James Joaquin (Obvious Ventures) - World Positive Investing

Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders (ETL)

Stanford eCorner

Business, Life Lessons, Creativity, Startups, Strategy, Thought Leadership, Education, Stanford University, Leadership, Challenges, Journey, Culture, Etl, Innovation, Founders, Stanford, Entrepreneurship

4.5 • 740 Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2021

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

James Joaquin is the co-founder and managing director of Obvious Ventures, leading the team’s investments focused on plant-forward approaches to food (like Beyond Meat), “good for you” consumer goods (like Olly), and companies at the forefront of how people find and do their best work (like Incredible Health). Joaquin has been working in venture capital since 2007. Prior to investing, he served as president and CEO of Xoom.com and president and CEO of Ofoto, and co-founded When.com. In this conversation with Stanford adjunct lecturer and STVP director of principled entrepreneurship Jack Fuchs, Joaquin discusses his commitment to “world positive investing” and his belief that many highly successful 21st century businesses will be devoted to solving the world’s biggest problems.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Who you are defines how you build.
0:06.7	This is the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series.
0:10.6	Brought you by Stanford E-Corner.
0:14.4	Hello, I'm Jack Fuchs, director of principled entrepreneurship at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program,
0:20.7	and I'd like to welcome you to the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series, presenting director of principled entrepreneurship at the Stanford Technology Ventures Program.
0:21.0	And I'd like to welcome you to the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series presented by
0:25.3	STVP, the Entrepreneurship Center in Stanford School of Engineering, and Bases, the Business
0:31.4	Association of Stanford Entrepreneurial Students.
0:34.6	Today I'm pleased to welcome James Joaquin to ETL. James is the co-founder and managing
0:39.8	director of obvious ventures, and a lot of our conversation today is going to focus on his
0:44.7	firm's unique investment thesis that a new ground swell of hyperscalable startups are going to be
0:50.4	created by focusing on solving the 21st century's biggest problems and challenges.
0:56.0	James has been working in venture capital since 2007, and he's invested in a wide range
1:01.0	of mission-driven startups, including Plum Organics, Ten Marks Education, O'Power, Seventh Generation.
1:08.0	Prior to investing, he had a distinguished career as an operator, as president and CEO of
1:13.1	Zoom.com, and as president and CEO of Ofoto, pretty much from its inception all the way through
1:18.9	an incredibly wild ride until it was sold to Kodak. He was also a co-founder of when.com,
1:25.2	computer science graduate of Brown University and a whole bunch of other things.
1:28.8	But let's turn it over. Welcome, James. Let's turn it over to you and allow you to just share
1:34.8	a little bit of background and context about obvious ventures and its uniqueness.
1:39.8	And then we'll get into the Q&A. James. Thank you, Jack. And hello to all the students and everyone watching.
1:46.3	It's an honor to be speaking as part of this series. I know I'm the wrap-up for this quarter.
	...

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