Village Global Podcast

Gabriel Otte (@gabeotte), CEO and co-founder of Freenome, joins Erik on this episode of Venture Stories to talk about cancer screening.Gabriel starts out by talking about why he got into the cancer screening space and how Freenome got started. He lays out the different methods of cancer detection and why Freenome has chosen their specific approach to the problem. Erik asks how it compares to other companies working on similar problems and Gabriel helps create a market map of the space.Gabriel points out that 93 million people in the United States were instructed by their doctor to be screened for colorectal cancer last year but 70 million of them did nothing at all. He talks about why Freenome has chosen to hone in on this specific type of cancer screening and why it lends itself to an improved UX.They move on to a discussion of the uniqueness of building a product and company in the health space and why the dynamics are so different than those of other tech companies. Gabriel talks about the FDA approval process and why it pays to engage with them early, as well as how a company should go about ensuring that their tests will be reimbursed by payers.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.

Gabe Bassin (@gabebassin) and Taylor Pearson (@TaylorPearsonMe) join Erik for this episode.They cover a lot of ground in this episode where they explore some of the coming financial challenges that the US faces and how crypto might impact the markets and the economy in general.Gabe gives an overview of the current state of public debt and future government obligations. He explains how the fed ended up with four trillion dollars on its balance sheet.He says that “the market’s been programmed to be saved” and talks about the impacts of quantitative easing, or printing more money. Gabe and Taylor discuss volatility in the markets and potential looming financial crises. Gabe points out that public pension funds are underfunded and that fund managers need to make a 7% annualized return to meet their obligations. Given that these funds are the biggest players in the markets, this has a number of implications both for the market and society in general.They close out by talking about crypto and Bitcoin specifically, and how it might have an impact on all of this.Charts mentioned in this episode:Inflation as it relates to quantitative easing: https://twitter.com/gabebassin/status/1032259327745253376VIX Futures: http://vixcentral.com/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.

This is a deep dive into the mind of Eugene Wei. Erik and Eugene discuss all kinds of topics, including the unique state of ambition in Silicon Valley, “apprenticeships” for white collar jobs, Eugene’s favorite fiction books, what he would do if he was running the New York Knicks, and much more.They start by talking about the differences in extent and type of ambition between Silicon Valley and other places like New York or LA, as well as how you might spread the spirit of entrepreneurship that lives in the Valley further afield. Eugene talks about the progression of his career and what kind of advice he would have for others. He talks about the twists and turns in his career and describes what it was like going back to film school after having worked at Amazon. They talk about Eugene’s reading habits and the fact that he reads 20 non-fiction books at a time simultaneously. He also gives his recommendations on his favorite fiction books.Eugene says that Jeff Bezos had a different young executive shadow him for a period of time and explains his idea of an “apprenticeship” for white collar jobs and the value of learning by observing.They also have a round of underrated vs. overrated and Erik asks Eugene what he would do if he was running Medium, Spotify and the New York Knicks.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 episode of Health Stories, Erik is talking to Othman Laraki (@othman) and Alicia Zhou (@ay_zhou) of Color. Othman is co-founder and CEO and Alicia Zhou is Head of Research. Othman explains the personal reason that he started Color and why he got involved in the healthcare space after previously working at Google and running a company that was acquired by Twitter.Alicia and Othman explain the advances Color has made in genomics and how the approach they’re taking is different from that of other companies in the space. You might not have known that 30% of your health is related to your genome. There are also a number of new types of care that can be unlocked by having your genome sequenced.Othman explains how at Color they are hoping to follow the model of Google or Amazon where early in the company’s life they focus on doing one thing really well, then expand into other areas. He also talks about where he would be building a company in the space if he wasn't working at Color as well as where he might look to invest. They also discuss the time Othman wore a glucose monitor full-time and how it changed how he thinks about health, why he is hoping for an “iPhone moment” in the healthcare space, and why the future of cancer treatment will be much more about prevention than treatment.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.

Sunny Aggarwal (@sunnya97) of Cosmos and Tendermint joins Erik and co-host Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb), GP at MetaStable Capital, for this episode of Crypto Stories.They discuss how blockchains could be made to be interoperable with one another. Sunny explains why this is an important problem and what he is doing about it with Cosmos. He talks about why different types of tokens cannot yet be exchanged confidently.Sunny uses the analogy of a multithreaded CPU that we all use these days to explain how interoperable blockchains might work. They compare it to sharding and talk about how it would affect payments. Haseeb also asks what Sunny would like the crypto world to look like if he is successful with Cosmos and what the potential pitfalls might be. 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.

