Mike Maples on 100-Baggers, David Swensen & the AI Revolution | #568

Today’s guest is Mike Maples Jr. a partner at Floodgate, a pre-seed and seed-stage venture capital firm that’s invested in companies like Twitter, Lyft, Twitch, Okta. He’s also the author of Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future. In today’s episode, Mike shares his framework for investing in successful early-stage companies. He explores the nature of startups as acts of disagreement with the status quo and the importance of being disagreeable in the entrepreneurial journey. Mike also touches on the evolving landscape of IPOs and private markets, the transformative power of AI, lessons from one of his first Limited Partners, Yale’s David Swensen, and more. (0:00) Starts (1:06) Mike Maples' investment philosophy (7:26) Identifying pattern breaking startups (13:02) Spotting inflection points (23:14) Portfolio strategy (32:04) The future of private markets (38:58) AI's impact on investing (46:13) Early influences (53:55) AI in education (1:01:00) Controversial beliefs (1:03:58) Mike's most memorable investments ----- Follow Meb on X, LinkedIn and YouTube For detailed show notes, click here To learn more about our funds and follow us, subscribe to our mailing list or visit us at cambriainvestments.com ----- Follow The Idea Farm: X | LinkedIn | Instagram | TikTok ----- Interested in sponsoring the show? Email us at [email protected] ----- Past guests include Ed Thorp, Richard Thaler, Jeremy Grantham, Joel Greenblatt, Campbell Harvey, Ivy Zelman, Kathryn Kaminski, Jason Calacanis, Whitney Baker, Aswath Damodaran, Howard Marks, Tom Barton, and many more.  ----- Meb's invested in some awesome startups that have passed along discounts to our listeners. Check them out here!  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices