Cyan Banister - Investing for a Higher Purpose - [Invest Like the Best, CLASSICS]

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (0:00)
Welcome to this classic episode. Classics are my favorite episodes from the past 10 years published once a month. These are end of one conversations with end of one people. There are many people like Cyan Banister. She has defied the odds to become one of the great angel investors of this era, and she will get you thinking about the purpose of your work, whether investing related or not. Please enjoy.
Hello and welcome everyone. I'm Patrick O'Shaughnessy and this is Invest Like the Best. This show is an open-ended exploration of markets, ideas, stories, and strategies that will help you better invest both your time and your money. Invest Like the Best is part of the Colossus family of podcasts, and you can access all our podcasts, including edited transcripts, show notes, and other resources to keep learning at joincolossus.com. Here's a puzzle. What do OpenAI, Cursor, Perplexity, Vercell, Plaid, and hundreds of other winning companies all have in common? The answer is that they're powered by today's sponsor, Work OS. If you're building software for enterprises, you probably felt the pain of integrating SSO, SCIM, RBAC, audit logs, and other features required by big customers. Work OS turns those deal blockers into drop-in APIs with a modern developer platform built specifically for B2B SaaS. Whether you're a seed stage startup trying to land your first enterprise customer, or a unicorn expanding globally, Work OS is the fastest path to becoming enterprise ready and unlock growth. It's essentially Stripe for enterprise features. Visit workos.com to get started or just hit up their Slack support. Yes, they have real engineers in there who will answer your questions fast. Work OS allows you to build like the best with delightful APIs, comprehensive docs and smooth developer experience. Go to workos.com to make your app enterprise ready today. New SEC Update 31 CFR hits investment firms in under a year, and managers are getting ready for it now. If you think basic OFAC screening is enough, think again. You'll need continuous monitoring of your investors and all their beneficial owners across multiple watch lists, plus a comprehensive anti-money laundering program. Pass through has already processed 50,000 LPs and built the complete solution. They handle everything from being your AML officer to monitoring suspicious transfers, and even handling your annual audit and training requirements. All firms filing SEC form ADVs, including those with VC exemptions, need to be 31 CFR compliant beginning January 1st, 2026 Don't risk SEC deficiency letters, fines or regulatory enforcement. Visit passthrough.com to get compliant now.

**SPEAKER_2** (2:32)
Patrick O'Shaughnessy is the CEO of PositiveSum. All opinions expressed by Patrick and podcast guests are solely their own opinions and do not reflect the opinion of PositiveSum. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions. Clients of PositiveSum may maintain positions in the securities discussed in this podcast. To learn more, visit PSUMVC.

**Patrick O'Shaughnessy** (3:01)
My guest today is Cyan Banister. Cyan's life story is remarkable. She was homeless at a young age, dropped out of high school, and five years ago she suffered an extremely rare stroke. Yet in spite of all of this, she is one of the most optimistic and curious people you can hope to meet. Cyan is also one of the great angel investors of this era, having invested very early in SpaceX, Uber, Postmates, Deepmind, just to name a few. She became the first female investing partner at Peter Thiel's Founders Fund and now invests at Long Journey Ventures. Our conversation is as much about investing as it is about the essence of life and how connecting with that will help us in our professional pursuits. It's also full of awesome stories about people and companies like SpaceX and Bill Murray. Please enjoy this fantastic conversation with Cyan Banister.
So Cyan, this is a hard one to know where to begin, but since we were just talking beforehand, you sort of gave me the perfect opening question. Do you think that spirituality is an investible category for venture investors?

**Cyan Banister** (4:02)
I absolutely think that spirituality is an investible category and it's been long overlooked. So I remember when pray.com was raising and everybody thought, who's going to actually use this? Which target demographic actually wants this? And I think that there are a lot of people, especially coming out of the pandemic, who spent two years wondering, why is this happening to us? What is this all about? Why am I here? What is my purpose? And then looking inwards and then looking outwards. And I think people are seeking these answers more than ever before, because when you look online and you read what's going on in the world, it seems like it's increasingly getting darker out there. I would say that it's not, but this is where spirituality comes in and lets people know where the light is. I think spirituality comes in many different ways. It comes in the form of prayer, it comes in the form of meditation, it also comes in the form of potentially even psychedelic medicine.