Jeff Morris Jr. (@jmj), investor at Chapter One, joins Erik Torenberg and co-host Ian Cinnamon. Takeaways: - Jeff realized the power of subscriptions during his time at Tinder. He says that digital goods are an even better version of subscriptions. - Web3 is almost entirely missing mobile usability. - Crypto apps could add a reputation layer to existing Web2 use cases, like dating apps. - People are still using Web 2.0 community products to create communities for Web3. - Web3 games need to move ...
Jul 19, 2022•48 min
AJ Piplica (@AJ_Piplica), founder and CEO of Hermeus, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode. Takeaways: - Every time there has been an acceleration in the speed of transportation in history, high GDP growth has followed. - A switch to hypersonic transportation would unlock $4T in growth. - In the future the key differentiator in air travel will be speed, rather than comfort. - It’s currently extremely expensive to do flight testing at hypersonic speeds — $5-10M for only a few second...
Jul 12, 2022•52 min
Mike Shebat (@mike_sheb), co-founder and CEO of Traba, joins Erik Torenberg and Lucas Bagno on this episode. Takeaways: - There is a huge problem with meeting demand for workers at warehouses and fulfilment centres. There are 75% more jobs in those fields after the pandemic. - Mike worked in warehousing and helped scale UberEats so has strong founder-market fit. Traba’s mission of connecting people to work is very meaningful to him. - Mike met his co-founder Akshay through the On Deck Fellowship...
Jul 07, 2022•29 min
Peter Newell (@PeterANewell), CEO of BMNT, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode of Solarpunk. Takeaways: - Peter was “handed the Ferrari of skunkworks” when he came to be in charge of the Rapid Equipping Force. It was a program that handled over a billion dollars to deploy new technologies. - He became more of an entrepreneur after his time at the REF and that led to starting BMNT. - Often times procurement in the US military is HQ-centric and product-centric and does not take into...
Jul 05, 2022•44 min
JD Ross (@justindross) and Justin Blau (@3LAU), co-founders of Royal, join Erik Torenberg and co-host Ian Cinnamon for this episode of our web3 series. Takeaways: - Royal stems from their vision to invest in talent early on. - Streaming increased by 60-70x in about 5 years from 2015 on. - The barrier to entry for artists is much lower — they no longer need a studio, they just need a laptop. - Royal is trying to enable the fan-artist relationship to be more of a partnership. - When fans own a par...
Jul 01, 2022•48 min
Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg), co-founder and general partner at Village Global and co-founder and co-CEO of On Deck join Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode of Solarpunk. Takeaways: - Startups are the most effective organizations for solving our biggest problems. - Startups disproportionately contribute to economic growth. - Governments and startups need to work together, not against each other. - China has the GDP per capita of Mexico but they have power because of how big their pop...
Jun 29, 2022•47 min
Tushar Jain (@TusharJain_), co-founder and managing partner of Multicoin Capital, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - The history of crypto over the last several years and the various moments that different technologies like Bitcoin, NFTs, tokens, and others have had. - What the world looks like if the predictions for crypto’s impact comes true. - Why Tushar thinks that Ethereum has gone past the point of diminishing returns to decentralization. - Why it’s so hard to predict which chains wi...
Jun 23, 2022•57 min
James “Hondo” Geurts, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode. Takeaways: - What kept Hondo up at night was that there was a good idea out there that wasn’t passed on to him and thus wasn’t used on the battlefield. - A society can’t be secure without prosperity and can’t have prosperity without security. - The challenge for startups working with government is that the public is a fickle venture capitalis...
Jun 21, 2022•47 min
Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb), managing partner at Dragonfly Capital, joins Erik for an episode of our Web3 series. Takeaways: - This bear market is driven by macro factors rather than endogenous ones. - It turns out crypto is in fact correlated with other assets, largely because in 2020 institutions started buying crypto. - Projects searching for yield in a yield-starved environment drove growth in crypto. That may change with rising interest rates. - Adoption will drive the next chapter of crypto....
Jun 16, 2022•45 min
- The narrative that China can do no wrong and why Noah says it is out of date at this point. - The long-term headwinds that China is facing, including demographic changes, resource limitations, and real estate challenges. - Why America should raise tariffs on anything made in China where it would be strategically important for those goods to be made somewhere else. - The state of real estate in China, including the fact that China’s economy is 30% real estate (double the percentage in the US) a...
