Podcast appearances and mentions of Cyan Banister

What unfolds when those who imagine the future sit across from those building it?In this special SPC panel, worlds converge. Sci-fi legends Neal Stephenson and Ken Liu join visionary investor Cyan Banister and researcher Joscha Bach to explore how narratives shape reality, how fiction becomes a roadmap, and how builders and dreamers influence each other across time.Connect with us here: 1. Neal Stephenson- https://x.com/nealstephenson2. Ken Liu- https://x.com/kyliu993. Cyan Banister- https://x.com/cyantist4. Joscha Bach- https://x.com/Plinz5. Cristian Cibils Bernardes- https://x.com/life_of_ccb6. Jonathan Brebner- https://x.com/JPBrebner7. South Park Commons- https://x.com/southpkcommons00:00 Trailer01:03 Introduction04:25 AI and nuclear tech parallel10:26 Progress. Disappointing? Significant?13:31 The present and the future17:04 Wrong specifics, right methodology25:13 Satire and reality33:14 World building40:19 Parallels and perpendiculars44:19 Artificial general intelligence54:02 Searching for something not forward-looking57:20 Understanding consciousness1:04:08 Lightning round1:14:13 Outro

A few months ago I had an amazing opportunity to chat with Cyan Banister: Co Founder of Long Journey VenturesCyan has backed some incredible companies as an angel and now a VCAnd in this episode we chat aboutLong Journey Ventures Investment ThesisSkills to Break into Venture CapitalBiggest wins or Anti PortfolioAnd moreThere's a bit of background noise in this episodeThanks to Kat on her team for helping to arrange this episodeGuest Cyan Banisters Handles⤵︎ X: ⁠https://x.com/cyantistLong Journey Ventures Website:https://www.longjourney.vc/Edge of Esmerelda: https://www.edgeesmeralda.com/Host Roohi Kazi's Handles ⤵︎ LinkedIn:  ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/roohi-kazi-53174113b/⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram:  ⁠⁠⁠⁠@roohik2Twitter:⁠⁠ https://x.com/roohi_kr?s=21&t=chThpLoxSfA_oCiLbEq5ngE-Mail: bizpodroohi2@gmail.comTO GET FEATURED ON “Business Podcast by Roohi” Email at: bizpodroohi2@gmail.com

Welcome to this classic episode. Classics are my favorite episodes from the past 10 years, published once a month. These are N of 1 conversations with N of 1 people. There aren't many people like Cyan Banister. Her life story is remarkable. She was homeless at a young age, dropped out of high school, and five years ago she suffered an extremely rare stroke. Yet, in spite of everything, she is one of the most optimistic and curious people you can hope to meet. Cyan is also one of the great angel investors of this era, having invested early in SpaceX, Uber, Postmates, and Deepmind to name a few winners. She became the first female investing partner at Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and now invests at Long Journey Ventures. Our conversation is as much about investing as it is about the essence of life and how connecting with that will help us in our professional pursuits. It is also full of awesome stories about people and companies like SpaceX and Bill Murray. Please enjoy this great conversation with Cyan Banister. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.  Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: [00:00:00] Welcome to Invest Like the Best [00:04:06] Contrarian Thinking in Investing [00:05:30] Joining Founders Fund and Learning from Peter Thiel [00:11:15] Investing in Companies that Change Lives [00:14:00] The Importance of Overcoming Adversity for Founders [00:16:02] Personal Journey and Choosing Hope [00:20:56] Embracing Curiosity and Wonder in the Face of Adversity [00:21:20] Reconnecting with Our Inner Child [00:24:46] The Interruption and Resumption of the Conversation [00:27:20] The Power of Intuition in Business Decisions [00:32:28] The Story Behind the Investment in Uber [00:38:46] Conclusion: Following the White Rabbit of Curiosity [00:39:08] Investing in Uber: The Beginning [00:41:50] The Impact of Success: Personal Wealth and Privacy [00:50:22] The Intersection of Spirituality and Investing [00:59:34] The Bill Murray Experience: A Lesson in Presence [01:09:54] The Violin Kid: A Tale of Curiosity and Generosity [01:12:43] The Evolution of Investing: A Personal Journey [01:16:34] The Philosophy of Giving: The Universe's Return [01:17:36] The Spirit of a Venture Firm: Founders Fund [01:23:09] The Power of Integral Family Systems [01:28:41] The Trillion Dollar Question: Disrupting Hollywood [01:36:05] The Future of Artistry: AI and Creativity [01:41:39] The Power of Kindness

In this soul-stirring conversation, Cyan Banister takes us on an extraordinary journey from sleeping in parks as a homeless teenager to becoming one of Silicon Valley's most visionary investors. With raw authenticity, she reveals how a chance encounter with technology sparked her escape from survival mode, leading to groundbreaking investments in SpaceX and Uber that transformed industries. Beyond her remarkable professional achievements, Cyan shares the profound spiritual awakening that rewired her understanding of reality—from hardcore skeptic to someone who sees magic in life's interconnections. Her philosophy of radical accountability cuts through the noise of victim mentality, offering a powerful framework for facing life's challenges. This isn't just a success story; it's a testament to human resilience, the power of presence, and the mysterious synchronicities that reveal themselves when we remain open to life's deeper dimensions.   https://uglyduckling.substack.com/ https://x.com/cyantist/ Take the Real AF Test Now! Subscribe to Here for the Truth Fridays. Discover Your Truth Seeker Archetype. Join our membership Friends of the Truth. Watch all our episodes. Connect with us on Telegram. Access all our links.   Hosted by Joel Rafidi & Yerasimos Intro and outro music: Illusion by Joel Rafidi Intro voice-over: Namakula (https://www.namakula.com/voice-over)

This week on Test. Optimize. Scale. My guest is Darren Marble, a pioneering force in democratizing investment opportunities through media and technology. As the Executive Producer of Going Public®, he's revolutionizing how viewers engage with business television – creating the first show where audiences can invest in featured companies while watching in real-time. The groundbreaking series is set to launch its third season exclusively on

As promised we are extremely excited to release our newest podcast, with acclaimed angel investor and silicon valley visionary, Cyan Banister. As I described in my last substack post, she is actually so much more. She found herself homeless in Northern Arizona at the age of 13, and undaunted, eventually became a self taught software engineer, and then moved on to become a legend in Silicon Valley.We did a deep dive into her origins, from her early childhood, through abandonment at 13, homelessness as a teenager, the key developments that led her to become a self-taught software engineer, and eventually to have the opportunity to become an angel investor, leading her to become among the first investors in SpaceX, Uber, and many more companies, and then to her thoughts about nature, technology and the future. It was a remarkable discussion with a remarkable individual. Cyan defies any stereotype and we are very pleased that she regarded our 3.5 hr discussion as the most comprehensive and enlightening podcast she has done. We even made several discoveries together about how developments when she was young affected her approach to business and life today, and also how what she views as her purposes in life perhaps reflect key gifts that helped raise her up in her own story. And, in the true spirit of connecting science and culture that is at the heart of the Origins Podcast, we also explored how she actually approaches both life and business with a true scientific attitude—exploring, experimenting, letting nature and experience guide her, and a willingness to change her mind. Everyone who has heard anything about Cyan's story has been inspired. We feel that our dialogue, which takes her story to a whole new level, will touch anyone who has faced what seem to be insurmountable challenges, and inspire people to think more creatively about their own futures, and how what we can do to help people better achieve their aspirations, and of course better address the challenges of the 21st Century. If it isn't clear already, I think this podcast could, in the long run, be one of the most significant discussions we have ever done. Enjoy. As always, an ad-free video version of this podcast is also available to paid Critical Mass subscribers. Your subscriptions support the non-profit Origins Project Foundation, which produces the podcast. The audio version is available free on the Critical Mass site and on all podcast sites, and the video version will also be available on the Origins Project YouTube. Get full access to Critical Mass at lawrencekrauss.substack.com/subscribe

(0:00) The Besties welcome Cyan Banister! (9:16) Reacting to the LA wildfires: broken incentives, leadership failures, lessons learned (36:51) Insurance issues, rebuilding headwinds, reclaiming the government (59:44) Zuck goes full free speech, fires third-party fact-checkers, opts for Community Notes model (1:20:19) Nvidia goes consumer at CES: market cap impact, most interesting vertical (1:34:49) Why Trump wants Greenland (1:40:05) Conspiracy Corner: Who built the pyramids? Follow the Besties: https://x.com/chamath https://x.com/Jason https://x.com/DavidSacks https://x.com/friedberg Follow Cyan Banister: https://x.com/cyantist Follow on X: https://x.com/theallinpod Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theallinpod Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theallinpod Follow on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/allinpod Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://x.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://x.com/TheZachEffect Referenced in the show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SQ_myzmV_Q https://www.cnrfc.noaa.gov/awipsProducts/RNORR4RSA.php https://x.com/JonVigliotti/status/1877020919475884110 https://x.com/FearedBuck/status/1877355797245514085 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKJ5WeBc7Us https://x.com/CrazyyHub/status/1823574726738092402 https://www.latimes.com/visuals/photography/la-me-fw-archives-the-1961-bel-air-brush-fire-20170419-story.html https://www.rainmaker.com https://www.ksbw.com/article/california-fire-evacuation-maps/63382651 https://x.com/shaunmmaguire/status/1877366727547433382 https://x.com/WorldTimesWT/status/1876887200526111017 https://x.com/ericabbenante/status/1877207054105886836 https://x.com/laurapowellesq/status/1877143625588682940 https://x.com/jeremykauffman/status/1877128641802285064 https://x.com/deb8rr/status/1877539354802876576 https://x.com/Jason/status/1877183155821494513 https://about.fb.com/news/2025/01/meta-more-speech-fewer-mistakes https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/PDFFiles/Mark-Zuckerberg-Letter-on-Govt-Censorship.pdf https://x.com/townhallcom/status/1876684277787873397 https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/nvidia-ceo-pitches-robotics-cars-as-growth-areas-to-consumer-electronics-audience-68905f2d https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/project-digits https://polymarket.com/markets/creators/all-in  

