Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads January 28th, 2024
“Courage is not the absence of fear but rather the assessment that something else is more important than fear.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt
I love everything about Personal Holding Cos. This is short but instructive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aanIQr34sok
2. I'd totally do the same here. Always good to be prepared.
https://time.com/6551188/mark-zuckerberg-underground-bunker-hawaii-report-reaction/
3. India is pocket power and rising.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41AEoEkgDm0
4. Total legend. Peter Fenton of Benchmark VC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zepF9DChY_Y
5. Such a good interview. Alex Homozi really understands how to build a big business.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK-d4H7xtvQ
6. I'm fascinated by the Personal Holding co model. I like Kallaway's plan and manifesto.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33RYYHqU0OQ
7. "A few takeaways:
💡 What comes up may come down: If you're in AI or defense, 2023 was your year. But every hot segment has its ups and inevitable downs. A number of investors believe the hype will come down in 2024.
📉 Valuation Variances Converge: Different sectors faced varied valuations. Climate tech had premiums, while other areas might face adjustments. These should converge over time.
🔮 Stages had different outcomes. This should normalize. As I shared, "the growth stage remained quiet in 2023, with many structured and/or internal rounds that punted valuation downgrades to the future with more structured terms (e.g. liquidation preferences). I suspect the rubber will hit the road in 2024 and some of these will get adjusted."
https://99tech.alexlazarow.com/p/2024-predictions-best-books-of-the
8. I enjoyed this more than I thought it would be. Personal finance from Vivian Tu.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUtDU0U7Zqw&t=17s
9. "Life is riddled with challenges, but success begins with taking responsibility. You have the power to shape your destiny. No one is coming to save you or do the tough tasks for you. They won’t get a job for you or start a business for you. It is all you in this game, make each moment count.
Acknowledge flaws, learn from mistakes, and eschew excuses. By taking responsibility, you gain the autonomy to make positive changes and pursue goals with intent."
https://medium.com/practice-in-public/how-to-be-in-the-top-1-in-2024-92266c1fe7ab
10. "So while the capital markets will likely be robust in 2024, I do not expect that venture capital investing and venture capital fund formation to grow that much year over year in 2024. I think both will grow but not nearly as fast as the sectors that surround VC.
To sum it all up, we are in a golden era of innovation with AI and Web3 leading to a new more intelligent, resilient and decentralized Internet and the emergence of a new energy stack which will power our lives new ways that will not continue to warm our planet. There are opportunities every which way I look to back founders and founding teams building these new technologies. I think 2024 is going to be a terrific year for tech."
https://avc.xyz/what-will-happen-in-2024
11. This is really too bad. Really liked what Jai and Countdown Capital were trying to do. Emerging vc fund managers are in tough spot these days.
https://techcrunch.com/2024/01/02/early-stage-hard-tech-firm-countdown-capital-shutting-down/
12. "Some romanticists feel the urge to knock over the edifice of industrial society intentionally, in order to kick against the seeming shallowness of modern life — to return humanity to a world of toil and struggle, in order to ennoble us. But these dark romantics are rightfully recognized in fiction and public discourse as villains.
The heroes of our stories are the people like David Ho — the ones who fought to hoist humanity up from the muck so that future generations to be a little more childlike, the ones who studied politics and war, so that our grandchildren may study statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
Romanticists need to accept that the nobility of suffering has always been a coping mechanism — a way to sustain hope through the long twilight of apparent futility. And they need to accept that heroism is always inherently self-destroying — that saving the world requires that the world is worth having been saved.
And those who romanticize struggle and tragedy must at least try to understand that in the more general sense, happiness isn’t really shallow — it’s just complex in a different way. The passions of people raised in a kinder, gentler world may be alien and incomprehensible to the older generation, but they are no less intense, and the culture around them is no less complex. Adversity forces us to rise to its challenge, but abundance allows us to discover who we might become, and that is a different sort of adventure."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/toward-a-shallower-future
13. Hard core heroes in Ukraine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ria_ryzIfo
14. Australia in the Post American world. Still well positioned.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hSYixFjZWM
15. Fascinating discussion on one of my favorite countries in the world. Japan and its future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBR9hvY3ibg
16. "Through whatever means, we end up connecting with these founders on an opportunity that is adjacent to what they are currently pursuing. We share our homework on a market opportunity with them, introduce them to our network of “bridgers” (i.e. industry experts / leaders that partner with our firm) to further vet that opportunity and craft a plan for that team to validate the opportunity and achieve product market fit within the next 12 months.
