Disrupting Venture Capital and Government for Global Good

Adam  00:00

If you've been paying attention to well, anything today, you know that we're facing some of the biggest challenges we faced as a species, community and environment. And one of the primary challenges to tackling large scale problems has been humanities boundary drawing between things like business and government and academia or even one's personal and professional lives. Now, the thing is, we create these boundaries to help us make sense of the actual intertwined and messy experiences of being alive today. And sometimes we forget why we created those boundaries in the first place, and instead just kind of follow along with them, and uphold them. But what happens when something big happens, or when we face some unprecedented challenges that our current structures just can't quite handle? That's right, it's time to rethink and reinvent. And in the world of business and capitalist economics, where we are today, things like progress are often measured by the speed of innovation or the accumulation of wealth. But our next guest flips the script here, finding the intersection where mission meets venture capital. Welcome to This Anthro Life. I'm your host Adam Gamwell. And I'm joined today by Arun Gupta, a thought leader whose life reads kind of like the novel of intersections from the nerve centers of venture capital to the strategy rooms of the Obama tech transition team, and into the academic halls of Georgetown, and Stanford. Arun brings to light the unexpected pathways that can lead us to solve some of society's most pressing issues without having to choose between doing well, and doing good. So stay tuned as we unpack how the worlds of venture capital and government are not just intersecting, but they're coalescing in ways that could redefine the landscape of innovation and social entrepreneurship. So what does it really take to build bridges where walls have stood for decades? Let's dive into the mind of Arun Gupta to find out, you're listening to this afterlife where Curiosity meets critical thought, unpacking the complexities of the human condition. Stay tuned. So just want to start off by saying, Arun.  I'm really excited to have you on the podcast. I'm an admirer of your work, both the book venture meets mission as well as then your work at the novel reach Foundation. And so just wanted to start off by just saying thanks for joining me here on the program today. Well,

Arun gupta  01:49

Thank you for having me greatly appreciate it, love to chat about what we're doing and appreciate what you're doing as well with spreading the message around.

Adam  01:57

So I think they're gonna kick kick us off and give folks a bit of an entree into what's what we'll be talking about today. You know, you got, I think, a really, really interesting new book out venture meets mission. And, you know, you're exploring this kind of the intersection of entrepreneurship technology in how these can come together to help address societal work, kind of these bigger problems that we didn't how this needs to intersect with government. And so I'm curious in this part, because sometimes you don't think about VC and venture capital going hand in hand with with government. And so I'm curious, like, what inspired you to kind of think about, we need to put these two topics together, and then write a book about it

Arun gupta  02:30

look, so a lot of it's from my own shared experience. So if I were to step back for a second, look, I grew up in the DC area, my father has been working in LLC system command for 45 years still working there. So government service has been in our family, I then spent my professional career the bulk of it in venture capital. And so I saw the power of entrepreneurship in in in the venture ecosystem, in the latter half of that was really around also trying to bring that to bear around solving mission oriented problems post being on the tech transition team with Obama. And we started looking at things around cybersecurity and things of that sort as well. And so he saw the magic when he could make the entrepreneur ecosystem connect with government, but also the challenges with it. And then I started in my next chapter, started teaching, and I started teaching at Georgetown, and was teaching a class at Stanford in Washington, called Valley meets mission, and there was really trying to talk to Stanford students about like, not, you know, directing their talents on Candy Crush, 3.0, but like, Let's go solve bigger problems with social value to it, but doing it in a for profit way. And, and, you know, what I saw in that was that, you know, for the students, many, for many of them, they hadn't really been taught to this way before. And they were looking for ways to do things that were more purposeful, but also wanting to do things that also had, you know, an entrepreneurial lens, but also, you know, were they could do well, financially. And, you know, Mike Morel, who was one of my speakers would say, Well, you know, you had, you know, half the students have probably, you know, had a negative impression of government and the other half had a negative impression of entrepreneurial capitalism. And you're trying to land the plane by the end of the course. So we need both if we're going to solve big problems, and you know, and I think seeing these students get energized around that really was the impetus about writing a book, which was now called Venture meets mission came out earlier this year, published by Stanford, and it's been a national bestseller. And, you know, I think what we found that it's really resonating with folks, is this idea of like, how do we create a new partnership between entrepreneurs and government to solve big problems. And that enabled us to now launch noble reach, which we've now been at for about a year, and we have nearly a half a billion dollar endowment. And with that, what we're trying to do is, you know, take some of the principles in the book, but, you know, at the highest levels in great power competition and talk about how do we solve big problems in global competitiveness against our adversaries by doing two things, getting better talent and better innovation around government, and that's what we're trying to do now at Noble route is to build that infrastructure to help modernize connecting that top talent and top innovation to government. That's

Adam  04:58

fantastic. I mean, thank you for for walking me through that, too, because I think it is it's such an important piece often as we think about the one hand kind of what are our own superhero origin stories of how we find ourselves in the pathways? And like, what does it mean to think about impact and what that work can look like. And something I thought was really interesting that you talked about in the book, and then you could have highlighted here in your own story to is, as part of this is the importance of kind of intersectional entrepreneurs. And this is interesting to me, because, you know, as an anthropologist, it typically would hear intersectionality, around kind of social issues. And so it's kind of interesting to think about the way that this concept can come into play around entrepreneurship, and obviously puts us into the social social realm. And so I'd like to kind of this, this interesting juxtaposition that we don't always hear business and intersectionality go and go in together. So I'm curious to kind of think about this, this idea with you in like, you know, in one's own importance of kind of having intersectionality in one's career path, right, kind of taking a nonlinear path is is even kind of shared going through academia, and government and VC work in this space. And so it's like, thinking about how, through through this work, but also just in general to like this idea, kind of, you know, that comes from your own story, it sounds like but then how do you think about this, right? Like, how did the this, this kind of concept, come to help shape the way we can think about taking kind of non traditional nonlinear pathways of bringing together, you know, VC government in so I guess there's this concept of an organizing principle for you just think about what does it mean to be kind of an intersectional? Entrepreneur? Right, you've seen this idea kind of elsewhere, because it seems quite quite unique, the way that you're kind of exploring this idea with this concept.

