Village Global Podcast

We're re-releasing some of the greatest hits from the podcast over the years. This episode was recorded in front of a live audience in San Francisco in October 2018. Keith breaks down some of the successes that mentees of his have had over the past few years. Many of them came from non-technical backgrounds and non-elite schools. He talks about their career trajectory and the inflection points tha...

Nathan Cheng (@realNathanCheng), program director for On Deck Longevity, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - The key breakthroughs in aging research in the past. - Why we're still waiting for the first success story in humans, and why he predicts the first drug will be approved in the next ten years. - Why the space has plenty of capital but not enough founders. - The challenges and roadblock...

Kevin Leland (@kmleland), founder and CEO of Halo, and Phil Taylor, Bayer’s Open Innovation Lead, join Erik to discuss: - Why the current RFP process resembles recruiting in the 1990s pre-LinkedIn and Monster, and how Halo can change that. - What open innovation is and some of its success stories. - How to connect companies and scientists to drive innovation. - How to create an innovation ecosyste...

Noah Smith (@noahpinion), Bloomberg Opinion writer and author of the Noahpinion Substack, joins Erik to discuss: - Why colleges should try to emulate the Cal State and CUNY systems, which Noah says provide the best value for dollars in education. - Why the US should want to copy the Japanese and Korean healthcare systems, and the power that a national health insurance program has to drive cost dow...

Caleb Watney (@calebwatney), Director of Innovation Policy at Progressive Policy Institute, joins Erik to discuss: - How views have changed on whether we are in a great stagnation, and what someone from the 1970s who was brought to 2021 would think about the technological changes in the interim. - Whether a technological slowdown is inevitable or a choice that a society makes. - The fact that COVI...

Chris Toy (@ChrisToy), co-founder and CEO of MarketerHire, joined Anne Dwane in a special session for Villagers. They discussed: - Why if you don’t know who your customer demo is, you need a marketer on your team earlier than you think. - The misconception that marketing is something to be done at a later stage, or is expensive, or is only about customer acquisition. - Why marketing is part of the...

Emily Anhalt (@dremilyanhalt), co-founder of Coa, joins Erik to discuss: - Why people should have a proactive approach to emotional fitness and should think of it like to going to a gym on a regular basis, rather than only seeking help when things go wrong. - The seven traits of emotional fitness and how to get them. - Why the true mechanism of healing is relationships. - The fact that sometimes a...

Brad Feld (@bfeld), VC at Foundry Group and co-author of The Entrepreneur’s Weekly Nietzsche with Dave Jilk, joins Ben Casnocha to discuss: - Common misconceptions about Nietzsche and why being misunderstood makes him an especially interesting philosopher. - What Nietzsche can teach entrepreneurs deciding whether to pivot or persevere. Brad says that founders should view their entrepreneurial jour...

This is a special cross-posted episode of The Deep End, a new podcast from On Deck. Erik Torenberg is interviewed by Marshall Kosloff about: - What’s causing incumbent universities to fail. - The opportunities that exist for new institutions to chart a different path. - Unbundling and cost disease in education. - Talent identification and credentialism. Subscribe to The Deep End: https://ideas.beo...

Addie Lerner (@addielerner), founder of Avid Ventures, joins Erik to discuss: - Why she started Avid Ventures and how her experiences at growth-stage funds influences her investing strategy at earlier stages. - Her take on the “great barbell” in venture capital and how she thinks about investing in an environment with outsized valuations. She says that firms are now investing in seed stage compani...

Jason Brennan, author of Cracks in the Ivory Tower, joins Erik to discuss: - The fact that students who finish college are actually more pro-market than students who don’t. - Why general education requirements are often pushed by departments that are struggling, and how that leads to rent-seeking. - The idea of “transfer of learning” and why students don’t transfer lessons from their English Liter...

Todd Zywicki (@ToddZywicki), law professor and author of Unprofitable Schooling: Examining Causes of, and Fixes for, America’s Broken Ivory Tower, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - The fact that 65% of funding increases to colleges gets passed through to students. - How the accreditation system got its start after the GI Bill incentivized diploma mills. - Why student loan defaults are inver...

