366 Andy Wang

Jeffrey Feldberg: [00:00:00] James Wang is a general partner at Creative Ventures, a deep tech venture firm investing in early stage companies solving critical global scale challenges like rising health care costs, labor shortages, and the causes and effects of climate change. They have invested millions of dollars in over 50 companies, including climate tech startup 3E Nano, Onco Precision, which is developing patient micro avatar technology that seeks to improve cancer patient outcomes, and Reelectrify, a world leader in advanced cell level battery control solutions also backed by Toyota. 

James spearheads Creative Ventures AI Investments, leveraging his MS in Computer Science, specializing in AI ML from Georgia Tech.

Previously, he oversaw the launch announcement and branding for Google X's Mekani project, was on the core investment team at Bridgewater Associates, and co founded and managed a non profit consulting group [00:01:00] specializing in microfinance in the developing world.

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Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. Well, you heard it in the official introduction. Wow, what an introduction that is for today's guest, who is a trailblazer, a thought leader, really a one rounded, smart individual that I am delighted to bring onto the podcast today. So James, I'm going to put a pause on it right there.

 Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you with us. James, I'm curious because there's always a story behind the story. So what's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today?

James Wang: Great. And yeah, thanks for having me on the podcast and absolutely love the podcast have listened to some of the episodes and think you bring a lot to the community [00:05:00] in terms of that. So for me, and I think actually a theme of many of the different guests that you've had is taking the opportunities as they come and evaluating them and then sort of just rolling with it.

Because for me, I started my career. I mean, if you rewind all the way back, I started my career in nonprofits and microfinance in West Africa. I decided I didn't want to do that anymore. Ended up at one of the largest hedge funds in the world, Bridgewater Associates, as part of the core investment team.

That's a pretty big jump. A part of it was, different friends or whatever who were there and said that. They thought that I'd be good. And also that Bridgewater pays a very large recruiting bonus if I actually got through the process. So I, and I assume they got the bonuses and things, but a part of that was just being open to being in a very different field.

And then after being at Bridgewater for some years, I saw a lot of exciting things happening in technology. I actually was born in and grew up in the Bay Area. Saw a lot of exciting things [00:06:00] happening in technology, AI, computing around the early 2010s and ended up going, well, I want to actually get back to that.

So moved back to the Bay Area got an MBA, got a master's in computer science to at the same time was really involved in startups within the area. And founded my own health tech startup, got very involved in both the Berkeley and Stanford community. All of that sort of concurrently at once, because you sort of throw yourself into the whirlwind.

And some friends ended up wanting to do a venture firm. I told them it's a bad idea. It's hard. You got to have the right kind of deal flow and everything. But when they ran into, challenges and everything, it's Three weeks later, after I mentioned that to them and they had put together the firm they basically were trying to pull me in as an advisor and I said, well, why not?

And ended up sort of rolling along, ended up getting so involved that they went, you should just be a partner and, Went from there. It's sort of like a Plinko ball machine sort of a [00:07:00] journey in terms of path and everything. But when you look back, everything does actually fit together quite well.

Thinking about, having the investment experience, thinking about having the technology experience, being in the right place, right time. But part of that is just sort of seizing the opportunities as they come up and going with them. Obviously, this is not a eat clear, well planned completely structured approach where I ended up thinking about doing this years and years ago and going from there.

It's seizing the opportunities as they come and I think most entrepreneurs and actually a lot of the best VCs that I talked to have a journey similar to that.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, quite the journey, James, that you've had, and I'm curious. Looking back so we can look forward, growing up, I mean, my goodness, you started, as you said, in a non profit and now you find yourself in a venture firm. Was there anything that was really a catalyst, a defining moment for you that eventually had you leave the non profit world?

[00:08:00] Into the venture firm world, what a difference. I mean, it couldn't be more of a 180 in terms of what you're doing and the stress and the pressure and the successes and everything else that goes on in between that, anything growing up that shaped you or sculpted you?

James Wang: I mean, I think a part of it is always wanting to be able to make an impact and I think that is That's a goal of a lot of the people who do take some of these more challenging routes in terms of entrepreneurship in social enterprise, in VC, wealth management. That's all those different areas. And for me, think going into it, my original intent was like, look, I grew up in rough circumstances.

I ended up. Making ended up being in pretty good circumstances in terms of going to good schools and everything and coming out of it with a lot of different skills, capabilities, etc. And I always wanted to be able to give back for it. So that's what led me to non profits. But for the non profit side, I ended up seeing that, a lot of Things that are happening in [00:09:00] nonprofits, especially smaller ones, but I imagine bigger ones, too.

