Shows
Learnings from Leaders: the P&G Alumni PodcastBrynne Thompson: Learning in an Era of Smartphones“Systems really matter — we can play with the media instead of it playing us. I don't want to be used by a system that gets in the way of real learning and insight — this is more of a survival issue than we think.”
Brynne Thompson is an investor, advisor, and all-around brilliant - and thoughtful - person who helps startup founders and institutional investors figure out where the future is heading. Brynne is the founder of Respire Enterprises, and former partner of Coburn Ventures. Brynne supports and invests in startups built for the next generation of stewardship, climate...2025-01-261h 04
Coburn Ventures Podcast#200! The Four Jobs of Stock Picking with Pip Coburn and Brynne ThompsonWhat's one way to become the world's greatest investor? Break investing down into its component parts, understand very specifically our roles and responsibilities, and then puruse the elements to great really, really good at. Today we bring you our working definition of the component parts of investing: the four jobs of stock picking. For the 200th (!) time, let's jump in!2024-09-1918 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#185: The Athletic Moment for Practical Times in Investing with Dr. Morris Pickens, Pip Coburn, Brynne ThompsonWe seem to be in a time in which the pressure is on. In high pressure times, "practical" solutions that no one can argue with often rise to the top. This is useful to an extent, but it can also result in becoming tight, and small, and this is out of step with our job descriptions, which presume some ability to generate uncommon investable insights.
Today we’re pulling up a piece from our library with Dr. Morris Pickens, who describes determining what your “athletic moment” may be, in order to build a routine that is consistent and su...2024-04-2531 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#120: Decision Making Biases -- Part 2 with Brynne Thompson and Pip CoburnToday we’re back on the topic of decision-making biases. We will go through three more of the most common: representativeness error, search satisfaction and commission bias. Before we jump in, I’m going to do a brief explanation of each one, so that it's easier to listen to the rest of our conversation, you’ll have the definitions in mind. Also, a point of context I've been thinking about...if we jump into examining our biases before we have a bit of experience under our belt, it might cause a low-grade analysis paralysis! For our newer investors, please do lis...2022-10-2723 min
Coburn Ventures Podcast#113: The Competition for Capital with Pip Coburn and Brynne Thompson: Investment Process #1 of 5.This is part one of a five part series on investment process. We’ll walk through a few tools and concepts that we hope might spark ideas or tweaks or even affirmations for your own investment process, and then we get to sit down with some friends for additional conversation. Thanks for listening.
One of the most energizing moments as an investor seems to be when we discover insightful, sometimes one or two-degree changes that open up those amazing, uncorrelated insights that make the whole decision-making and portfolio management process seem clear.
With that in min...2022-09-0824 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#101: The Housefly Formula for Making Effective Change: Pip Coburn and Brynne ThompsonA few years ago we were doing some active consulting work with a handful of amazing not for profits. This work was so interesting and so valuable for all the reasons you can imagine: applying skillsets honed in investing that actually help real people with real problems, getting to know a whole host of new brilliant people from other sectors, but also, because, standing in these two worlds, one foot in one, one foot in the other, revealed greatly where the thinking in their industry overpronated on intentionality and goodwill, at times, and when the thinking and m.o...2022-06-0215 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#99: The Shift in Selling: Using Five Stages to Determine Efficacy - Pip Coburn and Brynne ThompsonSelling gets a bad rap, but we’re here to talk about it today because I really feel it's an underestimated power for investors for their toolkit AND an underestimated shift in society. For investors, this tool is a double whammy of personal efficacy and investor foresight!
On the first topic: understanding selling gives you a better antenna to determine signal from noise. More on that in the conversation.
On the second, how selling happens and why it is or is not effective is changing dramatically, which means revenue visibility, and retention and long term cas...2022-05-1924 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#92: JP Rangaswami on the Progression of Digital Transformation and the Barriers in Plain SightLast week Tim Mattison helped us understand the different levels or phases an organization might go through as they experience digital transformation. Now, JP Rangaswami is going to help us understand the larger context that is required to assess whether any technology is about to be a major part of digital transformation or a real head fake.
JP reminds us that digital transformation is not about the technology being ready, but also whether less talked about factors like social norms and legal infrastructure will act as barriers or tailwinds.2022-03-2431 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#91: Tim Mattison: Five Levels of Digital TransformationLast week we introduced our series on digital transformation. Now that we have some context on its importance for investors, let's get some inputs from our friends who are practitioners and decision-makers with regard to technology inside organizations. Today we are happy to have Tim Mattison, an active practitioner of all things digital transformation at AWS, the company that first showed many of us what digital transformation is going to look like. (You will see he is representing his own, general ideas here, including a few on parenting, and not those of his company.) He will offer up his...2022-03-1736 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#90: Digital Transformation: You Can't See It to Believe It with Pip Coburn and Brynne ThompsonWelcome to our series on digital transformation. We are in a period in which every product or service we touch has already been defined in some digital way: each grain of wheat, each picture on our phone, each manicure, each life insurance policy has a digital marker, trail, story, or a digital facilitator.
"Digital transformation" can become a statement of the obvious, of the time and space we live in....except we don't see or experience many of these digital markers. We don't feel them so much, we don't sense them, all the way, really. Digital doesn't...2022-03-1015 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#89: Handling Periods of Heightened Uncertainty with Matt WallaertIn times of heightened uncertainty, what can we do to prepare for and handle the uncertainty rather than be tossed around by it? Is there anything we can adjust so that we can do our jobs well in these times?
