Complexity Investing & Semiconductors (with NZS Capital)

Acquired

Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Venturecapital, Ma, Investing, Acquisitions, Startups, Vc, Investment, Business, Technology

4.8 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 3 November 2021

⏱️ 102 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Of our 65+ sources for the TSMC episode, one stood above the rest: a wonderful Knowledge Project episode with Brinton Johns and Jon Bathgate of NZS Capital laying out the state of the semiconductor market. When coincidentally we met Brinton a week later, we knew fate was telling us we had to dig deeper. It turns out NZS has a lot more to teach Acquired than just about semis! Here we dive into their fascinating philosophy of "complexity investing", which was born out of their interactions with the world-famous Santa Fe Institute (of W. Brian Arthur and Increasing Returns fame!)... and of course we also throw in some semiconductor shop-talk for good measure. :)

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Sponsors:
Vanta: https://bit.ly/acquiredvanta

Statsig: bit.ly/statsigacquired
Modern Treasury: https://bit.ly/acquiredmoderntreasury

Links:

NZS Capital: https://www.nzscapital.com
The Santa Fe Institute: https://www.santafe.edu
NZS's white paper on Complexity Investing: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5ca38f3216b6405d11e3d4b4/t/60131df6a8d27d63432ea5ff/1611865607574/Complexity_2021update-v9pt2.pdf
Brinton & Jon on The Knowledge Project: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6NUO_bymuA
Twitter:
- Brinton: https://twitter.com/bjohns3
- Jon: https://twitter.com/jbathgate
- Brad: https://twitter.com/bradsling

‍Note: Acquired hosts and guests may hold assets discussed in this episode. This podcast is not investment advice, and is intended for informational and entertainment purposes only. You should do your own research and make your own independent decisions when considering any financial transactions.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Okay, excitement, fun, brevity.
0:05.4	I love it.
0:10.7	For brevity is the soul of wit.
0:30.3	Welcome to this special episode of Acquired, the podcast about great technology companies and
0:35.3	the stories and playbooks behind them. I'm Ben Gilbert and I'm the co-founder and managing
0:40.0	director of Seattle based Pioneer Square Labs and our venture fund PSL Ventures.
0:44.7	And I'm David Rosenthal and I'm an angel investor based in San Francisco.
0:49.4	And we are your hosts. On our TSMC episode, one of the 65 sources that we used was an episode
0:56.8	of the Knowledge Project with Brenton Johns and John Bathgate. Brenton and John are public
1:02.0	equities investors at a hedge fund called NZS Capital and they spend a lot of their time researching
1:09.0	some eyes. It was packed so full of great content that I actually watched it twice to make sure
1:14.3	that I understood everything. It was so good.
1:17.1	Awesome. And then in a wild coincidence, the very next week, even before we shipped the TSMC
1:22.6	episode, David and I were at Capital Camp, great event organized by Patrick O'Shaughnessy and Brent
1:28.7	B. Shore. And we ran into Brenton in person. And I was like, I recognize that guy. What do I
1:33.2	recognize him from? It was like the Spider-Man. Yeah.
1:38.4	Very, very much so. So after like, nerding out the whole rest of the event on TSMC, geopolitics,
1:43.8	semis, we decided to have Brenton and John on Acquired. And on this episode, we actually didn't
1:50.1	even get into semiconductors for the first hour since it was so fascinating to hear about their
1:54.7	investment principles at NZS. And I've said this many times on the show, but yet again, new frameworks
2:00.8	that have totally changed the way that I think about the world. It's frameworks all the way down, Ben.
2:05.2	It is. This is a great time to tell you about one of our very favorite companies, Crusoe.
	...

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