Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads November 17th, 2024
"Always do your best. What you plant now, you will harvest later." —Og Mandino
"I started off this post by stating, “if you’ve ever been in sales, then you know that the deal isn’t done until the money’s in the bank.” Whatever you do, don’t take your foot off the gas during closing.
Term sheets are generally non-binding, which means that investors in most countries can legally pull out up until the moment that the shareholder agreements are signed. Absent something materially negative being discovered during diligence, this is morally reprehensible, but it does happen.
The best thing you can do to preempt “buyers remorse” with your new investors is to continue making progress and closing sales, onboarding new users or releasing new features during the 3-5 week closing process. At a minimum, send weekly updates to show them the progress you’re making and keep them excited about their new investment.
And have a backup plan. It sucks to think about, but what will you do if the investment falls through?
Remember: you’re selling up until the moment investors wire the money. Never lose sight of that."
https://chrisneumann.com/archives/what-happens-after-you-sign-a-term-sheet
2. "The internal contradiction (a fatal flaw) of tribal governance is that tribal cohesion requires hyping the threat posed by the opposing tribe.
Ever escalating threat. This dynamic dictates that to maintain cohesion (due to inevitable desensitization) or increase it; networked tribes will increasingly hype the degree of threat posed by opposing tribes and everyone connected to them. Opposed people rapidly transition from being wrong to bad and finally to (absolute, horrific) evil. Minor threats become existential or genocidal.
Swarms (see the GG Report; “How Swarms Work” for more). Networked tribes don’t have formal leadership — they are open source (anybody can grab the baton and lead if they successfully advance the war against the opposite tribe) — and trained (constant network reinforcement) to hate the opposition. This makes them prone to self-mobilize as swarms that seek to overwhelm the enemy. We’ve seen this with the cancellation of people (bans, lost jobs, etc.) and recently at the level of global war (swarms seek to maximize escalation until complete victory over the target is achieved).
Total tribal war and national suicide. A nationally dominant networked tribe, locked in by a tribal network that shuts down all opposition, will seek to remain dominant by continuously amplifying threats. Threats posed by tribally antagonistic domestic populations and countries (a pre-network variant of this was the secret sauce of 20th-century fascist governance, but it proved fatal).
Domestically, an escalating perception of existential threat will eventually justify (tribal networks and traditional tribes don’t see enemies as human beings) authoritarian suppression, internment, and (potentially) genocide. Internationally, this will set the nation on a path of war with an ever-growing number of enemies (eventually, all simultaneously). In short, it is a path to national suicide and a global proscription of the nation, the people, and the tribe’s way of thinking when it is inevitably defeated."
https://johnrobb.substack.com/p/the-tribal-election
3. "Karp’s lab operates on the principle of diversity—bringing together experts from different fields, backgrounds, and countries. This diversity fuels creative problem-solving and opens up new possibilities for innovation. As he explained it to me:
"My lab in some ways is like a playground where there's no specific disease focus, no specific technology focus... We populate the lab with people from different disciplines. So minimal overlap of expertise...We've had engineers, biologists, immunologists, a gastrointestinal surgeon, a cardiac surgeon, a dentist... maximizing diversity of thought, diversity of expertise, diversity of tools."
https://99tech.alexlazarow.com/p/igniting-your-startup-potential
4. "A false signal I see a lot with early stage AI-first companies is excitement around AI is misinterpreted as likelihood to buy your product.
As companies of all sizes are figuring out their AI strategy, many are signing up for new products, taking meetings with founders, and collecting as much information as possible with no intent on buying your product.
While many of these conversations can be a helpful way to learn more about the challenges companies are currently facing, founders must be especially protective of their time and know when to cut off time wasters.
BANT, an acronym for Budget, Authority, Needs, and Time is a classic framework for evaluating if someone is likely to buy your product."
https://brianne.substack.com/p/a-lesson-for-ai-first-companies-excitement
5. An excellent rundown on latest news on SpaceX, Elon, Tesla and Nvidia.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdK8OFA903I
6. This is the wake up call that every B2B SaaS founder needs to have. Mr Lemkin gives very valuable guidance for how to thrive in this present environment. It is a must watch.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5sPLOkAZPE&t=172s
7. There is some great career advice here: never rest on your laurels, how to take risks and think long term. How to be a steward & leave things better than when you found it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQAZ3iV3gSg&t=4s
8. Another great episode of More or Less, what's up Silicon Valley.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjcf7O9rerQ
9. "For entrepreneurs, I recommend incorporating a failure segment into your regular all-hands meetings. This way, employees consistently hear the message that thoughtful risk-taking is encouraged. Celebrate the fact that the more you experiment and learn, the faster you grow, both as an individual and as a business."
https://davidcummings.org/2024/10/19/highlight-an-employee-failure-at-the-town-hall/
10. "Whenever an empire is crumbles, one of its final acts is almost always the desperate attempt to cling to the remaining vestiges of its wealth.
