Eric Manlunas is a Filipino-born, US-immigrant venture capitalist who founded Wavemaker Partners in 2003 after successfully building and exiting two companies—specialty foods company Interfoods and ISP Sitestar—giving him rare operating experience across both traditional and internet businesses before becoming an investor. He runs Wavemaker as a dual-headquartered platform between Los Angeles and Singapore, serves as a Trustee of the Philippine Development Foundation, and emphasizes that Southeast Asia requires localized approaches rather than one-size-fits-all strategies, while evaluating founders based on purpose and long-term thinking over passion or hype.

• Focus on macroeconomic data and long-term market perspective rather than short-term volatility. He scrutinizes official inflation numbers against market realities and encourages looking at the broader picture during downturns, such as noting that Meta was still up significantly from its pre-IPO rounds despite a massive drop in market cap at the time.
• Skepticism toward cryptocurrency and speculative hype cycles. He frequently highlighted the collapse of major players like FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried as cautionary tales of value destruction, viewing much of the sector as lacking utility or potentially fraudulent from the start.
• Advocacy for the vital role of immigrant founders and global innovation. He shares data pointing out that the majority of billion-dollar startups in the US have at least one immigrant founder and actively promotes venture activity in Southeast Asia, including fund closings for that region.
• Interest in corporate deal mechanics and lessons from business history. He analyzes the strategic reasoning behind complex partnerships, such as the capital flows between Microsoft and the London Stock Exchange, and reflects on historical missed opportunities like Blockbuster refusing to acquire Netflix.
• Appreciation for wealth distribution and employee ownership models. He applauded private equity firm KKR for promoting an ownership culture that resulted in a payout for factory workers, contrasting this with his criticism of the widening gap between CEO performance and worker compensation.
• Emphasis on consistency and disciplined execution over delay. He resonates with philosophical insights suggesting that consistency creates talent and that founders should act today rather than letting dreams die by pushing them to tomorrow.