Today we are speaking with behavioral scientist Matt Wallaert on this exact topic.
Matt will help us zoom out today and understand what the experience heightened uncertainty looks like from a behavioral perspective - it's not just the obvious looks of overwhelm or the on-edge feeling of anxiety – and we will discuss how it shows up i...2022-03-0326 minCoburn Ventures Podcast# 88: Finding Glimpses of the Future of Work - Jorgen Van der Sloot interviews Pip Coburn and Brynne ThompsonToday we flip the script as our friend and collaborator Jorgen Van der Sloot decides he wants to hear more about some of Coburn Ventures work on process and collaboration: what we do to help organizations go through change or make change last, and what is the difference between a community and a network that might hint at the future of work and collaboration for many businesses. By talking through the genesis of Coburn Ventures work on process and gatherings, you'll hear threads that are more universal and hint at the escalating need for investors and all types of b...2022-02-2440 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#87: What is Change Investing? Actually, What Is Change?!At Coburn Ventures, the investment philosophy and process grew out of change investing. But to understand change investing, we might want to understand change.
One of the first steps of change investing is a simple recognition of how much we subconsciously anchor to what's going on today staying the same, whereas, in reality, change is happening all around us, all the time, in ways that we do and do not immediately recognize or want to recognize. We can really use change frameworks and pattern recognition to better understand what shifts are going on that we want to...2022-02-1724 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#86: Exploring Inflation and Macro-economic Dynamics with Mike CahillToday’s conversation is with Mike Cahill, a longtime friend, and investor who has been so kind to walk through his thinking on the market, especially as it relates to the very important topic of inflation.
The debate about whether inflation will be transitory or structural has been in our ear a lot lately, but it has not always been very helpful, as pundits ping pong around recent data rather than getting underneath the surface to examine the longer term forces at play.
This is where Mike comes in. His framing is clear, succinct, and understandable, and will help all of u...2022-02-1030 minCoburn Ventures Podcast# 85: De-Professionalizing Valuation. The Dark Side of the Moon Part V.Today, our last topic in our series on The Dark Side of the Moon is "de-professionalizing" valuation.
What on earth would we mean by de-professionalizing investment work on valuation?
Isn’t "professional" investment what holds up our trust in great money management?
We will get into that and much more. Let’s figure out together how some professional elements of investing may or may not be serving us well.
I hope you enjoy it.2022-02-0328 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#84: Exploring Excessive Value with Scott Booth. The Dark Side of the Moon Part IV.Today in our series the Dark Side of the Moon, we are exploring value, and in particular, what to do with stocks that are perceived to be excessively valued. There are so many that fit this category and have fit this category for years now.
As business models have changed with connectivity, networks, and the information age, there are more businesses that defy laws we thought applied to every business, laws like diminishing returns. But, professionally, we prefer to rely on concepts and measurements that we feel are certain, or at least proven, somehow. We don't want...2022-01-2731 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#83: Sell Disciplines. The Dark Side of the Moon Part III.In reviewing our investment process, it can be helpful to look for where we get trapped, where we feel on our heels in scenarios we didn’t anticipate and feel forced into making a decision on selling. Sell discipline is one of the areas ripe for costly errors, so let’s dig into it today and see if we can’t find a few incremental steps to take to possibly circumvent more of these situations.
This is part of a series we are calling The Dark Side of the Moon: the elements of the investment process we don’t a...2022-01-2023 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#82: Red-Flagging with Steve Salopek. The Dark Side of the Moon Part II.Today we’re with Steve Salopek, small-cap and tech fund manager turned University Professor at THE Ohio State University. We’re here to explore how we can better approach thesis threats, discussions, and investigations into what can and will go wrong with a thesis or a stock position.
Pip starts us off with some ideas for methods and then Steve will tell us more about building red-flagging right into their process, so that it seeped into the foundation, saving them valuable time and pain.
Stay tuned to how Steve’s techniques in his second career as a p...2022-01-1335 minCoburn Ventures Podcast# 81: What is Risk? The Dark Side of the Moon, Part I.Sometimes our most valuable work is done when we review that which we think we know for sure.
So to start off this new year, we have a short but potentially really important conversation on one of the most fundamental concepts in our work: risk. What is it, fundamentally, and what are we doing to incorporate risk that is worthwhile, and what are we doing that may be wasteful?
Let’s jump in.
This is part of a series called The Dark Side of the Moon: the elements of process we don’t alway...2022-01-0613 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#80: Abundance and Scarcity with Amber GentryAs we close out 2021, we wanted to offer a topic that is both interesting and supportive of year-end introspection and is also thought-provoking beyond investing as many of us step away from work over the holiday.
We’re talking about the difference between scarcity and abundance. To help us explore the concept, our conversation today includes Amber Gentry, a nutritional psychologist. I think you see how this clearly compliments the discussion. If you haven’t read Amber’s piece on scarcity and abundance, please reach out and we’ll get it to you. I hope you enjoy it.2021-12-2338 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#79: Collective Consciousness and Leadership with Pip and BrynneIn the last in our series on Leadership, Pip and I apply the concept of collective consciousness to leadership and especially, our new workplaces and habits of work. The upshot? The more collectiveness consciousness an organization has, the more options the organization has.
