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Chaîne • 4 émissions

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21/05/2025
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16/06/2021

Moderna: The Software of Life

Today, we will be diving into Moderna. Founded in 2010, Moderna and its innovative RNA platform made headlines after developing one of the first COVID vaccines. We treated this Breakdown slightly different than our other episodes. I’m joined today by two guests. First, I am joined by Jason Kelly, CEO of Gingko Bioworks. He gives us a primer on the biotech industry, genetic modification, and how Moderna’s platform represents a new breakthrough in the industry. Then, I talk to Matthew Harrison, a biotech analyst at Morgan Stanley. We will cover what differentiates Moderna’s business model, how Moderna’s science could lead to faster and higher efficacy drug development, and key takeaways for investors and operators. I hope you enjoy this Breakdown of Moderna. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 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: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss Show Notes - Part 1: Jason Kelly [00:02:31] - [First question] - What is a biotech company? [00:03:50] - Defining Moderna as a company in the biotech space [00:05:15] - Bridging the gap between biotech and genentech [00:06:02] - Overview of the history of learning to program cells [00:07:46] - Big milestones from the discovery to the human genome project [00:10:03] - Technical process and tool of how one modifies and copies genes [00:11:45] - The scale and tools of modern DNA design [00:14:05] - What the Moderna vaccine is and how it works [00:17:24] - The first engineered drug of its kind [00:18:24] - Other areas where synthetic biology appears in everyday life [00:22:19] - How many sectors this type of technology will disrupt [00:23:32] - The history of Moderna and how they came to be [00:24:41] - What problem Moderna tries to solve and how they approach it [00:27:11] - Unique deal components in therapeutics and the FDA [00:29:06] - Key factors that will make Moderna a dominant player in the near future [00:30:01] - How Genentech became as big as they did [00:30:53] - Competitive and compounded advantages for biotech companies [00:32:09] - Lessons for investors and entrepreneurs in studying Moderna’s story Show Notes - Part 2: Matthew Harrison [00:34:10] - What is Moderna and how it got started [00:36:10] - Typical route taken for a drug maker and how Moderna is different [00:37:16] - What separates Moderna from others in the biotech space today [00:39:12] - The role software and technology has played a role in Moderna’s success [00:41:42] - Cementing their position through breakthroughs and capitalizing on them [00:42:58] - How Moderna generates their revenue [00:44:45] - Overview of cost of sales, expense buckets and gross margin [00:46:20] - Factors involved in how one valuates a biotech company [00:47:15] - How many drugs are in Moderna’s pipeline compared to others [00:51:26] - Risks of drug development and their market potential [00:54:01] - Internal operations of drug development and what separates Moderna [00:57:17] - Comparing Moderna’s mRNA to others on the market [00:59:44] - High level breakdown of pharmaceutical R&D [01:01:33] - Other P&L and financial components that arise given the nature of biotech [01:03:09] - Contrast between the Moderna and Pfizer vaccine [01:04:18] - What Moderna will have to get right in order to become the next Pfizer [01:05:38] - What Moderna would have to get wrong to limit their growth [01:07:24] - Company culture and the importance of management [01:08:06] - Lessons for builders and entrepreneurs in studying Moderna’s story

