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Former Ambassador to Japan Roos on Launching VC Fund (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: YEA broadcasting live to New York, Bloomberg eleven, Rio to Washington,
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  Speaker 1: Bloomberg dot Com. This is taking stock. I'm Kafeene Hayes.
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  Speaker 1: Along with pim Fox. Japan has an aging population, a
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  Speaker 1: gigantic budget deficit, deflation and negative interest rates. Why would
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  Speaker 1: a former ambassador Japan then be starting a fund to
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  Speaker 1: help American entrepreneurs girl their businesses in Japan? PM, We're
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  Speaker 1: gonna find out. Yes, we're gonna be speaking with John
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  Speaker 1: Rousey is the founding partner of the venture capital firm
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  Speaker 1: Geodesic Capital, and as you mentioned, a former US ambassador
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  Speaker 1: to Japan. Right now, let's go to Charlie Pellam in
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  Speaker 1: thank you, pim Fox, Thank you, Kathleen Hayes. The Dow Yes,
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  Speaker 1: dangerous thing that's been going on with central banks have
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  Speaker 1: down five, a drop of three tenths of one percent,
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  Speaker 1: one percent ten, You're up seven thirty seconds. Zeal there
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  Speaker 1: Thank you, Charlie from the Bloomberg newsroom. I'm Scarlet Foom.
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  Speaker 1: you and again recapping stocks lower SMP down five a
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  Speaker 1: drop of three tenths of one percent. I'm Charlie Peloton.
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  Speaker 1: That's a Bloomberg Business flash. You're listening to Taking Stock
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  Speaker 1: with Kathleen Hayes and Pimp Box on Bloomberg Radio. If
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  Speaker 1: there's a country you're worried about when it comes to
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  Speaker 1: the economy, at least if you're looking at the direction
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  Speaker 1: of bondfield, you'd have to say Japan is on that list.
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  Speaker 1: After all, the j GB, the benchmark tenure Japanese government
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  Speaker 1: bond is now trade at a minus zero point one
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  Speaker 1: four percent. That's not stopping John Ruth He's a founding
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  Speaker 1: partner at Geodesic Capital, former US Ambassador Japan from two
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  Speaker 1: thousand nine to two two thousand thirteen. He has launched
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  Speaker 1: a fund more than three hundred million dollars to help
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  Speaker 1: American growth stage companies entrepreneurs expand into Japan and other
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  Speaker 1: countries in the region. He's here to tell us all
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  Speaker 1: about it. John, Welcome to the show. Thanks for having
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  Speaker 1: me delied to be here. So first tell us about
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  Speaker 1: the fund. What are you doing, what kind of companies
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  Speaker 1: you're funding? Well, geodes A Capital, as you said, we've
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  Speaker 1: raised over three hundred million dollars. Were investing in later stage,
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  Speaker 1: growth stage companies here in the Silicon Valley and helping
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  Speaker 1: them go to Japan. Now, what we have found is
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  Speaker 1: that companies here are going private, staying private for a
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  Speaker 1: longer period of time, and in the later stages of
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  Speaker 1: of their growth, they begin to think about going global.
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  Speaker 1: And obviously the Asia market is incredibly important, and we
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  Speaker 1: believe um and here and from the companies here that
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  Speaker 1: Japan is a very important gateway into the Asia economy. Ambassador,
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  Speaker 1: I was wondering if you could just give people a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of your background, because I know that you
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  Speaker 1: in many of your legal capacities before your ambassadorship that
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  Speaker 1: you helped to represent companies at the time may have
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  Speaker 1: been unknown to many Americans, such as Google and Pixar.
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  Speaker 1: With your work with Wilson san Cini good Rich in
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  Speaker 1: Rosani prior to go into Japan twenty five years here
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  Speaker 1: in the Silicon Valley where I'm back um and as
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  Speaker 1: you said, we represented at Wilson Sancini, which is a
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  Speaker 1: leading tech UH law firm in the country. We represented
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  Speaker 1: companies all the way from their infancy like Apple and
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  Speaker 1: Google until many of them obviously became multi billion dollar corporations.
