280. The Deep Tech Revolution, Predictions for the Job Market, Crypto, and NFTs, and The Inevitabilities of the Next Decade (Guy Perelmuter)

Guy Perelmuter of GRIDS Capital joins Nick to discuss The Deep Tech Revolution, Predictions for the Job Market, Crypto, and NFTs, and The Inevitabilities of the Next Decade. In this episode, we cover:

Walk us through your background and path to VC.
What’s the thesis at GRIDS Capital?
A common critique of deep tech — it takes longer, it’s more unpredictable, timing is of greater risk, and it’s more capital intensive — why commit your firm to exclusively targeting a segment that most venture investors refuse to consider?
Present Future: Business, Science, and the Deep Tech Revolution —Why did you decide to write a book about the deep tech revolution?
Protocols of standardization
What factors lead to standardization and choosing of a protocol?
What are the “inevitabilities” of the next decade?
What does the job market of the future look like?
Do crypto coins become a primary Treasury Reserve asset or a major currency in the next three to five years?
A quick take on NFTs?
What does the future for Brazil and South America look like?
You’re a previous risk manager, and you’ve claimed before that being risk-averse is a strength in VC. Why is that?

Guest Links:

Transcribed with AI:

0:00
Guy Perelmuter joins us today from Sao Paulo, Brazil. He’s the co founder and CEO of Grids Capital, a venture fund investing in deep tech ventures. Prior to starting Grids, he was chief risk officer at Vincci Partners. And prior to that he was COO,CRO and CTO at UBS. And of course, he is the author of the new hit book “Present Future Business Science in the Deep Dech Revolution”, Guy. Welcome to the show.

0:26
Thanks for having me, Nick. Always good to connect. You know, I’d love for you to share sort of your story and your path to venture with the the audience here. Course. So I’m a computer engineer, by training, that’s my major in college, then I have a master’s in artificial intelligence, which I did back in the 90s. Specifically in computer vision, then there were no jobs in AI in the mid 90s, believe it or not, so I started a career in, in finance, I did risk management and asset allocation for a couple of decades there. But I started to invest as an angel in late 2000s. And then, as time went by, I figured that the marriage between my technical background and finance pointed me to venture capital as an obvious career path. So a few years ago, I decided to start my own shop Grids Capital, the thesis, as you said, as deep tech only, and I’ve never looked back. Wonderful. And tell us a bit about the thesis of grids. So grids is all about giving our LPs access to a diversified allocation into deep technology. We’re not experts, and we’re not sector focused in the sense that we’re not concentrating our bets in one specific vertical. So we are typically spreading our our bets around anything that has to do with the hard sciences in general, where there’s a very, very clear barrier of entry, where we can see those startups contributing to inevitabilities that are bound to occur in our lifetimes over the next few decades. So we are, we are investors in life sciences, as we are investors in machine learning in robotics, in energy in new materials. So we try to explore the whole gamut. And we do that using two types of assets. Right, we do the traditional venture investing in startups. But we also do allocations into other GPS, typically GPS that are focused in a specific niche. Because we strongly believe that we live in a world where it’s actually the intrapreneur that picks their investors and not the other way around. I think the good and the smarter intrapreneurs. They have a shortlist where they know exactly who did like to talk to who they like to be connected with. And as a risk manager, I feel that we are increasing our odds of success, if we are partnering with some of those GPS that will attract the best entrepreneurs in their own fields. So this is the whole thesis that we have in terms of how we allocate and how we invest. And will those fund managers all be deep tech focused? And the second part I want to ask is, what’s your definition of deep tech? Great. So yes, they will be all deep tech focus we we have a very, very narrow worldview when it comes to venture in the sense that we we concentrate our bets exclusively in deep technology managers, and for us, and that’s a great question. I think. I think deep tech is basically every company or every every startup that we look at and where we can, we have a hard time thinking about how many other folks out there would be able to copy that technology or come and create something similar we feel that deep technology is always associated with deep technical knowledge in this specific field. We love companies where the work has already started years before the company even was born, you know, at their PhD programs or their master research. We feel that deep technology has always something an element to it where you really need a very specific background to be able to either implement or to compete with that. So we as a risk manager, again, not not trying to sound like a broken record. This is something that we really feel is is interesting for the portfolio. Awesome. Gi you and I have talked before a bit about this but common critique of deep tech right it takes longer, more in predictable timing is of greater

5:00
risk. It’s more I mean, you mentioned you were an AI before AI was was really ready. And it’s more capital intensive. Why commit your firm to exclusively target a segment that most venture investors avoid?

