Tech Deciphered

SVB goes down, and the Fed and Treasury react. The latest on the financial crisis: What actually happened? What was done to stave off the crisis? What are the next steps and what’s further on the horizon? As always, our “no bs” views and analysis. Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: What happened? Section 2: What was done to stave off the crisis? Section 3: What are the next steps? Section 4: What’s on the horizon? Conclusion Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Bertrand Welcome to Episode 40 of Tech DECIPHERED. An episode, of course, focused on what happened this past week with Silicon Valley Bank and the overall financial crisis around it. We are recording this as of Wednesday, March 15, Pacific Time. Between the recording and the release of this episode, it might take a few days, so things might have changed. Bear with us. What a week in Silicon Valley. That was pretty insane. I think we have a black swan type of crisis every year now happening. Nuno If it's once a year, is it still a black swan? Bertrand Of course not. Sorry if my joke was not explicit enough. Nuno You're being facetious, understood. Okay, clear. Bertrand I'm definitely being facetious about this. Definitely, in the past, I don't know, three, four years have forced us to run businesses in a different way. We will try to do a short episode this time focusing on what happened, what was done to stave off this crisis, as well as what's the next steps, what's on the horizon. Nuno Let's start with the obvious big picture thing. Rate increases by the Fed is one of the engines of all the issue around SVB. We'll come back to what actually happened later on, but let's go through fundamentals first. The Fed has been increasing interest rates dramatically for the last less than a year. It's going to be a year, I think, this week, from starting at 0.25-0.5 range to now being at 4.5%-4.75% range, if I got that right, for the Fed rate in one year, less than a year, which is incredible. That has created, obviously, a situation where there's a lot of strain on various financial products that banks, for example, may be over exposed to. Nuno But it all started, in all honesty, for a valid reason, which was really containing and reducing inflation. If we remember, inflation started around the one point something percent mark, so well below the 2% magical number, which we're now questioning is 2% really the right number or not. But it went through the roof by 2021 into 2022 to 9%, and the Fed had to do something. They've been pushing it down. Obviously, I think the last number of inflation is around 6.0%, very close to 6.0%. Clearly, the interest rate increases have been working in really containing and reducing inflation, but this is the side effect. Bertrand Yes, it's definitely a side effect. Why is it a side effect? It's because when you increase rates, especially so fast as a bank, especially banks who have seen continuous increase in deposits, thanks to the monetary inflation over the past few years. If you have bought assets, long-term bonds at low rates, suddenly with the rate increase, the value of your bonds is decreasing. Bertrand For me, what's also interesting in all of this, and we keep learning more and more in the coming few days, but if I look at regulators, it looks like as well, they were asleep at the wheel. I was reading that a very recent FDIC stress test was not including any chance of rate i...

In this final episode on Boards of Directors, we will share tips for successful board meetings, how to manage them, how to be a value-add board member and insights on advisors and advisory boards. Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: Tips for Successful Board meetings (02:11) Section 2: How to manage your Board (18:24) Section 3: For Board members (25:52) Section 4: Advisory Board / Advisors (33:09) Conclusion (49:19) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show:   Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34)NunoWelcome to Episode 39 of Tech DECIPHERED, where we continue our discussion around how to best manage your board and get the most out of it, as well as how to be a great and hopefully non-dysfunctional board member. NunoIn this episode, we will talk about tips for successful board meetings, how to manage your board, and we'll go into details on anything from agendas to how to organize the cadence of it, KPIs, et cetera. How to think through advisory board members and advisors and how they're different from consultants and contractors, and also on how to be a fully functional board member and bring value to the company that you're a board member of.Section 1: Tips for Successful Board meetings (02:11)NunoMaybe we go to tips for successful board meetings and door calls. Maybe we go to the first one, which I know is one of your favorites. BertrandI think it's quite key to be prepared for your board meeting, and it works for both sides, the execs, the CEO, and on the other side, investors, people who receive the communication from the company. That part is quite critical. BertrandMyself, not initially, but at some point when I was running my previous business, App Annie, Data.ai now, one thing I did after ending up sending a board deck and board back instead of the usual two days before a board meeting to send it a few hours before. I was not feeling very good about how it worked out. I ended up approaching that to share stuff at least a week in advance. BertrandThat might sound crazy from a lot of perspective, but at the end of the day, it's a question of just organization. There is no reason you cannot do a week in advance. You can do two days in advance, but you would have more time. If it slips, it's no big deal. If it slips by a day. BertrandWhat it also gives you is the opportunity to potentially reach out to different board members between the moment where you send your board materials and the moment where you have your board meetings. It gives you more time to set up some calls, to answer some questions, highlight some points. BertrandIf you have time to do that between sending your board back and having a board meeting, you will have a much more streamlined board meeting itself because if the big questions have been discussed in one-to-one, if some controversies have been addressed in one-to-one, things will go a lot smoother. BertrandSurprisingly enough, some board member might prefer more challenging confrontational type of board discussion. Personally, I don't if it's not needed, but working that way gives you definitely some more efficient board meetings. NunoTo your point, manage this thoughtfully. Again, when you're sending board materials, you send it to observers as well, et cetera. If you have some lead board directors, in particular from investors, that are material to you and you know there's going to be a complex conversation at the board meeting,

In this episode, we will explain what a Board of Directors is and is *not*, its roles & responsibilities, and how it should evolve over time. Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: What is a Board of Directors (02:10) Section 2: Taxonomy (06:20) Section 3: Evolution of Board structure over time (12:08) Section 4: Board Composition (18:38) Conclusion (29:47) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Bertrand Welcome to Tech DECIPHERED, episode 38. This is the first of two episodes where we will discuss about how to manage your board from a CEO perspective, mostly. The idea here is to talk about why do you want a board, what's the purpose of a board, what would be the taxonomy about running a board, the evolution of a board, its composition, how you should manage your board, as well as other board, like an advisory board, as well as sharing some perspective from a board member perspective or from an advisor perspective. Section 1: What is a Board of Directors (2:10) Nuno Indeed. Maybe we start at the beginning. What is a board of directors? I think that might be a question that gets thrown quite a bit. I'll read from a definition. Some of the stuff we'll be doing today is based on a document I prepared a very long time ago and some other things that Bertrand dug out. But just to directly quote, a board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. A board's activities are determined by the powers, duties, and responsibilities delegated to it or conferred on it by an authority outside itself. These matters are typically detailed in the organization's bylaws. What is a board? A board represents, basically, normally actually shareholders. Shareholders and other stakeholders in a company. It depends on the country. We know, for example, in Germany, that boards of directors also have in many cases representation by unions. But in the case of what we will discuss today for the most, we're going to talk about startups and tech companies. Normally, boards represent shareholders, and they represent the interests of shareholders. So the people that are on a board of directors are there to make decisions around a couple of areas that are vital to the well-being and growing of the company in representation of a larger group of shareholders. Nuno The typical duties of boards of directors obviously include the governance of the company, so all the key policies and objectives of the company. The selection, appointment, supporting, and reviewing of the performance of a chief executive. We'll come back to that as well. It's normally a contentious issue, but it is the responsibility of the board to do that. Making sure that the company has their adequate financial resources to sustain itself, to be a growing concern, proving annual budgets, strategic items, any accounting that is done to other stakeholders of the company, including shareholders. And last but not the least, and there's many other things a board can do, but last but not the least, setting the salaries and compensations for company management. This should be interpreted under the logic of the senior people of the company, certainly the CEO, maybe founders, and other core people to the company. In a nutshell, what the board is responsible for is governance on the one hand, and on the other hand, what I would call mostly strategic decisions.