Arun gupta  06:31

Adam, I appreciate the comment in the question. And, you know, one of my, one of our CEOs who we profiled in the book, Nate click, you know, used a quote, that, I think, paraphrase is a quote by Steve Jobs, but he says, you know, look, you know, my, my career never made sense. Looking forward, it only makes sense looking backwards, right. And there's that sense of, like, you know, this idea of embracing non linearity is something that you can look at, when you look backwards in your career. But when you're going in at it, you know, there's, there's, there's a vulnerability around that. And Nate's case, you know, he was a Marine author, went to business school, went to a not for profit at CNET became a tech entrepreneur at one of our portfolio companies, and is now the first, you know, Ambassador of cybersecurity, you know, in our nation's history. And I say that, because I think our academic models, I think one of one of the things I noticed when I was inside of academia, you know, still feels like it's very much training folks to be going down a track, right in, in what I found, when I was teaching and talking to students was trying to open their aperture to the idea that like, just because you're on this track, doesn't mean you can't do other things, right. And I found that message really resonating deeply with the students right now. And then as you started, in my own career as I, if I was spending time on the venture side, and then academia and government, you know, realizing that, you know, as you said, the superpower was something basic, which was just being a translator, you know, having shared empathy around what what each sector is doing, but also being able to speak the language. And, you know, what was striking to me is the, we just don't have a lot of folks like that, you know, I think we've had decades now where folks either go into government, or they go into academia, or they go into the private sector, and they kind of stay there and in the reward system, and each of those institutions rewards that, right. Like, the more you stay here, you can move ahead, we don't have on an off ramps that allow people to move into these other sectors. And if you look at some of these bigger problems that we're trying to address now, you know, I think the feeling is that, you know, it's almost the anti Malcom Gladwell outliers, like 10,000 hours and go deep in something, you know, it's more than David Epstein range model where you need folks that have multiple and diverse set of experiences that can help connect the dots. And that's how we're gonna solve these problems. And, you know, I think that's what we try to highlight in the book. Right? So for me, I don't think it was an a moment, it was just a, it was my own experience. And then seeing folks in these different areas, realizing that like, really many times, all I was bringing to the table was a currency of trust in the other ecosystem. Right? So if I'm an academic, you know, the way they think about VCs is different now that I'm a teacher, they they view me differently. Likewise, in government, if I'm engaging in government, in some capacity, there's an implicit trust that's there. And so I think of what I started to see and why we write about it, and try to, you know, impart some of this to folks starting their career, as these were all things I feel like I learned or saw my friends, my cohort learn, you know, looking back on our career, right, so what do I wish I'd known, you know, starting my career that I know now. It's like, look, embrace the nonlinear lifestyle as far as you're developing your career, and it can actually make you more valuable to the other parties. And, you know, how do we do that in a more meaningful way for what we try to talk about? Yeah,

Adam  09:55

I think that that's such a valuable point, too, especially because as we're seeing a shift, you know, both in terms of What what academia might value that also kind of what businesses are valuing? Especially as we are, I think you're facing a has been escalating challenges kind of, like a global context.

Arun gupta  10:08

Yeah, Adam in part of that is like, look, the vernacular that we use, right. And I think we've given a generation of vernacular of an artificial binary choice. That binary choices, either for profit, not for profit, private sector, public sector, you feel like you have to pick one or the other one's about making money, the other one's about doing good. And, you know, what we're trying to highlight here is that there's a middle ground, right, there's a, we need a language around that, you know, we use the language of mission and venture, but you know, we need a language that show folks that there's a place in between where they can play. Because ironically, I think when when we use these artificial choices, it also creates stereotypes that are probably not appropriate, right? Like, if someone's on the on the policy siding goes into doing something entrepreneurial, many times your peers will use a word like you're being a sellout, right? And that's not appropriate, right. And that'll keep people from wanting to play there. And likewise, if you're on the on the business side, or the entrepreneurial side, and you do something with government, you know, they're the ones who are worried about being inefficient, and slow, and not innovative, and which is also not true. Right, there's a middle ground, there were a lot of this kind of comes together. And so you know, in the book, we have a chapter called humanizing government and personalizing entrepreneurship, to kind of break down, you know, dispel some of those kind of stereotypes in a way, so that we can begin in forge a more constructive way of collaborating across these ecosystems.

Adam  11:35

I agree with that point. That's actually really important. Because so much of you know, what we imagine or what we think we can imagine, right? This is really just determined by what we're fed, you know, and so we have to think actively invent new models. And so I'm curious about like, are there other, you know, barriers, or some of the challenges that that we kind of face, like, for example, one of the one of the things that stood out to me that and I think resonate with a lot of people, too, is like, there's there's a challenge of trust between government and business, right, and even academia to at some level, right, there's, there's a crisis of expertise, you know, you've probably seen so and so. So maybe trust is one one kind of Axiom, we could think about. But I'm just curious, like, the barriers that come to mind as people kind of think about what do we what do we want to move past like, as part of that process? So what's what stands out to you is most important for us to kind of think about, as we are reimagining what we can do, and reshaping our language and look

