Jason 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. - Why th...
May 20, 2021•52 min
Todd 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 sides of the...
May 18, 2021•25 min
Keith 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 digitally ...
May 16, 2021•26 min
Ash 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 companies make...
May 13, 2021•56 min
James Currier (@JamesCurrier), partner at NFX, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an On Deck Angels event. They discuss: - Why founders are more authentic at the accelerator stage than at the seed stage. - Why San Francisco will remain the centre of tech in the future, just as New York and LA have remained the centre of banking and movie-making, respectively. - James’s thesis that founders in consumer social need to be a really special type of person — someone great at the an...
May 11, 2021•1 hr 1 min
John Katzman (@johnkatzman), CEO of Noodle, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - John’s theory that tech has had less of an impact on education than people thought it would because it’s been grafted on rather than causing a rethinking of how education is delivered. - Why the “fundamentalist capitalists” were wrong about markets solving the problems with education. - His thoughts on income share agreements. - Why any degree should always involve active learning throughout a person’s life. - T...
May 09, 2021•52 min
Pete Flint (@peteflint), partner at NFX, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an On Deck Angels event. They discuss: - Pete’s journey from Trulia to investor. - Why over time he became less focused on the idea and strategy of a team and more on the team itself and its ability to execute. - Why it’s a mistake to have a portfolio of growth channels, and why instead a company should be world-class at one channel. - His information diet. - The two phases of PropTech and the problem...
May 04, 2021•1 hr 1 min
Delian Asparouhov (@zebulgar) of Varda and Founders Fund, and Chris Power (@2112Power), founder and CEO of Hadrian, join Erik on this episode to discuss: - What they're working on and how they're bringing tech to industrial manufacturing. - How Chris navigated the idea maze with Hadrian, a company with aims to build space and defense components 2X faster. - The three types of space companies: satellite operators, launch operators, and supply chain companies. - Where they would be investing in sp...
May 02, 2021•30 min
Mercedes Bent (@mercebent), partner at Lightspeed, joins Erik and co-host Anne Dwane to discuss: - What Mercedes and the EdTech space in general learned from General Assembly, a company ahead of its time. - Her market map of EdTech and why she says it should perhaps be called LearnTech rather than EdTech. - The future of community and social-driven learning, including why peer-to-peer learning is so effective. - Her thoughts on corporations as credentializers and why she hasn’t been optimistic i...
Apr 29, 2021•50 min
Andrew Wilkinson (@awilkinson) co-founder of Tiny, was interviewed by Andrew Barry of On Deck at a special event. They discussed: - His start as a designer and how great product and design became the common thread that runs through the businesses he tries to buy. - How to think about building a moat around you when you’re an individual versus a brand. - What he means when he says he “tries to buy businesses that are like New Zealand — in the middle of nowhere, quietly successful, and away from n...
Apr 27, 2021•53 min
Richard Vedder, author of Restoring The Promise: Higher Education in America, joins Erik to discuss: - The origins of the myth that higher education is the key to career success. - The unintended consequences of student loans, including the fact that colleges raised tuition dramatically in response to the increase in borrowing. - The key pieces of government regulation that impacted higher education and why the GI Bill led to an explosion in the number of universities. - Where he agrees and disa...
Apr 25, 2021•1 hr
Kelly Hook (@KellyHook), program director of the On Deck Customer Success program, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - How she got into customer success. - How the field of customer success got its start, just 25 years ago. - Common misconceptions about the field. - Why you need to have empathy, a collaborative spirit, and data analysis skills to be successful. - What the On Deck Customer Success program will look like and who it is for. - How customer success professionals can grow in thei...
Apr 20, 2021•16 min
Ali Tamaseb (@alitamaseb), investor at DCVC and author of Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups joins Erik to discuss: - His learnings from gathering data on unicorns and comparing them to a random selection of startups that didn’t succeed. - Why the age of a founder doesn’t correlate to success. - Why successful founders aren’t necessarily solving personal problems and are often going through a deliberate ideation process. - How data could make someone a better investo...
Apr 18, 2021•37 min
Scott Belsky (@scottbelsky), angel investor and Chief Product Officer at Adobe, joined Erik for an On Deck Angels event to discuss: - How he came to make his first investments in Uber and Pinterest. - How his thinking on investing has evolved and the principles he’s picked up over time. - Why being an operator-investor is the greatest opportunity in the space today, and why founders are drawn to operator angels. - Why he gravitates to the pre-momentum stage — Scott says he likes to focus on the ...
Apr 15, 2021•48 min
Andrew Yu (@andrewcyu), who is running the On Deck Product Management program, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - His non-traditional route to becoming a product manager. (Fun fact: He recently worked on the Biden campaign and inauguration). - What the ODPM program will look like, including the “intentional networking” they have planned. - What “productizing yourself” as a product manager looks like. - How the field has evolved over time. Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, p...
Apr 13, 2021•17 min
Rex Woodbury (@rex_woodbury) of Index Ventures joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - Where he’s looking to invest in the creator economy. - Why authenticity and vulnerability are replacing performative and status-driven social media. - The shift away from an ad-based model on the web. - Why we won’t see mega-celebrities like Oprah ever again. - What the financialization of culture means and how NFTs and staking fits into it. - His learnings as a student of meme culture. - The future of work a...
Apr 11, 2021•48 min
Katherine Boyle (@KTmBoyle), partner at General Catalyst, joins Erik on this episode recorded as part of an event for Villagers. Due to technical difficulties, Mustafa Khan, part of the team at Village Global, conducted the first part of the interview. They discuss: - Katherine’s focus on narrative when evaluating founders: “who’s the protagonist and what are they solving?” - The fact that Katherine doesn’t have strong frameworks for investing — for her it’s about how the story makes her feel. -...
