In this episode of the Leadership Quotient Podcast, Deborah Magid, Co-Founder and Managing Director at NextStar Venture Partners, shares why leadership is ultimately defined by the opportunities you create for other people—and why trust sits at the center of both numbers and relationships. Drawing on her path from GE to IBM’s corporate venture world and into building a new fund, Deborah explains how her background in cognitive psychology shapes how she evaluates founders: not just on experience, but on how they engage, build credibility, and influence others across an ecosystem. Deborah and Lindsay explore why remote investing makes team assessment harder, how great leaders avoid micromanagement by distributing ownership and responsibility, and why many early-stage teams stall by chasing too many opportunities at once. They also discuss what founders need to understand about enterprise selling, how to use networks and external validation to drive focus, and why “AI dust” is the new “blockchain dust” in startup storytelling. The conversation closes with Deborah’s view of the next wave of value creation: investing in the physical world—energy, healthcare, agriculture, and other real-world systems—where enduring moats are built through trust, community, and impact.
