Podcast Notes Playlist: Business

• The best talent wants to join a company not at the highest price, but at the best price with the right amount of capital for the right risk 
• There are three types of seed rounds: Discovery (sub $2m), Classic ($3m to $5m), and Megatron Jumbo ($5m+)
• To win in today’s venture climate, you must get “ball control” in any round that is presented to you
• Be as disciplined as possible concerning your entry price 
• “I think AI is the most transformational thing that we are ever going to see in a long time. However, I still think it’s f***ing hard to make money there.” – Ed Sim  
• While some people encourage investors to perpetually lean into their investments, sometimes it is best to lean out and strategically sell in increments over time 
• Ownership matters, but it must also be balanced out with valuations 
• The hardest problems to solve often take longer to solve; businesses working on addressing these problems may appear “slow”, but they might be massive winners in the long run 

Ed Sim is one of the best seed round investors in venture as the Founder and Managing Partner @ Boldstart, Ed focuses specifically on developer, infra and SaaS at pre-seed and seed round. Over the last decade, Ed has backed some of the best including Snyk, BigID, Kustomer, Front and Superhuman.

1. The Three Types of Seed Round:

• What are the three different types of seed round today?
• Has seed ever been this competitive?
• Will seed be unimpacted by the macro decline we are seeing?
• Why are growth and multi-stage funds being more active than ever in seed?

2. Too Much Cash Will Kill You!

• Why does Ed believe that too much capital can kill companies at the seed round?
• Why does Ed believe that the best founders are not always optimising for the highest price?
• What are the single biggest negatives of taking a high price at the seed round?
• What advice does Ed have for founders who have large offers from multi-stage funds at seed?

3. Is Growth Dead?

• Why does Ed disagree and suggest that growth is not dead?
• What do multi-stage and growth funds now what to see that they did not before?
• How will the growth market evolve over the next 12-18 months?

4. IPOs, AI and M&A:

• What will cause the IPO windows to crack open again?
• Why does Ed believe that many investing in AI are simply giving money to Nvidia?
• Does Ed agree that 95% of the cash going into AI from venture today will go to zero?
• Will we see more or less M&A in the next 12 months?
• How did Ed evaluate the Loom acquisition by Atlassian?

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• MoonPals
• Fio Creations

• From Bieber’s Intern to Moon Pals
• Ideas Are Harder Than Execution
• Kickstarting Gravity Blankets
• How to Have a Good Idea
• Kanye West & the Creative Process
• The Wizard & the Warrior
• Magic is Real
• Social Situations Are a Departure From the Truth
• Moon Pals, Barbie, Taylor Swift & the Dawn of a New Paradigm
• Long Tails, Curation & Good Taste
• John as Emperor of the World
• MORE!

• The Genius of the Beast: A Radical Re-Vision of Capitalism, by Howard Bloom.
• The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World; by David Deutsch
• Tao Te Ching; by Lao Tzu
• The Two Cultures; by C.P. Snow

• Check Out the Infinite Loops Podcast Episode Page & Show Notes

• Website
• Twitter
• There’s No Speed Limit
• Ideas Are Just A Multiplier Of Execution
• The Thinker and The Prover
• Keep It Simple, Stupid (Infinite Loops Substack)

• Don’t Be AC/DC. Be Miles Davis.
• Does It Have To Be This Way?
• Rebranding Laziness
• Time Is A Multiplier
• From Idea To Execution
• Useful Not True
• When Simple Gets Hard
• How Derek Found Agency By Accepting Blame
• Cultivating Insatiable Curiosity
• More!