Jun 14, 2022•1 hr 21 min
Jacob Helberg (@jacobhelberg), foreign policy expert and author of The Wires of War, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss: - Why he says peace through trade was the biggest foreign policy miscalculation in US history. - How US companies have approached operating in China and why Jacob would advise them to proactively work to decouple themselves from the Chinese market. - Why Jacob would prefer that American laws change to restrict Chinese investments in US companies. - Why the Belt and ...
Jun 07, 2022•49 min
Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen) is an economist, professor, and best-selling author. His latest book, Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World, written with co-author Daniel Gross, is available now. Tyler discusses how to discover undervalued talent, the importance of stamina, the best interview questions, peer ratings, late bloomers, and more. Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the we...
Jun 03, 2022•51 min
Geoff Lewis (@GeoffLewisOrg), founder at Bedrock, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss: - His thoughts on the markets and the advice he has for founders operating in a market like this one. - What is driving financial nihilism and how it has changed society. - Why he’s only investing in founders where their company is their life’s work. - Bedrock’s investments in hardware and companies making things in the physical world. - The perils of politics replacing religion as our mechanism for ...
Jun 02, 2022•45 min
Bilal Zuberi (@bznotes), partner at Lux Capital, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss: - Bilal’s investing thesis of finding companies building solutions to interesting problems that impact a lot of people. - Why he’s investing in space and defense companies. - What keeps him up at night and how his investments are working on those areas. - Why he’s optimistic about unifying America. - How to solve the problem of different people having different sets of facts. - Whether there will be a...
May 26, 2022•54 min
Hemant Taneja (@htaneja), managing partner at General Catalyst and author of Intended Consequences, joins Anne Dwane and Village Global’s newest partner, Prateek Alsi, to discuss: - What responsible innovation is and how tech can do good in the world using the framework. - How founders should think about responsible innovation at the earliest stages of a company. - The importance of thinking from first principles. - Lessons from the creation process of the companies Hemant has been involved in. ...
May 17, 2022•34 min
Laura Crabtree (@llcrabbie), founder and CEO of Epsilon3, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode to discuss: - What she accomplished during her time at SpaceX and her journey to starting Epsilon3. - Whether the biggest contribution of SpaceX to the industry will be all the amazing people leaving to start their own space companies. - How to get into the space industry if you don’t already have a background in it. - Why a company like Epsilon3 hasn’t been built before. - The importance...
May 12, 2022•48 min
Jimmy Soni (@jimmyasoni), author of The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley, joins Ben Casnocha on this episode to discuss: - How diversity and variety of backgrounds and opinions helped PayPal become successful. - The fact that PayPal’s leading product was not solving a problem that they had set out to solve, but rather a problem they discovered along the way. - The importance of sitting with your customers and really understanding their perspective and...
May 10, 2022•19 min
Joshua Steinman (@JoshuaSteinman), founder and CEO of Galvanick, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss: - The history of cybersecurity at big industrial companies and how he is building “Splunk for industrial systems” to solve that problem. - His time at the National Security Council, what motivated him to work in government, and his work creating an “embassy in Silicon Valley.” - Why, with internet-connected devices, we’ve traded predictable downtime for unpredictable downtime. He gives...
May 03, 2022•57 min
Alex Iskold, co-founder and managing partner at 2048 Ventures and creator of 1kproject.org, joins Anne Dwane and Lucas Bagno on this episode to discuss: - What he is doing with 1kproject.org to help the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. - How he and a team of volunteers are empowering families in the US to send $1,000 directly to the bank card of a Ukrainian family. - How they use tech to vet applications to make sure the most deserving families receive funds. - What the money that is sent to Ukra...
Apr 28, 2022•23 min
Martin Gurri (@mgurri), author of The Revolt of the Public, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss: - The genesis of the thesis about the revolt of the public while Martin was working at the CIA analyzing communications as social media and blogging began to take off. - The challenges to authority that the free flow of information has presented and why those societies that allow for open communication have been winning. - The internet’s reactionary moment and whether there will be a “revol...
Apr 26, 2022•56 min
Chris Power (@2112Power), founder and CEO of Hadrian, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss: - Why manufacturing is key to a strong position in the world order. - The changes in the landscape that have enabled a company like Hadrian to be possible now, where it wasn’t five years ago. - What Chris would do if he was running the United States to win the new space race. - How to change the culture in the US so that more serious people can work on serious problems. - Why it’s easier than you...