We sort of predicted the FTX and SBF debacle… seriously! How much are CEOs’ political and socio-economic views welcome publicly? How about employees’? How much is too much? In this episode of season 3 of Tech Deciphered, we talk about founders & CEOs activism, employee activism and share our tips on when to talk and when to just… keep your mouth shut. Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: Founders & CEOs activism (02:13) Section 2: M&A changes everything (20:09) Section 3: Employee activism (27:38) Section 4: Bring it all together (39:24) Conclusion (44:57) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Nuno Goncalves Pedro Welcome to Episode 37 of Tech Deciphered. In this episode, we will address CEO and employee activism. How much is too much? We will touch upon a few CEO-activism events that are recent. We will also talk about how M&A changes everything. Nuno Goncalves Pedro We will then address employee activism, which has become more exacerbated over the last three years. Finally, we'll bring it all together. How much is too much? Should you be in the media all the time? How much should your PR department control of what you say? How much should you listen to your employees? How much, as an employee, should you actually speak out? Section 1: Founders & CEOs activism (02:13) Bertrand Schmitt I think Nuno that's a timely topic and it's something that, for the good or for the worse, has been changing, maybe quite dramatically, if you compare the last decade versus how businesses used to be run before. I guess, of course, it's thanks to change in technologies. You have your cell phone always available. You can talk to people. You can record, you can tweet, you can do video. Bertrand Schmitt I guess step by step, CEOs, employees discovers that they actually could have more of a voice, and there might be less need for a middleman to express your opinion. As a result, you communicate more easily. If you stop communicating publicly, challenges can start to increase. It's a brand-new world out there. Nuno Goncalves Pedro As Spiderman would say, or actually his uncle, "With great power comes great responsibility." Unfortunately, sometimes, people forget the responsibility piece and maybe they tweet at the wrong times of the day, or they say the wrong things without really checking themselves up. Part of it we'll discuss today. Sometimes when you share on social media, obviously, it lacks context, it's misinterpreted, or sometimes it's just plainly wrong, which is also the case. Nuno Goncalves Pedro Shall we start? How much should one have an opinion on specific topics, geopolitical topics that are important socially? How much should a CEO or founder have an opinion on? Maybe we'll talk about a few examples. Bertrand Schmitt I think traditionally, the approach was, if you're in the economic sphere, you are out of the public sphere, you are out of the political sphere, and you are very careful and measured about how you communicate. Usually, you have a big PR department, all focused on supporting you and the message you are supposed to convey, and you certainly don't go off the cuff. Bertrand Schmitt Obviously, things have changed since the past 10 years. It's not easy for a CEO to make that decision to do more, but sometimes you have no choice. I think some interesting examples, a few years back, maybe actually with COVID, we saw some tension about, basically,

"I am leading or involved in a company… and we are in trouble. What should I do?” In this episode, we share what do when you are in trouble and what to do if everything else fails. This is the second and final episode on this topic. For more information, also listen to episode 35 Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: What to do, if the company is in trouble? (02:04) Section 2: What if all else fails? (34:46) Conclusion (47:21) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Bertrand Schmitt Welcome to Tech Deciphered Episode 36. It's our second episode about, "My Company's in Trouble. What Should I Do?" In the previous episode, we talked about the context. We talked about how to determine if your company is in trouble. And we talked about what being relatively safe looks like. In this episode, we are going to talk about what to do if your company is in trouble, as well as what are your options if all else is failing. Section 1: What to do, if the company is in trouble? Nuno Goncalves Pedro Let's say that actually, you are in trouble, that you've done the analysis, you're running out of cash quickly. Your economics are very poor. Your burn is difficult to turn around. What do you do? What is the first thing that you do? Bertrand Schmitt I think the first thing that you do is as management, as a board, to acknowledge you have an issue. That's really the first thing. Acknowledge you have an issue and then start working together, management and board of directors to get in agreement into what is, at the very least, what is our current situation, not even what we should do about it, but always a level of risk, level of tension. The analysis done of what's happening so that you can start smartly discussing about the option for the business. But we saw an acknowledgement across a team of professionals, execs, and board of directors, it's very difficult to move forward. If one side believes a business is doing alright and there is no biggies, that's an issue. If one side believes that, hey, it's not that great in term of burn rate, but we would get financing easily. That's trouble if the other side doesn't believe that. And usually, that might be your board who doesn't believe it would be that easy to fundraise. I guess it depends. But it's really key to be aligned about the analysis. I've seen companies, I think it's less true now, but if you look at in June or May that still we're not acknowledging what was happening in the market, it was crazy for me. It's like, guys, this has happened for six months now. You need to acknowledge it's a different economic condition and what was investable, and we go back to the default investable in November of 2021, is not default investable in September 2022. And the gap might be pretty big. I can see that some people at the first bear markets really start to think, Oh, good times are back. No, no, they're not coming back. Not so easily. And you cannot build and bet your business just based on bet ready for a few weeks. Or both sides of the table need to come into agreement about the burn rate situation, the capacity of the company to deliver on its revenues and its projections of top line, specifically, but also about bottom line and get into agreement about what it means in terms of ability to fundraise. Nuno Goncalves Pedro And let's say we have agreement, so board, executives, everyone's like, we are in trouble.

