Village Global Podcast

James “Hondo” Geurts, former Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research, Development and Acquisition, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode. Takeaways:- What kept Hondo up at night was that there was a good idea out there that wasn’t passed on to him and thus wasn’t used on the battlefield.- A society can’t be secure without prosperity and can’t have prosperity without security.- The challenge for startups working with government is that the public is a fickle venture capitalist. They don’t like to fund things that don’t go anywhere.- It tends to be small and large companies (but mostly large) supplying the Department of Defense. The “middle has been lost.”- The DoD overvalues standardization.- Often in government, the user of the product is not the same as the buyer. Commonly startups make a mistake by not having buyer fit even if there is user fit for a product.- Government values past performance to a fault.- The United States, both via government and private enterprise, needs to build the industrial network of the future.- Commercial technology companies will be on the front lines of the next conflict and need to adapt features to make them resilient.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Haseeb Qureshi (@hosseeb), managing partner at Dragonfly Capital, joins Erik for an episode of our Web3 series. Takeaways:- This bear market is driven by macro factors rather than endogenous ones. - It turns out crypto is in fact correlated with other assets, largely because in 2020 institutions started buying crypto.- Projects searching for yield in a yield-starved environment drove growth in crypto. That may change with rising interest rates.- Adoption will drive the next chapter of crypto. Gaming and NFTs will lead the way.- Sometimes boring, stable governance is best. ETH has that today. It’s like Manhattan — it’s old and kind of pricey, but it’s the most important place that things are happening today.- Governments could ban Bitcoin, but they haven’t, likely because it’s not actually all that threatening to them.- Blockchains are like cities. They each have their own unique and vibrant cultures.- More decentralization is not always better in practice.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform.Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

- The narrative that China can do no wrong and why Noah says it is out of date at this point.- The long-term headwinds that China is facing, including demographic changes, resource limitations, and real estate challenges.- Why America should raise tariffs on anything made in China where it would be strategically important for those goods to be made somewhere else.- The state of real estate in China, including the fact that China’s economy is 30% real estate (double the percentage in the US) and that cities in China are sprawling and more akin to Chicago than Tokyo or Seoul.- Xi Jinping’s performance to date, why he’s “picking losers” in the Chinese stock market to try to bolster certain industries, and why the Zero COVID push is about Xi trying to appear strong.- The fact that China could be moderately competent and could still take over the world because of its sheer size.- Noah’s book recommendations for people who want to learn more about China.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Jacob Helberg (@jacobhelberg), foreign policy expert and author of The Wires of War, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss:- Why he says peace through trade was the biggest foreign policy miscalculation in US history.- How US companies have approached operating in China and why Jacob would advise them to proactively work to decouple themselves from the Chinese market.- Why Jacob would prefer that American laws change to restrict Chinese investments in US companies.- Why the Belt and Road Initiative has come to be seen as a debt trap.- What keeps him optimistic and what ordinary Americans can do if they are concerned about China.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Tyler Cowen (@tylercowen) is an economist, professor, and best-selling author. His latest book, Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World, written with co-author Daniel Gross, is available now. Tyler discusses how to discover undervalued talent, the importance of stamina, the best interview questions, peer ratings, late bloomers, and 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 www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Geoff Lewis (@GeoffLewisOrg), founder at Bedrock, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss:- His thoughts on the markets and the advice he has for founders operating in a market like this one.- What is driving financial nihilism and how it has changed society.- Why he’s only investing in founders where their company is their life’s work.- Bedrock’s investments in hardware and companies making things in the physical world.- The perils of politics replacing religion as our mechanism for forming community.- The crisis of meaning in society.- The institutionalization of venture capital over the last decade and why he’s an advocate of going back to basics with small teams making fewer high conviction investments.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Bilal Zuberi (@bznotes), partner at Lux Capital, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon to discuss:- Bilal’s investing thesis of finding companies building solutions to interesting problems that impact a lot of people.- Why he’s investing in space and defense companies.- What keeps him up at night and how his investments are working on those areas.- Why he’s optimistic about unifying America.- How to solve the problem of different people having different sets of facts.- Whether there will be a reckoning for American firms that have invested in Chinese companies.- His advice to founders building in complex markets and working with the government.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Hemant Taneja (@htaneja), managing partner at General Catalyst and author of Intended Consequences, joins Anne Dwane and Village Global’s newest partner, Prateek Alsi, to discuss:- What responsible innovation is and how tech can do good in the world using the framework.- How founders should think about responsible innovation at the earliest stages of a company.- The importance of thinking from first principles. - Lessons from the creation process of the companies Hemant has been involved in.- A better alternative to “move fast and break things.”- Which areas he excited about investing in, including healthcare and India.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Laura Crabtree (@llcrabbie), founder and CEO of Epsilon3, joins Lucas Bagno and Ian Cinnamon on this episode to discuss:- What she accomplished during her time at SpaceX and her journey to starting Epsilon3. - Whether the biggest contribution of SpaceX to the industry will be all the amazing people leaving to start their own space companies.- How to get into the space industry if you don’t already have a background in it.- Why a company like Epsilon3 hasn’t been built before.- The importance of being vulnerable as a founder.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup

Jimmy Soni (@jimmyasoni), author of The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley, joins Ben Casnocha on this episode to discuss:- How diversity and variety of backgrounds and opinions helped PayPal become successful.- The fact that PayPal’s leading product was not solving a problem that they had set out to solve, but rather a problem they discovered along the way.- The importance of sitting with your customers and really understanding their perspective and their problems.- What he learned about Peter Thiel, Max Levchin, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, and David Sacks.Thanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at www.villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Want to get updates from us? Subscribe to get a peek inside the Village. We’ll send you reading recommendations, exclusive event invites, and commentary on the latest happenings in Silicon Valley. www.villageglobal.vc/signup