16/06/2021

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1 h 9 min
30/03/2021

Kanyi Maqubela - Dawn of the 21st Century

My guest today is Kanyi Maqubela, co-founder of seed-stage VC firm Kindred Ventures, which he started with his partner Steven Jang in 2019. Before founding Kindred Ventures, Kanyi was a general partner at Collaborative Fund. In our conversation, we discuss the parallels between today and the Roaring ’20s of the last century, the misunderstood risk curve of seed investing, and dive deep into how Kanyi evaluates founders and businesses at the earliest stage of company formation. We also discuss Kanyi’s experience teaching the Design Your Life class at Stanford and how some of those principles convinced him to take the leap to start his own fund. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Kanyi Maqubela. 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, Inc. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 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 Show Notes [00:04:11] - [First question] - Understanding the roaring 20s and their potential resurgence [00:06:14] - Seed-stage investing today compared to a few years ago [00:09:02] - Lessons learned from studying the 1920s [00:11:52] - Supply chain infrastructure in the 21st century [00:14:49] - His investment philosophy and what influenced it [00:17:47] - Defining the risk curve and early-stage divergence [00:21:31] - Assessing risk in seed-stage investing [00:23:32] - Other moments that influenced Kanyi’s investment philosophy [00:26:50] - Assisting early-stage companies as a VC [00:29:31] - How he approaches VC differently than traditional US VCs [00:31:55] - Non-consensus ways and unique views when evaluating founders [00:35:19] - Domain insight and its importance [00:36:53] - What he looks for in a company when considering investing in them [00:38:17] - Assessing a team in whether or not they have characteristics of longevity [00:40:59] - Questions he most enjoys asking people [00:42:24] - What makes for a good problem space [00:44:26] - Early-stage crypto investing [00:47:27] - How the crypto space and NFTs will change and influence other sectors [00:50:37] - Emerging trends that are catching his attention [00:54:20] - The potential for upward mobility in the coming decade [00:56:30] - Teaching the Design Your Life course [01:01:21] - Advice for modern investor-operators [01:03:26] - If he could change one major thing in the industry [01:06:57] - The biggest lesson learned from Obama’s campaign [01:07:44] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him

30/03/2021

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1 h 12 min
Bande-annonce

Welcome to Business Breakdowns

Business Breakdowns is a series of conversations with investors and operators diving deep into a single business. For each business, we explore its history, its business model, its competitive advantages, and what makes it tick. Learn more and stay up to date at joincolossus.com

Bande-annonce

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1 min
28/08/2018

Elad Gil – How to Identify Interesting Markets

My guest this week has a fascinating background. He has a PhD in biology but has split his time as both an investor and an operator. As an investor, he’s involved in companies like Airbnb, Coinbase, Instacart, Opendoor, Stripe, Square, and Pinterest—not too shabby. As an operator, he helped both Google and Twitter scale their businesses, in the case of Twitter from 100 employees to 1500 over two years. He’s just written a book about these experiences called the High Growth Handbook. Our talk centered on what makes for a good investment and more specifically how Elad identifies an interesting market. Operators and early stage investors will find lots of nuggets in this fun conversation. Please enjoy. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Show Notes 1:31 - (First Question) – Process for evaluating a young business 2:43 – Andy Rachleff Podcast Episode 3:09 – Data factors for evaluating a business 5:08 – Reference checks 6:42 – Advice for companies that are reliant on product cyclicality 7:01 – Where to Go After Product-Market Fit: An Interview with Marc Andreessen 7:31 – High Growth Handbook 9:30 - Lessons learned from marketing and growing companies 12:09 – How do you hire the best people to improve your distribution 13:16 – How does he think about lifetime customer value vs customer acquisition cost 15:57 – Should companies just focus on the high margin power users 16:35 – Best ways to organize a company hierarchy 19:16 – His interest and background in the area of longevity research 21:52 – Changes he has made in his own life as a result of this longevity research 22:56 – Most effective use of a CEO’s time 24:58 – How he evaluates or identifies interesting markets for potential businesses 28:03 – Any markets that fit his criteria that are underappreciated by investors 30:02 – Worst practices for businesses 32:19 – Kindest thing anyone has done for him 33:20 – What would be the topic of his next book 34:40 – Biggest lessons he’s learned about markets Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club, where you’ll get a full investor curriculum and then 3-4 suggestions every month at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub Follow Patrick on twitter at @patrick_oshag

28/08/2018

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39 min
Bande-annonce

Welcome to 50X

Welcome to 50X. Hosted by Will Thorndike, author of The Outsiders and a co-founder at Compounding Labs, 50X aims to dissect the anatomy of investments that have appreciated at least 50-fold. We track the often circuitous route to exceptional long-term returns, exploring the foundations of value creation and how that rarest of investment commodities—conviction—is created, maintained, threatened, and sometimes lost. Learn more at 50Xpodcast.com.

