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• Globalization is ending; the year 2019 is as good as it is ever going to be
• After 70 years of people having fewer kids as a result of moving off the farm and into the city, the world is running out of mature adults, who are necessary for the consumption-based economic system to function 
• From an economic perspective, the U.S. is better positioned than most nations because its post-war generation actually continued to have kids at the onset of globalization + America has a much higher mortality rate once people age past 55
  • American wealth gets cycled back to the younger generation much faster than in nations where people live to be much older

Peter Zeihan is a geopolitical analyst, author and a speaker.

The world is changing faster than ever, and a lot of the countries, dynamics, peace treaties and structures we're familiar with may be about to come to an end. Peter's job consists of him analysing data from geography, demographics, and global politics to understand economic trends and make predictions. And if his predictions are correct, the next 50 years are going to look incredibly different.

Expect to learn why China will lose half of it's population by 2050, why globalisation is coming to an end even though we're more connected than ever, why population demographics are one of the most important factors in determining the future, whether automation will help or hinder us, whether food shortages are actually something to panic about and much more...

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• Improvements in the highly regulated American Dynamism sectors like defense, housing, education, and healthcare will come from technological improvements, not policy improvements
  • These are the most regulated, most subsidized, and lowest-competition sectors
• American Dynamism is an initiative to repair and strengthen the relationship between Silicon Valley and Washington to solve issues facing all Americans 
• Washington has a zero-sum culture that operates on short time horizons, while Silicon Valley has a positive-sum culture that operates on long time horizons
• Authoritarianism gives Russia and China certain advantages over the U.S. because they can order their best technologists to build what the country needs, whereas the best technologists in the U.S. are left free to create better ad-optimizing tech for Snapchat 
• American Dynamism founders must be great storytellers;the technology is important, but the founder must be able to convince investors, customers, employees, and potential future employees that they are a paradigm-shifting company 
• The government must turn to other sources than its defense-industrial base to solve its shortcomings in software, the Department of Defense’s realization of this has marked a paradigm shift in Washington 
• The playbook for defense tech startups: Start competing for the smaller pockets of money that don’t touch the five defense primes (that receive 40% of the defense budget), and then move up the categories of spend and compete for contracts in areas that have been around for awhile 
• People opting out of a system oftentimes improves the underlying system
• COVID forced parents to adopt a new model of educating their children, and like remote work, many parents were pleasantly surprised by the efficacy of the home-schooling and micro-schooling method 
• If all you need for work is an internet connection, people will move to states that are more aligned with their values and preferred policies, thus placing positive pressure on states to improve 
• Prices in regulated, subsidized, low-competition industries like defense, healthcare, and education don’t come down because they don’t need to come down
• Investors must be mission-aligned with the company or they shouldn’t be working with them  

My guest today is Katherine Boyle, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. Katherine started her career as a reporter for The Washington Post before moving into VC at General Catalyst. She now leads a practice at a16z called American Dynamism, investing in companies that are solving critical issues in areas like defense, housing, and education. In the past year, I've spoken to Marc Andreessen, Josh Wolfe, and a number of founders about this need to build societally important businesses so I was excited to explore the topic in even more detail today. Please enjoy my conversation with Katherine Boyle.

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.

The content here is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. For more details, please see a16z.com/disclosures.

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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.

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Show Notes

[00:02:42] - [First question] - The origin and overview of the term American Dynamism 

[00:05:01] - Why the shift to a move slow and make sure nothing breaks mentality

[00:07:31] - What about the American system today feels broken and stale 

[00:09:48] - Becoming a journalist at The Washington Post 

[00:11:35] - Describing the power landscape of media as it exists today  

[00:12:28] - Major categories of American Dynamism that matter most  

[00:14:29] - What matters more or less to her as an investor in  these categories 

[00:17:31] - Whether or not there’s anything fundamentally broken about our government

[00:19:36] - The Systems Bible; What excites her about aerospace and defense and what creates opportunity and demand in these sectors

[00:22:44] - Explanation of what it means when the factory is the product 

[00:23:47] - How much is flowing into aerospace and defense currently 

[00:26:01] - An overview of how lobbying works and who does it and why

[00:29:07] - Whether or not she considers these sectors from a bottom up perspective as in investor   