Arun gupta  12:22

at him, I think you're hitting at the core, you know, and it dovetails nicely into the conversation we're just having around, you know, having nonlinear intersectional careers is that, you know, I think trust really comes down to a very human level, right, the way you rebuild trust between government and industry is having people that have been in both sides. Right? You know, I'm a big believer that trust between individuals carries forward but you know, trust, there's not such a thing as trust within institutions, because the institutions need to be broken down to the subgroups, and at the molecular level of individuals that have been there before. And I think this is what we've struggled with over the last decade, to some extent, right. And it's, you know, now we're, we're starting to overcome it and move past it, hopefully, but you know, it's this divide that's been there between, let's call it the valley and in government, you know, ABC GART, writes about, like, the hoodie, mindset, culture versus the suits culture, and we talked about that in the book, but you know, it is a different culture. But with with any kind of culture, what we need are more dual citizens. Right? You need citizens, that could be the reason I liked the term dual citizens and, you know, a good friend of mine, Nan merchandani, who was the who's now CTO with the CIA, you know, you and I, when we were chatting, uses this term, it that it presents us a sense of equality, right? There's not a hierarchy. And you know, when you're a dual citizen, you respect both cultures equally, you have trust in both places equally. And then that trust is what you're able to broker in a meaningful way. So that, you know, Ned would say, you know, like, I'm a, I'm a citizen of the valley. But I'm also a citizen of the DC tech community. And so what does that mean? Like, I can take my DC tech community to the valley, and show them my family, and show my roots and who might, you know, but they'll get a more as you would, if you were going in visiting somebody that's from a culture and from from their homeland, you'll get a more personalized view and a more trusted view, because people trust you as to what's really going on there. Right. And you can appreciate that it's safe space. And likewise, you can bring your friends from the valley to DC, in a more trusted way and have more trusted conversations at a more intimate level. That's how trust gets rebuilt, right? It's not just saying, Hey, you guys come over here and tell us how to do things. Because it creates an immediately creates a power dynamic that can be counterproductive. Yeah. And I think, and I think at the core, this gets back to the notion of like one really engendering a culture that embraces that sense of being able to to have nonlinear careers to is then having institutions that are creating the on and off ramps, but then also creating the reward structures for these folks coming in and out. And then three, the more we have these kinds of dual citizens, we also need the academic institutions to really be, you know, embracing this right. You know, I think part of the reason, for example, we talked about less than 6% of tech workers in government are under the age of 30, is that look, there probably aren't that many engineering professors or business professors inside of inside of academic institutions that have spent time in government. Right, so they're not advising their students just, you know, think about spending a year or two there in any way, shape, or form. And, you know, the couple would that the agencies don't have the resources to maybe go and recruit on campus at all these institutions, we wouldn't we shouldn't be surprised, then that students aren't finding their way there. Right? Because it's, it's, it's hard. And so the point about building trust, I think, really starts at the, at the very human level of having people exposed to these different environments, no different than if you're a global citizen, you know, it's hard to be a global citizen saying, I've never left the US. Yeah, like, unless you go and see other cultures, and you go visit the other cultures, and you see what it's like when you're there. And preferably, those experiences are even more valuable. If you know somebody that's a local, that can share with you and bring you into their home, and see what it really is like to be there versus feeling like you're a tourist, right, there's a difference between having a tourist experience and having a local experience, digital citizens enable you to have a local experience. Right. And I think what we've been having before are like tours, you know, Valley folks coming in here and doing their tour. And, you know, maybe government folks going to the, to the valley and doing a tour. But that's a very different that doesn't build trust in the same way. And and that's what I think we're trying to espouse a bit more in the book is that's why, you know, I think we're at a really interesting inflection point, whereby I think the in we talked about this optimistically, you know, it's a generational context where I think this generation is looking for that, right, I think they're looking for this ability to do things that are purposeful, but also feel like they can do well, while they're doing. I

Adam  17:17

think that's such an important point, I appreciate you thinking generationally there too, because agreed, like, just the statistic you mentioned, I think, is pretty stark, right, that we're seeing less than 6% of folks under 30. And in tech, and then this other idea to write you know, I work a lot with academics as well, in this challenge of how do we sort of create those pathways and on ramps to business, right, and in ways that both academia understands and rewards, but then also that we see businesses understanding, we might have to do some skill transfers, you know, but you understand if you know how to do research in academic contexts, we can transfer some of that into how we might do, you know, design research on a product or something like that, then kind of both fostering and rewarding those those pathways. And what's also interesting with that, too, you got me thinking about the other concept that you explore in the book of like, personalized entrepreneurship, right. And this idea that, like our own individual stories will shape kind of how we take that pathway. And so I think that's, that's an interesting piece, too. So I mean, let's dive into that too, as part of this, because I, I love that concept. Because when we think of entrepreneurs as individuals, anyway, typically, right? But on the one hand obscures like the cultural factors and like the their own background of that might shape why they're doing what they're doing in the, you know, this case, like what other organizations they work through. But then at the same time, like, this is an important part of like, helping us understand why people do what they do, right? And like, why they take the pathways that they take. So, you know, how do you see those playing together? Whether it's the concept of rebuilding trust, or beings being better about building bridges between organizations and academia and entrepreneurship? Like how can this personalization or personalized concept help us push that idea? Yeah, so the, you know,

