Evangelos Simudis
Founder and Managing Director, Synapse Partners. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
investorauthorfounderexecutive@esimoudis ↗LinkedIn ↗synapsepartners.co ↗
Evangelos Simoudis advises multinational corporations and governments on AI and autonomous mobility while investing in early-stage enterprise AI startups. He is the author of several books on technology transformation and previously served as Managing Director at Trident Capital and Apax Partners.
1shows
1appearances
13statements
2resolved
1supported
0contradicted
50%fully supported
Everything Evangelos Simudis said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Simudis: Corporations should build business development before launching venture groups
“90% of the times is to establish a venture group. And in retrospect, we determined that maybe establishing a venture group wouldn't have been the right first step. Maybe they should have established a business development capability before they even think abou…”
Simudis predicts 50% of corporate VC arms will close next recession
“Now by, I would call them unofficial statistics, there are Roughly a little over a thousand corporations, which in a sense makes sense because many more geographies have opened up in the intervening, you know, 1015 years, and I wouldn't be surprised if we have…”
Simudis: Corporate moonshots that go exactly as planned lacked sufficient risk
“And when you're, our point is that when you are involved in moonshots, not everything is going to go as planned. And if it goes as planned, it means that you didn't take enough risks.”
Simudis: Silicon Valley tech companies will not completely overtake the auto industry
“There's also a lot of enthusiasm in the Valley from our own companies that we can completely overtake the automotive industry, and I think this is a fallacy. Completely obliterating it and making Silicon Valley the, you know, the next Detroit, it's hard for me…”
Simudis: Corporate venture funds do not guarantee high-quality deal flow
“Just because you're establishing a fund, it doesn't mean that now you're going to start seeing a tremendous deal flow and the right deal flow”
Simudis: Capital alone does not make corporate VCs valuable to startups
“Just because you have a venture fund and just because you're willing to spend some money doesn't mean that you become a value add partner of a startup or of a group of startups.”
Simudis: Corporate outposts require continuous executive engagement to succeed
“The ones that have a particular reason, they're trying to solve a particular problem, They have engagement from the highest levels of the corporation. It's not only anointment, but there is actually engagement on a continuous basis. They are the ones who are p…”
Simudis: Corporations must learn rapid, low-cost experimentation from Silicon Valley
“What can a corporation take away from Silicon Valley or from any other innovation ecosystem is not the fact that you come into touch with Two or three or 10 startups is the fact that there is a set of now best practices, and one of these that you can take away…”
Simudis: Large corporations cannot solve complex innovation challenges with capital alone
“In this environment, regardless of how much capital they want to throw at the problem and how big and how good they are, they cannot solve things on their own, and they need to co-innovate.”
Simudis: Co-innovating with peers helps corporations adopt startup-driven innovation
“Steve and I are finding that corporations that have adopted open innovation principles, where they are co-innovating with other large corporations, are becoming more successful At adopting startup driven innovation.”
Simudis: Half of 1990s corporate venture arms closed by 2003
“So back in in the late nineties and roughly between nine, 90 seven, 98 and 2000, there were roughly 500 corporations that had established venture groups in our area. And of those 500 by 2003, 50% had closed down.”
Simudis: Alphabet successfully integrates corporate venture arms with core operations
“For me, a very interesting example is what Google is doing with Alphabet. And the reason I find this interesting is because you're seeing their venture capital groups working in tandem with their, the rest of the corporation.”
Simudis: BMW structured iBrand separately to pursue new mobility services
“Another example is BMW's iBrand, an organization that has been set up very differently from the major business units of BMW trying to look at not only the manufacturing aspect, the design and manufacturing aspect of the car, which is what BMW and other automak…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Evangelos's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 a16zLEDGER | Founder and Managing Director, Synapse Partners | 1 | 13 | 50% 1/2 | full record on the a16z Podcast → |