• Anything You Want; by Derek Sivers
• Hell Yeah Or No; by Derek Sivers
• How To Live; by Derek Sivers
• Your Music And People; by Derek Sivers
• Tao Te Ching; by Lao Tzu
• The Two Cultures; by C.P. Snow
• Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There; by Lewis Carroll
• The Cosmic Trigger trilogy; by Robert Anton Wilson
• The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life; by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd
• Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Tell You Everything You Need to Know About Global Politics; by Tim Marshall
• Au Contraire!: Figuring Out the French; by Gilles Asselin and Ruth Mastron
• Watching the English: The Hidden Rules of English Behaviour; by Kate Fox

Cal speaks with the man who founded Paul Mitchell hair care products after borrowing $700 while living out of his car, which led to his founding of the tequila company Patron. This episode is all about the wisdom the soon to be 80-year-old accumulated along the way – which we can all put to great use. Please, get the most out of it.

• Check out the 20VC Episode Page & Podcast Notes

Marc Benioff is Chair, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Salesforce and a pioneer of cloud computing. Under Benioff's leadership, Salesforce is the #1 provider of CRM software globally and one of the world's fastest-growing enterprise software companies. Benioff founded Salesforce in 1999, and it is now a Fortune 150 company with 70,000+ employees. Benioff is the owner and co-chair of TIME, and the founder of TIME Ventures. Benioff is the author of the New York Times bestseller Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change. Benioff was named “Innovator of the Decade” by Forbes and is recognized as one of the World’s 25 Greatest Leaders by Fortune.

1. The Future of San Francisco:

• What would Marc do if he were in charge of San Francisco today?
• What would he change with regards to housing, policing and crime?
• Why does Marc believe there are doomsday proclaimers on SF? What do they have to gain?
• Will Dreamforce always be held in San Francisco?

2. Money and Ambition: The Mind Behind a $200BN Machine

• Does Marc believe that money makes you happy?
• How has Marc's relationship to money changed over time?
• How does Marc think about bringing children up in a more affluent home?
• What does Marc advise anyone who is seeking "happiness" today?

3. Mastering Decisions and Prioritisation:

• How does Marc assess his own decision-making framework today? Has it changed with time?
• What is Marc's 5 step process to understand your own priorities today?
• What does Marc believe are the three biggest priorities for Salesforce today?
• What are the single biggest blockers that would prevent Salesforce from achieving their goals?

4. Marc Benioff: AMA:

• What does great fatherhood mean to Marc?
• Who would win the cage fight, Zuck or Elon?
• What does a day in the life of Marc Benioff look like?
• What does Marc think about work from home?

• Rigid rules can sometimes get in the way of good investors making good decisions
• Post-pandemic, the finance industry has realized that liquidity for pension funds is extremely important 
• Liquidity affects everything; having a lack of it can result in dire outcomes for the pensioners and for the system itself 
• During inflationary environments, positive correlation between stocks and bonds is not uncommon
• A recent study showed that 2.3% of equities are responsible for basically all the returns  
• If you have an edge in any market, lean into that edge!
• Hypothetically, the equity portion of the portfolio is supposed to be the primary return driver, and the income portion of the portfolio is supposed to be the liquidity provider 
• Bad things happen when both equities and bonds simultaneously drawdown, which is exactly what happened in 2022 and 2023
• An increasing number of institutional investors want to put a tail hedge on 
• No one knows all of the right answers all of the time; they might act like they do, but they do not 

Bloomberg Radio host Barry Ritholtz speaks with Elizabeth Burton, managing director and client investment strategist at Goldman Sachs Asset Management. She advises institutional clients on investment strategies and portfolio objectives, working alongside global client advisers and product strategists across public and private markets. Prior to joining the firm, Elizabeth was chief investment officer at the Employees' Retirement System of the State of Hawaii. Before that, she served as a managing director in the quantitative strategies group at the Maryland State Retirement Agency, where she was responsible for the agency's absolute return portfolio and oversaw risk management. Elizabeth serves on the board of directors of the Chartered Alternative Investment Association. In addition, she serves on the board of the Hill School. Elizabeth earned an MBA in finance and econometrics and statistics from the University of Chicago in 2011. She is a charterholder of CAIA. 

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