5:15
That’s a great question. And yes, we’ve we’ve talked about that extensively. In the past, I think that there are a few misconceptions around that particular view of, of deep technology, right? I think that this was probably true. Maybe in the early 2000s, even late,

5:37
the end of the first decade of this this new century, but honestly, the the drop in prices, when it comes to sensors, and memory, when you look at how microprocessors have been more and more available, how access to internet has become almost ubiquitous, where we can see the building blocks of new technologies, very broadly available, I think there’s this element of, of accessibility into the new building blocks. There are, of course, the graduate programs and research centers around the world, and particularly in the US, that have this immense source of funding. And the students, graduate students, I think they’re becoming increasingly more connected to this optionality they have after doing their PhD, where life is not restricted to becoming a full professor, which was a career path, in the last few decades for a PhD or a post PhD. Now, a lot of these folks are going out in the world to bring their research to the masses. And if you look at the average time it takes for research to get out of the academic journals into the real world. This has collapsed over the last few decades. Now, sometimes it takes us as, as few as 36 months for technology that you’ll find in a paper to become a prototype or a product. So all of those elements up to your point, date point, a not only to I think, a shorter development cycle, because people should start counting the time for the development of a new technology, when it starts the research process and the Graduate Studies back in university. But for us, as investors, we’re only starting the clock at that seed round. And I do believe that the increase in interest in deep technologies, and all those factors that that just listed, I think they point to a shorter time to market, probably less risk, if you know where to look at. And if you can read a technical patent, and if you can connect with the right experts, and obviously, and we can see that accelerating in the last 12 months due to COVID. I think there’s a lot of interest out there for the you know, the life changing technologies that these startups are working on.

8:17
Yeah, so an issue that we have addressed on the show before and it’s more of a personal opinion, I guess of mine is that the moat, and the degree to which, you know, something is differentiated and, and uniquely, you know, has a sustainable competitive advantage. I think that’s almost undervalued in the public markets. And when when companies go public, there’s, you know, there’s a lot of metrics focused on growth and revenue, retention and churn. And, you know, those are very important things. But I think as we see things progress over time, I think the breadth and depth of the competitive advantage will will be rewarded.

9:03
Guy, So you wrote, present future, you know, beautiful book, it was a great read, and also good reference as well, which is, you know, dual threat of a book. But, you know, what, why did you decide to write this book about the deep tech revolution?

9:18
I think, a couple of reasons. I think first and foremost, I feel that there’s this lack of, I wouldn’t say a lack of understanding, but I think people don’t fully realize, you know, how close we are to a world where the speed with which change reaches us, is going to continuously increase. I think we’re we got used to saying, Oh, it’s incredible how technology is changing our lives, the pace, the pace, the rhythm and all that. That’s a common comment that we hear, but I don’t think people realize how huge this acceleration is going to be over the next few decades.

