In this episode you will learn:

• Why James became a VC despite having an opinion that it was a bad idea?
• How does Creative Ventures evaluate startups and why do they study the market they invest in deeply before looking at tech solutions for it?
• Why James doesn’t invest in startups with R&D risk and also talk about the strict protocols they have in place to make investments?
• Why startups who don’t share information about their tech or product is a sign of a really bad one?
• Does investing in more diverse founders outside of the elite networks that get most of the venture potentially offer better venture returns?
• What challenges are faced by healthcare startups in aligning the different stakeholders to ensure a successful GTM strategy?
• How even the end of the Ukraine war is not going to end the global food shortage and the challenges faced in agriculture to improve productivity

About

James Wang is a General Partner at Creative Ventures, an early-stage VC focusing on healthcare, agriculture, and industrial technologies, and a co-founder of Lioness Health. Previously, he was on the core investment team at Bridgewater Associates, founded a non-profit consulting firm specializing in microfinance, and did a stint at Google X's Makani project.

James holds an MBA from UC Berkeley where he was a Jack Larson Fellow in Entrepreneurship, a BA with Honors from Dartmouth, and an MS in Computer Science at Georgia Tech. He also holds a Data Science Specialization from the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and completed the course track for a Ph.D. Designated Emphasis in Computational Sciences and Engineering at UC Berkeley.