It happened in the 1920s during the German Weimar Republic, when the government implemented controls to prevent capital from haemorrhaging out of the nation.
It occurred again at the end of the Vietnam War as Vietnam’s communist government seized assets to prevent citizens from fleeing with them.
Again, capital seizures were implemented by Iran’s Islamic government after the Shah was overthrown in 1979.
And it happened during the final days of ancient Rome, before the empire collapsed completely.
Unfortunately, this is also taking place all over the West in the present day."
https://anticitizen.com/p/it-s-theft
11. "Lesson: You can learn anything. Choose speed not credentials."
https://oldbooksguy.substack.com/p/self-taught
12. "You aren’t going to pay someone $30k to clean your house if the market rate is $10-15k. It just isn’t going to happen.
The same is true with businesses. They don’t hate you, but in the end it comes down to money.
You were hired to do a job, and if someone can do the same job for a much cheaper price – they’re going to make the switch just like you would replace the old cleaner.
This is just how the world works.
Of course, from the cleaner/employee’s perspective, this is “unfair”.
https://lifemathmoney.com/do-employers-care-about-you/
13. "Rather than relying on a bloated board or long-term advisors, focus on building a lean, agile team with short-term expert input when necessary. Keep the focus on what drives value for your company—not pleasing outsiders or chasing prestige."
https://pierregaubil.substack.com/p/cut-the-fat-why-your-startup-doesnt
14. "I want to index my beliefs and unpack a bibliography of the sources behind them so that I understand why I believe what I believe. Understanding what I believe will, truly, be arriving somewhere I’ve been before and knowing it “for the first time.”
And I think, despite the flood of information we're exposed to every day, we would be better suited if we took the time index our beliefs. Whether it's the beliefs that determine how we live our lives, the religions we subscribe to, the investments we make, the companies we build, or the relationships we prioritize. Beliefs are made better through scrutinization."
https://investing1012dot0.substack.com/p/my-cup-runneth-over
15. "If you’re in a room that never echoes back your own views to you, you’re not just in the wrong room, you’re actually on enemy territory.
How often should an echo chamber echo back your ideas to you is a technical question, and therefore a boring one, and therefore outside the scope of the current essay. The balance-worshippers will say it should be 50% agreement, 50% disagreement.
I would set up the ratio differently. But over and above the technicalities lies the fact that echo chambers are good, actually. Echo chambers make you sane and effective. Echo chambers are the birthplace of shared anthems, shared goals, and shared warcries. And where we are headed, you will need those things."
https://oldbooksguy.substack.com/p/in-defense-of-echo-chambers
16. "Lately I have had many days where I feel likeI am living through the elder millennial equivalent of the venture capital business. I am close enough to the emerging manager phase of our fund to still identify with that experience and feel very close to what those managers are going through. But I’m no longer fully in that world.
I also don't feel like our firm has graduated to being “established” as I have no idea what that means or what it takes to get there. I also have not gotten to the “get off my lawn” phased of being a really experienced VC who has seen and done it all."
https://chudson.substack.com/p/no-longer-emerging-not-yet-established
17. Future of AI and Sales in SaaS. This is an info-dense discussion. Must watch for B2B CEOs.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FIQLx_Zi9E
18. "There are always multiple ways to win – In our second session, you can see the diversity of different approaches to winning. Dave Yuan from Tidemark and Adam Bain have VERY different styles to growth investing and Matt Auxier from University of Chicago has invested across the landscape of growth and early stage. This serves as a reminder that there is no single way to win and the importance of owning your own playbook, rather than following those of others."
https://newsletter.equal.vc/p/reflections-of-an-emerging-manager
19. "What has been getting worse over the past decade, and then particularly bad over the last few years during the pandemic, is that middle-income households are increasingly squeezed,” she says.
These households that could once afford a typical home in a variety of locations in their metro area now have fewer and often less desirable options. And, if nothing is done, exclusivity may spread farther."
https://thehustle.co/originals/the-rise-of-exclusive-communities-in-america
20. "Let’s talk about the elephant in the server room: Transformers — the core technology behind large language models like GPT, Claude, Gemini and Perplexity. Unlike older models that processed data sequentially, transformers handle massive datasets in parallel, simultaneously juggling billions (sometimes trillions) of parameters. This exponentially increases the amount of number-crunching required for training these models, demanding significantly more GPUs and specialized chips, exponentially increasing their electricity use over previous models like recurrent neural networks (which struggle with larger datasets).
