The Dark Horse in Venture Capitalism

3min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

The ability of chaos to resemble conspiracy cannot be underrated. In the venture business, unlike others, great talent always looks very weird and so you're constantly hunting for kind of people that look different. And by the way, not just the person is weird than whatever the conventional norm is, but the idea is weird too. Everyone listening to this podcast probably understands etheorium at this point. That's kind of priced in. The thing that overtakes the theorium, that wil be bigger and more exciting, will probably be some werd biotex thing or artificial intelligence.

If Tyler and Daniel's latest book can be boiled down into a single message, it would be that the world is currently failing at identifying talent, and that getting better at it would have enormous benefits for organizations, individuals, and the world at large. In this special episode of Conversations with Tyler, Daniel joined Tyler to discuss the ideas in their book on how to spot talent better, including the best questions to ask in interviews, predicting creativity and ambition, and the differences between competitiveness and obsessiveness.

They also explore the question of why so many high achievers love Diet Coke, why you should ask candidates if they have any good conspiracy theories, how to spot effective dark horses early, the hiring strategy that set SpaceX apart, what to look for in a talent identifier, what you can learn from discussing drama, the underrated genius of game designers, why Tyler has begun to value parents more and IQ less, conscientiousness as a mixed blessing, the importance of value hierarchies, how to become more charismatic, the allure of endurance sports for highly successful people, what they disagree on most, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links.

Recorded February 24th, 2022 Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Follow Daniel on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.