10:00
Because, and some A lot of people have have written about this in the past, the whole exponential growth thesis about technology is absolutely happening, right, the building blocks, as I said before, they’re more available, they’re much more sophisticated, you get, you know, experts that are able to put together prototypes in a matter of weeks versus months, or even years. So I think that would be the first reason I think people have to get a little bit better prepared, if you will, to fully understand how quickly things are about to change. And the second thing is something that also has been a common misconception, in my opinion, is that, you know, when people talk about, I don’t know, self driving cars, or, or gene editing, or AI, you know, things that feel like you’re brand new, and they just started right, with 3d printing and all of those technologies, I think it’s very important to kind of tell the story of how we got here, right. And all of these technologies, they’re decades older, at least right, so AI has been around since the late 50s. 3d printing started as a as a concrete and real possibility back in 1970s, we are looking at the first test of a self driving car in the late 80s. So we’re talking about 30 4070 year old technologies that are all around us. And when I started to do my research to write this book, I realized that I didn’t need to stop then, right? I could go all the way back to, you know, ancient Greece, and Rome and China and the Renaissance and the scientific revolution, to be able to at least connect the dots between how we are living the very same thread the very same trend, since we stop hunting for food, and we became clustered around cities, civilization has been driven by technology, right? The only difference between now and then is because is that now we’re looking at changes that are weeks or months or a few years apart. And then change took centuries. But if you look at the, the core of the evolution of our civilization, technology has always been in the driving seats. And I thought that it would be interesting to give this perspective now that we are, you know, living this incredible convergence of new technologies,

12:35
You brought up history and sort of the evolution of technology throughout and I’d be curious to get your take on standardization around protocols. And you know, how important that is, is a topic that comes up a lot with crypto and the range of different derivatives and whatnot that are out there. And classically, you know, the the Roman, I think it was the Roman carts or chariot was of a certain, you know, width, and that created the roads, and then everything was standardized on those, and even the trains that carry cargo throughout the states today are the exact same width because of a protocol that was developed, you know, many, many years ago. So I’d be curious kind of for your frame and the in the way you think about standardization and protocols?

13:21
Absolutely. It’s a great question. And again, it goes to the heart of the of our thesis that this has been the driver of civilization, right. And this is a great example you picked on. So if you look at every single technology that has been widely and broadly adopted at some, at some point of there was a process of standardization, right? If you look at VHS tapes, back in the day, if you look at operating systems, you know, for for personal computers, if you look at the smartphone that you have in her pocket, at some point during this very chaotic and very intense competition that took place to secure a market for those, at some point, you had to converge on a protocol, right? Even if it were only for the sake of having a common ground on top of which people could discuss. And I remember reading something about it a few months ago, where this explosion of streaming services has a little bit to do with that because back in the day when you had like four or five major networks, and everybody watched the same thing that was common ground, right, the water cooler conversation was about, you know, the last episode of Seinfeld or friends or or the office or whatever. And now you have so many streaming services so much high quality TV that I can give you two or three series I watched that are amazing and you’ll never heard of and vice versa, I’m sure so standardization, I think is going to be critical for people to be able to build a new stack of functionalities and applications and services. And I do believe that we are going to see that in pretty much every single area where you’re planning to touch consumers when you’re planning to touch a broad range of people with a broad range of needs. And so it’s not going to be different with crypto, in my opinion.

15:26
Are there factors that lend themselves well, to standardization? You know, as I think about standard protocols, TCP IP, or you mentioned VHS, I mean, these were not the ideal ways to handle the challenge, but yet they persisted. And they became the de facto standard.You know, same as really the case with Bitcoin. I mean, it is the standard, but it’s not really ideal. It’s inefficient, and it’s got some latency issues and whatnot. Any thoughts on that?

15:55
Yeah, it’s a great question. And the same goes to VHS, right, VHS? If you look at the VHS tapes versus Betamax tapes, Betamax back in the day had better quality, they were, you know, lasted longer. But VHS became the de facto standard for the home recording industry. Right. And, and we’re, I’m definitely dating myself here. But, but that’s, that’s a fact. So I think that these are, this is a living proof of how market forces work, right. Because when, when the market needs a standard, it will not necessarily pick the best one, it will probably pick the one that the lowest hanging fruit, they’ll choose the one that is more readily available, maybe has a little bit of a price advantage, and people will figure it out. So to your point, if you look at the Internet Protocol, right, nobody could ever have foreseen that you would need billions of of IPS for a world where everything now connects to the internet, right? You don’t need an IP for one computer per household, you need multiple IPS, because now you have your your coffeemaker connected to the internet and have your smartwatch and you have your fridge. So I think that it has to do with how we cannot fight market forces, when the market is ready for a standard, they will pick the one that is you know, readily available, cheaper, hopefully, and the one that people will have to figure out a way to build around it and, and we’ll see all it all the time, right? If you take windows, the very first version of Windows, and to look at, you know how far along they came. If you look at the same thing with Android or or, you know, a standards of recording or restreaming, or image compression you are we live in a world where standards are critical and important. And it’s up to the technology providers to be able to keep up to make the upgrades to make them down downward compatible so that people don’t have to reshuffle all all their hardware and all their infrastructure. But it’s something that is absolutely unavoidable.