As workplaces are now “blended” between offices and home and other spaces, it might be helpful to step back and consider the level of collective consciousness on your team, as much as you can assess it from the inside. We explain this much more in the conversation, which I hope you'll find useful. Though it was...2021-12-1620 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#78: How is Value Added to a Company? On Leadership with Jennifer SalopekHow is it that value is actually added to a company? We sometimes assume we have the playbook to answer a question like that, and, well, for many of us this is the goal of our jobs as investors or leaders.
But of course, like everything, it's quite dynamic.
In this deep dive on leadership with Jennifer Salopek, we explore “value” much more...what might be next beyond the pyramid structure of business organizations, what the new career goals may be, and how they would be facilitated and managed to create lasting value.
We als...2021-12-0939 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#77: Leadership Meets Work Spaces and Places with Matthias Hollwich of HWKNMatthias Hollwich, founder of the architecture firm HWKN, is back with us today to offer another perspective in this series in our podcast on leadership.
Now, Matthias lives at the intersection of the future of work and leadership and he does this with his toolset of architecture and design. So his perspective lives a few years ahead of us, because by nature, he is designing buildings and spaces that take time to come to fruition and must serve future needs and future generations. Let’s hear more of what the future may hold.2021-12-0233 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#76: Gratitude Meets Process with the G30 GroupIt's Thanksgiving today in the United States, so this is a special edition of our Coburn Ventures Podcast, which will also be an inaugural edition of a new monthly series over at the Change Makers podcast coming in 2022. That podcast is for the Coburn Ventures Community for Change and the over 300 members who contribute to that community.
In this special edition, we knew we wanted to present some kind of take on gratitude. And we noticed that conversations about gratitude today circle around habits and practices...cute little books and journals to remind oneself to be grateful… and...2021-11-2525 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#75: What Does It Mean to be Mis-Aged as a Leader? Pip and BrynneAs a midpoint in our series on leadership, we are dropping in a short but simple concept that I think could be valuable just because it's a valid candidate for a real blind spot for us, the lens we see through as investors and business leaders, and for the management teams we interface with and depend on to have a strategy that syncs up with reality. So, this podcast is about growing our awareness and being able to see things we may have been missing, by learning about this concept of being mis-aged. Let's jump in.2021-11-1821 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#74: On Leadership with Lisa BairdToday we kickoff a series on leadership, and what better way to do that than to visit with Lisa Baird, our friend and leader of Heidrick & Struggles Global Human Resources Practice.
We dive right in, and start with hiring: What are corporations looking for in their leadership and more importantly, why? What attributes are required to meet the moment?
We end with Lisa's own questions for management that she uses for assessments and interviews, so stay tuned for that. Let’s jump in.2021-11-1129 minCoburn Ventures Podcast**SPECIAL: Prep Podcast for the November 16th "Living in the Year 2030 Through a Lens of Business and Investing" Participants**For our November 16th participants, we offer a quick and jaunty orientation to the day, including what we aim to accomplish with such a seemingly big topic, some thoughts on organizing yourself in the moment to find what's valuable for you in the space, and tips on using the silent time to bring home both important insights and practical steps in the midst of expansive thinking. See you Tuesday!2021-11-0812 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#73: Identifying Brands for Long Term Success with Veta BatesWhat does it take to identify a company that is a true guardian of an increasingly valuable, durable brand?
Now that we have learned more about brand character with Veta, we will focus on assessing if the company is actually acting consistently with brand character as one of the key ways to preserve and build brand value. If we, as investors, are going to purport that a company has “a great brand” or a brand that translates to an intangible asset, I think we will benefit from understanding how Veta builds brand character as a key to gener...2021-11-0418 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#72: What Makes a Brand Durable with Veta BatesToday we get to dive in on the topic of brand with a day-to-day practitioner, advisor, and creator of brand value, Veta Bates.
Veta gives real-life examples of products and then helpfully pairs them with analysis behind what each company is doing with their brand development that is or isn’t adding value.
As we start, Veta is recounting a conversation she and Gavin Ivester had about a very specific yet-to-be-named product. We start there because it takes us right to the heart of how product design and brand character can come together for powerful effec...2021-10-2826 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#71: Values-based Branding with Irwin KulaAfter our intro to assessing brands, we now add a new dimension: values-based branding, that attempt that can hit or miss that aims to tightly tie brand and behavior to value signaling and an offer of being “values-aligned” with a product, service, or company.
Why does this seem to be fertile ground, and is it, really? That question is why we brought in Irwin Kula for his perspective on how we belong, believe, and matter has morphed… making these values-based offerings so easily exploitable for companies. How will this play out? Let’s jump in.2021-10-2133 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#70: Assessing Branding as Part of Competitive Advantage with Brynne and PipToday we start a new series on branding, and especially how to consider the value of brands in assessing the broader corporation and its competitive advantages. We start with one idea that I want to highlight because I think it's not the standard idea of what a brand is to a corporation: it is that the brand resides in the buyers' mind. It is NOT owned by the corporation and DEFINITELY NOT controlled by the corporation. So with that, we’ll discuss five different elements of the brand and then some questions and live examples to help with assessment.
2021-10-1420 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#69: Your G is not ESG 2.0's GThe G is in ESG, which stands for Governance, is often seen as the point of relief for our clients. It’s the part where they tell us: we know we have a lot to learn on Environment and Social, but Governance, we’ve got it. We’ve been doing that really well for a long time.
But what if the G in ESG is different from the G of the past 3-4 decades? When we step back, I don’t think anyone would think it surprising that maybe what's expected out of G today is different. Let’s ju...2021-10-0718 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#68: The Future of ESG, Now. Real-Life Examples with Jasper van Brakel of RSF Social Finance.One of our goals in this series of ESG podcasts is to take the abstract idea of ESG and bring it to life with concrete examples. There are leaders out there in both the investing world and of course, the business operators, who are defining and iterating on the standards of ESG, and we want to hear more about it.
