Village Global Podcast

On this episode Erik talks to Freyja (Jess), thinker on human coordination at the Twitter handle @utotranslucence. They talk about: - How we should think about the idea of “compassion at scale.” - Why once a measure becomes a metric, it ceases to be an effective measure. - Whether it’s possible to build a social system without coercion. - The distinction between complex and complicated systems. -...

Arnold Kling (@KlingBlog), economist and former web entrepreneur, joins Erik on this episode for a wide-ranging discussion of tech, politics, business and economics. They talk about: - Arnold’s mission to replace neoclassical economics, including his dissection of its flaws. - How he would change how economics is taught, including his proposal for a better definition of economics than “the study o...

Dani Grant (@thedanigrant) of USV joins Erik on this episode to talk about education. Dani has been doing a deep dive into education and shares a wealth of insights on how the current system works, its flaws, and the people working on new forms of education for all ages. They talk about: - Why the school system is broken and why it’s often thought of as “government-sponsored daycare.” - How homesc...

Erik is joined on this episode by Karn Saroya (@karnsaroya), CEO of Cover, and Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi), investor in FinTech. They talk about… * How Karn navigated the idea maze in starting Cover. * The quirks of the insurance market and the real business model of big insurers. * How insurance is comparable to prediction markets. * Their requests for startups in the space, where the opportunities a...

Erik is joined on this episode by Mike Slagh (@MikeSlagh), co-founder and CEO of Shift, and Rahim Fazal (@rahimthedream), co-founder and CEO of SV Academy. They talk about: * How they “navigated the idea maze” to come to what they are doing today. * How they are helping people with non-traditional backgrounds break into Silicon Valley. * Why what they do is valuable both to the employer and the em...

Erik is joined on this special live episode by Sarah Tavel (@sarahtavel), general partner at Benchmark. Sarah gave a fireside chat as part of Village Global’s Network Catalyst accelerator program in May 2019. They talk about: * The state of education and what Sarah is looking for in the space. * Why founders need to focus on “getting one thing really right, no matter how big or small.” * What Sara...

Erik is joined on this episode by Michael Mayer (@micjm), co-founder of Bottomless. They talk about: * Pseudonymous accounts on Twitter. * Whether Twitter should be more ephemeral. * The dynamics of Twitter and why people seek entertainment instead of facts. * How to curate your Twitter feed. * Why Michael says it’s the responsibility of high-profile people to be on Twitter and speak their mind fr...

Erik is joined on this episode by Scott Page (@Scott_E_Page), professor at the University of Michigan and author of The Model Thinker. They talk about: * The idea of the wisdom of crowds. * Why cognitive diversity is important for a wise crowd. * Whether individual experts or groups of ordinary people make better predictions. * Which mental models VCs should be using. * Why Scott says “mastery is...

Erik is joined by Deon Nicholas (@dojiboy9), founder of Forethought, and co-host for this episode, Village Global Network Leader Brianne Kimmel (@briannekimmel). They talk about… * How Forethought is “making everyone a genius at their job” through their artificial intelligence platform. * How Deon navigated the idea maze and came to the idea for Forethought. * Why customer support is a prime candi...

Erik is joined on this episode by Matt Garratt (@mdgarratt), managing partner at Salesforce Ventures. They discuss: * Trends in enterprise software and enterprise investing, including voice, consumerization, and no-code. * How their thinking has evolved over time and where they’re looking to invest. * As a corporate VC fund, how to think about the potential for investing in companies that might co...

Erik is joined on this episode by Bee Shapiro (@BeeShapiro), New York Times columnist and founder of Ellis Brooklyn, and Natalie Toren (@NatalieToren), creative consultant. They talk about: * The current landscape in the beauty sector, including the clout of the massive incumbents and some of the up-and-coming brands. * Whether successes like Kylie Jenner's line or Glossier can be replicated. * Ho...

Erik is joined on this episode by Mike Duboe (@mduboe), investor at Greylock, Dan Hockenmaier (@danhockenmaier), of Basis One, and David Weinstein (@dw_stein), working on Special Projects at On Deck and TokenDaily. They talk about… * The history and different “eras” of growth as a standalone team. * Why there’s been a shift in mindset towards growth teams, how they will change in the next 5-10 yea...

Erik is joined on this episode by Dan Held (@danheld), co-founder of Interchange. He was an early advocate of Bitcoin in San Francisco and is an influential writer in the space. Dan and Erik cover the history of Bitcoin, discuss some of Dan’s most interesting blog posts, and talk about what the future might hold for crypto. Dan explains why Satoshi had a brilliant go-to-market strategy with Bitcoi...

Joey Krug (@joeykrug), founder of Augur and co-chief investment officer at Pantera Capital, joins Erik on this episode. A year ago Joey was on the podcast to talk about the launch of Augur, a prediction market platform. In this episode Joey follows up on that conversation to talk about what he’s learned in the last year and to talk about the state of crypto in 2019 more generally. They discuss the...

Erik is joined on this episode by Tim O’Reilly (@timoreilly), Valley legend and founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media, and returning fan favorite Parker Thompson (@pt), partner at AngelList. They start out talking about Tim’s piece in Quartz about the hazards of the view that scaling one’s company as fast as possible should be one's top priority above all else. He says that this approach is not for ev...

Erik is joined by Jenny Rooke (@drjennyrooke), Managing Director at Genoa Ventures, and Jared Seehafer (@seehafer), Village Global Network Leader and CEO and co-founder of Enzyme. They start out by talking about how Jenny got to where she is today and her career journey thus far. She explains what makes the team at Genoa unique and why it’s such a competitive advantage to have a team that is able...

Erik is joined on this episode by Sean Linehan (@seanlinehan), Village Global Network Leader, and former VP of product at Flexport. Sean explains how he found his way to Flexport, which he says was like “the TurboTax of customs brokerages.” He explains the trend of entrepreneurs building software companies that are not afraid to “get their hands dirty” in areas that involve a lot of people and log...

Arjun Sethi (@arjunsethi) of Tribe Capital joins Erik on this episode to talk about Tribe Capital’s approach to investing. He talks about the “first principles” approach they take to evaluating companies and why he says rather than the company pitching their firm to Tribe, instead he tells prospective investments, “we will pitch you.” He breaks down the data-driven analysis that Tribe does of the...

Elad Gil (@eladgil), entrepreneur and investor, joins Erik and co-host Anuj Abrol (@nujabrol), Chief of Staff to Justin Kan, for a discussion of all things markets. They start off talking about Elad’s philosophy of life and career in general, including why he says that “less happens than you think in 2 years, and more happens than you think in 5 years.” He points out that it’s hard to predict the...

Erik is joined on this episode by Ryan Delk (@delk), COO of Omni, and Jared Fliesler (@JaredSF), COO of Scribd. They talk about the fact that Chief Operating Officer is a relatively new role in Silicon Valley that has emerged over the last several years. They explain how they make sure they are effective COOs. They say that being COO is analogous to being a bumblebee in that a COO is always moving...