Evaluating founder ambition, tools vs platforms + USV's Albert Wenger: post-capital world | E1569
This Week in Startups
Jason Calacanis
4.2 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 25 September 2022
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
First up, J+M discuss founder ambition and tools vs. platforms on VC Sunday School. (3:06) Then, USV's Albert Wenger joins to break down his firm's $162M climate fund, his book "The World After Capital", and more! (24:16)
(0:00) J+M intro today's topics!
(3:06) Evaluating founder ambition, tools vs. platforms
(11:14) OpenPhone - Get an extra 20% off any plan for your first 6 months at https://openphone.com/twist
(12:48) How investors evaluate tools vs. platforms, and when/if something is "too hard"
(19:50) J+M tee up today's TWiCS guest
(22:50) SnackMagic - Get 10% cashback up to $1000 until October 15th with code HOLIDAY, and see more at snackmagic.com/twist
(24:16) Molly welcomes USV Managing Partner Albert Wenger to discuss USV's $162M climate fund and the climate crisis investment opportunity
(33:26) Coda - The All-in-one doc for teams, get a $1,000 credit at https://coda.io/twist
(34:57) Albert discusses his book "The World After Capital", and the human attention problem
FOLLOW Albert: https://twitter.com/albertwenger
FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis
FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | All right, everybody. It is Sunday. Good morning to you on Sunday. I hope you're having a |
| 0:04.8 | restful weekend. And we've got some great content for you. If you want a hiking, |
| 0:08.9 | molly bike ride. So we're just sitting on the porch watching your hummingbirds. |
| 0:13.4 | Any of those? Hi, Guarantee. That's what I'm doing right now. |
| 0:17.5 | Pretty much. We have, however, we have content for you. We have a great VCE Sunday school. We |
| 0:23.6 | talk about founder ambition, how to evaluate it. As a VCE, what questions to ask? And it's |
| 0:28.5 | actually through the land. It's like we're combining startup of the day and VCE Sunday school |
| 0:34.1 | through the lens of a block party, a tool that just raised a $4.8 million seed round. |
| 0:38.8 | Yeah, congratulations to them. And should founders be building tools, platforms going for the go |
| 0:43.6 | replacing existing platforms? How do you make that decision? How do investors make that decision |
| 0:48.4 | of what to back? And we go through all the permutations of how VCE's seed investors and founders |
| 0:54.7 | think about this topic. And then I have an investor on this weekend climate startups. I'm |
| 0:59.6 | interviewing union square ventures managing partner and author of the world after capital, |
| 1:03.7 | Albert Wenger. We talk about his investment thesis, the new relatively new climate fund |
| 1:09.4 | that union square ventures has raised the book where he sees the climate industry going, where |
| 1:14.2 | he sees the world going. It's a very unusual and philosophical conversation with the VCE. |
| 1:20.5 | After capital, it's just like he made all his money in VCE and now he's happy and wants to go for |
| 1:24.6 | socialism? Not capitalism. Capital. Like the idea is in this book that the thesis is that |
| 1:31.5 | effectively we've solved, like capital is abundant. Got it. But attention is not. And so he's |
| 1:37.9 | talking about this transition to a knowledge age. Love it. And how to sort of get there without |
| 1:43.6 | massive disruption. It's really, it's a really, I loved this conversation. I've always wanted to |
| 1:49.4 | have Albert on the program. But I don't know. I don't think he likes me. And so we finally got |
... |
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