Venture Stories

Erik’s co-host for this episode is Ali Hamed (@AliBHamed) of CoVenture. They are interviewing Tonio DeSorrento (@TonioDeSo), CEO and co-founder of Vemo Education.They talk about the history of income-sharing agreements, including that Milton Friedman had once proposed the idea and that Yale University had experimented with them at one point.Tonio talks about starting Vemo and how he has brought income-sharing agreements to more and more educational institutions. They discuss the fact that 88% of students entering college are doing so to improve their early career path but that most institutions would say that providing a career path is not the primary value they provide. Tonio explains that Vemo has helped students find the right institution for them by publishing outcomes from the income-sharing agreements. He says that this transparency of outcomes has in and of itself changed how colleges look at the service they provide.They move on to talking about the future of higher education in general, why there doe

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by Mike Merrill (@kmikeym), the world’s first and only publicly traded person, along with Mike’s friend, co-founder and shareholder, Marcus Estes (@marcusestes), co-founder and CEO of Chroma.We hear the backstory on how Mike became the world’s first “publicly traded person” and hear a funny story about an early 2000s arts group turned their group into a corporation in order to thwart an attempt by an e-commerce company to take over their domain name.They run through the ins and outs of what life is like for Mike and how having a live market where anyone can buy or sell “shares” in him distinguishes this from other experiments. He says that he originally set up the arrangement to give people input into his side projects but over time their decision-making power has expanded to his personal life. He explains how this has influenced how he thinks about the idea of owning “shares” in other people more generally.Mike talks about the element of satire present in th

In this special live episode of Venture Stories, Erik Torenberg interviews two special guests about the present and future of crypto: Naval Ravikant (@naval), CEO and co-founder of AngelList, and Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis), CTO of Coinbase. 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 wide swath of society today, including areas like money, electricity, social networks, storage, and more. They explain why decentralization will "fulfill the original promise of the internet."Erik asks how each of them got into the space after having had success in other areas. It’s pointed out that it’s very rare that something comes along that is “technologically interesting, socially revolutionary, and that can also make you very rich.” They move on to a discussi

Patri Friedman joins Erik on this episode of Venture Stories. He founded The Seasteading Institute in 2008 with funding from Peter Thiel. His father is political theorist David Friedman and his grandfather is Nobel Laureate in economics, Milton Friedman.Over the course of their nearly two-hour conversation they cover a lot of ground, including crypto, physical (and virtual) governance, the current state of politics, Silicon Valley, and much more.Patri starts by explaining why he is both skeptical and optimistic about crypto — and why that position is not incompatible. He says that the tech boom around 2000 had “a lot of junk” but a lot of innovation came out of it at the same time.He talks about starting The Seasteading Institute, the impetus behind the project and the successes and challenges they have had. He enumerates the issues with the structures of current countries, governments, and legal systems around the world and why by the logic of the market, one would expect countries and legal systems not to b

This is a special episode of Venture Stories 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 the early days of Google, to today.Cowen asks about Schmidt’s formative intellectual experiences as a young person and we hear the story of Schmidt studying as an architect prior to entering into a computer science program. After graduation, Schmidt interned at both Xerox PARC and Bell Labs. He recounts stories of his time at the research labs and discusses to what extent the lab model does or doesn’t work today. Cowen astutely points out that Schmidt is one of the few people around whose career spans several significant eras in the history of computing.They move on to

Erik was interviewed by Jacob Evan Smith (@jacobsmith88) at Venture For America in Detroit, which is where Erik attended the University of Michigan before he started his live rap battle app, rapt.fm.In this episode he talks about founding and running rapt.fm, why it didn’t work out, and how he ended up joining Product Hunt before co-founding Village Global.Erik explains why it’s not important that entrepreneurs get it right the first time, but instead that they don’t stop trying.He talks about why lifestyle businesses are unfairly looked down upon in startup world, the usefulness of failing, and why you need to keep your identity separate from your company.He also talks about why you want to do things that seem hard to other people but easy to you and why when building a network you should give without taking, without thought of what you might get in return.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get i

On this episode of Health Stories, Erik is joined by James Hardiman (@hardimanjames) and Scott Barclay (@SABarclay) of Data Collective, a deep tech and AI venture fund.Scott and James are live in-studio with Erik to discuss a number of interesting topics around the health space. Scott and James explain what they mean when they say innovation in the last 50 years was driven by the semiconductor but the next 50 years will be driven by biotechnology. The three of them discuss the state of the healthcare in the US and how entrepreneurs and investors can “take a crowbar to the health system.” They discuss the misaligned incentives in the US healthcare system and how payers might be incentivized to pay for preventative care. They mention that the US pays about 18% of GDP for healthcare while still having poorer health outcomes than countries in Northern Europe that pay about 9% of GDP. They explain why they are predicting a contraction in the number of hospitals in the US and why there are double to triple the numb