I just have more experience with smaller ones. Becomes politics and becomes ego to some degree, because you get some, as you go through time, you become unmoored from some of the principles that you originally had and just want to keep the organizations going and what I ended up seeing Many different times, was a lot of politics, was a lot of sort of short termism was sort of drifting from the mission for many of these different non profits, so that's part of what made me inclined to want to seek a change, and Bridgewater and a hedge fund was very different than that, obviously, but it was different enough where it's look, I'm going to try this out, go for it, and see what I can do here, and I think perhaps just growing up from Again, sort of rougher background and everything and not having as much growing up and everything.

I think some people end up being in a place where they're very risk averse and I think for me, it became the opposite where it's look, [00:10:00] If I can go through all these different stages, be able to figure stuff out and go from there, I think I'm safe enough to take bigger risks and jump from thing to thing and not worry about it not looking good on a resume or for a corporate recruiter.

Jeffrey Feldberg: That's interesting. I have a saying that resilience always trumps resources. So in other words, if you had the proverbial silver spoon growing up, things were easier for you. How do you think, we'll never know, but how do you think things would have turned out? Best guess in terms of would you be where you are?

Would you be adverse to risk? Would you have that hunger inside of you? I mean, we'll never know those questions, but it's always interesting just to think about it and wonder. Absolutely.

James Wang: Yeah, totally. yeah, it's always hard to know the counterfactual. I mean, look, know folks who have grown up from all sorts of backgrounds, including from better, well to do backgrounds kind of thing. Some of them are really willing to take risk because they know that they have that safety net and they are willing to jump for it.

And for others, they want to take it [00:11:00] easy and whatnot. I think it's a combination of the personality and the background.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so when you fast forward to today, creative ventures. So James, you've done a lot. You've been with some incredible individuals and you're in some wonderful circles. When it comes to creative ventures, what gets you out of bed every day? What's that mission, that vision for you that has you hopefully excited?

Okay, new day today, let's get things going.

James Wang: Yeah, for us, we invest in deep tech, so what that means is, AI, which is popular now but we were doing it before it was cool, AI, synthetic biology, advanced materials. A lot of these areas that we invest in are the things that will completely change the world in five or ten years from now. I know, every technologist is a booster for their own area and everything, but really I do actually think that a lot of these different things that are emerging now will be pretty much as big as a industrial revolution or green revolution kind of change for the world.

The internet was obviously a big change [00:12:00] it wasn't a physical change in terms of a lot of software and everything, and that ultimately has its limits for how much it impacts people's lives. It obviously has, we are talking right now, remotely, we are doing these, we are able to interact with all sorts of people around the world.

We have great software, iPhones, et cetera, versus, say, the industrial revolution and a lot of these different things that happened during that time and fundamentally changing how people live, AI, in terms of finally having a way to automate. More knowledge work and the ability, thinking, even if it's quite basic in terms of thinking, which we can get into, but thinking, having synthetic biology where we can finally start producing materials with biology and having a lot of the changes in advanced materials where we have stuff for making things in ways that we never did before and that all of those things will completely change.

Our lives, our children's lives, our grandchildren's lives. And that's really exciting. Not to rag [00:13:00] on, VCs who do more traditional software apps, B2B, SAS, things like that. But it's quite different there. And it is exciting to be able to see that impact from some of these technologies that are coming down the pipe.

I

Jeffrey Feldberg: And James, what's interesting when you look out how you started in non profit and some of the motivations that got you there. For myself anyways, when I was researching creative ventures and what you're doing, big picture wise, Things that have to do with the climate or healthcare or in terms of the agri food and what's going on there, or even on the, what some people would call low tech, although it's not really on the industrial side, it's getting more high tech by the day.

From those areas, really, it's looking to make the world a better place to live. Same outcome, just from a different angle. So it's interesting how there's a theme to what you're doing and really what's there. So for the next question, I'm really thinking of the Deep Wealth Nation for entrepreneurs, founders that are there that are looking for funding or looking to grow the business, maybe they've been bootstrapping, maybe they're looking for [00:14:00] their next seed round to get things going.

The question I'm going to ask, you could flip it on either side of what either has you come to the deal table excited or what's having you run away from the deal table as fast as you can in the other direction, because it's just scary what you're seeing. So when you're looking at opportunities and sharing that for our listeners of what they should be thinking about when they're going into market to find someone like yourself to invest in their companies.

What would that look like for you in terms of what's really having to say, you know what, terrific opportunity. Let's do this. This is really exciting.

James Wang: So for us, inevitably companies are still about the team. For Deep Tech, you obviously have the technology and other things, and it's not like software where literally the team is pretty much all that matters because you can always pivot. Here, You still do care about who's sitting on the other side of the table.

