š§± How Venture Capital Made the Modern World
Todayās essay is brief, but hereās a TLDR: Iām a huge believer in venture capital as an accelerator of economic and social progress. For this weekās podcast, I sat down with Sebastian Mallaby to discuss exactly this. He got unprecedented access to top VCs while writing his new book about how venture capital evolved, where itās going next, and what separates the best investors from the pack. You can listen to our conversation in full here.
VCs back unproven technologies, rewarding technological risk, and paving the way for products, services and solutions that wouldnāt otherwise exist.
Almost all of todayās superstar companies ā dominant players like Alphabet, Apple, Netflix, Uber and Meta ā are venture-backed. So too are healthcare pioneers like Genentech, AbCellera, Guardant and Moderna, as well as enterprise firms like Cisco and Salesforce. Iām willing to bet the next generation of dominant companies will be venture-backed, too.
The story of how venture capital became so central to our economies has it all: big personalities, billion-dollar bets, and ideas that changed the course of history. In a very real sense, itās the story of how the our modern industries have come to be.
Iāve had the good fortune to work in this arena in a bit of a golden age, and to meet some of its most inspiring people. I would happily talk about the history and formation of venture capital for hours on end.
So, thatās exactly what I did. Well, not exactly for hours. For one hour.
I sat down with Sebastian Mallaby, a journalist and author whoās spent five years researching and writing a book on venture capital, The Power Law. Sebastian got unprecedented access to the worldās top firms, including trigger-pulling partners at Tiger Global and Sequoia.
Sebastian shared some brilliant anecdotes and analysis about the men* who made modernity happen. He also shed some light on why the best VCs keep winning, how other regions are starting to replicate Silicon Valleyās success, and why Web3 wonāt make VC go away.
I really, really enjoyed speaking to Sebastian. Itās not every day I get to speak to someone this knowledgeable about one of my favourite topics. Iām a huge believer in venture capitalās role as one of the motive forces in the Exponential Age. Itās driven progress for thirty years, and Iād bet on it doing the same over the next thirty, too.
š§ To listen to our discussion, click here. š A full transcript is available here.
*Unfortunately, they are mostly men ā but Sebastian and I discuss what VCs can do to change that.