Today’s guest is Mike Maples Jr. a partner at Floodgate, a pre-seed and seed-stage venture capital firm that’s invested in companies like Twitter, Lyft, Twitch, Okta. He’s also the author of Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future.

In today’s episode, Mike shares his framework for investing in successful early-stage companies. He explores the nature of startups as acts of disagreement with the status quo and the importance of being disagreeable in the entrepreneurial journey. Mike also touches on the evolving landscape of IPOs and private markets, the transformative power of AI, lessons from one of his first Limited Partners, Yale’s David Swensen, and more.

(0:00) Starts

(1:06) Mike Maples' investment philosophy

(7:26) Identifying pattern breaking startups

(13:02) Spotting inflection points

(23:14) Portfolio strategy

(32:04) The future of private markets

(38:58) AI's impact on investing

(46:13) Early influences

(53:55) AI in education

(1:01:00) Controversial beliefs

(1:03:58) Mike's most memorable investments

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Past guests include Ed Thorp, Richard Thaler, Jeremy Grantham, Joel Greenblatt, Campbell Harvey, Ivy Zelman, Kathryn Kaminski, Jason Calacanis, Whitney Baker, Aswath Damodaran, Howard Marks, Tom Barton, and many more.

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