This is Brad Rotter’s 3rd appearance on the show. He is well known in financial circles as being the first investor with Richard Dennis. As a venture capitalist, Brad has helped launch numerous new enterprises. Our conversation today takes you in the mind of how a venture capitalist thinks and describes how he views new opportunity, particularly his newest investment: desalinization of water. What is your process? How do you explain venture capitalism? Brad grew up on a farm in Iowa and became interested in futures contracts. This made him interested in investing in the future and he quickly began to see things a little differently than the “normal” world. Brad made his first hedge fund investment in 1982. At that time hedge funds were a very inefficient market. He would look at managers that had a special niche, grasp what they were doing, and invest. Brad looks for long term trends when he invests in ideas and companies. Technology brought him to California. His current venture is providing fresh water across the world. The one crisis facing humanity that has a solution is fresh water and it is now an invisible water emergency. Brad says, “We don’t really have a water problem, we have a salt problem.” Brad goes in depth describing the processes of desalination and the infrastructure, or rather the mobile infrastructure involved. In this episode of Trend Following Radio: Venture capitalism Turtles Efficient market theory Mobile infrastructure Desalination