Ignite Singularity: The End of Venture as We Know It with David S. Rose | Ep267

Episode notes

Most people talk about startups from one angle. Founder. Investor. Operator.David S. Rose has done all three—at scale, across decades, and across multiple technology waves. If you’re building, investing, or thinking about where startups are heading, his perspective cuts through the noise. From Firewood to Venture Capital David didn’t “discover” entrepreneurship. He grew up in it. By the time he was in college, he was already starting businesses—selling firewood to dorm residents, running production services, even negotiating with NASA. After a stint working for a U.S. Senator, he joined his family’s real estate firm. That’s where something important happened: he started applying early computing to a traditional industry. He didn’t call it proptech at the time. That label came later.But he was building it in the early 1980s. That pattern repeats throughout his career:He shows up early, before categories exist. Building Before the Market Exists One of his first major tech ventures came from a simple observation:computers could connect to other devices. That led to the WristMac—a wearable device that synced with your computer. This was decades before the Apple Watch.