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The Times Tech Podcast

Giant's Cameron McLain: "Buddhism, music and venture capital"

The Times Tech Podcast

Will Morley

Business, Unknown, Technology

4.9654 Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Sunday Times’ tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Cameron McLain, co-founder of Giant, to talk about why he chose the name (3:05), what he did before starting a venture fund (7:00), moving to America (8:30), dabbling in Buddhism philosophy (10:30), getting into the music industry (12:45), starting and selling a company (15:25), finding good founders (17:30), bringing in Lord Browne as an advisor (24:50), the importance of timing (26:20), raising money right as the pandemic hit (29:40), the climate opportunity (33:15), betting on biology (36:00), and his worst day (41:00).

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Transcript

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0:00.0

At the University of Southampton, they won't just teach you.

0:03.8

They'll challenge, support and empower you.

0:06.5

Visit an Open Day to see why they're targeted by top employers

0:09.7

and to find out how their incredible research and mind-blowing facilities will shape your learning.

0:15.7

Hi, I'm Joshie, a math student here at Southampton.

0:18.7

Open Days really help me pitch your living here.

0:20.6

You can chat to

0:21.0

students like me, meet our brilliant academics, explore the campuses and get a real feel for what

0:25.5

it's like studying here. Book your place. Search Southampton Open Days. Yo, technology. What is it all

0:36.2

about? People's childhoods play a big role in how they approach building companies.

0:40.4

And, you know, at the end of the day, I think a lot of them have something that they really want to prove as well.

0:45.7

If you look at a lot of the best entrepreneurs, some of them have had challenging upbringings.

0:50.1

And I think that fire in the belly is something you can't recreate.

0:53.8

It's there or it's not.

1:08.1

Hello and welcome to Danny in the Valley, your weekly dispatch from behind the scenes and inside the minds of the top people in tech this week.

1:16.6

We're going to take a little stroll to the land of venture capital.

1:21.0

And specifically, venture capital focused exclusively on big, globally important, meaty problems, not, you know, the next social media app or SaaS startup, et cetera.

1:32.9

On the program, we have Cameron McLean. He is the co-founder of a London-based firm called Giant.

1:41.8

They are three years old, and they're focusing on just a few very focused areas.

1:46.7

Climate, health care, and what they call inclusive capitalism. We're going to talk about that.

1:50.9

And I want to have Cameron on because, like Andrew Beebe from Obvious, who we had on a couple months ago,

1:56.2

Giant is one of a relatively new and fast-growing generation of venture investors who are backing companies,

...

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