For us, what we see is the most successful teams are the ones who are able, the most successful founders are able to recruit teams, [00:15:00] motivate them, and be able to take the feedback and incorporate these things from the teams, ultimately, once you actually grow in terms of the startup, it's never a one person job, three person. The team and the brain is founders that are able to learn from, others, think about things, are open to feedback, and that's usually what we see succeed. I think tech has been pretty poorly served over time because there's been lots of stereotypes about sort of the genius founders who are antisocial, don't talk to anyone sort of the classic Steve Jobs profile that I think people have used, overused.

But that's not usually the folks that we see succeed in entrepreneurship most of the time.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So from the stereotypes to the actual reality of that. And speaking of the reality, so you've been in deep tech for quite some time. In with that, we can put AI and where things are going. So you really have a purview where most people don't. And I realized by the time this episode comes out, what you may say now could be obsolete and outdated, but that said, What do you want [00:16:00] to share with the community of what you're seeing from your vantage point when it comes to deep tech, when it comes to AI, specifically for society and entrepreneurship and business, what should we expect?

James Wang: Yeah, I mean, I actually don't expect it to be out of date. And the reason why I say this is because similar to how, say, semiconductors pretty much changed everything, where going from the 70s and 80s we went from a analog The non digital society to over that particular point in time, everything having computers and semiconductors and everything inside of it, you can see the long term trend, even if the actual specifics of the technology constantly change.

So AI did not start from. Chat GPT, so there's no B GPT before GPT in terms of after chat GPT. Ultimately, many of these different trends and things that have been happening went back further than that. Google. [00:17:00] From pretty early on in its existence was actually an AI company where search was still had many of these different techniques underlying it and still do today. What we see for all of these different technologies as they've developed and progressed over time is A C change in what people can do individually and in smaller groups in productivity, in being able to implement change in really big ways and with a really relatively small amount of resources.

So in a way you could think about the internet this way where, suddenly people are able to make businesses. Potentially remotely, but also just make businesses with other people and get those off the ground quickly. We see a lot of that happening in the physical world. So, AI is often thought of as quite digital in terms of it, obviously, and it is from a trivial perspective, but a lot of the automation is of people and a lot, and with robotics [00:18:00] is able to do things in the physical world.

With synthetic biology, you're able to put together very complex molecules, very complex systems. Systems with biology, with far less energy resources, giant plants that you used to, and with a lot of the different materials advances that we see, you're able to make things smaller, cheaper, easier to use, and everything, so all of these together are pretty much a trend towards More and more capability with fewer and fewer people needed.

And we can get a little bit into sort of societal thoughts in terms of that, because I don't think that's going to cause mass unemployment, which I think sort of might be the first inclination that you think about with that. But at least for this community, the exciting thing is going forward, you're probably going to be able to see the ability to do what you did in say, like 10 years before.

fewer people, with way more speed, and with way more refinement than you did before.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So as an [00:19:00] entrepreneur, hearing you talk about this, what would be your advice or insight to me of what I should be thinking about or how I should be changing or adopting my business? As the technology continues to make its way into various circles.

James Wang: Ultimately, entrepreneurship is always in a shifting environment. You can't just sort of go into a cave with an idea on a sketchbook and come out of it a few years later and hope to have it succeed. Inevitably, you're always going to be looking at the market environment and everything to be able to adapt.

It's just much faster now. So for a lot of the different uh, Opportunities and changes in AI. I don't think the exciting thing is whether or not, ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever is better and what will, ChatGPT 5 do or whatever. I think the important thing for entrepreneurs is to take that as part of the background.

So if you're able to. [00:20:00] Serve your customers better. If you're able to embed these technologies better into your company and what you're doing, great. That will just make everyone's experience better for you. If you're starting to use some of these tools to help develop your product or do some of these things even better.

The main thing to Remember and keep in mind is that these are tools. Just because AI is a super exciting tool doesn't mean that it's still not a tool. If you went from trying to dig holes with your hands to digging holes with a shovel, to digging holes with a excavator these are all obviously pretty big jumps and changes, but you're still digging a hole at the end of the day.

Same thing with your business. You have to keep in mind. What the technology is that and what the technology level is in the landscape but you're still keeping an eye on your business. You're just adapting it to the environment that you find yourself in.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And with all of that said, I'm wondering, James, so when you look at your portfolio, which by the way, it's impressive, not only in [00:21:00] terms of the breadth and width of what you're doing, but also the numbers you're getting out there. You guys have been busy with a number of portfolio companies that you've been investing in.

Is there a particular trend or theme or maybe another way to say that it's the 80 20 rule or Prudhal's law that, hey, if we see 20 percent of these kinds of. Whatever the case may be, trends or the way they're doing things. That's really 80 percent of the companies that we want to be involved in or sponsoring or investing in.