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik and his co-host Tony Sheng are joined by Jacob Arluck (@JacobArluck) of Tezos and Peter Czaban of Polkadot and the Web3 Foundation. The four of them get into the details of the mechanisms of governance, including voting, councils, and other methods of governance.They discuss hard forks and why they are not ideal but sometimes necessary. The group also discusses common misconceptions around on-chain governance and their requests for products or startups in the space. They explain what it means to get to the decentralized ideal without re-centralizing when it comes to governance as well as why the best case scenario for crypto users is that they are not thinking about governance at all as it recedes into the background.Co-host Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) leads product at Decentraland. He also publishes analyses on the business and strategy of crypto at tonysheng.com and is one of Village’s Network Leaders.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by James Currier (@JamesCurrier) and Pete Flint (@peteflint), of NFX. NFX is a great venture capital firm founded on the concept of network effects. Erik, James and Pete cover a bunch of fascinating topics in the interview.Pete and James explain why network effects make such good businesses — so good in fact, that they don’t have to even be run particularly well to still have great revenue, as James found out when he sold to a big incumbent.Erik asks whether it’s possible to add network effects to an existing business or whether they have to be baked into the business model from the beginning. He also runs through a variety of verticals like healthcare, real estate, education, travel and others, asking his guests to talk about where the opportunities are to build businesses that leverage network effects in those spaces. James explains what he means by the phrase “the best entrepreneurs are going to be the best historians” and they talk about why “timing is ev

Gabriel Otte (@gabeotte), CEO and co-founder of Freenome, joins Erik on this episode of Venture Stories to talk about cancer screening.Gabriel starts out by talking about why he got into the cancer screening space and how Freenome got started. He lays out the different methods of cancer detection and why Freenome has chosen their specific approach to the problem. Erik asks how it compares to other companies working on similar problems and Gabriel helps create a market map of the space.Gabriel points out that 93 million people in the United States were instructed by their doctor to be screened for colorectal cancer last year but 70 million of them did nothing at all. He talks about why Freenome has chosen to hone in on this specific type of cancer screening and why it lends itself to an improved UX.They move on to a discussion of the uniqueness of building a product and company in the health space and why the dynamics are so different than those of other tech companies. Gabriel talks about the FDA approval pro

Gabe Bassin (@gabebassin) and Taylor Pearson (@TaylorPearsonMe) join Erik for this episode.They cover a lot of ground in this episode where they explore some of the coming financial challenges that the US faces and how crypto might impact the markets and the economy in general.Gabe gives an overview of the current state of public debt and future government obligations. He explains how the fed ended up with four trillion dollars on its balance sheet.He says that “the market’s been programmed to be saved” and talks about the impacts of quantitative easing, or printing more money. Gabe and Taylor discuss volatility in the markets and potential looming financial crises. Gabe points out that public pension funds are underfunded and that fund managers need to make a 7% annualized return to meet their obligations. Given that these funds are the biggest players in the markets, this has a number of implications both for the market and society in general.They close out by talking about crypto and Bitcoin specifically,

This is a deep dive into the mind of Eugene Wei. Erik and Eugene discuss all kinds of topics, including the unique state of ambition in Silicon Valley, “apprenticeships” for white collar jobs, Eugene’s favorite fiction books, what he would do if he was running the New York Knicks, and much more.They start by talking about the differences in extent and type of ambition between Silicon Valley and other places like New York or LA, as well as how you might spread the spirit of entrepreneurship that lives in the Valley further afield. Eugene talks about the progression of his career and what kind of advice he would have for others. He talks about the twists and turns in his career and describes what it was like going back to film school after having worked at Amazon. They talk about Eugene’s reading habits and the fact that he reads 20 non-fiction books at a time simultaneously. He also gives his recommendations on his favorite fiction books.Eugene says that Jeff Bezos had a different young executive shadow him fo

In this episode of Health Stories, Erik is talking to Othman Laraki (@othman) and Alicia Zhou (@ay_zhou) of Color. Othman is co-founder and CEO and Alicia Zhou is Head of Research. Othman explains the personal reason that he started Color and why he got involved in the healthcare space after previously working at Google and running a company that was acquired by Twitter.Alicia and Othman explain the advances Color has made in genomics and how the approach they’re taking is different from that of other companies in the space. You might not have known that 30% of your health is related to your genome. There are also a number of new types of care that can be unlocked by having your genome sequenced.Othman explains how at Color they are hoping to follow the model of Google or Amazon where early in the company’s life they focus on doing one thing really well, then expand into other areas. He also talks about where he would be building a company in the space if he wasn't working at Color as well as where he might l

Sunny Aggarwal (@sunnya97) of Cosmos and Tendermint joins Erik and co-host Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb), GP at MetaStable Capital, for this episode of Crypto Stories.They discuss how blockchains could be made to be interoperable with one another. Sunny explains why this is an important problem and what he is doing about it with Cosmos. He talks about why different types of tokens cannot yet be exchanged confidently.Sunny uses the analogy of a multithreaded CPU that we all use these days to explain how interoperable blockchains might work. They compare it to sharding and talk about how it would affect payments. Haseeb also asks what Sunny would like the crypto world to look like if he is successful with Cosmos and what the potential pitfalls might be. Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-f

In this episode Alex Danco (@alex_danco) of Social Capital joins Erik to talk about Silicon Valley, economics, innovation, crypto, software and more. He is a very unique thinker with interesting opinions about the tech space.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 proceeded in the world and explains how Silicon Valley — via software specifically — has changed the mechanism of innovation. He talks about how this has resulted in disproportionate gains accruing to the huge tech companies. This new model of innovation has also changed how companies are valued. Alex breaks down the new metrics that are being used by VCs and founders to value their firms — and why this could be contributing to a new tech bubble.Alex also talks about the economics of the Valley and why gains in productivity from tec

Erik is joined by Adrian Aoun (@adrianaoun), founder of Forward, a company that is trying to reinvent how primary healthcare is delivered. His previous company Wavii, was acquired by Google — where Adrian led AI efforts as well as working on special projects for Google’s CEO.Adrian explains the personal reason for his desire to found a healthcare company. He talks about why he is trying to build something completely outside the traditional healthcare system and gives a rundown of the amazing tech that Forward has been working on.The two of them also discuss why no healthcare company has achieved the scale that tech companies have — and how Forward might be one of the first companies to achieve that scale. Erik asks Adrian about his lessons learned when it comes to scaling and Adrian has a number of great tips about how to identify talent.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on T

Erik and his co-host Taylor Pearson (@TaylorPearsonMe), author of The End of Jobs, are joined by Dhruv Bansal (@dhruvbansal), co-founder of Unchained Capital. On this episode they discuss a number of interesting topics, getting progressively “weirder” as they go along. In the beginning they get Dhruv’s take on the contrasts between Bitcoin and Ethereum and how the prevailing narrative around each of them affects how people perceive their strengths and weaknesses.By the end, they’re discussing if it’s possible to have money if humans are an interstellar species and whether it’s possible that Satoshi is a time-traveller from the future.In between, they cover a number of (equally) interesting topics, like Dhruv’s idea that blockchains are technologies for building political system” and why blockchain and Bitcoin are not actually a continuation of the internet, as they are commonly portrayed. Dhruv also explains what the “Nakamoto Point” is, where he would be investing, and what his “requests for products” are in

This episode of Venture Stories was recorded in front of a live audience in San Francisco in October 2018. Keith was interviewed by Village Global partner and co-founder, Erik Torenberg. In the episode they cover a number of topics, and Keith (as usual) is very insightful.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 which inflection points led to their advancement and how young people in similar situations can model their careers after them.Erik explains the four dimensions over which he thinks about career building and where he thinks young people are over-optimizing.Keith shares what Peter Thiel told him about hiring while the two were on a run around the Stanford campus shortly after Keith joined PayPal. He talks about how as a manager he challenges the people working for him, and why as an employee you should always want to feel like you’re pus

On this episode of Health Stories, Erik is joined by Jay Desai (@jdesai01) of PatientPing (patientping.com) and Joe Kahn (@josephwandile) of Karuna Health (meetkaruna.com).Both Joe and Jay are working on how to make sure that patient care is coordinated across multiple providers. When patients visit different providers, their care information is not shared between them and Jay and Joe are working to change that.The two companies are taking different approaches to the problem and the two founders explain why they’ve chosen to attack the problem the way they have and how they got started down this path.Joe and Jay explain how they are helping some of the most vulnerable individuals in the healthcare system and why this is nevertheless a good business to be in and why optimizing their care is good for providers. They give their recommendations on where they would be investing if they were running a fund in the healthcare space as well as what opportunities exist in the industry. They also explain why healthcare

In this episode Erik is joined by Ryan Sean Adams (@RyanSAdams) of Mythos Capital and Dan Zuller (@danzuller) of Vision Hill Advisors.They talk about their backgrounds, how they became interested in crypto, and how that has informed what they are doing now with their companies in the space. Ryan explains why he’s structured Mythos as a holding company rather than a hedge fund or venture fund. Dan talks about how to bridge traditional finance and crypto and takes us through the current “money stack” that is worth an estimated 80-90 trillion dollars. Ryan talks about what he calls “maximalist hubris” and why he believes both Ethereum and Bitcoin can co-exist and both have massive upside. He explains why he believes that Ethereum is about 30% finished, Bitcoin is about 80% finished, and why in judging their probabilities of success, one should look at the finished end state and discount from there based on the probability of executing.They also talk about Web3 and why digital scarcity is the key innovation conta