That’s why today we’re speaking with Jasper Van Brakel, CEO of RSF Social Finance. Jasper gets to sit in the middle of business leaders, their stakeholders, and their investors, of which he is often one, and he offers us a...2021-09-3024 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#67: The Commons Meets the Birth of Money Management with Pip and BrynneToday we are talking about the history of the money management industry, and how values that were "baked in" in the 1980s when this industry really took off are dictating a lot of what we think is possible and right in the industry, and why the emergence of ESG and ESG related investment philosophies can seem so incongruent.
But to do this, to go through unearthing the founding values of an industry, we start in an interesting place, with a discussion about the concept of the commons, and how this thought-provoking piece of political theory applies to...2021-09-2335 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#66: Jags Walia on ESG Investing Philosophy and ProcesssWe are in a time in which ESG or multi-stakeholder investing, the real process of it, the real ‘how to” is actively being defined. Its defined by doing it. And though the marketers already have great tag lines out in the market and Regulators are having their say in what they want to highlight, investors will also create the market by putting their stake in the ground, by having their own process and their own philosophies.
This is why speaking with Jags today is so helpful, so inspiring, and so grounding.
Jags is really a great pi...2021-09-1642 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#65: Can Company Culture Change? What to Look For in Assessing CultureAs investors, we are outsiders, so when we hear from management that the company has an interesting opportunity in a new market or a plan to improve its market share, it can be tempting to think that company can make that strategic move effectively.
But whether or not that company can succeed is largely due to the weakness or the strength of the culture. Because here’s the important part: explicitly or implicitly, many new company goals, even those that are seemingly only product-oriented, actually require changing some part of company culture.
So, what do we...2021-09-0919 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#64: Gavin Ivester on The Future of Hyper-personalized CommunitiesWe’re back with Gavin Ivester, who we got to talk to last month about caring and what companies are asked to do to become a truly modern company. Today, we dive in on Gavin’s most recent thoughts on emerging marketplaces of a very distinct flavor: these communities are springing up organically around the world, and fix themselves around an extremely personalized or customized preference, like flying planes or youth ice hockey. What is going on here? Let’s jump in.2021-08-1914 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#63: Change Frameworks: The Mandorla with Brynne ThompsonOur thoughts and mental models determine how we see the world, so as change investors, we like to make sure we have a few different ways of seeing. It's one of the neatest things humans can do -- intelligence plus empathy = vast possibilities. We use change frameworks to do this, and today, I suppose we’re introducing a new change framework. I found this one in the work of Robert A. Johnson, so it comes from a mix of psychology and medieval religion, a combination I never thought I’d attend to as an investor, but it helped me thin...2021-08-1221 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#62: JP Rangaswami on Empowering the End NodesToday's conversation is our chance to go even further below the surface on one of our 11 Unavoidable Changes: Empowering the End Nodes. JP Rangaswami wrote the piece that grounded this idea, and we are happy to be together today to go deeper on the topic.
At about minute 15 there are a few ideas that are so striking to me that I want to call them out for you. The ideas are about engineering interactions in order to increase the data set you have… in order to then be in a position to make better decisions. I hadn’t th...2021-08-0522 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#61: 11 Unavoidable Ideas Impacting Society and Business at Every LevelThe 11 unavoidable ideas are one of the oldest components of our process. For those of you who have been around for a while, the Unavoidable Ideas are a variation of what we used to call our Node 1 Societal Shifts. These shifts were the starting point for every company we would analyze for our portfolio. At the very top of our funnel, the first filter was this question: Is this company benefiting from or negatively impacted by one of the societal changes that we’ve identified? It increased conviction from the beginning that we had a company that was in th...2021-07-2938 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#60: Internalization with Ryan OakesThere’s a big difference between believing you understand a concept and really internalizing it. If I know anything about the community surrounding Coburn Ventures, I know that we always want tools to adapt, change and learn new things in our work and life. But more than that, we don't want to create new blind spots by thinking we understand something that we really don't.
Pip and I have developed pilot projects and working groups with clients that helps embed internalization in investment process, but we’ll go deeper on those specific tools another time because today we i...2021-07-2229 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#59: ESG MisunderstandingsESG (Environment, Social and Governance) presents pressure to go from one mindset to another about what investing is and to whom all of the benefits accrue and why. A change like this leaves open a lot of opportunities for confusion, and for jumping to conclusions…both enemies of a strong and clear investment process on a high-functioning team. Today, we are aiming to bring awareness up around common misunderstandings arising with ESG. We start with misunderstandings between investors and marketers, and then between investors and... investors. I hope you enjoy it.
2021-07-1524 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#58 Jennifer Brown on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in BusinessJennifer Brown helps organizations understand what Diversity, Equity and Inclusion means in real life. What kinds of listening needs to happen, what programs work, how to go beyond the surface level… so that employees can come to work as their full selves. Jennifer acts as a guide in this sometimes rough terrain.
Today we start with some knowledge-building, and basic definitions like equity vs. equality. After that Jennifer helps us see more of what DEI looks like in an effective organization and why its so important for building trust, belonging and in that, productivity. Let’s jump in.2021-07-0837 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#57: The So-Called Summer Book ListAs I listened back to this recording, I was shaking my head most of the time. This is about the least summery summer book list that has ever been released. I mean, my best "beach read" is a study of Old New York and Pip has a recommendation that profiles families in North Korea.