Bande-annonce

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3 min
29/10/2020

Laura Behrens Wu - When Digital and Physical Worlds Converge - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.5]

My guest today is Laura Behrens Wu, co-founder and CEO of Shippo. Shippo started in 2014 after Laura realized with her own e-commerce start-up that shipping was an incredibly difficult task for most merchants, so she set out to fix the problem for everyone. Shippo let's merchants small and large use its dashboard or APIs to simplify the shipping and tracking process. Our conversation focuses on Laura's background prior to Shippo, how Shippo's business and business strategy have evolved, the inherent challenges of building a shipping platform, and the intersection of the physical and digital worlds. I hope you enjoy our wide-ranging conversation. This episode is brought to you by Microsoft for Startups. Microsoft for Startups is a global program dedicated to helping “enterprise-ready” B2B startups successfully scale their companies. If you’re a founder running a B2B company targeting the enterprise, you should definitely check them out. This episode is also sponsored by Vanta. Vanta has built software that makes it easier to both get and maintain your SOC 2 report, at a fraction of the normal cost. Founders Field Guide listeners can redeem a $1k off coupon at vanta.com/patrick. For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Show Notes (2:57) – (First question) – The story of Popout and how it led to Shippo (7:40) – Challenge of working in a huge and crowded market (10:36) – How Shippo changed shipping for small businesses (12:30) – First big break in their favor (13:39) – Their master account with the major shipping companies (14:39) – Why is the shipping industry so complex (16:25) – Most painful part of building Shippo (18:20) – Advice for people in early company building (19:26) – Pricing software in early days (20:32) – The early days of Shippo and getting it to where it is today (23:17) – Going to market and targeting new customers when they’re mostly small businesses (25:48) – Partnering with a larger company, in their case Shopify (27:52) – How they think about their long-term planning (30:48) – Competing in a world where companies can own their own infrastructure (32:39) – How often they think about other competitive advantages (34:20) – Worst question an investor asked her: what if Amazon tries to copy them (35:17) – Her superpowers as a founder (36:41) – API vs dashboard and the difference in their customer bases (38:52) – What businesses that need shipping today need to know (40:14) – Changes in how businesses are being built today (41:28) – What excites her most about the future of this business (43:28) – Kindest thing anyone has done for her Learn More For more episodes go to InvestorFieldGuide.com/podcast. Sign up for the book club and new email newsletter called “Inside the Episode” at InvestorFieldGuide.com/bookclub. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag

29/10/2020

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52 min
24/12/2020

Zach Perret – The Future of Financial Services – [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.13]

Zach Perret is the founder and CEO of Plaid. Plaid helps companies build fintech solutions by creating APIs that allow people to connect their financial data to apps and services. In this conversation, we dive into Zach's philosophy on building products, how the financial system works today, how the financial system needs to be updated, and the trends Zach is seeing from the next wave of fintech companies launching on Plaid. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Zach Perret. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content check out https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/39328476/perret-the-future-of-financial-services DocSend is a document sharing platform that enables companies to share business-critical documents with ease and get real-time actionable analytics. With DocSend’s security and control, startup founders, investors, business development executives, and financial professionals can drive business outcomes that have a lasting impact. Start for free at www.docsend.com. Founder's Field Guide is a property of Colossus Inc. For more episodes of Founder's Field Guide go to https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes. 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 - https://www.joincolossus.com/newsletter. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @patrick_oshag Follow Colossus on Twitter at @JoinColossus Show Notes [2:00] – [First question] – The notion of Great Challenges he got from his parents [3:34] – How it was instilled into him [4:26] – Default Consumptive State and constantly asking questions [5:33] – Origins of Plaid [8:57] – An overview of the Plaid product [11:10] – The early challenges of building Plaid and creating trust with all of the stakeholders [15:57] – First big break for Plaid [18:06] – Convincing Venmo to work with them [20:12] – What helped build relationships with customers [21:30] – How money is moved and their place in the chain [24:34] – How convenience helps to create larger markets and opportunities [26:39] – Usage base vs recurring revenue models [28:03] – Maintaining their systems as the landscapes and customers shift [29:56] – What is he seeing on the financial services frontier [32:34] – Building relationships with developers [35:07] – Lessons from building a business he’s learned along the way [37:44] – Successful techniques in recruiting [39:52] – What’s working well in this current landscape [41:41] – Business models that interest him [43:14] – Advice for other startup founders [44:49] – Things he doesn’t understand today that he wishes he did [45:46] – What he attributes Plaid’s success too [47:55] – Kindest thing anyone has done for him [50:09] – How you know when you’ve found a great challenge

