Matt Clifford

I’m an entrepreneur, investor and writer. My main interests are how world got to be the way it is and how to build the future.

 
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About me

I co-founded (with Alice Bentinck) and work at Entrepreneur First (EF), the world’s leading talent investor.

I write a weekly newsletter, Thoughts In Between, on how the world got to be the way it is and how it’s changing.

Outside EF, I serve on the boards of Code First Girls, which I co-founded (also with Alice), the Kennedy Memorial Trust and Innovate UK.

You can follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

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Entrepreneur First

I co-founded and work at Entrepreneur First, the world’s leading talent investor. We fund extraordinary individuals before they have a company and support them to build globally ambitious technology companies from scratch.

We’ve funded over 1,000 individuals around the world - in London, Berlin, Paris, Singapore, Bangalore, Hong Kong - and from later in 2020, Toronto. We’ve been fortunate to play a role in the earliest stages of lots of companies building world-changing technology - such as Tractable, Permutive, CloudNC, Cleo, Accurx, Open Cosmos, Transcelestial, Neoplants and many more.

We’re backed by some of the world’s leading entrepreneurs and investors, including Reid Hoffman, Greylock Partners, Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of DeepMind.

I believe that enabling the best talent to maximise their impact is one of the most important problems in the world. I want Entrepreneur First to be the pre-eminent institution in making that happen.

You can read my manifesto for why the world needs Entrepreneur First, Technology Entrepreneurship and the Disruption of Ambition, here.

Writing

I write a weekly newsletter, Thoughts in Between. You can read past issues and subscribe here. I cover a broad range of topics that are loosely connected by the theme of how the world is changing.

I’m interested in technology (especially machine learning / artificial intelligence), geopolitics (especially the changing role of China in the world), political culture, economic growth, institutions, talent, history and venture capital - and particularly the intersection of one or more of these topics.

You can read my other writing, primarily on startups and venture capital, here.

I love to read. I’ve published reviews of the books I read in 2015201620172018 and 2019, as well as a ranking of the best books I read in the 2010s.

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Contact

You can email me at matt@joinef.com or chat to me on Twitter.

I’m particularly interested to speak to:

  • People in the early stages of their careers who want to maximise the impact they have

  • Investors who are interested in growing a new asset class - talent investing

  • People who are interested in the ideas I write about in Thoughts in Between