Michael Dempsey

Michael Dempsey is the Managing Partner at Compound, a thesis-driven, research-centric investment firm. We spent two hours talking through the past, present, and future of a bunch of topics in technology and investing. Michael started investing in AI in 2016. He was the first investor in now-unicorns Runway and Wayve. But he hasn’t done much AI investing over the past few years. We talk about why, how AI will intersect with robotics, the future of things like crypto and synthetic biology, and why so many deep tech companies mess up economic value capture. We also talk about what it means to be a thesis-driven venture firm, Compound’s research process and how to replicate it, what private and public market investors can learn from each other, advice for anyone starting in venture today, how to build a brand in VC, and why venture firms don’t compound and actually decay over time. Thank you to Kevin Kwok, Andy Weissman, Cristóbal Valenzuela, Blake Robbins, and Smac at Compound for their help brainstorming topics for this. Special thanks to Ramp for supporting this episode. It's the corporate card and expense management platform used by over 40,000 companies, like Shopify, CBRE and Stripe. Time is money. Save both with Ramp. Get $250 for signing-up here. Timestamps: (4:09) Leading Runway’s Seed in 2018 (10:15) Short-term ARR vs long-term sustainability (16:20) Compound, a research-centric investment firm (18:41) Investing in bio, crypto, real-world AI, and healthcare (23:58) VC firms do not compound, they decay over time (29:27) How to build a research-focused investment firm (41:30) Current state of venture slop (45:43) Building a brand as a VC firm (52:31) Investing in Wayve in 2016 (58:53) Why deep tech companies screw up economic value capture (1:04:57) How to approach massive funding rounds (1:08:36) Should VCs “play the game on the field”? (1:15:33) Compound is a forecasting firm (1:21:37) Advice for young people getting into VC (1:26:48) Public market investors underappreciate narratives (1:31:20) Michael’s crypto thesis + real use cases (1:40:07) Why crypto hasn’t seen mass adoption yet (1:49:00) Humanoid robots won’t work (1:54:42) Should you make a hyped launch video? Referenced Compound Runway Wayve Michael’s Blog Follow Micahel Twitter LinkedIn Follow Turner Twitter LinkedIn Subscribe to my newsletter to get every episode + the transcript in your inbox every week.

Michael Dempsey

General Partner

Compound

My guest today is Michael Dempsey, General Partner at Compound. Michael invests in a broad range of areas but has a unique talent for combining brand building and direct customer relationships with technically demanding sectors. Our conversation covers the rise of virtual influencers, robotics, and how to best identify key inflection points in the evolution of new technologies. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Michael Dempsey.  For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- This episode is brought to you by Koyfin, one of the fastest-growing fintech startups. I discovered Koyfin earlier this year when I asked Twitter for the best Bloomberg alternative, and the overwhelming winner was an intriguing new product called Koyfin.  Koyfin has tons of high-quality data, powerful functionality, and a nice clean interface. If you’re an individual investor, research analyst, portfolio manager, or financial advisor, you should definitely check them out. Sign up for free at koyfin.com. ------ This episode is brought to you by MIT Investment Management Company. MITIMCO is the endowment office of MIT. New and small investment funds listen up. MITIMCO is looking to find investors starting funds today. MITIMCO is partnership-driven, long-term focused and has an extensive history of backing investors early in their careers. These partners are key in delivering the outstanding investment returns required to support MIT's pursuit of world-class education, cutting-edge research, and groundbreaking innovation. MITIMCO is focused on finding and partnering with the best investors across the globe no matter the market environment. No firm is too small, too young, or too non-institutional. If you or someone you know is currently in the process of starting a fund or recently launched, please email partner@mitimco.org or discover more on their website at mitimco.org/partner. ------ Invest Like the Best is a property of Colossus Inc. For more episodes of Invest Like the Best, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.  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   Show Notes [00:02:54] – [First question] – Early stages of his career [00:05:13] - What are inflection points and how he views them as a source of opportunity  [00:07:40] - Real vs fake inflection points  [00:12:19] - Creativity as a key component of inflection points  [00:12:33] - On Inflection Points [00:15:01] - Generative Adversarial Networks [00:18:02] - History of animation and the innovation we are seeing there today  [00:20:12] - Animation is Eating the World [00:24:11] - The concept of a digital celebrity and their scale [00:29:17] - Characteristics of digital celebrity creators [00:31:12] - Longevity and consistency of these personalities [00:33:11] - Future of gaming and potential for investments in the space  [00:37:49] - The landscape for robotics and what has him excited [00:41:07] - The exploration of space and the opportunities there. [00:44:35] - Computational biology and the investment potentials. [00:48:11] - How 2020 has changed the ability to solve scientific problems [00:51:32] - The idea that Cyberpunk is now [00:53:32] - Sam Hinkie podcast episode [00:53:51] - Kindest thing anyone has done for him

Michael Dempsey

General Partner

Compound