Magnus Grimeland believes that it’s easier to be liked if you are average. “The more successful you are, the more detractors you will have because you are standing up there and doing something that no one has done before,” says the founder and CEO of global venture capital firm Antler.
From a small town in Norway, Grimeland served in the Royal Norwegian Navy Special Operations – Marinejegerkommandoen (Navy Seals) and went to Harvard to study economics, Eventually, he found his way to Singapore, working in several corporate organisations before starting online shopping platform Zalora. Now, Grimeland is leading Antler.
As a venture capitalist, Grimeland makes big bets on the future. He believes that the world will be rosier than it is today, with huge advances in carbon capture technology and healthcare. “But it all comes down to people choosing to pursue these problems. None of these stuff unless great people decide to make progress inevitable, which is what we are trying to do at Antler.”
This conversation is a must for those who think about the future and the direction that the world is heading towards.
Episode List
- Episode 1: Ankiti Bose on the battles she faced while at the helm of Zilingo.
- Episode 2: Tjin Lee addresses that controversial social media post and why she will continue speaking out.
- Episode 3: Tan Shin Hui gets honest about the difficulties being a female leader in a hospitality business.
- Episode 4: Karl Mak shares how he turned a joke Facebook page into a multi-million-dollar media empire.
- Episode 5: Joel Leong looks back at ShopBack’s growth from a scrappy start-up to its current unicorn status after its latest funding round.
- Episode 6: Anna Lim chronicles the Soup Spoon journey of the past 20 years and her dreams of building the “Starbucks of soup”.
The Lessons We Learnt Season 1 is brought to you by Leonica K, Singapore’s homegrown trichology centre that focuses on effective scalp and hair treatments.
