Village Global Podcast

This episode is part of a three-part series taking listeners behind the curtain to discuss the inner workings of venture capital. Erik is joined by co-host for this episode, Adam Corey (@frumpy), partner at Village Global, and Clint Korver (@ckorver), managing director at Ulu Ventures. They discuss Ulu’s approach to portfolio construction and how it is using data to figure out which companies to invest in. As you'll notice, Clint is a wealth of fascinating statistics about venture investing.Clint explains why venture investing is analogous to other industries like pharmaceuticals and oil and gas extraction that follow a power law distribution. He points out that 100 venture investments out of 4,000 total in a given year create nearly all the profit in the venture industry. Clint explains how, taking cues from other industries mentioned above, Ulu uses data to predict which companies will be worth investing in.He says that the two main tenets of their investing thesis at Ulu are: 1. Invest early, and 2. Have large portfolios. Clint runs through the rationale for these ideas and why they diverge from VC “conventional wisdom.” Erik and Adam discuss the approach that Village is taking and compare it to what Ulu and other VC firms are doing, in order to flesh out the differences in investing theses.Clint also talks about the differences in returns between folllow-on and early stage and why Ulu doesn’t have a rigid reserve fund size. The three of them also talk about why the approaches of some of the biggest and most successful firms these days don’t scale down to smaller funds.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-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

This episode is part of a three-part series taking listeners behind the curtain to discuss the inner workings of venture capital. On this episode Erik is joined by Parker Thompson (@pt), partner at AngelList, and angel investor Dustin Dolginow (@dolginow).The trio discuss the past, present and future of scout programs. They start out by talking about Sequoia’s creation of the scout program nearly ten years ago and why it was considered a “loss leader” for the firm, meaning that it generated goodwill and created a network, but the return on the deals was not actually very good. The three of them discuss some of the potential pitfalls of the scout program, whether it can create good returns on its own, and the similarities and differences of Village’s Network Leader program to existing scout programs.Both Dustin and Parker have worked at AngelList, and the two discuss why AngelList’s model, which Parker calls a “1099 VC model.” They talk about how and when we might see a recreation of the consensus decision-making system that pervades the industry today and why that change is needed. They also talk about how someone seeking to get into venture or being a scout for a venture fund can do so.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-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

This episode is part of a three-part series taking listeners behind the curtain to discuss the inner workings of venture capital. Parker Thompson (@pt), partner at AngelList, and Ash Fontana (@ashfontana), general partner at Zetta Ventures, join Erik on this episode.They start off by discussing why topics around VC and portfolio construction in particular are so controversial. Parker and Ash give a rundown of how they invest with their respective funds and what their theses are when it comes to venture investing. They address the perennial debate of how much money to allot to initial round investing versus reserves for follow-on investing. It gets pointed out that based on the data, new funds are as likely as existing funds to succeed, and they talk about whether there’s a universal answer to the question of how much money under management a VC would ideally like to have. The three of them talk about the possibility of scaling up a fund with operating partners and discuss research that shows that the more companies invested in, the better the returns. That trend continues to hold, in theory, no matter how big the fund gets. However, Parker brings up the "math versus reality dichotomy," and they talk about why in practice scaling up infinitely doesn’t work.Erik asks both of them how they would set up their fund if they had no constraints, and they talk about why "fund size is destiny" in venture. Ash and Parker explain why even though venture firms say that the founder is their customer, really the LPs are the actual customers. They also talk about why innovation is needed on the standard “2 and 20” model (2% management fees and 20% carry), discuss potential replacement models, and explain why Y Combinator has the best business model in venture, even though there are some pitfalls for entrepreneurs.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-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

