2023 is certainly the year of generative AI. New software such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, Midjourney, and Bard have collectively created one of those “This is going to change everything!” moments in Silicon Valley and beyond. Startup founders and investors are all-in on what appears to be a new gold rush. On this episode, I have a lively discussion with a panel of experts including venture capital investors, startup founders, and Louis Lehot from Foley & Lardner.

There is plenty of seed financing activity going on in the startup world, but it’s a different economic environment with a variety of different structures being used. In this episode a panel of experts discusses early stage startup financings in the new economy. Co-hosted by ⁠Foley & Lardner, LLP,⁠ the panel includes Benjamin Heywood of SkyRiver Ventures, Igor Taber of Cortical Ventures, Taylor Oliver of Tenacity Venture Capital, as well as Natasha Allen ad Louis Lehot, two attorneys who handle many Silicon Valley startup financings.

On this episode I talk with Charlene Platon. She’s a registered nurse, and she’s in a leadership position at Stanford Health Care, which includes Stanford Hospital. She’s now launched a startup on the side, called Fifth Window. It’s a digital platform with a mission of revolutionizing the well-being of nurses worldwide. She talks about her journey as a startup founder, and also thoughts on how startup founders can optimize their time in order to achieve their goals.

Brazil is not only the largest economy in Latin America, it’s also a hotbed of entrepreneurship and innovation. Brazil has generated several unicorns - startups with a valuation more than a billion dollars - including Nubank, 99, Brex, Neon, Loft, and more. A small island in the south of Brazil, Florianópolis is often called “The Silicon Valley of Brazil” because it's become a thriving ecosystem of tech and startups. Joining me on this episode are two important people in that Florianópolis startup ecosystem - Leandro Piazza and JP Schneider. They run a startup school called “49 Education”, and they talk about the extraordinary startup activity in Brazil today.

On this episode I talk with Kyle Connors, co-founder of Candidate.fyi, an early-stage venture with a software product that helps companies transform their job candidate interview process into a world-class experience.  Kyle talks about the importance of doing customer development simultaneous to product development, about running a successful startup fundraising process, and about the mindset of successful entrepreneurs. 

On this episode I talk with Roger Lang, venerable entrepreneur and venture capitalist. By the age of 36 he had two IPO's under his belt, and more money than he knew what to do with. So he decided to dedicate himself to impact investing - investing in new startups that could help solve the world's pressing problems. His new venture capital fund is called "The Smart Society Fund".

Vera Maslova grew up in Moscow with two world-class scientists as parents, and then she went on to a PhD program in which she studied the intersection of art and philosophy. Then the war in Ukraine hit and she fled, ending up in Silicon Valley. An accidental refugee from unexpected world events, she now runs a startup named Science.Me, with a mission of giving more people exposure to brilliant scientists and philosophers from around the world. On this episode we talk about her new startup, but we also talk more broadly about facing adversity and how each of us can learn to develop a mindset of resilience.

TikTok, headquartered in China, is a hugely-successful app platform today. Last week the Biden Administration issued an ultimatum that the company either be sold to new owners or face the prospect of having the app banned in the US. It's an extraordinary thing, that a social media app popular with young people has been declared a national security threat. And this is happening, of course, against the background of a very tense unique relationship between the US and China. Joining me on this episode, to talk through this, is Ker Gibbs, an expert on US-China business relationships.

On this episode I talk with Darren Powderly about his journey from having an early startup idea to founding and building a company that today is a market leader, with over $4 billion in investor transactions processed. Crowdstreet has transformed the way that commercial real estate is funded, democratizing the process and making it much more efficient. 

On this episode we talk with four experts about some new Federal regulations being called “Reverse CFIUS” that will have a big impact on venture capital and private equity funds with investing activities in China and certain other countries. Investments from China into US companies and operations have long been subject to Federal review by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (commonly called CFIUS) and now the Biden administration is looking to make investments going the other way also subject to review.  According to many sources, a new executive order is being drafted and will be issued soon - it’s being called “Reverse CFIUS”. The Biden administration’s purpose is to check Chinese ambitions in fields such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing, with the clear aim of slowing the development of China’s military capabilities. But what do the new expected regulations mean for US investors? Today there are many outbound transactions conducted by venture capital, private equity, and other US investors into Chinese investment opportunities,  and by some accounts nearly half of these transactions will be subject to this new set of regulations. The experts on this episode include Louis Lehot, Christopher Swift, PhD, HK Park, and Ker Gibbs.