Smart Humans with Slava Rubin: Recent Episodes
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Smart Humans explores the world of alternative investments. From Venture to Collectibles, NFTs to Real Estate, Art to Debt and beyond - we discuss a new world of investment opportunities and the catalysts that impact their demand. Join our host Slava Rubin as he talks with entrepreneurs, investors and thought leaders across the diverse ecosystem. Any data, text, or other content on this page is provided as general market information and not as investment advice. Past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future results. Investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital.
Matt Rodak is the CEO and founder of Fund That Flip, an end-to-end residential real estate lender, SaaS solution, and investment platform that empowers real estate entrepreneurs to create wealth and more value in their communities. After years in commercial property risk management, Matt decided to actualize his passion: real estate. However, he quickly became frustrated with the challenges of getting access to fast, reliable, and sustainable capital to finance his deals. And in 2014, Fund That Flip launched.
Fund That Flip’s award-winning platform and simple process allow borrowers to get loan commitments within 24 hours and the fastest closing of any hard money lender. Investors can then purchase fractional shares of those loans, historically earning more than 10.8% returns. The Platform and team provide first-class support and industry-leading transparency into every deal, while also offering unprecedented access to an asset class previously dependent on “who you know.” Fund That Flip has grown nearly 300% in the past three years, and to date has originated more than $2.2 billion in loans, with 99.7% of principal returned, and more than 93% repeat borrowers.
Mike Collins has been involved in almost every facet of venturing, from angel investing to venture capital, new business and product launches, and innovation consulting. He is currently CEO of Alumni Ventures Group, and launched AV’s first alumni fund, Green D Ventures, where he oversaw the portfolio as Managing Partner and is now Managing Partner Emeritus. Mike is a serial entrepreneur who has started multiple companies, including Kid Galaxy, Big Idea Group (partially owned by WPP), and RDM. He began his career at VC firm TA Associates. He holds an undergraduate degree in Engineering Science from Dartmouth and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Ben Miller is Co-Founder and CEO of Fundrise, America's largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment manager.
Fundrise’s mission is to use technology to build a better financial system for the individual investor, one that is simpler, lower cost, more reliable and transparent. They build software that enables the company to develop and manage investments uniquely well positioned to grow and preserve their clients’ capital in any economic environment.
Since launching America’s first online real estate investment platform in 2012, Fundrise has now become the largest direct-to-investor alternatives investment manager with more than 1.6 million active users, more than $3.3 billion worth of equity under management, and $7 billion worth of real estate transacted. From private credit to real estate private equity to growth-stage venture capital, Fundrise offers investors exposure to some of the most prized asset classes in the world.
Prior to Fundrise, Ben has decades of experience in real estate and finance. As Managing Partner of WestMill Capital Partners and President of Western Development Corporation, Ben was responsible for acquiring, developing, and financing more than $500 million worth of property.
Josh is the co-founder of Fanatics Collectibles and the founder of zerocool, the company’s pop culture, art, and entertainment vertical. He is also a co-founder of StockX, the world’s first ‘Stock Market of Things’, where he led the rise from idea to billion-dollar company in less than three years, cementing StockX as the world's leading marketplace for sneakers, apparel, and collectibles. In 2019, Josh stepped down as CEO to focus on StockX’s ‘startup within a startup activities’, including leading the nascent trading cards vertical. A year later, he left StockX to return to his entrepreneurial roots with the goal of revolutionizing the trading card industry as he’s done for sneakers.
Before StockX, Josh founded and ran four other startups and, in between each, had varying corporate jobs ranging from IBM strategy consultant to Alston & Bird bankruptcy attorney. He has an undergraduate BBA and joint JD/MBA from Emory University.
Stewart A. Kohl is Co-Chief Executive Officer of The Riverside Company, a $10 billion global private equity firm founded to invest in premier companies at the smaller end of the middle market. Since 1988, Riverside has invested in more than 700 companies globally. The firm’s investors include leading pension funds, endowments, funds-of-funds, insurance companies and banks. The firm employs more than 300 people in offices across North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
Mr. Kohl joined Riverside in 1993. Prior to that, he was a vice president of Citicorp Venture Capital, Ltd., the private equity arm of Citibank.
