1 00:00:02,240 --> 00:00:06,439 Speaker 1: This is Master's in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg 2 00:00:06,519 --> 00:00:11,760 Speaker 1: Radio this weekend. On the podcast, I have an extra 3 00:00:11,800 --> 00:00:15,600 Speaker 1: special guest. His name is Bill Janeway, and he is 4 00:00:15,640 --> 00:00:19,279 Speaker 1: the author of the Innovation Economy. He was an early 5 00:00:19,400 --> 00:00:22,720 Speaker 1: guest where quite bluntly, I really didn't know what the 6 00:00:22,760 --> 00:00:26,080 Speaker 1: hell I was doing, And I think this conversation is 7 00:00:26,280 --> 00:00:29,320 Speaker 1: far more detailed than in depth if you are at 8 00:00:29,360 --> 00:00:35,280 Speaker 1: all interested in venture capital, technology investing UH and the 9 00:00:35,400 --> 00:00:41,159 Speaker 1: role of both the Defense and Intelligence agencies specifically and 10 00:00:41,240 --> 00:00:49,520 Speaker 1: the federal government generally in impacting venture investing technology long 11 00:00:50,600 --> 00:00:53,720 Speaker 1: form investing where there may not be an immediate payoff, 12 00:00:54,080 --> 00:00:57,880 Speaker 1: but ultimately you end up with a really significant set 13 00:00:57,880 --> 00:01:02,320 Speaker 1: of payoffs. Whether we're talking about UH, the Interstate highway system, 14 00:01:02,440 --> 00:01:08,720 Speaker 1: the cross continental railroads, the space um race for the Moon, 15 00:01:09,200 --> 00:01:12,640 Speaker 1: all of these things had no immediate expected payoff, but 16 00:01:12,840 --> 00:01:16,760 Speaker 1: long term they've delivered a tremendous amount of value. And 17 00:01:16,800 --> 00:01:22,880 Speaker 1: the intersection between technology, venture capitalism, and economics UH is 18 00:01:22,959 --> 00:01:26,759 Speaker 1: something that Professor Janeway specializes in. I think you'll find 19 00:01:26,800 --> 00:01:31,200 Speaker 1: this conversation absolutely fascinating. So, with no further ado my 20 00:01:31,360 --> 00:01:39,280 Speaker 1: conversation with Bill Janeway, I'm Barry rit Halts. You're listening 21 00:01:39,319 --> 00:01:43,160 Speaker 1: to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest 22 00:01:43,240 --> 00:01:47,720 Speaker 1: today is Bill Janeway. He has a storied background in 23 00:01:47,880 --> 00:01:52,160 Speaker 1: both economics and venture capital. He helped to create b 24 00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:56,600 Speaker 1: e A Systems, which connects software apps to database. Had 25 00:01:56,600 --> 00:01:59,840 Speaker 1: you invested about fifty million dollars into b e A, 26 00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:03,840 Speaker 1: UH when Bill started putting money into it, it would 27 00:02:03,880 --> 00:02:08,160 Speaker 1: have become over six billion dollars in six years. He 28 00:02:08,320 --> 00:02:13,160 Speaker 1: is an affiliated lecturer of Economics at the University of Cambridge, 29 00:02:13,200 --> 00:02:17,959 Speaker 1: where he teaches a class venture Capital in the Innovation Economy. 30 00:02:18,000 --> 00:02:21,840 Speaker 1: He's a senior advisor at Warburg Pincus, where he helped 31 00:02:21,960 --> 00:02:27,200 Speaker 1: build technology investing platform there for over thirty years. He's 32 00:02:27,240 --> 00:02:31,320 Speaker 1: on the board of the US Social Science Research Council, 33 00:02:31,760 --> 00:02:34,760 Speaker 1: the governing board for the Institute of New Economics, the 34 00:02:34,800 --> 00:02:39,760 Speaker 1: Field Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences. UH. No less 35 00:02:39,760 --> 00:02:43,280 Speaker 1: a character than Mark Andresen called him a key creator 36 00:02:43,800 --> 00:02:47,680 Speaker 1: of the modern venture capital world. He is also the 37 00:02:47,720 --> 00:02:53,760 Speaker 1: author of Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy, Markets, Speculation, 38 00:02:53,800 --> 00:02:57,960 Speaker 1: and the State. Bill Janeway, Welcome back to Bloomberg. It 39 00:02:58,080 --> 00:03:00,400 Speaker 1: is great to be back here, Barry, especially with you. 40 00:03:01,120 --> 00:03:04,040 Speaker 1: That is quite the curriculum. Vita and I. We left 41 00:03:04,080 --> 00:03:06,480 Speaker 1: a ton of it off. We'll talk a little bit 42 00:03:06,480 --> 00:03:09,000 Speaker 1: about B E A systems in a bit. I want 43 00:03:09,000 --> 00:03:13,799 Speaker 1: to start with your academic background in economics, your val 44 00:03:13,919 --> 00:03:19,200 Speaker 1: Victorian Princeton. You get your doctorate from Cambridge and economics. 45 00:03:19,200 --> 00:03:23,280 Speaker 1: How do you go from that to venture capital? Well, 46 00:03:23,320 --> 00:03:27,040 Speaker 1: actually it's a closer connection than I knew at the 47 00:03:27,160 --> 00:03:30,960 Speaker 1: time it would be. When I got to Cambridge, I 48 00:03:31,040 --> 00:03:36,040 Speaker 1: was studying under the students, the top students who had 49 00:03:36,080 --> 00:03:39,640 Speaker 1: been taught by John Maynard Kean's and I wrote my 50 00:03:39,800 --> 00:03:43,920 Speaker 1: dissertation for Richard Khan, who invented the multiplier as a 51 00:03:43,920 --> 00:03:46,560 Speaker 1: way of looking at the impact of government spending or 52 00:03:46,640 --> 00:03:50,640 Speaker 1: taxes on the macro economy. But all of the work 53 00:03:50,680 --> 00:03:53,520 Speaker 1: that I did there, everything I learned there was about 54 00:03:53,880 --> 00:04:02,520 Speaker 1: decision making under conditions of uncertainty, decision making by investors, workers, consumers, businessmen, 55 00:04:03,280 --> 00:04:07,480 Speaker 1: politicians who cannot know what the full consequences of their 56 00:04:07,520 --> 00:04:11,880 Speaker 1: actions are gonna be. Now, isn't that effectively every actor 57 00:04:12,040 --> 00:04:15,280 Speaker 1: in the economy? You got it. But by the time 58 00:04:15,320 --> 00:04:19,880 Speaker 1: I finished my doctorate and was thinking I would pursue 59 00:04:19,920 --> 00:04:24,039 Speaker 1: a course in economics and academic economics. It turned out 60 00:04:24,040 --> 00:04:28,760 Speaker 1: that economics was converting itself for a long generation into 61 00:04:28,760 --> 00:04:33,320 Speaker 1: a kind of mechanical process of cranking out the efficient 62 00:04:33,400 --> 00:04:37,680 Speaker 1: outcome on the assumption that everybody knew everything that's The 63 00:04:37,720 --> 00:04:42,320 Speaker 1: marketplace itself is already reflecting all the information that's available, 64 00:04:42,400 --> 00:04:46,280 Speaker 1: and therefore, hey, nobody can really beat the market consistently 65 00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:50,760 Speaker 1: over time, or or so Chicago, Pharma and French and 66 00:04:51,839 --> 00:04:55,360 Speaker 1: right across the whole economy. The rational expectations hypothesis said, 67 00:04:55,640 --> 00:04:58,760 Speaker 1: government can't have any lasting impact on the economy because 68 00:04:58,839 --> 00:05:02,160 Speaker 1: people in the economy will react an offset whatever it 69 00:05:02,200 --> 00:05:06,120 Speaker 1: tries to do. In any case, I decided that at 70 00:05:06,120 --> 00:05:11,400 Speaker 1: the ripe old age of seven, I could not take 71 00:05:11,480 --> 00:05:14,359 Speaker 1: this stuff and spend my life pumping it into the 72 00:05:14,400 --> 00:05:20,720 Speaker 1: brains of innocent undergraduate. So I went on. I went 73 00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:23,720 Speaker 1: on what I talk of as my my thirty five 74 00:05:23,800 --> 00:05:28,800 Speaker 1: years sabbatical, where in the trenches of venture capital that 75 00:05:28,839 --> 00:05:32,760 Speaker 1: I evolved in through joining an extraordinary firm whose core 76 00:05:32,880 --> 00:05:39,120 Speaker 1: competence was understanding the science based industries, from chemicals to pharmaceuticals, 77 00:05:39,120 --> 00:05:43,240 Speaker 1: to electronics to computing, I discovered that what I learned 78 00:05:43,240 --> 00:05:48,240 Speaker 1: at Cambridge as an academic economist, was directly relevant to 79 00:05:48,320 --> 00:05:51,839 Speaker 1: try and to frame the sword of decisions and the 80 00:05:51,960 --> 00:05:56,800 Speaker 1: sort of ways of protecting yourself, your investors, and the 81 00:05:56,960 --> 00:06:01,960 Speaker 1: entrepreneurs you are backing from the necessary ignorance of operating 82 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:06,240 Speaker 1: at the frontier of technology. So that's pretty fascinating. I 83 00:06:06,279 --> 00:06:10,039 Speaker 1: want to push back on the concept that, hey, this 84 00:06:10,160 --> 00:06:14,560 Speaker 1: efficient market hypothesis really doesn't get it right. A perfect 85 00:06:14,560 --> 00:06:17,040 Speaker 1: example I read over the weekend while I was doing 86 00:06:17,040 --> 00:06:21,120 Speaker 1: a little research for for our conversation. Some people have 87 00:06:21,240 --> 00:06:24,960 Speaker 1: been wondering why the US tax cuts haven't had a 88 00:06:25,080 --> 00:06:29,279 Speaker 1: larger impact on either employment or wages or R and D. 89 00:06:30,160 --> 00:06:35,200 Speaker 1: And the most interesting explanation I came across was, well, 90 00:06:35,279 --> 00:06:40,119 Speaker 1: everybody has already operated on the basis that they're tax havens, 91 00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:44,520 Speaker 1: and this thirty corporate tax rate is no big deal anyway. 92 00:06:44,600 --> 00:06:48,320 Speaker 1: We're all paying uh, eighteen percent or less. Therefore, a 93 00:06:48,400 --> 00:06:51,440 Speaker 1: giant corporate tax cut has much less of an impact 94 00:06:51,440 --> 00:06:54,080 Speaker 1: than you would imagine, true or false? And what does 95 00:06:54,080 --> 00:06:57,920 Speaker 1: that say about your belief that, hey, maybe the market 96 00:06:57,960 --> 00:07:00,920 Speaker 1: is less efficient than we think. For first, I think 97 00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:04,000 Speaker 1: that's correct. I don't think the average of about eight, 98 00:07:04,600 --> 00:07:08,640 Speaker 1: not thirty, and of course, particularly the digital companies that 99 00:07:08,680 --> 00:07:13,600 Speaker 1: can move their cash flows and their assets around by 100 00:07:13,960 --> 00:07:18,840 Speaker 1: keys on a computer. They're not manufacturing steel and build locomotives, 101 00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:23,160 Speaker 1: it's just code. Very mobile, they're very mobile. Second, however, 102 00:07:23,800 --> 00:07:28,920 Speaker 1: the tax cut has had a significant substantial impact unavailable 103 00:07:28,960 --> 00:07:33,880 Speaker 1: accessible cash flow, not reported earnings. So that but what's 104 00:07:33,920 --> 00:07:36,440 Speaker 1: happened to that cash flow? And this is something again 105 00:07:36,480 --> 00:07:39,360 Speaker 1: about the nature of the stock market, That cash flow 106 00:07:39,400 --> 00:07:43,520 Speaker 1: has overwhelmingly been devoted Apple being the most extreme example. 107 00:07:43,800 --> 00:07:48,040 Speaker 1: Stock buybacks and dividends, that not not raising wages for workers, 108 00:07:48,040 --> 00:07:52,000 Speaker 1: not investing in the new stuff, but but putting more 109 00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:54,920 Speaker 1: money in the in the pockets of stockholders, which you 110 00:07:54,960 --> 00:08:01,000 Speaker 1: know is a rational response of management, particularly when their stockholders, 111 00:08:01,040 --> 00:08:05,960 Speaker 1: who are increasingly index funds, are necessarily very short term 112 00:08:06,000 --> 00:08:10,120 Speaker 1: oriented and the executives are also short term oriented. Hey, 113 00:08:10,120 --> 00:08:14,400 Speaker 1: we we eliminated the agency problem by tying their compensation 114 00:08:14,800 --> 00:08:17,040 Speaker 1: to the stock price. So so you go on this 115 00:08:17,160 --> 00:08:20,400 Speaker 1: thirty year walk about, and you spend some time in 116 00:08:21,360 --> 00:08:26,160 Speaker 1: um Wearburg Pankis, you spent some time at Eberstaaten company. 117 00:08:26,200 --> 00:08:29,440 Speaker 1: What prompted you to say, Hey, this venture capital thing, 118 00:08:29,920 --> 00:08:31,920 Speaker 1: it's gonna be big one day I want to stay 119 00:08:31,920 --> 00:08:33,760 Speaker 1: involved in. You know, it's funny. It was actually a 120 00:08:33,760 --> 00:08:37,120 Speaker 1: crossover from being an economist to being a venture capitalist 121 00:08:37,400 --> 00:08:40,120 Speaker 1: in the In the mid late seventies, when I was 122 00:08:40,160 --> 00:08:44,319 Speaker 1: a kid on Wall Street, I was really interested in 123 00:08:44,880 --> 00:08:48,319 Speaker 1: the kind of longer term strategic issues around the economy. 124 00:08:48,480 --> 00:08:51,439 Speaker 1: There had been a big fiasco. One of the first 125 00:08:51,480 --> 00:08:55,240 Speaker 1: attempts to use computers to model the economy, not just 126 00:08:55,400 --> 00:08:58,679 Speaker 1: modeled the they modeled the world came out of M 127 00:08:58,760 --> 00:09:01,400 Speaker 1: I T and was kind of a fiasco, was called 128 00:09:01,400 --> 00:09:04,120 Speaker 1: the Limits of Growth Study for the Club of Rome, 129 00:09:04,400 --> 00:09:08,880 Speaker 1: and this was referenced in your book. Absolutely absolutely. But 130 00:09:09,000 --> 00:09:11,160 Speaker 1: the the the young guys at M I T who 131 00:09:11,160 --> 00:09:13,280 Speaker 1: have been caught up in this, they learned a big 132 00:09:13,360 --> 00:09:18,479 Speaker 1: lesson and they set out using computers to build very detailed, 133 00:09:18,640 --> 00:09:23,600 Speaker 1: very granular, local models of economic behavior. And I stumbled 134 00:09:23,600 --> 00:09:27,079 Speaker 1: on these guys as I was trying to find out 135 00:09:27,240 --> 00:09:30,800 Speaker 1: how to think about and how to handle the consequences 136 00:09:30,840 --> 00:09:33,920 Speaker 1: of the first oil crisis, which blew up all the 137 00:09:33,920 --> 00:09:38,880 Speaker 1: econometric models. They were useless because all the important variables 138 00:09:38,920 --> 00:09:41,640 Speaker 1: of the economy, from interest rates to exchange rates to 139 00:09:42,160 --> 00:09:45,559 Speaker 1: inflation rates had just been blown out. Of the historical database. 140 00:09:46,040 --> 00:09:48,240 Speaker 1: I found these young guys and I got a message. 141 00:09:48,280 --> 00:09:52,520 Speaker 1: The message was, Hey, this is what computers are interesting about. 142 00:09:53,160 --> 00:09:57,000 Speaker 1: It's not just being a flexible typewriter or or being 143 00:09:57,040 --> 00:10:00,520 Speaker 1: a faster or more flexible adding machine. You can build 144 00:10:00,640 --> 00:10:04,800 Speaker 1: simulations and explore the behavior of the world. That got 145 00:10:04,800 --> 00:10:08,840 Speaker 1: me interested in computers. From there, the first wave of 146 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:12,920 Speaker 1: artificial intelligence, the first wave of the hypeer artificial intelligence 147 00:10:13,240 --> 00:10:16,160 Speaker 1: that got me out to Xerox Park, the kind of 148 00:10:16,440 --> 00:10:19,840 Speaker 1: the haven for the most creative people in the computing world. 149 00:10:20,240 --> 00:10:23,120 Speaker 1: Thanks to a friendship with John Ceelee Brown, who was 150 00:10:23,160 --> 00:10:25,560 Speaker 1: on his way to becoming director of Xerox Park, I 151 00:10:25,600 --> 00:10:28,360 Speaker 1: got immersed ahead of the game, a kind of kind 152 00:10:28,400 --> 00:10:31,840 Speaker 1: of unfair advantage and seeing where computing was gonna go. 153 00:10:32,480 --> 00:10:35,600 Speaker 1: I want to circle back to what you said about 154 00:10:35,720 --> 00:10:41,960 Speaker 1: the Xerox Research Center. Um that gave us things like 155 00:10:42,040 --> 00:10:47,000 Speaker 1: the graphical user interface, the mouse. Essentially that was Steve 156 00:10:47,160 --> 00:10:51,360 Speaker 1: jobs is aha moment that led to the first Macintosh. 157 00:10:51,600 --> 00:10:55,080 Speaker 1: You said it gave you an unfair advantage. Expand on 158 00:10:55,160 --> 00:10:59,120 Speaker 1: that it gave me the unfair advantage of seeing that 159 00:10:59,720 --> 00:11:04,400 Speaker 1: can puting computers were not which were dominated by the 160 00:11:04,480 --> 00:11:09,640 Speaker 1: IBM main frames with a secondary center in the digital 161 00:11:09,679 --> 00:11:14,440 Speaker 1: equipment mini computers and the competitors with digital equipment. These 162 00:11:14,440 --> 00:11:19,360 Speaker 1: were very centralized systems. They had dumb terminals, green screens. 163 00:11:19,720 --> 00:11:23,320 Speaker 1: You couldn't do any local work. Everything went back to 164 00:11:23,360 --> 00:11:26,800 Speaker 1: the main frame or the mini computer to be processed. 165 00:11:27,240 --> 00:11:31,520 Speaker 1: It was a very rigid, inflexible and of course, because 166 00:11:31,800 --> 00:11:34,920 Speaker 1: each of these systems were proprietary, if you were a 167 00:11:34,960 --> 00:11:38,120 Speaker 1: digital equipment customer, let alone an IBM customer, you have 168 00:11:38,200 --> 00:11:40,360 Speaker 1: to buy everything from them, and believe me, they made 169 00:11:40,400 --> 00:11:44,040 Speaker 1: money on that. So it was a giant centralized system 170 00:11:44,200 --> 00:11:48,400 Speaker 1: as opposed to the modern between phones and laptops and iPads, 171 00:11:48,440 --> 00:11:52,960 Speaker 1: we have a completely decentralized system. Although theoretically, as we 172 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:55,000 Speaker 1: moved to the cloud, we're kind of moving back a 173 00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:58,280 Speaker 1: little interesting, but but in a very different way. But 174 00:11:58,320 --> 00:12:01,200 Speaker 1: I'll come back. That's a good point. Let's hold that thought. 