“I am leading or involved in a company… and we are in trouble. What should I do?” In this episode, the beginning of season 3 of Tech Deciphered, we firstly share how to know when you are in trouble (spoiler alert: getting this right is essential) or … if you are “relatively safe”. Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: Context (03:28) Section 2: How to know the company is in trouble (04:58) Section 3: What does “being relatively safe” look like? (17:15) Conclusion (28:17) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Nuno G. Pedro Welcome to season three of Tech Deciphered. We have many surprises in store for the season. But to start, we will have two episodes: Episode 35 and 36, on the topic of My Company is in Trouble. What should I do? In these two episodes, we will discuss context on what is happening currently in the market. But more importantly, we'll help you figure out if your company is in trouble or not, maybe the most important of the first questions that you should answer. Secondly, we will talk about what to do if your company is indeed in trouble. And coming from different perspective, not just the perspective of the CEO, but also of people that are involved at the board level or relatively senior people that are involved in the future of the company. And finally, we come to the "what if all fails" piece, right? If everything's failed, what should I do? It's going to be an interesting set of questions, and hopefully, our answers will be helpful to you all. Section 1 - Context Bertrand Schmitt Thank you, Nuno. Yeah, it would be exciting to start this Episode 35. Maybe to share more context, we can start first with our last two episodes about the bubble bursting, winter coming. I guess winter is getting closer. A lot of great companies, tech companies today, they are valued at 50% of what they were worth last year. Fifty percent, five-zero. And it's not just 50%; it's 50% versus a year ago. Imagine the company attempt to grow, to expand their business, to be more successful, but the market are still valuing it 50% lower. That's happening for a lot of great companies in tech. If I take some private market, this company in the buy-now-pay-later space that announced pretty recently, [inaudible 00:01:42], that they were moving from $46 billion valuation last year to 6 billion market cap this year for the last round of financing, which is a huge gap. We're not talking about 50% anymore. We are talking about 90%. It probably happened because they had to mirror what happened in the public market with other competitors in that space who end up being in a similar situation of losing 90% market cap. Of course, the private market had to react and adjust to that new situation, and you cannot keep disconnecting yourself from the relatives of public markets, especially if you are at very late stage. Nuno G. Pedro You have Zoom that was close to 160 billion at the top of it in 2020. Top of COVID, I guess, and now at 25 billion or so. There's been some interesting... And this is a public company. Bertrand Schmitt We are not talking about Peloton. Nuno G. Pedro We're not talking about Peloton. The whole COVID effect also being felt very strongly in many industries. Bertrand Schmitt Yes, Peloton is actually on 15X. Nuno G. Pedro That's not too bad. Bertrand Schmitt It's in way more serious financial trouble than some of these companies we are talking about. Nuno G. Pedro Today,

In this episode, the end of our 2nd Season, we close our discussion on the crisis that is upon us and deep dive on what will happen next. We finalize with a brief recap of our season 2 and on what we got right and wrong. Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: What Will Happen Next Section 2: End of Season 2 - a Quick Recap Conclusion Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Bertrand Welcome to Tech Deciphered episode 34. This is our second episode on the bubble that's finally burst winter that has arrived. We will talk more in this episode about what will happen next. If you want to listen to our episode 33, where we talk about what has happened, what is happening, go back to that episode. And for this one, we'll be focused on future, short-term, medium-term, where we believe this is going. Nuno So what is happening next? There were some significant changes in the world that we're really not coming back from. And we've heard some amazing things and some well-written analysis, or at least some very pointed notes from people like Benedict Devin and many others that we have inspired ourselves with. Nuno But in effect that the whole notion of digitization is true, I think we have had a forced digitization over the last two years, which has really brought us forward. Our ability to do ecommerce, our ability to actually use services that we legacy services and have ways of interacting with those services that are more virtual than they were ever before, our ability to get telemedicine and many other things. Nuno So there's been a lot of moving forward that has been positive. There's a lot of things that, in our personal experiences, for example, in the home, we don't accept anymore. I think Benedict was the one saying no one is going back to cable. I'm not sure that holes in that sense, but obviously there's been a lot of court cutting streaming seems to have one day. Clearly, it was already relatively clear. Probably, it got accelerated through COVID. Nuno We'll now see the reckoning of that in the next few years on who's going to be the big winners in that space, but certainly, I think that's moved forward. The ability for us to really communicate with each other at a distance is now a theme that needs to be addressed by everyone. So it's no longer an afterthought. It's not like, okay, oh, maybe we can get on a plane and go somewhere. No, no, no, no. Nuno Do we have a good way for our team, for example, in a professional environment, to interact with each other at a distance? What are the tools we have to do that in? So all this notion of hybrid versus remote versus being in the office doesn't really matter. Remote work needs to work. And we've learned our lessons and there is a lot of tools missing. There's a lot of things that haven't been done properly. Nuno We also know for a fact that there are pieces of the acceleration that we saw in biotech driven by COVID and the vaccines that ultimately are here to stay. So there's definitely not a going back on this either. Obviously, there's a lot of work still to be done in digitization, in particular, across different sectors of the economy. Nuno But honestly, with all the tragedy that COVID has been and all the crap that we've been embedded in for the last two years as a global society, the silver lining is, guys, we've got the digitization we've been asking for. The whole digital transformation stuff we've been talking about,

Winter Has Arrived - the Burst of the Bubble and the Crisis Upon Us… AND WE GOT IT RIGHT! In this episode, we share … that we were right, all along. We were in a bubble and the crisis is upon us. We share context on the current crisis and what is happening, exactly at a macro level - inflation, recession, over-stimuli, etc - as well as in the start-up and VC world. Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: First of All… We Told You So… Repeatedly (02:05) Section 2: What is Happening…Exactly (04:25) Conclusion (41:37) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Nuno Welcome to Episode 33 of Tech DECIPHERED. This will be the first of two episodes on the bubble bursting. We've called it very nicely. Winter has arrived when we're really in summer. Today's episode, we're going to go through what's happening exactly in this bursting of the bubble. But let's actually start with congratulating ourselves in having predicted the bubble. There was a dramatic bubble and that it was going to burst, which we did in our duology on the bubble a couple of episodes ago Bertrand. Bertrand Yes, we released these two episode in October or November, about the bubble and how was supposed to burst at some point. I guess timing was perfect to talk about the bubble when it was at the top of the bubble, right before it start to explode. I think you could fit it in a lot of our discussion in the past two years on our podcasters, that we were on one side amazed to see the increase in transaction values, in VC financing and startup financing, and at the same time, constantly reminding that didn't feel right, and this was probably just a big bubble, and we call it right. It's not just about congratulating ourselves. At the end of the day, it's a pretty scary times for everyone, but obviously, it happened for a reasonw and [inaudible 00:01:19] reasons, and that will help us understand what happened and what's going to happen. Nuno Maybe a parenthesis... I think we got it right in several ways because when COVID first hit, we were predicting that that mini-crash was going to lead to a fundamental crash, and it didn't. Part of what we're now going and suffering through was that, because there wasn't that crash, and the market continued to go bull market for another two years, thank you very much, because of governments giving money, incentives to consumption, a bunch of stuff that was really artificial now we know, we ended up actually having top of the market when we did launch the duology in 2021. Nuno I know it's not a great signal. I certainly, I think, in my own professional activity as an investor, in looking at companies et cetera I've used it. I used it throughout to advise my companies, "Raise now when never knows when it's going to burst", "Make sure that you have a plan B". There was a lot of things that instructed me in how I behaved within my professional activity. Nuno I'm sad to say that it didn't inform everything that I do. I probably could have avoided one or two things on that if I'd sort of followed my own advice on it. But in some ways, having been disciplined through the last year and a half, two years, and now we looked at investments. In some ways, I feel a bit vindicated. I don't want to do the "I told you so", but we told them so. Now, we have plenty of proof that we told them so. There's episodes, two episodes that talk about it in October, November, last year.

