Mark Pearson on venture capital
From Do most people give up too soon? Mark Pearson · · Alfie Whattam
“When you're a VC and you put your email on the internet... I have my team filtering our deal flow. Deal flow comes into our website — that's how bad my... Can you see that? Jesus. Yeah, that's insane.”
On , Mark Pearson, President, Chief Executive Officer & Director at EQUITABLE HOLDINGS INC, spoke about venture capital during Do most people give up too soon? Mark Pearson on Alfie Whattam.
About Mark Pearson
Mark Pearson, President and CEO of Equitable Holdings, has been active in discussions on technology, energy, and entrepreneurship. In a November 2025 podcast, he spoke with sales expert Marc Von Musser about the role of AI in sales, stating that "the people that are most successful...are those that are going to be upleveling their game because of AI." He contrasted this with "cognitive offloading," where individuals use AI to get by without iteration. Earlier that month, Pearson delivered a keynote at the 2025 Drake Address on the oil and gas industry, where he discussed the history and future of hydraulic fracturing, noting that "there is hundreds of years of resource available" and that the industry is "still working on engineering these fracks." In a July 2025 video, Pearson discussed persistence in business, saying, "You can't make an omelette without cracking a few eggs" and advising that if someone says they are not interested, one should "go to the next one." In a 2024 interview about his venture capital firm Fuel Ventures, he described the firm's approach as "hands-on" and noted that it expects a 50% failure rate on its SEIS fund and a 20% failure rate on its EIS funds. He also stated that the firm seeks founders who can "build very big global businesses."