The power hogging doesn’t stop at training, though; these models use power every time they are prompted — a single ChatGPT prompt can use up to 10x the power of a conventional Google search query.
We have made an incredible leap in AI technology at the cost of increased power demand. But in the larger scope of humanity, I believe the trade-off is worth it — these new AI models are already helping us diagnose cancer, find clean geothermal energy sources, and boost our overall productivity. And we’re still in the first inning — we’ve barely scratched the surface of what AI can do for our society"
https://www.benparr.com/p/ai-nuclear-power-smr-microsoft-google-amazon
21. "Whether or not the tech industry answers the “AI’s $600B question” or Nvidia stays dominant, the die has been cast and there are many more important challenges to address.
When the Telecom Bubble burst, we were left with $1 trillion of telecom equipment that set the stage for the next wave of internet, mobile and cloud computing.
After this rush of AI infrastructure spend and research, we will be left with the ability to manufacture intelligence at scale. Even if it feels a bit bubbly and overhyped right now, the ground truth is that the current wave of AI will change every aspect of society"
https://www.readtrung.com/p/jensen-huang-dario-amodei-and-manufacturing
22. "A possible alternative, deploying a non-nuclear strategic deterrent to implement a conventional countervalue posture is also challenging, but arguably much more feasible. Simply by advancing its long-range strike capabilities, Ukraine will naturally move in its direction.
The key question is how targeted the Ukrainian effort will be to employ its long-range strike arsenal as a strategic deterrent, rather than as a simple warfighting tool, and how much money Kyiv is willing to allocate to this end over other competing priorities."
https://missilematters.substack.com/p/nuclear-and-non-nuclear-deterrents
23. "If the U.S. abandons resistance to China and Russia, it will go very badly for America’s allies. Europe will probably fracture again, with some states (probably including Germany) falling all over themselves to appease the Russians. Russia will then become a sort of de facto hegemon in Europe. In Asia, China would probably conquer Taiwan, cutting off U.S. semiconductor supplies and establishing Chinese hegemony in East Asia. Japan and South Korea would then be forced to choose between either becoming nuclear powers or becoming de facto satrapies of the new Chinese empire. Essentially, America’s major allies would fall to America’s enemies.
Americans — or, at least, Trump supporters — might yawn at these developments. But if Germany, France, Japan, South Korea, and America’s other allies fall, it will dramatically weaken America’s ability to defend itself. Remember that China is four times the size of America, and manufactures well over twice as much. Without its coalition of allies, the U.S. just doesn’t have the size to stand up to China.
And even if they de facto conquered Asia and Europe, China and Russia would not simply ignore America and let it go on its merry way. The specter of a U.S. revival would haunt them. They would therefore do everything they could to weaken America. Obvious steps would include 1) economically strangling America by cutting it off from trading routes and natural resources, and 2) sowing continued internal dissent in America in the hopes of causing it to collapse into a civil war.
Bereft of its coalition of allies, America would be far less able to resist those efforts. Americans would suffer economically even as China and Russia stoked their hatreds and divisions. The worst ideologies of Trump’s first term — alt-right fascism, leftism, radical identitarianism, and so on — would all come back with a vengeance, encouraged by diligent Chinese and Russian online propagandists. Only now they’d also have a bad economy to fuel their anger."
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/the-free-world-teeters-on-the-edge
24. Some good insights on how to invest, manage and grow a startup.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvqg4aTq1zM
25. "Just how bad is Taiwan’s energy situation and how did it put itself in such a vulnerable position? How might China exploit this situation if hostilities break out? The numbers might come as a bit of a shock. Let’s take a look.
According to data from the Statistical Review of World Energy, Taiwan relied on fossil fuels for 91% of last year’s primary energy needs, and virtually all of the oil, natural gas, and coal it consumed was imported. It has become particularly dependent on imports of liquefied natural gas (LNG), averaging 2.65 billion cubic feet per day (bcf/d) in 2023, a fourfold increase since 2000. Natural gas and coal alone fuel 82% of Taiwan’s electricity production, and any prolonged disruption in supply would swiftly result in a crisis.
Recognizing this strategic weakness, China has regularly practiced military drills that simulate how it could blockade the island, signaling to the US in particular that it need not undertake a full invasion to bring Taiwan to its knees."
https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/indefensible
26. "Entrepreneur is a synonym for salesperson, and salesperson is the pedestrian term for storyteller. Pro tip: No startup makes sense. We (entrepreneurs) are all impostors who must deploy a fiction (a story) that captures the imagination and attracts capital to pull the future forward and turn rhyme into reason. No business I have started, at the moment of inception, made any sense … until it did. Or didn’t. The only way to predict the future is to make it.
