In Conversation with Naval & Ryan: Communities, Investing & Technology

Ryan Hoover (Product Hunt), Naval Ravikant (AngelList)

The guests here need no introduction. Apart from being successful founders, they’re both prominent investors. Together, they’ve impacted entrepreneurs by reducing friction in fundraising, recruiting and launching.

In a freewheeling chat, I tried to ask them questions that some of you had responded with, to my tweet below. Both of them were upfront about their limited knowledge of India but we still manage to get some interesting titbits.

Give it a listen and feel free to leave your comments.

Soundcloud link to the talk

[00:55] Inception of Product Hunt

[03:56] AngelList & Product Hunt: Match made in heaven

[06:47] Angel investing with money & time

[11:55] Founders investing in other founders

[14:40] Saying Yes / No to opportunities: Paying it forward

[18:55] Helping at scale: 1–n vs 1–1

[21:25] Credentialing and heuristics

[24:00] Looking inside: Platform of you

[28:46] Societal programming: Guilt vs shame

[32:30] Twitter as a discovery platform

[36:10] Technology for good & bad

[47:18] Shoutout for Makers from India

[48:48] AngelList Syndicates for India

[49:33] India as a market opportunity

[51:24] Lighter discussions on reading, diet & more

P.S.: Good video takes time. While it’s being processed, I couldn’t wait to get the audio out. Thanks to Niv for introduction to Shiva, who helped out with all of his equipment and time. Big appreciation for Naval and Ryan for being such a sport.