James Wang: Yeah. I mean, our central market thesis that we look at breaking down into these areas is two of which are driven actually by demographic change and aging populations, but the three areas are one. Again, the demographic change, which is causing labor shortages across a lot of semi skilled or low skilled industries, especially so we have fewer people to throw at manual labor jobs, and the population is aging, which means, again, you have less manual labor to throw at the same problems, and you either need to decrease [00:22:00] the everyone's standard of living, or you need to somehow massively increase productivity.

So we see an opportunity there. We see opportunities in, again, aging populations, which makes healthcare systems more expensive. It makes cost of care more expensive. We see a lot of opportunities within diagnostic technologies, AI technologies, a lot of these other things to make healthcare more efficient and cheaper, but we still have higher.

And finally, there's climate change, which regardless of your political orientation, it's rolling along and there are a lot of implications to say many more batteries needed in the world for all the different electrification things that are happening and the fact that renewables are quite cheap now, but have an issue where The sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow in terms of intermittency.

So there's a lot of technology needed to address that too. These are the three big trends that we go after in part because if you think about [00:23:00] it, they're pretty obvious, they're pretty clear. They'll be around seven, nine, ten years from now for sure. If not, as severe, then maybe even more severe. And from there you kind of are aiming for the broad side of a barn.

I mean, that's part of, I think, our thought process, where especially if you have a Super innovative technology, you might as well go after the bigger thing. Now, that doesn't mean tactically you're going after the entire, say, climate change or labor market at once, but the kind of problem that you're solving in terms of the ultimate outcome of it might as well be really big.

Because if you have that opportunity, you can seize it.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And it's interesting, right now, what we've been talking about, James, it's been more for the entrepreneurs of what they should be thinking about, but for the investment community, for the investors in Deep Wealth Nation, who are looking at, okay, how am I going to preserve my capital, but maximize my return [00:24:00] based on the thesis that you shared with me?

In terms of raising your own funds, so you can take those funds and then go and invest in other companies. What would you be saying to the investors out there who are looking for their next investment? Perhaps it could even be creative ventures. What would you say to them?

James Wang: Yeah, I think part of this becomes your thesis for how the world will go, right? Because I think some years ago, when we were in a zero interest rate environment, post 2008 everyone was going very risk on because well, interest rates were zero. Anyway, you had to go out and make returns somehow, but people were expecting that to go on for life at this point that you can put your money into a time deposit account and get 5 percent and that seems great.

But. This environment might not last in the same way either. What we are seeing from a secular perspective, if you think that even some of the glimpses that you've had for the impact of AI and some of the things that we're able to do with healthcare technology and everything are any indication, [00:25:00] the world is changing quite a bit.

If you play that out, and I'm going to put on some of my macroeconomic hat a little bit, you are going to have. Interesting changes in technology leadership in terms of new infrastructure and new industrial clusters being formed. Some of this will become massively deflationary trends, which will raise the real interest rate, but also create interesting impacts in terms of where, Interest rates in the general economy will be, and what I mean by that is, if you think about what AI and some of these other things do, you can do the same thing for way cheaper.

That's going to be a big deflationary push in the same way, or even more than when, say, China came online. And you ended up having labor costs go way down and sort of a big consumer manufacturing boom. A lot of these trends are all coming to a head all at once. I keep mentioning AI, synthetic biology, and advanced materials because even though everyone's paying attention to AI right now, There's been a [00:26:00] sea change in what we can do with biomanufacturing, and there's been a sea change in the kind of materials and other things that we can use and produce, some of which with AI, actually.

And all of these things are impacting the physical world all at once, which means where are you getting your returns? What's the most interesting frontiers in the past? Say 10, 15, whatever years, this little area called software became really interesting because, computers, the internet and everything, and there was a big boom there.

Do we think that particular trend will keep going? And where do we think the next frontier is in terms of marginal growth and what will drive the world? So, it's a little bit self serving in this perspective because we are obviously deep tech investors, but I left Bridgewater and I jumped into.

Technology and especially thinking about computing and AI and stuff, in part, because I saw this trend coming years and years ago. I think that it's only accelerating at this point and it becomes pretty important to position [00:27:00] yourself well for it. Because in big shifts in the environment, in big sea changes oftentimes those are some of the hardest times to preserve wealth.

And grow it. Basically, the volatility becomes high. You have a lot of upside potential, but you have a lot of downside potential as well if you're positioned poorly. And it's really hard just to try to hang on and preserve wealth in the more traditional way.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And as we're talking about that, James, what's running through my mind, and I would love for you to say, Jeffrey, I think you're on base or off base, or I agree or disagree with AI, but let's expand that to deep tech and everything that would be under that umbrella. The analogy that people are saying is if you go back a few hundred years, When the quote unquote technology of ships came around, the nations, the countries that mastered the seas, they became the titans of the world for the next century or two.

