Village Global Podcast

Ben Casnocha (@bencasnocha), Erik Torenberg (@eriktorenberg), Anne Dwane (@adwane), partners at Village Global, and David Booth (@david__booth), co-CEO of On Deck, discuss: - ODX in partnership with Village Global, the $100M+ community-backed accelerator that plans to invest in 1000 companies over the next few years: https://beondeck.com/x - The key differentiators of ODX: a dedicated partner for...

Andy Rachleff (@arachleff), president and CEO of Wealthfront, joins Anne Dwane and Lucas Bagno to discuss: - What Andy learned from endowment investing and his quest to democratize excellent investing advice at Wealthfront. - Why you shouldn’t try to time the market and why in his opinion all-time highs are “absolutely irrelevant.” - Andy’s lessons from witnessing four day-trading frenzies in his...

Ben Reinhardt (@Ben_Reinhardt), Research Fellow at the Astera Institute and host of Idea Machines Podcast, joins Erik to discuss: - Why we don’t have as much science fiction-like technology in the world as we could, and how to turn more of it into reality. - Why venture capital does a poor job of funding new physical technology and why ten year venture cycles are too short for breakthrough technol...

Leigh Marie Braswell (@LM_Braswell) of Founders Fund and Erik Bernhardsson (@bernhardsson), who built the music recommendation system at Spotify, join Erik to discuss: - How data flows through a company and the business decisions that can be made based on data. - The waves of change in the data tooling landscape over the last decade and why we’re only a quarter of the way to easy-to-use tools. - W...

Abhijeet Patra (@abhijeetpatra88), former Deep Tech entrepreneur and venture fellow at Susa Ventures who is now leading Deep Tech at On Deck, joins Erik to discuss: - What exactly Deep Tech is and some of the examples of technologies involved, including nanotechnology, quantum computing, hardware, autonomous vehicles, space, manufacturing, machine learning, and more. - Why there’s been an explosio...

In this extended episode of Venture Stories, Erik interviews Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen), professor of economics at George Mason University. They discuss about a wide range of topics, including Tyler’s book Stubborn Attachments, the value of watching sports, travel, Bitcoin, the Knicks, and Effective Altruism — among many, many others. Tyler explains why he has only two “stubborn attachments” — huma...

Gabby Dizon (@gabusch), co-founder of Yield Guild Games, and Linda Xie (@ljxie), co-founder of Scalar Capital, join Erik Torenberg and Lucas Bagno on this episode to discuss: - Why Gabby started YGG and the evolution of play-to-earn and blockchain in gaming. - Why gaming is a great way to onboard someone to the crypto ecosystem, as NFTs have done. - The key players in the crypto gaming ecosystem....

Erik is joined by Zach Perret (@zachperret), co-founder and CEO of Plaid, and David Haber (@dhaber), former co-founder and CEO of Bond Street, now at Goldman Sachs. Zach and David talk about how they met and how they started their respective companies. They explain how to find out whether you are passionate enough about an idea to start a company around it: are you passionate about it enough to be...

Elad Gil (@eladgil), entrepreneur and investor, and Kevin Hartz (@kevinhartz), investor and co-founder of Eventbrite, join Erik on this episode. They discuss: - What they think is special about each other’s investing abilities. - How certain people are able to stay relevant in every investing cycle. - Kevin’s latest venture and the path he took to start it. - SPACs and their advantages. - How to f...

We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer. We were thrilled to host a masterclass roundtable session for our founders with John Donahoe when he was CEO of ServiceNow. John is now CEO of Nike and was CEO of eBay for more than seven years. He is known as one of the most inspirational leaders in Silicon Valley and is a highly sought-after mentor to CEOs including Brian...

We’re re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer. On this special live episode of Venture Stories, Bill Gates was interviewed in 2018 at San Francisco’s Exploratorium by Julia Hartz, co-founder and CEO of Eventbrite. We are honored to have Bill Gates, one of the most successful entrepreneurs of all time, among our luminary LPs whose financial capital and engagement power t...

We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer. Erik and co-host Anuj Abrol (@nujabrol) interviewed Keith Rabois (@rabois). Keith starts out by talking about why he joined Founders Fund and the reason that the structure of VC means we don’t see more people moving from one fund to another. They talk about the future of venture and whether there will be more M&A in the spa...

