Michael Ewens (Columbia Business School): What the Data Reveals About Startup Boards and Private Equity
Tue Feb 03 2026
(0:00) Intro
(1:19) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel
(2:05) Start of interview
(2:48) Michael's origin story. Academic Journey and Early Influences. *reference to Correlation Ventures
(8:55) About his paper Board Dynamics over the Startup Life Cycle (2020) with Nadia Malenko.
(11:30) Role of independent directors in VC-backed companies.
(16:05) Control Dynamics in Startup Boards
(17:21) The Evolution of Founder Control *Reference to E187 with Brad Feld (Oct 2025)
(28:11) The Future of Private Markets
(29:21) The Future of IPOs “What’s been missing from the IPO market since 1996 is the small- to mid-cap company. In my view, the solution for public markets is to restore their uniqueness by shutting down private secondary markets and making public-market liquidity distinctive again.”
(33:40) The Role of Private Equity in Governance
(39:47) Distinctions Between VC and PE Boards
(42:24) Insights from Private Equity for Public Companies “A PE firm is really an investment bank with a consulting arm, where the partners sit on both sides and have equity in the whole game.” "What PE solves is expertise alignment, and a clear investment horizon for an exit."
(47:36) The Impact of AI on Board Governance
(50:20) Books that have greatly influenced his life:
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1967)Culture Series by Ian Banks (1987-2012)A Brief History of Intelligence by Max Bennett (2023)(53:14) His mentors
(54:24) Quotes that he thinks of often or lives his life by: "All models are wrong, but some are useful" by George Box
(53:15) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that he loves. Watching the Big Lebowski.
(55:53) The living person he most admires: Derek Thomson.
(57:26) Moving from VC to PE Research in New York
Michael Ewens is the David L. and Elsie M. Dodd Professor of Finance and co-director of the Private Equity Program at Columbia Business School.
You can follow Evan on social media at:
X: @evanepstein
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/
Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/
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To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/
__
Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License
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(0:00) Intro (1:19) About the podcast sponsor: The American College of Governance Counsel (2:05) Start of interview (2:48) Michael's origin story. Academic Journey and Early Influences. *reference to Correlation Ventures (8:55) About his paper Board Dynamics over the Startup Life Cycle (2020) with Nadia Malenko. (11:30) Role of independent directors in VC-backed companies. (16:05) Control Dynamics in Startup Boards (17:21) The Evolution of Founder Control *Reference to E187 with Brad Feld (Oct 2025) (28:11) The Future of Private Markets (29:21) The Future of IPOs “What’s been missing from the IPO market since 1996 is the small- to mid-cap company. In my view, the solution for public markets is to restore their uniqueness by shutting down private secondary markets and making public-market liquidity distinctive again.” (33:40) The Role of Private Equity in Governance (39:47) Distinctions Between VC and PE Boards (42:24) Insights from Private Equity for Public Companies “A PE firm is really an investment bank with a consulting arm, where the partners sit on both sides and have equity in the whole game.” "What PE solves is expertise alignment, and a clear investment horizon for an exit." (47:36) The Impact of AI on Board Governance (50:20) Books that have greatly influenced his life: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1967)Culture Series by Ian Banks (1987-2012)A Brief History of Intelligence by Max Bennett (2023)(53:14) His mentors (54:24) Quotes that he thinks of often or lives his life by: "All models are wrong, but some are useful" by George Box (53:15) An unusual habit or an absurd thing that he loves. Watching the Big Lebowski. (55:53) The living person he most admires: Derek Thomson. (57:26) Moving from VC to PE Research in New York Michael Ewens is the David L. and Elsie M. Dodd Professor of Finance and co-director of the Private Equity Program at Columbia Business School. You can follow Evan on social media at: X: @evanepstein LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/epsteinevan/ Substack: https://evanepstein.substack.com/ __ To support this podcast you can join as a subscriber of the Boardroom Governance Newsletter at https://evanepstein.substack.com/ __ Music/Soundtrack (found via Free Music Archive): Seeing The Future by Dexter Britain is licensed under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License