That being said, the goal is to take in some new inputs this summer...and especially uncommon or unconventional inputs, and I am constantly amazed by the power of research and writing, but especially world literature, to open up new considerations, new perspectives...2021-07-0114 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#56: Mike Lee on The Future of Food , Part 2We're here for Part Two of our conversation with Mike Lee of The Future Market and Alpha Food Labs. This week we'll get deeper into a systems-level approach to understanding our current food system to have a better view of where it may be going next. We start at the layer of culture, observing how our regional preferences create regional bonds and identity, and that this is ever more present in multi-national brands aiming to plug in directly to our cultural and political identities. Finally, Mike walks us through a couple of compelling examples of why "sustainability" cannot be y...2021-06-2414 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#55: Mike Lee on The Future of Food, Part 1What's more fundamental than food? This week and next, we have two discussions with our friend Mike Lee, founder of The Future Market and Alpha Food Labs. Mike and his team help large corporations see into a future where everything from how we get our food to what it consists of, is different, and he helps young brands navigate a very established food industry. In today's conversation, Mike helps us understand why the future of food may not be what we first imagine. 2021-06-1733 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#54: The Future of Work: The Changing Role of Office SpaceToday we’re talking about getting back to the office, a topic that many of you have been bringing to us fervently over the last six months. Beyond the obvious reasons, I think you are all asking about it precisely because it is up for discussion and review, and that itself is meaningful! Additionally, I think you are sensing that the role of the traditional office for knowledge workers and more has been in the rearview mirror for a while.
And now, office as a daily necessity for the doing of work, the office as we've defined it...2021-06-1021 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#53 Gavin Ivester on Becoming a Modern Company: Design and "Caring at Scale"We’re here with Gavin Ivester, a product and brand executive with a background in industrial design. He has global experience in both tech and lifestyle products at Apple, Nike, Puma, and Bang & Olufsen. Our topic today is care. More specifically, what is it that modern companies can do to incorporate care, at scale, into their product or service experience? Let’s jump in.2021-06-0321 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#52: The Value of Play with Brynne ThompsonToday we’re talking about play and play science, inspired by the work of our friend Dr. Stuart Brown. So, why this topic, on this podcast? Well, play, may not be exactly what you think. We know how to describe play and its benefits for children but we think we leave many types of play behind when we grow up. Spoiler alert: may we don't, we just don't fully realize what play is. Play is much broader and more powerful than we give it credit for. Dr. Brown writes that in a play state, we are organizing our thoughts, an...2021-05-2731 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#51: JC Herz on The Systemic Arbitrage of RansomwareTwo weeks ago, we all learned about the Colonial Oil pipeline ransomware attack on the East Coast of the United States. It was a high profile hit, but was then followed by an odd comment from the ransomware group saying in effect, “Sorry, we didn’t mean to actually disrupt the pipeline!” in other words, we’re here to be quiet and not make too much of a problem but we are still going to steal your money.
While we know conceptually that ransomware attacks are pervasive, we called JC Herz to get her deeper and experienced perspecti...2021-05-2017 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#50: The Arbitrage Opportunity in Change InvestingToday we compliment a piece Pip is writing on formulating a valuable arbitrage in investing. For Coburn Ventures, we use change as the lens of our arbitrage, so we talk about pattern recognition as it relates to change, and how it can develop into high conviction positions. Of course, investment philosophy --such as change investing-- and process are intertwined. A potentially valuable question to have in mind while listening: which parts of your process seem most important in developing that arbitrage opportunity over the long term? Thanks for listening.2021-05-1313 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#49: Digital Transformation & What Companies Can Do To Adapt with Michael StichWhat can we do to assess where companies are positioned among the fast-moving currents of Digital Transformation? What do we mean when we say "Digital Transformation" anyway? In this conversation, Pip will give some background on why this is so important right now and then we jump in with Michael Stich, now of Court Avenue, where he helps marketers understand how to use innovation to create value for their companies and for end customers.
Michael has been on both the agency side and the client side with roles that demanded an understanding of new technologies and how t...2021-05-0634 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#48: Resiliency with Dr. Morris PickensWe are hearing the term "resilience" or "resiliency" so much this year.
Biologist Maria Souza continually reminds us that, “Without disruption, there can be no resilience.”
So we thought it worthwhile to go under the surface on this topic. Pip starts us with seven factors or attributes of resilience. It's an attempt to get more specific and granular as to what we mean by "being resilient", so that we can then use this clearer definition as a litmus test or marker to "measure" your resilience or that of your team, or to be able to reco...2021-04-2921 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#47: What the Rise and Fall of the Super League Tells Us About ESGThis week the Super League of Premier League Football was announced: a collection of the best and brightest franchises to come into their own, potentially even more profitable league. Just as quickly, the league was extinguished completely. From fan outrage to JP Morgan finding itself in the spotlight for underwriting the concept, this week has been a dramatic one for the league and football fans all over the world. We take the opportunity to zoom in on the news, as it so quickly and thoroughly collided old-world single-stakeholder thinking with new world multi-stakeholder ESG sensibilities. The Super League provides a...2021-04-2211 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#46: The History and Future of Asking QuestionsAbout 10 years ago, we started talking about “The Future and History of Asking Questions”. It was an acknowledgment of the exponential growth of our ability to ask questions *and receive answers about them*. We are seeing so many derivatives off of this phenomenon. One of those derivatives that we’ll talk about today is that as the expectation increased that we can ask just about any question and get a reasonable answer, we take that into all areas of our life. What used to be seen as “demanding” is now normal, what used to be seen as table stakes for great...2021-04-1520 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#45: Zak Dychtwald on Young ChinaToday we have Zak Dychtwald, Founder of Young China Group, joining us to help us understand the global young consumer and specifically, all the ways we may be misunderstanding the global consumer with regard to "Young China".