175 00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:05,880 Speaker 1: What you could see at Deox Park were computers being 176 00:12:05,960 --> 00:12:11,320 Speaker 1: networked together with special functions that they could be optimized for. 177 00:12:11,720 --> 00:12:14,640 Speaker 1: While the machine in front of you was designed to 178 00:12:14,800 --> 00:12:18,360 Speaker 1: be helpful, but you know, it was map to how 179 00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:22,400 Speaker 1: people work, and it was much too expensive and Xerox 180 00:12:22,440 --> 00:12:25,800 Speaker 1: management back in on the East Coast. UH couldn't get 181 00:12:25,800 --> 00:12:28,120 Speaker 1: their heads around the notion of making the kind of 182 00:12:28,200 --> 00:12:31,760 Speaker 1: high risk, long term investments, So companies like Adobe in 183 00:12:31,880 --> 00:12:35,320 Speaker 1: three comm were founded by people who left Xerox Park. 184 00:12:35,480 --> 00:12:37,439 Speaker 1: That kind of raises the question, why did they even 185 00:12:37,520 --> 00:12:40,640 Speaker 1: have a Xerox Park At least with a T and 186 00:12:40,720 --> 00:12:44,400 Speaker 1: T and Bell Labs later loosened, they were using their 187 00:12:44,400 --> 00:12:47,199 Speaker 1: own research to build out new products or were they 188 00:12:47,320 --> 00:12:49,760 Speaker 1: up to a point? There was a deal, a T 189 00:12:49,920 --> 00:12:52,440 Speaker 1: and T in nineteen fifty six kind of deal with 190 00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:58,000 Speaker 1: what was then an economically active government unlike where we 191 00:12:58,040 --> 00:13:00,760 Speaker 1: are today, right back when it was a legitimate legal 192 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:04,640 Speaker 1: and the deal was it could keep its monopoly on 193 00:13:04,720 --> 00:13:10,600 Speaker 1: long distance telephones if any technology developed at Bell Labs 194 00:13:10,640 --> 00:13:15,319 Speaker 1: that was not directly used for communications would be licensed 195 00:13:15,320 --> 00:13:18,680 Speaker 1: on a fair and non discriminatory basis to the world. 196 00:13:19,200 --> 00:13:22,320 Speaker 1: And that's where Unix came from. That's where a whole 197 00:13:22,440 --> 00:13:26,760 Speaker 1: raft of innovative technologies that had general purpose use, not 198 00:13:26,800 --> 00:13:30,280 Speaker 1: just for communications, were given to the world, given to 199 00:13:30,400 --> 00:13:34,520 Speaker 1: academic researchers, given to companies that were learning how to 200 00:13:34,640 --> 00:13:37,520 Speaker 1: what to do with this stuff, and laying the basis 201 00:13:38,040 --> 00:13:41,360 Speaker 1: for the digital revolution. That began to emerge in the 202 00:13:41,520 --> 00:13:45,599 Speaker 1: early so that that government deal with A T and 203 00:13:45,679 --> 00:13:49,360 Speaker 1: T was very different than what xerox parks deal was. 204 00:13:49,400 --> 00:13:51,960 Speaker 1: They they just didn't know what to do with that. Well, 205 00:13:52,800 --> 00:13:57,560 Speaker 1: two things one um neither today, T and T. They 206 00:13:57,600 --> 00:14:01,760 Speaker 1: licensed it. They the big deal they cut with the 207 00:14:01,800 --> 00:14:07,040 Speaker 1: government in where they gave up the long distance monopoly 208 00:14:07,720 --> 00:14:10,200 Speaker 1: and they broke up the company in return for the 209 00:14:10,240 --> 00:14:14,080 Speaker 1: opportunity to use the technology and go out and compete 210 00:14:14,080 --> 00:14:17,199 Speaker 1: with IBM and Digital demonstrated that I, A, T and 211 00:14:17,240 --> 00:14:22,120 Speaker 1: T had no ability to compete in commercial markets. Xerox 212 00:14:22,200 --> 00:14:25,520 Speaker 1: is a different story. Xerox Is monopoly was based on patents, 213 00:14:26,200 --> 00:14:30,160 Speaker 1: patents for this phenomenal ability to make copies very low cost, 214 00:14:31,400 --> 00:14:33,880 Speaker 1: and it generated an enormous amount of cash. It was 215 00:14:33,880 --> 00:14:38,240 Speaker 1: a different kind of innovator's dilemma. However, the existing business 216 00:14:38,680 --> 00:14:42,360 Speaker 1: was so good and so certain that when one of 217 00:14:42,400 --> 00:14:45,200 Speaker 1: the young guys from the park would come east and say, 218 00:14:45,360 --> 00:14:47,400 Speaker 1: I got a great idea for a business plan. Just 219 00:14:47,440 --> 00:14:50,360 Speaker 1: give me twenty million bucks and in five years I'm 220 00:14:50,400 --> 00:14:53,000 Speaker 1: gonna have a three million dollar business and it will 221 00:14:53,040 --> 00:14:55,680 Speaker 1: be profitable and it'll be worth you know, a billion 222 00:14:55,720 --> 00:14:57,960 Speaker 1: dollars and they look at them and say, wait a second, 223 00:14:58,120 --> 00:15:00,520 Speaker 1: that is so high risk. We could take that same 224 00:15:00,520 --> 00:15:03,240 Speaker 1: twenty million bucks and we'll hire a bunch of additional 225 00:15:03,280 --> 00:15:06,360 Speaker 1: engineers and salesmen. We know exactly what the return is 226 00:15:06,360 --> 00:15:09,080 Speaker 1: going to be. Go back, go back to your cave. 227 00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:12,640 Speaker 1: And they had they finally worked out, but it took 228 00:15:12,640 --> 00:15:15,360 Speaker 1: a long time. In the late eighties, they worked out that. 229 00:15:15,520 --> 00:15:18,920 Speaker 1: You know, if they just did a deal with the 230 00:15:19,120 --> 00:15:22,240 Speaker 1: young entrepreneurs and took twenty percent of the company in 231 00:15:22,280 --> 00:15:25,720 Speaker 1: return for giving them the intellectual property, the patents, and 232 00:15:25,760 --> 00:15:28,920 Speaker 1: then let him go out and find venture capital. Xerox 233 00:15:29,200 --> 00:15:32,120 Speaker 1: wasn't trying to build the business. It was a beneficiary 234 00:15:32,200 --> 00:15:34,160 Speaker 1: of the work that had been done on its nickel 235 00:15:34,640 --> 00:15:36,840 Speaker 1: out at Yaks Park. That actually worked in a couple 236 00:15:36,880 --> 00:15:40,200 Speaker 1: of really valuable businesses. What came out of that documentum 237 00:15:40,200 --> 00:15:43,920 Speaker 1: for example, Major Company, they missed a ton of stuff. 238 00:15:43,960 --> 00:15:46,720 Speaker 1: They took all Adobe going down the lift. It was 239 00:15:46,800 --> 00:15:48,840 Speaker 1: just the first two a's. What else came out of 240 00:15:48,880 --> 00:15:51,120 Speaker 1: that Apple they never had a chance to invest in. 241 00:15:51,240 --> 00:15:53,600 Speaker 1: That was That was Apple. That was Steve Jobs being 242 00:15:53,640 --> 00:15:58,920 Speaker 1: the brilliant opportunist he was. And but it took him 243 00:15:58,960 --> 00:16:03,200 Speaker 1: ten years. It took the corporate bureaucrats back in Stanford 244 00:16:03,240 --> 00:16:05,680 Speaker 1: ten years to work out that would better to own 245 00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:11,000 Speaker 1: something versus of nothing. So let's let's talk about another 246 00:16:11,040 --> 00:16:15,000 Speaker 1: institution that came up with a similar idea, and that 247 00:16:15,400 --> 00:16:18,160 Speaker 1: is the n S, A, C, I, A, D O D. 248 00:16:19,240 --> 00:16:23,120 Speaker 1: Going back to the age of DARPA and DARPA net. 249 00:16:23,680 --> 00:16:30,680 Speaker 1: Why are our national security agencies so interested in startups 250 00:16:30,680 --> 00:16:33,840 Speaker 1: and technology? How much of this stuff actually finds its 251 00:16:33,880 --> 00:16:39,120 Speaker 1: way into real world spy versus by usage? Well, there's 252 00:16:39,120 --> 00:16:43,440 Speaker 1: no question that from speech recognition to the geographical positioning 253 00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:48,680 Speaker 1: satellites and onto all of the machine learning technologies. Uh, 254 00:16:48,800 --> 00:16:52,080 Speaker 1: the U S intelligence agencies have been major funders of 255 00:16:52,160 --> 00:16:56,840 Speaker 1: upstream research. Um. That goes back a long way. Of course, 256 00:16:56,920 --> 00:16:59,960 Speaker 1: the page rank algorithm. A couple of graduate students at 257 00:17:00,040 --> 00:17:03,440 Speaker 1: Stanford got a grant from the NSF which was directly 258 00:17:03,480 --> 00:17:06,160 Speaker 1: related to the n S as interest in being able 259 00:17:06,200 --> 00:17:08,800 Speaker 1: to do efficient search of what people were doing and 260 00:17:08,840 --> 00:17:12,000 Speaker 1: saying on the Internet. Um. So there's there's a history 261 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:14,680 Speaker 1: there that goes back to the fifties. That's that's ironic 262 00:17:14,760 --> 00:17:18,800 Speaker 1: given that Google just rejected I mean, essentially they own 263 00:17:18,880 --> 00:17:22,320 Speaker 1: their own existence to the intelligence agencies? Is that is that? 264 00:17:22,720 --> 00:17:24,840 Speaker 1: Am I overselling that a little bit? Well? I think 265 00:17:25,000 --> 00:17:30,080 Speaker 1: that that kind There was a link certainly to the NSF. 266 00:17:30,200 --> 00:17:33,960 Speaker 1: I mean the funding for the research work as graduate 267 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:36,320 Speaker 1: students that produced the page rank algorithm that was the 268 00:17:36,359 --> 00:17:39,720 Speaker 1: basis for Google came from the National Science Foundation. The 269 00:17:41,119 --> 00:17:46,240 Speaker 1: complex history, however, of how from silicon to software and 270 00:17:46,280 --> 00:17:50,360 Speaker 1: then onto the Internet, all of the fundamental building blocks 271 00:17:50,359 --> 00:17:55,760 Speaker 1: of the digital revolution were initially the consequence of upstream 272 00:17:55,840 --> 00:17:59,439 Speaker 1: research financed by the government, and the government as the 273 00:17:59,520 --> 00:18:03,080 Speaker 1: first customer for this stuff when it was still immature, 274 00:18:03,119 --> 00:18:06,960 Speaker 1: when it was too expensive and too unreliable for commercial use. 275 00:18:07,359 --> 00:18:11,359 Speaker 1: That changed. That changed, Big changes took place between nineteen 276 00:18:11,400 --> 00:18:16,760 Speaker 1: eight three. On the one hand, in night the PC 277 00:18:16,840 --> 00:18:20,200 Speaker 1: revolution began to take off, and the commercial markets began 278 00:18:20,240 --> 00:18:22,280 Speaker 1: to be bigger, whether it was for whether it was 279 00:18:22,320 --> 00:18:28,640 Speaker 1: for microsop microprocessors or for software, bigger than the government market. Second, 280 00:18:29,080 --> 00:18:32,360 Speaker 1: a bill was passed through Congress which said that DARPA 281 00:18:32,560 --> 00:18:36,600 Speaker 1: had to justify every dollar it invested in terms of 282 00:18:36,640 --> 00:18:40,240 Speaker 1: its direct military significance. It hadn't been that way before, 283 00:18:40,400 --> 00:18:43,760 Speaker 1: but a much broader much. You know, there's a There's 284 00:18:43,800 --> 00:18:46,280 Speaker 1: a great line from the from the play that became 285 00:18:46,359 --> 00:18:50,720 Speaker 1: Hello Dolly, Dolly says, you know, money is like manure. 286 00:18:51,280 --> 00:18:54,080 Speaker 1: For it to do any good, you've got to spread 287 00:18:54,119 --> 00:18:56,800 Speaker 1: it around. And that's what DARPA did. DARPA was an 288 00:18:56,840 --> 00:19:02,040 Speaker 1: extraordinary institution, particularly in the years from the from Sputnik, 289 00:19:02,119 --> 00:19:04,400 Speaker 1: which was why it was found in nineteen fifties seven 290 00:19:04,440 --> 00:19:08,640 Speaker 1: eight through the nineteen seventies. Seems kind of shortsighted to uh, 291 00:19:08,760 --> 00:19:12,920 Speaker 1: to cancel it. Let's let's talk about Warburg Pinkis because 292 00:19:12,960 --> 00:19:15,600 Speaker 1: you've been affiliated with them for a long time. You're 293 00:19:15,640 --> 00:19:18,920 Speaker 1: a senior adviser there. You helped to build their technology, 294 00:19:19,720 --> 00:19:24,560 Speaker 1: research and investing platform. Uh, tell us what brought you 295 00:19:24,600 --> 00:19:29,119 Speaker 1: to Warburg back in what I've known the firm for 296 00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:32,720 Speaker 1: almost a decade. Warburg Pinkers was one of the original firms. 297 00:19:32,720 --> 00:19:35,439 Speaker 1: It was the largest founding member of the National Venture 298 00:19:35,440 --> 00:19:40,440 Speaker 1: Capital Association. Was founded by two extraordinary men, Lionel Pinkis 299 00:19:40,440 --> 00:19:44,399 Speaker 1: and John Vogelstein, who had an idea going back to 300 00:19:44,440 --> 00:19:49,040 Speaker 1: the sixties that when when when the investment banking and 301 00:19:49,040 --> 00:19:51,720 Speaker 1: brokerage firms in Wall Street, you know, they did deals 302 00:19:51,800 --> 00:19:56,000 Speaker 1: and they do a movie deal and they do uh 303 00:19:56,040 --> 00:19:59,159 Speaker 1: an oil deal and roll one off and everyone in 304 00:19:59,200 --> 00:20:01,080 Speaker 1: a while they do us at a black box any 305 00:20:01,119 --> 00:20:03,879 Speaker 1: gravity machine tech deal that was going to cure cancer, 306 00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:07,160 Speaker 1: but it was very amateurish. Lionel and John had very 307 00:20:07,160 --> 00:20:11,719 Speaker 1: simple idea, if you actually focus your attention, all of 308 00:20:11,720 --> 00:20:16,600 Speaker 1: your attention on those investments, understand the context, the business issues, 309 00:20:16,680 --> 00:20:19,760 Speaker 1: the business model, the competitive situation, you would likely to 310 00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:22,040 Speaker 1: do a little better than just throwing money against the wall. 311 00:20:22,760 --> 00:20:25,160 Speaker 1: So the firm had been when I joined, the firm 312 00:20:25,240 --> 00:20:28,520 Speaker 1: was already more than twenty years old. It had not 313 00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:33,440 Speaker 1: been an active investor in technology. It had followed the 314 00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:38,000 Speaker 1: founding great firms like Kleiner Perkins, Asset Management, the Silicon 315 00:20:38,080 --> 00:20:41,600 Speaker 1: Valley firms. But as they had raised the first billion 316 00:20:41,640 --> 00:20:46,080 Speaker 1: dollar fund that anybody had raised, they decided that maybe 317 00:20:46,119 --> 00:20:49,560 Speaker 1: they should try to invest in technology the way they 318 00:20:49,600 --> 00:20:54,280 Speaker 1: invested everywhere else. As the lead strategic partner with management, 319 00:20:54,920 --> 00:20:58,119 Speaker 1: I had spent the previous ten years building an investment 320 00:20:58,480 --> 00:21:03,320 Speaker 1: practice of raising money for private companies. Sounds a little 321 00:21:03,320 --> 00:21:07,160 Speaker 1: bit like unicorns, but a big difference private companies from 322 00:21:07,280 --> 00:21:12,560 Speaker 1: institutional investors. Based on our our firm, the Eberstat Firm 323 00:21:12,800 --> 00:21:16,680 Speaker 1: deep work in understanding the science based industries. I had 324 00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:20,119 Speaker 1: come to John Vogelstein at Warburg Pinks again and again 325 00:21:20,800 --> 00:21:27,760 Speaker 1: with really interesting companies, but that required passive investment, no control, 326 00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:30,399 Speaker 1: no board seat. And John would again and again tell me, 327 00:21:30,440 --> 00:21:33,520 Speaker 1: you know, this looks like a really interesting business, it's 328 00:21:33,520 --> 00:21:36,080 Speaker 1: not an investment for Warburg Pinkers. In the mid eight 329 00:21:36,080 --> 00:21:38,840 Speaker 1: we sold our firm to a British merchant bank as 330 00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:43,240 Speaker 1: brokerage commissions, and our business model came under stress. And 331 00:21:43,600 --> 00:21:46,359 Speaker 1: it became clear after a time that if I was 332 00:21:46,400 --> 00:21:48,960 Speaker 1: going to do what I've been learning to do, I 333 00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:52,399 Speaker 1: had to go someplace else. So John and I had lunch, 334 00:21:52,480 --> 00:21:55,640 Speaker 1: We talked through we we just finished each other's sentences, 335 00:21:55,680 --> 00:21:58,000 Speaker 1: and I landed at Warburg pink Is in AD eight 336 00:21:58,160 --> 00:22:02,200 Speaker 1: at a wonderful time. Sure you're you're looking at the 337 00:22:02,280 --> 00:22:05,760 Speaker 1: late eighties in the early nineties. That is the golden 338 00:22:05,960 --> 00:22:11,520 Speaker 1: era of go down the list, semiconductors, software, mobile, and 339 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:15,600 Speaker 1: that's still early days of biotech and judgments and things 340 00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:19,080 Speaker 1: like that, exactly right. And the technologies that I'd been 341 00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:21,720 Speaker 1: exposed to a Xerox park and then I've done some 342 00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:27,640 Speaker 1: investing in from Eberstat secondarily sort of supporting our institutional 343 00:22:27,800 --> 00:22:31,080 Speaker 1: clients as they made the investments. Now, these were beginning 344 00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:36,000 Speaker 1: to mature. So for ten years, from late eighties eighty 345 00:22:36,080 --> 00:22:40,639 Speaker 1: nine right through into the heart of the Internet dot 346 00:22:40,640 --> 00:22:45,119 Speaker 1: com bubble, we invested. We searched out as many ways 347 00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:48,280 Speaker 1: as we could find from making a big strategic bet. 348 00:22:48,440 --> 00:22:55,080 Speaker 1: And the bet was IBM dominance of commercial computing was vulnerable, exposed, 349 00:22:55,400 --> 00:22:59,000 Speaker 1: and we can help them lose their monopoly control. And 350 00:22:59,040 --> 00:23:02,240 Speaker 1: so we invested at the level of the the underlying 351 00:23:02,280 --> 00:23:07,560 Speaker 1: the infrastructure software that's b e A, in Veritas Enterprise Applications, 352 00:23:07,560 --> 00:23:12,480 Speaker 1: three or four companies, and we I think got a 353 00:23:12,600 --> 00:23:17,359 Speaker 1: major shift in the most important industry that now exists. 