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Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein

Boardroom Governance with Evan Epstein

By: Evan Epstein
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In-depth interview podcast with leading corporate governance experts, including world-class founders, scholars, board members, executives, investors and more. The content is structured as a long-form conversation to explore not only the latest corporate governance trends, but also to get some personal insights from some of the best and brightest minds behind America's boardrooms.2020-2026 Boardroom Governance Economics Education Management Management & Leadership
Episodes
  • Greg Gretsch: Venture Capital in the AI Supercycle

    Greg Gretsch: Venture Capital in the AI Supercycle
    Jun 4 2026
    (0:00) Intro, *Reference to the Boardroom Governance Summit (Aug 26-27, 2026) (2:42) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel. (3:28) Start of interview. *Reference to prior episode with Greg (E136) from 2024. (5:14) Market Boom and AI Supercycle (6:14) AI Is Changing Everything (9:06) How does a VC use AI (venture business: sourcing, selection, and stewardship) (12:13) Cloud and Startup Costs, rise of seed rounds and institutional angel investors (15:13) JSV Launchpad, a 10-week, in-person summer program in SF from JSV for early-stage student AI founders (18:50) SaaSpocalypse Debate and AI Washing (reference to the Albert Saniger / Nate Inc case) (21:33) Growth Metrics Rewritten (when Anthropic has grown 80x year over year) "the best solution for high prices is high prices" (24:20) Sorting SaaS Risks (27:30) Defensibility in the AI Era: 1) Network effects, 2) Systems of record, and 3) Regulated workflow. (29:52) AI impact to companies: 1) Are the foundation models existential? 2) How much have you incorporated AI into your platform or your product? 3) How important is AI within your product? and 4) How much have you integrated AI into your operations? "In a world where building software is easy, one of the things that we're already seeing within our portfolio, and I think we'll see more of this, is... horizontal expansion (expanding to adjacent businesses)." (32:33) AI, Jobs, and Layoffs (*reference to this FT article: What if remote working, not AI, is to blame for weak junior hiring?) (38:28) Private Markets and IPOs. Liquidity in venture ecosystem (M&A and private equity). (42:02) SpaceX, Anthropic and OpenAI IPOs (45:18) Data Centers and Backlash "It's easy to demonize" (46:16) Regulation and Global Competition "AI right now has become a great bogeyman for both sides." (50:14) Board Strategy for AI (52:12) On Kirkland & Ellis' $500m bet to develop its own AI technology Greg Gretsch is a Founding Partner and Managing Director of Jackson Square Ventures, an early-stage VC firm based in San Francisco. Greg has more than two decades of experience in VC and five of his early-stage investments have gone on to exits or valuations above $1 billion. You can follow Evan on social media at:X: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License
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    55 mins
  • Laurie Yoler: Boards at the Edge of Innovation

    Laurie Yoler: Boards at the Edge of Innovation
    May 18 2026
    (0:00) Intro (1:47) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel (2:34) Start of interview (4:12) Laurie's origin story (6:19) From Management Consulting (Accenture) to Product Innovation (Visa). "What they all had in common was that I got to start with a blank sheet of paper." (8:52) Toward Venture Capital and Board Governance. From Sun Microsystems to Packet Design to investing. (13:07) How she got interested in board governance. Her first board experience with Interactive Investor (cross-listed in US and UK) (14:27) Joining Playground Global in 2019 (16:16) Tesla’s Day-Zero Board (20:15) Zoox and Autonomous Ambition (24:11) Boards Across Company Types: VC-backed companies and family businesses. Example of her time as board member at Bose. (27:57) Lessons from Church and Dwight. The roles of M&A and marketing. (30:37) Her co-authored paper on The Artificially Intelligent Boardroom (Stanford GSB) (35:30) Private Markets and Trillion-Dollar Valuations (40:28) The role of private equity in this environment, and its distinctive board structure. (42:55) Geopolitics and Supply Chains (47:20) Cybersecurity Oversight in the AI Age (50:45) Courage in the Boardroom. “As board members, we have to be courageous enough to ask the right questions at the right time, rather than sit back and hope everything will be okay.” (52:22) Books that have greatly influenced her life: Night Train to Lisbon, by Pascal Mercier (2004)The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot (2010)Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind, by Yuval Noah Harari (2011) (54:14) Her mentors: Heidi Roizen Scott McNealyPeggy Johnson (56:49) Quotes that she thinks of often or lives her life by. "It is easy enough to be pleasant, when life flows by like a song, but the man worth while is one who will smile, when everything goes dead wrong." Ella Wheeler Wilcox (57:32) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that she loves. Dancing, after following research from Kelly McGonigal. Hummingbird feeders. (59:39) The living person she most admires: her husband, Ben Lenail. Laurie Yoler is a venture capital investor at Playground Global, former board member at Tesla and Zoox, and a director or advisor to more than 25 boards. She currently serves on the boards of Church & Dwight and the NACD Northern California Chapter. You can follow Evan on social media at:X: @evanepsteinLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/__To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/__Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License
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    1 hr and 2 mins
  • Marie Oh Huber: Governing Through Disruption

    Marie Oh Huber: Governing Through Disruption
    May 11 2026

    (0:00) Intro

    (1:34) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel

    (2:21) Start of interview

    (3:20) Marie's origin story

    (5:19) Career Path in Law and Governance. Her time at HP and Agilent Technologies.

    (7:50) Transition to eBay

    (9:57) Shareholder Activism and eBay's Story *CNBC clip with Ryan Cohen

    (14:42) Governance Roles and Board Memberships

    (16:50) Her teaching positions on the role of the General Counsel

    (18:57) Chair and Director Succession

    (23:37) On separating Chair and CEO roles

    (25:44) Governance in Private Companies

    (30:40) The Impact of AI on Governance. She thinks of it in three buckets: 1) Customer/revenue opportunity; 2) from an enterprise wide standpoint; and 3) AI risks

    (34:36) Questions board members should ask management regarding AI opportunities and challenges

    (38:09) Energy Sector and AI *Marie serves on the board of Portland General Electric

    (43:10) Geopolitical Challenges in Business *reference to Meta-Manus China breakup

    (45:24) Building Trust in the Boardroom

    (48:30) Books that have greatly influenced her life:

    1. The Book of Alchemy, by Suleika Jaouad (2025)
    2. Phoenix in a Jade Bowl, by Bonnie Bongwan Cho Oh (her mother) (2013)
    3. Atomic Habits, by James Clear (2018)

    (50:32) Her mentors

    (52:38) Quotes that she thinks of often or lives her life by.

    (54:00) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that she loves.

    (56:00) The living person she most admires: Lisa Su.

    Marie Oh Huber has over 30 years of experience of strategic business, legal, regulatory and public policy experience in large global public technology companies, including eBay, Agilent Technologies, and HP. She currently serves on the board of Portland General Electric

    You can follow Evan on social media at:

    X: @evanepstein

    LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/

    Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/

    __

    To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/

    __

    Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License
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    58 mins
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