[00:30:32] - What other categories she feels pulled towards 

[00:33:09] - The biggest problems that currently exist in the K-12 school system 

[00:35:34] - Thoughts on how states are competing citizens and how it plays into American Dynamism

[00:37:34] - The role immigration will play in range of outcomes in these main categories 

[00:39:32] - Key takeaways about housing in light of American Dynamism  

[00:42:09] - Her interpretation of the chart that shows inflation in categories over time

[00:44:40] - How different the investing dynamics are in all of these categories and thoughts on valuation in this world 

[00:47:56] - Whether or not expected returns and risk profiles are different in this area 

[00:48:36] - The importance of effective a founder’s storytelling, knowledge and customer empathy

[00:49:55] - Overview of the anatomy of a great story  

[00:51:30] - The story she tells founders at this stage so establish a partnership 

[00:52:46] - The kindest thing that anyone has ever done for her

Welcome to Episode Nr. 2 of the DeSci Podcast - Today we're exploring the decentralized science reformation together with no other than Balaji Srinivasan! We're incredibly proud to be joined by such a smart and well-known mind as a second guest on "The DeSci Podcast" show!    

Topics of this episode:  

Due to his nature, we're slipping in many other interesting topics while tackling those above! 💙  

Feel free to skip around the timestamps to find your favorite topics and thanks again for tuning in! Also, if you prefer listening to podcasts on audio apps, feel free to search for "How To DeSci" on Spotify, Google Podcasts & Apple Podcasts. You'll also find all links to the podcast apps and the show-notes below.   

If you want to join us on the show as a speaker or have guest ideas, please shoot us a mail at [email protected]  

Special thanks to:   

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Timestamps:  

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Show-notes of the episode:   

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Let's connect:  

• Sheel Mohnot (@pitdesi) is a Co-Founder and General Partner at Better Tomorrow Ventures, a $225M venture fund for pre-seed and seed-stage fintech companies around the globe
• Even if you’re not a multi-million dollar angel investor like Sheel, his lessons are applicable to the everyday person trying to invest in good companies
• Host: Harry Stebbings (@HarryStebbings)

Sheel Mohnot is a Co-Founder and General Partner @ Better Tomorrow Ventures, a $225M fund that leads rounds in pre-seed and seed-stage fintech companies globally. Sheel and Jake (his co-founder) invested for many years together before founding BTV and wrote checks into Mercury, Flexport, Ramp, and Hippo Insurance to name a few. As for Sheel, before BTV he ran 500 Fintech for close to 7 years, and before that was a founder, founding two companies, both of which were acquired. If that was not enough, Sheel is also a master at measuring the width of swimming pools and making cameo appearances in music videos with Justin Bieber.

1.) Entry into Venture:

• How Sheel made his way into the world of venture having founded 2 fintech companies?
• Why did no LPs give Sheel money in the early 500 Fintech days? What were some of his biggest lessons from investing in 100s of companies with 500 Fintech?
• How did BTV with Jake come together most recently? What are the biggest differences to Sheel of being a fund manager vs being an investor?

2.) The Power Law:

• How does Sheel define "the power law" in venture capital? What multiple of return would be power law status?
• Given the size of outcome available with these power law returns, how does Sheel approach portfolio construction? Would it not be best to invest in 100s of companies?
• Who does Sheel believe has done the indexing approach best? Why?

3.) Venture Capital has Never Been Less Collaborative:

• Why does Sheel disagree with Harry that venture capital has never been less collaborative?
• Why now, for the first time, are large multi-stage funds taking single-digit ownership?
• Does Sheel agree with Harry it is moronic to have "guaranteed pro-rata"? How does Sheel approach re-investment decision-making? When does he pay up vs not?

4.) The Biggest Wins and Misses:

• What have been Sheel's biggest wins from a cashback and a multiple perspective?
• How did Sheel miss the chance to invest in both Robinhood and Chime early on? What did he not see? How would he have thought differently with the benefit of hindsight?
• How have Sheel's biggest hits and misses impacted how he invests today?

5.) Emerging and Frontier Markets:

• Does Sheel share Harry's concern for the removal of capital from emerging markets?
• Why does Sheel believe that India, South East Asia and LATAM will be fine?
• Why does Sheel believe Pakistan and Africa are most in trouble?
• What advice does Sheel give to his emerging markets founders today?

Sheel's Favourite Book: Enders Game