Invest Like the Best with Patrick O’Shaughnessy
Business:Investing
My guest today is Cyan Banister. Cyan’s life story is remarkable. She was homeless at a young age, dropped out of high school, and five years ago she suffered an extremely rare stroke. Yet, in spite of everything, she is one of the most optimistic and curious people you can hope to meet. Cyan is also one of the great angel investors of this era, having invested early in SpaceX, Uber, Postmates, and Deepmind to name a few winners. She became the first female investing partner at Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and now invests at Long Journey Ventures.
Our conversation is as much about investing as it is about the essence of life and how connecting with that will help us in our professional pursuits. It is also full of awesome stories about people and companies like SpaceX and Bill Murray. Please enjoy this great conversation with Cyan Banister.
Listen to Founders Podcast
For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.
-----
This episode is brought to you by Tegus, the only investment research platform built for the investor. With traditional research vendors, the diligence process is slow, fragmented, and expensive. That leaves investors competing on how well they can aggregate data — not on their unique ability to analyze insights and make great investment decisions. Tegus offers an end-to-end platform with all the data you need to get up to speed on a company or market: up-to-the-minute financials, customizable models, management and culture checks, and, of course, our vast and growing library of expert call transcripts. Tegus is changing the world of expert research. Learn more and get your free trial at tegus.com/patrick.
-----
Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus, LLC. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.
Past guests include Tobi Lutke, Kevin Systrom, Mike Krieger, John Collison, Kat Cole, Marc Andreessen, Matthew Ball, Bill Gurley, Anu Hariharan, Ben Thompson, and many more.
Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.
Follow us on Twitter: @patrick_oshag | @JoinColossus
Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant (https://thepodcastconsultant.com).
Show Notes:
(00:00:00) Welcome to Invest Like the Best
(00:04:03) First question - Spirituality as an Investable Category
(00:06:51) Journey to Founders Fund
(00:12:13) Overcoming Adversity and Embracing Optimism
(00:14:28) The Power of Authenticity and Curiosity
(00:25:28) The Skill of Feeling in Business
(00:30:26) Investing in Uber
(00:36:18) The Changing Dynamics of Early-Stage Investment
(00:39:07) The Philosophy of 'Set it and Forget It'
(00:42:24) The SpaceX Story: A Leap of Faith
(00:48:02) Cyan’s Spiritual Awakening
(00:61:34) Her Story of the Violin Kid
(01:05:36) The Art of Trusting Your Gut in Business
(01:07:47) The Spirit of Founders Fund and the Future of Venture Firms
(01:15:16) What She Would Do With 1 Trillion Dollars
(01:24:05) The Kindest Thing Anyone Has Ever Done For Cyan
Bill Gurley and Philip Rosedale - Back to the Future - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 254]
Francis Davidson - Design-led Hospitality - [Invest Like the Best, EP.253]
Niraj Shah - Developing Every Skill - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 252]
Bored Ape Yacht Club - [Web3 Breakdowns, EP. 1]
Will Marshall - Indexing the Earth - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 251]
Roelof Botha - Sequoia’s Crucible Moment - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 250]
Sarah Friar - Building the Local Graph - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 249]
Universal Music Group: The Gatekeepers of Music - [Business Breakdowns, EP. 32]
Alex Rampell - Investing in Operating Systems - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 248]
Sam Bankman-Fried - Creating a Perfect Market - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 247]
Nick Neuman - Becoming Your Own Bank - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 246]
Devin Finzer - An Everything Store for Digital Assets - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 53]
Jenny Lefcourt - The Go-to-Market Motion - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 245]
Dave Girouard - Making Better Loans - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 52]
Jay Hoag - Calibrating Market Adoption - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 244]
Gina Bianchini - Helping Creators Build Communities - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 51]
David Fialkow - Paint Outside the Lines - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 243]
Justin Waldron - The Future of Social Gaming - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 50]
Daniel Ek - Enabling Creators Everywhere - [Invest Like the Best, EP. 242]
Gabby Dizon - Mapping the Metaverse Economy - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 49]
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Business Breakdowns