And using that same analogy, what many people [00:28:00] say is, Whoever figures out this deep tech or this AI, whichever companies can get out there and really get a really good understanding, lead the way, amass many millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people using their technology, they will control really the economics, the business for the next century or more.

Thoughts about that? Is that just a pipe dream? Is there something to that?

James Wang: No, I think that's true. And I've recently been speaking on a few national security podcasts as well as recently went to speak on AI and biomanufacturing, biosecurity Workshop at the National Academies in Washington, D. C. too. This is clear to governments and policy makers which usually are I mean, I'd actually say, I was about to say slow on the uptake, but I'd say the institutions are slow in moving, but individuals with them in them are typically not slow on the uptake.

It's just slow in actual action that happens. But I think that analogy is correct. I kept [00:29:00] saying that this is As big as the industrial revolution and the green revolution. It's pretty, we can already see a lot of the impacts now, right? Like a lot of, there's been a lot of disruption even within the software industry because all of a sudden.

Like the modalities of how you interact with, say, SaaS software has changed. And one thing that I think not many people have realized, but say, just from the perspective of SaaS, if you don't have a AI backed search modality or interface or something, you are probably pretty much. Behind your competitors quite a bit, say it's for ERPs or for CRMs or for some of these boring technologies just because the interface is so much nicer for the data that you have and you can utilize much more of it. That is not usually going to be something that you can charge more for because everyone is doing it and everyone's buying it. Backed by similar sort of AI models, so the actual impact, if you play that through, is actually just a increase in the cost for [00:30:00] this, these SaaS businesses, because AI versus just plain software is actually quite expensive to run and serve.

But at the same time, you're just sort of treading water because what you're doing is you're preserving the customers that you already have and not having them be steal, stolen away by some competitor who decides to integrate it first. We're already seeing the impact from the kind of, I will say, somewhat not Particularly capable AIs of the current era what will happen when you actually have some of these AI technologies, which are already actually out there running robotics and obviously everyone's talking about autonomous vehicles and everything, but running robotics and many more things in the physical world. All of a sudden a lot of the different things that you used to think were super important, just like you're talking about the era of ships and everything, it's well, it used to be super important. Who. Was able to control some of those land routes. Well, all of a sudden it doesn't matter cause we're going around the Cape Horn and everything, and basically now [00:31:00] suddenly different folks, different countries now have the stranglehold on wealth.

Same thing here. It's we see a certain way that industrial manufacturing and all these things have to be done. And. Quite soon a lot of those assumptions that we had in terms of number of people, kind of infrastructure, kind of everything that you need will probably be turned on its head.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's interesting if you took the same point, depending on where you're sitting from that. So you're using SaaS companies in one example, where the cost of doing business just increased. You have to offer more, not that you can charge more so you can keep your existing customer base and try and figure out ways where you can monetize that.

On the flip side, I would imagine if you're not a fortune 10 or 100 or 1000 company, you're a smaller company. Look at the advantage that you have. You have the same access as the big companies, the titans of business for relatively the same cost to, as you're pointing out earlier, help you get more done in less time, possibly with fewer costs.

But as we're talking about that, let me [00:32:00] ask you this. If we took our great grandparents or our great grandparents and we fast forward them today, James, they would be amazed on this small little box that we hold in our hand. We push a button and all of a sudden a car shows up or food shows up. They would be amazing.

Or you speak into this box and you get this information instantaneously of whatever's on your mind. They would be amazed by that. Along those lines, if we were to fast forward, call it 25 years, 50 years, 75 years, bit of a crystal ball question here. What kind of world would you hope that we're living in?

What would have changed? What would that look based on what you're seeing today in maybe not the early stages of deep tech, but as far as the community is concerned for them as early stages, you've been in it for a while, but what do you think? What's the kind of world that we're going to be in? And would you want to be part of that?

James Wang: Yeah, I, so I am a technology optimist, I think from [00:33:00] a orientation perspective I always have been, so I'm a little biased here, but that being said, I think that a lot of the worries that people have around technology causing more issues or whatever, some of it's founded, sure. But a lot of the big challenges that we have today, like climate change, like some of the wealth inequality, like a lot of unrest and other things, a lot of that can actually be solved through technology.

If we look at the way climate change has gone, the worst outcomes that we thought would happen during the age of, Al Gore's inconvenient truth and whatever, have been averted. Were they averted by great regulations and everyone coming together? No. It was averted by the fact that technology has advanced so much within renewables that suddenly it's actually quite cheap to run them.

And because of that, just from an economics perspective, it now makes sense to do those things and have zero carbon generation of power. Now for predicting the future, I think a lot of [00:34:00] people always have sort of fantastical things because you talk about the grandparents and fast forwarding, right?