Cyan Banister (@cyantist) is a general partner at Long Journey Ventures, an early-stage venture capital firm focused on early and new investments. Cyan was an early investor in Uber, SpaceX, DeepMind, Flexport, and Affirm and has invested in more than 100 companies. Prior to that, she was at Founders Fund, a top-tier fund in San Francisco. Subscribe to Cyan's Substack at uglyduckling.substack.com.Sponsors:Eight Sleep's Pod 4 Ultra sleeping solution for dynamic cooling and heating: https://eightsleep.com/tim (save between $400 and $600 on the Pod 4 Ultra)AG1 all-in-one nutritional supplement: https://DrinkAG1.com/Tim (1-year supply of Vitamin D (and 5 free AG1 travel packs) with your first subscription purchase.)Wealthfront high-yield cash account: https://Wealthfront.com/Tim (Start earning 4.25% APY on your short-term cash until you're ready to invest. And when new clients open an account today, you can get an extra fifty-dollar bonus with a deposit of five hundred dollars or more.) Terms apply. Tim Ferriss receives cash compensation from Wealthfront Brokerage, LLC for advertising and holds a non-controlling equity interest in the corporate parent of Wealthfront Brokerage. See full disclosures here.Timestamps:[00:00] Start [06:16] Early life and education as a white minority on a Navajo reservation.[11:18] Strained family dynamics and a cycle of neglect.[18:20] The intervention of Officer Pratt and becoming a ward of the state at 15.[22:46] Crusty punk survival strategies and life on the streets.[32:02] The positive influence of Cyan's "second" mother.[34:17] Crass, Chris Collins, and computers.[38:03] An unorthodox path to angel investment beginning with Uber.[48:13] Niantic/Pokemon GO.[56:27] How stalking Garrett Langley led to a Flock Security investment.[01:00:07] GameCrush, activist investors, and lessons learned.[01:07:00] Sales lessons from the street.[01:10:08] A mindful approach to questioning narratives.[01:15:35] The pre-OnlyFans story of Zivity.[01:24:44] Views on sex and relationships.[01:28:47] Magic glasses, esoteric rabbit holes, and rolling the dice.[01:44:02] How Aleister Crowley and Bill Murray paved a path to ex-atheism.[02:02:21] Cyan's billboard.[02:04:41] Enduring a stroke and its aftermath.[02:08:31] Meditation, throat-singing, and philosophy.[02:17:50] The Boston spiritual experience and duck boat baptism.[02:40:53] A book in the works, the Ugly Duckling Substack, and parting thoughts.*For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast.For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsorsSign up for Tim's email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim's books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissYouTube: youtube.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, Margaret Atwood, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Dr. Gabor Maté, Anne Lamott, Sarah Silverman, Dr. Andrew Huberman, and many more.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Khaylah Epps wants to change the face of healthcare in the south. This is The Pitch for Oma Health. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell and Jesse Middleton. ... Watch Khaylah pitch her healthtech startup on YouTube @thepitchshow Register for our virtual Season Finale Watch Party on December 11th pitch.show/party To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in Oma Health is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Is your AI hallucinating? This AI can fix it. This is Chinar Movsisyan's pitch for Feedback Intelligence. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell and Jesse Middleton. ... Watch Chinar pitch her AI startup on YouTube @thepitchshow Register for our virtual Season Finale Watch Party on December 11th pitch.show/party To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in Feedback Intelligence is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gwyneth Borden has a vendetta. This is The Pitch for Remynt. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Mac Conwell, Ben Taft and Elizabeth Yin. ... Watch Gwyneth pitch her debt recovery startup on YouTube @thepitchshow Register for our virtual Season Finale Watch Party on December 11th pitch.show/party Applications for our winter pitch event will close in one week, apply now at pitch.show/apply To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in Remynt is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Could robots bring healthcare access to rural America? This is Ryan James' pitch for Dopl. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Josh Muccio and Jesse Middleton. ... Watch Ryan pitch his healthtech startup on YouTube @thepitchshow Register for our virtual Season Finale Watch Party on December 11th pitch.show/party Applications are closing soon for our winter cohort, founders raising pre-seed or seed can apply to pitch at pitch.show/apply To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in Dopl is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Can a college advisor disrupt the system from the inside? This is Julia Dixon's pitch for ESAI. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell and Jesse Middleton. ... Watch Julia pitch her edtech startup on YouTube @thepitchshow Register for our virtual Season Finale Watch Party on December 11th pitch.show/party Applications are closing soon for our winter cohort, founders raising pre-seed or seed can apply to pitch at pitch.show/apply To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in ESAI is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Award winning event planner makes the pivot to tech. This is Virginia Frischkorn's pitch for Partytrick. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Mac Conwell, Ben Taft and Elizabeth Yin. ... Watch Virginia pitch her startup on YouTube @thepitchshow Register for our virtual Season Finale Watch Party on December 11th pitch.show/party Applications are now open for next season, founders raising pre-seed or seed can apply to pitch at pitch.show/apply To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in Partytrick is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Two of Josh's favorite hobbies—beer and startups—collide in The Pitch Room. This is Dean Eberhardt's pitch for ReCraft. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell and Jesse Middleton. ... Watch Dean pitch his beer technology startup on YouTube @thepitchshow Register for our virtual Season Finale Watch Party on December 11th pitch.show/party Applications are now open for next season, founders raising pre-seed or seed can apply to pitch at pitch.show/apply To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in ReCraft is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Chad Wilson wants to disrupt history class with video games. This is The Pitch for immersionED. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell and Jesse Middleton. ... Watch Chad pitch his edtech startup on YouTube @thepitchshow Register for our virtual Season Finale Watch Party on December 11th pitch.show/party Applications are now open for next season, founders raising pre-seed or seed can apply to pitch at pitch.show/apply To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in immersionED is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What happens when disaster strikes and the internet goes down? This is Jorge Rios' pitch for Bridgefy. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Josh Muccio, and Jesse Middleton. ... Watch Jorge pitch his peer-to-peer networking tech on YouTube @thepitchshow Register for our virtual Season Finale Watch Party on December 11th pitch.show/party Applications are now open for next season, founders raising pre-seed or seed can apply to pitch at pitch.show/party To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in Bridgefy, Inc. is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if you could take someone's vitals, using just the sound of their voice? This is the pitch for Vital Audio. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Mac Conwell and Jesse Middleton. ... Watch Nyamitse-Calvin Mahinda's pitch his healthtech startup on YouTube @thepitchshow Register for our virtual Season Finale Watch Party on December 11th pitch.show/party To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in Vital Audio Inc. is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One million patients fall in hospitals each year, and it costs US hospitals over $35 billion. What if they could all be prevented? This is the pitch for Kinometrix. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Mac Conwell, Ben Taft and Elizabeth Yin. ... Watch Devina Desai pitch her hospital fall prevention software on YouTube @thepitchshow Register for our virtual Season Finale Watch Party on December 11th pitch.show/party To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in Kinometrix, Inc is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What happens when a Michelin-trained palate makes junk food with no junk? This is The Pitch for Christie's Chips. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Mac Conwell, Ben Taft and Elizabeth Yin. ... Watch Christie Buck pitch her potato chip startup on YouTube @thepitchshow Register for our virtual Season Finale Watch Party on December 11th pitch.show/party To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in Christie's Chips is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Biomimicry (noun): the design and production of materials, structures, and systems that are modeled on biological entities and processes. Founder Capella Kerst invented a material that mimics a geckos' gravity defying grip. This industrial velcro could be a multi-billion dollar industry, and geCKo Materials is shooting for the moon. I mean, they're already on the International Space Station... how hard can it be? Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Mac Conwell and Jesse Middleton. ... Watch the geCKo Materials pitch on YouTube @thepitchshow To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: No offer to invest in geCKo Materials PBC is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Phil Barrar sold his last company for $65 million. Now he's back in the game with FutureMoney, an investing platform that helps parents create generational wealth for their kids with the Junior Roth IRA™. Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell and Jesse Middleton. ... Watch the FutureMoney pitch on YouTube @thepitchshow To invest with us, become an LP in thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice. No offer to invest is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A new season is here! Fourteen pitches start August 14th with one crazy season finale to tie it all together. These startups will blow your mind, and if you're an investor on the show… your wallet. BONUS: Stick around at the end of the trailer for a special behind the scenes interview with Charles Hudson, Cyan Banister, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell and Jesse Middleton. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode of Turpentine VC, Erik interviews Lee Jacobs, Founder & Managing Partner of Long Journey. Lee shares his journey from early investments and his experience with AngelList to co-founding Long Journey with Cyan Banister and Arielle Zuckerberg. He discusses the firm's unique focus on investing in "magically weird" companies and emphasizes the importance of values, mission orientation, and building trust in LP relationships. Lee also opens up about the challenges and rewards of early-stage fundraising, Long Journey's operational strategies, and their vision for building a lasting, meaningful VC firm. -- This show is produced by Turpentine: a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more, covering technology, business, and culture — all from the perspective of industry insiders and experts. We're launching new shows every week, and we're looking for industry-leading sponsors — if you think that might be you and your company, email us at erik@turpentine.co. -- RECOMMENDED PODCAST:

