Dr. Clea Kolster is a partner and Head of Science at Lowercarbon capital. Lowercarbon backs companies that make money slashing CO2 emissions and removing carbon out of the atmosphere. Clea leads the firm’s technical research, development, diligence, and scientific strategy efforts. She’s also a founding fellow of On Deck’s Climate Tech programs.Last July, On Deck’s climate director Candice Ammori gave us a sense of how climate tech has moved from a 1.0 era to its 2.0 moment on the heels of evolving policy, innovation, and cultural ambition. Today, Dr. Kolster elaborates on the science informing that quickening pace.  She underscores the significance of cheaper renewables, lower battery storage costs, and other trends informing our ability to combat climate change.For more on how On Deck is enabling talented builders to address climate problems, visit beondeck.com/climateFor more on On Deck’s programs, visit www.beondeck.comHosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

This week, we figured we’d give you a peek under the hood of On Deck’s programs. Every week, dozens of amazing events take place in our programs across sectors (like climate tech, health tech, and longevity) as well as across professional verticals like business development engineering, and many more. Most of these events happen behind closed doors, but this week we’re releasing one of our favorite sessions from the past seven days to provide a taste of what one kind of On Deck event looks like. Listeners will remember that we syndicated an episode of Execs with Ben Braverman - who led revenue at Flexport during their hypergrowth years. Now, we’re joined in a fireside chat by Flexport’s CEO - Ryan Petersen. Ryan joined our ODX fellowship to share lessons learned fixing the global supply chain crisis.  Ryan is a fascinating character. When California ports experienced a slowdown in port processing this October, he visited ports in long beach to better understand the bottlenecks at play. His twitter thread about the problems he noticed went viral and he was able to work with local leaders to more rapidly unload cargo ships. More recently, this week he was able to share observations  he’d noticed in Flexport’s freighter process changes in light of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and educate other supply chain leaders on the changing landscape. Ryan’s grasp of how to use technology to solve complex, macro problems is impressive. He shares his insights, his reflections, and some favorite tactics in this episode.For more on On Deck’s programs, visit www.beondeck.comHosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

Francesco Agosti is an ODF alum and  co-founder and CTO of Phantom - a wallet for the Solana blockchain.We’ve had many web3 guests on the show in the past year, but none have focused on the wallet. Wallet applications are one of the primary ways in which users interact with blockchains directly. They come in many different forms - some are custodial, meaning they are managed by third parties like Coinbase. Others are non-custodial, meaning nobody owns the public-private keys other than the wallet’s user. Because of how central these applications are to the user experience, we figured it was time to have a leader in this space come on the show. Phantom is the leading wallet on the Solana blockchain. The Solana ecosystem had its breakout moment last summer and builders like Francesco are continuing to develop infrastructure to create a consumer-friendly experience.In this episode, Francesco highlights how the current status quo requires users to not trust, but to verify. He talks about how to work towards shifting this mindset. Our discussion also touches on phishing hacks, security best practices, staking, and the challenge of onboarding new folks to web3. To learn more about Phantom, visit phantom.appHosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

Jimmy Soni  is author of "The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley." The book hit shelves yesterday. In 2022, PayPal’s founders and earliest employees are considered one of the technology industry’s most powerful alumni networks. Since leaving PayPal, these players have formed, funded, and advised the leading companies of our era, including Tesla, Facebook, YouTube, SpaceX, Yelp, Palantir, and LinkedIn, among many others. As a group, they have driven twenty-first-century innovation and entrepreneurship. Their names are as controversial as they are admired. Yet for all their influence, the story of where they first started has gone largely untold. In this episode, we discuss the key differences between a mafia and a diaspora, the psychologically jarring effects of the dotcom bubble burst, and the competitive work ethic that fuels the alums of PayPal to this day. You can find out more about The Founders, and some of Jimmy’s other books by visiting his website at jimmysoni.com Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