Arun gupta  18:47

the notion of wanting to personalize entrepreneurship, and when we write about it was to, you know, I think many times there's folks that look at the outcome of entrepreneurs and say, like, oh, that's just the billionaire class. And so like, you know, and they associate, you know, maybe a negative connotation to that, and it's being socially extractive and things of that sort, you know, and what we try to highlight is, like, look, that's a very small percentage of entrepreneurs. 99.9% are not dad, in that, you know, let's, let's also, same way we talked about, you know, what government is and humanizing it. Let's talk about what entrepreneurship is. And at a deeper level, it's a it's really a mindset, right? You know, most entrepreneurs are out there, taking risks, learning, testing, and learning in real time trying to create jobs. But it's not only about, you know, needing to be something you do in your professional career in that entrepreneurship, but really, at a deeper level. I mean, I say this in my class, when I teach it with my students. It's really a mindset, right? It's a mindset of being willing to fail and try things. Right. It's an accepting failure. I mean, knowing how to run experiments real time, and that, you know, it's partially why we think, you know, in the day and age that we're in right now in a rapidly changing, accelerating technological, geopolitical, social In barter, you know, the real, you know, I think strategic differentiator that our country has, is our entrepreneurial mindset. And, you know, we are a country of entrepreneurs, and that, when you break that down at its most personalizing level, you know, we try to say that, you know, how you manage your career can be entrepreneurial, you know, how, you know, I, you know, in at the basic level, like raising a family, it's an entrepreneurial endeavor, you know, you're, you've got a co founder, you test and learn, you know, you may have a few products that you're trying to figure out product market fit, and then you kind of launch them after 1718 years. And but the idea being that, like, you know, there isn't a right way, you know, you've got a hypothesis, you got a value system that you're you're playing towards, and, you know, when you when you look at what's made this country great, and I seen this work, you know, my My father immigrated, and my mom immigrated here over 50 years ago. And we're the beneficiaries of, you know, the system of what the US has provided. And it's, it's the, you know, can the system be better? Absolutely. Having said that, like, there's still nothing like anywhere else in the world, as far as entrepreneurship goes, right? You know, and it's one of the strategic differentiators here, which is that we have this ecosystem that allows people to try things, pursue an idea of how they think that they can make the world a better place. And you know, if they fail, they can get back up again, and people are, are there to support, you know, whether it be with capital, or new resources and things of that sort. And so that's what we try to talk about is, you know, one, like, let's dispel the outcome of entrepreneurship on the professional side. But talk about the, you know, the mindset of what that is, and how do we bring that into what we're doing. And that can be translated also into what we're doing on the government side and creating these mission oriented ventures and pointing them in that direction. And again, I think that's our strategic superpowers a country, right? If you look at to two communities, where I think we're still orders of magnitude better than anywhere else in the world, it's our ability to create talent and our higher ed system and our ability to innovate entrepreneurial ecosystem, both are deeply optimistic areas of as well. But both are deeply cultural. Yeah, right. Those are, which, which is what makes it difficult to replicate, you know, our adversaries just can't put up, you know, X 1000 schools or, you know, invest in X 1000 companies, but you have to create a broader ecosystem. And, you know, I think that's what excites me right now is, you know, in the world that we're in, that's the opportunity that we have, what we haven't done is really align those with, with more mission oriented and social ambitions. And I think now we have that opportunity, right. And I think we have the opportunity to solve many of these big problems around climate, national security, cybersecurity, health, and food, you know, leveraging this entrepreneurial mindset. Awesome. And

Adam  22:45

you just pre staged my next question to us with that idea. Because it's like, I think that's, that's such a powerful idea, right, that we are able to trace the contours of what the kind of culture of entrepreneurialism is in this country, right. And that how that acts as our competitive and strategic advantage, especially on the geopolitical stage, right, especially as we're facing now, more global challenges, things like climate change, the rise of AI, you know, across borders. And in just this is, yeah, let's let's like dig into this area, too, a little bit in terms of, on the one hand, it's, it's, you know, what's at stake here, we were talking these like large geopolitical challenges, right, that on the one hand, can be functioned in worked in, like, built through the United States, but then also at the same time, can have global reaching impacts, as well. And this is an interesting piece, especially because also the the other thing, too, is that, you know, we are also facing this, this is as much as we're also global, we're facing this interesting like deglobalization moving at the same time, but we're trying to move some supply chain more money to the country with the chips act, for example, right, which you're right about as well, in terms of bringing more kind of manufacturing into the United States itself. And in part because there's both shortages elsewhere, and also trying to like not have to rely so much on other countries, especially as like the war in Ukraine has shown us to when like, you know, when supply line of food or you know, technology gets caught up, it raises prices elsewhere, too. And so, there is this interesting idea that we're we're both fundamentally interdependent with the rest of the world, as all humans are risk society and culture and one another, but then at the same time, trying to figure out what are the safe ways to then also make sure that we can handle some of the bumps along the way, if we if we get a supply chain shortage, for example, or as we're facing things like climate that some of the changes, we can predict other ones we don't we're not sure about, you know, we can talk about a sea level rise or a temperature rise, but what might that mean for downstream effects of, you know, biodiversity of grass? We don't know, we're not totally sure. And so, there's, I think there's a lot that we have to kind of like, digest and work through now as global citizens as entrepreneurs, and especially as dual citizens if folks are working across the, you know, both government academia and business. So, thinking about this, like, how can we kind of define

Arun gupta  24:47

on that point, I think you make you make an important point like it, which is as the world becomes more uncertain, right through technological or environmental changes, etc. And it's unclear how things play out. It's even more imperative for us to have an entrepreneurial mindset, because it's why come back to entrepreneurs or our, you know, superpower in this country is that they're the ones that are used to, you know, building the plane while you're flying. Right? They're the ones that, you know, they don't know exactly what the world is gonna look like, but they're gonna test and learn and pivot and be able to get to the end state and the right way. Look, I think we're moving past an age where you can have five year 10 year plans, right, you can have five year plan before, you know, no one had generative AI in the way we're seeing it today. And if they say they did, I would question it in their five year plan, right, the massive shift that we're seeing right now around that is, you know, those even executives or agency, leadership inside of government, or academic leaders, you know, the entrepreneurial ones are the ones pivoting and embracing it, and then figuring out how do we incorporate it, those that are used to planning are still thinking and, you know, in, that's the fundamental difference. And I'm seeing it, you know, I could see it with academic institutions that I talked to the ones that are really entrepreneurial, and the ones who are like, well, this is the way we've always done it. So we're gonna keep doing it this way. You've seen it with government agencies, they're not all the same. You know, there are those that are being very entrepreneurial. And and those that are like, this is the way we kind of do it. And the same things in corporate America, right. And so these traits aren't actually limited to the silos that they're in. It's more about the leaders that are leading. Right. And and I think what we're just trying to profess is that, like, in a day and age that we're in right now, you're right, in pointing out the uncertainties that are ahead. Right. And which is I think, even more why I think there's an imperative around, you know, this venture mindset to bring that to bear. That's

Adam  26:52

a great point. I appreciate that. The that, that addendum with that, because they I agree that it's a good way to think about it, too, is that we, when we face uncertainty, it's kind of like, Who do we hope we'll return to but then also like, your point before, like, what mindsets might we be able to put on or user LIKE, SHARE with others that will help us also survive that better, right, and recognize that even that's a good good point of like, even something like a five year plan is outdated, which is kind of crazy to think about, right? Because it's like, you know, that's probably a question people still expect to get asked at a job interview, or like, you know, whether they're college essay or something, you know, what you want to be in 10 years, you're like, I don't know, I gotta see what AI is going to do in the next six months first, you know?