As a glacier guide in Alaska, Georgia Grace Edwards had a problem: her pants. While the male guides just unzipped and did their business, she had to find a secluded place and completely undress in the freezing tundra. So Georgia Grace created the GoFly zipper technology to help everyone go on the go. Will the investors get behind this consumer product or is this business just too messy? Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell and Paige Finn Doherty. ... Watch the Gnara pitch on YouTube @thepitchshow To invest with us, join our investor community at thepitch.fund *Disclaimer: The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice. No offer to invest is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Twin sisters Nilo and Jennifer Rahmani used to be site reliability engineers. Where they worked night and day to keep servers running at companies like Slack. But Nilo and Jen left their cushy jobs in tech to build Thoras AI, a platform that helps startups scale and optimize their cloud infrastructure using AI. Will the investors get down on site reliability, or will this “family business” scare them away? Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell and Paige Finn Doherty. ... Watch the Thoras AI pitch on YouTube @thepitchshow To invest with the VCs on the show, join our investor community at thepitch.fund Founders can apply to pitch at our next recording event in San Francisco this June. No intro required, just go to pitch.show/apply Superfans can join The Pitch UNCUT and get early access to unedited versions of all ten pitches on season 11. ... *Disclaimer: The information provided on this show is not intended to be investment advice and should not be relied upon as such. The investors on today's episode are providing their opinions based on their own assessment of the business presented. Those opinions should not be considered professional investment advice. No offer to invest is being made to or solicited from the listening audience on today's show. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kavitta Ghai struggled in school due to autism and ADHD until a positive experience with a college professor transformed her academic journey. Convinced this was the future, she launched a startup to make classrooms more accessible. Now, she just needs a VC to lead her $3 million seed round. Will Kavitta pass the test with the investors in The Pitch Room? Featuring investors Cyan Banister, Charles Hudson, Elizabeth Yin, Mac Conwell and Paige Finn Doherty. To invest with the VCs on The Pitch, join our investor community at thepitch.fund Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

My guest today is Cyan Banister. Cyan's life story is remarkable. She was homeless at a young age, dropped out of high school, and five years ago she suffered an extremely rare stroke. Yet, in spite of everything, she is one of the most optimistic and curious people you can hope to meet. Cyan is also one of the great angel investors of this era, having invested early in SpaceX, Uber, Postmates, and Deepmind to name a few winners. She became the first female investing partner at Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and now invests at Long Journey Ventures. Our conversation is as much about investing as it is about the essence of life and how connecting with that will help us in our professional pursuits. It is also full of awesome stories about people and companies like SpaceX and Bill Murray. Please enjoy this great conversation with Cyan Banister. Listen to Founders Podcast For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the only investment research platform built for the investor. With traditional research vendors, the diligence process is slow, fragmented, and expensive. That leaves investors competing on how well they can aggregate data — not on their unique ability to analyze insights and make great investment decisions. Tegus offers an end-to-end platform with all the data you need to get up to speed on a company or market: up-to-the-minute financials, customizable models, management and culture checks, and, of course, our vast and growing library of expert call transcripts. Tegus is changing the world of expert research. Learn more and get your free trial at tegus.com/patrick. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.  Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here. Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com). Show Notes: (00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best (00:04:03) First question - Spirituality as an Investable Category (00:06:51) Journey to Founders Fund (00:12:13) Overcoming Adversity and Embracing Optimism (00:14:28) The Power of Authenticity and Curiosity (00:25:28) The Skill of Feeling in Business (00:30:26) Investing in Uber (00:36:18) The Changing Dynamics of Early-Stage Investment (00:39:07) The Philosophy of 'Set it and Forget It' (00:42:24) The SpaceX Story: A Leap of Faith (00:48:02) Cyan's Spiritual Awakening (00:61:34) Her Story of the Violin Kid (01:05:36) The Art of Trusting Your Gut in Business (01:07:47) The Spirit of Founders Fund and the Future of Venture Firms (01:15:16) What She Would Do With 1 Trillion Dollars (01:24:05) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Ever Done For Cyan

Twenty Minute VC Podcast Notes Key Takeaways Check Out the 20VC Episode Page & Show NotesRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.org Chris Sacca is the Founder and Chairman @ Lowercase Capital, one of the best performing funds in the history of venture capital with a portfolio including Uber, Stripe, Twitter, Instagram, Twilio, Docker and many more. From interviewing some of the world's richest married couples, how did gaining wealth change their relationship and marriage? What does Chris do to actively ensure his children remain hungry and know the value of money? Chamath Palihapitiya is Founder & CEO @ Social Capital. Social's portfolio includes the likes of Slack, Yammer, Front, Intercom and Carta to name a few. What does Chamath mean when he says we need to think through the mindset of "infinite games" not finite games? How does this change how you think about money? How does Chamath think about his relationship to risk today as a result? Brad Gerstner is the Founder and CEO of Altimeter. Brad's notable deals that he has helped lead include Snowflake, Mongo, Bytedance, Gusto, Unity, Okta, dbt, Modern Treasury, EPIC Games, Hotel Tonight and Zillow. What is the most important thing parents can do to ensure that despite wealth, their children remain grounded and ambitious? Why does Brad, despite being a billionaire, still live in a modest house and not spend on the excesses of life? How does Brad embrace essentialism with wealth? Cyan Banister is one of the most successful and renowned early-stage investors in the last decade. Her portfolio includes the likes of SpaceX, Uber, Affirm, Opendoor Postmates, Niantic and Thumbtack to name a few. Why did Cyan used to hate money? Why was she "anti-capitalist"? How does Cyan approach risk management today? Why does she invest every dollar she makes back into the ecosystem? George Zachary is a General Partner @ CRV, one of the nation's oldest and most successful early-stage venture capital firms with a portfolio including the likes of Airtable, DoorDash, Dropbox, Niantic and many more. What did George learn about how the way people view you changes with your increasing wealth? Why does George believe rich people like to hang out with rich people? Biz Stone is best known as the Co-Founder of Twitter and Medium. Biz is also an investor in the likes of Slack, Square, Intercom, Beyond Meat and Blue Bottle Coffee. What does Biz mean when he says, "wealth only serves to amplify the person you are?"

Twenty Minute VC Podcast Notes Key Takeaways Check Out the 20VC Episode Page & Show NotesRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.org Chris Sacca is the Founder and Chairman @ Lowercase Capital, one of the best performing funds in the history of venture capital with a portfolio including Uber, Stripe, Twitter, Instagram, Twilio, Docker and many more. From interviewing some of the world's richest married couples, how did gaining wealth change their relationship and marriage? What does Chris do to actively ensure his children remain hungry and know the value of money? Chamath Palihapitiya is Founder & CEO @ Social Capital. Social's portfolio includes the likes of Slack, Yammer, Front, Intercom and Carta to name a few. What does Chamath mean when he says we need to think through the mindset of "infinite games" not finite games? How does this change how you think about money? How does Chamath think about his relationship to risk today as a result? Brad Gerstner is the Founder and CEO of Altimeter. Brad's notable deals that he has helped lead include Snowflake, Mongo, Bytedance, Gusto, Unity, Okta, dbt, Modern Treasury, EPIC Games, Hotel Tonight and Zillow. What is the most important thing parents can do to ensure that despite wealth, their children remain grounded and ambitious? Why does Brad, despite being a billionaire, still live in a modest house and not spend on the excesses of life? How does Brad embrace essentialism with wealth? Cyan Banister is one of the most successful and renowned early-stage investors in the last decade. Her portfolio includes the likes of SpaceX, Uber, Affirm, Opendoor Postmates, Niantic and Thumbtack to name a few. Why did Cyan used to hate money? Why was she "anti-capitalist"? How does Cyan approach risk management today? Why does she invest every dollar she makes back into the ecosystem? George Zachary is a General Partner @ CRV, one of the nation's oldest and most successful early-stage venture capital firms with a portfolio including the likes of Airtable, DoorDash, Dropbox, Niantic and many more. What did George learn about how the way people view you changes with your increasing wealth? Why does George believe rich people like to hang out with rich people? Biz Stone is best known as the Co-Founder of Twitter and Medium. Biz is also an investor in the likes of Slack, Square, Intercom, Beyond Meat and Blue Bottle Coffee. What does Biz mean when he says, "wealth only serves to amplify the person you are?"