On this episode of Venture Stories Erik is joined by Parker Thompson (@pt), partner at AngelList, and Parker Conrad (@parkerconrad), CEO of Rippling. In this episode they talk about how much value investors provide to founders, if any at all. They agree that the number one piece of value that an investor provides is as therapist for the founder. They get into the issues around mis-alignment of incentives between investors and founders and discuss some investor horror stories they’ve heard from founders that you typically won’t hear discussed out loud. Parker Conrad says that sometimes investors are value-destroyers.They discuss why investors need to market themselves as “founder-friendly” and why if someone needs to point out that they “add value” then they likely aren’t adding as much value as they’d like you to think. Parker and Parker talk about the amount of signalling in investing and why VCs do things as much for their LPs as for the founders. They agree that the impact of investors on your company is overrated and that a good investor has about the same effect as a good director-level hire. They also discuss the idea of a union for entrepreneurs, the effects of standardized deal terms and why the idea of a “Glassdoor for investors” hasn’t found traction yet.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 and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) joins Erik on this episode. Noah is an economist and Bloomberg Opinion writer. The two have a wide-ranging discussion on a number of topics around tech, economics, politics, and more.Noah explains why concern over big Silicon Valley tech companies is perhaps overblown. They discuss cryptocurrency and why in Noah’s opinion the Austrian economists have it wrong. He also explains why he is not a fan of techno-libertarianism and runs through the gun as historical example of why technologists shouldn’t just build new tech to circumvent laws they don’t like.The two talk about why the government drives more innovation than it commonly gets credit for, what kinds of policies Noah would implement to reduce inequality, including why he would like to see an inheritance tax. Erik also asks about charter cities and Noah explains why they are a great idea in theory but that they will be a “hard sell.”Erik asks about a blog post of Noah’s from 2015 that seems quite prescient given the current moment, in which he describes a cycle of history involving globalization, financialization, economic decline, political polarization, leading to feuding between the right and the left. He talks about which stage he thinks we are in today and some of the historical parallels between the current moment and earlier eras in which war later broke out.Erik also asks what Noah would do if he could change anything about how education is delivered in America, why Noah says that UBI could be potentially destructive, and how his criticisms of macroeconomics have evolved.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-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Laura Deming (@laurademing) joins Erik in downtown San Francisco on this episode of Venture Stories. She is the creator of Longevity Fund, a venture capital firm investing in companies that will let humans live both longer and healthier.Erik starts by asking about the state of longevity science and which discoveries about aging Laura is most excited about. It turns out that certain animals don’t age the way that humans do and that there are certain animals that are similar to each other (like rats and naked mole rats) that nevertheless have wildly different life expectancies. These discoveries have Laura very excited about the possibilities for extending the human lifespan — in fact, she compares them to “finding gold in your living room” and says they don’t get enough attention.They talk about why creating a venture fund is the best way for Laura to make an impact on this problem as well as the realities of venture funding in the life sciences space. Laura explains why returns are so important.Erik asks how those of us who are not scientists can get involved in the space and which companies Laura is most excited about. She also runs through some of her requests for startups in the field.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 and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by Daniel Gross, founder of Pioneer, “an online tournament for productivity.” Prior to starting Pioneer, he founded Cue, a machine learning company that was acquired by Apple.Erik and Daniel discuss a wide variety of topics, including why saying something is “insanely great” isn’t necessarily a compliment for a founder, how to play “the video game that is life,” why the best way to get the physique you want is to move (cities), and how Twitter has reshaped the human psyche.They discuss Pioneer and how Daniel has thought about the decisions that went into its design. He talks about his aim of creating a “digital Ivy League campus” that harnesses the mechanics of games and applies them to more productive ends. Daniel also discusses why he says that life is like "a series of infinite games.”They also cover a number of other topics, including how Daniel thinks about friendships, the parallels between Pioneer and religion, how Daniel would change the education system, and why people will compete against each other but cooperate against an AI. They close with a game where Erik names a number of prominent individuals and Daniel talks about what he’s learned from that person.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 and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Mark Lutter (@MarkLutter), founder and executive director of the Centre For Innovative Governance Research, joins Erik on this special two-hour episode to talk about charter cities. They start off by discussing how Mark became interested in the idea of charter cities. Mark explains the two main schools of thought when it comes to new forms of governance and talks about his philosophy for figuring out the best way to govern and how that involves charter cities.He talks about the recent interest from Silicon Valley in charter cities and some of the projects that have been going on in the space. Mark talks about seasteading and why the promise of that project wasn’t realized. He points out that there are over 200 masterplanned cities being built around the world.Mark explains the differences between charter cities and special economic zones and the main models for charter cities and special economic zones. Erik asks what forms of government Mark would advocate for if he was building a brand new charter city from scratch. Mark talks about the reasons for avoiding centralized planning and reasoning from first principles and instead running experiments to see what kinds of phenomena emerge. They also have a lightning round where Erik names an individual and Mark explains where he agrees and disagrees with that individual’s thinking.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-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by two exciting guests: Qasar Younis (@qasar), co-founder of Applied Intuition, and Alexandr Wang (@alexandr_wang), CEO of Scale.Both Qasar and Alex are creating software that is transforming the way autonomous vehicles are being developed. The three of them have an expansive conversation about where autonomous technology is at today and how the technology and industry might evolve in the future. Throughout the conversation the founders peel back the curtain on the autonomous vehicle development process and put forth are a number of ideas about autonomous technology that run counter to the prevailing narrative in the media today.They begin by talking about some of the specific ways that software is transforming the auto industry and in what ways the tools the founders are building are being used in the development of autonomous technology. Erik asks about the pros and cons of being a horizontal company vs. a vertical company in the space, and Qasar and Alex discuss the extent to which existing car manufacturers have modularized the parts that go into traditional vehicles and why this trend will continue with autonomous technology.Qasar and Alex point out that the key question now is not if, but when, autonomous technology will be deployed at mass scale, and say that even three years ago it was unclear whether it was going to happen at all. They compare the industry as it exists now to the early days of the iPhone and say that like the iPhone app explosion, self-driving cars will be only one application that emerges on top of autonomous technology, which will itself be a much bigger market than the smartphone market. Qasar and Alex both agree that robo-taxis are overly focused on by the media and that other applications of autonomous technology such as in trucking, last-mile delivery and warehouses will arrive sooner and will be both much larger and more consequential than robo-taxis. Alex says that he believes autonomous vehicle technology will be only one part of a broader “robot revolution” 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 villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Erik Torenberg, co-founder and partner of Village Global, recently hosted an event for entrepreneurs in San Francisco to hear from founders of Village Global portfolio companies who have been through Village’s Network Catalyst accelerator.Joining Erik were:Nancy Yu (@nancyyu25), co-founder and CEO of RDMD, a company working to accelerate treatment for patients with rare diseases. Amrita Saigal, co-founder of Saathi, a company creating fully eco-friendly, compostable sanitary napkins in India.Jared Seehafer (@seehafer), co-founder and CEO of Enzyme, and a Village Global Network Leader.Nancy and Amrita talk about what it was like to go through the Network Catalyst program and how it has impacted the growth of their companies. Jared discusses being an advisor to the founders in the program.They talk about what makes Network Catalyst unique, including the emphasis at Village on the network, Village’s personalized one-on-one work with companies, the willingness to put on events dedicated entirely to one company and the influence that Village’s luminaries have had on the trajectory of the companies.The founders also share the details of their journey thus far and give their thoughts on some of the thorny issues that founders have to deal with in the course of starting a company, like finding the right co-founder, how to ideate through solutions, and the importance of of founder-idea fit.To apply to the program, visit www.villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst/Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.