24/12/2020

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1 h 1 min
11/02/2021

Matt Mullenweg – The Past, Present, and Future of the Internet – [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.20]

My guest today is Matt Mullenweg, co-founder and CEO of Automattic, the company on top of the open-source project WordPress that Matt helped start. Today, WordPress powers 40% of all the websites in the world. Our wide-ranging conversation covers the state of the internet when Matt first started WordPress, the symbiotic relationship between open source and proprietary projects, and how the most successful companies are really master world builders. I hope you enjoy this great conversation with Matt Mullenweg. 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. Tegus has built the most extensive primary information platform available for investors. With Tegus, you can learn everything you’d want to know about a company in an on-demand digital platform. Investors share their expert calls, allowing others to instantly access more than 10,000 calls on Affirm, Teladoc, Roblox, or almost any company of interest. All you have to do is log in. Visit tegus.co/patrick to learn more. ----- This episode is brought to you by Vanta. Vanta has built software that makes it easier to both get and maintain your SOC 2 report, at a fraction of the normal cost. Founder’s Field Guide listeners can redeem a $1k off coupon at vanta.com/patrick. ----- Founder's Field Guide is a property of Colossus Inc. For more episodes of Founder's Field Guide, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 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 Show Notes [00:03:15] – [First question] – What the internet felt like when he first started building Wordpress [00:05:11] – What was wrong with his impression of the internet then [00:06:50] – Being a connoisseur of things overlooked [00:08:34] – How permission less publishing and open source software shaped the internet [00:12:30] – Balance between centralization and decentralization and where we are in the cycle [00:14:08] – The cycle between direct-to-consumer and having intermediary [00:16:32] – New opportunities and challenges of the internet today [00:18:49] – Potential of cryptocurrency to enable big changes on the internet [00:21:22] – The idea of distributed work via the internet and the utopia of it [00:21:38] - Sam Harris podcast with Matt Mullenweg [00:24:31] – Advantage of having a team distributed across geographies and timezones [00:26:46] – What he learned from the Amazon’s API mandate [00:29:12] – Landmines of distributed work [00:31:13] – Interesting lessons learned building Wordpress [00:34:55] – Company building as world building [00:35:52] – Lessons from Microsoft on platform building [00:38:53] – Key ingredient to world building within your company [00:41:09] – Lessons from Wix and Shopify [00:42:23] – How to decide what to do next in resource and capital allocation [00:47:00] – How to engage with other stakeholders in a platform business [00:50:06] – The continued connectivity created by the internet [00:53:14] – Kindest thing anyone has done for him

11/02/2021

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58 min
28/07/2021

A Primer on Space: The Final Frontier

Today, we will be covering the endlessly fascinating market of Space. While we typically focus on an individual company for Business Breakdowns, we thought an industry primer was the best approach for this expanding market. With Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos directing so much energy to the promise of space, it is impossible not to dream about what lies ahead. To cover this endless topic, I’ll be joined by a previous guest, Tren Griffin. While Tren’s full-time job is a director at Microsoft, his experience with satellites and endless curiosity make him ideal for this conversation. We cover how our ground economy is enabled by space today, what excites him most about the space to space opportunities in the future, and how space compares to other network foundations. I hope you enjoy this great space primer with Tren Griffin. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to the best content to learn more, check out the episode page here. ----- Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 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: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss Show Notes [00:02:19] - [First question] - The current size and scope of the space economy [00:04:42] - Important historic milestones that helped us get to where we are today [00:12:33] - The varying levels of orbit and what they unlock for technology [00:19:22] - How expensive launches were and what they are now with SpaceX and Starship [00:22:08] - Overview of the Starlink project and using it to recoup infrastructural setup costs [00:27:32] - Whether or not launch will ever become more than just a commodity [00:31:01] - Different types of satellites and earth-orbiting technology [00:34:23] - Thoughts on in-space manufacturing as an emerging industry [00:35:33] - Future colonization of the moon, Mars, and humanity leaving the Earth [00:38:19] - The importance of dreaming big to inspire those around you [00:42:36] - Potential reasons why space may not become a new frontier [00:44:41] - Politics and the militarization side of open space [00:47:19] - Legalities and the need for a space treaty [00:49:41] - Whether or not humans will be living on the moon by 2035 [00:51:03] - What the benefits will be of a colony on Mars if we can establish one on the moon