Twenty Minute VC Podcast Notes Key Takeaways Check Out the 20VC Episode Page & Show NotesRead the full notes @ podcastnotes.org Chris Sacca is the Founder and Chairman @ Lowercase Capital, one of the best performing funds in the history of venture capital with a portfolio including Uber, Stripe, Twitter, Instagram, Twilio, Docker and many more. From interviewing some of the world's richest married couples, how did gaining wealth change their relationship and marriage? What does Chris do to actively ensure his children remain hungry and know the value of money? Chamath Palihapitiya is Founder & CEO @ Social Capital. Social's portfolio includes the likes of Slack, Yammer, Front, Intercom and Carta to name a few. What does Chamath mean when he says we need to think through the mindset of "infinite games" not finite games? How does this change how you think about money? How does Chamath think about his relationship to risk today as a result? Brad Gerstner is the Founder and CEO of Altimeter. Brad's notable deals that he has helped lead include Snowflake, Mongo, Bytedance, Gusto, Unity, Okta, dbt, Modern Treasury, EPIC Games, Hotel Tonight and Zillow. What is the most important thing parents can do to ensure that despite wealth, their children remain grounded and ambitious? Why does Brad, despite being a billionaire, still live in a modest house and not spend on the excesses of life? How does Brad embrace essentialism with wealth? Cyan Banister is one of the most successful and renowned early-stage investors in the last decade. Her portfolio includes the likes of SpaceX, Uber, Affirm, Opendoor Postmates, Niantic and Thumbtack to name a few. Why did Cyan used to hate money? Why was she "anti-capitalist"? How does Cyan approach risk management today? Why does she invest every dollar she makes back into the ecosystem? George Zachary is a General Partner @ CRV, one of the nation's oldest and most successful early-stage venture capital firms with a portfolio including the likes of Airtable, DoorDash, Dropbox, Niantic and many more. What did George learn about how the way people view you changes with your increasing wealth? Why does George believe rich people like to hang out with rich people? Biz Stone is best known as the Co-Founder of Twitter and Medium. Biz is also an investor in the likes of Slack, Square, Intercom, Beyond Meat and Blue Bottle Coffee. What does Biz mean when he says, "wealth only serves to amplify the person you are?"

Chris Sacca is the Founder and Chairman @ Lowercase Capital, one of the best performing funds in the history of venture capital with a portfolio including Uber, Stripe, Twitter, Instagram, Twilio, Docker and many more. From interviewing some of the world's richest married couples, how did gaining wealth change their relationship and marriage? What does Chris do to actively ensure his children remain hungry and know the value of money? Chamath Palihapitiya is Founder & CEO @ Social Capital. Social's portfolio includes the likes of Slack, Yammer, Front, Intercom and Carta to name a few. What does Chamath mean when he says we need to think through the mindset of "infinite games" not finite games? How does this change how you think about money? How does Chamath think about his relationship to risk today as a result? Brad Gerstner is the Founder and CEO of Altimeter. Brad's notable deals that he has helped lead include Snowflake, Mongo, Bytedance, Gusto, Unity, Okta, dbt, Modern Treasury, EPIC Games, Hotel Tonight and Zillow. What is the most important thing parents can do to ensure that despite wealth, their children remain grounded and ambitious? Why does Brad, despite being a billionaire, still live in a modest house and not spend on the excesses of life? How does Brad embrace essentialism with wealth? Cyan Banister is one of the most successful and renowned early-stage investors in the last decade. Her portfolio includes the likes of SpaceX, Uber, Affirm, Opendoor Postmates, Niantic and Thumbtack to name a few. Why did Cyan used to hate money? Why was she "anti-capitalist"? How does Cyan approach risk management today? Why does she invest every dollar she makes back into the ecosystem? George Zachary is a General Partner @ CRV, one of the nation's oldest and most successful early-stage venture capital firms with a portfolio including the likes of Airtable, DoorDash, Dropbox, Niantic and many more. What did George learn about how the way people view you changes with your increasing wealth? Why does George believe rich people like to hang out with rich people? Biz Stone is best known as the Co-Founder of Twitter and Medium. Biz is also an investor in the likes of Slack, Square, Intercom, Beyond Meat and Blue Bottle Coffee. What does Biz mean when he says, "wealth only serves to amplify the person you are?"

Today, we have a very special guest Lee Jacobs the Founder and General Partner of Long Journey VC. Lee has been an investor for over a decade, investing in notable companies in the world like Loom, Wonderschool, and Pipefy, along with Cyan Banister and the team with experience in investing in SpaceX, Uber, Thumbtack, Notion, Affirm, and many more. On the show, we will discuss how he worked to help get Venmo funded off the campus of UPenn, where he studied sociology, his journey into venture investing in the first Angel List syndicate with Naval, and little-known areas the firm is taking a look at what may be the next big thing. Twitter of Host (Shamus Madan): @mbitpodcastTwitter of Guest (Lee Jacobs): @LeeJacobs

Marcelo Claure is an entrepreneur and investor who has founded and led some of the world's most iconic businesses. He is currently the Chairman & CEO of Claure Capital, a newly founded multi-billion-dollar global investment firm. Before this, Marcelo was COO @ Softbank Group, the world's largest technology investment company. Bill Gurley is a General Partner @ Benchmark, one of the most successful funds of the last decade with a portfolio including Uber, Twitter, Dropbox, Modern Treasury, Snapchat, StitchFix, and many more. Michael Eisenberg spent 15 years as a General Partner @ Benchmark working alongside Bill and the Benchmark partnership. Following Benchmark, Michael co-founded Aleph, one of the leading Israeli venture funds of the last decade. David Tisch is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Box Group, one of the leading seed focused firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Airtable, Glossier, PillPack, Plaid and many more. Cyan Banister is one of the most successful and renowned early-stage investors in the last decade. Her portfolio includes the likes of SpaceX, Uber, Affirm, Opendoor Postmates, Niantic and Thumbtack to name a few. Zach Weinberg is a Co-Founder of Operator Partners, operators funding operators, with no outside LPs, just their own capital. Luciana Lixandru is a Partner @ Sequoia, one of the world's most renowned and successful venture firms with Sequoia-backed companies accounting for more than 20% of NASDAQ's total value. Jeff Lieberman is the Managing Director @ Insight Partners, one of the leading investing franchises of the last 25 years with their most recent flagship fund announced earlier this year being a staggering $20BN. Nick Shalek is a General Partner @ Ribbit Capital, specializing in fintech they are one of the most successful venture firms of the last decade with a portfolio including Robinhood, Coinbase, Revolut, Nubank and more. Frank Rotman is a founding partner of QED Investors, one of the leading fintech-focused venture firms investing today with a portfolio including the likes of Klarna, Kavak, Quinto Andar, Credit Karma and more. Geoff Lewis is the Founder and Managing Partner @ Bedrock, now with over $1BN in AUM, Bedrock invests in breakout technology companies that are incongruent with popular narratives. Justin Fishner-Wolfson is founder and the managing partner of 137 Ventures. Their portfolio includes SpaceX, Wish, Anduril, Flexport, and WorkRise (formerly Rigup) to name a few. David Sze is a General Partner @ Greylock where he has led some of the firms most notable investments including Facebook, LinkedIn and Pandora. In Today's Episode We Discuss Price Sensitivity: 1.) How do you assess your relationship to price and price sensitivity? 2.) When is the time to pay up and have less price discipline? 3.) When should we remain disciplined and not pay up for a deal and walk away because of price? 4.) Of the deals you have paid up for, did their growth rate justify the high entry price? 5.) Knowing all you know now on price, how do you advise younger investors today?

Listeners, we're back this week with Ruben Flores-Martinez.At age 13, Ruben and his family immigrated to the states from Guadalajara, Mexico. Unable to fulfill his dream of going to college for Computer Science due to his immigration status, Ruben began watching YouTube videos on coding and taught himself how to build websites and mobile apps. A few years later, his determination led him to develop CASHDROP, a mobile-first contactless commerce platform targeted at small business owners. Ruben represents less than 2.6% of LatinX founders who have received VC funding. To date, the app has raised $2.7 million in capital. Major investors include hospitality entrepreneur David Grutman, Youtube pioneer Michelle Phan, and Stalwart Silicon Valley investor and founder Cyan Banister.During our conversation, we talked about:Being an immigrantPoppy seed syndromeYouTube UniversityRaising capitalBeing a Latino founderThis  episode is brought to you by  MagicMindMagicMind is the world's first productivity drink.

Guest Update: When the episode was recorded in 2019, Cyan was a partner at Founders Fund. Currently, Cyan is a partner at Long Journey Ventures.  In this special replay of episode 180, Cyan Banister of Long Journey Ventures joins Nick to discuss the Self-Made Engineer, Angel, and Venture Capitalist. In this episode, we cover: So, Cyan you have a really interesting story and background that led you to where you are today. Feel free to start wherever makes most sense but can you talk about your life experience and how it led you to where you're at now? You spoke publicly about your early life at the 2018 TechCrunch Disrupt conference, from living on the streets to becoming a venture capitalist, tell us about this incredible journey, what you accredit your success to and how it lead to venture? Where along the way did you meet Scott? Did you guys every consider raising your own fund? How early are you able to go at Founder's Fund? How do you work with founders post-investment? Judicious with your magic bullets? Have you funded founders with non-traditional backgrounds or missions dedicated to folks living in poverty or providing access to upward mobility? How has your approach changed from your time as an angel to now your experience as a VC ? Do you have any good stories or learnings from Naval? Prior to FF you were an early stage investor in successful companies like Uber, Postmates, PayPal at others... I know you invest alongside Scott... who started angel investing? What was your early approach to angel investing and how were you able to source and select such iconic tech companies at very early stages? Can you tell us a bit about Founder's Fund and your focus? Stage, Sectors, Geographies? "The most promising companies tend to share a few characteristics: They are not popular. They are difficult to assess. They have technology risk, but not insurmountable technology risk. If they succeed, their technology will be extraordinarily valuable. We have no idea what these companies might look like, only that they probably will share these characteristics. Entrepreneurs often know better than we do what might be enormously valuable in the future." -- It's a very humble approach and one that resonates with me and many others. Can you elaborate on the thesis and characteristics of founders that are the best fit for Founders Fund? What's your take on the prevalent number of VCs that remove CEOs of their portfolio companies, on average, within three years of investment? What's your take on contrarian vs. conformist investing... first, how do you even determine what is contrarian and then what's your take on how each ties to performance?