In this episode, we end our discussion on Leadership and Management: we delve into how to execute; explore values systems, including our own; and share our core beliefs.  Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: How to Execute (02:08) Section 2: Culture & Values, Our Core Beliefs (20:11) Conclusion (34:57) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Bertrand Schmitt Welcome to Episode 32 of Tech DECIPHERED, our second and last episode of this series on leadership and management. In our previous episode, Episode 31, we focus on defining leadership versus management. We spend time talking about the different styles of leadership management. In this episode, Episode 32, we are going to focus on how to execute and how to create and build the right culture through the right values. Section 1 - How to Execute Nuno Goncalves Pedro How to execute, how to do this? What are the levers that you have to lead and to manage? Bertrand Schmitt I would like to share one perspective I've got, what the CEO's job? I'm talking about a company at some level of scale, obviously not five people, ten people team, but we're talking about 50 people plus type of company. What's your job at scale? I believe that you have to have on one side a deep vision, clear vision. You have to bring your team on board. You have to either keep convincing your existing team, bring new members on board, evaluate existing ones, and you have to manage the cash, because if you run out of cash, that's a big problem. In a way, there is this metaphor of being like the bus driver. You have to view outside of you, you have to let people in, sometimes, unfortunately, let people out, and you have to keep the gas. If you don't do all these three, at the very least, that's big trouble for the business. As we discussed, if you are a tech organization, specifically a tech company, you probably need to be as well a product CEO. But at the very core at minimum, you need these three vision, bringing a team, managing cash, as the key pieces of the game as a CEO. Nuno Goncalves Pedro Agreed. I would make a caveat here, which is my view on product CEOs in tech is they are the most dominant type. There are other types that work well, in particular in the B2B environment, in business-to-business. The more commercial-driven CEO, the person who has extreme experience in sales or in business development or corporate development. We've seen a few of those people doing very well in B2B. Again, by nature, tech product CEOs do relatively well. But in B2B, certainly I think we've seen great examples of amazing CEOs that, honestly, are not that technical. But they are very good at selling and they're very good at doing a bunch of other things. There's a few people that come to mind, but again, not to get any hate mail, I will not go into details. I agreed fully with your vision, Bertrand, and the metaphor is very accurate on the bus. The job of the CEO has several dimensions to it as well. Effectively, a CEO needs to manage for the long term and for the short term, and when managing for the long term, strategy comes into play. A set of integrated actions that leads to competitive advantage. Normally, you measure it in years, two to five years. It's something that is really far in the future. You have tactics. Normally, tactics is something that you think through as more the one to two year things. It might be a big initiative, a big product launch,

In this episode, we demystify Leadership and Management: we delve into what sets them apart; typify the different styles; explore values systems, including our own and share our core beliefs. As always, we go below the surface and deep dive into this topic, at a time when it matters more than ever. This episode, on the topic of leadership and management, will be concluded by episode 32. Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: Definition (01:58) Section 2: Typifying Leaders (06:34) Conclusion (38:56) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Nuno Welcome to our Episode 31, the first of two episodes on leadership and management. Bertrand and I will demystify leadership and management, define the difference between both, typify them, explore value systems, and also share our own core beliefs. As always, no BS. We will go below the surface and deep dive into this topic. Section 1 - Definition Nuno From the ground up let's start with the actual definition of this and a bit of a caveat emptor. Buyer be aware, as they call it. Obviously we will share what we think are great practices of leadership and management, but by no means these are the only practices, and by no means we aim to be professorial about it. Secondly, most importantly, probably by sharing our own views, we're not saying that we are amazing leaders or managers. Obviously, that's not for us to judge, but for people that have worked with us, for us, with us along the years. So that is not the assumption. Obviously, there is some assumption that we have something to say about this topic, otherwise you wouldn't be listening. But we don't aim to be arrogant enough to say that. Maybe starting with the definition of leadership versus management, and this comes from someone I used to work with, a very good friend, but also someone I worked with for a very long period of time in two different roles. The way she would qualify the difference between leadership and management is, if the objective function is to get to hell, a leader is the person that can convey to people with amazing charisma and presence that we're going to go to hell and hopefully we'll come back for sure, hopefully we'll come back, etc. The leader will likely not define necessarily very much how one will get to hell and back, but they will convince people to go with them, certainly the first time around. A great manager might lack the charisma, but the great manager will define the steps to get to hell and back, will be clear about what needs to be done to get to hell and back. They might have difficulty in convincing people to go to hell in that first time, but it will be easier for them to convince them to go or try to go to hell a second or third time, even if they fail the first time, because they have a clearer view of the process to get there. So again, a leader normally, in my opinion, a little bit more linked to... In some ways great aspects of charisma and management is basically linked to great aspects of understanding steps that need to be done and things that need to be done. A great manager might not be a great leader. A great leader might not be a great manager. There are very few great leaders that are great managers. So that's maybe a little bit more flesh around the definition. Bertrand, do you agree with that definition? Bertrand That definition would be fit for Churchill, for instance, Churchill fighting the Germans, fighting Nazi Germany.

