The S2G Podcast

This is the S2G Podcast, where we talk to business leaders, investors, policymakers, and thought leaders who have a transformative vision for the future. We’ll explore how their experiences and perspectives offer lessons into scaling the food, agriculture, oceans, and energy transitions.

The S2G Podcast is a business podcast hosted by Unknown Host, with 0 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Unknown Host hosts The S2G Podcast, a business show with 0 episodes published.

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  Episode #21

  Rethinking Energy Security and What the World Got Wrong on Hormuz

  Sep 17, 202635 minS3

  Omran Al-Kuwari has been counting: September 16th marks 200 days since the Strait of Hormuz was closed, and there's still no fallback plan. As he puts it, a small regional airport might have more built-in redundancy than the Strait that feeds much of the world's energy. Omran, whose career in gas dates back to 1999, joins S2G's Sanjeev Krishnan and Frédéric Michel, the former chief strategy and communications advisor to Emmanuel Macron, to argue that Hormuz was never a regional problem. It's global critical infrastructure, and the risk reaches well past oil and gas into fertilizer, food prices, and even the helium hospitals need for MRI machines. Oil had its wake-up call in 1973 and built strategic stocks in response. LNG is having its wake-up call now. Omran explains why the weak points sit in the gaps between institutions, why we've built an architecture that keeps producing crises, and why the fix comes down to redundancy, governance, and deciding who pays for it. The conversation closes with a reframe: energy transitions don't swap one fuel for another, they stack new systems on old ones, and those systems now have to be built for a more volatile, fragmented world. Chapters: 01:52 Why Gulf energy is a global issue 06:12 What the headlines miss about Hormuz 08:09 Why global institutions haven't kept up 12:17 Who pays for backup supply? 15:49 How China weathered the shock 19:28 Gas prices, exports, and AI demand 23:46 How Qatar is bouncing back 29:41 Building a more resilient energy system This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. S2G holds positions in the companies referenced, but this podcast is for information purposes only and is not intended to promote any such company. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results. The views expressed herein are opinions based on certain assumptions and subject to change. For more important information, please see s2ginvestments.com/disclosures .

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  Episode #20

  Energy Empire: The Nurse Who Built a $400 Million Generator Company

  Sep 10, 202631 minS3

  Concerts, construction sites, and data centers waiting on the grid all run on temporary power. That means a generator big enough for the rare occasions the site needs full power, burning through unnecessary fuel when the load is a fraction of what it can handle. ANA's system lets a battery carry the load and runs the engine only to recharge it, cutting fuel use for temporary power needs by as much as 80%. This week, we're featuring an episode from our friends at the Energy Empire podcast where hosts Jigar Shah and Jamie Nolan sit down with Alicia Waineo, Co-founder and CFO of ANA, one of our portfolio companies. They discuss how Alicia went from being a registered nurse to running a business doing roughly $400 million a year, why they kept the diesel engine when everyone else was trying to kill it, and how they funded the whole thing on $700,000 of their own money plus one outside check. Before we hand it over, S2G's Gokul Raghavan explains why this was the bet we wanted to make in mobile power. Chapters: 00:30 — Why S2G Invested in ANA 05:18 — From Registered Nurse to Co-Founder 07:37 — Betting on a "Sleepy" Distribution Business 11:06 — The Invisible Industry Behind Every Job Site 14:17 — Inside EBOSS: Letting the Battery Carry the Load 18:06 — Why Nobody Did This Sooner, and the LTO Bet 21:35 — $11M to $400M on a Single Outside Check 25:09 — Europe, FlexBoost, and Powering the Super Bowl This episode originally appeared on Energy Empire. Energy Empire is hosted by Jigar Shah and Jamie Nolan, and covers the people, capital, and decisions shaping the future of energy. Check out more of their episodes at https://www.energyempire.fm/ This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. S2G holds positions in the companies referenced, but this podcast is for information purposes only and is not intended to promote any such company. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results. The views expressed herein are opinions based on certain assumptions and subject to change. For more important information, please see s2ginvestments.com/disclosures .