Produced by Foundersuite.com, "How I Raised It" goes behind the scenes with startup founders who have raised capital. This episode is with Jonathan Siddharth of Turing.com, a platform to hire the world's best remote engineers. In this episode, Jonathan talks about how he's building the "talent cloud" of 180k global engineers, his journey from EIR at Foundation Capital to startup founder, running a serial vs. parallel fundraising process, how he plays the "long game" and cultivates relationships with VCs, and much more. The Company raised $32 million of seed funding in a deal led by Foundation Capital on November 12, 2020. Adam D'Angelo, Cyan Banister, AltaIR Capital Ashu Garg, Beerud Sheth and other investors also participated in the round. How I Raised It is produced by Foundersuite, makers of software to raise capital and manage investor relations. Foundersuite's customers have raised over $2.5 Billion since 2016. Create a free account at www.foundersuite.com

Cyan Banister is one of the most successful and renowned early-stage investors of the last decade. Her portfolio includes the likes of SpaceX, Uber, Affirm, Opendoor Postmates, Niantic and Thumbtack to name a few. Today Cyan is a Partner @ Long Journey Ventures, joining the team there following a 4-year stint @ Founders Fund where she led deals in both Niantic and HQ Trivia. Prior to Founders Fund, Cyan was a super successful operator and angel, co-founding Zivity and before that being an early employee at Ironport, leading to their acquisition by Oracle. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Cyan made her way into the world of startups? How SpaceX came to be her 1st angel investment? How that led to her joining the world of VC? 2.) How does Cyan think about and assess her relationship to money? Why does someone believe she had a fear or loathing of money? What made Cyan the capitalist she is today? How does Cyan analyse her relationship to risk? Has Cyan always trusted her own convictions? 3.) How does Cyan think about her own investment decision-making process? What were Cyan's biggest lessons from her experience with HQ Trivia? How did she change how she interacts with founders pre-investment? Why does Cyan never Google someone before meeting? 4.) How does Cyan think about price sensitivity today? Why does she believe there will be a reckoning? How will this shake out in terms of who succeeds and who fails? Why is Cyan in favour of party rounds? How does she think about VCs with sharp elbows? 5.) Why does Cyan believe SF is eating itself? What can be done to reinvigorate the city positively? What can be done to solve much of the homelessness problem? Why does Chesa Boudin never convict anyone? Why does Cyan believe her "BLM tweet is not spicy"? Why is Cyan fundamentally sad and worried for the current state of the world? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Cyan’s Fave Book: Snow Crash As always you can follow Harry and The Twenty Minute VC on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC.    

GeneralSubscribe to Fully Vested at FullyVested.co or through your podcast app of choice.Cashdrop's $2.7M SeedCASHDROP, a Chicago-based contactless payments and mobile-first e-commerce platform company founded by Mexican immigrant Ruben Flores-Martinez, announced that it raised $2.7 million in seed funding back in early August. Harlem Capital led the deal, which saw participation from Founder Collective, Long Journey Ventures, and M25. Individual investors in the round include Cyan Banister (now a partner at Long Journey Ventures), Adobe chief product officer Scott Belsky, Fullscreen founder George Strompolos, and YouTube pioneer Michelle Phan.CASHDROP's unique differentiators are its economic model and software platform. The company says new merchants can spin up an online storefront for their products and services in as little as 15 minutes. CASHDROP includes inventory management and reporting features, and may expand to more service business verticals in the future. Its biggest point of leverage is its economic model. Rather than taking a commission/marketplace fee from businesses on the platform, CASHDROP charges the customer a 5% convenience fee, leaving the platform free to use for businesses and relatively inexpensive for consumers. The company has seen significant user growth during COVID, mostly from restaurants seeking to sidestep high marketplace fees imposed by incumbent food ordering platforms like DoorDash, GrubHub, and Uber Eats.Read more about the deal:Mobile-First Commerce Platform CASHDROP Announces $2.7M Seed Round to Empower Small Business Owners (Press release on PR Newswire)Start-Ups Braced for the Worst. The Worst Never Came. (Erin Griffith in The New York Times)A Mobile Storefront In Under 15 Minutes: Cashdrop’s Platform Secures $2.7M In Seed Funding (Christine Hall for Crunchbase News)Cashdrop Raises $2.7M to Grow Its E-Commerce App (Nona Tepper for BuiltInChicago)Mobile-First Commerce Platform CASHDROP Announces $2.7M Seed Round to Empower Small Business Owners (Jim Dallke for BizJournals)(Disclosure: Jason and Graham are friends with members of the CASHDROP team. Jason served as a compensated advisor and service provider to the company during its funding round announcement, and Graham has financial ties to one of the firms which invested in the round.)Trove's $16M Series AOn August 25th, Bay Area-based startup Trove announced it had raised $16 million in a Series A round, with media reporting it was raised at a $75 million post-money valuation. Andreessen Horowitz led the round. The company was part of Y Combinator's S20 batch and successfully raised their round pre-Demo Day.Trove is in the business of helping startups communicate the potential value of equity (usually offered as options of some sort) issued as part of typical employee compensation packages to prospective recruits and current members of the team. This, in theory, gives employees greater transparency into the current and potential value of the shares they're issued, while also helping employers allocate equity more wisely. Simultaneously, Trove grants access to anonymized market performance data to help employers understand what other industry participants are offering their prospective employees.Read more about the deal:YC’s most anticipated startup raised $16M from a16z before Demo Day(Natasha Mascarenhas publishing in TechCrunch)Barn2Door's $6M Series A2On August 26th, Seattle area online marketplace startup Barn2Door raised $6 million in a new round of funding led by Bullpen Capital. Participating investors in the deal include Sugar Mountain, Raine Ventures, Quiet Capital, Lead Edge Capital, and Global Founders Capital. Crunchbase lists the round as a Series A, though the round type was not named explicitly in media coverage of the transaction. Barn2Door raised $3.4 million for the first tranche of its Series A back in October 2019; that particular round was led by Lead Edge Capital out of New York. According to Golden, the company has raised nearly $12.5 million across its publicly-disclosed funding rounds.Barn2Door operates a vertical-specific marketplace platform aimed at helping farmers sell their produce, proteins, and other agricultural products directly to consumers via e-commerce. The company's platform works for different types of farms (dairy, produce, animal proteins, flowers, etc.) and service models ranging from subscription community-supported agriculture (CSA) boxes, to on-farm pickup, local delivery, and even shipping, depending on the model of the farm's direct-to-customer business. Barn2Door, founded in March 2015, is part of a growing trend of companies which offer more direct connections between farmers and end consumers. The growing D2C side of some farm businesses helps the farmer generate higher margin on agricultural products.Read more about the deal:Barn2Door raises $6M as demand rises for its software used by farmers to sell food online (Taylor Soper for Seattle tech-focused publication GeekWire)Barn2Door Raises $6M for Platform that Connects Farms and Consumers(Chris Albrecht for food tech-focused online news outlet The Spoon)UndockBased in New York City, Undock is a company building software which helps people who schedule lots of meetings (which is probably most of us these days) schedule those meetings right from their email inbox. The interaction model is neat: Using a little NLP magic, Undock's plugin detects when a user is proposing times for a meeting; based on the user's availability and preferred times to meet, Undock will drop down some times which work, and the proposed time is entered as a link in the outgoing email. Recipients can confirm the time by clicking the link in the email. Undock detects if a message is going to another Undock user, and is able to suggest times which are mutually agreeable for all parties. On August 24, the company announced it raised $1.6 million in a seed round led by Lightship Capital. Participating investors in the deal include Bessemer Venture Partners, Alumni Ventures Group, Active Capital, Lerer Hippeau, as well as individual investors Arlan Hamilton (founding partner of Backstage Capital) and veteran startup ops exec Sarah Imbach.Read more about the deal:Lightship Capital Leads $1.6 Million Financing Round for Undock (Lightship Capital)Lightship Capital Leads $1.6M Financing Round For AI-Enabled Productivity Platform, Undock (Shanique Yates for AfroTech.com)Undock Raises $1.6 Million for Its Software to Make Virtual Meetings Less Terrible (Sherrell Dorsey for The Plug)Startups To Watch: CH4 Global, Mustard, Undock, LaunchNotes (Christine Hall for Crunchbase News)About The Co-HostsJason D. Rowley is a researcher and writer at Golden.com. He volunteers with startup outreach for the open-source community and sends occasional newsletters from Rowley.Report.Graham C. Peck is a Venture Partner with Cultivation Capital and additionally helps companies build technology development teams in partnership with Brightgrove and other technology development organizations.