Zak wanted to know what the future held, he found himself living in China. With that experience and his lens on demographics, he has become a bridge for decision-makers, many in the western world, to understand the rapid pace of change in China. Zak will walk us through a framework to reveal more of what we may not be fully u...2021-04-0831 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#44: Investment Process -- The Pre-Determined Game PlanJoseph Tainter said, “Complexity is the cumulative effect of reactionary decision making”. Well, we can do better than that, can't we? The investment process is the specific domain we use to reduce complexity and improve decision-making, and through our deep work over the years, we created the pre-determined game plan as our tool to get centered and focused on what we believe are the most relevant needs of the investment case.
Like all of our tools, it's meant to be customized, so if you listen for the high-level abstract points, you’re likely to find a few elemen...2021-04-0122 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#43: The Four Stages of Data Development with JP RangaswamiIn this conversation, JP Rangaswami is going to help us slow down our thinking, breaking apart our tendency to literally jump to conclusions. He’s going to talk about the four stages of data development. So that you have a bit of background before we start, here they are:
Observation: What just happened?
Diagnosis: Why did it happen?
Prediction: What’s going to happen next?
Prescription: What should I do about it?
JP has some great examples to illustrate these four stages in real-world decision-making. Just listening to this conversation helped me heighten my awareness of when I confla...2021-03-2525 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#42: Investment Process -- Thesis StatementsThe thesis statement, in the context of investing, is our best effort to create a testable hypothesis. Of course, it is not a scientific process, but we can surely borrow from the discipline of science to create a richer process!
If you find sometimes that your work is voluminous but unfocused, or the communication on your team or with outside parties is muddy and you can’t figure out why, then the process of forming and re-working a thesis statement can be a good place to start.
In this episode we will go into the pro...2021-03-1824 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#41: ESG Process -- Profit and Purpose with Omar Shaikh of the Global Ethical Finance Initiative and David KimToday we are discussing Profit and Purpose with Omar Shaikh, co-founder of the Global Ethical Finance Initiative. We asked David Kim, who many of you know, to join as well, because this topic can’t be torn apart from philosophical underpinnings of commerce, business, history, and law, and David has such a strong ability to put big concepts into context. This is such an interesting discussion that I hope will be absorbed into how you are currently crafting your ESG process, or even more clearly defining a few things that you learned in business school that are "just not so".
I...2021-03-1146 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#40: Tactics Masquerading as Strategy and The End of Porter's Five ForcesToday we are examining business strategy, and especially, strategies that are weak, becoming "Tactics Masquerading as Strategy". And then, we tie that to a key philosophical underpinning of many business strategies that we may be adapting away from: Porter's Five Forces. This is a philosophy that fits very well with the last four decades. It would be a largely successful framework to start strategic thinking… but just as we want to be able to identify when a strategy is really just a reduction into tactics, we want to be able to understand the underlying building blocks philosophy a strategy rest...2021-03-0414 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#39: Polly Labarre on The Future of WorkPolly Labarre is an author, thinker, collaborator, and journalist. I first met her through Pip as she was working on her book Mavericks at Work, which is a fascinating look into the most original minds in business. You may know her as a co-Founder of Fast Company. Any of you who enjoyed our very first Sundance Gathering know her as the first to utter "you are the program", an ethos of creativity and contribution that is inherent in almost all of our work at Coburn Ventures.
Polly's special ability lies in examining what’s happening at the edg...2021-02-2535 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#38: The Four Jobs of Stock Picking -- Analysts & Portfolio ManagersWe are often asked to help teams in some way refine their communications, especially so that they can get better idea flow between the analysts and the portfolio manager.
So Pip stepped back to see if he could better define each role required in investing. You could probably break this down further, or differently, but here are the four jobs of stock picking.
Business Analysis
Security Analysis
Market Psychology
Portfolio Analysis
So who does what? We’ll walk you through, in hopes that communicating around these four “jobs” might help analysts and PMs get clearer on how...2021-02-1818 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#37: The Reinvention of Real Estate Part 2 of 2 with Matthias Hollwich, Glenn Lowenstein and Jennifer SalopekWe promised to pick up where we left off from last week's Episode #1 on the Reinvention of Real Estate. If you remember we have three guests for this conversation, from different but highly related disciplines in real estate: we have real estate investor Glenn Lowenstein, Matthias Hollwich, co-founder and principal of architecture firm HWKN, and Jennifer Salopek, advisor to major retailers on navigating change.
In this episode, we go deeper into the transformation happening with mixed-use real estate. If you remember the great perspective from Matthias in Part 1, that after this year of massive pressure and change w...2021-02-1122 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#36: The Reinvention of Real Estate Part 1 of 2 with Matthias Hollwich, Glenn Lowenstein and Jennifer SalopekWe are bringing you a big topic today, so big that it matters to every corner of our lives and our economy: real estate. We’re interested in what is changing, at what pace, and why. To think through such a vast topic, we are bringing in three friends with three very different but complementary vantage points.
