Village Global Podcast

Noah Smith (@Noahpinion) of Bloomberg joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - Whether the current version of college as a “high tuition summer camp” can be sustained. - How universities will attract students. - Where he disagrees with Tyler Cowen on college. - How college has evolved over time. - How college will be unbundled. - Whether there will be corporate universities. Thanks for listening —...

Jason Crawford (@jasoncrawford), author of The Roots of Progress, joins Erik to discuss: - The key aspects of human progress. - The history of progress over time. - Whether we’ve traded off progress for safety. - Why the idea of progress is relatively new. - What the nature of science fiction writing tells us about our vision for progress. - Why progress happens differently in different domains. -...

Niko Skievaski (@niko_ski), founder and president of Redox, and Nikita Singareddy (@singareddynm), investor at RRE Ventures, join Erik to discuss: - How regulation has changed the landscape in healthcare. - How to figure out what the the next wave in healthcare will be. - Why in the past government regulation has pulled technology into the present that wasn’t ready. - The biggest trends in healthc...

Anuj Abrol (@nujabrol), founder of Witty Wealth and formerly Chief of Staff at Atrium, joins Erik to discuss: - Why public stock activity has surged, especially among young people. - A primer on SPACs and their advantages and disadvantages. - Direct listings vs. IPOs vs. SPACs. - Why Slack is such a polarizing company. - Why there is dissatisfaction with roboadvisors. - The role of memes in public...

Mark Lutter (@MarkLutter), founder and executive director of the Charter City Institute, joins Erik. They discuss: - The key factors that make countries successful or prosperous. - The different schools of thought on charter cities. - What the key factors to get right with a charter city are. - What Silicon Valley understands and misunderstands about charter cities. - Why there are few true entrep...

Joey Krug (@joeykrug), founder of Augur and partner at Pantera Capital, joins Erik to discuss: - How prediction markets have evolved over time. - An update on the state of Augur. - The types of things that people are betting on using prediction markets. - How to address some of the barriers to prediction markets becoming more widespread. - The current state of crypto, including smart contracts and...

Erik's chat with founder/angel-turned-VC, @stevejang of @kindredventures, about supporting founders at seed and how building startups has changed in this cycle: - using a beginner’s mind - importance of creativity & taste in startups - no-code and democratizing access - marketplaces and community-ownership - a post-smartphone computing paradigm - post-COVID themes Thanks for listening — if you lik...

Tanner Greer (@Scholars_Stage), author of the Scholars Stage blog, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss: - The differences in perspectives between east and west. - Why China didn’t liberalize as it got more prosperous. - How the US’s foreign policy should have been different in the past with respect to China. - Why people are becoming more hawkish on China. - His thoughts on Twitter. - His tho...

Justin Murphy (@jmrphy), full-stack professor, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss: - The current problems with academia. - Challenges that universities are facing today. - Why teaching should be disaggregated or unbundled. - The full-stack professor setup. - What changes if five years from now professors start going D2C. - His thoughts on Rene Girard and other philosophers. - How to improve...

Megan O’Connor (@MeganMOConnor), entrepreneur-in-residence at Kaplan, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss: - The recent waves of innovation in education. - How college and K-12 evolve post-COVID. - What will have changed about education in the next 5-10 years. - Whether she would bet on solutions inside or outside of the existing education system. - The future of ISAs. - What the new wave wil...

Jose Luis Ricón Fernández de la Puente (@ArtirKel) joins Erik on this episode. He is currently at Twitter and is a researcher in several areas including the science of longevity. They discuss: - How science funding works currently and how it would work if he was redesigning the system. - Whether progress in science is slowing down. - His thoughts on GDP and how we measure innovation. - Whether the...

Jacob Helberg (@jacobhelberg), senior advisor at Stanford Cyber, adjunct fellow at CSIS, and formerly of Google, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss: - The competition between the US and China. - The biggest misconceptions that people have about China. - Common disagreements or unanswered questions about the competition between the two countries. - Why the principle that as countries become r...

