well as to romantic partners. - What leads to external CEO candidates being paid more but performing worse than internal ones. - Why life is happier for satisficers...
Feb 04, 2021•45 min
Andrew Barry (@Bazzaruto), program director for On Deck Course Creators, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - The history of online courses and why they’ve exploded in the past few years. - What the On Deck Course Creators program is and what people can expect to get out of it. - The two key things you need to get right when creating an online course. - Common misconceptions that people have about what it takes to build one. - How to think about monetization. - The future of the ODCC program...
Feb 02, 2021•20 min
Ali Hamed (@AliBHamed) and Brian Harwitt (@bharwitt) of CoVenture join Erik on this episode to discuss: - Their new fund, Crossbeam Venture Partners, and what they’re investing in. - The types of new asset classes they’re looking at and why these are often “a better version of something old school.” - Their thoughts on investing in creators. - The merits of equity vs. other forms of capital from a founder’s perspective. - Why they’re excited about roll-ups. - How venture is evolving and their th...
Jan 31, 2021•55 min
Nabeel Hyatt (@nabeel), investor at Spark Capital, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an On Deck Angels event. They discuss: - His path to becoming an investor. - Why he likens being a VC to being a middle manager at a large conglomerate company. - How he thinks about frameworks for investing. - How to quickly get up to speed on spaces that are new to you as an investor. - Why there are so few hardware companies at scale and why he’s investing in the space. - Why he’s long on...
Jan 28, 2021•50 min
Robbie Crabtree (@robbiecrab), founder of On Deck Performative Speaking, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - The importance of conveying emotion to an audience. - Communicating in a Zoom world. - How he uses pop culture as inspiration. - Common misconceptions people have about being a great speaker. - The ingredients of a great story. - What people can expect to learn during the On Deck Performative Speaking Fellowship. Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on y...
Jan 26, 2021•36 min
Michelle Zatlyn (@zatlyn), co-founder, president, and COO of Cloudflare, joined Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha for a masterclass with our founders in late 2020. They discussed: - The origin story of Cloudflare, including how the co-founders met, and how Michelle realized that she too could start a company. - Her advice on fundraising after raising more than $300M for Cloudflare, including why you should keep the rest of the VC partnership in mind, and how to show rather than ...
Jan 24, 2021•51 min
Morgan Housel (@morganhousel), partner at Collaborative Fund, and author of the book The Psychology of Money, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - Why it’s not realistic to be rational and an investor should aim to be merely reasonable instead. - What people don’t understand about compounding. - The difference between getting wealthy and staying wealthy. - Bets on what is going to change vs. what is not going to change. - Why people overestimate the benefit that money brings to them. - The v...
Jan 21, 2021•58 min
Marc Andreessen of a16z (@pmarca) and Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg) joined Sriram Krishnan (@sriramk) and Aarthi Ramamurthy (@aarthir) on their Good Time show on Clubhouse. Topics discussed: - Why college is broken. - The reasons for the lack of innovation. - Why it’s so hard for colleges to be disrupted. - How college could be unbundled. - New approaches that are being tried in the space. - How On Deck is creating a new type of education experience. To listen to Marc speak more fully on the t...
Jan 19, 2021•27 min
Michael Acton Smith, co-founder and co-CEO of Calm, joined Ben Casnocha, co-founder and partner of Village Global, at a special virtual masterclass for Village Global founders, Network Leaders, and friends of the firm. They discussed: - How Michael got into meditation, his personal practice, and meditating together as a company. - The story of the early days of Calm, including their fundraising journey and how they acquired their first users. - How to maintain confidence when everyone thinks wha...
Jan 16, 2021•49 min
Mindaugas Petrutis, head of the On Deck Design Fellowship, and Jeff Anders (Hilnbrand) (@jeffand_), Co-Founder of Ambrook, join Erik on this episode. They discuss: - The On Deck Design Fellowship. - The five I’s of design. - How to think about the forks in the road you’ll face as a designer. - Whether to move into management or continue as an individual contributor. - What you will get out of the ODD Fellowship. - How to think about transitioning to a specific vertical as a designer. Thanks for ...
Jan 12, 2021•24 min
Hikari Senju (@hisenju), founder of Omneky, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss: - The state of online advertising today. - Why Hikari started Omneky, how it works, and how it’s helping small businesses. - Advances in AI and computer vision and how they’re impacting advertising. - What it means when he says the cost of attention is getting to be higher than the cost of content. - How antitrust is changing the marketplace for online ads. - Opportunities for investors in the space. Thanks for...
Jan 11, 2021•22 min
Peer Richelsen (@peer_rich), founder of Lean Hire and Head of Product at On Deck, and Andreas Klinger (@andreasklinger), CTO at On Deck, join Erik on this episode. They discuss: - Why global hiring is broken. - How companies should get started with contract-to-hire and common challenges they may face. - The background of Lean Hire. - What needs to happen for this to become a norm for companies. - The problems with the existing hiring process. - Why you need to remember that the “people you hire ...
Jan 10, 2021•25 min
Phin Barnes (@phineasb), venture capitalist, most recently at First Round, joins Erik on this episode which was recorded as part of an On Deck Angels event. They discuss: - Why he thinks of an investment as a product. - Advice for founders working with investors. - The reasons he has changed his mind after a meeting with an entrepreneur. - How to ask better questions. - Why he loves “seeing something in someone they don’t see in themselves” and amplifying their success. - Why making more smaller...
Jan 06, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Marc McCabe (@mccabe), partner at Oyster Capital, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - What people get wrong when they’re preparing to fundraise. - The importance of stress-testing a deck, and how to do it. - The right investor to pitch first, and the right time to follow-up. - Whether to give a VC a deadline or not. - Common mistakes people make when fundraising and how to avoid them. - Lessons from his time at Airbnb. Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on yo...
Jan 03, 2021•38 min
Increasing Scientific Progress and Improving Institutions with Alexey Guzey Alexey Guzey (@alexeyguzey), independent researcher, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - His thoughts on how to make scientific institutions work better. - What people get wrong most often when analyzing institutions. - How he would change the FDA and academia. - Why people under appreciate scientific progress. - Where he agrees or disagrees with Tyler Cowen, Peter Thiel, Patrick Collison, and - What he thinks about...
Dec 31, 2020•43 min
Shellye Archambeau (@ShelArchambeau), one of tech’s first black female CEOs and author of Unapologetically Ambitious, joins Village Global co-founder and partner Anne Dwane for this masterclass held in December 2020. They discuss: - How to decide what you want in life and your career. - Why she makes choices but never sacrifices, and what the difference is. - How to adopt a mentor. - How to overcome impostor syndrome. - Diversity and inclusion in your startup. - How to know whether taking a risk...
Dec 29, 2020•43 min
Paul Martino (@ahpah), co-founder of Bullpen Capital, joins Village Global co-founder and partner Anne Dwane on this episode. They discuss: - Stories from his entrepreneurial journey. - Advice for founders navigating the pandemic. - How the venture ecosystem today differs from ten years ago. - What characterizes the post-seed phase. - Why they look for companies that are “off by one.” - Their approach to data. - His tips on hiring. - Advice for emerging fund managers. Thanks for listening — if y...
Dec 27, 2020•36 min