We have Glenn Lowenstein, a real estate investor who has a very holistic approach to looking at the markets he invests in. We have Jennifer Salopek, who knows the business of retail at a large scale, and has served on Boards of large na...2021-02-0430 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#35: What Do We Do With High Valuation Stocks and Markets?What do we do when valuations of stocks and markets become so high as to defy our most careful assessment of the value of the business and its future cash flows?
Today we are going to present some options for layering in a process or method to use during these times. Our purpose here is to provide a few ways to help you think about addressing the question directly, especially since valuation is one of the most potent triggers to take our conversation into the world of the abstract, to launch us directly into the mess of our own investment b...2021-01-2822 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#34: Questions for Management, Part 1: John DillonToday we are happy to spend time with John Dillon, longtime CEO of private and public companies, currently at data company Aerospike. We often turn to John for reality checks: what’s it really like running a company from hiring the right head of sales to meeting with investors? Today we zoom in on the shareholder-executive relationship, and ask John what questions he would ask a CEO if he were in our position. John offers a number of illuminating questions but one of my favorite parts of this conversation, besides the great stories, is when John starts to unearth a ma...2021-01-2141 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#33: Questions for Management, Part 2: Inducing Uncommon InputsPart of our job as investors is to find or design uncommon inputs that will lead to uncommon investable insights. One of the important inputs is how we spend our conversations with management teams. At Coburn Ventures we focus so much on designing questions for management because it can meaningfully alter the probability that we will walk away with something insightful to act on. Now you'll hear a bit more about that process, and a few methods you might like to use too.2021-01-1424 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#32: Implementing ESG Process - Top 10 Greatest HitsESG, or Environment, Social and Governance regarding sustainability, was thought of as an add-on to an investment thesis 5 or 10 years ago. But the world is arriving at the doorstep of ESG investors. Its more than an add on, it is a base layer, a foundational component of investment philosophy. And its rare that we get to take part in forming such a crucial component of investment philosophy. For teams that take on what ESG means to their particular process and philosophy, they may find themselves with a more rounded out look at a company, a more enhanced view of risk...2021-01-0716 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#31: Community in Business with Peter Espersen and Darren HermanToday we’re talking about community and business, and we have with us two business leaders who know loads about this topic: Peter Espersen and Darren Herman. Their experience on the topic runs deep, and both have extensive entrepreneurial experience, but they each have past roles that will help you connect to them - perhaps putting together that you have met them previously at one of our gatherings - and see why we immediately thought of these two for our conversation: Peter Espersen was Global Head of Crowd Sourcing and Online Innovation at Lego, and Darren for his role as...2020-12-1740 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#30: 10 Practical Ways to Increase Conviction While Saving TimeToday, we present just a few of the ideas related to process that we know have helped our team find leverage in what we thought were unmovable parts of the investment process. Some of these changes will sound rudimentary at the onset. I challenge you to listen to these ideas with a "students mind", reviewing your process, how your team works and maybe, just maybe you will find one or two ideas in here that you’ll venture out and explore to increase conviction while saving time. Who knows what will happen?2020-12-1023 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#29: Elliot Noss on the Future of WorkElliot Noss, CEO of internet company Tucows for just about 25 years, starts us off with a simple but reverberating statement: “the fundamental compact between employer and employee has changed”. There are so many related mutations of work, as he calls them, to consider. A few up shots that don’t do this conversation justice: Changes that will stick have cultural principles that were already underlying, and people, culture and mission are still the critical focus. Let’s hear more.2020-12-0326 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#28: Decision Making: Job, Vocation, WastePicture a pie chart of your work week: what percent is your job, your vocation, or total waste? Let’s use this model to uncover possible changes in process and decision making.2020-11-1922 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#27 Greg Parsons on The Future of WorkAs more of our work life is digitized, we do know now, or we will know the how, when, why and where of work... where we work best, with whom and for what purpose. But there is so much to understand and experience before we can know what that means for industries across many sectors. Let’s dig in with Greg Parsons.2020-11-1226 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#26: Growth vs. ValueGrowth and value are simply boxes we put around two giant categories. It’s helpful for marketing purposes, and for investment process. So what gives? Well, we have been in a period of disequilibrium for over 25 years, and that disequilibrium has skewed massively to growth. Let’s dig in on what this means for process.2020-11-0519 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#25 Irwin Kula: “The Mainstream Study of the Mind”The “study of the mind” is now mainstream, but why is this important, and how far ahead are corporations and advertisers?2020-10-2919 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#24 Investment Process: “Student Mindedness”This student mindedness conversation will help us take a step back, exploring an attitude or approach that can be highly personalized. But what is it? What does it look like in active practice? Pip and Brynne discuss what it is snd why it comes up so often so that you can identify what elements might be helpful to your process.2020-10-2222 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#23 Maria Souza Part 2: “Complex Systems and Internal Feedback Loops — Finding your Lynchpins”We continue with biologist Maria Souza on complex systems. In Part 1 we discussed resilience as a key property of complex systems. Now we examine the role of internal feedback loops in resilience and how to identify the lynchpins that could help change your system.2020-10-1525 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#22 Maria Souza Part 1: “Complex Systems and Resiliency”Biologist Maria Souza introduces us to the core properties of complex systems: how to identify a resilient system, and how understanding the property of