In addition to his work with Riverside, Mr. Kohl serves as an Honorary Trustee of Oberlin College and of the Museum of Contemporary Art Cleveland. He is also on the Board of Directors of Cleveland Clinic and Co-Chairs its $2 billion Power of Every One Capital Centennial Campaign. He was inducted into the Ohio Foundation of Independent Colleges Hall of Excellence in 2009. He previously served as Co-Chair of the Building for Hope Capital Campaign of the Center for Families and Children.
Mr. Kohl earned the George S. Dively Entrepreneurship Award in 2018. He was inducted into the Northeast Ohio Business Hall of Fame in 2014. After spending 16 years as a “Heavy Hitter” participant in the Pan-Mass Challenge bicycle fundraiser, Mr. Kohl founded VeloSano, a similar event that has raised more than $20 million to fund cancer research since 2014.
Mr. Kohl holds a BA from Oberlin College.
Logan Allin is the Managing Partner & Founder of Fin Capital where he is responsible for management of the firm, sourcing/making investments, maintaining board responsibilities, and adding operating value across the portfolio. Logan was most recently Vice President of SoFi Ventures, where he was tasked with investing in and working hands-on with FinTech companies, as well as running SoFi’s accelerator and corporate development efforts.
Prior to SoFi, Logan was focused on entrepreneurial advisory and operating roles at Light Street Capital, Formation 8/Group, Zanbato, Addepar, Point Finance, Price, BridgeAthletic and ONEHOPE. Prior to his entrepreneurial pursuits, Logan was a corporate executive, as Head of Strategy, overseeing the enterprise FinTech strategy and execution, while serving as a member of the Operating Committee at Atlantic Trust, the Private Wealth Management arm of Invesco (and now CIBC). Previously, Logan was a Senior Vice President in City National Bank’s wealth management division (now part of RBC) where he led the technology strategy, open product architecture platform, and other strategic initiatives. Logan spent his earlier career in management consulting, in leadership positions at PwC, EMC, and Capgemini, focused exclusively on the intersection of Financial Services and technology.
Logan earned Bachelor of Arts degrees in public policy and political science from Duke University and a M.S. in Management from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business where he was a Sloan Fellow.
Jake Brukhman is Founder & CEO at CoinFund. Born in St. Petersburg, Russia to computer scientists, Jake learned how to code at the age of fourteen. Starting from this early age, Jake closely followed the adoption of computing, the Internet, and mobile. Achieving degrees in mathematics and computer science, Jake spent the following 12 years of his career in pure and financial technology, quantitative research, and blockchain.
Kendrick Nguyen is CEO of Republic, an investment platform connecting tech startups and blockchain projects with global investors. Prior to Republic, he served as general counsel of AngelList and Fellow of Stanford University’s Center for Corporate Governance. He is a founding adviser to NOW Ventures and CoinList, an ICO platform. An immigrant from Vietnam, Kendrick has a strong interest in improving access to capital for underserved entrepreneurs in the US and beyond.
Before co-founding StartEngine, Howard co-founded Activision and was the Chairman of Activision Studios from 1991 until 1997. As a former Board Member and Executive Vice-President of video-game giant Activision, he and a partner took control in 1991 and turned the ailing company into the $37 billion market cap video game industry leader, selling millions of games.
Howard was also the founder and CEO of Acclaim Games, a publisher of online games that was later sold to The Walt Disney Company. Howard is the 2015 “Treasure of Los Angeles” recipient, awarded for his work to transform Los Angeles into a leading technology city, and a member of LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s technology council. He is bilingual and a triple national of the United States, United Kingdom, and France.
Jason Calacanis is an entrepreneur, angel investor, author and podcaster.
Jason is the Founder and CEO of LAUNCH and Inside.com. As a prolific podcaster, Jason hosts All-In alongside Chamath Palihapitiya, David Sacks, and David Friedberg as well as This Week in Startups.
Through private funds, the LAUNCH accelerator, and his public angel syndicate, Jason has invested in startups including Uber, Robinhood, Wealthfront, and Trello. Prior, Jason served as general manager of Netscape, Entrepreneur in Action at Sequoia, and founded numerous media companies during the dot-com era including Weblogs and VentureReporter.net.
Frank Rotman is a Founding Partner and the Chief Investment Officer of QED Investors.
His investment focus has been on emerging next-generation fintech and proptech companies. Frank was one of the earliest analysts hired into Capital One and he spent almost 13 years building and managing many of the company’s business units, credit organizations and operational areas.
