Coburn Ventures Podcast

What's more fundamental than food? This week and next, we have two discussions with our friend Mike Lee, founder of The Future Market and Alpha Food Labs. Mike and his team help large corporations see into a future where everything from how we get our food to what it consists of, is different, and he helps young brands navigate a very established food industry. In today's conversation, Mike helps us understand why the future of food may not be what we first imagine. 

Today we’re talking about getting back to the office, a topic that many of you have been bringing to us fervently over the last six months. Beyond the obvious reasons, I think you are all asking about it precisely because it is up for discussion and review, and that itself is meaningful!  Additionally, I think you are sensing that the role of the traditional office for knowledge workers and more has been in the rearview mirror for a while. And now, office as a daily necessity for the doing of work, the office as we've defined it for the last 80 years or so, is just not part of our zeitgeist. It is likely now post zeitgeist, which is not so scary an idea as post zeitgeist only means that its classical period has passed. It does not cease to exist, but it loses its place as the de facto standard to define when work is done and how, both individually and in the context of team.  So what might happen in the coming months as organizations sort out coming back to a physical office? Let's jump in.

We’re here with Gavin Ivester, a product and brand executive with a background in industrial design. He has global experience in both tech and lifestyle products at Apple, Nike, Puma, and Bang & Olufsen. Our topic today is care. More specifically, what is it that modern companies can do to incorporate care, at scale, into their product or service experience? Let’s jump in.

Today we’re talking about play and play science, inspired by the work of our friend Dr. Stuart Brown. So, why this topic, on this podcast? Well, play, may not be exactly what you think. We know how to describe play and its benefits for children but we think we leave many types of play behind when we grow up. Spoiler alert: may we don't, we just don't fully realize what play is. Play is much broader and more powerful than we give it credit for. Dr. Brown writes that in a play state, we are organizing our thoughts, and rapidly creating. It’s how we’ve evolved to solve problems. Without play, we are depressed, prone to burnout, and our thinking becomes stuck and rigid. Now, doesn't "play" sound intriguing?  Let's jump in.

Two weeks ago, we all learned about the Colonial Oil pipeline ransomware attack on the East Coast of the United States. It was a high profile hit, but was then followed by an odd comment from the ransomware group saying in effect, “Sorry, we didn’t mean to actually disrupt the pipeline!” in other words, we’re here to be quiet and not make too much of a problem but we are still going to steal your money.  While we know conceptually that ransomware attacks are pervasive, we called JC Herz to get her deeper and experienced perspective. We know there has been a significant underspend in security that has created a massive systemic arbitrage for ransomware attacks.  We know that the bias and competitive pressure for tech spending is around innovation and speed, not fixing vulnerabilities. We also know that the “attack surface”, grows bigger with every application we connect to the network. Finally, an Executive Order in the US from May 12 may increase reporting requirements if and when companies are breached and pay ransom. It's an attempt to start to deal with the problem collectively, but it may have some unintended consequences. As investors, what do we do with all of this? Today we start with a big download of context and perspective from JC. 

Today we compliment a piece Pip is writing on formulating a valuable arbitrage in investing. For Coburn Ventures, we use change as the lens of our arbitrage, so we talk about pattern recognition as it relates to change, and how it can develop into high conviction positions. Of course, investment philosophy --such as change investing-- and process are intertwined. A potentially valuable question to have in mind while listening: which parts of your process seem most important in developing that arbitrage opportunity over the long term? Thanks for listening.

What can we do to assess where companies are positioned among the fast-moving currents of Digital Transformation? What do we mean when we say "Digital Transformation" anyway? In this conversation, Pip will give some background on why this is so important right now and then we jump in with Michael Stich, now of Court Avenue, where he helps marketers understand how to use innovation to create value for their companies and for end customers.  Michael has been on both the agency side and the client side with roles that demanded an understanding of new technologies and how to best translate these inevitable changes and evolutions into value for clients marketing to consumers. Stay until the end when he offers an ever-so casual two-minute summary of the past two decades of innovation and the waves of adaptation businesses and customers have absorbed. Lastly, in the closing I do repeat Michael's attributes of creating value for customers and for improving businesses internally. I hope you'll find these points useful in assessing where a sector or company may stand in addressing the rush of innovation coming their way.  PS: This podcast pairs well with the Questions for Management with John Dillon, a CEO who knows firsthand many times over what it takes to absorb new digital innovations into a company culture.

We are hearing the term "resilience" or "resiliency" so much this year. Biologist Maria Souza continually reminds us that, “Without disruption, there can be no resilience.” So we thought it worthwhile to go under the surface on this topic. Pip starts us with seven factors or attributes of resilience. It's an attempt to get more specific and granular as to what we mean by "being resilient", so that we can then use this clearer definition as a litmus test or marker to "measure" your resilience or that of your team, or to be able to recognize resilience in company culture or management teams. About five minutes in, Dr. Morris Pickens joins us and offers his usual clear and simple examples of where common slip-ups may be, and some interesting observations from his world about reframing the mental process to be more resilient. 

This week the Super League of Premier League Football was announced: a collection of the best and brightest franchises to come into their own, potentially even more profitable league.  Just as quickly, the league was extinguished completely. From fan outrage to JP Morgan finding itself in the spotlight for underwriting the concept, this week has been a dramatic one for the league and football fans all over the world. We take the opportunity to zoom in on the news, as it so quickly and thoroughly collided old-world single-stakeholder thinking with new world multi-stakeholder ESG sensibilities. The Super League provides a helpful case to keep in mind when we think about the intrinsic and intangible value that we are tasked to get curious about when it comes to ESG. I think more business leaders will be tuning their antennae to the topic, because when fans hear about a power move announced in the dark of night, they just might surround your team bus with those ever-so valuable players inside of it or hang banners on your stadium with signs that say “Super Greed” instead of Super League and “Fans not Customers”.  Are they one or the other? Or both? 

About 10 years ago, we started talking about “The Future and History of Asking Questions”. It was an acknowledgment of the exponential growth of our ability to ask questions *and receive answers about them*. We are seeing so many derivatives off of this phenomenon. One of those derivatives that we’ll talk about today is that as the expectation increased that we can ask just about any question and get a reasonable answer, we take that into all areas of our life. What used to be seen as “demanding” is now normal, what used to be seen as table stakes for great customer service, is now insufficient. This future and history of asking questions may seem like a simple concept, but it's reverberating throughout our marketplaces and individual behaviors and results in profound changes in business.