28/07/2021

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55 min
04/10/2022

Scott Wilson - Non-Traditional Endowment Investing

My guest today is Scott Wilson. Scott is the CIO of Washington University’s endowment, which manages over $13 billion. In this conversation we discuss WashU’s non-traditional endowment model and cover a variety of asset classes and geographies. We talk about the qualities Scott looks for in managers, lessons from investing in Asia and emerging markets, and red flags in the venture space. Please enjoy this conversation with Scott Wilson. 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. Tegus streamlines the investment research process so you can get up to speed and find answers to critical questions on companies faster and more efficiently. The Tegus platform surfaces the hard-to-get qualitative insights, gives instant access to critical public financial data through BamSEC, and helps you set up customized expert calls. It’s all done on a single, modern Saas platform that offers 360-degree insight into any public or private company. As a listener, you can take Tegus for a free test drive by visiting tegus.co/patrick. And until 2023 every Tegus license comes with complimentary access to BamSec by Tegus. ----- Today's episode is brought to you by Brex. Brex is the integrated financial platform trusted by the world's most innovative entrepreneurs and fastest-growing companies. With Brex, you can move money fast for instant impact with high-limit corporate cards, payments, venture debt, and spend management software all in one place. Ready to accelerate your business? Learn more at brex.com/best. ----- Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. 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 Show Notes [00:02:38] - [First question] - What he learned about markets from quant fixed income trading [00:04:42] - How his experience shaped his degree of skepticism of the world [00:05:15] - The story that brought him to Grinnell College [00:06:45] - What his education was like back in 2010 and what seemed sensible and insane when he arrived [00:09:37] - His philosophy around trying to have more direct ownership [00:12:03] - Lessons learned about choosing good partners and doing it effectively over time [00:13:51] - Things that are most enjoyable about getting to know new managers [00:16:17] - Why they spend so much time in frontier and emerging markets [00:18:21] - Lessons learned from investing in China and thoughts on it today [00:23:16] - The worst things he sees from venture investors [00:24:39] - Whether or not venture investors should care more [00:27:55] - What percentage of investors in private equity are investors versus just involved to try and engineer returns [00:28:59] - His impressions on hedge funds and the evolution of the hedge fund model [00:31:18] - The role that credit can play in a portfolio like the one he manages now [00:36:34] - Everything he’s learned about asset managers acting as asset gatherers [00:39:35] - Ways he fights convergence and tracking error overseeing so much capital [00:41:49] - What it’s like to go through the bad side of tracking error [00:45:43] - What he sees as a normal level of tracking error for endowments and foundations [00:46:59] - Why such big pools of institutional capital tend to look so similar [00:48:10] - Whether or not real estate sits somewhere between stocks and bonds [00:51:10] - Colliding managers in a fun and spirited way at meetings [00:52:16] - An investing trip from his career that he finds most memorable [00:52:50] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him

04/10/2022

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59 min

Definitive conversations on business and investing. Learn ideas, frameworks, and strategies from the world's best investors and operators.

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Colossus

Meilleures émissions

Moderna: The Software of Life

Kanyi Maqubela - Dawn of the 21st Century

Welcome to Business Breakdowns

Elad Gil – How to Identify Interesting Markets

Welcome to 50X

Laura Behrens Wu - When Digital and Physical Worlds Converge - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.5]

Zach Perret – The Future of Financial Services – [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.13]

Matt Mullenweg – The Past, Present, and Future of the Internet – [Founder’s Field Guide, EP.20]

A Primer on Space: The Final Frontier

Scott Wilson - Non-Traditional Endowment Investing

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