Frank graduated from the University of Virginia with degrees in Applied Mathematics (B.S.) and Systems Engineering (M.S.).
He writes prolifically on Twitter as @fintechjunkie and posts additional content frequently on qedinvestors.com and fintechjunkie.com.
Milind Mehere is an award-winning entrepreneur with a track record of building large scalable businesses and creating new product categories. Milind is the Founder and CEO of Yieldstreet, a next-generation digital investment platform reimagining the way wealth is created by providing access to private markets previously reserved only for institutions and the ultra-wealthy. Yieldstreet was named Financial Times's 12th Fastest Growing Company in the US, and for two consecutive years, Yieldstreet was named one of the top 50 Fastest-Growing Companies by Inc.
Previously, Milind Co-founded and scaled Yodle (an ad-tech platform for SMBs) to $200M+ in revenue and 1,400 employees. Yodle was ranked four times in the Inc. 500 list and was acquired by Web.com for $342M in 2016. Milind was named an Innovation Fellow at Columbia University’s Lang Center, and is an international keynote speaker, having spoken at Forbes, Bloomberg, Cheddar, LendIt, Citi Bank, Goldman, Columbia, and Harvard among others.
Evan Cohen is the co-founder and COO of Vincent and General Partner of VALT Asset Management, an investment advisor focused exclusively on helping clients invest into alternative assets. Prior to Vincent, Evan led investing and blockchain at Indiegogo, where he led more than 100 investment offerings and helped spearhead the first ever real estate security token offering for the Aspen St. Regis hotel. Previously, Evan was a partner at HCVC, an early-stage venture fund focused on full-stack hardware, and has been an active crypto investor since 2016.
Swati Chaturvedi is the co-founder and CEO of Propel(x) – an investment platform that enables accredited investors worldwide to invest in alternatives, including investments in startups, hedge funds and venture capital funds. Ms. Chaturvedi has a long history of working in the alternative investments space and is the founder of the MIT Alumni Angel Investors group. She founded and led the group 2013–2015, and continues to be on the screening committee.
Prior to starting Propel(x), Swati has worked as an investment professional at Exigen Capital private equity, Siemens Venture Capital and Temasek Holdings. She has also been a management consultant working across a variety of industries. Ms. Chaturvedi holds an MBA degree from the Sloan School of Management, an M.S. degree from MIT, an M.S. degree from UC Berkeley, and a Bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee.
Anthony Scaramucci is the founder and managing partner of SkyBridge, a global alternative investment firm, and founder and chairman of SALT, a global thought leadership forum and venture studio.
Prior to founding SkyBridge in 2005, Scaramucci co-founded investment partnership Oscar Capital Management, which was sold to Neuberger Berman in 2001. Earlier, he worked in Private Wealth Management at Goldman Sachs & Co.
In 2022, Scaramucci was ranked #47 in Cointelegraph’s Top 100 Influencers in Crypto and Blockchain. In 2016, he was ranked #85 in Worth Magazine’s Power 100: The 100 Most Powerful People in Global Finance. In 2011, he received Ernst & Young’s New York Financial Services “Entrepreneur of the Year” Award. Anthony is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) and a board member of the Federal Enforcement Homeland Security Foundation. He is the author of five books.
Scaramucci served on President Donald J. Trump’s 16-person Presidential Transition Team Executive Committee, and in 2017 briefly served as Chief Strategy Officer of the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank and White House Communications Director.
Scaramucci, a native of Long Island, New York, holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from Tufts University and a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School.
Jenny Fielding is the Co-Founder and Managing Partner at The Fund, a global founder community and pre-seed venture capital fund that has invested in over 200 companies. Previously, Jenny spent 7.5 years as the Managing Director at Techstars where she was the first check into a portfolio of companies with a current market cap of over $12 Billion. Jenny is a 2x founder, recovering lawyer, Kauffman Fellow and adjunct professor at Columbia University.
Eli is the Co-Founder of Betterment, a robo-advisor managing over $30 billion of investments. After leaving a career in corporate law in 2007, he served as the company’s co-founding COO and President for 10 years to build the largest independent robo-advisor in the U.S.