In this, the final episode on the Metaverse - or is the Metaverses - we discuss what the Key Players are doing in the space, as well as the so-whats for entrepreneurs and investors. As you, our listeners are accustomed to, only straight talk and “straight shooting” in this duology on the Metaverse. Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: Key players (02:02) Section 2: So-whats for entrepreneurs and investors (22:36) Conclusion (30:35) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder of App Annie / Data.ai, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Bertrand Welcome to episode thirty, our second episode on the metaverse. In episode 29, we talk about our definition of the metaverse, we talk about the key enablers for the metaverse. This episode will have two section. One, first section around the key players. And we will have a section about what it means. The so what for entrepreneurs and VCs. Nuno, should we go into the key players? Section 1: Key Players (02:02) Nuno And a very good segue to what the key players are doing around the metaverse or the metaverses and all these different technologies. And maybe sticking to Google again, not because we dislike them particular. I think we've shown them a lot of fondness in the past. But we're starting with another failure, Google Glass, which I already talked about earlier. I love those glasses. They were so cool. There was so much promise in it and then nothing. It was just like, nothing's gonna happen. Sorry guys. Bertrand For me, it was also an example of something that was hyped way too much, way too early, and totally out of context. When you have something for total geek that are only going to touch the most crazy early adopters of all, why do you start to brand it? I remember they were showing off celebrities at modeling shows. It was like crazy. It was as if it was going to be mainstream next month. It's like, wow, a lesson of how to set expectations wrong, as if they did everything they could to make sure it was really going to fail. Because the expectations are so disconnected from the reality of how bad it was. Bad maybe is a strong word. Nuno It wasn't that bad for what it was. I think it's more the point of what you're making, yeah. Bertrand As we see today, it was at least 10 years too early. And you know there is something in history when people tell me, "Oh yeah, we're just 10 years too early." I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's not much, ten years, I guess." I don't like it when people make it wrong by 10 years. There are so many things you could do instead, especially in our world of tech, where in some ways I feel it could be predictable. Google Glass, total fiasco, because it was 10 years too early. But I said 10 or maybe 20. Nuno Maybe 20. Bertrand The jury still out for this until we have something really working. What was about this other company that was promising crazy shit and ultimately went nearly bankrupt? Nuno Magic leap, yeah. By the way, I don't know anyone there. I'm telling our friends just as a way to not throw them under the bus. Yeah, Magic Leap. Bertrand But Magic Leap is a fantastic company. I was from very far smelling a rat. I will call it a rat when you burn billions of dollars and you don't deliver at all anything of value, at least value connected to how much money was invested in the business. I wish them the best in their new version, just focused on enterprise. But there was so much bullshit. And I'm frustrated because some of these companies are so much actively ...

In this episode, we talk about the Metaverse - or is the metaverses? - specify what it is/will be, debunk myths around it and detail its/their key enablers. Everything you wanted to know and also … that you didn’t know you needed to know. This will be followed by episode 30, focusing on understanding what the key players are doing in this realm, as well as implications to entrepreneurs, investors and others. Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: The Typical Silicon Valley hype machine?/ Definition of Metaverse (01:57) Section 2: Key enablers to the Metaverse (17:44) Conclusion (41:21) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder at App Annie, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Nuno Welcome to episode 29. In this episode, we will go into the metaverse, not literally, but we will discuss the metaverse, its definitions, how people see it evolving, its core enablers, and some of the lessons learned that we believe entrepreneurs and venture capital firms should have. Bertrand, metaverse, what is the metaverse? Bertrand Big question. I guess that's a billion dollar question. There's been so many definition of what the metaverse is or is not. I like one definition from Matthew Ball—a well respected analyst—and I believe he has his own VC firm. By his definition, "Metaverse is a massively scaled and interoperable network of real time rendered 3D virtual worlds, which can be experienced synchronously and persistently by an effectively unlimited number of users with an individual sense of presence, and with continuity of data such as identity, history, entitlements, objects, communications, and payments." Bertrand That's the full definition. I like it, because you are not missing any piece of the puzzle, at the same time, by its very complexity, I feel it's showing us that it's not an easy definition. It might even be seen as a very contrive definition. If you think about the internet, how different is it really? The 3D part for sure. Beyond that, it's not very clear, actually, except that it's maybe more unified than the internet that we know. You could argue if you are just inside Facebook, how different it is about just being inside Facebook and just never leaving Facebook. Of course it to be horrible, at least from my perspective, using Facebook less and less. That's one vision. Some will say, we'll talk about what it is, but also what it is not. I will quote again Mathew Ball. For him it's not just a virtual world. It's not just a virtual space. It's not just VR. It's not just a digital virtual economy. It's not just a game. It's not just a virtual theme park. It's not a new app store. It's not a New UGC platform. For sure, it's a big buzzword in Silicon Valley these days, especially thanks to meta rebranding itself. Just from that perspective, it was huge on Google trends. Since the renaming of Meta everyone has been Googling what the metaverse is, I guess. What you think, Nuno? Nuno A lot of respect for Matthew Ball as an analyst, and his definition, as sound as all the other definitions that are out there. I have a couple of objections to his definition. It starts with interoperable. It starts with, "The metaverse as a massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time render 3D virtual worlds." Interoperability is not a given in the metaverse. Nobody has told us that the metaverse will be an interoperable bunch of worlds working together. Actually, if I had to make a bet, using my computer engineer hat and architect,

In this episode, we talk about Strategic Investors, detail what they are, their underlying realities and structures of operation, and present the case For and Against them. We also share Lessons Learnt that can be of value to you, if you are an Entrepreneur, a Financial/Institutional VC or a Strategic Investor.  Navigation: Intro (01:33) Section 1: Context Setting (02:44) Section 2: The Bad Examples (12:01) Seciton 3: The Good Examples (21:39) Section 4: Other Players Join the “Party” (36:30) Section 5: Lessons Learnt for Strategic Investors, Entrepreneurs and VCs (41:25) Conclusion (51:31) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder at App Annie, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show:   Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Bertrand: Welcome to episode 28 of Tech DECIPHERED. This is a special episode on the topic of strategic investors. What are they, who are they, and are they helpful, how helpful can they be? I think it's one of the typical questions as an entrepreneur you would have to answer when you are considering getting financing. What type of investors, should I bring on board? And typically, early on, you might look at business angels. You might look at seed fund. And at some point, you would consider working with VCs. And you will probably discover that you have different type of VCs.  On one side the sides we typically hear about in the news, in the press we are talking about more financial VCs. And on the other side of the spectrum you have what is called strategic investors, strategic VCs. Strategic sometimes for short. And we are going to talk about them. Who are they, what are they helpful for, how useful they are, how bad could they be for your business, for your startup.  Welcome, Nuno, good to be with you to discuss this topic. How are you today?  Nuno: I am well, in sunny California, so very well.  Section 1 - Context Setting 
(02:44) Nuno: Maybe starting by defining what is strategic investors and where does that come from? The notion of they invest in, but they also contribute something that is more strategic. Maybe in the form of a partnership, or in the form of resources or other types of things that you put at the table. Normally, strategic investors are looked in the light, or as opposed to financial investors. So investors that are solely driven by the financial return and therefore, also solely driven by the capital that they put in. The world has become a little bit muddy over the last decade or so. There's now, investors that are more what I would call operating investor. So operating investors that jump into the company, and spend a significant part of their time in the company, sometimes even taking a significant part of the company, not just the classic minority in the company. But in order to simplify our discussion today, let's stick to the financial investor side, and the strategic investor side. So a financial investor would be someone like Chameleon, Red River West other VC firms that are out there, Sequoia Capital. We are investors that invest in a company, the biggest upside we can get is really financial. And obviously, we will produce value for the company under the form of helping the company scale, helping the company hire, helping the company get access to resources, and a variety of other things. So there is a little bit more operational minus in VC in general today, but the key objective of the whole thing is financial returns. A strategic investor, in many cases, when we talk about it, we use strategic investor as opposed to corpor...