354 00:23:17,640 --> 00:23:19,840 Speaker 1: We got it right at the right time. So did 355 00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:22,639 Speaker 1: I get the numbers about b e A correct, because 356 00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:26,879 Speaker 1: they're just astonishing. Fifty four million dollars invested into b 357 00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:31,000 Speaker 1: A six years later become six point five billion. Is 358 00:23:31,040 --> 00:23:34,600 Speaker 1: that about right? Well, it is right, But there's a 359 00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:39,000 Speaker 1: there's a PostScript. Because John Voglostein was a great student 360 00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:43,200 Speaker 1: of markets, and he studied He knew bubbles come, bubbles 361 00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:45,960 Speaker 1: go when's when it's too good to be true, it's 362 00:23:46,000 --> 00:23:48,480 Speaker 1: too good to be true. I had actually written my 363 00:23:48,560 --> 00:23:54,600 Speaker 1: doctoral dissertation on nine to thirty one, so in a sense, 364 00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:58,639 Speaker 1: i'd seen the movie before two. So beginning in about 365 00:23:59,480 --> 00:24:04,440 Speaker 1: we had this portfolio that represented something like two million invested, 366 00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:08,719 Speaker 1: and we just started liquidating everything we could into the bubble. 367 00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:12,040 Speaker 1: We owned so much of b A that we only 368 00:24:12,040 --> 00:24:15,480 Speaker 1: got five percent out all right before the bubble ended. 369 00:24:15,600 --> 00:24:18,240 Speaker 1: But there was still another five six million that came 370 00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:20,439 Speaker 1: out later, so it actually with more than seven billion 371 00:24:20,800 --> 00:24:23,040 Speaker 1: on the on the five but a little longer time. 372 00:24:23,400 --> 00:24:27,560 Speaker 1: That's just astonishing. My guest today is Bill Janeway. He 373 00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:32,000 Speaker 1: is the author of The Innovation Economy, which there is 374 00:24:32,040 --> 00:24:35,480 Speaker 1: a new edition of and and let's talk about the 375 00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:39,520 Speaker 1: differences between the original edition, which came out five six 376 00:24:39,640 --> 00:24:43,680 Speaker 1: years ago exactly right, and the new edition. Given what's 377 00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:49,560 Speaker 1: been going on in the modern world of social networks Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, 378 00:24:49,680 --> 00:24:53,199 Speaker 1: go down the whole list, how has the universe of 379 00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:58,680 Speaker 1: digital companies changed versus what you were looking at back 380 00:24:58,720 --> 00:25:02,080 Speaker 1: in the nineties or the well, the first edition of 381 00:25:02,080 --> 00:25:05,439 Speaker 1: the book was, frankly a kind of celebration of this 382 00:25:05,640 --> 00:25:10,680 Speaker 1: extraordinarily constructive partnership between the public sector and particularly the 383 00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:14,240 Speaker 1: Defense Department and with DARPA as this point of the 384 00:25:14,280 --> 00:25:18,320 Speaker 1: spear and the private sector including the entrepreneurs and venture 385 00:25:18,359 --> 00:25:25,719 Speaker 1: capitalists like me. But looking looking back from the last 386 00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:31,760 Speaker 1: six to twelve months, something really fundamental has changed. The 387 00:25:31,800 --> 00:25:35,439 Speaker 1: digital revolution, which began to reach maturity thanks to the 388 00:25:35,480 --> 00:25:40,240 Speaker 1: extraordinary speculative funding of the late nineties the end of 389 00:25:40,240 --> 00:25:43,120 Speaker 1: the twentieth century. By the way, Dan Gross has an 390 00:25:43,200 --> 00:25:46,679 Speaker 1: amusing book called pop White, bubbles are eventually good for 391 00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:50,720 Speaker 1: the economy. That's exactly what you're referring to. Is if 392 00:25:50,720 --> 00:25:54,840 Speaker 1: you're laying fiber optic at some ungodly amount per mile 393 00:25:55,440 --> 00:25:58,000 Speaker 1: and then that company goes bust, well, at least we 394 00:25:58,040 --> 00:26:00,240 Speaker 1: still have the cable laid and somebody buys a cheap 395 00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:03,680 Speaker 1: out of bankruptcy. Just like the railroads a hundred years before, 396 00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:08,200 Speaker 1: or computers or televisions or automobiles, every new industry seems 397 00:26:08,240 --> 00:26:09,960 Speaker 1: to go through that boom and bus phase. A lot, 398 00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,160 Speaker 1: you know, a lot of bubbles leave you with nothing 399 00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:17,000 Speaker 1: but ranch houses in the in the Nevada Desert. Financial 400 00:26:17,040 --> 00:26:20,720 Speaker 1: bubbles don't leave you with the same, not quite the 401 00:26:20,800 --> 00:26:25,200 Speaker 1: same as technology. When the banking system, the credit system, 402 00:26:25,240 --> 00:26:28,400 Speaker 1: when they when they pop. The consequences are horrible. When 403 00:26:28,400 --> 00:26:30,520 Speaker 1: it's just in the public market, in the stock market 404 00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:33,520 Speaker 1: and it pops, there's no leverage, so so the But 405 00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:36,679 Speaker 1: in any case, in any case, what's happened. What's clear 406 00:26:36,760 --> 00:26:40,119 Speaker 1: over the last five years, the digital revolution has taken 407 00:26:40,200 --> 00:26:43,760 Speaker 1: on a momentum of its own. It's running out of control, 408 00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:48,240 Speaker 1: no longer needs support and subsidy from the public sector. 409 00:26:48,320 --> 00:26:52,240 Speaker 1: On the contrary, it's attacking the authority of the state 410 00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:57,040 Speaker 1: at every level from the most Is it the companies 411 00:26:57,080 --> 00:27:00,399 Speaker 1: and the platforms themselves or is it the end users 412 00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:04,600 Speaker 1: who have found ways to manipulate these platforms, perhaps for 413 00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:09,520 Speaker 1: the occasional nefarious uh objective, As Johnny Cash famously said, 414 00:27:09,600 --> 00:27:12,480 Speaker 1: why do I have to choose? Of course, it's both. 415 00:27:12,880 --> 00:27:16,920 Speaker 1: It's both the disruption of micro markets like the New 416 00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:20,800 Speaker 1: York market for transportation or accommodation. But on the other hand, 417 00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:23,800 Speaker 1: it was this i T revolution, this digital revolution, that 418 00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:27,920 Speaker 1: enabled the second Great globalization, the integration of financial markets, 419 00:27:28,160 --> 00:27:31,160 Speaker 1: critical to the financial crisis of two thousand and eight, 420 00:27:31,840 --> 00:27:34,480 Speaker 1: just by the way as the telegraph and the steamship 421 00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:37,280 Speaker 1: produced the first Great globalization at the end of the 422 00:27:37,359 --> 00:27:41,840 Speaker 1: nineteenth century, But this is happening at a very special time. 423 00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:47,280 Speaker 1: It's happening when the hard work over a long generation 424 00:27:47,680 --> 00:27:51,560 Speaker 1: of some very smart, committed people who knew they were 425 00:27:51,560 --> 00:27:55,639 Speaker 1: doing the right thing by their light to render the 426 00:27:55,760 --> 00:28:00,560 Speaker 1: government illegitimate as an economic agent. But has in that so, 427 00:28:00,640 --> 00:28:04,560 Speaker 1: let me push back on you at least a little bit, 428 00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:10,200 Speaker 1: hasn't There always been a group of people who and 429 00:28:10,200 --> 00:28:13,480 Speaker 1: and perhaps we know them more intimately these days, because 430 00:28:13,640 --> 00:28:16,960 Speaker 1: nothing is a secret. But there were always survivalists, and 431 00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:20,080 Speaker 1: there were always radical anarchists, and there were always people, 432 00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:23,800 Speaker 1: you know, I grew up with the moon landing when 433 00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,199 Speaker 1: I was in grammar school, and it seemed almost like 434 00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:30,000 Speaker 1: immediately it was, oh, that wasn't real. That was fake. 435 00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:34,520 Speaker 1: There's always been, but they've been disparate and not organized 436 00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:38,840 Speaker 1: that in nineteen Another thing that happened in nineteen two, 437 00:28:40,040 --> 00:28:45,400 Speaker 1: Ronald Reagan said, government isn't the solution. Government is the problem. 438 00:28:45,720 --> 00:28:49,240 Speaker 1: That view sat down with the entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley. 439 00:28:50,400 --> 00:28:55,000 Speaker 1: Intel wouldn't have existed without the government. Was the solution 440 00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:58,800 Speaker 1: to how do you do a startup into a capital intensive, 441 00:28:59,600 --> 00:29:04,960 Speaker 1: massively strategic industry that nonetheless needs time and support from 442 00:29:04,960 --> 00:29:08,760 Speaker 1: a collaborative customer as well as the benefit of the 443 00:29:08,880 --> 00:29:13,280 Speaker 1: upstream research funding and silicon processing and all that stuff. 444 00:29:14,240 --> 00:29:17,960 Speaker 1: The flip side we had, you know, in two thousand 445 00:29:18,040 --> 00:29:20,040 Speaker 1: and eight, when the world came to an end, for 446 00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:25,160 Speaker 1: about three months, the government was there around the world, 447 00:29:25,200 --> 00:29:28,640 Speaker 1: from from London to Beijing to New York to Wall Street. 448 00:29:28,640 --> 00:29:30,720 Speaker 1: If you if you remember in October o eight when 449 00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:34,520 Speaker 1: the TARP was first proposed on a Monday in Congress 450 00:29:34,640 --> 00:29:39,480 Speaker 1: and some of the Libertarians shot it down. Markets collapse, 451 00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:44,280 Speaker 1: and by that Friday it's scared Senators, fed chiefs, congressmen 452 00:29:44,640 --> 00:29:49,200 Speaker 1: enough that by Friday that said, all right, dollars. But 453 00:29:49,640 --> 00:29:53,400 Speaker 1: as soon as there was a floor under the financial 454 00:29:53,440 --> 00:29:57,640 Speaker 1: crisis and its economic collapse, then we were back to 455 00:29:57,720 --> 00:30:01,520 Speaker 1: the world in which the govern meant exists only to 456 00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:04,600 Speaker 1: screw up markets that otherwise give you the efficient outcome. 457 00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:08,440 Speaker 1: And that misses the point, the whole point of the 458 00:30:08,480 --> 00:30:11,840 Speaker 1: economics of innovation. The whole point is that you need 459 00:30:12,280 --> 00:30:17,920 Speaker 1: sources of funding that are not focused on immediate economic value, 460 00:30:18,160 --> 00:30:22,320 Speaker 1: that have a long term strategic purpose. And what we've 461 00:30:22,360 --> 00:30:25,920 Speaker 1: lost now it's two things from the rendering the government 462 00:30:25,960 --> 00:30:30,880 Speaker 1: and legitimate one very limited if any ability to respond 463 00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:35,880 Speaker 1: to the forces of globalization in a way that which 464 00:30:35,960 --> 00:30:39,280 Speaker 1: is damaging the constituents. Many of them don't know that 465 00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:43,760 Speaker 1: there's no other source of support. That's looking backwards, but 466 00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:47,160 Speaker 1: it's also there's a problem looking forward if we're going 467 00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:52,280 Speaker 1: to organize globally any kind of coherent response to climate change, 468 00:30:52,440 --> 00:30:55,880 Speaker 1: which may I stipulate is real. It's not a Chinese hoax. 469 00:30:55,960 --> 00:30:59,360 Speaker 1: I saw a tweet that said, it's just a Chinese house. 470 00:31:00,120 --> 00:31:02,920 Speaker 1: If we're gonna for we need exactly the same kind 471 00:31:03,000 --> 00:31:09,120 Speaker 1: of upstream funding, upstream commitment to research, to technology development, 472 00:31:09,400 --> 00:31:12,440 Speaker 1: to support of the deployment that we got with the 473 00:31:12,440 --> 00:31:17,200 Speaker 1: digital revolution. We're not doing it. We've we've abdicated. The 474 00:31:17,280 --> 00:31:20,520 Speaker 1: Chinese are doing it. And that's why the biggest message 475 00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:24,920 Speaker 1: from where my book stands today is that we may, 476 00:31:25,040 --> 00:31:28,200 Speaker 1: looking forward over the next generation, have the opportunity to 477 00:31:28,240 --> 00:31:33,440 Speaker 1: see only the second, only the second passage of leadership 478 00:31:33,640 --> 00:31:38,120 Speaker 1: of the innovation economy from the incumbent dominant nation now 479 00:31:38,200 --> 00:31:41,040 Speaker 1: the United States a hundred years ago, hundred and twenty 480 00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:44,680 Speaker 1: years ago Britain, to a new leader. So let's talk. 481 00:31:44,760 --> 00:31:47,200 Speaker 1: Let's delve into that, because there you raised two really 482 00:31:47,240 --> 00:31:53,080 Speaker 1: interesting issues about China, climate change and technology. I would 483 00:31:53,080 --> 00:31:55,400 Speaker 1: be remiss if I did not address the first is 484 00:31:56,400 --> 00:31:59,880 Speaker 1: you talk about having a government entity that can think 485 00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:03,440 Speaker 1: long term and make these long investments. That is not 486 00:32:03,600 --> 00:32:06,360 Speaker 1: the description of the United States. That is the description 487 00:32:06,400 --> 00:32:09,680 Speaker 1: of China. Whether it's their science funding, whether it's their 488 00:32:09,720 --> 00:32:14,000 Speaker 1: infrastructure there, high speed rail, go down the list. It 489 00:32:14,080 --> 00:32:17,920 Speaker 1: looks like China has said, hey, I'll be happy to 490 00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:21,880 Speaker 1: jump into the void that the United States is leaving leaving, 491 00:32:22,320 --> 00:32:26,320 Speaker 1: whether it's technology, politics, you name it. They're stepping up. 492 00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:29,800 Speaker 1: And this is not something they've done previously other than 493 00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:33,560 Speaker 1: that little genghis content. But short of that, China has 494 00:32:33,600 --> 00:32:37,000 Speaker 1: been very happy to be isolationist. These roles seem to 495 00:32:37,040 --> 00:32:38,920 Speaker 1: be reversing. Is that Is that a fair assess? I 496 00:32:39,520 --> 00:32:43,120 Speaker 1: think it is. I I see it in the work 497 00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:48,240 Speaker 1: that is being done to understand the strategic investments China's making. 