Victor L. Vescovo is a private investor with more than 30 years of experience in a variety of complex business situations.
He co-founded private equity firm Insight Equity in 2002 with his business partner, Ted Beneski and raised over $1.5 billion in equity capital across 4 funds.
In 2023, he departed Insight in order to focus on his own investments with new capabilities to support industrial startups, life sciences, and other areas of venture capital and special situations.
Victor received his bachelor’s degree from Stanford University, a Master’s Degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and received an MBA from Harvard Business School where he graduated as a Baker Scholar.
Additionally, Victor served 20 years in the U.S. Navy Reserve as an intelligence and targeting officer, retiring in 2013 as a Commander.
In 2017, Victor completed the “Explorer’s Grand Slam” which requires climbing the highest peak on all seven of the world’s continents including Mt. Everest and skiing at least 100 kilometers to the North and South Poles.
He piloted the 1st repeated dives to the ocean’s deepest point, Challenger Deep, in the Pacific’s Mariana Trench - now 15 times, and in August 2019 became the 1st person to visit “The Five Deeps,” the deepest point in all 5 of the world’s oceans.
Victor has now personally explored the bottom of 17 deep ocean trenches and has made 3 dives to the Titanic including the only solo dive ever made there.
He and his team also discovered and surveyed the 2 deepest shipwrecks in the world: the USS Johnston in 2021 and the deepest, the USS Samuel B. Roberts at 22,600 feet, in 2022.
In 2025, the US Navy announced that T-AGOS 26, a new ocean surveillance vessel of the Explorer class, would be named after him.
He is also a commercially rated, multi-engine jet, glider, seaplane, and helicopter pilot, a certified submersible test pilot, and recently flew into space on Blue Origin’s New Shepard rocket, becoming the 1st person in history to climb Mount Everest, dive to the bottom of the ocean, and visit space.
Chapters
00:00:00 Introduction and Welcome
00:02:15 Victor’s Timepiece and Adventures
00:04:22 Gift Exchange and Patreon Q&A
00:09:25 Exploration, Genetics, and Discovery
00:23:50 Military and Academic Career
00:41:34 Investing in Innovation and Technology
00:49:10 Exclusive Club of Global Explorers
00:50:29 Submersible Tech and Ocean Access
00:51:52 The Debate Over Deep-Sea Mining
00:57:48 China’s Metal Supply Chain Dominance
01:03:39 Titanic Dive and Deep-Sea Missions
01:09:13 China’s Population Decline and Global Impact
01:28:48 Discovering Deep Sea Wrecks
01:34:04 Reaching the Ocean’s Deepest Points
01:40:01 DNA and Bioluminescence in Deep-Sea Creatures
01:42:01 Challenges in Deep Ocean Exploration
01:50:05 Underwater Lakes and Unique Formations
02:00:23 High-Altitude Mountaineering and the “Grand Slam”
02:09:28 Space: The Final Frontier
02:14:03 Reflections on Life, Death, and Spirituality
02:19:40 The Future of Ocean Mapping
02:23:34 PSYOP and Psychological Operations
