Village Global Podcast

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik talks to David Vorick (@DavidVorick) of Sia. David explains why a fork of Sia became necessary, even though doing so was not ideal or their preferred option. He talks about what precipitated the fork and how they came to the decision. He recounts his outreach to ASIC manufacturers and why their actions were problematic. They move on to a more general discus...

Aleksandr Bulkin (@coinfund_al), co-founder of CoinFund and creator of ADAPT (adaptk.it) joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - How Alex got involved in crypto and why the Ethereum white paper and Augur white paper contributed so much to his interest. - His time working at Goldman Sachs on human-computer interaction and how he transitioned from Goldman to the crypto world, as well his prediction...

Glen Weyl (@glenweyl) and Riva Melissa-Tez (@rivatez) join Erik for this episode. They discuss Glen’s book, Radical Markets, and a number of topics related to it, including: - The similarities between Rio de Janeiro and San Francisco when it comes to wealth distribution - Why Glen has received blame and praise on different issues from both sides of the political spectrum - Why the book appeals pri...

Nick Reber of Oscar Health and Kareem Zaki (@KareemZaki_) of Thrive Capital join Erik in this fascinating episode exploring the ins and outs of the health insurance industry. They talk about the misaligned incentives in healthcare and why it maybe shouldn’t be the case that “most people trust their doctor and hate their insurance company.” Nick and Kareem break down why it’s difficult for new entr...

Myles Snider (@myles_snider), CEO of Aurora EOS and advisor to Multicoin Capital, joins Erik and co-host Tony Sheng to discuss his new role as head of a block producer for EOS. Co-host Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) leads product at Decentraland. He also publishes analyses on the business and strategy of crypto at www.tonysheng.com and is one of Village’s Network Leaders. Myles explains how he ended up i...

It's double the Sriram Krishnan for the price of one! Sriram Krishnan (@sriramk) of Twitter and Sriram Krishnan (@sriramkri) of HeadSpin join Erik to talk about dating apps, streaming music, the online advertising business, as well as the hilarious stories about people mixing up the two of them. They start off by recounting some of the times their identical names have gotten one or the other in tr...

In this episode, Erik is joined by two very smart minds in the health space. He talks to Rachel Craig (@RPCraig), founder and CEO of MotionHall, which a Village Global portfolio company that is building a global platform for biopharma dealmaking, and Ed Saltzman, President and founder of Defined Health, which is a business development strategy consultancy in the life sciences space. Erik asks why...

Erik and his co-host Tony Sheng are joined by two special guests for this episode. Lily Liu (@calilyliu) is co-founder of Earn.com which was sold to Coinbase. Jillian Carlson (@_jillruth) is a consultant to projects both big and small in the space. Co-host Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) leads product at Decentraland. He also publishes analyses on the business and strategy of crypto at tonysheng.com and i...

Mahmoud "Rusty" Abdelkader (@mahmoudimus), CEO of Very Good Security and Ross Fubini (@fubini), partner at Village Global, join Erik on this episode to talk security on the web and Mahmoud's company Very Good Security. Mahmoud explains what he and his team is trying to do at Very Good Security and how they hope to transform the way web apps are secured. Ross has known Mahmoud for a while now and e...

Three exciting guests join Erik to reveal what having been in the healthcare ecosystem has taught them that the average tech investor doesn't know: - Liz Rockett (@liz_rockett), investor at Kaiser Permanente Ventures. - Ryan Panchadsaram (@rypan), investor at Kleiner Perkins and former US deputy CTO. - Jared Seehafer (@seehafer), co-founder of Enzyme and Village Network Leader Erik starts by askin...

The guests on today’s episode are Spencer Noon (@spencernoon), an investor at Doggie Tail Crypto Capital and Cyrus Younessi (@cyounessi1), Director of Research and Trading at Scalar Capital. Co-hosting today’s episode is Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) who leads product at Decentraland. He also publishes analyses on the business and strategy of crypto at tonysheng.com and is one of Village’s Network Leade...

Erik and co-host for this episode Ash Fontana (@ashfontana) of Zetta Venture Partners interview Ali Hamed (@AliBHamed), investor at CoVenture. Ali gives us a primer on the online lending space and compares and contrasts it to offline lending. He explains why payday lenders with astronomical APRs actually have small margins. He also talks about how government can improve the regulatory environment...