Erik is joined on this episode by Mike Maples (@m2jr) of Floodgate. The discuss: - The difference between fake growth and real growth, and how to know which one your company is experiencing. - Why fake growth has taken hold in so many companies in the Valley, and its broader systemic causes. - The difference between value hacking and growth hacking. - Why once you’ve entered the growth stage, it’s...

We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer. This episode was recorded in front of a live audience in San Francisco, featuring Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen), professor of economics at George Mason University and Eric Schmidt (@ericschmidt), former executive chairman and CEO at Google/Alphabet. Cowen talks to Schmidt about a wide range of topics, from Schmidt’s college yea...

We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer. Chamath Palihapitiya (@chamath), CEO of Social Capital, and Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman), partner at Greylock, joined Village Global co-founder and partner Ben Casnocha at a special Village Global event. Angel Island brought together 100+ angel investors for talks from world-class investors, discussions, and opportunities to...

We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the podcast this summer. Sarah Tavel (@sarahtavel), partner at Benchmark, and Nabeel Hyatt (@nabeel), partner at Spark Capital, joined Erik on this episode. They discussed: - Why they love investing in marketplaces and the evolution of marketplaces over the last decade. - Why the wave of Uber For X startups didn’t take off. - How they evaluate mark...

Ramit Sethi (@ramit), founder and CEO of I Will Teach You To Be Rich, joined Ben Casnocha to discuss: - Ramit’s philosophy of personal finance. He says he focuses on $30,000 questions as opposed to $3 questions because there’s no limit on how much you can earn, but there is a limit on how much you can save. - How “invisible scripts” rule how you think about money. Ramit talks about how to figure o...

Max Greenwald (@MaxPGreenwald), founder and CEO of Warmly, joins Erik to discuss: - Max’s journey navigating the idea maze to start the company. - The problems with virtual meetings and why they lead to fatigue. - How to ask questions of prospective customers without leading them into providing the answers you want to hear. - Why he says that all interviews, first-time meetings, and team meetings...

We’re re-releasing some of the best episodes of the podcast this summer. In this episode Alex Danco (@alex_danco) of Social Capital joined Erik to talk about Silicon Valley, economics, innovation, crypto, software and more. Alex explains the influence of Peter Thiel and Rene Girard on his thinking. He explains what he means when he says the key to understanding the world is asking, "what is everyo...

Santiago Suarez (@SantiaSua), co-founder and CEO of ADDI, joins Village Global co-founder and partner Anne Dwane on this episode. They discuss: - What he wish he knew when he started ADDI. - Why hustle alone has never made a company successful, and why he says it’s necessary but not sufficient. - His experience going through the Village Global Accelerator, and now mentoring founders in the program...

Erik was joined on this episode by Mike Maples (@m2jr) of Floodgate. We're re-releasing some of the best episodes of the podcast from over the years. They discuss: - How the best founders approach entrepreneurship. - The power of “change events” for startup creation. - How important is it for your idea to be non-consensus. - What makes a great founding team. - How you know when you have an insight...

We're re-releasing some of the best episodes from the last few years. James Currier (@JamesCurrier) of NFX joined Erik on this episode. They discuss: - Why LinkedIn hasn’t been disrupted yet - Where are today’s opportunities in consumer social - Market networks and how they’ve evolved over time - What’s wrong with education and whether homeschooling can be a solution - Commoditization of higher ed...

Kevin Kwok (@kevinakwok) joined Erik in 2018 to discuss a wide range of topics. We’re re-releasing some of the best episodes of the podcast this summer. They talked about: - Why the stock market exists and why after the crash of 2008 no one said that we should shut it down. - The ideas of "loops and funnels" and "constraints and compounding" — and how Kevin thinks about those mental models. - The...

This special live episode was recorded in 2018. We’re re-releasing some of the greatest hits this summer. Erik interviewed Naval Ravikant (@naval) and Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis). They start with an overview of the history of organizing societies and the role of centralized decision-makers from kings to democracies and why decentralization — where no one in particular is in charge but everybody f...

Daniel Gross (@danielgross), founder of Pioneer, joined Erik in 2018 for a wide-ranging conversation. We're re-releasing some of the greatest hits this summer. 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 t...