We deep-dive into the nuanced - and somewhat less than stellar - history of Tech in Europe and how start-ups and investors are making up for lost time, leading to an ever maturing ecosystem, with significant reasons for optimism. Finally, we discuss the increasingly intertwined destinies of US and European Tech.Navigation:Intro (01:33)Section 1: Framing the European start-up and investment landscape (02:20)Section 2: Investment Approach in Europe (17:18)Section 3: Movements from US to Europe (51:19)Section 4: Movements from Europe to US (59:02)Conclusion (1:05:39)Our co-hosts:Bertrand Schmitt, Entrepreneur in Residence at Red River West, co-founder at App Annie, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, @bschmittNuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedroOur show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Nuno: Welcome to episode 27 of Tech Deciphered. We're going to address the tech landscape in Europe, focusing on the investment landscape, as well as the startup landscape, we will go into the typical entrepreneurial approaches as well as investment approaches in Europe, the mindsets, the tactics, the profiles, as well as the typical exits, we will then deep dive into the present state of Europe and how we see it evolve over time.  
 Bertrand: Thank you Nuno, good to be here today with you and to discuss this fascinating topic for us, we are both Europeans. Obviously I'm French, you're from Portugal. We have seen the European landscape changing dramatically over the past 20, 25 years. So that will be very exciting to talk about this. 
 Section 1 - Framing the European startup and investment landscape 
(02:20) Bertrand: I guess maybe we can start about controversies that happened a few months ago in June when The Economist had a big cover on the state of the investment in Europe and how Europe was really not doing much in the tech industry. interestingly enough, there was a quick swift reply from the founder and CEO of Stripe Patrick Collison, who is not just running Stripe from the U S but he's also a European citizen being Irish  
 Nuno: Yeah. His comment was basically saying, all of the points that you raise are great, I think you haven't really shown the case for optimism right? Where there's a lot of great successful companies coming out of Europe. He was mentioning a few that, are obviously runaway successes, like Spotify, Klarna, N26, UIpath, wise and a few others. 
 And he also obviously talks about Stripe and its role, although Stripe is more of an American company, to be honest, but Stripe in its role in working with very innovative companies in Europe as a counter position to the economists headline and main articles in that edition. 
 So to be honest, I think he is onto something in saying there is a case for optimism that wasn't duly manifested in that edition of your magazine or newspaper as they call it. It's very funny cause they call the economists still the newspaper, although it's in my view of magazine.  
 Bertrand: Maybe you want to restate the position of the economist. 
 Nuno: Yeah. The position of the economist is that basically the U S has taken over, right? You have companies like apple that are worth more in their view than 30 firms in the German blue-chip Dax index combined. Obviously we have Amazon, we have Microsoft, we have Google all these are multi-trillion dollar companies now, actually. 
 And so their point is, in some ways, Europe has lagged behind. I think their point was very focused also on the old Europe and where, even the big emerging tech winners, like SAP took a long time to get to fruition,

In our second and final episode on the Bubble, we share what is happening in Venture Capital, on the exit - IPO, M&A, etc - front, as well as share clear “so-whats” for entrepreneurs and VCs. For in-depth views on the status of the economy, listen to our previous episode, episode 25. Navigation: Section 1: What is happening in VC? (02:05) Section 2: Exits are great, though, right?! (17:52) Section 3: So-what? Implications for entrepreneurs and VCs (25:57) Conclusion (43:49) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Tech Entrepreneur, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, co-founder at App Annie, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show:   Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Nuno: Welcome to episode 26 of tech deciphered. This episode will conclude our two-part series on the bubble and why we actually believe there is one going on. In this episode, we will discuss the VC landscape and how it is evolving. We will talk about exits, not just IPOs, but also other types of exits like mergers and acquisitions and how that landscape is looking like. And finally, we will end up with something pragmatic, the "so what", the takeaways, the implications for both entrepreneurs and investors.  Section 1 - What is happening in Venture Capital? 
(02:05) Nuno: Moving to venture capital, there's a lot of interesting elements to talk about. Some really interesting analysis from our friend Tom Tunguz but also of what's happening in the macro space, some analysis of what we've seen from PitchBook and CB insights, it seems we're going to have an incredible year in venture capital. This is it. There's no crisis there's a ton of money, dry powder, there's new funds, I actually have a new fund going. So I'm very happy with that, but in some ways it's like, woh, this is all fantastic. Increasing everything, increasing everything, more deals, more money deployed. We're all great. We're going to have, a flagship year in venture capital. And somehow I'm like I like being in the market. We just closed our first deal, which is great. Thank you. So what's going to happen? In our micro world of startups and entrepreneurs and venture capital firms, 2021 is going to be an amazing year, but what's going to happen? Bertrand: Yeah. And to share some numbers it's pretty insane what we see. And for me, what's crazy is that it's at every range. So maybe it varies by country, by industry, but overall if I take Series A valuations, for instance, you have seen a jump from what? like more than 50% in two quarters this is the very definition of insanity. I'm not sure if we have ever seen that, and it's happening. At every level in the stack. So maybe early on in the pandemic, it was less true that it was at every level of the stack. Maybe, initially it was more: you are only investing in people you already knew, in companies you already knew, the first quarter or two. And because you are not used to work like this, you didn't know how long it would be like this. So you had a different approach that maybe favored existing companies bigger rounds, insider the rounds. But now I believe that we're at a stage where it's not at all about that anymore.  Or not just that anymore. It cannot be: to stay competitive you have to stay in the market, you have to invest. And maybe on that point maybe not every fund agree. We have a wide range from Tiger Global investing I forgot how many deals a day, actually 1.3 deals a day from Tiger global these days.  But at the other extreme in a global ranking I have not seen Sequoia U S in the top 10 investors. So I wonder if there is less investment from them and they decided that right now is n...