Apr 19, 2022•53 min
Chris Power (@2112Power), founder and CEO of Hadrian, Katherine Boyle (@KTmBoyle), partner at a16z, and Josh Wolfe (@wolfejosh), co-founder and managing partner at Lux Capital, join Anne Dwane and Erik Torenberg on this episode to discuss: - How Hadrian is abstracting the supply chain for space, aerospace, and defense manufacturing, and how it is analogous to AWS and Twilio in the software world. - Why Chris is the right person to tackle this problem. He wants to do this for geopolitical and mor...
Apr 14, 2022•41 min
Mike Maples (@m2jr), founding partner at Floodgate, joins Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) and Ian Cinnamon (@iancinnamon) to discuss: - Why there has been an “epidemic of fakery” in society over the last 50 years or so. Mike says that institutions are pretending to be working rather than doing actual work. - Why the right “angle of attack” for societal problems is not head-on but rather to create something completely different than changes the subject entirely. - Why he advises founders to make sure...
Apr 05, 2022•52 min
Ayo Omojola ( https://www.linkedin.com/in/omojola/) , SVP of Product at Carbon Health, joins Anne Dwane (@adwane) and Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) to discuss: - What he noticed moving from fintech to healthtech. - Advice for people working in a highly regulated industry like healthcare. - What’s unique about Carbon Health and why healthtech is so promising. - Why he likes to hire former founders and his favorite interview questions. - How he thinks about angel investing as an operator and why “an...
Mar 31, 2022•28 min
Delian Asparouhov (@zebulgar), co-founder of Varda Space Industries and principal at Founders Fund, joins Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) and Ian Cinnamon (@iancinnammon) on this episode to discuss: - Why he says that VCs have a moral obligation to fund companies that help keep America a step ahead of its adversaries. - Why space matters for him personally and why expanding the economic bounds of humankind is the best way to achieve all of humanity’s other goals. - The current state of the space eco...
Mar 29, 2022•50 min
Katherine Boyle (@KTmBoyle), GP at a16z, joins Anne Dwane (@adwane) and Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) on this episode to discuss: - What needs to change inside the federal government for more contracts to go to startups. - How startups should think about working with state and local governments. - How trust has declined in public institutions over the last several decades and how companies can credibly step into that void by building in public and telling their own story. - How Starlink will chang...
Mar 22, 2022•47 min
Cristina Cordova was the 28th employee at Stripe and grew their partnerships arm from the ground up. Most recently, she led platform & partnerships at Notion, which included starting the Growth Product Team. In this episode, we discuss how to build a partnerships team, what to look for in BD hires, and the ins and outs of successful deal-making. Cristina is an active angel and advisor. You can hear more from her by following @cjc on Twitter. --- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and pione...
Mar 17, 2022•51 min
Trae Stephens (@traestephens), co-founder at Anduril and partner at Founders Fund joins Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) and Ian Cinnamon (@iancinnamon) to discuss: - What keeps him up at night when he looks at the US today. - What he would change about the US government if he could wave a magic wand. - Common mistakes made by people selling to government. - How they think about acquisitions at Anduril. - Advice for people looking to build in the defense space. - What gives him hope when he thinks ab...
Mar 15, 2022•49 min
Richard Ni is the current Head of People at Scale AI after being the first recruiting hire at Cruise Automation, where he helped bring the team from 10 to 700 in three years. Prior to leading people teams, Richard was a Software Engineer at Venmo and a Computer Science major at MIT. We discuss the unique perspective that his technical background gives him in recruiting, how to solicit genuine feedback from employees, and build a leveling system. --- Execs is a show for founders, operators, and p...
Mar 11, 2022•44 min
Village Global's Solarpunk is a new podcast series about technology, space, and defense. We discuss how western society will use technology to adapt to the changing global landscape. We’re inspired by the theme of solarpunk — the mindset of what the planet will look like when humanity succeeds in solving major contemporary challenges through technology. Josh Wolfe (@wolfejosh), co-founder and managing partner at Lux Capital, joins Lucas Bagno (@lucasbagnocv) and Ian Cinnamon (@IanCinnamon), inve...
Mar 08, 2022•40 min