Cyan Banister is an early stage investor in Uber, Niantic, SpaceX, many others. She’s a partner at Long Journey Ventures and spends most of her time dreaming about what the future could look like. In this NFX conversation with James Currier, they talk about the opportunities of AR, VR and the future of human connection.  Highlights from the conversation: - Allow yourself to become obsessed with something. Really obsess about the product and dream about what it can become. - Invest in things that will become part of your life.  - Futurism is more than being intellectual, it’s more about daydreaming, it’s about how you feel and how you live. - Silicon Valley is getting too serious. Where did the hacker mentality go? AR, and crypto are real frontier categories where there is still bright eyedness of “we don’t know what’s going to happen.” - Endless curiosity helps identify people who are solving problems that are actually real problems. - Be curious about how systems work. Analyze businesses and what makes them special. Try to figure out the economics of everything, anything. - Sometimes it makes sense to paint inside the lines, but sometimes you really have to paint outside the lines. Regarding the future of VR: There's no reason why you and I, if we want to hang out, that we have maybe 8 options… go to dinner, have a phone call, see a movie, maybe go for a walk… but why aren't there thousands of options? There should be so many, that's why Founders need to think bigger.

Cyan is an entrepreneur and one of the top female angel investors in the Bay area. She's invested in Uber, Space X, and Postmates, to name a few. Cyan rarely lets things get her down and is an inspiration us in times of struggle. Join us for this fun discussion.

This is our first episode of the Canceled Podcast.  Forgive the audio quality, we were in the middle of renovating the room for the podcast so the audio here is a touch echoey but it gets better. During the episode, we go over a little about who Cyan is and where she came from. She talks a little bit about her time with homelessness, what brought her to San Francisco, and how things have changed.  We also chat a little about Baby Yoda and the purpose of the Canceled Podcast

Curious about plant-based nutrition? Whether you’re interested in starting a more plant-based diet or have already been on one for years, you won’t want to miss this week’s fascinating conversation with the renowned nutritionist and author, Julieanna Hever, MS, RD, CPT.  Julieanna—perhaps best-known as the Plant-Based Dietitian—is a passionate advocate for living a healthy, nutritious life. With an M.S. in Nutrition, Julieanna has written five books about the advantages of a plant-based diet including The Vegiterranean Diet, The Healthspan Solution, and The Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutrition. She’s also a speaker and has appeared on shows like Dr. Oz, E! News, The Steve Harvey Show, and more.  Julieanna is also an entrepreneur. She’s the co-founder and nutrition director for The Healthspan Solution with her business partner Ray Cronise. She consults with clients around the globe which has included big names like Penn Gillette, Cyan Banister, and Rich Roll. In this episode of the donothing podcast, you’ll learn: How Julieanna found a career in nutrition  Which major health benefits people experience after going plant-based Common misconceptions about carbs How to eat a plant-based diet on a budget Why Julieanna’s recipes don’t include traditional nutrition information The difference between vegan and plant-based  How we can change our relationship with food Why plant-based diets can help athletes perform better Julieanna’s advice on transitioning to a plant-based diet Why it’s okay to “cheat” sometimes on a plant-based diet How The Healthspan Solution helped Penn Gillette get healthy What the Blue Zones are and what do they have in common? Why Julieanna doesn’t count calories with her clients About the world’s chronic overconsumption problem What the number one way to live longer is Connect with Julieanna Julieanna’s Website: https://plantbaseddietitian.com The Healthspan Solution’s Website: https://healthspansolution.com LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/julieanna-hever-96b9395 Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/PlantBasedDietitian Twitter: https://twitter.com/PlantDietitian Buy Julieanna’s Books The Healthspan Solution: How and What to Eat to Add Life to Your Years https://amzn.to/2T9XgSs The Idiot’s Guide to Plant-Based Nutritionhttps://amzn.to/3a22vu5 The Vegiterranean Diet https://amzn.to/2vY10yv Julieanna’s Recommended Resources & Events The Healthspan Diet on a Budgethttps://bit.ly/2PmWv7f NutritionFacts with Dr. Michael Greger, MD FACLMhttps://nutritionfacts.org Science and Saucery Podcastbit.ly/scienceandsaucery 2020 Plant-Based Culinary Excursion in Francebit.ly/plantbasedfrance 2021 Thai Plant-Based Culinary and Nutrition Retreathttps://plantbasedthai.com Jump Start a Future of Positive, Mindful Leadership! Discover why more leaders are practicing mindfulness at the workplace. Join Rob and the donothing team at the 2020 donothing Leadership Retreat in the Colorado Rockies! Experience extraordinary leadership-focused events including the exclusive MindTravel SilentHike with Murray Hidary, meditation teachings with expert instructors, opportunities to connect with other like-minded leaders, and so much more!Get out of your comfort zone and take the most rewarding leadership challenge of your life! Learn more at www.donothingbook.com/retreat.   Follow Rob Dube on Social Media LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/robdube Facebook: www.facebook.com/rob.dube.1 Twitter: twitter.com/robddube   Instagram: www.instagram.com/robddube YouTube: bit.ly/2FYdckW   Rob Dube’s Website www.donothingbook.com     donothing Podcast Subscribe to the donothing podcast to discover simple, practical tips and tools from mindful, high-performing leaders that you can implement in your leadership philosophy today.  www.donothingbook.com/podcast    Buy the donothing book (now available as an audiobook, too!) amzn.to/2y9N1TK

Marco Zappacosta is a co-Founder & CEO of Thumbtack, a startup that lets people find local professionals for “pretty much anything”.  Thumbtack has raised over $400 million and is valued at well over $1 billion.  Investors include Sequoia Capital, Cyan Banister, Jason Calcanis and brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi.  Marco has been recognized by Forbes as top “30 under 30” entrepreneur, and Thumbtack is recognized as one of Fortune's "Great Place to Work".   In this episode, Marco discusses how he built Thumbtack, and what it’s like to transition from overseeing a small team, to hundreds of people.  He talks about how Thumbtack is succeeding where others failed – getting liquidity in local services   We also discuss how Thumbtack enables local ‘entrepreneurs’ to build their business on its platform, and find a market for their traditional or unique service.  Finally we cover what structural changes are needed in the US economy to enable ‘gig’ workers, and why he’s been interested in the state of Social Security since college.   www.thumbtack.com   https://twitter.com/mlz

Matt Kibbe is joined by Lee Bishop and Cyan Banister, two of the voices behind the NBA protests in support of a free Hong Kong. They explain their motivation for getting involved and why Americans owe it to themselves to support Hong Kong's struggle for the same types of freedom and democracy we enjoy at home. Free Hong Kong - 香港人加油 美國支持你: https://youtu.be/teL5pNEw-dI

Matt Kibbe is joined by Lee Bishop and Cyan Banister, two of the voices behind the NBA protests in support of a free Hong Kong. They explain their motivation for getting involved and why Americans owe it to themselves to support Hong Kong's struggle for the same types of freedom and democracy we enjoy at home.

Wardrobe, a new peer-to-peer fashion rental marketplace, has today announced the close of a $1.5 million seed round and its public launch out of beta. The funding was led by angel investor Cyan Banister and Ludlow Ventures, with participation from GroupUp Ventures, Airbnb cofounder Nate Blecharczyk and HQ Trivia founder Rus Yusupov, among others. Wardrobe was founded by Adarsh Alphons after he had an epiphany about just how many items of clothes in his own house went mostly unused.

Trae Stephens (@traestephens) is a venture capitalist at Founders Fund with partners like Peter Thiel, Brian Singerman, Cyan Banister and Keith Rabois, where he invests across sectors with a particular interest in startups operating in the government space. He’s also Co-founder and Executive Chairman of Anduril Industries with Palmer Luckey, who founded Oculus, which was acquired by Facebook in 2014. Anduril is a defense technology company focused on developing autonomous systems for U.S. military and is by far one of the most interesting, and for some controversial, new startups in the last two years. In our conversation Trae described it as a real-life Stark Industries from Ironman. Previously, Trae was an early employee at Palantir Technologies, where he led teams focused on growth in the intelligence/defense space as well as international expansion, helping large organizations solve their hardest data analysis problems. Prior to Palantir, Trae worked as a computational linguist within the United States Intelligence community. He began his career working in the office of then Congressman Rob Portman and in the Political Affairs Office at the Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, D.C. Trae is a publishing a paper on Just War Theory In the Age of Technology later this month and you can follow him on Twitter @traestephens. Our conversation with Trae was a wide-ranging and illuminating. We hope you enjoy the episode. Read Trae's latest piece: The Ethics of Defense Technology Development: An Investor’s Perspective https://medium.com/@traestephens/the-ethics-of-defense-technology-development-an-investors-perspective-45c71bf6e6af