As a board member, Eli continues to steward Betterment’s growth while advising groundbreaking companies such as Masterworks and fueling the growth of early-stage FinTech startups including Rally and Sweater Ventures as an investor. In 2020, he co-founded Treasury, a founder-led, founder-first VC alongside Acorns founder, Jeff Cruttenden.
Artem has 10+ years of finance experience in food, agriculture, and farmland. Prior to founding FarmTogether, Artem was CFO at Full Harvest, a B2B platform for buying and selling produce. He also previously worked at Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan, E&Y, and PwC. Artem holds an MBA from The Wharton School.
Ryan Chang is an entrepreneur, collector, and artist. He has one of the top sneaker collections and helped move sneakers forward as an investable asset class. Ryan sold Kanye West ‘Grammy Worn’ Nike Air Yeezy 1 Prototypes from 2008 for a record-breaking $1.8 million in 2021 - The world record for most expensive sneaker sale. He is also the Founder and Chief Curator of Applied Arts which provides consulting services to individuals and companies investing in alternative assets such as sneakers, sports cards, NFTs, and other collectibles. Also Ryan founded Ivy Consulting which provides tutoring and other academic services.
Stephan Paternot is Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of Slated, the leading online film packaging, financing, and distribution marketplace, supplying the exploding global demand for great content. In 2004, Stephan co-founded PalmStar, a film production and financing company that has produced and financed over 30 films including Hereditary (2018), Collateral Beauty (2016), Sing Street (2016) and John Wick (2014). Stephan is also the founder and general partner of the Actarus Funds. Founded in 2002, these angel funds have backed such companies as LendingClub, SecondMarket, Indiegogo, AngelList, Digital Currency Group, and many more.
Prior to these ventures, Paternot is best known for co-founding one of the first Internet community sites, theglobe.com, in 1994. The company set stock market history when it went public in 1998 with a record-setting IPO, pushing the company valuation to over $1 billion. Over a six-year span, the company grew to over 300 employees, and the website became one of the top thirty most trafficked sites in the world. In 1999 Stephan won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award and in 2001 published his memoir, A Very Public Offering, detailing his experience at theglobe.com. A Very Public Offering was updated and reissued in 2018 in conjunction with the worldwide release of the National Geographic Television series Valley of the Boom, in which Paternot is featured as a character.
Ezra Levine is the CEO of Collectable, leading the company’s efforts to democratize the sports card & memorabilia industry by providing investment and ownership opportunities to sports fans, collectors, and investors of all income brackets. Collectable has completed over $50M in fractionalized sports collectibles offerings since their September 2020 launch. As of April 2022, investors have enjoyed 26 exits for an average return of 62% above the IPO price. In addition, Collectable co-founded The MINT Collective, the first of its kind thought leadership conference for investing in sports collectibles. Levine has regularly been featured in the media including the Wall Street Journal, CNN, & Bloomberg.
Gary Vaynerchuk is a serial entrepreneur, and serves as the Chairman of VaynerX, the CEO of VaynerMedia and the Creator & CEO of VeeFriends. Known as “GaryVee” he is described as one of the most forward thinkers in business - he acutely recognizes trends and patterns early to help others understand how these shifts impact markets and consumer behavior. Whether its emerging artists, esports, NFT investing or digital communications, Gary understands how to bring brand relevance to the forefront. He is a prolific angel investor with early investments in companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Venmo, Snapchat, Coinbase and Uber.
Gary is an entrepreneur at heart -- he builds businesses. Today, he helps Fortune 1000 brands leverage consumer attention through his full-service advertising agency, VaynerMedia which has offices in NY, LA, London, LATAM, and Singapore. VaynerMedia is part of the VaynerX holding company which also includes VaynerProductions, VaynerNFT, Gallery Media Group, The Sasha Group, Tracer, VaynerSpeakers, VaynerTalent and VaynerCommerce. Gary is also a Board Member at Candy Digital, Co-Founder of VCR Group, Co-Founder of ArtOfficial, and Creator & CEO of VeeFriends. Gary was recently named to the Fortune list of the Top 50 Influential people in the NFT industry.
In addition to running multiple businesses, Gary documents his life daily as a CEO through his social media channels which has more than 34 million followers and garnishes over 272 million monthly impressions/views across all platforms. His podcast ‘The GaryVee Audio Experience’ ranks among the top podcasts globally. He is a five-time New York Times Best-Selling Author and one of the most highly sought after public speakers.