Joining Erik for this episode are Robert Mittendorff (@doctorrem), partner at Norwest Venture Partners, and Ambar Bhattacharyya (@AmbarBh), managing director at Maverick Ventures. In a continuation of the Requests for Startups series, Erik asks Robert and Ambar what they would like to see built in the digital health space. They discuss which spaces are underdeveloped and are ripe for opportunities...

On this episode Erik talks to Jonathan Cheeseman (@JonathanCheesm4), Chief Market Strategist at Distributed Global and Herve Bizira (@hibizira), CTO of Distributed Global. They talk about crypto markets and the funds that have been created to take advantage of a new investment opportunity. John and Herve explain what they are trying to do at Distributed Global and the unique combination of tech an...

Andrew Cronk (@ajcronk), partner at Figment, joins Erik again for this bonus episode going into generalized mining. Andrew contrasts sending someone money via PayPal with sending someone money via a decentralized network. He talks about whether firms with different approaches in the space can co-exist and what it means to be a validator. He discusses why it's important for a firm to be an active p...

Arianna Simpson (@AriannaSimpson), VC and managing director at Autonomous Partners and Travis Kling (@Travis_Kling) of Ikigai Asset Management join Erik on this episode. Arianna starts by explaining her post about false precision and why you don't want to be "very precisely wrong." They talk various models and calculations and how to value different crypto assets. They also talk about Bitcoin maxi...

Erik is joined by Nicholas Chirls (@nchirls), partner at Notation Capital, and Joe Lallouz (@JoeLallouz), entrepreneur, angel, and founder of Grand St. They explain how they got their start in the space and the genesis of their respective firms. They talk about generalized mining and how a firm might get into mining. They discuss the various crypto networks and talk about how the way an investment...

In this episode Erik talks to Aparna Krishnan (@aparnalocked), co-founder of Mechanism Labs and Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb), GP at MetaStable Capital. They discuss a number of themes around Aparna's research paper, talk about what it means to find consensus, and they go through the various protocols that exist now to try and do that. They also talk about what kinds of applications these various prot...

Elena Nadolinski (@leanthebean), an engineer interested in the privacy space, and Howard Wu (@1HowardWu), co-founder of Dekrypt Capital, talk to Erik on this episode about zero-knowledge proofs and privacy. They talk about why privacy is important in general and the benefits of privacy in the crypto world. They explain what a zero-knowledge proof is and Howard talks about some of the more recent d...

Dandelion Mane (@decentralion), founder of SourceCred, joins Erik on this mind-expanding episode about identity. Dandelion explains how they came upon the idea for a decentralized reputation system and how it could change how people live — both online and in the real world. Dandelion explains some potential improvements that could be made to online communities to improve the level of discourse and...

Nik Bhatia (@timevalueofbtc), writer and Bitcoin thinker, joins Erik and co-host Myles Snider of Multicoin Capital on this episode to talk layers of Bitcoin and the Lightning network. Nik explains how he got his start in the Bitcoin world from traditional finance. They explain the various layers of money and Bitcoin. They also talk about whether there will be fractional reserve ownership of Bitcoi...

Erik's guests for this episode are: - Andrew Cronk (@ajcronk), partner at Figment - Meher Roy (@MeherRoy), co-founder of Chorus One - Jake Brukhman (@jbrukh), founder of CoinFund They talk about a number of interesting topics, including the unique way that an investment firm participates in the growth of a company in the crypto world and why it's more important to be a network participant than jus...

Michael Goldstein (@bitstein), president of the Nakamoto Institute and co-host of the Noded Podcast, joins Erik on this episode. Between him and Erik they break down some of the basic concepts around Bitcoin and explain why it's important in general. Michael explains why he's keen to feast on the tears of nocoiners and breaks down a number of the common misconceptions about Bitcoin. He also talks...

Elena Nadolinski (@leanthebean), an engineer interested in the privacy space, and Avichal Garg (@avichal), Managing Partner at Electric Capital, join Erik on this episode to discuss privacy coins. They break down what a privacy coin is and why privacy is important in crypto. They talk about the three main privacy coins: Monero, Zcash and Grin — and discuss why it's important or not to have an audi...

This episode of Venture Stories is co-hosted by Dani Grant (@thedanigrant), analyst at USV. She talks with three leaders in the distributed computing space: - Dan Desjardins, CEO of Distributed Compute Labs - Chandler Song (@chandlersyf), founder and CEO of Ankr Network - Greg Osuri (@GregOsuri), founder of Akash Network and CEO of Overclock Labs They talk about what distributed computing is, why...