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week Kate and Alex held the reins as a duo (check out our chat with Greylock's Sarah Guo from last week here) to dig into an enormous raft of news. And don't worry, it's not all late-stage happenings. We're discussing early-stage news every week because that's what the listeners want!Up top we dug into Kate's excellent work covering the Superhuman founder's new micro fund, or at least his attempt at raising such a fund. Our main question is how can he be a good VC and a good executive at the same time? Folks don't tend to do both at the same time because they're each more than full-time jobs. Having two such gigs sounds hard.But hey, it's not just athletes and musicians who can bring outsized interest to deals. In-demand founders can have a similar effect. We'll be keeping a close eye on the upcoming fun. Moving on.Next we turned to the other end of the venture landscape, looking at Founder's Fund's new capital vehicles. With a combined $2.7 billion in eventual capital, FF is hoping to build a financial redoubt from which they can rain capital down on late-stage targets wherever they may be.Is it a bit late in the cycle to cut late-stage checks to companies that might otherwise go public? That's the gamble so far as we can see it, but perhaps with WeWork's IPO dreams turned to nightmares, there's demand among a group of companies for another 12 months in the private markets. And that means more money is required.On the theme of more money, Lime is raising some more and we were treated to new financial results from The Information's great work getting the figures. Or discussion asked the question of how far the company's unit economics could improve. Kate said that Lime is investing a lot now in developing better hardware, so their scooters can last more than 5 minutes on the roads before breaking down. She thinks things will start looking up when its deploying only new, fancy, good scooters. Alex is bearish.Before we could turn back to the early-stage market and wrap up, we had to cover the latest from WeWork. SoftBank did in the end come and save the day (at least for now) for the company, meaning that WeWork lives on, though layoffs are expected sooner rather than later. Who knows what the future holds...And finally, Vendr, a company that is profitable, raised a $2 million round. This is interesting because, again, it's profitable! And the startup willing shared some financial data with us--a rarity. Read more about the recent Y Combinator graduate here.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast, where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines.This week Kate and Alex held the reins as a duo (check out our chat with Greylock's Sarah Guo from last week here) to dig into an enormous raft of news. And don't worry, it's not all late-stage happenings. We're discussing early-stage news every week because that's what the listeners want!Up top we dug into Kate's excellent work covering the Superhuman founder's new micro fund, or at least his attempt at raising such a fund. Our main question is how can he be a good VC and a good executive at the same time? Folks don't tend to do both at the same time because they're each more than full-time jobs. Having two such gigs sounds hard.But hey, it's not just athletes and musicians who can bring outsized interest to deals. In-demand founders can have a similar effect. We'll be keeping a close eye on the upcoming fun. Moving on.Next we turned to the other end of the venture landscape, looking at Founder's Fund's new capital vehicles. With a combined $2.7 billion in eventual capital, FF is hoping to build a financial redoubt from which they can rain capital down on late-stage targets wherever they may be.Is it a bit late in the cycle to cut late-stage checks to companies that might otherwise go public? That's the gamble so far as we can see it, but perhaps with WeWork's IPO dreams turned to nightmares, there's demand among a group of companies for another 12 months in the private markets. And that means more money is required.On the theme of more money, Lime is raising some more and we were treated to new financial results from The Information's great work getting the figures. Or discussion asked the question of how far the company's unit economics could improve. Kate said that Lime is investing a lot now in developing better hardware, so their scooters can last more than 5 minutes on the roads before breaking down. She thinks things will start looking up when its deploying only new, fancy, good scooters. Alex is bearish.Before we could turn back to the early-stage market and wrap up, we had to cover the latest from WeWork. SoftBank did in the end come and save the day (at least for now) for the company, meaning that WeWork lives on, though layoffs are expected sooner rather than later. Who knows what the future holds...And finally, Vendr, a company that is profitable, raised a $2 million round. This is interesting because, again, it's profitable! And the startup willing shared some financial data with us--a rarity. Read more about the recent Y Combinator graduate here.

Fireside chat: Founders Fund on Virtual Beings Edward Saatchi of Fable sits with Cyan Banister of Peter Thiel's Venture investment arm Founder's Fund to discuss the growing phenomenon of virtual beings like Lil Miquela and Fable's Emmy-winning Lucy.

Erik is joined on this episode by Cyan Banister (@cyantist), partner at Founders Fund, and Niv Dror (@Nivo0o0), founder of Shrug Capital.They start out talking about why they’ve each been successful investors and what their respective “superpowers” are. Cyan tells a story about hearing Chris Sacca talk about his fund on a bus and meeting Travis Kalanick in a hot tub. Niv talks about the playbook for micro VCs and why after suggesting as a joke that he start his own fund, he actually ended up doing so. In contrast, Cyan explains why she would never start a fund of her own.Cyan talks about how the team at Founders Fund works together, how they hired Keith Rabois even though they thought they never would be able to, and what kind of talent they’re looking for. They move on to some of the most exciting spaces in consumer social, including AR/VR gaming, virtual celebrities, live, and new applications that are enabled with AirPods. They finish by talking about career development, why connecting people is such a valuable skill, and Cyan’s unique Twitter photo.Quotable Lines“I tend to be a listener, not a talker. I will sometimes be in a room or a party or an event and I hear what someone is working on and I say, hey, tell me more. With Chris Sacca’s fund, I heard him talking about it on a bus.” — Cyan“Most people just try to shoot down things. I just want to believe and see what can be. I want to say yes. Pessimism is not very good in this business.” — Niv“The thesis of the fund is things that I’m excited enough to talk about for an hour with a non-technical audience.” — Niv“We are incredibly lean and nimble. When we want to get something done, it’s a small office, and we just pull whoever needs to be in a meeting into a meeting and it just happens and then it’s done.” — Cyan“We probably wouldn’t hire Peter [Thiel] when he was just starting. He had to go do PayPal and all the other things that he did to become the Peter that he is today.” — CyanThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Erik is joined on this episode by Cyan Banister (@cyantist), partner at Founders Fund, and Niv Dror (@Nivo0o0), founder of Shrug Capital.They start out talking about why they’ve each been successful investors and what their respective “superpowers” are. Cyan tells a story about hearing Chris Sacca talk about his fund on a bus and meeting Travis Kalanick in a hot tub. Niv talks about the playbook for micro VCs and why after suggesting as a joke that he start his own fund, he actually ended up doing so. In contrast, Cyan explains why she would never start a fund of her own.Cyan talks about how the team at Founders Fund works together, how they hired Keith Rabois even though they thought they never would be able to, and what kind of talent they’re looking for. They move on to some of the most exciting spaces in consumer social, including AR/VR gaming, virtual celebrities, live, and new applications that are enabled with AirPods. They finish by talking about career development, why connecting people is such a valuable skill, and Cyan’s unique Twitter photo.Quotable Lines“I tend to be a listener, not a talker. I will sometimes be in a room or a party or an event and I hear what someone is working on and I say, hey, tell me more. With Chris Sacca’s fund, I heard him talking about it on a bus.” — Cyan“Most people just try to shoot down things. I just want to believe and see what can be. I want to say yes. Pessimism is not very good in this business.” — Niv“The thesis of the fund is things that I’m excited enough to talk about for an hour with a non-technical audience.” — Niv“We are incredibly lean and nimble. When we want to get something done, it’s a small office, and we just pull whoever needs to be in a meeting into a meeting and it just happens and then it’s done.” — Cyan“We probably wouldn’t hire Peter [Thiel] when he was just starting. He had to go do PayPal and all the other things that he did to become the Peter that he is today.” — CyanThanks for listening — if you like what you hear, please review us on your favorite podcast platform. Check us out on the web at villageglobal.vc or get in touch with us on Twitter @villageglobal.Venture Stories is brought to you by Village Global and is hosted by co-founder and partner, Erik Torenberg. Colin Campbell is our audio engineer and the show is produced by Brett Bolkowy.

Cyan Banister of Founders Fund joins Nick to discuss the Self-Made Engineer, Angel, and Venture Capitalist. In this episode, we cover:   So, Cyan you have a really interesting story and background that led you to where you are today. Feel free to start wherever makes most sense but can you talk about your life experience and how it led you to where you're at now? You spoke publicly about your early life at the 2018 TechCrunch Disrupt conference, from living on the streets to becoming a venture capitalist, tell us about this incredible journey, what you accredit your success to and how it lead to venture? Where along the way did you meet Scott? Did you guys every consider raising your own fund? How early are you able to go at Founder's Fund? How do you work with founders post-investment? Judicious with your magic bullets? Have you funded founders with non-traditional backgrounds or missions dedicated to folks living in poverty or providing access to upward mobility? How has your approach changed from your time as an angel to now your experience as a VC ? Do you have any good stories or learnings from Naval? Prior to FF you were an early stage investor in successful companies like Uber, Postmates, PayPal at others... I know you invest alongside Scott... who started angel investing? What was your early approach to angel investing and how were you able to source and select such iconic tech companies at very early stages? Can you tell us a bit about Founder's Fund and your focus? Stage, Sectors, Geographies? "The most promising companies tend to share a few characteristics: They are not popular. They are difficult to assess. They have technology risk, but not insurmountable technology risk. If they succeed, their technology will be extraordinarily valuable. We have no idea what these companies might look like, only that they probably will share these characteristics. Entrepreneurs often know better than we do what might be enormously valuable in the future." -- It's a very humble approach and one that resonates with me and many others. Can you elaborate on the thesis and characteristics of founders that are the best fit for Founders Fund? What's your take on the prevalent number of VCs that remove CEOs of their portfolio companies, on average, within three years of investment? What's your take on contrarian vs. conformist investing... first, how do you even determine what is contrarian and then what's your take on how each ties to performance?

Show Highlights  Terri and Jacqueline talk about value and creating win-win situations.  It’s important for every woman to know her value.       Terri talks about how she is planning to operate as an angel investor in 2019.   Terri shares why she is doing the podcast and what to expect through the rest of the 2018/2019 year and what she is planning to ask the investors she is interviewing.   Jacqueline asks if shows like Shark Tank and The Pitch create unrealistic expectations for people who start businesses or have an idea.    Terri wonders what 2019 will look like with the state of the economy and startup investing and investors getting antsy for exits for the companies that have had unrealistically high valuations.    Terri argues for additional funding for women’s health instead of funding electric scooters.   Terri and Jacqueline brainstorm questions for Piloting Your Life interviewees for 2019 and ask listeners to share some of their questions.       Terri’s Key Takeaway  2018 was a strange roller coaster of a year and expects 2019 to be another wild ride.     References in the Podcast  Xandra Laskowski: http://www.terrihansonmead.com/podcast/pyl082  Alicia Castillo Holley: http://www.terrihansonmead.com/podcast/pyl071  Jenny Kassan: http://www.terrihansonmead.com/podcast/pyl081  Gabrielle Katsnelson: http://www.terrihansonmead.com/podcast/pyl075  Nancy Hayes: http://www.terrihansonmead.com/podcast/pyl072  Cyan Banister:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/cyanb/  Knot:  https://www.knotcity.com/en/  Allianz Accelerator:  https://www.allianz.fr/accelerateur/en/    Contact  You can follow Jacqueline Steenhuis on Twitter @TipsyCopilot or through her website https://www.jacquelinesteenhuis.com/.    You can follow Terri on Twitter at @terrihansonmead or go to her website at www.terrihansonmead.com.  Check out Terri’s new Medium publication:  https://medium.com/terri-hanson-mead  Feel free to email Terri at PilotingYourLife@gmail.com.  To continue the conversation, go to Twitter at @PilotingLife and use hashtag #PilotingYourLife. 