Like one of the things that they probably have predicted, with, the Jetsons and whatever cartoons is flying cars, right? I think most people, when they think about the future are thinking about more visible and flashy kind of changes. I think the future that we're going to be approaching, a lot of the changes are going to be less flashy, but no less.

Incredible. So from the perspective of synthetic biology and delivery mechanisms that we're getting in biology and these other things. We'll be able to cure diseases and impact them in ways that we never have before. If you think about the way that most of our disease treatment, say, for cancer, works right now, or cancer or anything, pretty much we can cut it out.

We can poison it in ways that kill the thing faster than it kills us and that's most of the way, and, you have antibiotics and other things, which is sort of like biological nukes to basically kill the thing faster than it kills us. [00:35:00] If you think about it, that's actually quite crude. If you take any sci fi sort of film, and if you actually thought about it, it's you wouldn't think that's still where we are, where we haven't actually come that far from say, the barber surgeons of the turn of the century kind of thing.

In the future, we are seeing already incredibly sophisticated ways of creating more tailored cell therapies, gene therapies, delivery mechanisms, and everything. And just our healthcare systems will probably look completely different where you might walk into a clinic still, but you might get a shot.

And now, whatever it is that your ails you will be fixed. And we might be able to regenerate organs, or we almost certainly will be able to regenerate organs without as much organ donation. We will have Maybe iPhones as well still. It's actually hard to get rid of that modality, but maybe even if we still have iPhones, the iPhone whatever, like 25 or whatever, may be completely made out of some kind of ceramic hybrid material that is generated by AI.

And for our [00:36:00] factories, industries, and everything else, we might see the trends of global trade and where everything is based completely change because all of a sudden everyone thought 3D printing would revolutionize the world. Well, maybe AI, much more AI and reinforcement learning and whatever driven robotics might actually do what 3D printing couldn't and localize manufacturing a lot more, make it a lot more viable to create smaller runs of things.

And all of those things will completely change what the consumer landscape and the landscape of things that we have in our hand and what we do completely. It's hard for me to predict how, specifically, because that's going to be the different trends that come up. But it's these little, not mundane because they're not mundane at all, but these little almost invisible things in the background.

That will be the most likely things to just be completely revolutionized and that will change very much the landscape of economics, of finance, and just how we live our lives.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's amazing as you're talking about that, you're reminding [00:37:00] me, you're so right. If you want to know what the future is, look at some of the science fiction in terms of the movies or the books. And if we go back in time, you're absolutely right. They've been predicting what we now have for decades, sometimes even a century or more, which is absolutely amazing.

And I'm going to date myself a little bit here. James, as you're talking, I'm thinking about a Star Trek movie. Don't ask me which one. I don't quite remember. And I'll get most of it it was Dr. McCoy, I believe. They went back in time to our time right now. He's in an elevator in a hospital and these two doctors are talking about how to treat this patient.

Oh, we should radiate this, or we should cut that out. And they say, doctor to Dr. McCoy, what do you think? He looks at them and he says, you're barbaric. And he walks out of the elevator And as he's walking out, you see a woman that he gave some kind of a tablet to who was really counting her last days. She was in the hallway jumping around with all of this energy.

So I can only hope with what you're saying on the health side and the improvements to life does come to bear some fruit and that we can see that in our lifetimes, [00:38:00] thoughts about that?

James Wang: Yeah, totally. And I do also agree in terms of the science fiction because People have been trying to imagine what will come, and it's also the point that I make about the flashy things, right? Because, again the Jetsons, not meant to be hard science fiction or anything but, the visible flashy things are the flying cars.

The thing in terms of Star Trek or the things in terms of some of these other science fiction novels is usually just more, much more refined ways of doing things today that you can imagine. Just, it's within reach from the perspective of your imagination, but it's not within reach of our capabilities, and what we are now having is our grasp I'm trying to remember the old quote I'm butchering it for sure, but basically our grasp finally reaching where our imaginations can go.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, it's quite something incredible. And let me ask you this, James, because my goodness, we can go down so many rabbit holes for what you're doing, but my takeaway as you're talking about these things. And not to put words in your mouth, but [00:39:00] your thesis is really through the technology, finding ways to make the world a better place.

Finding the companies, the founders, the entrepreneurs, having the investors come along with you to invest in these businesses that can really be game changers. So with that in mind, whether you're talking to the investment community, who's part of the Deep Wealth Nation or the entrepreneurs or the founders, or even the M& A world, that's also in the community.

Is there a question that I didn't ask or a topic we haven't covered, or even a message that you'd like to get out there?

