Jon Korngold is the Global Head of Blackstone Growth (BXG) and Co-Head of Technology Investing at Blackstone. Prior to joining Blackstone, Jon was Head of General Atlantic’s Global Financial Services and Healthcare sectors. Takeaways: - The vast reach of Blackstone, as one of the biggest asset managers in the world, allows them to apply their huge base of operational infrastructure to “make the winning company, not just find the winning company.” - Entrepreneurs have accepted that we are not going back to 2021 valuations. There will be many casualties on the road ahead. Jon worries that VCs ..read more

Marc Iserlls is a film/TV producer and documentary filmmaker. He is currently building tokenized film financing at Republic, an alternative fundraising platform. Takeaways: - Marc’s ambition is at Republic is to allow individuals to join in the success of film production through an equity "fan raise" that allows fans of a particular project to invest directly in its production and share in the project’s success. - The rise of streaming platforms and recent changes in how films are financed has resulted in commoditization. - China and India’s film industries are rising stars but the US is s ..read more

Ben Casnocha (@bencasnocha) and Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) are co-authors of The Startup of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career. In the book, they look at the best of Silicon Valley startups and derive entrepreneurial principles that can transform the career of any professional across all industries. They revised and updated the book for the new world of work in 2022 and released a podcast series about it which you can listen to at thestartupofyou.com. This episode of the Village Global podcast shares a few select segments from the Startup of You podcast r ..read more

Ben Casnocha (@bencasnocha) and Reid Hoffman (@reidhoffman) are co-authors of The Startup of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career. In the book, they look at the best of Silicon Valley startups and derive entrepreneurial principles that can transform the career of any professional across all industries. They revised and updated the book for the new world of work in 2022 and released a podcast series about it which you can listen to at thestartupofyou.com. This episode of the Village Global podcast shares a few select segments from the Startup of You podcast r ..read more

Louise Story (@louisestory) most recently was the Chief News Strategist and Chief Product & Technology Officer at The Wall Street Journal. Louise also spent more than a decade at the New York Times. She joins Olga Serhiyevich on this episode to discuss: Her unique role at the Wall Street Journal and some of the products that she built, including AI/ML models to alert reporters when stocks were moving in certain ways that let them get ahead of emerging stories, as well as an early version of ChatGPT that let a user ask a question about what a political candidate thought on a given issue wh ..read more

David Boehmer (@DavBoehmer) speaks to Olga Serhiyevich (@olgaserhi) about the talent intermediation industry, the evolution of business models in the sector, and creating a talent marketplace at Banff. Takeaways: - Chance often has a significant impact on a person’s career but David says that a life’s impact is too important to be left to chance. - David likes to think of a career as a river. You can be swept downstream by momentum and wake up 20-30 years later without realizing that there might have been a different river that could have been better suited to you. - It’s important to mana ..read more

Rohit Krishnan (@krishnanrohit), venture capitalist and author of the blog Strange Loop Cannon, joins Erik on this episode. Takeaways: - Many of the people at the top of their fields today say they would never get hired if they were just starting out today. Today’s selection process at elite institutions has become more stringent but has dropped the interesting variance that exists at the top of the pyramid. Plenty of people have gamified the selection process. If you’re hiring, you want to find the interesting misfits. - Higher ed used to be fantastic but now it is groaning under its scale ..read more

Lorin Gu, founding partner of Recharge Capital, joins Olga Serhiyevich, Head of Investor Relations at Village Global to discuss: - Why Recharge structures its investing thematically, rather than by asset class. - The three themes that they believe have multi-decade headwinds behind them: semiconductors, women’s health, and fintech/crypto. - What Lorin learned from working with David Swensen, including the importance of the qualitative measurement of the people running the fund alongside any quantitative analysis of fund strategy. - How asking fund managers about their motivations and how t ..read more

Alex Chalunkal is Chief Investment Officer at a family office where he manages a $1B+ portfolio focused on impact, venture, and climate tech investing. He was interviewed by Olga Serhiyevich, Head of Investor Relations at Village Global. Takeaways: - Alex says that the consensus is that there will be a mild recession in 2023. - He says that the energy transition, health, and climate are key sectors he is focusing on. - Technology is an important tool to help improve the labor shortage in the US because tech creates more productive workers who can get more done with less. - Structured equi ..read more

Ian Bremmer (@ianbremmer), president and founder of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media joins Olga Serhiyevich (@olgaserhi), Head of Investor Relations at Village Global for a conversation about global geopolitical trends and their impact on technology. Takeaways: - Ian has been in the room with world leaders as they make decisions about how to prepare for potential wars. He says that it’s easy to criticize their decisions afterwards but having been there has given him an appreciation for just how difficult it is to make those decisions under constraints and how little ideology plays into those de ..read more