Marco Zappacosta is the Founder & CEO @ Thumbtack, the startup that allows you to find local professionals for pretty much anything. To date, Thumbtack has raised over $270m in funding from some of the very best including Sequoia Capital, CapitalG (Google Growth), Ali and Hadi Partovi, Scott and Cyan Banister and Jason Calacanis. Due to Marco's incredible success scaling Thumbtack to helping millions of Americans today, he has been recognized by Forbes as 30 under 30 and Thumbtack was recently acknowledged as one of GlassDoor’s best places to work. CLICK TO PLAY CLICK TO LISTEN ON ITUNES In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How Marco made his way into the world of startups and came to create one of the most prominent marketplaces of the day in Thumbtack? 2.) What does Marco mean when he says "founders must treat board members as employees"? How does Marco view the optimal structure for a board meeting? What are the core elements that founders must takeaway? Where do most first time founders go wrong with board management? 3.) Thumbtack has raised over $250m in VC funding, how can one look to achieve both operational efficiency and capital efficiency with such large injections of capital? What is core to maintaining this sense of frugality despite such large investments? How does Marco think about when is the right time to raise that warchest round? 4.) How does Marco suggest that marketplace founders can entice the supply side in the early days? How has Marco seen his supply-side acquisition change and develop with time? What has worked and what has not? Does Marco agree with Leah Busque that in marketplace, the NPS for one side will always be down? Items Mentioned In Today’s Show: Marco’s Fave Book: The Wizard and The Prophet As always you can follow Harry, The Twenty Minute VC and Marco on Twitter here! Likewise, you can follow Harry on Instagram here for mojito madness and all things 20VC. Cooley is a global law firm built around supporting start-ups and the venture capital firms that fund them. Now we have spoken before about their forming the first venture fund in Silicon Valley, and forming more VC funds than any other law firm in the world but Cooley also represents more than 6,000 high-growth startups across the globe – through the full company life cycle. They are the #1 law firm for VC-backed exits (M&A and IPO) ranked by PitchBook, and since 2014 has represented more companies in their IPOs than any other law firm.  Simply head over to Cooley.com or you can check them out at Cooleygo.com.

Mark Godley is the President of LeadGenius, the startup that provides the power of human intelligence with the scale of machine learning. To date they have raised $16m in funding from the likes of a16z, Initialized Capital, Scott and Cyan Banister and SV angel just to name a few. As for Mark, he most recently served as Chief Revenue Officer for HG Data and before that was VP of Market Development for ConnectandSell. If that was not enough, mark also holds advisory roles in the salestech and martech space, including Omniquo, ZenIQ.io and The Big Willow. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: How Mark made his way into the world of SaaS over 25 years ago? How has he seen the industry change so remarkably over that time? Why does Mark believe that many startups today are created with the wrong intentions? Who is ultimately to blame for this, the founders or the investors who back them? Why does Mark believe that SaaS founders should “ignore fundraising and sign customers”? What are the unidentified consequences to Mark of taking external money? How does Mark view the function played by discounting in onboarding your first few key customers? What does Mark think of pilots? How willing should founders be to engage with unpaid pilots? How can enterprise founders solve the 2 big problems today of. A.) Standing out in the sea of enterprise startups? Gain trust from enterprise CIOs when they are still a small team with little brand or track record? What does Mark believe is the secret to selling to enterprise effectively? Why must founders be both credible and vulnerable when selling? What is the difference between helping someone buy and selling them a product? 60 Second SaaStr What does Mark know now that he wishes he had known at the beginning? Why are data vendors their own worst enemy? What would Mark like to change about the world of VC and startups? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Mark Godley If you have a digital product, whether it’s mobile or web, Amplitude’s product analytics helps you understand what your users are doing, iterate and ship product faster, and drive metrics like engagement and retention. To learn how you can use analytics to build a sticky product that grows your business, get your free copy of the Product Analytics Playbook from Amplitude. This 155-page book (with worksheets) will help you develop a comprehensive retention strategy for your product — just click here to download.   User education is one of the most powerful ways to increase engagement and retention at scale, yet is often put in the too hard basket. Elevio is the platform that removes this burden, empowering your users to self-serve contextually relevant help via their support widget and embeddable elements, increasing retention and engagement, while reducing support load. Elevio even tells you what content to add or fix and why based on usage trends from your users. Preventing content rot, and increasing coverage, which we all know is an ongoing challenge. You can also integrate with your existing support stack for content, access to live-chat, support tickets and more. Use elevio for continuous user education with 20% off your first year at (elev dot I O / saastr) using coupon code GOHARRY

Welcome to the first episode of the "Angel" podcast. In this series, Jason interviews angels about their investment strategies and pulls back the curtain on how early-stage startups get funded. In E1, Cyan Banister, former angel investor (Uber, Thumbtack) now Founders Fund Partner, shares with Jason her portfolio successes & brutal losses, her formula for choosing successful startups & founders, and her journey from angel investor to VC. Thanks to Audible for sponsoring this podcast.

Welcome to the first episode of the “Angel” podcast. In this series, Jason interviews angels about their investment strategies and pulls back the curtain on how early-stage startups get funded. In E1, Cyan Banister, former angel investor (Uber, Thumbtack) now Founders Fund Partner, shares with Jason her portfolio successes & brutal losses, her formula for choosing successful startups & founders, and her journey from angel investor to VC. Thanks to Audible for sponsoring this podcast.

This episode, Founders Fund partner Cyan Banister and Super Ventures managing partner Matt Miesnieks joined TechCrunch editor-in-chief Matthew Panzarino to talk the past, present and future of augmented reality. The main question, of course, is why now? Why are we seeing the likes of Facebook, Apple and other similar big cos hopping on the AR train? Because it's starting to work. So maybe the question really is "why not?" Comparisons between AR and VR abound, with our guests this week very much in AR's corner. With applications in the enterprise space, construction, medical have been the most compelling uses of the tech, according to Banister. So is going for a walk and looking for ghosts. Didn't see that coming, did you? Extras: Refractions made with ARKit Why Apple's glasses won't include ARKit by Matt Miesnieks

I had the chance to talk with Cyan Banister, Partner at Founders Fund.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a weekly podcast of high finance gossip and low GAAP intrigue. It's TechCrunch's show focused on all things venture capital.This week, Katie Roof, Matthew Lynley and I — Alex Wilhelm — were joined by Cyan Banister, a prolific investor on her own (Uber, Postmates, the list goes on), and partner at Founders Fund, a team with more than $3 billion under management.This week we hit on three core topics: Uber's turmoil, Amazon's epic M&A moves, and Slack's appetite for more cash.Follow the Equity crew: @Katie_Roof, @mattlynley and @alex.

Hello and welcome back to Equity, a weekly podcast of high finance gossip and low GAAP intrigue. It's TechCrunch's show focused on all things venture capital.This week, Katie Roof, Matthew Lynley and I — Alex Wilhelm — were joined by Cyan Banister, a prolific investor on her own (Uber, Postmates, the list goes on), and partner at Founders Fund, a team with more than $3 billion under management.This week we hit on three core topics: Uber's turmoil, Amazon's epic M&A moves, and Slack's appetite for more cash.Follow the Equity crew: @Katie_Roof, @mattlynley and @alex.

Leo Widrich is the Founder & COO @ Buffer, the Simple and powerful social media scheduling, publishing & analytics. They have raised funding from some of the best including Scott and Cyan Banister, Hubspot’s Dharmesh Shah, Hiten Shah and Eric Ries just to name a few. Now in today’s talk with Leo he breaks down his and the Buffer teams Top 10 Learnings in Growing to 10m ARR. In Today’s Episode You Will Learn: What are the 3 questions Leo asks his customers to understand them best? When is the right time to ask them? How should you follow up from this? How to experiment with weekly masterminds? How do masterminds work? When is the right time to do them? What is important to remember in entering a mastermind? How does Leo assess pricing structure? Why does he think it is important to experiment with different pricing? How do you do so without losing customers or trust? Why does Leo advise startup founders to get advice from mentors with conflicting opinions? Why is this important and how should a decision be reached? If you would like to find out more about the show and the guests presented, you can follow us on Twitter here: Jason Lemkin Harry Stebbings SaaStr Leo Widrich

Cyan Banister introduces us to Zivity, a community powered showcase promoting female beauty which she calls a cross between Myspace, Playboy, and American Idol.

Cyan Banister introduces us to Zivity, a community powered showcase promoting female beauty which she calls a cross between Myspace, Playboy, and American Idol.