Venture Stories

- The narrative that China can do no wrong and why Noah says it is out of date at this point.- The long-term headwinds that China is facing, including demographic changes, resource limitations, and real estate challenges.- Why America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) and that cities in China are sprawling and more akin to Chicago than Tokyo or Seoul.- Xi Jinping’s performance to date, why he’s “picking losers” in the Chinese stock market to try to bolster certain industries, and why the Zero COVID push is about Xi trying to appear strong.- The fact that China could be moderately competent and could still take over the world because of its sheer size.- Noah’s book recommendations for people who want to learn more about China.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please revie

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 Road Initiative has come to be seen as a debt trap.- What keeps him optimistic and what ordinary Americans can do if they are concerned about China.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in

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 web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

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 forming community.- The crisis of meaning in society.- The institutionalization of venture capital over the last decade and why he’s an advocate of going back to basics with small teams making fewer high conviction investments.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recomm

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 reckoning for American firms that have invested in Chinese companies.- His advice to founders building in complex markets and working with the government.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenin

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.- A better alternative to “move fast and break things.”- Which areas he excited about investing in, including healthcare and India.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley.

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 of being vulnerable as a founder.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

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 their problems.- What he learned about Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, and David Sacks.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/si

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 the example of a Cadbury plant that was completely shut down by malware.- The different types of cyber attacks, the evolution of war over time, and how to “defend forward” by disabling malware before it shows up on systems.- The concept of “unrestricted warfare” and the fact that the Chinese government thinks about war as a continuous process across many dimensions while the US typically thinks of war on only one dimension.- Information operations and how they have affected public opinion in the US on various topics.Than

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 Ukrainian families is typically used for.- The impact of the war on the startup ecosystem in Ukraine.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

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 “revolt of the revolt.”- Why he says that China is “the 20th century gone digital” and why he thinks that will not last.- His belief that democracy will survive and why he thinks that the “psychotic conditions” in American society will not last.- Why elites need to have humility about their ability to solve problems in society.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want

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 think to get involved in deep tech.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

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 moral reasons and also has the ability to get into the weeds on a micro level.- How tech can help people move into higher-skill jobs and how it can increase the total number of jobs in a given field.- How COVID has made people realize that the world is no longer post-nation state nor post-borders.- Which policy changes the US government can make to advance its position in the world, technologically and otherwise.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us ou

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 they are working on an idea that is worthy of their time and why as a founder you need to “get out of the present and start living in the future.”- How Silicon Valley can have more empathy and make the case for broader prosperity.- How to build connection and shared purpose in an American society that is increasingly tribal.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.

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 “angel investing is like a really expensive email newsletter.”Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

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 economy and the space supply chain, and how he sees them evolving in the future.- Why the US is in a new space race with Russia and China.- His advice on building a space company for aspiring founders.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event

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 change where people live and how they live their offline life.- Why, if people are laughing at you, you’re probably taking yourself seriously enough.- What tech misunderstands about government and vice versa, including how Silicon Valley came to have a positive sum mindset and Washington ended up with a zero sum mindset.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get

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 pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale.  To engage further: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg 
Produced by: @jacksonsteger

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 about the future of the US.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

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 pioneers who want to understand the playbooks, frameworks, and tactics that leading tech companies today have used to scale. Share your thoughts with us on Twitter: Hosted by: @eriktorenberg Produced by: @jacksonsteger