Is this a bubble? If so, what type of bubble? Where are we heading? We share our views on where the economy is going, the importance and effect of COVID, several key opinions on both sides of the spectrum and land on whether the current situation is sustainable or not. Navigation: Introduction (01:33) Section 1: The COVID effect (02:43) Section 2: The economy...stupid? (11:08) Conclusion (43:33) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Tech Entrepreneur, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, co-founder at App Annie, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show:   Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Bertrand: Welcome to Tech Deciphered Episode 25. So this episode 25 is part of a 2-serie episodes: episode 25 and 26 that will be around the current bubble. We believe that at this stage from a big macro perspective there are a lot of questions around where's the economy going, and this would be the topic of episode 25, that big picture perspective on where is the economy going? Of course, all of this being impacted big time by COVID. We'll talk a bit about that. We'll talk about inflation, prices where all of this is going from a macro perspective. In episode 26 we will talk more about, in more details, what does it mean for entrepreneurs, tech entrepreneurs, tech industry, VCs, where the VC landscape going, where are exits going, and what does it mean for me as an entrepreneur or me as a VC? Nuno: And today we start with, where is the economy heading, all the macro conditions that are happening in the market and their implications. Bertrand? Section 1 - COVID effect 
(02:43) Bertrand: We have to start with COVID it has so much impact, not just on our lives, but on the state of the economy, on some big decision on the financial market side, on additional government interventions, or not. So I would say it's a very mixed picture. I think I had a sense of optimism that day to day life was going in the right direction just maybe a month ago, even if I was, and we were being both realistic as we discussed in some previous episodes. Back to normal, like international travels and the like, as we used to do on a regular basis might just be for some time next year, maybe summer next year. I guess there are some serious concern that our basic everyday life might be back to some sort of war footings. In where I live in Seattle area, King county, we are back to mask mandates indoor. It's not yet forced, but I guess it will be there soon. It's highly recommended we all heard about the CDC recent news also advising for masks mandates indoors for everyone. Vaccinated or not. It seems it's both because we cannot trust people who are not wearing their masks, that they have been vaccinated and because now there is also the risk that even if are vaccinated with delta, you might harbor the virus and share it with others. And I guess, in your region in the bay, it's also back to mask mandates. This time it's mandatory actually indoor. Nuno: From what I just saw. And, basically I got information from a club that I'm actually a member of that everyone now in San Francisco should wear a mask indoor, irrespective of being vaccinated or not. My understanding it's going to be mandatory at least for a period of time, but I'm not fully sure. Certainly there is a step back. From what was promising to be very nice summer for everyone. If you're vaccinated, you don't need to wear anything, et cetera, et cetera. In some ways, leaving this to the criteria of people wasn't a wise idea in the first place, because how do I know that someone's vaccinated or not? We saw a little bit of reverse engineering later on.

Episode 24 ends our trilogy on Silicon Valley and our “no bs” contextualization: from its history, geography and its most common and core myths.  In this episode, we deep dive on our Silicon Valley loves (and hates) and finally address the elephant in the room: is there an exodus going on or not? Has Silicon Valley’s downfall started or is it highly exaggerated? Listen to our most contentious podcast yet. Navigation: Introduction (01:33) Section 1: Hates (02:19) Section 2: Loves (33:51) Section 3: The Future of Silicon Valley (54:41) Conclusion (1:13:09) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Tech Entrepreneur, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, co-founder at App Annie, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show:   Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34)Nuno: So today in episode 24 of tech deciphered, we'll be finalizing our trilogy on Silicon valley. Our non bullshit view on Silicon valley, which started in episode 22, talking about what Silicon valley is and what brought us here, then continues in episode 23, with an episode specifically on the mythology of Silicon valley and our sevent myths of Silicon valley. And today we will end with love, hate - our areas of love and our areas  of hate of Silicon valley and the bay area. And we will finalize with Silicon valley in transition. Is there an Exodus? Is this a mindset? Is this a geography? What will happen to this region? Bertrand? Section 1 - Hates (02:19) Bertrand: Should we start with things we love or things we hate?  Nuno: I started with hate let's start with hate. And then we go to love. Yes. Bertrand: Let's start with hate. That sounds very very harsh, but there are some reasons to be harsh about Silicon valley, not everything is the paradise you can read from far. Nuno: Yeah. So maybe starting with the most obvious of them all, with crime safety, homelessness, and here we have to be very specific because obviously there's this situation for example, of San Francisco and crime and homelessness in San Francisco, which is pretty pervasive. And in some ways it's been a little bit amped up also with COVID as a lot of people left town and certainly are working more remotely. But definitely there is a problem in San Francisco. There's a problem also elsewhere, Oakland, I think is having a little bit of what I would call a Renaissance. It's getting and becoming an exciting city and and solving a lot of its issues. But obviously we know the history of crime in Oakland is also a very serious one. And then you have places that have obviously no crime at all, like Atherton, the richest town in America or the wealthiest town in America where, finding crime is probably difficult. So really a tale of two bay areas, so to speak or to Silicon valleys   Bertrand: Sorry let's not forget east Palo Alto  Nuno: Yeah. You have these dichotomies exactly to your point Bertrand, where you have Palo Alto, which we know next to Stanford and where a lot of very wealthy people live like mark Zuckerberg and others which is in general, relatively safe here, and then just east Palo Alto, which is not as safe.  Bertrand: The other side of the highway. Nuno: literally the other side of the 1 0 1. And so again, in some ways it's a little bit quintessential American, right? We know that from other cities like Chicago and in LA and other parts of the U S where you have certain areas that have  for a variety of reasons a significant amount of lack of safety and crime and all of that. And then you have areas that are extremely safe and extremely  controlled in terms of crime as well. So I think the first hate we probably both sha...

