Ilya Strebulaev: Takeaways for Corporate Directors from the Venture Mindset

Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein

(0:00) Intro.

(1:39) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel.

(2:25) Start of interview. Reference to E21 with Ilya Strebulaev from October 2020.

(4:01) On why he wrote his book The Venture Mindset: for decision makers in large organizations.

(5:37) About the first principle: Home Runs Matter, Strikeouts Don’t. Make small bets vs fear of failure.

(7:23) Two types of innovation: incremental (step by step) vs. disruptive innovation.

(13:32) The unique role that independent directors can play in innovation.

(18:20) On corporate unicorns and intrapreneurs.

(20:11) On errors of omission and building anti-portfolios.

(24:01) Promoting the venture mindset for large companies to be more innovative and become more like Silicon Valley.

(28:29) Red flags in decision-making ("why should I not invest?"), and the example of Theranos. Examples from Shark Tank.

(34:00) On Yuri Milner's investment in Facebook (2009) and investing without taking a board seat (informal controls and indirect influence).

(38:30) Formal vs informal control rights in corporate governance.

(44:13) Stay private vs go public debate. On "quasi-public" companies.

(49:11) On the pressures to go public for VCs and employees, and the evolution of secondary markets.

(52:20) On the principle (#5) to Bet on the Jockey (put people above process).

(53:22) On the principle (#7) to Double Down or Quit (allow flexibility, and phenomenon of escalation of commitment).

Ilya Strebulaev is a Professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and is an expert in corporate finance, venture capital and private equity, corporate innovation, innovation ecosystems, and financial decision-making. His recent work has examined the valuation of VC-backed companies, decision making by venture capital and private equity investors, corporate venture capital, and impact of venture capital.

You can follow Ilya on social media at:

Twitter: @IlyaStrebulaev

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilyavcandpe/

Venture Mindset Website: https://thevcmindset.com/

You can follow Evan on social media at:

Twitter: @evanepstein

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/

Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/

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Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License