A History of Venture Capital & How to Make the Future | Sebastian Mallaby

Hidden Forces

Demetri Kofinas

Government, Business

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 March 2022

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In Episode 237 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with journalist, historian, and author Sebastian Mallaby about his latest book, “The Power Law,” which delves into the history of the venture capital industry and early-stage investing.

This conversation is meant to provide you with a framework for thinking about how to invest in businesses, initiatives, and projects, which not only lack cash flows, but whose values are often fundamentally intangible, difficult to measure, and often impossible to quantify. As more and more of our economic life happens in the digital realm, the ability to assess value and invest accordingly will become an increasingly invaluable skill-set for investors.

In Part Two of their conversation, which is available to premium subscribers only, Sebastian and I delve into the geopolitics of venture capital, some of the approaches to investing in this space, and how national governments can participate in order to support their domestic defense sectors without creating the malincentives that we often associate with 9-figure fighter jets and four-hundred-dollar hammers. Demetri and Sebastian also discuss Web3 in the context of initial coin offerings and how these types of crowdsourced investments have transformed the early stage landscaped and brought public capital into areas of the market that would have never been able to source it only 10 years ago. Lastly, Sebastian offers his views on the uniquely challenging situation facing the Fed Reserve at the moment and what he thinks is most important to focus on when trying to project the likely path for interest rates, economic growth, and asset prices.

You can access the full episode, transcript, and intelligence report to this week’s conversation by going directly to the episode page at HiddenForces.io and clicking on "premium extras." All subscribers gain access to our premium feed, which can be easily added to your favorite podcast application.

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Episode Recorded on 02/15/2022

Transcript

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0:00.0	What's up everybody? My name is Demetra Grafinas and you're listening to Hidden Forces,
0:06.0	a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs and everyday citizens to challenge consensus narratives
0:14.0	and to learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world.
0:19.0	My guest in this week's episode is Sebastian Malibu.
0:22.0	Long time listeners will remember Sebastian, he was one of our very first guests
0:26.0	he came on the show back in the early summer of 2017 to talk about his last book
0:31.0	which was a phenomenal biography of the former Federal Reserve Chairman, Alan Greenspan.
0:37.0	And he's back on the podcast today to talk about his most recently published book
0:41.0	on the history of venture capital and man did he crush it.
0:46.0	It's an incredible history of a relatively misunderstood industry
0:50.0	and this was an incredibly enlightening conversation to have
0:53.0	not only because it gave me a much deeper appreciation for the evolution of venture capital
0:58.0	but also because it highlighted for me what makes venture capital so different from other forms of investing.
1:05.0	My objective in bringing to this conversation today is to provide you with a framework
1:10.0	for thinking about how to invest in businesses, initiatives and projects
1:15.0	which not only lack cash flows but whose values are often fundamentally intangible,
1:20.0	difficult to measure and often impossible to quantify.
1:24.0	As more and more of our economic life happens in the digital realm,
1:28.0	the ability to assess value and invest accordingly will become an increasingly invaluable skill set for investors.
1:36.0	In part two of our conversation which is available to premium subscribers only,
1:41.0	Sebastian and I delve into the geopolitics of venture capital.
1:46.0	As many of you will know, I've done several episodes on this subject most notably
	...

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