
Smart Humans with Slava Rubin
Smart Humans explores the world of alternative investments. From Venture to Collectibles, NFTs to Real Estate, Art to Debt and beyond - we discuss a new world of investment opportunities and the catalysts that impact their demand. Join our host Slava Rubin as he talks with entrepreneurs, investors and thought leaders across the diverse ecosystem.
Any data, text, or other content on this page is provided as general market information and not as investment advice. Past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future results. Investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital.
Latest episodes

May 13, 2024 • 38min
Smart Humans: Issuance CEO Darren Marble on equity crowdfunding, "Going Public" and storytelling for entrepreneurs
Darren Marble is a serial entrepreneur based in Los Angeles. Darren is the co-founder and CEO of Issuance, a leading software as a service (“SaaS”) platform for online capital raising. Issuance has processed more than $250 million from retail investors across its offerings to date. He is also an Executive Producer of Going Public, a groundbreaking original series that follows the stories of founders on their capital-raising journeys. For the first time, viewers globally can Click-to-Invest in featured companies while they watch.

Apr 24, 2024 • 53min
Smart Humans: 3i Members' Mark Gerson on their investing network, the importance of community, and accessing unique alternative investments
Mark Gerson is an investor, businessman, and philanthropist. He co-founded Gerson Lehrman Group (GLG), Thuzio, and most recently, 3i Members. Mark is also the Co-Founder and Chairman of United Hatzalah, a network of volunteer medics in Israel, and the African Mission Healthcare Foundation.3i Members is an investing network of 400+ investors—all who have exited a company or lead a family office. Members participate in monthly deal meetings, regional events, diligence discussions, and more. 3i deal flow is characterized by its high-yielding nature (15-20%+ IRRs), underwritable, uncorrelated, and off-market alternatives with asymmetric return profiles.See here:https://bit.ly/44ff6r1

Apr 8, 2024 • 43min
Smart Humans: Forge Capital's Kelly Rodriques on private market investing, navigating IPOs, and how to find the next breakout companies
Kelly Rodriques is the CEO of Forge Global, a leading global private securities marketplace. He’s accrued decades of domestic and international experience founding and successfully operating growth companies in the financial technology sector and his fintech experience spans both investing and financial services leadership. Formerly, he was the CEO of Pensco, Totality and Novo and was an Operating Partner with Ignition Growth Capital; He founded and remains managing partner of Operative Capital, an early stage financial technology investment fund.

Mar 28, 2024 • 50min
Smart Humans: Republic’s Kendrick Nguyen on the last few years in venture, revisiting his predictions and the massive opportunities that lie ahead
Kendrick Nguyen, CEO of Republic, discusses the evolution of AI in operations, web three financial firms, and retail adoption in cryptocurrency. He explores Republic's growth, share drops, Reddit's potential IPO, and global expansion plans. Kendrick also shares personal investment recommendations for the future and insights on diverse topics like note-taking apps and digitizing assets.

Mar 13, 2024 • 26min
Smart Humans: DealMaker's Rebecca Kacaba on investing into private markets and powering equity crowdfunding
Rebecca Kacaba is the CEO and Co-Founder of DealMaker, winner of Lexpert's Top 40 Under 40, and has been named one of North America's most innovative lawyers by the Financial Times, and one of Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women 2022. After over a decade of practicing securities law, she took an ambitious leap from her partnership at the world’s largest law firm and founded DealMaker to build a system that would make online capital raising mainstream. She is the force behind building DealMaker into one of Canada's Top 10 Fastest Growing Companies two years in a row as ranked by the Globe & Mail's Report on Business and a 2023 Deloitte Fast 50 Company-to-Watch. With a deep commitment to fostering a work culture that encourages ingenuity and creativity, Rebecca has helped guide DealMaker to land the second spot on Fast Company’s Best Workplaces for Innovators list. With her vision and drive, Rebecca as a regular featured speaker has become a trailblazer in the intersection of the capital markets and tech, and is committed to driving change and doing business the right way.

