Victor L. Vescovo is a private investor with over thirty 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 four 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 first repeated dives to the ocean’s deepest point, Challenger Deep, in the Pacific’s Mariana Trench - now fifteen times, and in August 2019 became the first person to visit “The Five Deeps,” the deepest point in all five of the world’s oceans. Victor has now personally explored the bottom of seventeen deep ocean trenches and has made three dives to the Titanic including the only solo dive ever made there. He and his team also discovered and surveyed the two 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 first person in history to climb Mount Everest, dive to the bottom of the ocean, and visit space. Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkoujZQZatbqy4KGcgjpVxQ/join Shawn Ryan Show Links SUBSCRIBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ShawnRyanShow Sign up: https://shawnryanshow.com/pages/newsletter Support the Show: https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite Download Free Content: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lF-8_5jwRc5eAhzDkqqCOp-6yvd05vAw?usp=sharing Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/shawn-ryan-show/id1492492083 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5eodRZd3qR9VT1ip1wI7xQ?si=59f9d106e56a4509 Follow on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shawnryanshow/ Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shawnryanshow/ Follow on X: https://twitter.com/ShawnRyanShow SRS Podcast Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4pqo9Uoh0WuUKxw0BmaK1yrg9Kd7E4lk #vigilanceelite #shawnryanshow Victor Vescovo Links: X - https://x.com/VictorVescovo IG - https://www.instagram.com/victorlvescovo Caladan Capital - https://www.caladancapital.com Caladan Oceanic - http://www.caladanoceanic.com Wiki - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Vescovo Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://tryarmra.com/srs https://bunkr.life – USE CODE SRS Go to https://bunkr.life/SRS and use code “SRS” to get 25% off your family plan. https://shawnlikesgold.com https://moinkbox.com/srs https://ROKA.com – USE CODE SRS https://shopify.com/srs 00:00 Introduction and Welcome 02:15 Victor’s Timepiece and Adventures 04:22 Gift Exchange and Patreon Q&A 09:25 Exploration, Genetics, and Discovery 23:50 Military and Academic Career 41:34 Investing in Innovation and Technology 49:10 Exclusive Club of Global Explorers 50:29 Submersible Tech and Ocean Access 51:52 The Debate Over Deep-Sea Mining 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