498 00:32:48,240 --> 00:32:51,840 Speaker 1: And not just in China. They're bringing yeah, exactly in Africa, 499 00:32:52,120 --> 00:32:57,080 Speaker 1: in in Southern Europe, they're making major investments in transforming 500 00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,560 Speaker 1: the energy infrastructure of those parts of the world. Um, 501 00:33:00,680 --> 00:33:03,160 Speaker 1: the you do get some people saying, you know, the 502 00:33:03,240 --> 00:33:05,400 Speaker 1: Chinese are almost embarrassed because they thought it was going 503 00:33:05,480 --> 00:33:08,000 Speaker 1: to take another twenty or thirty years before they could 504 00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,600 Speaker 1: challenge us. Who knew we were gonna just see that 505 00:33:10,720 --> 00:33:14,680 Speaker 1: leadership mantlet. The second issue I have to bring up is, 506 00:33:15,520 --> 00:33:20,240 Speaker 1: so let's stipulate climate change is real. It mankind causes it. 507 00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:23,520 Speaker 1: You look at the history of the industrial evolution forward, 508 00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:26,640 Speaker 1: we're spewing out all this carbon. And yet when we 509 00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:33,600 Speaker 1: look at technology, the ability to move to wind, solar, geothermal, title, 510 00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:37,520 Speaker 1: they're just the sources of energy seemed to be um 511 00:33:37,560 --> 00:33:41,920 Speaker 1: the cost differential versus cheap carbon based is going from. 512 00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:44,280 Speaker 1: It used to be hugely expensive and only a handful 513 00:33:44,320 --> 00:33:47,400 Speaker 1: of of zealots did it. Then it became a little 514 00:33:47,400 --> 00:33:50,520 Speaker 1: more competitive, and now why would you use coal when 515 00:33:51,040 --> 00:33:54,280 Speaker 1: alternatives are just are cheaper and cleaner. But we still 516 00:33:54,320 --> 00:33:59,240 Speaker 1: need we need some really innovative new technology, particularly energy 517 00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:03,800 Speaker 1: storage for sources of energy that are intermittent. Did you 518 00:34:04,440 --> 00:34:07,960 Speaker 1: did you read recently about the UM I think it 519 00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:10,600 Speaker 1: was the professor at M I T who came up 520 00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:14,359 Speaker 1: with a methodology of pulling carbon out of the atmosphere. 521 00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:18,360 Speaker 1: And actually it's more of a chemical than a technology. 522 00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:23,000 Speaker 1: Now if that proves, But let's let's let's roll things 523 00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:28,040 Speaker 1: back to Okay, the transistor has been invented the night. 524 00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:33,279 Speaker 1: The notion that you can use solid devices with particular properties, 525 00:34:33,520 --> 00:34:37,759 Speaker 1: not vacuum tubes, to douce to switch signals, is that 526 00:34:37,880 --> 00:34:41,480 Speaker 1: our idea is out there. Nobody knows how to actually 527 00:34:41,520 --> 00:34:45,760 Speaker 1: turn that into working machines that can function at scale. 528 00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:49,680 Speaker 1: IBM makes a bet. BET's on a material called germanium. 529 00:34:50,160 --> 00:34:55,120 Speaker 1: Physicists will tell you germanium from a purely theoretical perspective's right, 530 00:34:55,160 --> 00:34:58,799 Speaker 1: because the electrons moved through it better than silicon exactly. 531 00:34:58,840 --> 00:35:03,960 Speaker 1: But absolute bear to produce at scale, and silicon is 532 00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:08,200 Speaker 1: easy to and and and the guys in Washington put 533 00:35:08,200 --> 00:35:10,399 Speaker 1: out a whole bunch of experiments. And it turns out 534 00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:14,800 Speaker 1: that this little, this little oil field instrument company in Houston, 535 00:35:15,360 --> 00:35:21,440 Speaker 1: Texas Instruments, works out how to process silicon. It's not 536 00:35:21,600 --> 00:35:25,200 Speaker 1: quite as good theoretically, but practically it's much better. Scales 537 00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:29,480 Speaker 1: up tremendously, and it scales up in response to government 538 00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:33,200 Speaker 1: orders when the government doesn't care that it's really expensive 539 00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:36,280 Speaker 1: because it's putting, you know, it's building the memory systems 540 00:35:36,320 --> 00:35:39,359 Speaker 1: for the guidance systems for the Minuteman missile. But then 541 00:35:39,400 --> 00:35:42,120 Speaker 1: they do something else they actually broke or a deal 542 00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:45,880 Speaker 1: between IBM and t I. The technology gets transferred to 543 00:35:45,920 --> 00:35:49,160 Speaker 1: IBM and return for IBM, giving t I a big order. 544 00:35:49,600 --> 00:35:54,800 Speaker 1: It's the kind of active intervention based on intelligent experimentation 545 00:35:55,560 --> 00:35:58,240 Speaker 1: we should be doing. R p E, which has got 546 00:35:58,640 --> 00:36:01,400 Speaker 1: barely two hundred and fIF the million dollars of funding 547 00:36:01,760 --> 00:36:05,000 Speaker 1: Darpen today still has over three billions. If we were 548 00:36:05,040 --> 00:36:08,240 Speaker 1: doing this seriously, and we had somebody at the Department 549 00:36:08,239 --> 00:36:11,560 Speaker 1: of Energy with a mission not to protect the coal 550 00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:16,359 Speaker 1: industry with all of its fifty employees, UM, we would 551 00:36:16,400 --> 00:36:20,359 Speaker 1: be doing the same kind of experimentation every imaginable form 552 00:36:20,400 --> 00:36:26,279 Speaker 1: of battery technology, the science of energy chemical conversion. We 553 00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:28,640 Speaker 1: need a new Manhattan project for this sort of thing. 554 00:36:29,040 --> 00:36:31,840 Speaker 1: We have been speaking with Bill Janeway. He is the 555 00:36:31,920 --> 00:36:36,920 Speaker 1: author of Doing Venture Capital in the Innovation Economy. We 556 00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:40,640 Speaker 1: love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at 557 00:36:41,280 --> 00:36:44,920 Speaker 1: m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. Be sure and 558 00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:47,840 Speaker 1: check out my daily column on Bloomberg dot com. You 559 00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:51,200 Speaker 1: can follow me on Twitter at rit Holts. I'm Barry 560 00:36:51,280 --> 00:36:55,000 Speaker 1: rit Holts. You're listening to Master's in Business on Bloomberg Radio. 561 00:37:08,560 --> 00:37:11,040 Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. Bill, Thank you so much for 562 00:37:11,120 --> 00:37:15,040 Speaker 1: doing this, UM I have I'm so glad the run 563 00:37:15,040 --> 00:37:18,440 Speaker 1: of questions I had you and I didn't get to 564 00:37:18,520 --> 00:37:21,160 Speaker 1: any of them, which is always a good sign of 565 00:37:21,200 --> 00:37:24,719 Speaker 1: a good conversation because you say something and it sends 566 00:37:24,760 --> 00:37:28,239 Speaker 1: me off in a different direction. So I I appreciate 567 00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:32,120 Speaker 1: your ability to UM to help guide where where this 568 00:37:32,200 --> 00:37:37,440 Speaker 1: conversation UH is going. And you certainly have a illustrious 569 00:37:37,560 --> 00:37:40,239 Speaker 1: enough career. There's not a lot of stuff that you 570 00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:43,920 Speaker 1: haven't seen. I know you're not big into biotech, but 571 00:37:44,080 --> 00:37:51,240 Speaker 1: pretty much anything involving software, electronics, semiconductors. You were right 572 00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:54,000 Speaker 1: there in the middle of that throughout the whole UH, 573 00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:56,640 Speaker 1: the whole run, well it was. It was a great 574 00:37:56,680 --> 00:37:59,960 Speaker 1: time to get engaged in the as as. Wait a second, 575 00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:03,280 Speaker 1: I have to stop you. What is that watch? Oh? 576 00:38:03,400 --> 00:38:05,640 Speaker 1: That is a yellow time X. I think it costs 577 00:38:05,680 --> 00:38:10,279 Speaker 1: eleven dollars by When I first saw it on your wrist, 578 00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:12,520 Speaker 1: I assumed, oh, that's an Apple watch, and then you 579 00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:15,480 Speaker 1: flipped it over and I'm like, wait a second, an 580 00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:19,839 Speaker 1: Apple watch forty one years ago. Yeah, I traded an 581 00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:25,440 Speaker 1: addiction to nicotine for an obsessive compulsion for running. Okay, 582 00:38:25,920 --> 00:38:30,000 Speaker 1: and so my default is a running watch, and I 583 00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:32,440 Speaker 1: have a good watch. I have a couple of decent watches. 584 00:38:32,800 --> 00:38:34,279 Speaker 1: But this is sort of what I put on in 585 00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:36,600 Speaker 1: the morning and take off if I'm going to a 586 00:38:36,640 --> 00:38:39,399 Speaker 1: fancy dinner party in the evening. And you know what 587 00:38:39,840 --> 00:38:41,920 Speaker 1: if I if I drop it off the side of 588 00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:45,239 Speaker 1: a rowboat, can you still replace it? Are they still 589 00:38:45,239 --> 00:38:47,319 Speaker 1: making Yeah? They still. You go into any running store 590 00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:49,080 Speaker 1: and you'll find something like this. Just go for the 591 00:38:49,080 --> 00:38:51,080 Speaker 1: bottom end. I don't have the bus. Yeah. If I 592 00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:52,759 Speaker 1: want to know how my heart's doing, you know, I 593 00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:55,200 Speaker 1: just take my pulse. I don't need a two hundred 594 00:38:55,239 --> 00:39:00,560 Speaker 1: and fifty dollars five hundred dollar, thousand dollar. Let's see 595 00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:03,160 Speaker 1: what my pulse is. So my pulse, I'm all excited. 596 00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:05,480 Speaker 1: My pulse is eighty three centing. He are talking. It's 597 00:39:05,520 --> 00:39:08,680 Speaker 1: been an exciting conversation. If I concentrate, I could get 598 00:39:08,680 --> 00:39:10,719 Speaker 1: it down to the low sixties. But I really have 599 00:39:10,760 --> 00:39:16,000 Speaker 1: to bore the audience and just ll out. But here, 600 00:39:16,080 --> 00:39:18,960 Speaker 1: let's see what what that just got it down to? Um? No, 601 00:39:19,160 --> 00:39:23,960 Speaker 1: still there you go. So you take your pulse. You 602 00:39:24,000 --> 00:39:29,560 Speaker 1: literally just count Yeah, all right, but analog, you know, analog. 603 00:39:29,680 --> 00:39:33,320 Speaker 1: Sometimes it's adequate, but truly analog. That's the first digital 604 00:39:33,400 --> 00:39:39,000 Speaker 1: watch that's truly analysts holding your fingers on your on 605 00:39:39,080 --> 00:39:43,520 Speaker 1: your wrist, that's an analog readout. So so you you 606 00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:48,480 Speaker 1: started really full born too. The VC side in the 607 00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:53,560 Speaker 1: late eighties, was it in my imagination. It's hard today 608 00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:56,600 Speaker 1: and it was easy then throw a dart. You're gonna 609 00:39:56,600 --> 00:39:58,600 Speaker 1: find a company that's gonna make money. You know. I'll 610 00:39:58,640 --> 00:40:01,440 Speaker 1: tell you what's really interesting, because this is now I'm 611 00:40:01,440 --> 00:40:04,400 Speaker 1: gonna put on my academic hat. There there's been a 612 00:40:04,480 --> 00:40:07,480 Speaker 1: lot of academic research on venture capital, and I'm a 613 00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:09,440 Speaker 1: student of it, and I've contributed to it and i 614 00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:12,200 Speaker 1: teach it. So I'm really I really know this data 615 00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:14,799 Speaker 1: and I know the analysis of the data. There are 616 00:40:14,840 --> 00:40:22,120 Speaker 1: two overwhelming what they call statistical stylized facts about the 617 00:40:22,160 --> 00:40:25,520 Speaker 1: history of venture capital. It's about since nineteen eighty that's 618 00:40:25,520 --> 00:40:27,800 Speaker 1: when we can start to have real data. The first 619 00:40:27,880 --> 00:40:32,000 Speaker 1: is there's incredible skew in the returns, meaning that it's 620 00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:34,200 Speaker 1: a fat head and a long tail, a handful of 621 00:40:34,239 --> 00:40:37,600 Speaker 1: giant winners. Now are you talking about the companies You're 622 00:40:37,600 --> 00:40:40,400 Speaker 1: talking about the venture funds. First, I'm talking about the 623 00:40:40,520 --> 00:40:44,400 Speaker 1: venture funds. If you take all the venture funds that 624 00:40:44,520 --> 00:40:47,640 Speaker 1: have ever been raised and invested since nineteen eighty, a 625 00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:52,759 Speaker 1: ridiculously small number of those funds have delivered all of 626 00:40:52,800 --> 00:40:57,080 Speaker 1: the excess return versus the Natstack index. But here's the 627 00:40:57,120 --> 00:41:00,600 Speaker 1: second fact, and this is distinctive, if not unique, to 628 00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:04,520 Speaker 1: venture capital. There is what they call the academics called 629 00:41:04,560 --> 00:41:09,720 Speaker 1: persistence in the returns. In other words, firm X raises 630 00:41:09,840 --> 00:41:14,560 Speaker 1: for fund one, and the performance of fund one predicts 631 00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:17,960 Speaker 1: the performance of fund too. And let me flesh that 632 00:41:18,000 --> 00:41:21,520 Speaker 1: out a little bit. So fun one does well, so 633 00:41:21,680 --> 00:41:24,960 Speaker 1: a institutions throw money at them. They're not wasting a 634 00:41:24,960 --> 00:41:27,880 Speaker 1: lot of time, energy resources trying to raise money because 635 00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:32,200 Speaker 1: people want part of that. But more importantly, the deal 636 00:41:32,280 --> 00:41:34,959 Speaker 1: flow that they get to look at it. They get 637 00:41:35,000 --> 00:41:39,279 Speaker 1: first choice everywhere exactly. So that's Kleiner Perkins. Let's go 638 00:41:39,360 --> 00:41:42,640 Speaker 1: down the list. Well, it evolves over time. It evolves 639 00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:45,919 Speaker 1: over time, andres and Horowitz was not on that list, 640 00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:50,839 Speaker 1: didn't um and and firms go through changes. I will 641 00:41:50,880 --> 00:41:56,080 Speaker 1: give uh. You know in the in the nineties, Benchmark 642 00:41:56,320 --> 00:41:59,000 Speaker 1: was founded and they've generated the twenty year record now 643 00:41:59,400 --> 00:42:04,280 Speaker 1: pretty good, really consistent partners. One well, Sequoia goes way back. 644 00:42:05,320 --> 00:42:08,800 Speaker 1: They've now expanded there were you know, they've really increased 645 00:42:08,800 --> 00:42:11,080 Speaker 1: the scale of the firm and the fund, and they're 646 00:42:11,120 --> 00:42:14,239 Speaker 1: investing globally, so we'll have to seek and they maintain 647 00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:18,960 Speaker 1: with a somewhat different profile the kind of outstanding results 648 00:42:18,960 --> 00:42:22,520 Speaker 1: they've had for a generation. Firms also go through generational 649 00:42:22,600 --> 00:42:25,600 Speaker 1: shifts and leadership, but by and large, the point about 650 00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:29,279 Speaker 1: this is if you're if you're if you're trustee of 651 00:42:29,320 --> 00:42:32,319 Speaker 1: a pension fund, and the and the consultants come and 652 00:42:32,320 --> 00:42:34,800 Speaker 1: tell you, you know, you've got to play venture capital. 