Max Chafkin
The Navigator
Judgement in the fog, money, risk and the call others cannot make.
Max Chafkin earns The Navigator by reading the ideological currents that run beneath business events, tracing how Thiel maneuvers opportunistically through capital flows, political shifts, and loyalty networks. His self-aware candour about interpersonal dynamics in venture capital marks a reporter who grasps that power moves through relationship geography as much as strategy, and who recalibrates his analytical compass accordingly rather than settling for the surface story.
“Teal kind of rebranded disruption as a social good, something to be proud of, and it gets folded into this sort of imperial capitalism — we see it most clearly with Facebook, swallowing competitors, trying to get huge.”
“Teal is good at spotting these trends and seeing the ways the herd is moving, then finding ways to maneuver so he can profit from that movement. The Trump thing would be another instance of that.”
“In venture capital, so much is still happening on an interpersonal level — it's completely loyalty based, all about who knows who. Understanding that would have helped me a great deal.”
Masters in Business: “Max Chafkin on the Social Good of Tech Companies (Podcast)”
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