Keith Rabois (@rabois), partner at Founders Fund, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - Why he decided to move to Miami and why it’s made him 30-40% happier. - The benefits of clustering when you’re at the earliest stages of building a company, and why remote works better for a later-stage company. - Why he suggests you don’t visit a place you’re considering moving to for just a weekend and ins...

Ash Fontana (@ashfontana), author of The AI-First Company and partner at Zetta Venture Partners, joined Erik for a fireside chat for Villagers in May 2021. They discussed: - Why AI creates defensibility and a true, compounding, first-mover advantage. - Why AI should be part of all conversations at your startup: about products to build, people to hire, what price to charge — it should all involve A...

James Currier (@JamesCurrier), partner at NFX, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an On Deck Angels event. They discuss: - Why founders are more authentic at the accelerator stage than at the seed stage. - Why San Francisco will remain the centre of tech in the future, just as New York and LA have remained the centre of banking and movie-making, respectively. - James’s thesis t...

John Katzman (@johnkatzman), CEO of Noodle, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - John’s theory that tech has had less of an impact on education than people thought it would because it’s been grafted on rather than causing a rethinking of how education is delivered. - Why the “fundamentalist capitalists” were wrong about markets solving the problems with education. - His thoughts on income shar...

Pete Flint (@peteflint), partner at NFX, joins Erik on this episode. It was recorded as part of an On Deck Angels event. They discuss: - Pete’s journey from Trulia to investor. - Why over time he became less focused on the idea and strategy of a team and more on the team itself and its ability to execute. - Why it’s a mistake to have a portfolio of growth channels, and why instead a company should...

Delian Asparouhov (@zebulgar) of Varda and Founders Fund, and Chris Power (@2112Power), founder and CEO of Hadrian, join Erik on this episode to discuss: - What they're working on and how they're bringing tech to industrial manufacturing. - How Chris navigated the idea maze with Hadrian, a company with aims to build space and defense components 2X faster. - The three types of space companies: sate...

Mercedes Bent (@mercebent), partner at Lightspeed, joins Erik and co-host Anne Dwane to discuss: - What Mercedes and the EdTech space in general learned from General Assembly, a company ahead of its time. - Her market map of EdTech and why she says it should perhaps be called LearnTech rather than EdTech. - The future of community and social-driven learning, including why peer-to-peer learning is...

Andrew Wilkinson (@awilkinson) co-founder of Tiny, was interviewed by Andrew Barry of On Deck at a special event. They discussed: - His start as a designer and how great product and design became the common thread that runs through the businesses he tries to buy. - How to think about building a moat around you when you’re an individual versus a brand. - What he means when he says he “tries to buy...

Richard Vedder, author of Restoring The Promise: Higher Education in America, joins Erik to discuss: - The origins of the myth that higher education is the key to career success. - The unintended consequences of student loans, including the fact that colleges raised tuition dramatically in response to the increase in borrowing. - The key pieces of government regulation that impacted higher educati...

Kelly Hook (@KellyHook), program director of the On Deck Customer Success program, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - How she got into customer success. - How the field of customer success got its start, just 25 years ago. - Common misconceptions about the field. - Why you need to have empathy, a collaborative spirit, and data analysis skills to be successful. - What the On Deck Customer Suc...

Ali Tamaseb (@alitamaseb), investor at DCVC and author of Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups joins Erik to discuss: - His learnings from gathering data on unicorns and comparing them to a random selection of startups that didn’t succeed. - Why the age of a founder doesn’t correlate to success. - Why successful founders aren’t necessarily solving personal problems and a...

Scott Belsky (@scottbelsky), angel investor and Chief Product Officer at Adobe, joined Erik for an On Deck Angels event to discuss: - How he came to make his first investments in Uber and Pinterest. - How his thinking on investing has evolved and the principles he’s picked up over time. - Why being an operator-investor is the greatest opportunity in the space today, and why founders are drawn to o...

Andrew Yu (@andrewcyu), who is running the On Deck Product Management program, joins Erik on this episode to discuss: - His non-traditional route to becoming a product manager. (Fun fact: He recently worked on the Biden campaign and inauguration). - What the ODPM program will look like, including the “intentional networking” they have planned. - What “productizing yourself” as a product manager lo...