Arun gupta  27:30

Yeah, arguably, those jobs have been created yet. Right? Like,

Adam  27:35

yeah, that's, that's a great point. Exactly. Right. And that's what we see. It's like, so much of mean, Gen Z, but soon to be jet alpha to as they're entering, you know, like, high school into higher ed, these questions of like, the jobs that they're going to have probably don't exist yet. Right. And like, that's an interesting challenge of like, both the uncertainty, but then also, it to your point requires an entrepreneurial mindset, right, to kind of say, we have to also solve the questions, the problems of what kind of work can we do, but then I think also appreciate about your work, too, is asking the question of how to do work, that's also meaningful, right? Or mission oriented, not just for me, but for the larger the larger society as well. So I think that idea, you know, I'd love to kind of hit on to is, when we put those ideas together, when we have this more kind of mission driven venture or entrepreneurial mindset, you know, what can that mean, you know, in something else, I think that you also rightly point out in the book we hinted at here, too, is that we do see younger generations, Gen Z, and I imagined Gen Alpha soon to be much more explicitly purpose oriented in the way that looking for work, they're much more explicit against looking for more sustainability and products that they're purchasing, you know, that they want to have more connection between the way they're interacting with the world. And in the impact, they might leave with it. And so, to me, it's on one hand, like, you know, if you're a Gen Z audience member, you're like, Yeah, of course, we have purpose and mission in our work, you know, but of course, elder Millennials or Gen Xers boomers may hear that and say, okay, you know, we've heard about that, you know, you know, pre ESG. And now it's, you know, kind of sitting around in dei questions, right? But it's like, it's much more than all these pieces, right? It's like mission can kind of encompass everything in purpose that we're looking for.

Arun gupta  29:07

Yeah. And I think on that point, Adam, cuz I hear that from my cohort generation about like, well, you know, what, what, why do you think this generation is more mission oriented? Or what would shaping them? Right? And, look, I can only draw upon, you know, what I've seen being in the classroom would be on college campuses. And, you know, look, I've got two, two kids in college right now, but you know, now been, you know, teaching for five years. And here's a shift that I've seen from pre COVID Even, you know, I think, you know, and one of my students actually highlighted it, he's like, Look, you got to understand our generations now, had a health care threat existential threat with a pan a global pandemic. You know, we've had a geopolitical threat, you know, and what we've seen in complex with Ukraine, and now, now even Middle East, you layer on top of that environmental threat, what's becoming more and more are visible and acute and with climate, and then, you know, greater discussion of a great power competition and adversarial threat with a, you know, a different way of governing. And, you know, you think about that, that that's a lot on a generation in a very short period of time, this isn't happening over 20 years, you know, what I've just described are events that are really happening over the last four or five, right? And so I actually think there's a, you know, we'll look back on this period in five or 10 years and look back and go, this was a turning point, a bit where this generation really is, you know, why looking for purpose, it's because they've been shaped by these things, these existential events, and you know, when these things happen, you start thinking about more than yourself. You think about like, what's my part? And how do I do more? And how do I, you know, solve these problems? Or how do I be part of the solution? And so, you know, I see that more with the reflection of the questions, young professionals are asking about their crooners. Right, whereas before it was, how much can I make? You know, loud? Now, it's a lot more about what, how much impact can I have? That doesn't mean, they don't want to still be, you know, financially independent and do well. But they're also asking that question. Yeah. Right. And that, I think, is, again, the optimism, again, that I have around where we are right now is that I think there's also a confluence of timing, where we have success stories of companies that have been created, that have been doing mission oriented work. And so, you know, if we talk about in the book, I don't think there's ever been a time where you could mobilize capital, around mission oriented ventures, like you can today we're on people purpose and problem, like, you know, when when I was starting to invest in this space, you know, you could raise, you know, two to $5 million, you know, around a company doing something really purposeful, that was mission oriented around government, you know, that was a big round. No, today, some of these companies with the right teams, you know, are able to raise 40 $50 million, because they're really thinking big, but they also see, their investors are doing it out of altruism. They're seeing that there's examples of companies that have been created, you know, whether it be SpaceX, whether it be moderna, whether it be Palantir, gingko, Bioworks resilience, that, you know, to drive really big, you know, shareholder outcomes, around mission oriented work, right. And, and I think that's where you're seeing a lot of the capital starting to mobilize around the space. And I think if more capital comes into the space, because of the success, better talent comes into the space, is better talent comes into the space the ecosystem develops. And if the ecosystem develops, you see more success. Right? And that's the story of the valley. Right? That's the, that's the virtuous cycle that I think we're in the early innings of, and you know why, you know, when I talk to students, I say, this is kind of, you know, pick what your area of passion is, but there's a lot going on. I mean, look, you have it through line of like AI and technological advancement today, that is changing, you know, the landscape across all these areas, right. And I think making it more exciting, and bringing the cost of experimentation down to a point where, you know, I think the velocity of innovation that we're going to see here is great. And again, that's the superpower of our countries that are we've been able to decentralize that innovation in, it's at the core of democratic values, right? You you challenge the incumbent, right, and you try to come up with different ways of doing things and, and that's how we create this dynamism that we continue to have in this country.