18:01
do you what do you think are some of the inevitabilities of the next decade with regards to deep tech and in technology?

18:10
Yeah, so we are, we’re very much focused on that. Because I think that will do risk, you know, or at least will reduce significantly the chances that your investment is going to fail. So I think one trend that you cannot go wrong with is the increase in energy demand, right, the world will continue to demand more energy, all of us we consume more energy, we have our gadgets, our computers, our devices, and that’s not going to change. So that means that you have all the ecosystem around energy generation transformation, efficiency, pollution, reduction of pollution, all those trends, they I think become inevitable, right. The second trend, which again, I think we’re all seeing and witnessing is that we are going to live longer, and we’re going to live better. So everything that has to do with health and quality of life in increasing life expectancy. And and we did a great job as a civilization, or at least a very decent job and getting rid or almost getting rid of infectious diseases where you had, you know, vaccines that you know, basically eradicated or almost eradicated some diseases. And now we have the challenges of those diseases that are associated with old age right to neurodegenerative diseases, chronic diseases, heart cancer. So all that I think it’s inevitable we’re going to see money pouring into those areas. People want to live longer, they want to live better. So that’s the second area where I think it’s inevitable. A third area is that you have to feed by 2050 will will have to feed about 10 billion people, right? This is this is going to happen and there’s no signs that we’re going toSee, you know, many new areas that are going to be used for crops or for or for cattle, and so forth. So we’ll have to figure out better ways to feed another two and a half billion people that are coming down the pipe in the next three decades. So food, agriculture,all that, I think, also inevitable. So these are at least three examples of things that you can ultimately believe that are going to be incredibly it will need resources and are going to be incredibly fertile for for new ideas and new companies.

20:42
And as you think about those, and some of the other sort of controversial factors that that are playing out, you know, what predictions do you have? In, you know, what are the strategic implications, you know, going forward with regards to necessary technologies that are coming.

21:06
So I think that one of them is something that fought fought for, for good or for bad, we have created this, this monster called social media, right, and we have all become, to some degree in slave to it, right, either through Twitter, or Facebook, or LinkedIn, or YouTube or Instagram, you can choose your pick your poison, there’s pretty much none of us who are who are not connected to those networks, and that don’t get a tremendous value from them, right? There’s a lot to love about this, the possibility that these networks provide, but as we have seen all too well, in the past, they have become also a source of endless controversies. And where you have the proliferation of fake news of, of misconceptions of lies, outright lies. And I think that we are under estimating the effects that did this could have in us as a society, and if what we saw recently, right during the 2016 election in the US, and then again, played out in the 2020, election, and vaccines, and flat earth, and all the type of nonsense where we listen to people where their opinion becomes more important than your fact, then we’re in for a world of pain and trouble, because we’re looking at a society that is growing up kids and teenagers are growing up with with social media, that’s where they’re getting a lot of their information, we’re looking to spike in suicides among that young people like we’ve never seen, because the pressure to peer pressure, everything is very public, everything is very out there, this has become a big problem. So I think that this is probably something that we’re not paying enough attention to. And I think that people who are able to come up with, you know, efficient, deep fake detectors, people that are going to be able to come up with a sentiment analysis for whatever is happening social media, people that are able to efficiently explore in a good way this, you know, huge repository of information do you’re bound to to do well, but this is, I think, a huge risk that we are running for the next few decades. There are obviously others like the climate crisis, which again, despite what a lot of naysayers are gonna say. It’s absolutely real scientifically documented and proven. We are in for a world of pain if we don’t fix this in the very short term. And there’s not a vaccine for that, right. It’s not like the COVID crisis where we had clearly an exit ramp, when and if we got the vaccine ready, we could get out of the mess that we put the world into, and that’s playing out now special in the US with the broad access to vaccines. But when you talk about the climate crisis, there’s not a vaccine I had, there is not a shelter where you can run to if if the world becomes a, I don’t know, three or four degrees Celsius hotter. So all of those things are, I guess, trends that I I think are gonna play out. And I think, again, are ripe with opportunities.