James Wang: Yeah. I mean, I think there's two of them. One is again, sort of the tech optimism in the sense that many of the big problems that we face are just from the impact side, going to be much more easily changed through technology because it's going there and we don't need as much coordination, which has been hard to find in today's world.

But the second thing is if you basically ask a question of why now, right? Like I think one thing that people [00:40:00] will, might. Immediately ask themselves. It's okay, why now? It's AI has been talked about since the eighties, gene therapy and stuff should have had its heyday in the nineties and everything.

I'm not sure I believe it now because I've seen so many other iterations of it and it never came to fruition. Well, I think one of the themes that you've had on some of your other Podcasts and in your roadmap as well as timing is everything, right? To some degree, it's well, yeah, very true.

Like some of these technology did not, had not come to fruition then, but part of our job and why I, again, I got excited about it and left hedge funds and global macro to come to this area is I saw that the timing is now before AI was sort of Everyone was imagining what it could be, but no one knew how we would get there.

Even in the, again, 2010s we already had a clearer understanding of how we would get there. It was just that we were still progressing at the time. And by the time it exploded into [00:41:00] chat GPT and everyone's oh yeah, AI is definitely a thing. It was already years in the making. You could see that trend line.

You knew that this was the time because we knew what we need to get there. The same thing is now true in synthetic biology and a lot of the different material sciences and everything, which is what makes the time. Now and it, this is pretty much the inflection point where we not only can imagine that these things are happening, we know the roadmap to get there.

And because of that, it's only a matter of time before we actually build it out versus just imagining. Now I will throw out one just to, just as a contrast because we keep talking about these in quantum computing. We keep thinking quantum computing's close, but we don't actually currently have a roadmap or understanding of how we would get to general quantum computing, say.

So there are differences between some of these technologies, but all of these other ones, the reason why the time is now is because we actually have a roadmap to get there and that's why I'm excited about it and that's why I hope [00:42:00] a lot of other folks are too.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's interesting as you're talking about this and before we go into wrap up mode, I'm thinking about step one in a nine step roadmap. It's the big picture and it's all about inflection points. And to your point, we go to great lanes to say, identify today, like what you've done, James, identify today, an inflection point.

And the whole thing about an inflection point, what we see today, it may take a decade, it may take two decades. Maybe it's going to take five years or two years. We just don't know, but it may take some time for it to actually come in and manifest. One of the case studies that we use is the good old modern day version of David versus Goliath, vis a vis Blockbuster versus Netflix, when Netflix latched onto, hey, once upon a time, there's going to be high speed bandwidth.

And with high speed bandwidth, we're going to be able to stream movies. We're not going to send VHS tapes through the mail or DVDs through the mail. It's all going to be done instantaneously. But it took time and they had to wait, they had to be smart about it, they had to survive [00:43:00] to actually see to fruition.

And so James, really what I'm hearing you say, much the same thing, find an inflection point, have that become your thesis, plan around that, leverage that, and when the time is right, have some patience, that's when you can make your move. And perhaps if you get the timing right, you can even create a market disruption.

Thoughts about that?

James Wang: Absolutely. And I'll give a, because I completely agree about the Netflix and Blockbuster case, but I will give one an AI because everyone, again, is very familiar with chat GPT, but before 2013 our AI could not tell the difference between pictures of cats and pictures of not cats. that wasn't that long ago, well now I guess 11 ish, but around 10 years ago.

So. We were at a point where AI was so bad that it could not tell the difference between two different types, classes of pictures. After that point, though, it hit human levels of capability. After that point, all of a sudden, everything started hitting human levels of [00:44:00] capability. You could see these things happening even before then, in terms of the big jumps in performance and the, again, roadmap of how people would get there.

But I think that's just something to hold in mind and keep viscerally there. Biggest tech companies, Google, could not tell the difference between cats and not cats, and now we have ChatGPT. But that's not the end of the story, because that kind of jump is still happening right now. So, it just tells you the kind of pace of change, and you know that it's happening, you can see that it's happening, but some of the really big changes, and sort of the next shoe to drop will be many more physical applications of AI in the real world, but can see it happening.

You know that it's coming, so timing is everything in terms of that, and yeah, just keeping in mind just how fast it has changed, and it's only accelerating.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely, and what's amazing about that, James, before we go into the wrap up mode, you could be an owner of a company that's very traditional, it's very low [00:45:00] tech, perhaps even in manufacturing, but you're seeing an inflection point, you're seeing where it's going and you now embed this new deep tech.

Into your company in whatever sector industry you're going to be, you can literally transform yourself from what some people would have written off as your days are numbered to really having a market disruption, having a huge game change of a service or offering or product because of how you've transformed what you do, your focus of what you've mastered into a whole new area.

It's exciting. And what I'm hearing you say is, More and more of those opportunities are now becoming accessible to more people that it can become a reality, not just something you read about.