In episode 23, we demystify 7 of the most common and core myths on Silicon Valley, from its laid-backness to “everyone is amazing”.  Check out episode 22, where we explain what Silicon Valley actually is, talk about its history and geography. In episode 24, we will deep dive on our Silicon Valley loves (and hates) and finally address the elephant in the room: is there an exodus going on or not? Has Silicon Valley’s downfall started or is it highly exaggerated? Navigation: Intro (01:34) Myth 1 - Laid Back (04:25) Myth 2 - Not Transactional (16:11) Myth 3 - Self-Confidence and Assertiveness (27:22) Myth 4 - Ton of Capital Available (37:29) Myth 5 - Everyone is Amazing (47:31) Myth 6 - Failure Always Rewarded (55:17) Myth 7 - “Changing the World…” (1:00:49) Conclusion (1:04:49) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Tech Entrepreneur, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, co-founder at App Annie, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, Managing Partner, Founder at Chamaeleon, @ngpedro Our show:   Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news. Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34) Bertrand: Welcome to episode 23 of tech deciphered. This would be our second episode of our trilogy around Silicon Valley. If you remember how  previous episode, episode 22 was about what is Silicon valley, as well as what brought us there. For this episode, we're going to talk about the myth of Silicon Valley versus reality. And we are going to share with you seven myths that we have seen over these years, and we believe come a long way explaining how Silicon valley really work. Nuno: This started in some ways  with an article I wrote, I think in 2016 and I have four myths in that article. So today we're going to expand on that. Bertrand has come up with a couple more and that whole story started  with two things, one with an entrepreneur that reached out to me and I used to have a lot of requests on LinkedIn via email  semi warm intros from friends about someone from another was coming to Silicon valley or was visiting, was going to come to Silicon valley to visit and meet with potential customers or investors. But this particular entrepreneur that shall go un-named reached out to me and we had several people in common. It was a relatively cold reach out. And then he just sent me a follow-up message saying, I'm going there for a visit. Can you introduce me to Google, Facebook, all these companies. And I was like, why am I bugged by this? And as I started thinking through it I started actually taking it one step further, which was, I am bugged by it because people have this understanding of Silicon valley that is fundamentally wrong. And that's where this whole mythology came from.  In some ways we had people that we knew in common. We had acquaintances, not even really close friends, but I did not know this person. And that was one of the first things that bugged me. It's like, why is he asking me for things? I introduced him to people why? I don't know this guy.  And so again, I started going through it, and the second trigger for me to write this article, the myths of the Bay area back in 2016 which is still on Medium  if you want to take a look at it, I was about to be doing a keynote for an organization that I was a co-founder of called west to west, which was really linking  Portugal to Silicon valley, the two west coast as we call them and really helping entrepreneurs figure out how to best go to market in the U S how to best connect with talents in US, customers, potential investors, et cetera. So I came up with four  myths that really helped me frame in some ways, a little bit of my messaging back to entrepreneurs that are not classically from Silicon valley,

In episode 22, we begin the second season of Tech Deciphered, by deep diving into what Silicon Valley is, what made us (and others) move here, its unabridged mythology and whether there is really an exodus (or not) going on. This episode is the beginning of a trilogy that is an ode to our love and hate relationship with the region. Navigation: Intro (01:34) Section 1: What (exactly) is Silicon Valley? (02:23) Section 2: What brought us (and others) to Silicon Valley? (32:15) Conclusion (46:09) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Tech Entrepreneur, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, co-founder at App Annie, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, co-Founder and Managing Partner of Strive Capital, @ngpedro Our show:   Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news. Subscribe To Our Podcast Intro (01:34)Nuno: Welcome to season two of Tech Deciphered. Today, because we like to do really long episodes, we will start our trilogy on Silicon Valley. This episode will focus on what Silicon Valley actually is. We'll go into the geography of Silicon Valley, the origins of Silicon Valley, the development of Silicon Valley. Then we will also talk about what brought us here, what brought Bertrand and myself to Silicon Valley.  In the next few episodes, we will go into the mythology and reality of Silicon Valley as well as other areas of love and hate , and we will finalize with Silicon Valley in transition. Is it a mindset? Is there an Exodus? Is there a no exodus?Bertrand: Thank you Nuno, good to be here with you today.  How are you?Nuno: I'm well, so let's start with what is Silicon Valley? Section 1 - What (exactly) is Silicon Valley?Today we start with what is Silicon Valley? And one could say Silicon Valley is a state of mind, but it's actually a region of the world with a long history behind it. Bertrand do you want to guide us a little bit through the long history of Silicon Valley and where we're at?Bertrand: Yeah, sure. So as you say, it's a long history, but that depends by which standard? Nuno: For someone from France and Portugal probably not very long, but yes.Bertrand: Or ChinaNuno: Long from a US perspective, I guess. Bertrand: It's one of these places where you don't have much standing that is more than a hundred years old, and one could argue, it might be because of earthquakes. But not just, I would say the modern California is probably and Northern California is probably 150 years old, started with the Gold rush.And maybe before I go to the gold rush, obviously California was  in some ways discovered by the Europeans  500 years ago Nuno if we go back  to the origins of California and Northern California, and it was a spaniard, a Portuguese?   Nuno: We will not have that discussion. And obviously it's not questioned whether it was discovered, it was here, and there were native people here and then.  The Spanish conquistadores arrived. There is some argumentation whether Cabrillo  was actually Portuguese or Spanish, but he was definitely working for the Spaniards.So we'll let them do that. We'll let the Spanish people get that.Bertrand: Yes.  So California  was interspersed by a lot of missions and that connected the main roads. Actually historically the main road in Silicon Valley, El Camino Real, Nuno you want to say what it means.Nuno: Yeah, the Royal way. So it was a way that was put there to connect the different missions. And it was the Royal way because the Spaniards were here at the service of obviously the monarchy in Spain. And that's why it was called the Royal way or Camino Real. So now, you know.  Bertrand: And so, that's for me interesting part of Silicon Valley to think that you are on the Royal way most of the time when you are ...

In episode 21, we will end our first season of Tech Deciphered, by taking  a look back at 2020 - spoiler alert: defined by something starting with a C and ending with a 9 - as well as what we expect to happen in 2021. We will share our answers on questions like: Will we finally get rid of this pandemic? Is there a bubble in the public equity market in the US? We will also share our own personal lessons-learnt. For a more in-depth look at the future and the 2020s, please listen to episodes 11, 12 and 13, and for a more detailed view on COVID-19, please also listen to episodes 9A and 9B. Navigation: Introduction (01:24) Moment of Silence - In Memoriam (02:32) Section 1 - Recap on 2020 (03:00) Section 2 - Personal stories (26:11) Section 3 - COVID-19 and Macro Outlook for 2021 (32:10) Section 4 - Outlook for Tech in 2021 (42:42) Season 2 Preview & Conclusion (51:24) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Tech Entrepreneur, business angel, advisor to startups and VC funds, co-founder at App Annie, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, co-Founder and Managing Partner of Strive Capital, @ngpedro Our show:   Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news. Subscribe To Our Podcast