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Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Hemant Taneja - Engineering Global Resilience - [Invest Like the Best, EP.382]

Invest Like the Best with Patrick O'Shaughnessy

Colossus

Investing, Business, Technology

4.82.4K Ratings

🗓️ 31 July 2024

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

My guest today is Hemant Taneja. Hemant is the CEO and Managing Director of General Catalyst, the global venture capital firm you’ll hear us refer to as GC. GC has set out to build resiliency across critical industries worldwide. The firm leverages technology to retool sectors such as healthcare, energy, defense, and manufacturing and explores innovative capital structures to support founders and businesses. Hemant discusses how the firm is positioned to respond to the aftermath of crises, including the pandemic, wars, energy issues, and beyond. We also discuss the building of a category-defining healthcare company, Livongo and much more. Please enjoy this conversation with Hemant Taneja. Listen to Founders Podcast For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Ramp. Ramp’s mission is to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects. Ramp is the fastest growing FinTech company in history and it’s backed by more of my favorite past guests (at least 16 of them!) than probably any other company I’m aware of. It’s also notable that many best-in-class businesses use Ramp—companies like Airbnb, Anduril, and Shopify, as well as investors like Sequoia Capital and Vista Equity. They use Ramp to manage their spending, automate tedious financial processes, and reinvest saved dollars and hours into growth. At Colossus and Positive Sum, we use Ramp for exactly the same reason. Go to Ramp.com/invest to sign up for free and get a $250 welcome bonus. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus, where we're changing the game in investment research. Step away from outdated, inefficient methods and into the future with our platform, proudly hosting over 100,000 transcripts – with over 25,000 transcripts added just this year alone. Our platform grows eight times faster and adds twice as much monthly content as our competitors, putting us at the forefront of the industry. Plus, with 75% of private market transcripts available exclusively on Tegus, we offer insights you simply can't find elsewhere. See the difference a vast, quality-driven transcript library makes. Unlock your free trial at tegus.com/patrick. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: (00:00:00) Our Partners: Ramp and Tegus (00:03:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best (00:03:57) Introducing Hemant Taneja and General Catalyst (00:04:17) Global Resilience and Innovation Post-Pandemic (00:05:56) Re-Globalization and Manufacturing (00:07:03) Building Livongo: A 20-Year Overnight Success (00:13:23) Aligning Incentives in Healthcare (00:15:40) Re-imagining the Investment Business (00:20:54) Evolution of General Catalyst (00:27:04) Succession and Trust in Asset Management (00:35:00) Founder-Centric Capital Goals (00:36:32) Balancing Growth and Liquidity (00:41:39) AI and Onshoring Productivity (00:47:10) Defense Investments and Ethics (00:50:11) Geopolitics and Regulation (00:53:16) Reflections on Leadership and Strategy (01:01:14) Hemant's Future Plans (01:02:55) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Ever Done for Him

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Two fun facts about our newest sponsorship partner, RAMP.

0:03.6

First, they are the fastest growing FinTech company in history,

0:06.6

reaching a level of revenue in five years that I can't quote exactly,

0:09.9

but his eyebrow raising.

0:11.5

Second, they are backed by more of my favorite past guests,

0:14.6

at least 16 of them when I counted,

0:16.8

than probably any other company that I'm aware of.

0:19.0

A list that includes Ravi Gupta at Sequoia, Josh Kushner,

0:21.6

at Thrive, Keith Raboy at Founders Fund and

0:23.4

Coastal Ventures, Patrick and John Collison, Michael Ovets, Brad Gersner, the list goes

0:27.2

on and on. These facts demand the question, why? Having been personally

0:31.3

obsessed with the great businesses through history, one clear lesson is that the best of them are run by disciplined operators.

0:37.0

These operators manage costs with incredible detail and they are constantly thinking about how they can reinvest every dollar and every hour back into their business.

0:44.8

This is RAM's mission to help companies manage their spend in a way that reduces expenses and

0:49.1

frees up time for teams to work on more valuable projects.

0:53.0

First on Expenses, the average American business

0:55.3

has a profit margin of 7.7%.

0:58.2

This means saving 1% on costs

1:00.0

is the equivalent of making 13% more revenue.

1:02.8

The average ramp customer is able to save 5% on their expenses each year.

1:07.2

Of course, every entrepreneur is looking for ways to grow revenue by 50%,

1:10.5

they should just as seriously seek to save 5 percent on their expenses.

...

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