653 00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:39,440 Speaker 1: Over time, you're gonna add incremental return to the portfolio. 654 00:42:39,760 --> 00:42:43,160 Speaker 1: The answer is, if you can get into the venture 655 00:42:43,640 --> 00:42:50,000 Speaker 1: funds that don't need your money, do it the best funds, 656 00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:53,200 Speaker 1: but don't just have a you know, three percent allocation 657 00:42:53,320 --> 00:42:56,120 Speaker 1: for a twenty billion dollar fund that has to be 658 00:42:56,200 --> 00:42:59,560 Speaker 1: invested in venture capital because there's a you know, there's 659 00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:02,520 Speaker 1: some really good stuff. In economics, there's a concept called 660 00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:06,000 Speaker 1: adverse selection sure which means if they need your money, 661 00:43:06,480 --> 00:43:07,960 Speaker 1: you don't want to give it to them. You don't 662 00:43:07,960 --> 00:43:09,799 Speaker 1: want to be a member of any club that will 663 00:43:09,840 --> 00:43:13,560 Speaker 1: have you. So by the way that data set, both 664 00:43:13,600 --> 00:43:18,360 Speaker 1: the persistency side and the fat headlong tail side is 665 00:43:18,400 --> 00:43:20,239 Speaker 1: true for the hedge fund world, it's true for the 666 00:43:20,239 --> 00:43:24,960 Speaker 1: private equity world, and arguably it's true for the world 667 00:43:25,040 --> 00:43:30,040 Speaker 1: of public companies if you're not indexing but buying individual 668 00:43:30,120 --> 00:43:34,279 Speaker 1: stocks of We used to think a disproportionate amount of 669 00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,520 Speaker 1: returns came from a small number of companies. The most 670 00:43:37,560 --> 00:43:41,000 Speaker 1: recent data, and I wrote about this some time ago 671 00:43:41,800 --> 00:43:45,479 Speaker 1: based on somebody else's study, it's even narrower than we thought. 672 00:43:45,520 --> 00:43:48,879 Speaker 1: It's a tiny percentage of companies delivering more than half 673 00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:51,360 Speaker 1: of the returns. It's it's amazing. Well go that goes 674 00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:55,400 Speaker 1: with this, this institutional change in the market, the rise 675 00:43:55,520 --> 00:44:00,399 Speaker 1: of people managing other people's money, right where if don't 676 00:44:00,480 --> 00:44:02,880 Speaker 1: do at least as well as the index guess what 677 00:44:03,880 --> 00:44:07,920 Speaker 1: their clients their investors take their money away. And then, 678 00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:10,440 Speaker 1: of course, when more and more of that institutional money 679 00:44:10,640 --> 00:44:14,920 Speaker 1: is passive index funds, you're, by charter, by contract, you 680 00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:19,160 Speaker 1: can't be a contrarian. So what it means is, you know, cumulatively, 681 00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:23,239 Speaker 1: you get more momentum investing, more hurting behavior. At the 682 00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:26,920 Speaker 1: same time, we've had this extraordinary phenomenon since two thousand, 683 00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:29,719 Speaker 1: the number of public companies in the United States, as 684 00:44:29,760 --> 00:44:33,759 Speaker 1: you know, it's half of what it was thousand is about, 685 00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:37,880 Speaker 1: which is that's kind of kind of hilarious. There was 686 00:44:37,920 --> 00:44:40,680 Speaker 1: a wonderful book in the mid nineties by a I 687 00:44:40,719 --> 00:44:44,360 Speaker 1: want to say, Cornell professor Robert Frank. I'm sure I 688 00:44:44,360 --> 00:44:47,840 Speaker 1: can find it if I just if I just clicked. 689 00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:51,160 Speaker 1: But it was called The Winner Take All Society, and 690 00:44:51,200 --> 00:44:57,040 Speaker 1: it looks at things like UM athletes and movies and 691 00:44:57,760 --> 00:45:02,400 Speaker 1: just how you end up with this just unbelievable concentration 692 00:45:03,320 --> 00:45:08,319 Speaker 1: UM yep, Johnson School of Management at Cordell Robert H. Frank. Now, 693 00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:12,600 Speaker 1: remember the columnist Robert Frank is a different, different person. 694 00:45:13,000 --> 00:45:18,120 Speaker 1: But we see that across Overville, these alternative investment platforms. 695 00:45:18,160 --> 00:45:20,759 Speaker 1: If you're not in the top let's call a ten, 696 00:45:21,840 --> 00:45:25,279 Speaker 1: you're you're you're more or less spending a lot of 697 00:45:25,320 --> 00:45:28,719 Speaker 1: money for a very low probability of retire. But now 698 00:45:28,760 --> 00:45:34,720 Speaker 1: that feeds into one of the phenomena that actually got 699 00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:40,000 Speaker 1: me back into looking at this whole process, that intersection 700 00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:43,560 Speaker 1: of government and the stock market and the market economy, 701 00:45:43,600 --> 00:45:45,640 Speaker 1: which what I call the three player game and in 702 00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:48,279 Speaker 1: my in my books and my lectures. It got me 703 00:45:48,320 --> 00:45:52,520 Speaker 1: going back into it was this amazing phenomenon, the unicorns, 704 00:45:52,560 --> 00:45:56,640 Speaker 1: the unicorn bubble, the Airbnb, the Ubers, the parin nos, 705 00:45:56,719 --> 00:46:00,319 Speaker 1: go down the list, the the well what to those? 706 00:46:00,360 --> 00:46:04,720 Speaker 1: Just are Uber? We know is private? Airbnb they haven't 707 00:46:04,719 --> 00:46:08,840 Speaker 1: their private, They're still private. Who else is on that list? There? Actually? 708 00:46:08,880 --> 00:46:10,680 Speaker 1: If you, if you, if you actually were to go 709 00:46:10,719 --> 00:46:16,000 Speaker 1: to Google, huh and type in unicorns tech unicorns just 710 00:46:16,160 --> 00:46:19,279 Speaker 1: unicorns just just straight up well Airbnb, you know they 711 00:46:19,800 --> 00:46:22,239 Speaker 1: in the in the data. Airbnb is usually counted in 712 00:46:22,320 --> 00:46:26,120 Speaker 1: accommodation and not as a tech company. But it's something 713 00:46:26,160 --> 00:46:30,279 Speaker 1: like two hundred and fifty globally. So the first first 714 00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:35,120 Speaker 1: one that comes up is unicorn, Wikipedia about the um 715 00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:42,040 Speaker 1: the mythological unicorn. With the second one is Fortune list 716 00:46:42,320 --> 00:46:48,919 Speaker 1: of uh unicorns and it's Uber, Ziomi, Airbnb, Palantier, Well, 717 00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:55,680 Speaker 1: Snapchat is no longer private, China, Internet plus SpaceX Pinterest. 718 00:46:56,200 --> 00:46:58,600 Speaker 1: Let's see the full list. This is already a little dated. 719 00:46:58,840 --> 00:47:03,720 Speaker 1: I've seen one that we were i I. It's something 720 00:47:03,840 --> 00:47:09,239 Speaker 1: over two hundred globally private companies valued at more than 721 00:47:09,280 --> 00:47:13,239 Speaker 1: a billion dollars. There the tons so that raises a 722 00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:18,040 Speaker 1: really interesting question, Um, and it goes back to you 723 00:47:18,080 --> 00:47:22,800 Speaker 1: mentioned the DARPA VC funds is barely three billion dollars. 724 00:47:23,040 --> 00:47:25,960 Speaker 1: It's not a VC funds, but it's a research fund 725 00:47:26,120 --> 00:47:28,799 Speaker 1: that that sort of looks and it's now much more 726 00:47:28,840 --> 00:47:32,920 Speaker 1: heavily towards military technology, not the general purpose investing that 727 00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:35,799 Speaker 1: used to be. Exactly, But what do you make of 728 00:47:35,840 --> 00:47:40,400 Speaker 1: the funds? Like soft bank has a hundred billion dollar funds, 729 00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:44,280 Speaker 1: that seems like a lot of capital. There are two things. 730 00:47:44,320 --> 00:47:48,520 Speaker 1: What one is they used a substantial hunk of that 731 00:47:48,600 --> 00:47:51,600 Speaker 1: money to help buy ARM not exactly a venture investment, 732 00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:56,080 Speaker 1: a huge ARM holding as a semiconductor it's really it's 733 00:47:56,200 --> 00:48:00,400 Speaker 1: it's an intellectual property company that licenses architectures for the 734 00:48:00,440 --> 00:48:05,440 Speaker 1: devices that dominate the mobile phone business, along with qualcom Um. 735 00:48:05,480 --> 00:48:09,400 Speaker 1: But they also they put five hundred million dollars into 736 00:48:09,880 --> 00:48:15,239 Speaker 1: a no revenue start up that is a game proposals 737 00:48:15,280 --> 00:48:21,760 Speaker 1: to deliver a platform for computer games called Remarkably enough, 738 00:48:22,000 --> 00:48:26,520 Speaker 1: the company is called Improbable. I didn't make it up. 739 00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:32,360 Speaker 1: Five hundred million dollars half a billion dollars. Do you 740 00:48:32,360 --> 00:48:34,640 Speaker 1: have any idea what you can do the kind of 741 00:48:34,680 --> 00:48:36,840 Speaker 1: party you can have with half a billion dollars. Well, 742 00:48:36,960 --> 00:48:40,160 Speaker 1: if you're doing ten million dollar deals, where you're taking 743 00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:43,160 Speaker 1: depending whether you're early stage or late stage, whether you're 744 00:48:43,200 --> 00:48:47,120 Speaker 1: taking ten percent or you could. You know, I would 745 00:48:47,200 --> 00:48:50,560 Speaker 1: rather roll the dice with fifty companies than one. Exactly, 746 00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:54,880 Speaker 1: that's the point given given the again that fat headlong tail. 747 00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:58,680 Speaker 1: To get one of the winners, you have to, you know, 748 00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:01,640 Speaker 1: you have to. There's a pony in here somewhere, right, 749 00:49:01,680 --> 00:49:04,000 Speaker 1: but you gotta. That's why they call it spray and 750 00:49:04,040 --> 00:49:06,520 Speaker 1: pray to A Couple of different things have gone have 751 00:49:06,600 --> 00:49:10,280 Speaker 1: gone on pray and prey. So one is the cost 752 00:49:10,320 --> 00:49:14,160 Speaker 1: of launching a startup has dropped like a stone. Two guys, 753 00:49:14,200 --> 00:49:16,799 Speaker 1: a laptop and an internet connection is for someone else. 754 00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:20,680 Speaker 1: Destroy software, open source software, rent your computer cycles and 755 00:49:20,719 --> 00:49:23,880 Speaker 1: your storage from Amazon. You only pay as you use it. 756 00:49:24,360 --> 00:49:28,400 Speaker 1: So getting something out and onto the net cost nothing. 757 00:49:28,520 --> 00:49:30,479 Speaker 1: So that the old days of ten or twenty million 758 00:49:30,520 --> 00:49:33,600 Speaker 1: dollars just to set up a firm, that's right gone. 759 00:49:33,680 --> 00:49:37,279 Speaker 1: So lots and lots of startups. But the cost of 760 00:49:37,400 --> 00:49:41,200 Speaker 1: building a business, the cost of getting to scale, and 761 00:49:41,239 --> 00:49:44,640 Speaker 1: the way these companies are doing it by not by 762 00:49:44,800 --> 00:49:49,239 Speaker 1: generating cash, by selling services and products to customers, but 763 00:49:49,280 --> 00:49:53,640 Speaker 1: by issuing securities to investors while they give away free 764 00:49:53,800 --> 00:49:58,520 Speaker 1: in order to get users. So that's Spotify, and that's 765 00:49:58,680 --> 00:50:01,800 Speaker 1: exactly right. You know, it's Airbnb had a business model 766 00:50:01,840 --> 00:50:05,840 Speaker 1: pretty much from the beginning, and Uber lost a billion 767 00:50:05,840 --> 00:50:09,480 Speaker 1: dollars last quarter in cash now, but they're making it 768 00:50:09,560 --> 00:50:12,160 Speaker 1: up in volume, so it all wokes out. When I 769 00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:15,040 Speaker 1: was growing up in the business, my mentor was a 770 00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:17,640 Speaker 1: guy called Fred Adler. Nobody remembers Fred anymore. He was 771 00:50:18,160 --> 00:50:22,759 Speaker 1: first generation investment venture capitalist, a lawyer who knew how 772 00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:24,960 Speaker 1: to turn around companies, and he had a He had 773 00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:29,239 Speaker 1: a motto. It was corporate happiness is positive cash flow. Right. 774 00:50:29,520 --> 00:50:32,239 Speaker 1: What it means is if if, if, if, what you're 775 00:50:32,600 --> 00:50:36,400 Speaker 1: getting paid by your customers generates more cash than the 776 00:50:36,480 --> 00:50:38,959 Speaker 1: cost to deliver the goods or service. Two things happen. 777 00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:42,279 Speaker 1: One you have a validation that what you're doing is 778 00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:47,239 Speaker 1: economically worthwhile, and two you're liberated from dependence on the 779 00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:50,040 Speaker 1: capital markets, which are there when they're there, and when 780 00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:53,680 Speaker 1: they're not there you start. Now, what's weird about this 781 00:50:53,840 --> 00:50:58,839 Speaker 1: unicorn bubble is that it's institutional investors who are used 782 00:50:58,880 --> 00:51:03,160 Speaker 1: to buying liquidity in the market, who are on the 783 00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:07,640 Speaker 1: one hand, prepared to accept so much more risk to 784 00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:10,239 Speaker 1: get a return in the zero real risk free rate 785 00:51:10,320 --> 00:51:13,560 Speaker 1: environment would you've had for almost ten years, and on 786 00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:17,200 Speaker 1: the other hand, are paying premium values relative to the 787 00:51:17,239 --> 00:51:21,320 Speaker 1: existing public companies, you know, the Googles and the facebooks 788 00:51:21,360 --> 00:51:23,560 Speaker 1: to get access for What they say is you know, 789 00:51:23,600 --> 00:51:27,480 Speaker 1: fomo fear of missing out because as you this goes 790 00:51:27,520 --> 00:51:30,239 Speaker 1: all the way back to saying that the returns are 791 00:51:30,320 --> 00:51:33,879 Speaker 1: so concentrated. But instead of saying, well, I'm gonna put 792 00:51:34,239 --> 00:51:37,240 Speaker 1: you know, a million bucks into fifty startups and hope 793 00:51:37,280 --> 00:51:39,600 Speaker 1: that two or three or four of them blow out, 794 00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:42,680 Speaker 1: and I write a million, but the five million gets 795 00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:45,600 Speaker 1: me big, big returns. They're writing checks that are fifty 796 00:51:46,239 --> 00:51:50,920 Speaker 1: five million to play that game and and and a 797 00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:54,839 Speaker 1: rich valuations. Not they're not early stage in that tree ridge, 798 00:51:55,120 --> 00:51:58,520 Speaker 1: and so they're exposed to I mean, the the unicorn bubble, 799 00:51:58,600 --> 00:52:01,400 Speaker 1: like all bubbles, will end. That's the law of bubbles. 800 00:52:01,400 --> 00:52:05,000 Speaker 1: Bubbles end um. And you can see two different ways 801 00:52:05,120 --> 00:52:13,000 Speaker 1: it can end. One is that the FED indeed normalizes rates, 802 00:52:13,200 --> 00:52:17,760 Speaker 1: which they seem to be in the process of credit 803 00:52:17,800 --> 00:52:21,680 Speaker 1: spreads open up and it becomes possible to get, you know, 804 00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:24,799 Speaker 1: a real return of five, six seven percent as an 805 00:52:24,800 --> 00:52:30,279 Speaker 1: institution investing in you know, TRIPLEB bonds um which will 806 00:52:30,320 --> 00:52:34,160 Speaker 1: take a lot of money shift money within the financial system. 