Today's Episode features Wharton Finance Professor David Erickson. David is currently a Senior Fellow and Lecturer in the Finance Department and Co-Director of the Stevens Center for Innovation in Finance at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. David is also a Lecturer in Law at Penn Law/University of Pennsylvania Law School.

In addition to his responsibilities at Wharton, David acts as a consultant to both private and public companies on capital markets, corporate governance, and exploring strategic alternatives. He was also an operating partner at Bessemer Venture Partners, one of the leading global venture capital firms, and an advisory board member of Accompany, a relationship intelligence technology company (acquired by Cisco Systems, May 2018).

In this conversation, we talked about his early interest in finance, the dot com bubble, working with tech luminaries like Steve Jobs on taking their companies public, common mistakes companies make when looking for funding, SPAC's, key traits for success in Investing banking, and private equity, being an effective communicator, the importance of gaining operating experience for investors, opportunities to service traditional companies whose business model has been disrupted, Fintech, China and more!