resiliency — which is neither good nor bad in and of itself — can help us identify effective cultures.2020-10-0824 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#21 Tools to Study Change # 5: “Stewart Brand’s Pace Layering Model”An introduction into Stewart Brand’s pace layering model, from his work The Clock of the Long Now. Movement in this model leads to vast destruction or creation of market cap. We talk through how we identify where companies sit in the model, and when and why there might be movement.2020-10-0116 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#20 Matt Wallaert: “Identity and Behavior Change”Social psychologist Matt Wallaert offers his thinking on why identity is the most powerful force for behavior change, and how to be aware of it and use it to make better decisions.2020-09-2445 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#19 Decision Making: “The Data Chain”Continuing on the topic of decision making, we walk through the data chain and how to use it to identify where you are in the process and to then make the conversion from one node to the next.2020-09-1715 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#18 JC Herz: “Decision Making When All of Your Options Are Terrible”JC Herz guides us through risk avoidance vs. risk acceptance, resilience and fragility, and why your first step must be to identify and write down the answer to this question: what is your source of maximal regret?2020-09-1034 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#17 Decision Making Biases: “Vanquishing Decision Making Biases”We know investors are particularly prone to some common decision making biases. We start the discussion today on some of the tactics and tools to bring awareness of these biases to the forefront in order to ameliorate the problems they can stir up.2020-09-0318 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#16 JP Rangaswami: “ESG: Stewardship vs. Monetization”Data scientist and business leader JP Rangaswami expands on the impact of starting from a point of view of stewardship vs. monetization; how he expects the quality of investment metrics associated with ESG to improve, and the conditions required to act with real stewardship in business governance.2020-08-1334 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#15 Tools to Study Change #4: “The Five Stages of Grieving”Continuing our series of tools to assess change, we apply Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s Five Stages of Grief to managements ability to assess reality and lead through periods of massive change.2020-07-3022 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#14: Corey Loftus: “Living in the Bardo”A deeper dive with Corey, Pip and Brynne into Coreys piece Living in the Bardo.2020-07-2431 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#13: Tools to Study Change #3: “The Change Function”Part 3 in a series intended to help you study possibilities for the future with fewer investment biases, more context, and easy to use tools.2020-07-1711 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#12 Accelerating Changes: “Omnichannel on the Way to Fulfilling its Broader Possibilities”“Omni” means all, but we have used the term omnichannel to describe retailers who compliment brick and mortar with e-commerce and mobile. In this mini-cast, we start an examination of how omnichannel is accelerating and what forms it is taking on with regard to how we work.2020-07-1309 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#11 Dr. Morris Pickens: “Where is Your Locker Room?”Adversity comes every day. What can we do to mentally prepare for it and handle it in the moment it arrives? Dr. Morris Pickens is back to explain his “locker room” process that he uses with his clients, some of the best professional golfers on the tour.2020-07-0819 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#10: Tools to Study Change #2: “Seven Questions for Forecasting Change”Part 2 of a series intended to help you study possibilities for the future with fewer investment biases, more context, and easy to use tools.2020-06-2617 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#9: Tools to Study Change #1 :”Glenn Lowenstein’s Grid”Part 1 of a series intended to help you study possibilities for the future with fewer investment biases, more context, and easy to use tools.2020-06-2618 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#8: Rudy Karsan: “Making Decisions from the Gut”What does it mean to “trust your gut”?We explore this question with investor and former CEO Rudy Karsan. Rudy gives examples of how he has learned to identify the many facets of gut decision-making, but also expands on the practices he uses to continue to refine his ability to trust it.2020-05-1918 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#7 Glenn Lowenstein: “Accelerating Changes in Real Estate”What is considered a healthy building or community in a world that was already increasingly remote? Glenn Lowenstein discusses a changing calculus in how buildings are valued, which long-held customs and rules may be fractured , and whether defining communities and buildings by productivity is missing the whole picture.2020-05-1417 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#6: Dr. Morris Pickens: “Clean Time to Think”Giving ourselves clean time to think is a surprisingly counter-cultural activity. In this conversation, Mo describes why it’s so important, and Mo, Pip and I discuss a variety of modalities to support this practice.2020-04-2813 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#5: Grant McCracken: “Being Invited in By Your Customer”In this mini-cast, we discuss one quick insight with cultural anthropologist Grant McCracken.2020-04-2509 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#4: Lenley Hensarling: “Accelerating Changes for Doing Business in a Virtual World”Pip and I are in conversation with Lenley Hensarling on accelerating changes in sales and development strategy.2020-04-2211 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#3: Dr. Morris Pickens: “Stress is Not the Problem. Taking Real Breaks”This is the first in our series of 5 to 7 minute mini casts designed to give you a quick process insight and get you on your way.2020-04-1510 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#2: Dr. Morris Pickens: “Leadership in Times of Crisis”Right now we are in the midst of the COVID-19 virus arriving in Europe and the United States, and as leaders we are called to quickly reorient to managing and leading with confidence during this time. To help navigate this, we called up Morris Pickens, or “Dr. Mo” as his golfers call him, and to us, “Mo”, for his take. Mo is a sports psychologist and Performance Enhancement Specialist at Sea Island Golf, and personal sports psychologist to many PGA golfers. Mo’s job is to help golfers understand their emotions, refine their practice, and design a preparation routine for the best pe...2020-03-2729 minCoburn Ventures Podcast#1: Investing Biases: “Type II Error Avoidance Behavior”From Coburn Ventures, a conversation with Brynne Thompson and Pip Coburn on what Type II Error Avoidance Behavior is, what to do to identify it in your work and how to use investment process and to mitigate it.2020-03-2135 min