807 00:52:34,280 --> 00:52:37,600 Speaker 1: The other is that you have you know, a fraud 808 00:52:37,680 --> 00:52:43,360 Speaker 1: like thearas. You have the genius, the incredible genius and 809 00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:47,200 Speaker 1: energy of Elon Musk. Now, let's say, subject to some 810 00:52:48,320 --> 00:52:54,319 Speaker 1: closer scrutiny, SpaceX, Boring Company or Tesla or whatever he's 811 00:52:54,360 --> 00:52:59,840 Speaker 1: cranking them out. And if there's a cumulative drumbeat a 812 00:53:00,160 --> 00:53:07,480 Speaker 1: companies that promised unbelievable transformational technology to the world failing 813 00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:12,120 Speaker 1: to meet those expectations, that changes you know how you 814 00:53:12,200 --> 00:53:16,680 Speaker 1: know better than I how market psychology, how investors shift 815 00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:20,239 Speaker 1: the frame and the lens through which they're looking at investments. 816 00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:22,680 Speaker 1: So so let's let's explore that a little bit because 817 00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:26,360 Speaker 1: my pet thesis is there's just so much damn money 818 00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:30,000 Speaker 1: slashing around that it's always looking for a home. And 819 00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:33,080 Speaker 1: when you say to somebody, hey, tenure, I could get you, 820 00:53:33,080 --> 00:53:36,120 Speaker 1: you know, two point two percent or wherever it will 821 00:53:36,160 --> 00:53:39,800 Speaker 1: be by the time this broadcast. I don't want two percent. 822 00:53:39,840 --> 00:53:44,040 Speaker 1: I'm looking for a six, seven, ten whatever. So first 823 00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:48,960 Speaker 1: is all this capital the reason a fraud like Tharakhous 824 00:53:49,080 --> 00:53:52,399 Speaker 1: could get was it nine million dollars in funding? I'm 825 00:53:52,400 --> 00:53:54,080 Speaker 1: doing that off the top. I think it was a 826 00:53:54,120 --> 00:53:58,000 Speaker 1: bit like it was still huge and you know whatever, 827 00:53:58,000 --> 00:54:01,400 Speaker 1: it was reality distortion fee old. It certainly is the 828 00:54:01,480 --> 00:54:03,680 Speaker 1: fact that there is a huge amount of money around now. 829 00:54:03,760 --> 00:54:07,279 Speaker 1: The two things to say about that. One is the 830 00:54:07,400 --> 00:54:11,040 Speaker 1: thing about liquidity is the more you needed, the less 831 00:54:11,040 --> 00:54:15,200 Speaker 1: there is liquidity comes there. Remember with the liquidity in 832 00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:19,719 Speaker 1: the buyout market in two thousand and six, Remember that 833 00:54:19,760 --> 00:54:23,239 Speaker 1: buy out of the Texas Utility Company Electric Utility Company? 834 00:54:23,360 --> 00:54:26,359 Speaker 1: But was it forty billion dollars? Some ungodly number? And 835 00:54:27,640 --> 00:54:31,040 Speaker 1: in September two thousand and eight you couldn't scrape two 836 00:54:31,120 --> 00:54:37,040 Speaker 1: nickels together. So the perception of it is this sort 837 00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:42,040 Speaker 1: of self validating process. There's so much money around today 838 00:54:42,080 --> 00:54:45,560 Speaker 1: that we can exsume it will always be around until 839 00:54:45,840 --> 00:54:49,520 Speaker 1: guess what it's not. That's where I think the real 840 00:54:49,640 --> 00:54:55,680 Speaker 1: challenge for the entrepreneurs and the core investors in these unicorns, 841 00:54:55,719 --> 00:55:00,279 Speaker 1: because the process of learning how to generate to pay 842 00:55:00,320 --> 00:55:03,200 Speaker 1: your bills because your customers are giving you more money 843 00:55:03,400 --> 00:55:07,239 Speaker 1: than you're paying out to serve them. That is a 844 00:55:07,360 --> 00:55:10,520 Speaker 1: really hard discipline to learn. And if you're being able 845 00:55:10,600 --> 00:55:14,000 Speaker 1: to raise one billion, two billion, three billion a year, 846 00:55:14,920 --> 00:55:20,319 Speaker 1: giving up almost no control, giving up minimal amounts of ownership, 847 00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:24,840 Speaker 1: minimal dilution, boy, that's that's that's the best heroin you 848 00:55:24,880 --> 00:55:27,719 Speaker 1: could ever have. So when you look at let's hold 849 00:55:27,760 --> 00:55:30,719 Speaker 1: thereinos aside, because clearly it was a fraud, right, I mean, 850 00:55:30,719 --> 00:55:32,799 Speaker 1: I don't believe it started as a fraud. And if 851 00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:34,800 Speaker 1: you haven't read the book Bad Blood, it was delfe 852 00:55:34,880 --> 00:55:38,040 Speaker 1: I read the newspaper columns in real time. Um, but 853 00:55:38,160 --> 00:55:42,160 Speaker 1: the book reveals stuff about it that the columns did 854 00:55:42,200 --> 00:55:45,480 Speaker 1: not like. The board of directors was a did you 855 00:55:45,520 --> 00:55:48,759 Speaker 1: know they had no voting shares that she had, Elizabeth, 856 00:55:49,120 --> 00:55:52,080 Speaker 1: and that you know there were no people from a 857 00:55:52,160 --> 00:55:56,040 Speaker 1: medical device biotech healthcare background on the board, at least 858 00:55:56,040 --> 00:55:59,960 Speaker 1: at first. With all respect to too great public service 859 00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:04,200 Speaker 1: Henry Kissinger and George Sultz, if you're ever given an 860 00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:07,520 Speaker 1: investment opportunity, we have two members of the board who 861 00:56:07,520 --> 00:56:12,760 Speaker 1: are former secretaries of State in their nineties, politely say 862 00:56:12,880 --> 00:56:16,600 Speaker 1: thank you and pass on by. There were people have 863 00:56:16,680 --> 00:56:21,160 Speaker 1: accused me of um having hindsight bias in this, but 864 00:56:21,400 --> 00:56:25,279 Speaker 1: there were some fairly obvious red flags, that being one 865 00:56:25,320 --> 00:56:30,719 Speaker 1: of them. Nobody, every single VC that specialized in medtech, healthcare, 866 00:56:31,200 --> 00:56:35,800 Speaker 1: biosciences took a hard pass. That's a screaming red flag. 867 00:56:37,120 --> 00:56:39,839 Speaker 1: Talk to any humatologists in the world and they will 868 00:56:39,880 --> 00:56:41,839 Speaker 1: tell you. And I'm not a humatologist, and I don't 869 00:56:41,840 --> 00:56:43,839 Speaker 1: play one on television, but I do know some very 870 00:56:43,840 --> 00:56:49,200 Speaker 1: good academic ones. You cannot run the full panel of 871 00:56:49,280 --> 00:56:52,319 Speaker 1: bloods that they do when they put that needle in 872 00:56:52,360 --> 00:56:55,520 Speaker 1: your take it a full vial of that blood. You 873 00:56:55,520 --> 00:56:57,720 Speaker 1: can't get that out of a drop of capillary blood 874 00:56:57,719 --> 00:57:02,400 Speaker 1: from your face. The process of ricking your finger um 875 00:57:02,440 --> 00:57:08,239 Speaker 1: introduces interstitial tissue and liquids and contaminants, So even if 876 00:57:08,280 --> 00:57:12,759 Speaker 1: you had enough blood, it's contaminated blood. But let's the 877 00:57:13,280 --> 00:57:15,360 Speaker 1: what I'm more interested in, and what I think is 878 00:57:15,440 --> 00:57:21,680 Speaker 1: much more significant, is that these digital platforms and marketplaces, 879 00:57:21,720 --> 00:57:26,760 Speaker 1: they are disruptive. They are creating opportunities for commerce on 880 00:57:26,880 --> 00:57:30,560 Speaker 1: a radically different basis. So we're talking about Airbnb and 881 00:57:30,800 --> 00:57:34,720 Speaker 1: Uber and lift and anything that is using the digital, 882 00:57:35,120 --> 00:57:39,480 Speaker 1: especially mobile interface that's a giant computer in your pocket 883 00:57:39,520 --> 00:57:45,000 Speaker 1: to turn things into a different um economic value proposition. 884 00:57:45,360 --> 00:57:49,360 Speaker 1: That's a fascinating an It also brings up, however, another 885 00:57:49,520 --> 00:57:53,480 Speaker 1: aspect of where the digital revolution is. I said it 886 00:57:53,520 --> 00:57:55,440 Speaker 1: was attacking the authority of the statement. Of course, a 887 00:57:55,440 --> 00:57:57,680 Speaker 1: lot of that's happening at the local level. It's not 888 00:57:57,800 --> 00:58:01,240 Speaker 1: and I'm not now talking about grand strategy and or 889 00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:03,240 Speaker 1: or the you know, the future of the planet and 890 00:58:03,240 --> 00:58:07,320 Speaker 1: climate change and all that. The problem here, and this 891 00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:11,280 Speaker 1: is a problem for investors, is that too many of 892 00:58:11,360 --> 00:58:15,440 Speaker 1: the genius entrepreneurs who know that they are creating a 893 00:58:15,440 --> 00:58:21,360 Speaker 1: new world have zero interest in understanding how we got 894 00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:25,160 Speaker 1: to this world that they're disrupting. And what that means 895 00:58:25,480 --> 00:58:28,960 Speaker 1: is that again and again and again they pay no 896 00:58:29,040 --> 00:58:35,560 Speaker 1: attention or they dismiss the existing ecosystem, which includes regulatory 897 00:58:35,640 --> 00:58:40,720 Speaker 1: but not just political and state regulations, practices, culture. A 898 00:58:40,840 --> 00:58:45,400 Speaker 1: black cab driver in London is not the same thing 899 00:58:46,000 --> 00:58:49,480 Speaker 1: as a cab driver in San Francisco operating a totally 900 00:58:49,480 --> 00:58:53,600 Speaker 1: different environment, meaning that that's highly regulated. They have to 901 00:58:53,640 --> 00:58:57,760 Speaker 1: pass the tests to be a cab driver. They're incredibly knowledgeable, 902 00:58:57,800 --> 00:59:00,880 Speaker 1: and they have a standing in the culture that's just 903 00:59:00,960 --> 00:59:05,840 Speaker 1: different in kind. So what happens when these disruptive which 904 00:59:05,880 --> 00:59:08,880 Speaker 1: which are much more efficient economically, no question about that, 905 00:59:09,320 --> 00:59:13,560 Speaker 1: and much more efficient technologically, but they run into these frictions, 906 00:59:13,640 --> 00:59:18,120 Speaker 1: these political and regulatory frictions. It slows things down. Now, 907 00:59:18,440 --> 00:59:21,200 Speaker 1: if you're promising to change the world and you have 908 00:59:21,240 --> 00:59:26,240 Speaker 1: investors investing in you in pursuit of that rate of 909 00:59:26,280 --> 00:59:30,720 Speaker 1: return that comes from a successful revolution, and you get 910 00:59:30,760 --> 00:59:33,520 Speaker 1: delayed by a year or two year, but that it 911 00:59:33,600 --> 00:59:37,959 Speaker 1: just kills the present value of that hope for home 912 00:59:38,080 --> 00:59:44,000 Speaker 1: run future. So it feeds back into the investment proposition 913 00:59:44,400 --> 00:59:47,920 Speaker 1: that you're looking at today and you're trying to value today. 914 00:59:47,960 --> 00:59:49,960 Speaker 1: So let me let me get more specific, because I 915 00:59:49,960 --> 00:59:52,760 Speaker 1: want to make sure I understand that. So you have 916 00:59:53,200 --> 00:59:56,960 Speaker 1: a set of a regulatory environment and a set of 917 00:59:57,040 --> 01:00:01,760 Speaker 1: cultural background in a place like London, and that doesn't 918 01:00:01,800 --> 01:00:07,040 Speaker 1: necessarily make it all that vulnerable to an outfit like Uber, 919 01:00:07,800 --> 01:00:13,080 Speaker 1: because their cab drivers are valued members of society who 920 01:00:13,120 --> 01:00:18,360 Speaker 1: contribute more than mere transportation. There an active part of 921 01:00:18,400 --> 01:00:21,200 Speaker 1: the history and the lore of London. Compare and contrast 922 01:00:21,240 --> 01:00:25,440 Speaker 1: with New York City, where I've made the case and 923 01:00:25,480 --> 01:00:28,680 Speaker 1: I don't think it's a stretch that you had a 924 01:00:29,160 --> 01:00:33,560 Speaker 1: artificially created monopoly, the number of medallions kept low, the 925 01:00:33,640 --> 01:00:37,240 Speaker 1: serve quality service terrible. Good luck funding cab in the 926 01:00:37,320 --> 01:00:40,640 Speaker 1: rain at rush hour. The first moment anything happens, there 927 01:00:40,640 --> 01:00:44,000 Speaker 1: are no cabs. I I kind of have gotten the 928 01:00:44,080 --> 01:00:48,520 Speaker 1: sense that the New York City Council and the medallion 929 01:00:48,640 --> 01:00:54,160 Speaker 1: owners conspired to create to artificially constrained market forces, and 930 01:00:54,200 --> 01:00:57,640 Speaker 1: as soon as Uber came along, it exploded because at 931 01:00:57,640 --> 01:01:01,000 Speaker 1: a certain point the market will not be denied. Exactly right, Barry, 932 01:01:01,000 --> 01:01:03,840 Speaker 1: I think you're absolutely right. But the point is exactly 933 01:01:03,880 --> 01:01:07,680 Speaker 1: that you need and it took Uber has an Airbnb 934 01:01:07,720 --> 01:01:11,200 Speaker 1: has been doing a better job of understanding that these 935 01:01:11,520 --> 01:01:13,960 Speaker 1: each local market that they go into has to be 936 01:01:14,000 --> 01:01:17,720 Speaker 1: evaluated its own terms, with its own history, and adapt 937 01:01:17,800 --> 01:01:20,640 Speaker 1: there too. And not all the regulations A lot of 938 01:01:20,640 --> 01:01:24,640 Speaker 1: them are, but not all the regulations are monopolists. Rents seeking. 939 01:01:24,760 --> 01:01:27,360 Speaker 1: You know, there's a reason why if you're having people 940 01:01:27,440 --> 01:01:29,720 Speaker 1: stay in your apartment, you want to have a fire 941 01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:34,840 Speaker 1: extinguisher and something like if your neighbors are living there, 942 01:01:35,120 --> 01:01:37,800 Speaker 1: they board an apartment, they weren't buying into a hotel. 943 01:01:38,320 --> 01:01:41,880 Speaker 1: That's a completely legiti exactly right. So my my point 944 01:01:41,920 --> 01:01:46,240 Speaker 1: here is only that, in addition to all the stem 945 01:01:46,360 --> 01:01:50,760 Speaker 1: discipline science, technology, engineering, mathematics that we all focus on, 946 01:01:50,880 --> 01:01:54,360 Speaker 1: is the secret for the future. A little more teaching 947 01:01:54,400 --> 01:01:59,640 Speaker 1: in history, a little more even reading relevant historical novels, 948 01:02:00,800 --> 01:02:06,160 Speaker 1: a little learning about the political the evolution of regulations 949 01:02:06,200 --> 01:02:10,680 Speaker 1: in particular domains, particular regimes. It could be very helpful 950 01:02:11,080 --> 01:02:14,440 Speaker 1: for the entrepreneur, or at least their financial investor, who's 951 01:02:14,440 --> 01:02:17,400 Speaker 1: trying to give them a strategic sense of where to 952 01:02:17,480 --> 01:02:21,200 Speaker 1: bob and where do weave and how to maximize the 953 01:02:21,320 --> 01:02:26,840 Speaker 1: likelihood that their transformational technology will convert into long term 954 01:02:26,880 --> 01:02:30,400 Speaker 1: economic value. So when when you're looking at a possible 955 01:02:30,440 --> 01:02:33,560 Speaker 1: investment in a startup and you're looking at the entrepreneurs, 956 01:02:34,080 --> 01:02:36,240 Speaker 1: do you find that a lot of these folks are 957 01:02:36,280 --> 01:02:39,680 Speaker 1: one dimensional. They have their tech skills, they've come up 958 01:02:39,680 --> 01:02:43,360 Speaker 1: with something that seems interesting, but they're lacking a broader 959 01:02:43,440 --> 01:02:46,439 Speaker 1: world view. Well, you know, I'm I'm I'm at more 960 01:02:46,440 --> 01:02:49,880 Speaker 1: than one remove away from this. I'm not running the 961 01:02:49,920 --> 01:02:53,320 Speaker 1: portfolio and I have it for years, um, but I 962 01:02:53,360 --> 01:02:58,680 Speaker 1: do stay tuned in. In particular, you mentioned in introducing me, Uh, 963 01:02:58,720 --> 01:03:02,280 Speaker 1: you know, I'm Tim o'ry. He's outside director at O'Reilly media, 964 01:03:02,840 --> 01:03:06,560 Speaker 1: Tim is just which is you Oley Media has and 965 01:03:06,640 --> 01:03:11,640 Speaker 1: certainly the throw weight in terms of insight foresight that 966 01:03:11,760 --> 01:03:14,880 Speaker 1: Tim has demonstrated over a long generation. And by the way, 967 01:03:14,960 --> 01:03:18,200 Speaker 1: let me just fleck his book with the amusing title 968 01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:21,880 Speaker 1: w t F What's the Future? Uh? Is a great 969 01:03:21,920 --> 01:03:27,600 Speaker 1: guide to reading the digital revolution as it has unwound, 970 01:03:27,640 --> 01:03:30,000 Speaker 1: as it has evolved over the last couple of years, 971 01:03:30,080 --> 01:03:35,400 Speaker 1: last twenty years, um, Tim, Tim has the exactly what 972 01:03:35,480 --> 01:03:40,040 Speaker 1: I'm talking about, a deep interest in the history and 973 01:03:40,160 --> 01:03:43,760 Speaker 1: not just the technical history, but the cultural and political 974 01:03:43,800 --> 01:03:49,240 Speaker 1: history of that we are transforming. UH. And you know, 975 01:03:49,680 --> 01:03:52,320 Speaker 1: this is not the first time that there's been a 976 01:03:52,320 --> 01:03:57,600 Speaker 1: political backlash from new technology. William Jennings Bryan, the populist 977 01:03:57,600 --> 01:03:59,800 Speaker 1: movement at the end of the nineteenth century. Was there 978 01:04:00,040 --> 01:04:03,240 Speaker 1: sponsor the railroads? How about the Mathusians. Isn't that a 979 01:04:03,320 --> 01:04:06,919 Speaker 1: giant rush back against you know, we'll never