We are honored to have former Google CEO Eric Schmidt as one of our luminary LPs at Village Global. He recently participated in an event with our founders and Network Leaders in San Francisco. It was a delight to have my old friend Tyler Cowen, interviewer extraordinaire, conduct the chat with Eric. They had a wonderfully stimulating conversation about a range of topics. Perhaps my favorite part was near the end, when Eric and Tyler have a back-and-forth about GDP growth.

Here’s a video of their conversation. Here’s the post on the Village blog about the event. The audio of the conversation will also be published on Tyler’s must-listen podcast, Conversations with Tyler.

We’re honored to have Disney CEO Bob Iger as one of our LPs at Village Global. We recently hosted an event with Bob and about 100 of our portfolio companies, Network Leaders, and other friends of the firm at the iconic Beverly Hills Hotel.

Bob was in fine form on stage, and was terrific with a small group of our founders afterwards in a smaller session. As one of the world’s most successful CEOs, and one of the most important people in the entertainment industry, we were thrilled to be able to hear from him up close and personal.

Here are the photos from the event.

One of the more memorable things Bob said at the event was that he’s not “paranoid” about the future. He acknowledged the Andy Grove quip that “only the paranoid survive” but said that this particular framing (paranoia) doesn’t resonate with him. He’s more curious than he is paranoid. He’s relentless about trying to transform an iconic company into a new era. But it’s curiosity and optimism that drives him to do so. It was a refreshing, different sort of view than the common Silicon Valley line. It was a reminder that there are many ways to frame the challenge of disruption and innovation. And there are many ways to be an exceptional leader.

We’re honored to be hosting events with several of our LP luminaries at Village Global this fall. A few updates:

• Video series of short clips featuring exclusive footage from events with Spanx founder Sara Blakely, Pinterest founder Ben Silbermann, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and others. See the embed below for an example of Reid on Village.
• We recently hosted Fidelity CEO, Abby Johnson, in an intimate lunch conversation with our Network Leaders about fintech and other trends.
• Next week, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt will be in conversation with economist Tyler Cowen in San Francisco. You can request an invitation here.

We were honored to have one of our LPs, Spanx founder/CEO Sara Blakely, in Palo Alto for the Village Global event called Underestimated. Sara was joined by dozens of other remarkable female founders and VCs in Silicon Valley.

Here’s a writeup on some of the insights shared by the speakers.

Here are a bunch of photos from the event.

The energy in the room was electric. More to come!

Ben Silbermann is co-founder and CEO of Pinterest, one of the world’s most successful consumer internet companies.

Ben is also a Village Global luminary — a group of tech industry founders and executives who are backing the next generation of amazing entrepreneurs.

At a dinner recently with a small group of Village Global’s Network Leaders, Ben shared stories and lessons from the Pinterest journey. Here’s a writeup of some of my favorite nuggets that Ben shared. And below is a video with some of the highlights…