Episode summary
Why Smart Investors Are Looking Beyond Silicon Valley and China | The Important Part
The Important Part
· · 39 min · Guests: Linda Rottenberg
Summary
Linda Rottenberg argues that investors are missing major opportunities by focusing too narrowly on Silicon Valley and China. She reframes “emerging markets” as “elsewhere markets,” saying innovation, talent, and scalable problems exist across Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and parts of Asia, but capital has lagged behind. In her view, chaos can actually help founders because it weakens incumbents and forces practical solutions to real-world problems.
She points to examples from Endeavor’s network to show how businesses can scale outside traditional hubs: fintech and stablecoin startups serving countries with weak banking systems, software companies built around proprietary data, and consumer platforms that grow across similar markets rather than by entering the U.S. first. Rottenberg also says the AI opportunity is not just in foundational models but in application-layer companies serving local needs.
She makes a broader case that global investing is changing. More founders are becoming funders, more local markets are creating liquidity, and exits are increasingly coming through IPOs, M&A, and secondaries. Her message to investors is to look for places where talent is abundant, capital is scarce, and the upside can still be early.
Key takeaways
- Linda Rottenberg says investors should look beyond Silicon Valley and China to “elsewhere markets” where talent and problems are abundant but capital is still scarce.
- She argues chaos can be an advantage for founders because “when economies turn down, entrepreneurs turn up.”
- Rottenberg says the best opportunities are often application-layer AI and fintech businesses built on local pain points, not just the big foundational-model winners.
- She points to Turkey as Endeavor’s highest-return market, with an 11x cash-on-cash return despite political and currency instability.
- She says cross-border growth is increasingly happening from emerging market to emerging market, not just into the U.S. or China.
Notable quotes
“Chaos is the friend of the entrepreneurs. You have to not be waiting for there to be stability”
“I think that at the end of the day, the data sets are not coming from the LLMs”
“when economies turn down entrepreneurs turn up”
“There's no better time to be a founder than now”
How the episode opens
Here in the US, we prize stability. We get so nervous when the world is chaotic. Well, now chaos is the norm.
Chaos is the friend of the entrepreneurs. You have to not be waiting for there to be stability. There's no better time to be a founder than now.
Hi there, I'm Liz Thomas, head of investment strategy at SoFi. And this is the important part. In 1997, Linda Roenberg identified a problem.
Across Latin America, Africa, and the Middle East, there were extraordinary entrepreneurs building innovative companies, but they just weren't scaling at the level that they should be. So, at age 25, the ripe old age of 25, with less than $100,000, she created the Global Co-investment Fund Endeavor to solve that problem. Here we are nearly 30 years later.
The 2500 plus entrepreneurs she's backed now generate over 90 billion in annual revenues and they've created more than four million jobs across 40 countries. That is incredible. Linda is here today to share what she's learned from the world's boldest entrepreneurs.
Linda, I am so excited to talk about this. Thank you for joining us.
It's great to be here.
And just so everybody knows, everything today is for educational purposes only. This is not to be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell securities. Okay.
So, let's start with a term that you've been using for a long time which is elsewhere markets. A lot of times we refer to places like Latin America, the Middle East, some of Asia as emerging markets. You call them elsewhere markets.
Why the terminology change? As you probably know, since you have a lot of these conversations, when we talk about innovation, particularly now in the age of AI, we often only talk about two places on the map, Silicon Valley and China.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- global diversification
- elsewhere markets
- startup investing
- crypto and stablecoins
- emerging markets performance
Companies and tickers mentioned
- Endeavor
Watch the episode
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
More from The Important Part
-
How Alexa von Tobel Makes Billion-Dollar Bets | The Important Part -
Is It Too Late To Get Into Gold? Jan Van Eck Doesn’t Think So | The Important Part -
AI Boom or Bubble? Michael Lewis, Tom Lee on the Risks and Rewards | The Important Part LIVE -
How to Stop Emotional Investing and Make Smarter Money Decisions | The Important Part -
Liz’s 2026 Outlook: AI, Stocks, Gold, and What Investors Should Watch | The Important Part -
How Great Leaders Make Decisions Under Pressure: Bobby Parmar's Secrets | The Important Part
The Important Part, this episode and its artwork belong to SoFi. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