Adam  33:33

I love that. But I love that point, too. Because it's like, we're able to have a healthy competition as part of trying to rethink and kind of, necessarily, I'll do, but maybe I'll do, but just like, you know, we can kind of rethink everything. Right. And so even the organization's you mentioned, like, we're thinking across things like defense and synthetic biology in a ton of different, you know, areas in AI, you know, as well. So it's like, it's a good thing to, to think about things like, you know, I've been thinking a lot lately also about climate tech, right? Because we've seen, like, we did see, like, interesting kind of rise. I mean, there's a ton of rise of both an IPO in the past few years, then also just a huge, you know, spike in terms of investment in that. But then, like, there's, there's always ups and downs, too, right? Because even though I think there's like a little bit less investment so far in 2024, with with climate tech, as a whole, which is a huge area, you know, but it's interesting decision question to kind of think about the, the, the idea of impact, right? And like, So, thinking about this, like, if I put my VC hat on, I'm not a VC. But if I wanted to be, you know, I'd love to be you know, it's just like this idea of like, how do I think in this concept of like, when we ask questions of impact, right, there's obviously the traditional questions of like, what's my time horizon? Like, you know, basically, what's, what's the ROI I can expect on my investment? And those are still I think, key pieces. But then I'm curious from your perspective, too, when we say impact and mission driven work, like as we think about the climate tags in my head, but you can think of any example that comes to mind just like, you know, what are other ways we could think about impact, right when you're thinking about what's a worthwhile investment for an organization to kind of like dive into it? As we think about the future, and what it is that we want to, you know, get out of helping in support and organization, scale and change the world. Yeah.

Arun gupta  35:08

Look, I'll give you another example. Could you write impact has a lot of different dimensions to it. I mean, one that we're describing right now is the sectors of impact, right? So it'll get climate, national security, these are all areas that you know, impact, or, you know, all of our citizens and civil society in a meaningful way, national security, cyber health care. But there's also economic impact, right. So if you think about job creation, I mean, you mentioned the chips act earlier, you know, I think a lot of the legislative success. So how that got passed, it was only about not only about national security, and having a resilient supply chain, but it was also about economic security, like how do we rebuild our manufacturing base, and rebuild it in some of the, you know, geographies that have been hollowed out? And so bringing that together? And so how do we create jobs and upskill employees, you know, we also talk about in the book of a company, that I was involved with a good friend of mine who started called 1901. And what they were doing is, you know, providing manage cloud and security services to the government, you know, something that a lot of companies around the beltway were doing, but they're how they were doing it with what was different in the How was in, you know, in creating their, their operation centers in southwest Virginia. Right. And, and rather than having everything be in, in the beltway and competing for the same talent, let's go to a different base where we can start to upskill talent in a more meaningful way, and create jobs in areas that and connect them into the digital innovation that's happening, you know, in the urban areas. And so, you know, again, rather than creating the digital divide, like how do we bridge that divide in a more meaningful way, and they did that in a very in doing so, you know, also changing the vernacular for how companies collaborate with government, rather than government buying people and looking for, you know, services based solutions. You know, they're saying, hey, look, you just tell us what outcome you want, let us worry about the kinds of people that we can staff and bring into the fold, because not all of these folks aren't going to be, you know, Masters with five year or 10 years experience, you know, some of them can be scaled up, and it opens up a whole nother labor pool. You know, I think that's part of an issue that, you know, look, it's another way government can collaborate, and they're starting to open that up a bit more with how they think about cyber town. But does everyone need to have like a graduate degree and 10 years of experience to be working at, or for a specific project, we should be, you know, that's measuring input, what government should be measuring his output, like, here's the solution we want, however, you can provide a set solution or a service level agreement, that's up to you. Because that's when the private sector both, you know, the capital, the talent, and the technology can mobilize most effectively. Right. And, again, the two most prominent examples of that are probably SpaceX and Modera. Right, you know, at a time when, you know, our space launch industry was starting to stall, you know, you saw NASA get into, you know, a meaningful relationship with the private sector to say, these are the outcomes we're looking for any, anyone that can build a solution to meet this, you know, here's our, there would be the financial reward on the other side, or a contract. And that allows the private sector to kind of galvanize around that we did the same thing with, with, with vaccines, you know, if anyone could get an FDA approved vaccine, within, you know, an X period of time, you know, we'll buy three to 400 million of them, you know, that allowed the private sector to kind of understand what the output needs to be. And then and then marshal resources accordingly. And, you know, in the moderna case, even better than that, you know, the research was actually government research, you know, funded by government brought out to the entrepreneurial sector, and then going back and creating, you know, a real game for civil society. So, I share that, Adam, because we, a lot of what we try to do in the book is highlight examples of our capacity to do this as a country. This isn't about like us talking theoretically, about, like, here's what we should do, or this is more of saying, hey, look, this is what we're doing already, you know, in times of crisis, we have the ability to really do it, like how do we make this the norm and how do we do more of it? You know, that's more the question that we're trying to pose as opposed to the question of like, you know, can we do this? Yeah, that's

Adam  39:31

that's super important too. And I appreciate that because it's on the one hand, you know, to come to harken back to the the point of imagination language that we talked about on top is that if we don't know what stories are actually out there right or we don't know what's actually happening then we can't we a we don't imagine it and then be you know, there's it's very hard to make that the norm. Most people don't know that. It's actually already happening. You know, that we actually have more at play in

Arun gupta  39:52

even though stories that are out there, add them to your point. Sometimes they're not associated with this intersection, right. There's No large percentage of don't, you know, appreciate that SpaceX or even moderna, what the linkages with government, like they played a big role in the success of both those companies. Yeah, right. Those companies deserve a lot of credit themselves too. But it was actually the interaction and the partnership at at play there that made that work. So we can do this. Right. And we've done it. And so the question really is, how do we do more of it? Yeah. I