Apr 08, 2021•47 min
Kyla Scanlon (@kylascan) and Tom White (@ TomJWhiteIV), who are running On Deck Investing, join Erik on this episode to discuss: - Why managing your own psychology is as important as your asset allocation. - How to think about your own “life portfolio” holistically, instead of just paying attention to your investment portfolio. - Why it’s “never been a better or worse time to be an investor” and how On Deck Investing can help. - Why investing is like a liberal art, and how you can become a bette...
Apr 06, 2021•24 min
Julia Galef (@juliagalef), author of The Scout Mindset, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - Why everyone, including entrepreneurs, should want to see reality more clearly. - The fact that the bottleneck to more rationality is not lack of knowledge, but lack of motivation to see the world as it really is. - Why the “soldier mindset” is the default mindset and why signalling keeps it that way. - Why thinking probabilistically has a calming psychological effect. - How to adopt the scout mindse...
Apr 04, 2021•56 min
Pete Flint (@peteflint), partner at NFX, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an event for Villagers. They discuss: - How to gain ground in a downturn as a startup by doubling down on the things that are working. - Lessons from starting Trulia during the Great Recession, when no one was buying homes. - How and why to “turn all fixed costs to variable costs.” - Ideas for how to do teambuilding in an all-remote environment. - Predictions for the future of work post-COVID. - The d...
Apr 01, 2021•49 min
Austin Rief (@austin_rief), co-founder of Morning Brew, and Nik Sharma (@mrsharma), investor, advisor, and operator at Sharma Brands, join Erik to discuss: - Their direct-to-consumer investment theses. - Interesting ways that media companies are starting to get into commerce, like the hockey podcast that created a bestselling flavored vodka. - Why it's a "game of audience in the direct-to-consumer world." They say that distribution is the key now. - The difference between community and fandom an...
Mar 30, 2021•42 min
Justin Kan (@justinkan), investor and entrepreneur, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of a special event for Villagers. They discuss: - The evolution of how Justin approached mental health. - His playbook for being happier. - Why he decided to pull the plug at Atrium with money in the bank. - Why you should “go slow to go fast later” when you’re running an early-stage company. - How to know if you’re hiring at the right speed. - Why you should regularly do a calendar audit. - H...
Mar 28, 2021•57 min
Emmanuel Straschnov (@estraschnov), founder and co-CEO of Bubble, and KP (@thisiskp_) of On Deck, join Erik on this episode to discuss: - The story of Bubble, which was founded in 2012. - How no-code is changing the creation process for startups and the fact that they've seen companies raise millions of dollars without a single engineer. - The phases of the evolution of no-code. - Why they hope that in five years people don't talk about no-code as a separate category anymore. - Some of the cool ...
Mar 25, 2021•29 min
Eli Dourado (@elidourado) of the Center for Growth and Opportunity, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - Why Eli wants to radically increase GDP per capita and the current bottlenecks to achieving that. - Why he thinks the 2020s will be the decade of atoms. - Why amazing scientific breakthroughs like CRISPR haven't translated into new products or treatments. - Why he's excited about geothermal power and how it could change geopolitics if its potential is realized. - His breakdown of his posi...
Mar 23, 2021•53 min
Matteo Franceschetti (@m_franceschetti), founder and CEO at Eight Sleep, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - The differences between deep, light, and REM sleep, and how to "compress sleep" so that it takes up less time. - The new wave of predictive health and how Eight Sleep fits into it. - His thoughts on the book Why We Sleep. - The importance of temperature and how it affects sleep. - Where he would be investing if he was running a fund focused on the category. - How they think about wha...
Mar 21, 2021•24 min
Alice Lloyd George (@alice__LG), VC at Rogue, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - Why she loves studying Silicon Valley history and what she's learned from it. - What she's learned being part of the crypto community since 2013. - Why she's excited about the current crypto wave and her assessment of the impacts of NFTs. - Where she's excited in climate tech. - New opportunities arising in space after the cost to reach low-earth orbit went down by 90% in the last decade. - The fact that the v...
Mar 18, 2021•40 min
Shriya Nevatia (@shriyanevatia) and Anirudh Pai (@ani_pai) of On Deck Catalyst join Erik on this episode to discuss: - Why you should look for a mentor a few steps ahead of you rather than seeking out the most successful person you can think of. - Why young people need to remember that the people around them at their level can teach them a lot and will become the next unicorn founders — probably sooner than you think. - Erik's breakdown of the career version of the Innovator's Dilemma and why yo...
Mar 16, 2021•26 min
David Spinks (@DavidSpinks), author of The Business of Belonging, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - The evolution of the different movements in this space, from customer service to customer success to community. - How to make your users feel like they’re a part of the business. - His requests for startups in the space. - How to earn the trust of your users. - How to get a community off the ground. - How to enable your community to engage itself. - What to do when excitement wanes. - Commo...
Mar 14, 2021•53 min
Cooper Turley (@Cooopahtroopa), head of crypto strategy at Audius, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss: - How he got into the space and how it has evolved over the last few years. - Why NFTs are taking off now. - The market map of the different players in the space at the moment. - How a personal token works. - Advice for people doing an NFT. - How NFTs will reshape the music industry. - His predictions for the future of NFTs. - How tokens will become equity. Thanks for listening — if you l...
Mar 11, 2021•38 min
Megan O’Connor (@MeganMOConnor), Head of Strategic Partnerships at Chegg, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - What she saw change in education when the pandemic hit. - Whether incumbent universities will adapt to a more value-oriented student. - How to unbundle a credential. - The idea of digital guilds. - What Megan would do if she was building a brand new university today. - The state of homeschooling. - The prospects of a Facebook University or Walmart University. Thanks for listening — ...
Mar 09, 2021•44 min