This is not the same as lying. There’s a real distinction between an entrepreneur and a liar: Entrepreneurs believe their story will come true, as they are laser-focused on making it true. A liar, well, they know they’re misleading people with false data. Usually for money (i.e., fraud). This is where Tesla turns gray."
https://www.profgalloway.com/tesla-wtf
27. "What I’m saying is that either candidate has the potential, like all of us, to rise to the occasion. But we can't lie to ourselves, neither of these candidates, in their current form, could hold a candle to a figure like Otto von Bismarck.
The Biden administration currently has the head of the CIA handling Middle East negotiations a spy chief is not typically seen as the most trustworthy figure in a government.
Trump had his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, managing Middle East matters. Trump proposed an Israel-Palestine peace plan without giving the Palestinians a say in the matter, and a few years later, we have a war between Hamas and Israel. Not the most effective approach to diplomacy.
Still, we hope for the best."
https://www.globalhitman.com/p/a-pivotal-point-in-history
28. "Whereas if you are trying to be a “creator,” or more simply an artist, people are spending a lot of energy focused on trying to turn the path into something that maps to the stories about work they grow up with (a career, stable, provides growing income, etc…)
So if you are curious about exploring this whole new creator world, I think the best strategy is to try to find a job inside one of these teams. There are a lot of these gigs if you know where to look. If this world existed in 2015, that likely would have been my path. But I just had no idea what I was doing.
Bottom line: work is definitely changing. Almost everyone I talk to in any kind of work says that things feel weird. They don’t know the best strategy for a career anymore. They have mixed feelings about remote or in-person work. And that means its going to feel weird.
But like always, we will learn and adapt."
https://newsletter.pathlesspath.com/p/laptop-man-and-new-remote-realities
29. "One of the statistics that raised eyebrows in Nvidia’s most recent quarterly earnings was its customer concentration - 46% of revenues came from just four customers.
It doesn’t take much guessing to figure out who those four companies are.
MSFT, AMZN, META and GOOGL are ramping up capex to the hundreds of billions because they’re locked in a capital arms race - the stakes are so high that investment from one hyperscaler elicits a response from the other."
https://akashbajwa.substack.com/p/concentration-in-the-ai-value-chain
30. 996. Hard core mode. This is what it takes to go big, trillion dollar big. Something many folks forgot during the ZIRP era.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaH_hz8XUoI
31. Good and alternative state of Venture capital. I lean more toward Bryce and Indie.vc's view. This is the future. The other end of factory farm industrial VC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INJPNaB_Rmk
32. "Our defense industrial base more closely resembles European sclerosis than America’s dynamic capital markets. It’s really hard to build a successful defense business, but not for any technical reasons or lack of capital. In America, 10x engineers are in the water. If you talk to any recruiter hiring for defense companies, the most challenging position to fill is the Head of Business Development.
There just aren’t that many individuals that know how to scale a business in an industry defined by regulatory capture (e.g., does your company have the right clearances, do you personally know the PEO, did you lobby the right legislators, etc.) Banning the revolving door doesn’t change this reality and would only further hamstring new entrants trying to break in.
But revolving door executives are not magic beans that companies can plant to Jack-and-the-beanstalk their growth (if only it were that easy). According to Senator Warren’s 2023 report attacking the revolving door, Boeing had more revolving door hires than any of the other Top 20 defense contractor—they clearly didn’t hire enough. And the rent-a-general taking a sinecure on a company board is an all too common meme."
https://kinetic.reviews/p/the-virtue-of-the-revolving-door
33. This is excellent and lots of good insights for living a better life.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBAwmS-vkV4
34. Mr. Lemkin dropping some knowledge. Must listen to for those raising VC money.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUIpqviEWBE
35. "Life advice: People who ask 10,000 questions never take any action at all. If you have any sales experience whatsoever, you know this already. The guy who wants to learn about every feature and has tons of little queries never makes the purchase. He only wastes your time."
https://lifemathmoney.com/how-to-know-if-someone-is-ngmi/
36. "In Europe, showing off like the Rockefellers, the Carnegies, or the Fords would be looked down on. Across European languages, the word for ambition has a negative conotation. As a result, ambition is not celebrated as often with public works and is not as visible or tangible.
It trickles down to all levels. American children probably spend a dangerous amount of time comparing themselves to others, trying to one-up each other. It boggles my mind, but my children’s German friends spend the same amount of time and effort to make any differences with their friends unapparent."