be able 980 01:04:06,920 --> 01:04:11,840 Speaker 1: to feed ourselves, so the there is now a giant 981 01:04:11,880 --> 01:04:15,520 Speaker 1: political pushback. You know, big tech is a target. UH. 982 01:04:15,960 --> 01:04:19,320 Speaker 1: Some of it has been invited by a kind of 983 01:04:19,440 --> 01:04:22,080 Speaker 1: arrogance that goes with it. I say, it goes with 984 01:04:22,120 --> 01:04:26,240 Speaker 1: the territory of being the source, the leader, the manager, 985 01:04:26,440 --> 01:04:33,520 Speaker 1: the driver of transformational technology into the economy. But it 986 01:04:33,520 --> 01:04:36,920 Speaker 1: will be best for everyone if there's a more deeper 987 01:04:37,040 --> 01:04:41,640 Speaker 1: understanding of the world that is being disrupted, not just 988 01:04:42,240 --> 01:04:45,960 Speaker 1: understanding of the forces of disruption. And you know, frankly, 989 01:04:46,160 --> 01:04:48,920 Speaker 1: let me let me chew that over a sec Better 990 01:04:49,480 --> 01:04:53,600 Speaker 1: to have a more complete understanding of the world being 991 01:04:53,680 --> 01:04:59,280 Speaker 1: disrupted than just the disruptive forces themselves, right, exactly right, 992 01:04:59,600 --> 01:05:02,680 Speaker 1: that's and that's what this new edition of my book 993 01:05:02,840 --> 01:05:07,040 Speaker 1: is really trying to deliver, and to deliver to audiences 994 01:05:07,080 --> 01:05:10,960 Speaker 1: that include those disruptors. It will be better for our 995 01:05:11,000 --> 01:05:13,480 Speaker 1: whole system and will certainly be better for us to 996 01:05:13,560 --> 01:05:16,640 Speaker 1: have a you know, a better chance of responding to 997 01:05:16,680 --> 01:05:21,040 Speaker 1: the Chinese challenge, which ain't going away. Um, of course 998 01:05:21,080 --> 01:05:24,480 Speaker 1: this comes at a peculiar moment in American history and 999 01:05:24,560 --> 01:05:28,880 Speaker 1: American politics, and peculiar to say the least. I mean, 1000 01:05:28,920 --> 01:05:32,800 Speaker 1: that's and and you know how long this persists, how 1001 01:05:32,840 --> 01:05:36,640 Speaker 1: long we have I've got to I got to share 1002 01:05:36,640 --> 01:05:38,880 Speaker 1: with you because I know you know how to read 1003 01:05:39,600 --> 01:05:46,000 Speaker 1: the net one of the more maybe most frustrating things 1004 01:05:46,000 --> 01:05:49,840 Speaker 1: you can do. Right now, Let's go to Google type 1005 01:05:49,840 --> 01:05:52,680 Speaker 1: in the letters o s t P that stands for 1006 01:05:52,840 --> 01:05:58,320 Speaker 1: Office of Science and Technology Policy, and you'll see white 1007 01:05:58,320 --> 01:06:05,040 Speaker 1: House dot OSTP dot gov. Right, if you bring that up, well, 1008 01:06:05,120 --> 01:06:07,320 Speaker 1: I'll ask you to just let it sit there on 1009 01:06:07,360 --> 01:06:10,720 Speaker 1: the Google screen. White white House dot gov is the 1010 01:06:10,760 --> 01:06:13,160 Speaker 1: first thing that comes up. Right. Now, look down the 1011 01:06:13,240 --> 01:06:17,520 Speaker 1: list and you'll find something that says OSTP dot Obama archive. 1012 01:06:18,560 --> 01:06:23,280 Speaker 1: That's the third thing. So the second thing is Wikipedia. Okay, 1013 01:06:23,360 --> 01:06:28,240 Speaker 1: Now go and click on the OSTP dot Obama archive, right, 1014 01:06:28,400 --> 01:06:32,320 Speaker 1: John Holden, Director, and you'll see that that's how it 1015 01:06:32,360 --> 01:06:35,960 Speaker 1: what it looked like on January telling me this has 1016 01:06:36,000 --> 01:06:38,600 Speaker 1: not been updated. No, I'm telling you that this is 1017 01:06:38,640 --> 01:06:40,600 Speaker 1: frozen because that's the way it was and that's why 1018 01:06:40,600 --> 01:06:43,760 Speaker 1: it's in the Obama archive. But if you go through it, 1019 01:06:43,800 --> 01:06:47,360 Speaker 1: you'll see that there's program after program, people and initiatives 1020 01:06:47,360 --> 01:06:51,720 Speaker 1: and conferences and all that. Now, after looking at that, 1021 01:06:52,080 --> 01:06:57,000 Speaker 1: now go and look at here's a November one article 1022 01:06:57,800 --> 01:07:01,120 Speaker 1: Donald Trumps Science Office is a ghost town. So go 1023 01:07:01,200 --> 01:07:04,240 Speaker 1: and look at OSTP dout gub white House dot OSTP 1024 01:07:04,400 --> 01:07:06,959 Speaker 1: dot gov. Al Right, just click the original. Just click 1025 01:07:07,000 --> 01:07:12,480 Speaker 1: the original, uh engagement at it's a one pager. That's 1026 01:07:12,520 --> 01:07:15,160 Speaker 1: that's it, there's no there's no there's no links. There 1027 01:07:15,200 --> 01:07:18,200 Speaker 1: are no links. That's all there is. That's it. So 1028 01:07:18,440 --> 01:07:22,320 Speaker 1: another word science and technology not not exciting to this group, 1029 01:07:22,520 --> 01:07:26,160 Speaker 1: doesn't exist. You know, if you look at the list 1030 01:07:26,240 --> 01:07:30,320 Speaker 1: of unfilled positions. And I'm not sure if if my 1031 01:07:30,360 --> 01:07:33,360 Speaker 1: original viewpoint on this is correct. I used to think 1032 01:07:33,920 --> 01:07:36,920 Speaker 1: he was running just for a branding exercise. He made 1033 01:07:37,360 --> 01:07:41,960 Speaker 1: most of his money, read him Um O'Brien's book, Trump Nation. 1034 01:07:42,560 --> 01:07:47,000 Speaker 1: Most of his wealth came from the t and forward 1035 01:07:47,080 --> 01:07:51,880 Speaker 1: election where there was a ton of branding opportunities. What 1036 01:07:51,920 --> 01:07:55,600 Speaker 1: have you. I suspected that he was an interest in winning, 1037 01:07:55,600 --> 01:07:59,200 Speaker 1: that this was just a great gift from the media 1038 01:07:59,280 --> 01:08:03,480 Speaker 1: and pub listening machine. And because most people run have 1039 01:08:03,600 --> 01:08:05,760 Speaker 1: their list of here's everyone we're gonna put in. The 1040 01:08:05,800 --> 01:08:07,880 Speaker 1: fact it's a year later and they still have all 1041 01:08:07,920 --> 01:08:11,440 Speaker 1: these unfilled roles kind of makes me think that he 1042 01:08:11,640 --> 01:08:15,560 Speaker 1: wasn't expecting to win. That said, now that you're there, 1043 01:08:16,200 --> 01:08:18,559 Speaker 1: perhaps you may want to fill some of these slots. Well, 1044 01:08:18,600 --> 01:08:22,240 Speaker 1: you know what's going on at the E p A. 1045 01:08:23,040 --> 01:08:26,519 Speaker 1: And by the way, we're recording this in between the 1046 01:08:26,560 --> 01:08:29,920 Speaker 1: weekend of the G seven events and the right before 1047 01:08:30,120 --> 01:08:34,240 Speaker 1: the summit with North Korea. So if there has subsequently 1048 01:08:34,280 --> 01:08:37,840 Speaker 1: been a nuclear war, that by the time this broadcast, 1049 01:08:38,280 --> 01:08:42,320 Speaker 1: neither of us anticipated that correct or or or the 1050 01:08:42,320 --> 01:08:45,360 Speaker 1: other thing, a complete nu de nuclearization. I don't think 1051 01:08:45,360 --> 01:08:47,960 Speaker 1: either of us are expected that. I'll tell you I'm 1052 01:08:48,080 --> 01:08:51,040 Speaker 1: I'm I'm not. I'm not born to be. I go 1053 01:08:51,240 --> 01:08:55,320 Speaker 1: practice as a political prognosticator. You read all about that 1054 01:08:55,400 --> 01:08:57,960 Speaker 1: in so many different places. I have those I respect, 1055 01:08:57,960 --> 01:09:00,519 Speaker 1: those I don't respect, But I will this and this. 1056 01:09:00,640 --> 01:09:03,600 Speaker 1: I think I have some expertise. And if you're going 1057 01:09:03,640 --> 01:09:07,080 Speaker 1: to maintain if a nation is going to maintain leadership 1058 01:09:07,800 --> 01:09:14,040 Speaker 1: in taking science, deriving from it working technology, and converting 1059 01:09:14,080 --> 01:09:21,679 Speaker 1: that technology into job creating, profit generating real business, then 1060 01:09:22,479 --> 01:09:27,400 Speaker 1: one player in that game has to be a legitimate, honest, 1061 01:09:27,800 --> 01:09:34,360 Speaker 1: functioning government. Without there you go, you know, but that 1062 01:09:34,800 --> 01:09:38,280 Speaker 1: some people legitimately that's the idiotic pushback, I know, And 1063 01:09:38,320 --> 01:09:41,880 Speaker 1: that's why going back into that using winners and losers. 1064 01:09:42,160 --> 01:09:44,880 Speaker 1: But you know, that's what going back into that history 1065 01:09:44,880 --> 01:09:48,280 Speaker 1: of the Defense Department in DARPA and silicon and software 1066 01:09:48,320 --> 01:09:52,240 Speaker 1: and microprocessors and the Internet. That's why it's so important 1067 01:09:52,760 --> 01:09:55,720 Speaker 1: going back to the history of how we tied the 1068 01:09:55,800 --> 01:10:00,479 Speaker 1: nation together with Transcontinental Railroads by taking nine of the 1069 01:10:00,640 --> 01:10:04,200 Speaker 1: land area of the lower forty eight states and giving 1070 01:10:04,280 --> 01:10:07,720 Speaker 1: it as a gift to subsidize the building of the 1071 01:10:07,720 --> 01:10:13,040 Speaker 1: Transcontinental Railroads. We built the interstate highway system. We built 1072 01:10:13,040 --> 01:10:17,560 Speaker 1: it under a Republican president. By the way, the legislation 1073 01:10:17,640 --> 01:10:21,960 Speaker 1: was called the National Defense Transportation Act. It was legitimate 1074 01:10:22,080 --> 01:10:25,559 Speaker 1: because they designed it so that every bridge was high 1075 01:10:25,720 --> 01:10:31,400 Speaker 1: enough that a transporter carrying an Atlas first generation intercontinental 1076 01:10:31,400 --> 01:10:35,559 Speaker 1: ballistic missile could be driven along the interstate. And that 1077 01:10:35,720 --> 01:10:41,400 Speaker 1: made the investment in the public transportation network for the country, 1078 01:10:41,439 --> 01:10:44,560 Speaker 1: made it politically legitimate. And am I misremembering this or 1079 01:10:44,680 --> 01:10:47,640 Speaker 1: is this just the myth? Every fifth mile of the 1080 01:10:47,680 --> 01:10:50,439 Speaker 1: interstate highway system how to be a straight mile that 1081 01:10:50,560 --> 01:10:53,519 Speaker 1: could double as a runway in an emergency. You know, 1082 01:10:53,600 --> 01:10:56,320 Speaker 1: I don't know that. As a fact. I liked the concept. 1083 01:10:56,720 --> 01:11:01,360 Speaker 1: It certainly was. There was a sense there that public 1084 01:11:01,479 --> 01:11:06,640 Speaker 1: investment for the public good was legitimate, appropriate and what 1085 01:11:06,720 --> 01:11:08,840 Speaker 1: do you call it? You didn't have to call it socialism, 1086 01:11:08,960 --> 01:11:11,240 Speaker 1: was just it was for the public good. The multiplier 1087 01:11:11,240 --> 01:11:14,000 Speaker 1: effect of the interstate highway system is still being effected. 1088 01:11:14,080 --> 01:11:16,599 Speaker 1: This felt to this day. All right, so I only 1089 01:11:16,600 --> 01:11:18,680 Speaker 1: have you for a finite amount of time. Let me 1090 01:11:18,800 --> 01:11:22,200 Speaker 1: jump to some of my favorite questions that we ask 1091 01:11:22,280 --> 01:11:25,800 Speaker 1: all our guests. Tell us the most important thing we 1092 01:11:25,960 --> 01:11:34,800 Speaker 1: don't know about you. Well, let's see, I guess the 1093 01:11:34,880 --> 01:11:38,040 Speaker 1: most important thing that you probably don't know is that 1094 01:11:38,080 --> 01:11:41,559 Speaker 1: when I was forty five, I ran a one nineteen 1095 01:11:41,680 --> 01:11:45,639 Speaker 1: half marathon in the fifty nine minute ten miler. And 1096 01:11:45,680 --> 01:11:48,559 Speaker 1: then that was the summer fifty in a ten mile. 1097 01:11:48,720 --> 01:11:51,360 Speaker 1: That's pretty good. That's under six minutes. Not bad for 1098 01:11:51,439 --> 01:11:54,960 Speaker 1: at five year old. Oh that's damn good. And ex smoker. 1099 01:11:55,640 --> 01:12:01,280 Speaker 1: And and then I made this fundamental decision because on 1100 01:12:01,360 --> 01:12:04,160 Speaker 1: the one hand, I was joining Warburg pain Kiss after 1101 01:12:04,240 --> 01:12:07,160 Speaker 1: I've been serving out my contract after we sold the 1102 01:12:07,240 --> 01:12:09,880 Speaker 1: Upper stat firm, and I knew that was gonna be 1103 01:12:09,880 --> 01:12:13,599 Speaker 1: a full time job. And on the other hand, my 1104 01:12:13,640 --> 01:12:16,280 Speaker 1: wife was running a consulting business, and I had worked 1105 01:12:16,320 --> 01:12:17,920 Speaker 1: out that if we really wanted to have a kid, 1106 01:12:18,560 --> 01:12:21,600 Speaker 1: staying in the same city as her her doctor suggested 1107 01:12:21,720 --> 01:12:26,160 Speaker 1: was probably a useful enabling friend. And so we were 1108 01:12:26,160 --> 01:12:30,479 Speaker 1: gonna have a kid. And I decided that you could 1109 01:12:30,479 --> 01:12:32,760 Speaker 1: have a full time job, you could try to be 1110 01:12:32,840 --> 01:12:37,360 Speaker 1: a decent parent, and you could run competitively at the 1111 01:12:37,360 --> 01:12:41,080 Speaker 1: club level of New York two out of three. That 1112 01:12:42,520 --> 01:12:44,240 Speaker 1: at the end of the matter, that's very funny. You 1113 01:12:44,600 --> 01:12:48,720 Speaker 1: mentioned one of your mentors earlier. Tell us repeat their name, 1114 01:12:48,760 --> 01:12:53,559 Speaker 1: and what other folks influence your perspective? Critical influence on 1115 01:12:53,560 --> 01:12:59,080 Speaker 1: my perspective, as I say, was Fred Adler. Uh. Fred 1116 01:12:59,160 --> 01:13:02,800 Speaker 1: Fred came from backstreets of Brooklyn, got went went from 1117 01:13:02,840 --> 01:13:07,720 Speaker 1: Brooklyn College to Harvard Law School, joined actually one of 1118 01:13:07,720 --> 01:13:10,879 Speaker 1: the leading Catholic law firms in New York, and discovered 1119 01:13:10,920 --> 01:13:14,400 Speaker 1: he was a terrific turnaround artist and put together the 1120 01:13:14,439 --> 01:13:18,920 Speaker 1: financing for the second successful mini computer company, Data General, 1121 01:13:19,720 --> 01:13:22,519 Speaker 1: back you know now forty five years ago. He and 1122 01:13:22,560 --> 01:13:26,000 Speaker 1: I connected. We collaborated effectively a lot about that in 1123 01:13:26,040 --> 01:13:30,400 Speaker 1: my book. Uh. He was a tough guy, and uh, 1124 01:13:30,720 --> 01:13:32,160 Speaker 1: I used to He used to tell me that I 1125 01:13:32,200 --> 01:13:34,800 Speaker 1: was really good at admitting my mistakes. And I used 1126 01:13:34,800 --> 01:13:36,920 Speaker 1: to tell him that the only compliment he ever gave 1127 01:13:36,960 --> 01:13:40,320 Speaker 1: me was he never offered me a job. But then 1128 01:13:40,560 --> 01:13:43,400 Speaker 1: then in the mid eighties, when I was really engaged 1129 01:13:43,479 --> 01:13:48,360 Speaker 1: in this new swinging world of information technology through through 1130 01:13:48,400 --> 01:13:51,040 Speaker 1: my my cousin who was out in St. Louis. He'd 1131 01:13:51,040 --> 01:13:54,000 Speaker 1: been at Monsanto. I met one of the most remarkable 1132 01:13:54,560 --> 01:13:58,200 Speaker 1: figures in the second half of the twentieth century, Himan Minsky. Oh, 1133 01:13:58,240 --> 01:14:02,080 Speaker 1: of course, Hi Menski was a Maverick renegade. He'd gotten 1134 01:14:02,120 --> 01:14:06,439 Speaker 1: his his doctorated at Harvard under the great Joseph Shampeter. 1135 01:14:07,160 --> 01:14:10,680 Speaker 1: But he he didn't follow. He refused to follow the 1136 01:14:10,760 --> 01:14:17,200 Speaker 1: new line of efficient markets and stability right, and he 1137 01:14:17,240 --> 01:14:19,519 Speaker 1: never put it into math, which made it hard for 1138 01:14:19,600 --> 01:14:22,840 Speaker 1: him to be expected accepted. But in all of us 1139 01:14:22,960 --> 01:14:27,040 Speaker 1: by the mainstream economists, who all suffer from a horrible 1140 01:14:27,439 --> 01:14:31,479 Speaker 1: sense of physics penis envy, it's it's that I think 1141 01:14:31,479 --> 01:14:35,439 Speaker 1: they've over mathsized economics. But I got to know, I 1142 01:14:35,479 --> 01:14:39,320 Speaker 1: got to know and right right. And he came east. 1143 01:14:39,320 --> 01:14:42,960 Speaker 1: He wound up at Leon Levy's Institute at Bard College, 1144 01:14:42,960 --> 01:14:45,040 Speaker 1: and I used to go there in the late eighties 1145 01:14:45,320 --> 01:14:48,920 Speaker 1: and sort of play hookey from venture capital. But it 1146 01:14:48,960 --> 01:14:51,439 Speaker 1: made me, gave me the chance to think and to 1147 01:14:51,760 --> 01:14:57,120 Speaker 1: interact with somebody who was deeply engaged in understanding the 1148 01:14:57,439 --> 01:15:01,360 Speaker 1: dynamics of the financial system. And as you say, how 1149 01:15:01,640 --> 01:15:07,280 Speaker 1: stability breeds instability, how confidence becomes overconfidence becomes overlending and 1150 01:15:07,560 --> 01:15:10,120 Speaker 1: leads to a crisis, and that that is going to 1151 01:15:10,160 --> 01:15:12,280 Speaker 1: have an impact on the real economy. It's not just 1152 01:15:12,400 --> 01:15:15,799 Speaker 1: happening off there on the markets. And that was a huge, 1153 01:15:16,320 --> 01:15:20,280 Speaker 1: huge benefit of course, going into the world of the 1154 01:15:20,360 --> 01:15:23,639 Speaker 1: last fifteen years. It's unfortunate he didn't live long enough 1155 01:15:23,920 --> 01:15:28,720 Speaker 1: to see his his research and his writings all come true. 1156 01:15:28,960 --> 01:15:32,840 Speaker 1: Just just amazing. UM. Any venture capitalists influenced the way 1157 01:15:32,880 --> 01:15:37,559 Speaker 1: you look at the world of VC investing, I meaning 1158 01:15:37,640 --> 01:15:40,960 Speaker 1: back in the day when oh yeah, sure. In addition 1159 01:15:41,000 --> 01:15:44,759 Speaker 1: to fred Um, one of the most phenomenally successful venture 1160 01:15:44,800 --> 01:15:49,480 Speaker 1: capitalists ever was Arthur Rock, who was the early investor 1161 01:15:49,560 --> 01:15:53,200 Speaker 1: into Intel, if I'm remembering correctly. Intel, he put the 1162 01:15:53,280 --> 01:15:57,720 Speaker 1: financing together originally for fair Child Semikin, which was the predecessor, 1163 01:15:57,760 --> 01:16:02,679 Speaker 1: Which was the predecessor. He was investor in Scientific Data Systems, 1164 01:16:02,680 --> 01:16:06,280 Speaker 1: which was another one of the the first generation many 1165 01:16:06,280 --> 01:16:09,600 Speaker 1: computer companies, was brought by Xerox, the first It was 1166 01:16:09,640 --> 01:16:11,880 Speaker 1: the first billion dollar exit in the history of the 1167 01:16:11,960 --> 01:16:15,839 Speaker 1: venture capital industry. UM and of course he was along 1168 01:16:15,880 --> 01:16:18,680 Speaker 1: with the venture arm of the Rockefeller family, he was 1169 01:16:18,720 --> 01:16:22,960 Speaker 1: the original investors in Apple. UM. So I hope you 1170 01:16:23,040 --> 01:16:28,439 Speaker 1: still invested. Um that that that's a that's a fascinating run. 1171 01:16:29,200 --> 01:16:34,320 Speaker 1: Let's talk about books, because you mentioned a few. Um, 1172 01:16:34,320 --> 01:16:41,200 Speaker 1: this is everybody's favorite question. Tell us your favorite books VC, economics, fiction, nonfiction. 1173 01:16:41,240 --> 01:16:43,040 Speaker 1: I don't care. What do you read and what do 1174 01:16:43,080 --> 01:16:45,719 Speaker 1: you think other people should read? Well, I I mentioned 1175 01:16:45,760 --> 01:16:52,439 Speaker 1: Tim O'Reilly's WTF, WTF what's the future there? They know? 1176 01:16:52,479 --> 01:16:54,519 Speaker 1: I've been. I read a lot of history. I read 1177 01:16:54,560 --> 01:16:57,720 Speaker 1: a lot of history. I've been just stumbled on an 1178 01:16:57,720 --> 01:17:00,720 Speaker 1: extraordinary book that I should have and existed, and I 1179 01:17:00,760 --> 01:17:02,479 Speaker 1: wish I had because I sure would have used it 1180 01:17:02,520 --> 01:17:04,479 Speaker 1: in my book and I will be using it in 1181 01:17:04,520 --> 01:17:08,080 Speaker 1: my economics course at Cambridge. It's called Funding a Revolution. 1182 01:17:09,240 --> 01:17:13,679 Speaker 1: It was published in at the peak of the Internet 1183 01:17:13,720 --> 01:17:19,960 Speaker 1: bubble by the National Academies of Sciences. It's a detailed, 1184 01:17:20,120 --> 01:17:26,519 Speaker 1: granular report on each program through which the United States 1185 01:17:26,560 --> 01:17:30,400 Speaker 1: government created the digital revolution. It's you know, it's not 1186 01:17:30,439 --> 01:17:33,400 Speaker 1: for everybody. Perhaps I found it riveting because you had 1187 01:17:33,439 --> 01:17:36,800 Speaker 1: the people, the names, the programs, where they came from, 1188 01:17:36,800 --> 01:17:41,200 Speaker 1: where they went. Um. But then on the other hand, UM, 1189 01:17:41,240 --> 01:17:48,360 Speaker 1: I read the Harvard historian then Beckert wrote a book 1190 01:17:48,640 --> 01:17:54,599 Speaker 1: on the cotton industry that the cotton textile industry, which 1191 01:17:55,160 --> 01:17:58,080 Speaker 1: came out about five years ago or so. It is 1192 01:17:58,200 --> 01:18:04,559 Speaker 1: an amazing examination of the first global industry, again, an 1193 01:18:04,600 --> 01:18:10,840 Speaker 1: industry which critically depended on the power of states two 1194 01:18:12,200 --> 01:18:17,080 Speaker 1: create the sources, the the the raw cotton coming in, 1195 01:18:17,800 --> 01:18:23,400 Speaker 1: and the dynamism of entrepreneurs and speculative capital. Let me 1196 01:18:23,439 --> 01:18:25,519 Speaker 1: ask you about a couple of books, because you you 1197 01:18:25,600 --> 01:18:29,559 Speaker 1: made me think about a few. Not Andy Groves, only 1198 01:18:29,600 --> 01:18:32,920 Speaker 1: the paranoids survived, But there was a book on the 1199 01:18:33,120 --> 01:18:41,200 Speaker 1: history of Intel along with Rock and Fairchild Semi is 1200 01:18:41,240 --> 01:18:44,280 Speaker 1: it inside Intel? Could have been. I think that's the 1201 01:18:44,280 --> 01:18:48,480 Speaker 1: book that really tracks the history. I thought that was fascinating. 1202 01:18:48,479 --> 01:18:50,360 Speaker 1: I don't know if you you read that. I don't 1203 01:18:50,400 --> 01:18:52,880 Speaker 1: know that one. I do know the you know, the 1204 01:18:52,960 --> 01:18:57,120 Speaker 1: Fumbling the Future at Xerox, which tells the story. It's 1205 01:18:57,160 --> 01:19:01,280 Speaker 1: pretty um, it's pretty tough. And then what about have 1206 01:19:01,360 --> 01:19:06,360 Speaker 1: you read Scott Galloway's The Four Google, Apple, Facebook, and Amazon? 1207 01:19:06,880 --> 01:19:10,000 Speaker 1: You know? I read. I read a lot of academic 1208 01:19:10,080 --> 01:19:13,160 Speaker 1: papers and I and that's one of the reasons I 1209 01:19:13,280 --> 01:19:15,800 Speaker 1: uh teach the course in a way. It forces me 1210 01:19:15,920 --> 01:19:18,479 Speaker 1: to stay up with the literature. And you know something 1211 01:19:18,520 --> 01:19:20,600 Speaker 1: we haven't talked about, but this is a message I 1212 01:19:20,600 --> 01:19:25,720 Speaker 1: wanted to deliver. UM two thousand and eight was a crisis. 1213 01:19:25,800 --> 01:19:28,599 Speaker 1: It was shocking, and it almost brought the world economy down. 1214 01:19:28,800 --> 01:19:33,600 Speaker 1: But for economics as a discipline, for finance as a discipline, 1215 01:19:33,760 --> 01:19:36,320 Speaker 1: it was the gift that keeps on giving. It has 1216 01:19:36,400 --> 01:19:41,360 Speaker 1: shocked those disciplines out of a kind of complacent assumption 1217 01:19:41,680 --> 01:19:45,360 Speaker 1: that the market will always deliver the right answer, reliably 1218 01:19:45,800 --> 01:19:50,200 Speaker 1: and with resilience, and it is generated a body of 1219 01:19:50,280 --> 01:19:55,400 Speaker 1: growing body, a much more realistic and relevant academic work 1220 01:19:55,479 --> 01:19:59,240 Speaker 1: based on a shift of focus from pure theory towards 1221 01:19:59,439 --> 01:20:04,160 Speaker 1: impure goal analysis. Economics gets its own Minsky moment. Yeah, 1222 01:20:04,600 --> 01:20:07,720 Speaker 1: that's exactly right, quite quite fascinating. Tell us about a 1223 01:20:07,800 --> 01:20:10,200 Speaker 1: time you failed and what you learned from these ah, 1224 01:20:12,200 --> 01:20:16,280 Speaker 1: more than one learning by failing? Um, Well, i'll tell 1225 01:20:16,360 --> 01:20:19,799 Speaker 1: you the stories in the book. UM. When we were 1226 01:20:19,800 --> 01:20:23,920 Speaker 1: working how to win, one of the passages towards investing 1227 01:20:24,000 --> 01:20:28,320 Speaker 1: and helping IBM ceased to be a monopoly came through 1228 01:20:28,360 --> 01:20:34,040 Speaker 1: a company that we started. Right around this was when 1229 01:20:34,080 --> 01:20:38,280 Speaker 1: the European Community, the Single Market was created, and we 1230 01:20:38,280 --> 01:20:41,680 Speaker 1: we we hooked up with a couple of American entrepreneurs 1231 01:20:42,000 --> 01:20:46,040 Speaker 1: who knew the European computer commercial computing industry really well, 1232 01:20:46,600 --> 01:20:48,880 Speaker 1: and they have perceived it was a kind of a 1233 01:20:48,880 --> 01:20:51,320 Speaker 1: hole in the market. In the US, you had a 1234 01:20:51,360 --> 01:20:56,040 Speaker 1: host of new companies, software companies that were delivering tools 1235 01:20:56,280 --> 01:20:59,560 Speaker 1: for making it easier and more efficient and more productive 1236 01:21:00,080 --> 01:21:05,400 Speaker 1: to use a big IBM machine, and that their technology, 1237 01:21:05,439 --> 01:21:07,680 Speaker 1: their products didn't get to Europe because they were too 1238 01:21:07,680 --> 01:21:11,680 Speaker 1: small to build a European channel. So the idea was 1239 01:21:12,040 --> 01:21:15,080 Speaker 1: we would get together. We would buy a set of 1240 01:21:15,280 --> 01:21:20,320 Speaker 1: service companies that provided people to the IBM data centers 1241 01:21:20,640 --> 01:21:24,080 Speaker 1: and spread across all of industrial Europe, just the way 1242 01:21:24,080 --> 01:21:27,200 Speaker 1: it was in the US, and then we would bring 1243 01:21:27,240 --> 01:21:31,040 Speaker 1: into them products that we licensed from those American companies, 1244 01:21:31,960 --> 01:21:35,799 Speaker 1: and that way we would build a pen European business. 1245 01:21:36,080 --> 01:21:41,400 Speaker 1: It was called easy soft Um. There were three entirely separate, 1246 01:21:42,240 --> 01:21:47,680 Speaker 1: independent reasons why this was a really bad idea. The 1247 01:21:47,760 --> 01:21:53,360 Speaker 1: first was between doing a project as a service company 1248 01:21:53,360 --> 01:21:57,160 Speaker 1: and walking away and selling a product that you are 1249 01:21:57,240 --> 01:22:00,479 Speaker 1: responsible for and you have to support is talk and 1250 01:22:00,680 --> 01:22:05,559 Speaker 1: cheese and very different, totally different. Second, those companies in 1251 01:22:05,600 --> 01:22:07,679 Speaker 1: the US, there were three things that could happen to them. 1252 01:22:07,800 --> 01:22:11,240 Speaker 1: The people we were licensing product from one. They could 1253 01:22:11,240 --> 01:22:13,280 Speaker 1: grow up and succeed and get big and want to 1254 01:22:13,320 --> 01:22:18,640 Speaker 1: take their products back too. They could fail completely and 1255 01:22:18,720 --> 01:22:20,960 Speaker 1: we were well and but we were stuck supporting the 1256 01:22:20,960 --> 01:22:23,439 Speaker 1: product without the tech the techies who had built it, 1257 01:22:24,120 --> 01:22:27,639 Speaker 1: or three halfway in between. They could be bought by 1258 01:22:27,680 --> 01:22:31,040 Speaker 1: Computer Associates, a really big, ugly company at that time, 1259 01:22:31,400 --> 01:22:33,160 Speaker 1: and that was the worst of all. And one of each, 1260 01:22:33,200 --> 01:22:36,759 Speaker 1: at least one of each happened. And then the final 1261 01:22:36,800 --> 01:22:40,799 Speaker 1: reason was it turned out that the IBM data center 1262 01:22:41,439 --> 01:22:46,160 Speaker 1: was no longer a rich, vibrant, growing market. It was stagnating, 1263 01:22:46,200 --> 01:22:50,240 Speaker 1: it was declining. That lesson was worth all the money 1264 01:22:50,240 --> 01:22:53,839 Speaker 1: we wrote off in easy Soft because it said, now's 1265 01:22:53,880 --> 01:22:58,200 Speaker 1: the time, Now we can go at IBM. What sort 1266 01:22:58,240 --> 01:23:00,599 Speaker 1: of advice would you give to a millennial or someone 1267 01:23:00,680 --> 01:23:07,599 Speaker 1: just beginning their career who is thinking about technology, venture capital, etcetera. Well, 1268 01:23:07,640 --> 01:23:10,040 Speaker 1: you know, in a way I've already given it. Um. 1269 01:23:10,080 --> 01:23:14,879 Speaker 1: You know, half of all the male undergraduates at Stanford 1270 01:23:14,880 --> 01:23:17,600 Speaker 1: are taking computer science, I think more than that of 1271 01:23:17,640 --> 01:23:19,280 Speaker 1: the m I t. You don't have to tell him 1272 01:23:19,280 --> 01:23:23,040 Speaker 1: to take computer science. What I would say is, along 1273 01:23:23,080 --> 01:23:28,440 Speaker 1: with your computer science, along with your double a read history, 1274 01:23:28,760 --> 01:23:33,439 Speaker 1: read the history of economics, but also politics, broadened their 1275 01:23:33,439 --> 01:23:36,559 Speaker 1: outlook for in your outlook and look for you know, 1276 01:23:36,640 --> 01:23:39,439 Speaker 1: the great novels. I'll tell you if more people had 1277 01:23:39,439 --> 01:23:42,880 Speaker 1: read Trollops the Way we Live now, which is about 1278 01:23:42,880 --> 01:23:47,839 Speaker 1: a fraud ster operating in the context of technology financial 1279 01:23:47,880 --> 01:23:51,640 Speaker 1: speculation about technology a hundred and fifty years ago, you know, 1280 01:23:51,800 --> 01:23:54,679 Speaker 1: we might not have had Fewer people would have followed 1281 01:23:54,680 --> 01:24:00,360 Speaker 1: Bernie made off right right, And and our final question, 1282 01:24:00,760 --> 01:24:03,320 Speaker 1: what do you know about the world's of venture investing 1283 01:24:03,360 --> 01:24:06,200 Speaker 1: today that you wish you knew thirty or forty years 1284 01:24:06,240 --> 01:24:09,880 Speaker 1: ago when you first started exploring this space? Well, I 1285 01:24:09,920 --> 01:24:15,160 Speaker 1: guess when I first started, I didn't perhaps have enough 1286 01:24:15,640 --> 01:24:20,480 Speaker 1: appreciation that the terms of the relationship with the entrepreneur 1287 01:24:21,400 --> 01:24:24,600 Speaker 1: matters so so much. And one of the things I 1288 01:24:24,960 --> 01:24:28,760 Speaker 1: worry about now. You know, you can see that there's 1289 01:24:28,760 --> 01:24:30,759 Speaker 1: been this sort of shift in the terms of trade. 1290 01:24:30,920 --> 01:24:32,840 Speaker 1: They used to say the golden rule is he who 1291 01:24:32,840 --> 01:24:35,240 Speaker 1: has the gold rules makes the rule. Right, Yeah, but 1292 01:24:35,280 --> 01:24:37,960 Speaker 1: that's not the case when you're talking about the founders. 1293 01:24:38,120 --> 01:24:44,400 Speaker 1: You know, whether it's Elizabeth Holmes, the voting share, there's 1294 01:24:44,400 --> 01:24:46,519 Speaker 1: some there can be you know, you can see that 1295 01:24:46,600 --> 01:24:49,120 Speaker 1: a Google and a Facebook with all that's going on 1296 01:24:49,120 --> 01:24:55,760 Speaker 1: in Facebook, because they're exempt from real governance by stockholders 1297 01:24:55,800 --> 01:24:59,840 Speaker 1: because of the ownership stake of the controlling stock by 1298 01:25:00,680 --> 01:25:06,080 Speaker 1: Facebook or with Page and Bryan at Google, right they 1299 01:25:06,080 --> 01:25:09,320 Speaker 1: can they can't afford to make upstream investments in science 1300 01:25:09,920 --> 01:25:14,080 Speaker 1: that other companies are not able to. They're supposed to 1301 01:25:14,120 --> 01:25:16,559 Speaker 1: take their cash, any extra cash they have, and use 1302 01:25:16,640 --> 01:25:21,040 Speaker 1: it to buy backstock. So I think that there's a 1303 01:25:21,320 --> 01:25:27,519 Speaker 1: challenge here because by and large, I actually do think 1304 01:25:27,600 --> 01:25:29,800 Speaker 1: that Serge Brand and Larry Page have done a pretty 1305 01:25:29,840 --> 01:25:32,960 Speaker 1: damn good job, certainly of building a great company and 1306 01:25:33,040 --> 01:25:36,960 Speaker 1: of exploring where they can invest this cash flow for 1307 01:25:37,000 --> 01:25:41,840 Speaker 1: the future. They've been brilliant acquirers of relevant technology. Look 1308 01:25:41,840 --> 01:25:45,680 Speaker 1: at YouTube Spectacular or or for that matter, all of 1309 01:25:45,720 --> 01:25:49,840 Speaker 1: the all of the mobile technology Android another home run 1310 01:25:50,080 --> 01:25:54,599 Speaker 1: Maps was brought unbelievable. The person behind Google Maps actually 1311 01:25:54,640 --> 01:25:57,960 Speaker 1: just has a book coming out, Yeah, Never Lost Again 1312 01:25:58,040 --> 01:26:00,880 Speaker 1: or something along those Just Win. So, you know, but 1313 01:26:00,960 --> 01:26:03,320 Speaker 1: I think that that is something I had to learn 1314 01:26:03,920 --> 01:26:08,920 Speaker 1: by doing learn the hard way in the job. We 1315 01:26:09,040 --> 01:26:13,120 Speaker 1: have been speaking with Bill Janeway. The Innovation Economy New 1316 01:26:13,280 --> 01:26:18,040 Speaker 1: edition is out with a whole digital um. Addition, if 1317 01:26:18,080 --> 01:26:20,880 Speaker 1: you enjoy this conversation, we'll be sure and look up 1318 01:26:20,880 --> 01:26:24,640 Speaker 1: an inch or down an inch on Apple iTunes, Bloomberg 1319 01:26:24,680 --> 01:26:29,479 Speaker 1: dot com, Stitcher, overcast, wherever finer podcasts are sold, and 1320 01:26:29,520 --> 01:26:31,760 Speaker 1: you could see any of the other two hundred or 1321 01:26:31,800 --> 01:26:37,360 Speaker 1: so such conversations that we've had previously. We love your comments, feedback, 1322 01:26:37,439 --> 01:26:41,400 Speaker 1: end suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at 1323 01:26:41,400 --> 01:26:44,840 Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot net. Check out my daily column on Bloomberg 1324 01:26:44,960 --> 01:26:47,600 Speaker 1: dot com. Follow me on Twitter at rid Holtz. I 1325 01:26:47,600 --> 01:26:49,840 Speaker 1: would be remiss if I did not thank the crack 1326 01:26:49,960 --> 01:26:53,879 Speaker 1: staff that helps put together these podcasts each week. Taylor 1327 01:26:53,960 --> 01:26:57,960 Speaker 1: Riggs is our booker slash producer. Medina Parwana is my 1328 01:26:58,040 --> 01:27:01,720 Speaker 1: audio engineer. Michael ad Nick is our head of research. 1329 01:27:02,320 --> 01:27:05,839 Speaker 1: I'm Barry Retolts. You've been listening to Master's in Business 1330 01:27:06,280 --> 01:27:07,439 Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio.