An economists view on startups

It’s no secret I am a sociologist at heart and love economics or at least parts of economics as a result. I have been listening to Russ Roberts’ EconTalk podcast nearly every week for the last seven years. Not quite from the beginning but pretty close. I have grown as a thinker and ultimately have refined how I approach economic data and quantitative analysis as a result.

That said, some of the deeper details about the usefulness of econometrics isn’t for everyone so I won’t be offended if you think worse of me for being such a HUGE Russ Roberts fanboy. What is interesting is his trips out to the bay area that result in a bunch of EconTalk interviews with people from the startup ecosystem. Recently Russ had Sam Altman, the current overseer of Y Combinator on. Of course he did have Paul Graham (the last overseer of YC) on in the past, so this isn’t exactly a new behavior. For me, an active angel investor and lover of econtalk… this is great though. If you are on the startup/angel investor side of the equation, I’ve collected a few of the related interviews here for you to grab. If you are also an econ-nut… and you haven’t listened to any of the econtalk content, I hope this is a welcome introduction as well.

I recommend listening to all of them, there is a lot of insight you can gain when you’ve listened to all of these…

• Marc Andreessen on Venture Capital and the Digital Future (2014)
• Gavin Andresen on the Present and Future of Bitcoin (2014)
• Graham on Start-ups, Innovation, and Creativity (2009)
• Sam Altman on Start-ups, Venture Capital, and the Y Combinator (2014)
• Buchheit on Google, Friendfeed, and Start-ups (2009)
• Michael Munger on the Sharing Economy (2014)
• McAfee, McArdle, and Ohanian on the Future of Work (2014)

Bonus: One non-tech-startup interview that I really enjoyed recently:

• Gregory Zuckerman on the Frackers and the Energy Revolution (2014)

There are some other great ones on deck that Russ will be posting so you may want to stick with it.