24:30
What What is the future of the the job market look like?

24:34
I think the key thing here, despite what you’ve heard, right, there have been a lot of very high quality research published about, you know, how many jobs are going to be destroyed by you know, technology and how many jobs are actually going to be destroyed because now, artificial systems can perform in a level that is, you know, unthinking Ebola was unthinkable just a few years ago. But there’s also a lot of, I think, creative destruction going on in the sense that we’re going to see new careers and new opportunities. But my view in the job market, in a nutshell has to do with subjectivity with a human touch. I think that jobs that require a lot of human interaction, a lot of subtle reads, subtle cues that humans have been evolving over, you know, 1000s of years to be able to capture and to understand, I think those jobs have a very, very, you know, good looking prospect for the next few decades, because I don’t see technology, replacing that particular part of human interaction. And at the same time, I feel that there’s a huge need for people to start understanding that, right now. Information data is widely accessible, right? There’s pretty much nothing that you and I in our listeners cannot study or understand, just by typing a few words, in our computers, because everything is out there. Now, almost everything. So it’s less about what exactly do you want to study or, but much more on? Have you got the right toolkit to be able to get out there, find the appropriate sources of information, being able to digest them and do something appropriate with that. And this is a huge challenge for the educational system, which has never relied on that type of readily available information, right, we were taught dates and names, and history and geography, and a lot of things because that was not readily available. And now, people have to realize that everything is out there, you don’t need to learn anything by heart, you will eventually absorb a ton of information and learn it by heart, because you will need it every day or every other day. But now the key for for a successful career is much more about being able to learn how to learn, learn how to develop new skills, and not over emphasize anything in particular, you have to be ready to change and to adapt quickly in the new world.

27:27
It’s still astonishing to me, you know, some of our elite institutions, and our educational system still has this focus on on memorization, and just almost ignoring critical thinking skills. I mean, it’s, it’s shocking to see, you know, how ill prepared some folks are not to denigrate anyone, but they’re you know, there’s a lot of capable folks as well. But the system is just not designed currently to reward the right sorts of activities. From my perspective, at least,

28:03
I think you’re right. And I touched on that on the book, in the in the chapter, we talked about education and the future of education. And I feel that over the last year, right, where all of us who have kids, especially younger kids, and have seen them a study, you know, from home through the computer, I I’m pretty comfortable with the idea that the academic curriculum, it was delivered, they were they were able to learn what they had to learn, I don’t know in fourth grade, or fifth or seventh or eighth, right. But the invaluable experience invaluable social experience of being at school, with your colleagues with your friends, building those human relations. That’s where the real value add is. And this is a huge loss for for for this kids, this kids. And you’re right, I think schools, universities, and not by their own fault, right, but because they’ve been doing the same thing for, you know, centuries, literally centuries, if you look at the how school and how knowledge has been transmitted from, you know, ancient Greece up to today. There has been remarkably little change. But I think that it’s becoming increasingly more, I think, common sense that we’re now living in a different type of world. And I think we are going to see entities and universities and especially higher level up educational institutions changing because of that.

29:35
So the future of finance, I’m gonna ask you to make a prediction here. Do crypto coins become, you know, a primary Treasury reserve asset or a major country here in the next call three to five years.