Adam  40:24

mean, so that that's the question that that, I guess that I'll pitch back to you is, you know, but I think that that's the right one, it's like, and like, how can we help that that happen more often, it's like, the one thing I appreciated that you also explored in the book is the idea of, like, how, how government startups can help work together. And that is like thinking at that more of an orchestrating an ecosystem perspective to and like, part of it, because when you think about the scale of government, like we both have public institutions, but then we have obviously, there's the massive scale of funding, but then there is a more explicit interdependence lens, right, that we see, you know, across, like how civil societies can affect different institutions. And businesses typically will go in and like surgically fix a problem until they expand, you know, until we have a cloud of everything. But But So thinking about that, that was one of the pieces that kind of came to mind, I thought that was really helpful is that as we we need to, we need that broader lens also, to help that that kind of one, it makes the intersection visible, right, we see actually how they interact together. And in modern examples, a great one there, of that, and like even think about how like bioreference laboratories, like did a ton of partnerships with the government in order to help develop swab testing, right, as part of that, that came as well. So even even that Israel, like the pandemic, I guess this was an the, the only time we'll ever say this was a kind of the gift in terms of be able to see the intersection, but easier, right, like, between kind of private and public. But so thinking about this idea of like an ecosystem perspective is is one other piece, like, are there other things that kind of come to mind like that, that we can think about that, that really helped? Like, let's make this more of the norm? So I think visit making it visible transparency is a huge piece of that, you know, but what else? What else comes to mind? When we say like, how do we make this more of more of the norm? Yeah,

Arun gupta  41:55

so there's actually multiple layers to this. Look, I think, you know, we try to talk about this at three levels, there's a societal level, organizational level, an individual level, right? At the societal level, Allah start at the individual level, right at the individual level, we need to, you know, start creating these pathways. And, you know, starting in the academic institutions, around, you know, this, the idea of being dual citizens or, you know, a multicultural, you know, it might be the other term, right, and the multicultural is government, academic and industry. And that that's, as opposed to like, which one are you? Which one do you belong to? I think the more you know, graduates we have that associate themselves across these cultures, the better off we are in so I think that's, that's an important dynamic in also, you know, in that piece of it is storytelling, right, showing models, right, of people that are doing, you know, the Netflix of the world that started their career this way. And, you know, and I, and I don't think we do enough of that. And so I think we're trying to embark on a notion of, you know, how do we get the stories out there of individuals, managing their careers in an entrepreneurial context, right, because an entrepreneur doesn't have to be starting a company, but like, if I'm someone that says, I'm going to spend five years doing this, I'm going to go spend five years doing that, and, you know, I'm better off for it. That's an entrepreneurial mindset. Right. And but people need to feel that that's possible that highlights the art of the possible. at the organizational level. Look, I think, you know, if we talk about it, we need to sensitize organizations on the importance of this and that this is going to be leadership. Right? Then you see it, there's academic institutions that are that are leading here, there are corporate institutions that are leading here, and then creating more effective on and off ramps of being in in their company, but then also going into government or going into academia for a few years and coming back, and you're in, you know, we need to see that on government, too. There are agencies that are proposed, you know, that are doing this, but you need to see it more wide scale, because I think the more we have this institutional permeability, for lack of a better term, the more we're better off as a country, right, because, and more importantly, at the core, but it's how we rebuild trust, which is something that you talked about earlier. Right? Because, again, I think the way you build trust is to have more, you know, look, it's the same way you rebuild trust by going to different parts of the world. When you visit it, and you been there and you've met people there, you know, you have a different view, than if you're just sitting here and you know, watching it on TV or reading about it, you develop your own primary views of those cultures. And we need we need more of that. Right, you know, at a social level, in a societal level, you know, we, I think if we're able to build that up, it starts to bring down the heat on some of the polarized views. Right, it because I think at the core, then you're starting to, again, as you rebuild that trust individually, institutionally, you start to rebuild societal Trust, which is what's you know, we've been lacking and, you know, and I think again, that's a construct of also storytelling, but it's also creating a renewed partnership between these cross sectors, you know, entrepreneurs and government, and then talking about the success stories that are working right, in a much broader way, you know, as opposed to, you know, the media channel stories of everything, that's not worth it. Because there's plenty of those stories out there. Um, there's so many optimistic stories out there. They're just not getting told, and if they're getting told, or not getting amplified in a meaningful way, and that's where the aspirational, inspirational angle comes from. Right. You know, I think that's where, you know, real leaders need to step up and can step up, you know, and I'll say, look, while we're writing about government, we write about business. People are like, God, you know, like, you know, how's it been received when you turn to the dems, or the RS, you know, the Republicans, and, and we, you know, we've had the benefit of speaking with, you know, senior folks on both sides of the aisle, you know, university presidents, and, you know, Dean's, but then also, you know, CEOs of, you know, some of the larger financial institutions, big tech firms. And now you don't, I will say they've all had the same question when we been done talking about it. And that in the question they have is, how can we help? Awesome, you know, and in, I gotta say, that's been the most heartwarming piece of like this journey, is seeing that there actually is a lot more commonality there. When we talk about what we're talking about with the book, or what we're trying to do with noble reach and how to create the infrastructure to connect our best talent, innovation and government. Like, no one's saying like, no, no, no, that's not what we want to do. You know, hopefully, they're actually saying, We want to help. And I and I do think we're at a point in time, where five years ago, maybe people didn't feel the need to, but I think people feel that now. And I think it goes back to, you know, what we started a bit of this with, which is, you know, look, we're in a time and place where people are recognizing that things are moving really quickly, these these changes are global, we have real adversaries today, that we may not have felt, you know, five years ago, some of those are geopolitical. Some of those are environmental. But it's something that galvanizes people together. Yeah. And I think there's also a generational messaging, that, you know, this is important, right? Every generation has its kind of, you know, things that they kind of value. And I think this one's starting to, you know, place a higher value on purpose and impact, right. And so, like, I see it on campuses, like, you know, the same friends that were coming in and telling you like, hey, come join us, because you can make XYZ amount of money, or now it's coming on campuses and saying, come join us, because you can have XYZ kind of impact. Yeah, right st firms, same exact firm, same jobs, but they realize excelling on just the financial remuneration isn't going to be enough. In fact, that's not what's resonant. And, and so you know, whether you're a private equity firm, a venture capital firm, a financial services firm, a consulting firm, a big tech firm, you know, you're talking about right. And I think that's what we need to be seizing on right now. And that's the opportunity we have. And so, you know, look, I think even with the success we've had with the book, I think a lot of it's just a timing right now that we're in, right, there's a time in place that we're, we're hitting a confluence of events. And so if we can try to amplify that in some small way to move the needle, that's what we're trying to do.

