Riskgaming

University endowments are one of the key nexuses by which finance influences the future of science, tech, and the human condition, and what happens at endowments and other limited partners (LPs) matters deeply both for their clients but also the wider VC asset class. Washington University in St. Louis Chief Investment Officer Scott Wilson, who drove the university’s record-breaking 65% return last...

While a huge amount of attention is being directed at crypto and media these days, one of the most important wild card investment trends of the 2020s is the coming expansion of biotech. Democratized science tools, improved research networking, and lab automation will revolutionize the practice of biotech, and that means there are huge opportunities for intrepid founders. But there’s a catch: biote...

There’s a huge expansion in demand for compute power going on, with AI models, cryptocurrencies, autonomous vehicles and our social media algorithms all guzzling more chip cycles than ever before. But we’re also in the midst of a climate emergency, and chips are a major cause of energy demand. How do we reconcile the two? Joining me to talk about this as well as the future of the semiconductor ind...

“Redlines” in war are meant to be objective and unambiguous tests for a country to respond to another nation’s action. If one country uses chemical weapons in a conflict, that might violate the redline of another country and therefore force it to conduct military operations in response to reinforce the international laws and norms against the use of such weapons. Redlines though are often ambiguou...

In his new book, “The Power Law: Venture Capital and the Making of the Future,” Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Sebastian Mallaby brings his erudite attention from the hedge fund world to venture capital, interviewing the industry’s leading players over the last 50 years to discover what is unique about this industry that “manufactures courage.” In this episode, Mallaby, Josh Wolfe and...

web3 technologies have received prodigious funding the past two years as founders and VCs collectively search for the path to the next evolution of the internet. But how do we bridge the gap between the ubiquitous Web 2.0 world with what we see coming in web3? In this episode, Lux VC investor Grace Isford joins host Danny Crichton to discuss the key infrastructure investments in what she is dubbin...

Josh Wolfe and Danny Crichton talk about the influx of TV shows covering startup busts including WeCrashed, Super Pumped, and The Dropout; strategic ambiguity, game theory, and a bit of geopolitics; and what the case for optimism is in this world, including the difference between complacent optimism and conditional optimism. Finally, Danny observes the perilous state of corruption in the world tod...

The funding of science is one of the most important leverage points for growth in the global economy. Yet, we’ve barely experimented with how science gets funded or tried to evolve financing models that were invented decades ago. Now, dozens of new organizations have been started to explore novel models for funding scientists to do their best work. Danny Crichton is joined by Lux Capital’s scienti...

Danny Crichton talks with TechCrunch Global Affairs Project special series editor Scott Bade about the passing of Madeleine Albright, the intricate and extensive connections between tech innovation and U.S. foreign policy, the need for an American technology doctrine, and developments in U.S.-China relations.

In Episode 0 of “Securities” by Lux Capital, Danny Crichton and Chris Gates talk about why the world needs another podcast; Deena Shakir joins to discuss the future of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) and a company she funded called Alife Health, and Danny discusses the global challenges that tech must confront in the 2020s. This is Episode 0 — named for the best movie in the Star Wars franchise and w...