29:54
Okay, so I’m going out on a limb here, because this is this is really a tough one, especially now. Right, we’re living this incredible explosion and and interest in crypto. But I think I really believe that when it comes to finance, right, there’s pretty much no country in the world, especially not the ones that are really relevant for the global economy in terms of GDP, and currency value and all that, that is looking at this very closely, and that don’t have you know, like a bazooka in their arsenal, where they can come out and say, Well, okay, guys, so right now, I, the Fed, or ID, European Central Bank, or I, the Chinese central bank, or whatever, I’m creating the digital dollar, or the digital pound or digital era. And we’re going to implement that using blockchain and security protocols. And it’s going to be, you know, fungible, and it’s going to be secure. And it’s going to be hard to crack for DS that and the other reasons, and though I feel that there will be room and there will be space for crypto to continue to flourish. I still feel that as an investor, right. And as someone who has this deep concern for for downsides, as a risk manager, I feel that there’s this elephant in the room where people are playing around with those currencies. And again, I understand the value of, you know, the smart contracts that you can embed in those and, and tokens and all that. And I think this does not kind of disqualify the thesis that at some point in time, could be in one year, it could be in 10 years, you know, you’ll have a government a central bank saying, Okay, this is what this is the new standard when it comes to our national currency. And guess what we’re adding a few features to make it more interesting. So there’s no reason why we cannot see the digital dollar that also supports smart contracts, that also supports automatic conversion to euros or to remember your to whatever currency you want. So I’m very weary when you have a player that is orders of magnitude larger than all the other players in the same in the same sandbox, I feel that they can pull the trigger at any given point. And that’s for me cause of concern. And that’s for me, something that kind of keeps me a little bit away from from crypto, at least for the time being.

32:36
Interesting. Interesting. Well, the US certainly, in a tough position here. I mean, they, on one hand, they could have the most to lose from this if they, if they get it wrong. Any any quick thoughts, maybe just quick take on NFTs, it’s kind of all the rage right now on Twitter.

32:52
Yeah, I think NF T’s are our, you know, where it’s like a little toy, we just unwrapped, and now we’re playing with it. And you know, when you get a toy, and you’re really, really young, and this toy is supposed to be I don’t know, a little, a little hammer that you can, you know, use to play around with your, with your toys, right, but then you take that little hammer, that little plastic hammer, and you’ll start pounding everything you’ll see because again, for the person with one hammer, everything looks like a nail, right? And it feels to me that NF T’s now are the hammer, right? people heard about it. And now we’re, we’re we’re putting that in works of art. And I do understand where there’s value there. But we’re also putting there in photos, or in JPEGs, or in GIFs or gifs, however you want to pronunciate it. And I think that NF T’s are probably going to graduate very quickly. And again, this goes back to what we said about how technology has been faster and adoption. And in terms of of a distribution. I think we’re gonna see NF T’s being used to stuff like, you know, real estate or, or, or land in general art, serious art, if you will. But I think that we’re still, you know, very early in the game. And I think it’s become sort of a curiosity, and that we are still, you know, going to see the most useful uses for this technology, which, again, to your point, I think it’s absolutely legitimate and and useful. But I don’t think we’re there yet. I think this is going to be something that’s going to play out over the next at least few quarters to say the least.

34:38
Interesting, yeah, it always worries me when something is being valued based on scarcity and there’s no enduring persist persistent value associated with it. It’s it’s sort of ephemeral, you know, flavor of the month, sort of value. And so, from that standpoint, and FTS point have a very important role to play with as sets that do have sort of sustaining value but but all the others really worry me. You know, good. Before we wrap up, I’d love to hear a bit about Brazil, South America, and you know what the present future is, so to speak for, for your region?

