Episode summary
The Family Office Betting on Humanity’s Future
How I Invest With David Weisburd
· · 56 min · Hosts: David Weisburd · Guests: L.R. Fox
Summary
L.R. Fox argues that capital should be used to shape the future immediately, not parked until later for philanthropy. He says every dollar is “a vote for the future,” and that the best investments are often the ones that create real-world change rather than simply satisfying ESG checkboxes. In his view, impact and returns are not opposites; the opportunities with the biggest social consequences are often undercrowded and mispriced.
Fox describes NEXT Global Capital’s framework as “buy, build, invest,” starting with the future he wants his children and grandchildren to inhabit and then working backward. The firm looks for technologies and industries with strong moats, especially where hardware, regulation, or complexity create barriers to entry. He says the team is willing to back multiple competitors, acquire assets or companies, or build from scratch if necessary.
A major theme is resilience. Fox says grit is more predictive of success than IQ, and he ties that belief to his own experience growing up in foster care, homelessness, and instability. He also argues that venture capital is distorted by incentives, which is why he looks for neglected sectors like reproductive health, defense, and frontier industrial systems instead of the crowded areas everyone else funds.
Key takeaways
- Fox says every dollar is a vote for the future, so he rejects the idea of waiting for wealth accumulation before pursuing impact.
- He argues that real impact investing can produce strong returns because crowded ESG-style capital allocation often misses the most important opportunities.
- Fox’s “buy, build, invest” framework starts with the future he wants and then uses scouts, acquisitions, or new company formation to make it happen.
- He says grit is about 10 times more predictive of success than IQ and is built through adversity, not just inherited.
- He believes venture capital’s incentives push money into the same few winners, leaving neglected areas like reproductive health and frontier tech underfunded.
Notable quotes
“Every dollar is a vote. It's a vote for the future that you want to create”
“I think the best investments are those that are impact investments partially because people have this belief and so there's a lot of opportunity”
“my primary framework with that is what is the future that my children, my grandchildren will live in”
“Grit is actually 10 times more predictive of success than IQ, right”
“Our approach is to sustain something long enough to the point where it's undeniable that this could happen and then after that allow others to be able to come in”
How the episode opens
Fox, you had a major liquidity event, started a family office, but you talked to a few mentors and they advised you focus on building your wealth further and then at some point you'll be able to give impact. You categorically disregarded their advice. Why?
It's very natural to think about life in those seasons. First season of learning, then season of growing capital, and then season of deploying it uh in a philanthropic way. And what I think you people miss in that is really the impact that every dollar has, right?
Every dollar is a vote. It's a vote for the future that you want to create. And for me, this was something that was so core to what I believed.
And then it I came to the point where I end up in the hospital with my limbs stopped working. And it was during COVID, there was a lot of craziness in the world. I had a really bad reaction to the COVID vaccine to the point where I was paralyzed.
And it was this moment where they told me that I my organs were starting to shut down, less than 6 months left to live. And I realized that if everything that I did only was to build up capital so one day I could have the greatest enjoyment of actually seeing the impact of that capital then what's the point right and so like I want to live in the world I want to create the world that is ultimately benefiting humans right not just one and trying to maximize gains so that someday there's a big pot of money to give away inherent in this advice is that there's a way to maximize wealth there's a way to maximize impact There's this implicit disbelief and this bottom double bottom line that you could both have huge impact and also have huge returns.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- impact investing
- family offices
- frontier technologies
- venture investing
- resilience as predictor of success
Companies and tickers mentioned
- NEXT Global Capital
Watch the episode
Watch “The Family Office Betting on Humanity’s Future” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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How I Invest With David Weisburd, this episode and its artwork belong to David Weisburd. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