These aren’t bridge rounds, which are primarily used to extend runway to achieve the milestones necessary for the next financing. These are complete pivots in the business. These are ones where the existing business likely isn’t working, but the founders have developed amazing insight on customers and the market. These companies are willing to leverage those earned customer insights and relationships to take one last BIG swing — burning their existing business to the ground to build something different, but perhaps exponentially better.
In many cases, existing investors aren’t willing to sign up for these types of rounds. The only data points they have on the company have been negative (i.e., the company isn’t working) and VCs generally want to concentrate their dollars behind their companies that are working the best, not a perceived losing hand. But make no mistake, this has been one of our most successful entry points.
In discussing this with Ed, he brilliantly coined these rounds as “Phoenix Rounds.”
https://medium.com/@EqualVentures/phoenix-rounds-11f2b35f1e30
17. "What struck me was how incredibly dumbstruck people often are once these events are discussed, even the smartest minds often roll their eyes in disbelief as they witness the increasing chaos around the globe. And it is not so much the conflicts and wars on their own, it is rather the realization that Western democracies are losing the plot and lack the leadership and resolve to direct and help structure the world in a way that we were used to.
Every discussion over Israel/Gaza, Ukraine and China ended with the painful awareness that the initiative now somehow rests with other powers and that we are diving into a deep hole of uncertainty. Reactive has taken the place of pro-active."
https://pieterdorsman.substack.com/p/a-rocky-start
18. "The United States and its European allies face a choice. They can either make an immediate plan to bolster the training they provide to the Ukrainian military, clarify to their publics and to Ukraine that the October 2024 deadline to liberate territory must be extended, and underwrite Ukraine’s materiel needs through 2025, or they can continue to falsely believe the war is in a stalemate, dithering and ceding the advantage to Russia.
This would be a terrible mistake: in addition to expanding its partnerships in Africa, Russia is strengthening its collaboration with China, Iran, and North Korea. And if a loss in Ukraine ends up demonstrating that the West cannot meet a single challenge to the world’s security architecture, its adversaries will hardly believe it can deal with multiple crises at once."
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/war-ukraine-not-stalemate
19. Solid take on what’s happening in the consumer startup space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Di_BM7tNbw
20. Such a fun episode this time. NIA.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDv0MM4X0Oc
21. Timely conversation on state of SaaS & VC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yzt_o-eD_0Q
22. Agree that it is the era of commodities. We have always been in resource wars but this will accelerate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xry1_Pdi2yE
23. This is a grim view geopolitically out there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt7H3CEIKds
24. Defense tech is critical for the geopolitical mess out there now. A very good conversation here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UVYGpY2vd8
25. "It pays to be dangerous.
If you are weak, everyone will take advantage of you.
If you are dangerous, people will not f-ck with you.
Be big. Be strong. Learn to fight. Have money in the bank. Have a good lawyer. Most of all, don’t take shit and be willing to put up a fight. (Except meaningless ones like street fights)
If you are willing and able to fight, most of the time, no one will pick a fight with you. You won’t be worth the hassle."
https://lifemathmoney.com/fight-fire-with-fire-lesson-from-kaziranga-national-park/
26. "Incentives work powerfully well, perhaps in some cases a little too well. If you don’t inspect and supervise your sales practices carefully, you could find yourself unpleasantly surprised by some of the behaviors you end up incentivizing. If you establish and maintain an effective sales compliance regime, your incentive plans will drive healthy growth in your company. Fail to do so, however, and you will find undesirable behaviors growing as well."
https://sacks.substack.com/p/the-dark-side-of-sales
27. Such a grim but realistic view of 2024. It's going to be a mess geopolitically.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l46oWMu3b9M
28. These are always fun. I guess we will see. 2024 predictions.
https://www.profgalloway.com/2024-predictions/
29. I like this. Building a media empire. Erik knows what he is talking about.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRpetYZhYmY
30. "With all that being said, the biggest thing I find I have to remind people is that the most important thing about being “non-consensus and right” is the part about being right. In the end, being right is what matters. That’s how you make money in venture capital, and that’s how you build your reputation and brand.
I tend to end most of my meetings with new managers by asking them a simple question that helps me understand how and why they think they will win over time. How are you differentiated from everyone else in the market, and how will you win the opportunities that you should win given your strategy?
I find it helps me better understand a new manager’s perspective on their own competitive advantage and strategy. The best managers I meet have a good story about why they are differentiated and good. I think that’s what helps you win today, more than being non-consensus and right."
https://chudson.substack.com/p/replacing-non-consensus-and-right
31. Lots to learn from Sahil Bloom.
32. So much wisdom here. Loved this conversation. Bill Perkins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NX9-Q-ohIY
33. This is why Benchmark is one of the best. Fascinating conversation on how the top investors think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugTUtpkhBDw
34. I always learn new stuff from Zeihan. A good geopolitics overview.