Adam  48:19

Awesome. I mean, I also I hear echoing also, just the the notion of right, the the optimism of entrepreneurialism, right is part of this too. And so I can say that I'm definitely I feel the optimism, I'm feeling optimistic that too, because it's like, I think it is an exciting time, right? We do find ourselves, I think it is really, really interesting inflection point, where, you know, generation is a new generation is kind of coming into their professional own, but that we are seeing like, right at traditional organization, the same organizations as your point like coming back and saying, Hey, actually, we're here to, you know, we're here to sell impact, right? We're not here to sell sell you, you know, a salary, you can make money too, but like we can also do,

Arun gupta  48:53

and look, you talked about it across the board, you know, whether you look at synthetic bio, whether you look at, you know, again, national security, cyber, you know, climate, you know, these are industries that are massive industries, you know, when you talk about market size, that are also getting disrupted by technological change in a meaningful way, that have real impact on civil society. Like that's, that's, that's the intersection that you want your best talent playing. Yeah. Right, and into play there. And to take advantage of that you really are going to need an entrepreneurial mindset, because all those things are changing so rapidly, and so no one can really predict what the future looks like. And that will be unsettling for a lot of for many, but for an entrepreneur, that's, that's, that's what you thrive. That's your energy, right is to say, like, we don't know what the future looks like, but let's go at it. And, you know, that I think, is what's exciting in a way and, and, you know, what, that I think, also, you know, when I when I talk about the entrepreneur ecosystem in the US being so differentiated, you know, included in that, you know, it's really the innovation ecosystem because it includes, you know, our financial markets and our capital base and in our willingness to put risk capital out there, not knowing how things are gonna play, right? Like, that's a very different mindset than anywhere else in the world, you know, people have tried to replicate it for decades now. And there isn't a place that, you know, embodies that, like the US does. And I think that's the opportunity, if we can kind of rebuild and create that renewed partnership, you know, with government in a meaningful way, I think we can solve the, you know, big problems, and more importantly, stay nationally competitive in a way that, you know, against our adversaries.

Adam  50:26

I think it sounds great. I think that that's such an important point to like, it's we can build that future. We don't know what it is, but like that, that's part of this work is then kind of, we have to go discover it, because it's unknown, but we can also create it as part of that. And but we only create that by doing it, you know, can't just talk about us like we didn't. So this I can appreciate your work. And well,

Arun gupta  50:42

it's interesting, you say use the word create the future, because, you know, the, the heading for the final chapter, at first was going to be our byline. But we just made it the heading for the fun chapter, which is rebuild trust to create the future. Yeah. Right. And that it really gets about that at the core. It's like, how do we rebuild trust, because we have all the pieces in our country, but if we can, you know, help start to rebuild that trust, we can create the future we want. We have that capacity. Now,

Adam  51:07

I love it. I think it's 100% on point, right? It's like, with trust we can make because then we can work together to do that. Right. And and I appreciate your point you said to a minute ago that like, in as we share this kind of message, right, we see that the typically, you know, quote, unquote polarized areas like are actually not so polarized about like, especially about this kind of work, right. This is actually about this is actually competitive advantage in solution ism, right, which is what you know, we ultimately want I think, which I think is super important, but I just want to say thanks for joining me on the Potsie this has been a great conversation. And we can keep going for hours, maybe we'll have a sequel come up, you know, as we go. But I just want to say, again, excited to get the book into the eyes, ears and hands of the audience. And I'll be excited to see how people kind of react in think with it as well. And so yeah, thanks. Thanks for doing all the good work that you're doing. Let's keep going.

Arun gupta  51:50

Adam, I couldn't thank you enough for having me on. I've really enjoyed the conversation. And thank you for the podcasts and the messages you're getting out there to your audience. And so

Adam  52:00

as we wind down our conversation with Arun Gupta, we're reminded of the immense power and potential at the intersection of entrepreneurship and societal mission. The stories that we've heard today are not just tales of success or ambition, they're blueprints for a future where innovation and impact can walk hand in hand. And in drawing from a ruins insights and experiences, it becomes clear that the challenges we face, whether they're climate change, cybersecurity or global competitiveness are not just obstacles, they're invitations. invitation is to think differently and to collaborate across boundaries. And to imagine a world where trust and purpose are the bedrock on which we build our ventures. If you want to dig deeper, I highly recommend you check out his new book, which we discussed in today's episode called Venture meets mission, aligning people purpose and profit, to innovate, and transform society. You can get your copy at the T al bookstore, which is linked in our show notes. And by doing so you'll support independent bookstores, the podcast and authors. It's a win win win. Now as we reflect on today's conversation, let's ask ourselves, are we ready to accept this kind of invitation? Are we prepared to be the dual citizens of tomorrow, navigating the multifaceted landscapes of government, academia and entrepreneurship? Because the future our future hinges not just on the innovations that we create one of the connections that we foster in the missions that we choose to pursue? So let's not just be observers of change? Let's be it's architects crafting a future that embraces uncertainty with optimism and challenges with solutions. Let's rebuild trust to create the future that we want and in doing so, leave a lasting impact that transcends ourselves and enriches generations to come. Thanks for tuning into This Anthro Life. I'm Adam. Again. Well, stay curious, stay inspired and always be willing to venture beyond the horizon. Until next time, take care