In this episode Alex Danco (@alex_danco) of Social Capital joins Erik to talk about Silicon Valley, economics, innovation, crypto, software and more. He is a very unique thinker with interesting opinions about the tech space.Alex explains the influence of Peter Thiel and Rene Girard on his thinking. He explains what he means when he says the key to understanding the world is asking, "what is everyone is compelled to lie about?"He gives a history of how innovation has traditionally proceeded in the world and explains how Silicon Valley — via software specifically — has changed the mechanism of innovation. He talks about how this has resulted in disproportionate gains accruing to the huge tech companies. This new model of innovation has also changed how companies are valued. Alex breaks down the new metrics that are being used by VCs and founders to value their firms — and why this could be contributing to a new tech bubble.Alex also talks about the economics of the Valley and why gains in productivity from technology have not resulted in increased leisure for the Valley's inhabitants. He also talks about crypto, career strategy, cost disease, scooters, and much more.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 is joined by Adrian Aoun (@adrianaoun), founder of Forward, a company that is trying to reinvent how primary healthcare is delivered. His previous company Wavii, was acquired by Google — where Adrian led AI efforts as well as working on special projects for Google’s CEO.Adrian explains the personal reason for his desire to found a healthcare company. He talks about why he is trying to build something completely outside the traditional healthcare system and gives a rundown of the amazing tech that Forward has been working on.The two of them also discuss why no healthcare company has achieved the scale that tech companies have — and how Forward might be one of the first companies to achieve that scale. Erik asks Adrian about his lessons learned when it comes to scaling and Adrian has a number of great tips about how to identify talent.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.

Erik and his co-host Taylor Pearson (@TaylorPearsonMe), author of The End of Jobs, are joined by Dhruv Bansal (@dhruvbansal), co-founder of Unchained Capital. On this episode they discuss a number of interesting topics, getting progressively “weirder” as they go along. In the beginning they get Dhruv’s take on the contrasts between Bitcoin and Ethereum and how the prevailing narrative around each of them affects how people perceive their strengths and weaknesses.By the end, they’re discussing if it’s possible to have money if humans are an interstellar species and whether it’s possible that Satoshi is a time-traveller from the future.In between, they cover a number of (equally) interesting topics, like Dhruv’s idea that blockchains are technologies for building political system” and why blockchain and Bitcoin are not actually a continuation of the internet, as they are commonly portrayed. Dhruv also explains what the “Nakamoto Point” is, where he would be investing, and what his “requests for products” are in the space.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.

This episode of Venture Stories was recorded in front of a live audience in San Francisco in October 2018. Keith was interviewed by Village Global partner and co-founder, Erik Torenberg. In the episode they cover a number of topics, and Keith (as usual) is very insightful.Keith breaks down some of the successes that mentees of his have had over the past few years. Many of them came from non-technical backgrounds and non-elite schools. He talks about their career trajectory and which inflection points led to their advancement and how young people in similar situations can model their careers after them.Erik explains the four dimensions over which he thinks about career building and where he thinks young people are over-optimizing.Keith shares what Peter Thiel told him about hiring while the two were on a run around the Stanford campus shortly after Keith joined PayPal. He talks about how as a manager he challenges the people working for him, and why as an employee you should always want to feel like you’re pushing the boundaries of what you’re capable of.They move on to what makes a good startup idea and the three factors that Keith uses to evaluate business ideas.They also take questions from the audience where Keith addresses work-life balance and why creating a startup is like casting and creating a movie. Quotable lines from this episode:“You don't want to be the best at what you do, you want to be the only one that does what you do.” “If you’re going to start a company and if you believe that the team you build is the company you build — you want to have unfair advantage in evaluating people.”“VC is one of the best jobs in the world if you’re intellectually curious.”“[Working in VC] is like learning to play basketball with NBA all-stars.”“When you want to make a decision, optimize on one variable. Don't make a pros and cons list.”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 Health Stories, Erik is joined by Jay Desai (@jdesai01) of PatientPing (patientping.com) and Joe Kahn (@josephwandile) of Karuna Health (meetkaruna.com).Both Joe and Jay are working on how to make sure that patient care is coordinated across multiple providers. When patients visit different providers, their care information is not shared between them and Jay and Joe are working to change that.The two companies are taking different approaches to the problem and the two founders explain why they’ve chosen to attack the problem the way they have and how they got started down this path.Joe and Jay explain how they are helping some of the most vulnerable individuals in the healthcare system and why this is nevertheless a good business to be in and why optimizing their care is good for providers. They give their recommendations on where they would be investing if they were running a fund in the healthcare space as well as what opportunities exist in the industry. They also explain why healthcare is not like e-commerce or ridesharing and instead more like advertising, in that we are in general trying to spend less, not more, on healthcare and are trying to get more value while reducing spend. 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.