EP 52 – The Awesome Founder Inspiration Session #5 with Gerrit McGowan & Dries Faems
Episode Stream
Biography
Episode 52 features the fifth edition of the Awesome Founder Inspiration Session with Gerrit McGowan & Dries Faems in which they share what makes them think, learn, and laugh.
This week they touch on some of these thought-provoking topics:
– Post-money valuations of unicorns
– Elon Musk’s opinions about geopolitical problems – is there an economic calculation behind it?
– What are two of the most exciting high-tech companies?
– Why does Adam Neumann, founder of wework, still get money
– The possible explanations ad implications of “quiet quitting”
– Body odor & chocolate bunnies
We hope you enjoy the show!
References
Something that made you learn
Dries
Squaring venture capital valuations with reality Will Gornall Ilya A. Strebulaev Journal of Financial Economics 135 (2020) 120–143
Gerrit
Elon Musk: ‘Aren’t you entertained?’
https://www.ft.com/content/5ef14997-982e-4f03-8548-b5d67202623a
Tesla hits China sales record as Beijing praises Musk’s Taiwan proposal
https://www.ft.com/content/5be43694-0f72-4e6a-9264-6856e458fe6b
Speculation over Tesla’s possible return to TSMC for advanced self-driving chips
https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20221003PD202/automotive-ic-autonomous-driving-tesla-tsmc.html
TSMC (SE 9, EP 3)
https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/tsmc
Something that made you think
Dries
Interview with Adam Neumann in November 2021 for the Dealbook Online Summit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgp-CM-gQik&t=4s
Gerrit
The economics behind ‘quiet quitting’ — and what we should call it instead
Something that made you laugh
Dries
Sniffing Out New Friends: Similarity in Body-Odor Predicts the Quality of Same-Sex Non-Romantic Dyadic Interactions. Inbal Ravreby, Kobi Snitz, Noam Sobel; Science Advances 2022 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.14.448352v1.full.pdf
Gerrit
Lidl told to destroy gold chocolate bunnies after it loses copyright case with Lindt
Chapters:
(1:01) Introduction to the episode
(2:49) Something that made Dries learn – Post money valuation of unicorn
(08:20) The findings of the paper
(10:05) Gerrit’s take on arbitrary startup valuations & founder’s perspective on this issue
(14:23) The danger when funds overvalue private startups & addressing governance issues of startup investing
(18:02) Something that made Gerrit learn – Elon Musk’s erratic stances on geopolitical issues
(25:07) Discussing the semiconductor companies TSMC & ASML
(35:37) Something that made Dries think – Exploring diverging entrepreneurial cultures in the case of Adam Neumann
(45:57) Something that made Gerrit think – The trend of quiet quitting of Gen Z
(50:49) Quiet quitting as a form of economic optimization?
(56:42) Something that made Dries laugh – Similarity in body odor at its effect on friendships
(1:03:57) Something that made Gerrit laugh – The case of Lidl’s chocolate bunnies