Giant Ventures

Today we bring you an incredible conversation with Ray Dalio, founder of the largest hedge fund in the world, Bridgewater Associates, and one of the world's most successful investors, who joins us on the Giant Ideas podcast. Ray Dalio started Bridgewater from a two bedroom apartment and has turned it into the largest hedge fund in the world, one of the US’ most important companies, with Ray himself listed on Time Magazine's Most Influential People. Ray is also a best selling author - he has written his book Principles (sharing his unconventional principles that he's developed), as well as Principles for Dealing With the Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed or Fail on the five big forces changing the world. Ray joined the Giant Ideas podcast to talk with Cameron McLain about his past and what the future will look like, from: - How he writes his principles and how often he updates them - What he believes will happen in the next 10 years  - Why he believes failure is such an important experience - Why he believes meditation leads to emotional equanimity  - Whether the largest institutional investors want to invest in climate (spoiler: they do, they just need returns) - Why he is exploring the depths of the ocean + so much more! Do you like or loathe his principles? Have you got your own principles? Links to listen in the comments.

If you're a founder who wants to start a purpose-driven business, or a founder who has recently started one, you'll find this list from ClimateHack useful. Laura Hodgkiss has put together an excellent list, featuring 35 investors, sharing the impact startups they'd like to see more of. Madelene Larsson, Principal at Giant Ventures, shared her picks: from datacenter decarbonization, to enhanced metal parts for for Climate Solutions, to climate resilient agriculture. See the full list via comments. If you're building anything in this space - get in touch via our website!

How does your company see failure? Is it something to celebrate or something to avoid at all costs? Eric Liaw - General Partner at IVP and Supercell lead investor, told us that at Supercell celebrating failure was part of the culture. Their primary goal was building great games, and failure was not considered something to be ashamed of or avoid, it was seen as a necessity on the path to success and was celebrated. Read more of what Eric says the best CEOs and cultures do here: https://lnkd.in/e9fpe56j

I loved speaking on the closing panel, "Over the Horizon," at Sifted Summit last Friday - moderated by John Thornhill and joined by the awesome Marie Ekeland (2050), Avid Larizadeh Duggan OBE (Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan), and Steffen Tjerrild (Synthesia). Together, we discussed what's next: why there will likely be a few LLMs that dominate, how healthcare is undergoing a Cambrian explosion, and why we still believe you can make money by solving the biggest challenges - from climate to health. Thank you, Sifted, for having me!

Join us on 11 November at LSE, for the the first public event the school has ever done on entrepreneurship. LSE's ecosystem has produced 27 unicorns, on a par with MIT and Harvard. Speaking in November will be some of the most notable The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) alumni founders and investors: - Hayden Wood, founder of Beams, Bulb and Venture Partner at Giant - Julia Salasky, CEO at Legl - Tommy Stadlen, Co-founder and General Partner at Giant - Adam French, Partner at Antler The evening will be chaired by Hannah Leach, partner at Houghton Street Ventures, and introduced by LSE President Larry Kramer. In this first-of-its-kind event, we will share experiences and insights of building, scaling and funding businesses in today’s environment. All are welcome - aspiring founders, current founders, investors or those simply keen to learn more about entrepreneurship and venture capital. And it's free! Sign up below: https://lnkd.in/eUeK2wfR

Congratulations to the 'Godfather of AI' Geoffrey Hinton, founding advisor to Giant’s portfolio company CuspAI, who has been awarded the Nobel Physics Prize, alongside John Hopfield, for his work in machine learning. Geoffrey's work includes improving climate modelling, development of solar cells, and analysis of medical images - and his research paved the way for systems like ChatGPT. Geoffrey is also part of the founding group behind Cusp, a Cambridge-based Giant portfolio company which uses AI to design new, more efficient materials in a bid to help tackle climate change. They’re on a mission to develop materials for use in carbon capture, a critical technology for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. 📸 Photograph via The Irish Times.

How do the best CEOs hire, fire and lead? Eric Liaw is General Partner at IVP - one of Silicon Valley's oldest and best-regarded firms, having backed 400 companies, with an astonishing 130 IPOs. Earlier this year, Eric had breakfast with our portfolio CEOs to share what he has seen and learnt over 13 years - from CEOs of the investments he led in GitHub, RobinHood, Klarna, MasterClass, Supercell, UiPath, WHOOP, and more. He clearly knows what a category-defining company looks like and what it takes to build one and here he shares some of his lessons -- from building a culture around values, to not hiring yourself, the danger of micromanaging, and what to do when it might be time to let a co-founder go. Read the key lessons below on our blog: https://lnkd.in/e9fpe56j

What makes a good leader, and what makes a good mentor? We asked Michael Lynton, one of America’s leading CEOs. Michael was CEO of Time Warner's AOL Europe, CEO of Penguin Group, and most notably led Sony Entertainment as CEO during a period of great success - and unprecedented challenge, faced with North Korean hackers releasing private emails and unreleased films. Michael is also arguably one of the most successful startup *mentors* of all time, discovering and nurturing a young Evan Spiegel - the founder of Snapchat, now Snap Inc. - and eventually becoming Chairman of Snap, now one of the world’s largest social media platforms. In this episode, you find out from Michael what truly great mentorship looks like, what you should look for in a mentor and how this changes as you scale, and what matters most when becoming a great leader. Listen via link in comments!

"Most of our users, before they meet us, will live some sort of a life where they wake up every morning, they go and they run the experiment, and that experiment generates a ton of data...and for the most part, they'll be next to no automated handling of that data." 🤯 Yes, bioreactors generate tons of data – but it doesn't need to take 20+ hours to move, clean, and contextualize that data after each run. In more extreme cases, this process can be super manual and take over 100 hours. If this sounds familiar, check out Invert. We automate all of the messy data-handling parts so you can skip straight to analysis. Big thanks to CorrDyn for featuring us on their Data in Biotech podcast, released today!

There is a new symbiotic relationship forming between AI, Big Tech, and Energy. The AI boom, propelled forward by Big Tech, has catalysed sizeable data centre build-out, driving up the demand for energy. To meet the energy demand, tech companies such as Meta, Amazon and Google, are looking to find new and inexpensive ways to power it. Plus, AI itself - while consuming lots of power - is also powering climate solutions, such a AI-driven predictive analytics for energy storage, or essential infrastructure asset planning and maintenance. The connected relationship is rapidly expanding - and will define the sustainability of this AI wave. In this piece Cameron McLain explores what's happening so far and what could happen next: https://lnkd.in/ghbe328V