Lavin Exclusive Speaker
What’s a benefit of everything going up in smoke? You can learn how to do things right next time. Entrepreneur and Wharton graduate Marc Weinstein is recognized as the voice of reason from Fyre, the Netflix documentary about the unparalleled disaster of the overly ambitious destination music festival, Fyre Festival. Weinstein is uniquely able see both successes and crises as opportunities to produce a powerful message of mindful entrepreneurship. You can learn from mistakes before they’re made, and engage ethically and meaningfully with the attention economy.
“Often in start-up culture, we hear phrases like we don’t take no for an answer, solutions not problems, and every problem is an opportunity,” says Marc Weinstein. These clichés might be true in some circumstances, but they can also lead to egregious decision making, like what Weinstein witnessed firsthand as Fyre Festival’s music festival consultant. In the Netflix doc, Fyre—viewed over 20 million times in its first month alone—Weinstein stands out as one of the few levelheaded people advocating for caution and cancelation before the calamity really strikes. We’re all familiar with the stories of heroic entrepreneurs who nearly failed, but pulled it off in the 11th hour—but what happens when they don’t? Weinstein’s anchoring talks challenge us to resist the hero narrative, and instead opt to surround ourselves with the right colleagues, take expert advice when it's provided, and empower those around us to make realistic decisions.
Weinstein is currently a Principal at Wave Financial, a leading venture capital firm in the blockchain and cryptocurrency industry, where he leads the investment team. He is an active advisor to start-ups, including Prime Social Group, Siempo, and Swytch. Prior to this, he worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley and Jefferies & Co. A serial entrepreneur with multiple start-ups (like the smash 90sFest) under his belt, Weinstein also has a notable podcast, “The Look Up!”, which addresses the modern challenges Millennials face, like social media addiction. The show shines an insightful light on entrepreneurs and researchers trying to solve these problems.