Ian Rountree: Venture & the Near Frontier

In this conversation, we talk with Ian Rountree the founder and partner of Cantos.vc, a venture fund investing in near frontier technologies that will change the world. In this conversation Ian and I cover the changing landscape of venture, financing the future, and bounce around quite a bit between the various facets of the future that are being built right now.

Chapters

00:00 Introducing Ian Rountree and Cantos
00:35 Raising and deploying a venture fund
01:43 Institutional capital and emerging managers
05:18 What should venture capital fund?
07:29 Defining the near frontier
08:55 Hardware and the history of venture
11:03 What draws Ian to frontier technology
13:21 Energy abundance and constraints
16:40 Affordable and cleaner energy
18:54 Renewables and nuclear power
22:51 Capital requirements and reactor startups
25:33 Finding capital for deep technology
29:14 Long-term investors and post-phone computing
31:17 Biotechnology and longer lives
34:09 Longevity, learning and social change
37:16 Mobility and cultural exposure
39:15 Social media and access to information
42:31 Education in an information-rich world
44:33 Where to find Ian and Cantos

Links

• Cantos — firm and Ian Rountree biography

• Ian Rountree

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Build the Future Podcast. This is a project by World's Fair Co. You can learn more at worldsfair.org.