Tom Gearing is CEO of Cult Wines, a top wine investment platform. Tom has grown Cult Wines from a burgeoning start-up to an award-winning global company with six offices across the United Kingdom, North America, and Asia Pacific. Tom’s expertise, entrepreneurship and knowledge of wines have been widely regarded and he is regularly quoted in the New York Times, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal. His most memorable vinous experiences to date are Petrus ’61 en Magnum, Liger Belair La Romanee ’09 and Domaine Leroy, Richebourg ’03.
Congressman Patrick McHenry is serving his ninth term as the representative for North Carolina's 10th Congressional District since starting in 2005. He has become a leader on crowdfunding, capital formation, and other forms of disruptive finance. In the 116th Congress, Congressman McHenry was elected as the Republican Leader of the House Financial Services Committee. Additionally, Congressman McHenry authored the primary legislation to legalize equity-based crowdfunding in the United States. The crowdfunding language he first authored in 2011 was eventually included in the JOBS Act which President Obama signed into law in April 2012.
Scott Lynn is a serial entrepreneur and passionate art collector. He is the Founder and CEO of Masterworks.io, a platform making it possible to invest in multimillion-dollar works from artists like Banksy, Kaws, Basquiat, and more. In 2021 the platform reached unicorn status.
In 2014, Scott founded Payability, a digital lending provider. Scott has been an active collector of contemporary art for more than fifteen years and has built an internationally-recognized collection of Abstract Expressionism that has included works by Clyfford Still, Barnett Newman, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and more. In addition to Masterworks, Scott serves on the board of v2 ventures, Payability, and the Brooklyn Rail.
Sahil Lavingia is a founder, investor, and author. He is founder & CEO of Gumroad which exists to help every creative earn a living selling the stuff they make directly to their audience. He used the new equity crowdfunding rules in 2021 for Gumroad to be the first ever company to raise $5m from the crowd. He also founded SHL Capital, which invests more than $15 million a year in early-stage startups. Previously, he was Pinterest employee No. 2. In his spare time he wrote a book, “The Minimalist Entrepreneur: How Great Founders Do More with Less.”
Nat Turner is currently CEO of Collectors Holdings after taking CLCT private from the Nasdaq for nearly $1 Billion. The holding company is focused on the collectibles industry - including PSA (trading card grading), PCGS (coin grading), Wata Games (video game grading), and Goldin Auctions.
Before Collectors Holdings, Nat built and exited two companies - Flatiron Health, a technology company focused on the oncology industry, was acquired by Roche for $1.9 Billion in 2018. Invite Media, an advertising technology company based in NYC, was acquired by Google in 2010.
An active angel investor since 2010, Nat has invested in over 250 startups, including BarkBox, Cedar, Clover Health, Color Genomics, Oscar, and Plaid.
Mary-Catherine Lader is Chief Operating Officer of Uniswap Labs, the top DeFi platform by marketcap. She previously was a Managing Director at BlackRock, and Chief Operating Officer of the firm’s Digital Wealth business and head of its climate tech business, Aladdin Sustainability. BlackRock has nearly $10 Trillion in assets under management, serving retail and institutional investors across the world. She began her career as an investment analyst with Goldman Sachs’ Special Situations Group and served on the staff of the World Economic Forum’s Davos gatherings for a decade.
Joe Lonsdale is the managing partner at 8VC, a US-based venture capital firm which manages $5 billion in committed capital. He was an early institutional investor in many notable companies including Wish, Oculus (acq.Facebook), Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), Oscar (NYSE: OSCR), Illumio, Anduril,, Flexport, Joby Aviation, and Orca Bio. Joe has been on the Forbes 100 Midas List since 2016 and was the youngest member included in 2016 and 2017.
Before focusing on institutional investing, Joe co-founded Palantir (NASDAQ: PLTR) a global software company known for its work in defense and other industries. After Palantir, he founded and remains as Chairman of both Addepar, which has over $2.5 trillion managed on its wealth management technology platform, and OpenGov, which provides software for over 2,000 municipalities and state agencies. More recently, he is also a co-founder of Affinity, Epirus, Esper, Swiftscale Bio, Resilience Bio. Joe began his career as an early executive at Clarium Capital and also worked with PayPal while he attended Stanford.