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  Speaker 1: And then when I went to Japan from two thousand
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  Speaker 1: nine to two thousand thirteen and the honor of being
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  Speaker 1: the US ambassador there, I heard an incredible amount of
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  Speaker 1: interest in UH in Silicon Valley by the Japanese and
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  Speaker 1: so Prime Minister Abe, for example, came here a year
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  Speaker 1: ago when he talked about building a bridge between the
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  Speaker 1: valley and Japan, and Geodesic Capital is helping to build
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  Speaker 1: that bridge between between Silicon Valley and Japan. Certainly helps
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  Speaker 1: to have a heavyweight partner in this inaugural fund. You're
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  Speaker 1: backed by anchor investor and co founder Mitsubishi. Gensic Capitals
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  Speaker 1: already made successful investments. Of course, one everybody would recognize.
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  Speaker 1: I think it's Snapchat that was a good one to
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  Speaker 1: have gotten in on are there particular kinds of technology
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  Speaker 1: that you're going to be looking for these late stage
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  Speaker 1: companies is and how do the Japanese field don't they
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  Speaker 1: have their own startups or do they feel this is
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  Speaker 1: gonna seed activity and their own sort of homegrown startups
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  Speaker 1: by having Silicon Valley come to them. We're looking at
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  Speaker 1: both enterprise companies and consumer companies. So for example, you
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  Speaker 1: mentioned Snapchat in a social media area, but we're looking
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  Speaker 1: at areas like security. Taneum as a company that we've
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  Speaker 1: invested in that the Japanese have a significant interest in
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  Speaker 1: cybersecurity as an example, are investors there. I've already talked
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  Speaker 1: about some of the benefits of going into the third
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  Speaker 1: biggest economy in the world. But for our investors, they
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  Speaker 1: see the opportunity to have this window into the Valley,
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  Speaker 1: into the disruptive businesses that are going on here, and
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  Speaker 1: they also obviously are looking for returns, but also kind
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  Speaker 1: of a window into the Silicon Valley ecosystem, and the
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  Speaker 1: benefit to them is not only returns, but potential investment opportunities,
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  Speaker 1: potential mergers and acquisitions, uh potential partner ships. A good
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  Speaker 1: example that which is just recently announced is the Toyota
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  Speaker 1: Uber deal. On the Silicon Valley side, you have this
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  Speaker 1: cutting edge shared economy technology, and on the Japanese side,
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  Speaker 1: Toyota you have the biggest car manufacturer in the world.
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  Speaker 1: So you have these traditional enterprises partnering up with new
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  Speaker 1: cutting edge technologies and both sides of the equation will benefit.
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  Speaker 1: And we see more and more of that happening. Ambassador US,
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  Speaker 1: If an executive or an investor in a startup growth
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  Speaker 1: company is listening to you and wants to learn more
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  Speaker 1: about expanding into the Japanese market, what do they do?
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  Speaker 1: They should give me a call. That's a capital We
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  Speaker 1: have a team that's on the ground. We have as
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  Speaker 1: our senior advisor, the person who built Twitter in Japan,
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  Speaker 1: as are japan lead. We have a person who built
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  Speaker 1: an enterprise company in Japan as well as was a
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  Speaker 1: senior executive that Apple. Obviously, I've had tremendous experience with
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  Speaker 1: the senior leadership on both the public and private side,
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  Speaker 1: and the important lesson to be learned is it's not
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  Speaker 1: one size fits all. Many of these incredibly disruptive, successful
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  Speaker 1: companies here in the Valley have been in the US market,
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  Speaker 1: but when they begin to go global. They have to
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  Speaker 1: understand that different cultures at different business practices, and that's
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  Speaker 1: where companies such as ours can really be a benefit.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you very much for spending time with this. Ambassador
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  Speaker 1: John Roucy is the former US Ambassador to Japan. He
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  Speaker 1: is now the founding partner of Geodesic Capital. They are
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  Speaker 1: based in San Francisco. You're listening to taking Stock. I'm
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  Speaker 1: pim Fox, My Coast, Kathleen Hayes, and this is Bloomberg Radio.
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