Alexander Harmsen  is Founder & CEO of Global Predictions. Global Predictions has created a wealth optimization platform to help make its users better investors. Alex leaned on his experience in both On Deck Founders and On Deck Investing to make the early product and has now grown a sophisticated Deep Tech company that has built a digital twin of the economy to make unbiased forecasts into the future using hyperconnected simulations, economic modeling, diverse data streams, and machine learning. We chat about how this platform can add an extra layer of analysis to investment making decisions, in addition to understanding what millennials really want and how to challenge assumptions you may be making with some subconscious bias. Alex also reflects on recent financial crises. Whether it’s the dot com bubble burst, the subprime mortgage crash, or the fallout from COVID, Alex emphasizes the learning opportunities that these moments provide.  Hosted by Marshall Kosloff and produced by Jackson Steger

Minn Kim is a Partner at ODX - the community back accelerator and fund that Erik & David previewed on the show back in October. ODX’s first cohort kicked off last month and we were excited to bring someone from the team on, though much of the episode focuses on Minn’s eclectic interests in the intersecting futures of work, fertility, community, and family.This is Minn’s second time on the show - she briefly joined our 2022 Tech Trends episode and underscored her excitement for spatial audio. We wanted to bring her back on because she’s an A+ player on On Deck’s team but also because we really appreciate her work towards a techno-optimistic future.Hosted by Marshall KosloffProduced by Jackson Steger

Mark Yusko is the founder, chief investment officer, and managing director of Morgan Creek Capital Management - an investment management firm that advises pension funds, endowments, and wealthy individuals.Today’s episode is far-ranging. We chat about network effects, virtual stages, legacy events like the Olympics, Disney, decentralized creative franchises, and much, much more. The one thread that ties everything together: technology becomes mainstream only after first being a fad. A quick reminder that nothing you hear on today’s episode (or any episode of The Deep End, for that matter) can be considered investment advice.

Last fall, On Deck CEOs Erik Torenberg and David Booth joined the show to announce ODX - a new $100M community fund that allows On Deck to invest in the next generation of founders. Shortly after, we announced "ODX Flexport" - our first vertical accelerator that we created in partnership with Flexport. Flexport is on a mission to make global trade easy for everyone. They're a worldwide leader in supply chain logistics and we're thrilled to be working with them.  Today's episode is with Ben Braverman who joined the Flexport team early on and grew their annual revenue to $1.3 billion. This recording is a syndicated episode of On Deck's new show "Execs" which is hosted by Erik. This is the last time we'll be syndicating an episode for awhile, so if you like what you hear, be sure to check out "Execs" wherever you get your podcasts. 

Jen Phan is the co-founder and CEO of Passionfroot. She’s also an alum of On Deck No Code, which past Deep End guest KP runs.This conversation builds off of past creator economy tool discussions that we’ve had with other guests like Joe Albanese and Josh Kaplan.Passionfroot helps creators manage back-office operations so that creators can focus on their content.Our discussion today considers European creators - Passionfroot is based in Berlin and Jen is aware of how many creator tools to date have been US-centric. We also chat about helping creators think of themselves as startups, the disconnect between tech twitter and a creator’s day to day, and much, much more.For full show notes, links, RSVPs to live podcast recordings and more, visit thedeepend.substack.com

Joining Marshall this week in the Deep End is ODF alum Ben Rollert, CEO and Co-Founder of Composer. Composer allows its users to easily build a portfolio of hedge fund-like strategies.After we ended last year talking about DeFi and other blockchain innovations with cypher, it was refreshing to have a conversation about innovation in traditional finance, particularly in the retail investment space.The rise and sustained success of apps like Robinhood have enabled the manifestation of a legitimate counterculture among retail investors, including those like Ben, who work in finance. In this episode, we discuss that counterculture, the advantages of optionality created by something like Composer, nuance in regulation, and why Ben stays crypto aware even when he’s not a crypto evangelist.This was a good one. If you’d like to learn more about democratizing hedge fund strategy, check out composer.trade or follow Ben on Twitter @Benrollert