James Wang: Absolutely. I mean, it goes back to the sort of classic Clay Christensen innovators dilemma, right? Some of those traditional businesses incorporate some of these things. Might not make that much of a difference yet. It may just be that this thing that kind of is a little bit worse than the traditional offering using whatever AI or synthetic biology or other things is serving a [00:46:00] new customer set.

But over time, where that curve is going, that it's eventually going to take over. And yeah, the opportunities are abound right now.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Something to think about. And all you listeners out there, before we go into the wrap up mode, I know I keep saying that, I want you to think about, go back in time, if you could, and think about, you spotted a trend, you said, Oh, that's nice. And you forgot about it. And then you saw someone else brought that to market, perhaps created a market disruption.

Well, don't make that mistake twice, learn from that. If you see something now, perhaps reach out to James or speak to him or just jump in there, find that inflection point and really maximize it. But speaking of the future, going back to the future, it's a perfect segue, James, for our wrap up. It's a tradition here on the Deep Wealth Podcast, where I have the privilege, it's an honor to ask every guest the same question.

So let me set this up for you. It's a fun one. 

In the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that will take you to any point in time. So, James, here's the fun part. Imagine it's tomorrow morning, you look outside your window, not only is the DeLorean car there, it's curbside, the door is open, and it's waiting [00:47:00] for you to hop on in, which you do, and you're now gonna go to any point in time.

James, as a young child or a teenager, whatever point in time it would be, what are you telling your younger self in terms of life lessons or life wisdom? Or, hey, James, do this, but don't do that. What would it sound like?

James Wang: I think it's right, but honestly, I think I would just want to go back and see it, but then do nothing in terms of it. Because ultimately, all the struggles, all the challenges, all the different things that happened were part of what shaped me into who I am today. I am in a place where I would find it hard to deeply change something because, yeah, there are a lot of inflection points that I can go to, to make, this outcome much better, I could do this, I could apply to this thing, I could do this thing, or whatever it is but ultimately, you need the struggle, you need to go through the journey to get to your destination, and for me, I think I just find it nostalgic and beautiful to go back and look at those times.

And [00:48:00] watch from afar, but I wouldn't actually jump in. I think the struggle for my younger self needs to be there. And I think I just want to appreciate the beauty of it.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so would it be? Appreciate the beauty, enjoy the struggle, enjoy the journey. That's what's going to make you who you eventually you're going to become.

James Wang: Yeah, I think so. I, my personal belief is, I think that's the case for a lot of people. And you change a little thing and you could change the sort of butterfly effect. You could change who they are quite a bit. And at least for me, it's yeah, I don't have any regrets in terms of it.

Even the parts that were tough, even the parts that were really tough were important in getting me to where I am today.

Jeffrey Feldberg: That's amazing. So really enjoy the so called struggles or really opportunities in disguise to make you that much better and enjoy a more fulfilling life. I love that advice. What's interesting, podcast, when our guests are like [00:49:00] world class thought leaders and just really out there. That's the thing that they say, you know what, Jeffrey, I don't think I would want to change anything because as difficult and as challenging as some points in my life were, if I change that, I wouldn't be where I am today.

And I love where I am today and the best is yet to come. So there's a lot to be said for that. 

James Wang: Absolutely. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: before, we wrap it up, if someone has a question, maybe they want to invest alongside with you, or they want you to invest in their company, or they just want to reach out and talk to you or the team, where would be the best place online for someone to reach you?

James Wang: Yeah. So I am still on Twitter formerly, or was X formerly known as Twitter or whatever as A. James Wang. So. My name is actually quite common, unfortunately, so I have embraced that and just put an A in front of it. So one of, so a James w on Twitter and I'm also writing on Substack these days.

So I am on weighty thoughts.com where I put a lot of my thoughts in terms of ai, business, technology where some of these things are [00:50:00] going, and I know. Substack also now has a DM function as well, so you can also find me there. And if you just want to more generally talk to folks on in Creative Ventures and in the investment team we have a open email.

I think it was invest at creativeventures. vc, but regardless you can find all that information on creativeventures. vc, our website as well.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. And for our listeners, it doesn't get any easier. It's a point and click. It's all in the show notes. And with that said, James, congratulations. It's official. This is a wrap. And as we love to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much.

James Wang: Thank you so much. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: So there you have it, Deep Wealth Nation. What did you think? So with all that said and as we wrap it up, I have another question for you.

Actually, it's more of a personal favor. Did you find this episode helpful? Have you found other episodes of the Deep Wealth Podcast empowering and a game changer for your journey? And if you said yes, and I really hope you did, I have a small but really [00:51:00] meaningful way that you can actually help us out and keep these episodes coming to you.

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