35:18
That’s a fantastic question. I think one of the core, if you will, requirements that that I have an grid’s has in terms of, you know, investment environment is not only the technological infrastructure and the quality of universities and colleges and professors and students and, and South America, you know, does have this in spades, right. We have great schools, great professors. But the where I think we fail, and I cannot speak for the whole continent, but I can definitely speak for Brazil, which is, which is a home for me for now. The ecosystem, right, the regulatory framework for the ecosystem, the the way, investors, intrapreneurs, incumbents, universities, research centers, they are entangled in their regulatory framework, that is definitely not pro business that is definitely not positive for the development of a thriving ecosystem. That’s, I think, what holds us back at least in the deep tech space, right? I think this is where I’m paying more attention to, obviously, Brazil, of the World Bank lists every year, the most pro business countries in the world, right, and it’s a very thorough list, they go, you know, not only they give each country a overall score, but they also will give you a score on your tax legislation, on your environmental, transportation, you know, everything that you can think about, that will hurt or or make life easier for business people. And and Brazil consistently ranks much worse than it should. If you look at our GDP, size of the economy, the world class, business people we have around, because again, the the framework that people are forced to work with needs, a lot of work needs a ton of work. So I would love to be more optimistic and give in paint a rosier scenario. But honestly, at this juncture, if there’s not a major shift, not only in terms of the legislation, and how people are structuring the ecosystem, but also in terms of the mindset of the lawmakers, that that should definitely look at the businesses as something that are a positive and are going to bring more taxes and more prosperity to the general population. I think we’re going to have a very hard time, I think it’s going to be an uphill battle for years to come. For us to fully develop our potential as a creator of new technologies, unfortunately.

38:16
Question I kind of want to ask you a little unrelated to this. But you know, you’re a previous Risk Manager, and you’ve claimed before that being risk averse is actually a strengthened VC. Why is that?

38:29
I think the whole, you know, romantic idea that, that in venture capital, it’s either a 10, or 20, or 100x return? Or Then why do you even bother? Right? I think a lot of people know about, you know, the power law, and how it has been driving returns for many funds out there. I think that whole gamut of preconception preconceptions about venture are fine. But I like to think that that our model where we are very diversified, right, where we try to, to partner with some of the best GPS out there and get their own take on specific sectors where there have more expertise, more knowledge and more experience, where we are bringing to our portfolio companies where we already see a little bit of traction. So there’s a little bit of de risking going on, that for sure will not make our products 10 or 20x products, right, we are confident that this is not going to happen. But at the same time, the chances of us not returning the money with some level of profitability over you know, the 10 year time, and at the same time giving people exposure and understanding of what’s going on in the world in multiple trends. I think it’s a it’s a great deal. So I feel that this whole risk management thesis where we’re probably working Getting a lot of the upside in the investment by not going you know all in into any specific name. I think it’s more than compensated by the fact that we also were able to cut the downside in that investment which is, which is really, I think important when you talk about venture right, which is arguably the most the riskiest asset class out there, I think there’s a lot of value. So I feel that this is an edge. And I think that if you can play this well, you can produce really as symmetrical returns for investor instead of 10, or 20x, you can deliver three, four or 5x. But you can almost all but guarantee that the chances of them losing money are slim. And that’s something that I really care about.

40:47
And then finally, here gi what’s the best way for listeners to connect with you and follow along with grids.

40:53
So, everybody’s welcome to you know, enroll in our newsletter, you just, you know, log on to grids, capital comm and enroll in our newsletter or you can go to presentfuturebook.com You can also subscribe to our newsletter, or drop me a quick note, there’s a form there, right? Right in front of everybody’s eyes. So happy to hear from from anyone who has something interesting to say.

41:18
Well Guy it’s always a pleasure. I love the book. I think it’s you and I have talked about this, but it’s one of the few. I mean, I’ve read a lot of books on futurist and teacher stuff and technology trends. And this is one of the few that really connects it to the present, the societal issues, what it means for today, what it means for the near term and what it means for the long term. So the book is present future, the man is Guy Perelmuter. Guy, thanks so much for joining us, check out the book. It’s gonna go right behind me on the bookshelf on the top shelf. And, you know, I look forward to reviewing it again.

41:52
Thank you so much for having me, Nick. pleasure.

41:53
Thanks, guys. Take care.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai