Village Global Podcast

Laura Deming (@laurademing) joins Erik in downtown San Francisco on this episode of Venture Stories. She is the creator of Longevity Fund, a venture capital firm investing in companies that will let humans live both longer and healthier.Erik starts by asking about the state of longevity science and which discoveries about aging Laura is most excited about. It turns out that certain animals don’t age the way that humans do and that there are certain animals that are similar to each other (like rats and naked mole rats) that nevertheless have wildly different life expectancies. These discoveries have Laura very excited about the possibilities for extending the human lifespan — in fact, she compares them to “finding gold in your living room” and says they don’t get enough attention.They talk about why creating a venture fund is the best way for Laura to make an impact on this problem as well as the realities of venture funding in the life sciences space. Laura explains why returns are so important.Erik asks how those of us who are not scientists can get involved in the space and which companies Laura is most excited about. She also runs through some of her requests for startups in the field.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by Daniel Gross, founder of Pioneer, “an online tournament for productivity.” Prior to starting Pioneer, he founded Cue, a machine learning company that was acquired by Apple.Erik and Daniel discuss a wide variety of topics, including why saying something is “insanely great” isn’t necessarily a compliment for a founder, how to play “the video game that is life,” why the best way to get the physique you want is to move (cities), and how Twitter has reshaped the human psyche.They discuss Pioneer and how Daniel has thought about the decisions that went into its design. He talks about his aim of creating a “digital Ivy League campus” that harnesses the mechanics of games and applies them to more productive ends. Daniel also discusses why he says that life is like "a series of infinite games.”They also cover a number of other topics, including how Daniel thinks about friendships, the parallels between Pioneer and religion, how Daniel would change the education system, and why people will compete against each other but cooperate against an AI. They close with a game where Erik names a number of prominent individuals and Daniel talks about what he’s learned from that person.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Mark Lutter (@MarkLutter), founder and executive director of the Centre For Innovative Governance Research, joins Erik on this special two-hour episode to talk about charter cities. They start off by discussing how Mark became interested in the idea of charter cities. Mark explains the two main schools of thought when it comes to new forms of governance and talks about his philosophy for figuring out the best way to govern and how that involves charter cities.He talks about the recent interest from Silicon Valley in charter cities and some of the projects that have been going on in the space. Mark talks about seasteading and why the promise of that project wasn’t realized. He points out that there are over 200 masterplanned cities being built around the world.Mark explains the differences between charter cities and special economic zones and the main models for charter cities and special economic zones. Erik asks what forms of government Mark would advocate for if he was building a brand new charter city from scratch. Mark talks about the reasons for avoiding centralized planning and reasoning from first principles and instead running experiments to see what kinds of phenomena emerge. They also have a lightning round where Erik names an individual and Mark explains where he agrees and disagrees with that individual’s thinking.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by two exciting guests: Qasar Younis (@qasar), co-founder of Applied Intuition, and Alexandr Wang (@alexandr_wang), CEO of Scale.Both Qasar and Alex are creating software that is transforming the way autonomous vehicles are being developed. The three of them have an expansive conversation about where autonomous technology is at today and how the technology and industry might evolve in the future. Throughout the conversation the founders peel back the curtain on the autonomous vehicle development process and put forth are a number of ideas about autonomous technology that run counter to the prevailing narrative in the media today.They begin by talking about some of the specific ways that software is transforming the auto industry and in what ways the tools the founders are building are being used in the development of autonomous technology. Erik asks about the pros and cons of being a horizontal company vs. a vertical company in the space, and Qasar and Alex discuss the extent to which existing car manufacturers have modularized the parts that go into traditional vehicles and why this trend will continue with autonomous technology.Qasar and Alex point out that the key question now is not if, but when, autonomous technology will be deployed at mass scale, and say that even three years ago it was unclear whether it was going to happen at all. They compare the industry as it exists now to the early days of the iPhone and say that like the iPhone app explosion, self-driving cars will be only one application that emerges on top of autonomous technology, which will itself be a much bigger market than the smartphone market. Qasar and Alex both agree that robo-taxis are overly focused on by the media and that other applications of autonomous technology such as in trucking, last-mile delivery and warehouses will arrive sooner and will be both much larger and more consequential than robo-taxis. Alex says that he believes autonomous vehicle technology will be only one part of a broader “robot revolution” in society.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Erik Torenberg, co-founder and partner of Village Global, recently hosted an event for entrepreneurs in San Francisco to hear from founders of Village Global portfolio companies who have been through Village’s Network Catalyst accelerator.Joining Erik were:Nancy Yu (@nancyyu25), co-founder and CEO of RDMD, a company working to accelerate treatment for patients with rare diseases. Amrita Saigal, co-founder of Saathi, a company creating fully eco-friendly, compostable sanitary napkins in India.Jared Seehafer (@seehafer), co-founder and CEO of Enzyme, and a Village Global Network Leader.Nancy and Amrita talk about what it was like to go through the Network Catalyst program and how it has impacted the growth of their companies. Jared discusses being an advisor to the founders in the program.They talk about what makes Network Catalyst unique, including the emphasis at Village on the network, Village’s personalized one-on-one work with companies, the willingness to put on events dedicated entirely to one company and the influence that Village’s luminaries have had on the trajectory of the companies.The founders also share the details of their journey thus far and give their thoughts on some of the thorny issues that founders have to deal with in the course of starting a company, like finding the right co-founder, how to ideate through solutions, and the importance of of founder-idea fit.To apply to the program, visit www.villageglobal.vc/networkcatalyst/Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Joining Erik for this episode are Brianne Kimmel (@briannekimmel), investor, advisor and Village Global Network Leader as well as Josh Stein (@dfjjosh), partner at DFJ.They start off by discussing the "consumerization of enterprise SaaS." More and more frequently new software is implemented at enterprises because ordinary employees use a service as a consumer and advocate for its use within the company. Brianne and Josh talk about why the enterprise is such a different animal compared to consumer SaaS and the challenges that fact presents for young founders. Josh tells the story of Aaron Levie, who was only 20 when Josh backed him at Box and had not only not sold to the enterprise but had never worked in a big company.They discuss how the SaaS landscape has changed, including why $50-100M in revenue isn't enough to go public and why investors are now looking for companies doing at least $1B in revenue. Brianne and Josh also point out the uniqueness of Silicon Valley, and caution that founders from the Bay Area both underestimate the amount of Microsoft lock-in outside the Bay and overrate the impact of the traction they can get by selling to other startups within Silicon Valley.Erik asks where the opportunities are in SaaS and enterprise, whether it's better to have a vertical or horizontal SaaS company, and where the market is oversaturated. Josh also explains why he says that AI is actually underhyped.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

In the first all-Australian episode of Venture Stories Erik interviews returning guest Ash Fontana (@ashfontana), general partner at Zetta Ventures, and his fellow countryman, Anthony Goldbloom (@antgoldbloom), CEO of Kaggle.Ash’s fund is the first fund devoted exclusively to AI and machine learning, and the three talk about how to evaluate companies, founders and ideas in the space. Ash says that the founders he looks for are often pre-traction but post-data, meaning that they have the data but are trying to find a way to make their machine learning work commercially viable. He points out that certain data-gathering techniques just aren’t viable for a startup when “you have to lose money to learn in the machine learning space.”The trio discuss a number of the coolest current applications of machine learning as well as where they would like to see companies bring machine learning in the future. They talk about the present and potential future impact of machine learning techniques in data labeling, oil and gas, healthcare, and the enterprise.Anthony and Ash also talk about some of the trends they see coming in machine learning, including moving data and machine learning to the cloud as well as the use of private or disguised data to allow sensitive data sets to be analyzed by a broader group of people. They also discuss which areas prospective founders should avoid and why machine learning is conducive to certain types of problems but not others.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

In this extended episode of Venture Stories, Erik interviews Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen), professor of economics at George Mason University. They discuss about a wide range of topics, including Tyler’s book Stubborn Attachments, the value of watching sports, travel, Bitcoin, the Knicks, and Effective Altruism — among many, many others.Tyler explains why he has only two “stubborn attachments” — human rights and economic growth. He takes us through his argument that there’s a moral imperative for economic growth. He talks about why economic growth is the greatest force for good in the world, why redistribution isn’t as effective as Effective Altruists would like, and why we dramatically underestimate the effects of compounding. He discusses some of the reactions to the book and why he says he’s “poked the left in the eye and poked the right in the eye” with Stubborn Attachments. They discuss the reasons for the extraordinary economic growth of East Asian countries and what kinds of lessons the West could take from those examples. Tyler talks about whether religion has an impact on economic growth and why inequality isn’t as big a deal as it’s made out to be.Erik asks Tyler what he would do if he could wave a magic wand and change a number of entities, including the US healthcare system, the Knicks, and the Department of Education. Tyler tells Erik whether he would buy Bitcoin and gives his thoughts on central banking and Austrian economics. He also explains why travel is so valuable and why “at the margins people should be more like anthropologists.”Erik asks Tyler where his views diverge from those of a number of prominent intellectuals, including Thomas Piketty, Russ Roberts, Ayn Rand, and Glen Weyl. Tyler explains why he suspects the environment in which someone grew up influences their thinking style.Tyler’s own podcast Conversations with Tyler has been a big inspiration to Erik and Venture Stories, so Erik concludes with an homage with a round of overrated vs. underrated and by asking Tyler what his production function is for the podcast.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

On this episode of Health Stories, Erik is joined by Nikhil Krishnan (@nikillinit), of CB Insights and Nick Soman (@nicksoman), of Decent.Today they're talking about “the combination of two insanely complex topics.” They start out by discussing the potential applications of blockchain technology in the healthcare space and why it might not be ready for primetime just yet.They dive into some of the applications, including unique patient identifiers and why the lack of a system to transfer records between health providers results in a “ludicrously high number of medical errors.” They also talk about the fact that anonymized health data is often sold without the consent of the patient and that there are billion-dollar companies that advertise on the front page of their websites that they can provide anonymized health data for 500M patients.As with any Health Stories episode, they discuss the distortion of incentives in the healthcare industry. On this episode they discuss the “medical loss ratio” and why it means that “everybody other than the patient makes more money when costs go up.” They point out that healthcare problems aren’t technology problems and are instead distribution and incentives problems. They also tell us that the health industry is the single largest public employer and the single largest lobbyist in the country.They also talk about the possibility of using cryptocurrency in driving behavior change in patients, what the “remember blockchain?” eulogy for the tech might look like in 2030 if it doesn’t pan out, how Apple, Amazon and Google getting involved in the space might change thing, and why days are (hopefully) numbered for companies whose business models are predicated on a lack of trust and transparency.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

On this episode of Venture Stories, Erik is joined by co-host Tony Sheng to interview John Backus (@backus), founder of Bloom and Cognito, two companies working on decentralized lending and identity.Co-host Tony Sheng (@tonysheng) leads product at Decentraland. He also publishes analyses on the business and strategy of crypto at tonysheng.com and is one of Village’s Network Leaders.John recently wrote a popular post about the history of decentralized peer-to-peer file sharing in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He joins Erik and Tony to expand on the post and talk about what that history can teach us about decentralization today.He takes us through the history of file sharing apps from Napster to Kazaa to BitTorrent. He explains why the way BitTorrent is architected “doesn’t make sense” from a technical point of view and why the legal system has had such an impact on the way BitTorrent works.John explains some of the legal challenges to peer-to-peer sharing and how they’ve adjusted. The push to decentralize is often considered a recent phenomenon but he describes a number of projects from many years ago that are actually pretty similar to what people are attempting to build today. He even talks about an early version of a token that was created by a decentralized file sharing service back in the early 2000s.He concludes with why a number of these projects didn’t succeed and what lessons they have for decentralized projects today. He explains that the UX of decentralized services is often very poor, which makes it “an order of magnitude harder to find product-market fit.”Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global, is hosted by co-founder and partner Erik Torenberg and is produced by Brett Bolkowy.