20VC: a16z's Balaji Srinivasan on Why There Is A Financial Incentive For Truth In VC & Why The Best VCs Invest In Founder To Make Them Richer Than Themselves

The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

The Twenty Minute VC

Finance, Venturecapital, Tech News, News, Siliconvalley, Technology, Investing, Startups, Business

4.4 • 637 Ratings

🗓️ 25 November 2016

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Balaji Srinivasan is the Founder & CEO @ 21.co, the company that believes for bitcoin to succeed we need to build the full stack infrastructure for bitcoin, from silicon to hardware. 21.co have backing from some of the best in the world including a16z, Peter Thiel, Scott & Cyan Banister, Naval Ravikant and previous guest Data Collective's Matt Ocko. Balaji is also a Board Partner @ a16z, where he has served for the past 3 years. Prior to a16z and 21.co, Balaji was Co-Founder & CTO @ Counsyl, the genomics startup that now tests 4% of all US births and raised $65 in funding.

In Today’s Episode You Will Learn:

1.) How Balaji made the move from operations to a16z and the back to startups? How did his time in operations affect his investing mentality and vice versa.

2.) Why does Balaji believe that the number 1 barrier for most startups is regulation? Why does Balaji look to the unseen?

3.) With such value being held back by regulation, what is the FDA, FAA, SEC etc holding back? How can that value be unlocked? How can you carve out jurisdictions where you can have early adopters?

4.) How can new products look to gain customer validation through micro testing market segments? What are the requirement to do this successfully? What are the common mistakes

5.) How does Balaji view the future of regulation? How can tech help make regulation faster and more efficient? What are the barriers to it's widespread adoption and implementation?

Items Mentioned In Today’s Show:

Balaji's Fave Book: The Sovereign Individual, The Princeton Companion To Mathematics

As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Balaji on Twitter here!

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the 20 minute VC. I'm your host, Harry Stebbings, at H. Stebbings on Snapchat. And you can also
0:05.0	find us on our new blog. It's absolutely fantastic called mehitovc.com. That name is never going to get old.
0:11.6	And for the blog, think of it as a cross between Fred Wilson and Freakonomics, bringing the fun,
0:16.4	nerdy, and slightly naughty side to VC. HR will probably love me.
0:23.5	I'd love to hear your thoughts, but it is Friday today,
0:25.6	and that means it's time to meet an incredible founder,
0:27.6	and I'm actually nervous of introducing this one,
0:30.2	as no intro will do him justice, but here goes.
0:33.1	So joining us in the hot seat, we have Balaji Shrini Vassan.
0:36.2	Belaghi is the founder and CEO at 21 and co.
0:38.6	The company that believes for Bitcoin to succeed,
0:42.8	we need to build the full stack infrastructure for Bitcoin, from Silicon to hardware,
0:47.5	and they have backing from some of the best in the world, including A16Z, Peter Thiel,
0:52.5	Scott and Siam Bannister, Neval Ravikant, and previous guest data collectives Matt Occo.
0:57.2	Belagie is also a board partner at Andresen Horace, where he's served for the past three years.
1:07.7	Prior to Andresen and 21, Bellagie was co-founder and CTO at Council, the genomic startup that now tests 4% of all US births and raised $65 million in funding.
1:11.0	How could I forget, Belagie has also been a professor at Stanford for the last 10 years? Such an incredible individual and genuinely one of the most intelligent people I've ever
1:15.6	met and had on the show. And a huge thanks to Hardy Maybaum at Matrix Partners for the intro to
1:20.1	Belagie today. I so appreciate that. But before we meet Belagie, let's be honest, most problems start
1:25.4	in the mind, whether it be fear, anger, stress, anxiety,
1:29.2	sleeplessness, they begin in your head but they can really wreck your life and meditation can help.
1:33.7	And Headspace is meditation made sim.
	...

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