Eric Rosenblum, partner at Tsingyuan Ventures, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss: - US-China relations. - The differences between the internet markets in the US and China. - The (potential) rise of deep tech and which spaces Eric is excited about. - Why the commercial rivalry between the US and China has formed the core of the anxiety about China in the US. - The new wave of companies with...

Li Jin (@ljin18), formerly of a16z and founder of a new firm called Atelier, and Nathan Baschez (@nbashaw), writer of Divinations and co-founder of the Everything bundle, join Erik on this episode. They discuss: - Where they would be investing if they were running a fund focused on the space. - The first wave of content companies and the lessons that have been learned from them. - The key learning...

Dan Romero (@dwr), formerly of Coinbase, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss: - Why startup titles are an unnecessary distraction. - The lessons he learned from scaling Coinbase. - Some of the best books he’s read. - What he learned from his deep dive on communism and why socialism seems popular with young people today. - What people don’t appreciate about the history of technology. - His tho...

Mike Solana (@micsolana), of Founders Fund, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss: - What brought him to Founders Fund. - Collectivism versus individualism. - How to make capitalism cool. - Where to find a philosophy of morality. - Climate change, altering nature, and nuclear power. - Thoughts on AI, AR, and VR. - The problems with San Francisco and why tech workers are leaving. - How the tech...

Mark Pincus (@markpinc) joined us last summer in San Francisco for a town hall with Ben Casnocha, co-founder and partner at Village Global. Mark is co-founder and Executive Chairman of Zynga, and is an angel investor in Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and other companies. He talked about about raising venture capital, his philosophy of product management, the early days at Zynga, and much more. He al...

Sander Daniels (@sanderdaniels), co-founder of Thumbtack, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of the OnDeck Fellowship. They discuss: - The origin story of Thumbtack and how he came together with his co-founders. - How he went from a founder to an executive and the advice that his coaches gave him. - His advice on the idea generation process. - The biggest challenges that they face...

Katherine Boyle (@KTmBoyle), investor at General Catalyst, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss: - Katherine’s piece in the Washington Post about religion and how software can help transform it. - Polarization in society, politics, news, and the end of the fairness doctrine. - Journalists as free agents and why she says subscription will be the future of good journalism. - Why any institution...

Dhruv Jain (@groovyydhruvy) and Kent Bennett (@kentbennett) of Bessemer join Erik on this episode. They discuss: - Why B2B marketplaces version 1.0 didn’t work and how version 2.0 can succeed. - How to make a vertical marketplace work. - Shifts happening in industries that are using older technologies to transact. - Specific sub-sectors they are looking to invest in and which they find most intere...

Sean Linehan (@seanlinehan), co-founder and CEO of Placement, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an OnDeck Fellowship event. They discuss: - How he navigated the idea maze after leaving Flexport before founding Placement. - How to know when the time is right for your idea. - Early experimentation with an idea and why you need customers, employees, and investors to all be excite...

Charles Hudson, founder of Precursor, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded live as part of an OnDeck Fellowship event. They discuss: - How he decides what to invest in. - Why he says that he is often “looking for good ideas that initially look like bad ideas.” - Why he has “an allergy to top-down market assessments.” - How entrepreneurs should think about margins. - Advice for founders work...

Landon Brand of Wren (@project_wren) and Dani Grant (@thedanigrant) of USV, join Erik on this episode. They discuss: - Dani’s deep dive on the climate crisis and which solutions might be able to help. - Requests for startups in the space and where they would be investing if they were running a fund focused on climate change. - Why cleantech is worth investing in now after the bust in the late 2000...

Ramez Naam (@ramez), author of the Nexus series, joins Erik on this episode. They discuss: - The arc of his career and what drove him to work on what he did. - Why clean energy didn’t realize its potential in the 2000s and why now is a good time to invest in clean energy. - His market map of opportunities in clean energy and the impact on the space that Moore’s Law is having. - The influence of Ke...

Yancey Strickler (@ystrickler), co-founder of Kickstarter and author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World, joins Erik on this episode. The discuss: - His experience working on Kickstarter and what he realized about the power of the profit motive in an early-stage company. - His vision of the world if the ideas from his book become widespread. - The possibilities for c...