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  Episode #19

  Can Europe Remain the Protagonist of its Future with Bruno Le Maire

  Aug 27, 202644 minS3

  The longest-serving finance minister in modern French history thinks Europe's problem isn't talent, money, or ideas. It's that Europe can no longer make decisions. Bruno Le Maire joins S2G’s Sanjeev Krishnan and Frédéric Michel, former chief strategy and communications advisor to Emmanuel Macron, to explain how power shifted away from elected governments, toward Washington, Beijing, tech giants, and the bond market, and why Europe's institutions were built for a world that no longer exists. His fixes are structural, with a core group of six countries moving on defense, chips, and AI, competition rules that let European champions form, and a capital markets union that starts with five willing members instead of waiting for 27. He's candid about the risks at home, with French yields above 4% and debt service climbing toward €100 billion a year, and about why voters are drifting to parties that promise rupture. Yet he ends on conviction: Europe remains the best place to live, and with a handful of big decisions, it can still compete. A rare insider account that is explicit about the problems but stays constructive and hopeful. 02:07 — Power has moved from governments to tech and finance 05:17 — When Musk cut Russia off from Starlink 07:24 — Aging, warming, and AI arriving at once 10:36 — Why voters reject pension reform 13:01 — Let six countries decide instead of twenty-seven 16:41 — France has 48 ministers and needs 10 19:18 — French bond yields and what could break 24:23 — Debt, nuclear power, and German rearmament 28:27 — Three things Europe needs to build a hyperscaler 36:50 — The rise of the far right, and why he's still optimistic This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. S2G holds positions in the companies referenced, but this podcast is for information purposes only and is not intended to promote any such company. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results. The views expressed herein are opinions based on certain assumptions and subject to change. For more important information, please see s2ginvestments.com/disclosures .

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  Episode #18

  What Biotech Can Teach Us About Long Duration Investing

  Aug 13, 202630 minS3

  Every investor in long-duration, capital-intensive sectors eventually faces the same question: what do you do when the exit markets close and your companies still need years of funding? Keith Crandell answered it the hard way. His firm, ARCH Venture Partners, started as a University of Chicago experiment with a $9 million fund that took 15 months to raise, then hit biotech's "nuclear winter," leading to six years in the 1990s with just a single portfolio IPO. In this conversation with S2G's Aaron Rudberg from this year’s Summit, Keith walks through the strategies he has honed over the last three decades: licensing narrow "slices of salami" to strategic partners without giving away the core company, treating government grants like a syndicate member, viewing the IPO as a funding event rather than an exit, and scouring the globe to consolidate the IP and talent of the dozen teams working on the same breakthrough. Decades later, that playbook produced the Metsera sale to Pfizer. Keith closes with where he thinks GLP-1s and longevity science go from here. Read the full Financing Reality Report . Chapters: 02:20 — How ARCH Got Its Start 07:20 — Raising a $9 Million Fund the Hard Way 09:10 — When an IPO Isn’t Really an Exit 10:40 — Surviving Biotech’s “Nuclear Winter” 14:30 — The Ladder of Capital 17:20 — Why Your First Investors Matter 21:00 — Learning to Fund the Long Haul 27:40 — What Comes After GLP-1s? Keith Crandell was not compensated for participating in this podcast or for speaking at the S2G Summit. S2G reimbursed Keith's reasonable travel and lodging expenses to attend the Summit, where this presentation was originally delivered. This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. S2G holds positions in the companies referenced, but this podcast is for information purposes only and is not intended to promote any such company. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results. The views expressed herein are opinions based on certain assumptions and subject to change. For more important information, please see s2ginvestments.com/disclosures .

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  Episode #17

  The Riches in the Niches: Financing the Long Tail of the Real Economy

  Jul 30, 202625 minS3

  At S2G, we believe the best returns over the next 30 years won't come from crowded deals, but from building the financial infrastructure for businesses that don't fit traditional funding categories. But how do you finance a business that doesn't fit into any box the capital markets recognize? Paul Lisiak has built a career and a $1.8 billion firm, doing exactly that. Recorded live at this year's S2G Summit, Sanjeev sits down with Paul, founder and managing partner of Metropolitan Partners, a private credit firm that finances niches many investors never think about, from mobile game revenues to literary rights to non-vocal music royalties. Paul shares his "fishing holes" playbook: find an underfished niche, do the hard underwriting work others won't, earn the complexity premium, and move on once the crowd shows up. Along the way, he explains why he passed on YouTube royalties and funeral homes, why he's now looking at housing affordability, trade schools, and even a bowling alley roll-up, and why he believes we've moved from a K-shaped to an "E-shaped" economy. This episode will leave you with a sharper eye for the opportunities hiding in plain sight and a better sense of what it actually takes to be the first one there. Read the full Financing Reality Report . Paul Lisiak was not compensated for participating in this podcast or for speaking at the S2G Summit. S2G reimbursed Paul's reasonable travel and lodging expenses to attend the Summit, where this presentation was originally delivered. This content is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, business, tax or investment advice, or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investor or potential investor in any investment vehicle sponsored by S2G. Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss. Specific companies mentioned in this podcast are for educational purposes and should not be construed as an endorsement of any kind. S2G holds positions in the companies referenced, but this podcast is for information purposes only and is not intended to promote any such company. All views of the guests on this podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of S2G. Any past performance discussed is not indicative of future results. The views expressed herein are opinions based on certain assumptions and subject to change. For more important information, please see s2ginvestments.com/disclosures .

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