#884: How to Spot 10-Year Trends and Build Billion-Dollar Companies — Kevin Ryan of DoubleClick, MongoDB, Business Insider, and Many More
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Who is Kevin Ryan and what is his role in the tech ecosystem?
Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers across all disciplines. My guest today comes from the world of business, Kevin Ryan. He is one of the leading entrepreneurs and investors in New York, which is an understatement, often called the godfather of New York City Tech. He is the founder and CEO of AliCorp, a New York-based venture capital firm that incubates and invests across. Cross, catch this. Healthcare, AI and software, consumer tech, deep tech, and more. But investing is just part of it. He is also a co-founder of several notable companies, including MongoDB, Business Insider, Zola, Guild Group, and Transcend Therapeutics.
What do those all have in common? They are completely different industries. Earlier in his career, Kevin was the CEO of DoubleClick, which he helped grow from a 20-person startup to a publicly traded. company with more than 1,500 employees. We get into a lot here. So without further ado, please enjoy a very wide-ranging and tactical conversation with the one and only Kevin Ryan. Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I answer your personal question?
No, I just see it.
What if I did? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoskeleton.
Kevin, thank you for making the time. So nice to see you. Happy to be here. So I wanted to just give people a scan at 30,000 feet of the landscape, meaning your chronology for a second. So this was prepared by the robots. So don't believe everything you read. But let's just go through some of the basics. I'm not going to spend too much time, but please indulge me for a second. So 1985 graduates from Yale. I think that's Economics, begins his career at Prudential Investment Corp. All right, New York and London. 90, 1990, earns his MBA at INCIAD, subsequently works at Euro Disney in France, then United Media. We're gonna come back to all of that. 1995 helps launch the blank website. I'm leaving that blank for a reason.
We'll come back to it. And then after that, double-click. That's where if people interview you, and I know you don't do very much media, but in the few that I've seen, that's where a lot of people see. Start. We will not start there. Goes on double clicks cells. For 1.1 billion, Ryan steps down. 2007 founds AliCorp. We're gonna spend a lot of time on Alicorp, co-founds Guilf Group, Business Insider, Tengen, later renamed to MongoDB. Then co found Zola, a wedding registry company. And Nomad Health in twenty fifteen, a marketplace connecting clinicians with temporary healthcare jobs. I'm trying to give people an idea of the breadth of fields. Twenty fifteen, Axel Springer requires control of business insider.
I've got some numbers here, but who knows? 442 million, something like that. Hudson Bay buys Guilt Group for an announced $250 million deal. MongoDB in 2017 goes public on Nasdaq ten years after its founding. I know there there's a lot of stories behind that. 2021, we met, I guess, or had dinner next to each other two years prior to this, roughly. Co-founds Transcend Therapeutics, developing new medicines for psychiatric conditions. We will certainly talk about that. twenty twenty three skis one hundred and one kilometers to the south pole. So that stands out as an outlier. Then June 2026, Otska completes its acquisition of Transcend 700 million upfront plus up to 525 million contingent on future sales.
July 2026 announces Ali Corpse 335 million, second fund focused on backing companies at their earliest stages. I think you're doing a lot more. kind of deep tech investing also. This is a crazy bio, Kevin. There were so many reasons I wanted to chat and learn from you. And I wanted to start, we're eventually going to get to things like recruiting and talent scouting, but I wanted to talk about trends and gazing into the crystal ball, looking into the future. So I've read that you sometimes do an exercise of listing trends on a whiteboard.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Kevin Ryan and what is his role in the tech ecosystem?
0:00–11:37
2
How did Kevin identify and capitalize on 10‑year trends like internet advertising and unstructured data?
11:37–22:46
3
What process does Kevin use to spot emerging opportunities and evaluate their long‑term potential?
22:46–32:41
4
How does AlleyCorp’s incubation model differ from traditional accelerators like Y Combinator?
32:41–42:16
5
What lessons did Kevin learn from early ventures such as Gilt Group and Business Insider?
42:16–52:48
6
How does Kevin approach talent recruitment and team building for new startups?
52:48–1:03:11
7
What are Kevin’s views on deep‑tech investing, especially nuclear energy and psychedelics?
1:03:11–1:14:30
8
What advice does Kevin give for founders looking to build billion‑dollar companies?
1:14:30–1:26:15
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Tim Ferriss Show
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