Feb 15, 2024 • 48min
Smart Humans: Equity Multiple's Charles Clinton on real estate investing and which sectors to invest in and which to avoid
Charles Clinton is the CEO and co-founder of EquityMultiple and is responsible for shaping the strategic vision of the company and overseeing its daily operations. Charles also sits on EquityMultiple’s Investment Committee and Board of Directors. Since its inception in 2015, EquityMultiple has transacted on hundreds of real estate investments, totaling over $5B in capitalization. Today, EquityMultiple serves over fifty thousand self-directed investors across the U.S.Prior to EquityMultiple, Charles was a real estate attorney with Simpson, Thacher & Bartlett, where he worked on a variety of major transactions for private equity clients, primarily Blackstone and KKR. During his time at SImpson, he worked on over $10 billion in transactions, including Blackstone’s $1.7 billion purchase of the Cosmopolitan Hotel, Blackstone’s $1.9 billion purchase of Motel 6 and Hilston’s real estate asset restructuring and refinancing in advance of its $2.5 billion IPO. Charles received his JD and Business Law Certificate from Berkeley Law and Bachelors Degree from Amherst College, where he was the captain of the swimming and water polo teams. He has FINRA Series 7 and 66 registrations. He lives in New York City, where he grew up, with his wife and two daughters.

Feb 16, 2023 • 56min
Smart Humans: Fund That Flip's Matt Rodak on real estate investing and evaluating single family homes
Matt Rodak is the CEO and founder of Fund That Flip, an end-to-end residential real estate lender, SaaS solution, and investment platform that empowers real estate entrepreneurs to create wealth and more value in their communities. After years in commercial property risk management, Matt decided to actualize his passion: real estate. However, he quickly became frustrated with the challenges of getting access to fast, reliable, and sustainable capital to finance his deals. And in 2014, Fund That Flip launched.
Fund That Flip’s award-winning platform and simple process allow borrowers to get loan commitments within 24 hours and the fastest closing of any hard money lender. Investors can then purchase fractional shares of those loans, historically earning more than 10.8% returns. The Platform and team provide first-class support and industry-leading transparency into every deal, while also offering unprecedented access to an asset class previously dependent on “who you know.” Fund That Flip has grown nearly 300% in the past three years, and to date has originated more than $2.2 billion in loans, with 99.7% of principal returned, and more than 93% repeat borrowers.

Jan 19, 2023 • 45min
Smart Humans: Alumni Ventures' Mike Collins on venture investing and scaling across universities
Mike Collins has been involved in almost every facet of venturing, from angel investing to venture capital, new business and product launches, and innovation consulting. He is currently CEO of Alumni Ventures Group, and launched AV’s first alumni fund, Green D Ventures, where he oversaw the portfolio as Managing Partner and is now Managing Partner Emeritus. Mike is a serial entrepreneur who has started multiple companies, including Kid Galaxy, Big Idea Group (partially owned by WPP), and RDM. He began his career at VC firm TA Associates. He holds an undergraduate degree in Engineering Science from Dartmouth and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Oct 26, 2022 • 49min
Smart Humans: Fundrise's Ben Miller on real estate investing and 3 housing markets that will continue to appreciate
Ben Miller is Co-Founder and CEO of Fundrise, America's largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment manager.
Fundrise’s mission is to use technology to build a better financial system for the individual investor, one that is simpler, lower cost, more reliable and transparent. They build software that enables the company to develop and manage investments uniquely well positioned to grow and preserve their clients’ capital in any economic environment.
Since launching America’s first online real estate investment platform in 2012, Fundrise has now become the largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment manager with more than 1.6 million active users, more than $3.3 billion worth of equity under management, and $7 billion worth of real estate transacted. From private credit to real estate private equity to growth-stage venture capital, Fundrise offers investors exposure to some of the most prized asset classes in the world.
Prior to Fundrise, Ben has decades of experience in real estate and finance. As Managing Partner of WestMill Capital Partners and President of Western Development Corporation, Ben was responsible for acquiring, developing, and financing more than $500 million worth of property.

Oct 5, 2022 • 51min
Smart Humans: Fanatics Collectibles co-founder Josh Luber on investing into Sports and Culture
Josh is the co-founder of Fanatics Collectibles and the founder of zerocool, the company’s pop culture, art, and entertainment vertical. He is also a co-founder of StockX, the world’s first ‘Stock Market of Things’, where he led the rise from idea to billion-dollar company in less than three years, cementing StockX as the world's leading marketplace for sneakers, apparel, and collectibles. In 2019, Josh stepped down as CEO to focus on StockX’s ‘startup within a startup activities’, including leading the nascent trading cards vertical. A year later, he left StockX to return to his entrepreneurial roots with the goal of revolutionizing the trading card industry as he’s done for sneakers.
Before StockX, Josh founded and ran four other startups and, in between each, had varying corporate jobs ranging from IBM strategy consultant to Alston & Bird bankruptcy attorney. He has an undergraduate BBA and joint JD/MBA from Emory University.