I’m excited to have Garry Tan, founder of Initialized Capital, on the podcast today. Garry is a unique individual I’ve only met a couple of times. He says he’s a fan of the show, so he knows how to sell. His resume is bananas – something we love on Panic with Friends; they may not be famous to everyone, but they’re famous to me! Garry is a Stanford Graduate, was at Y Combinator in the heyday, and was partners with Alexis Ohanian (founder of Reddit). If that weren’t enough, Garry was a seed investor in Coinbase. Oh, and Garry’s now part of my go-to list on the crypto space along with Fred Wilson and Chris Dixon.
You can listen to the podcast here on Spotify or Apple and now all the episodes are on my YouTube channel as well.
For more details on today’s conversation read on below…
Guest: Garry Tan
Profile: Founder at Initialized Capital
Where to Find Him: Twitter, YouTube
What’s Garry Panicked About?: How many companies there are in the current Y Combinator.
The Takeaway:
Garry’s a seed investor in Flexport, Instacart, Patreon, Standard Cognition — the list goes on. We talk about his start, his time with Y Combinator, and the future. We talk writing checks – everything is 10x bigger, 10x more opportunities, 10x more capital, and 10x more people who could and should start companies. Within a decade, there’ll be $1 trillion in venture capital easily. We discuss the coming explosion of Climate investing and opportunities in ‘old school’ industries as the digital and physical economies continue to converge. Finally, we talk media. Garry loves media – he produces his own successful YouTube show. Content is hard, but we’re both super bullish on it. It democratizes everything. If you can tell a story, you can win. Start small and be consistent.
Favorite Quotes:
“A lot of us are on the right side of the Great Sort. A lot of people aren’t. And then how do we make more prosperity?”
“Not being as good as your taste dictates is the moment when you want to quit. And if you quit, you’ll never get good enough; but if you keep going through the dip, you’ll actually be that good. It’s the key to all creative endeavors.