Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads February 28th, 2021
“You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”--Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"Today’s kids grow up building in Roblox, mirroring the rise of low code / no code in the startup ecosystem and signaling how everyone is now able to manipulate and create software. The 12-year-old who spends her free time building games in Roblox will become the 22-year-old who builds her company’s business apps in Airtable."
https://digitalnative.substack.com/p/roblox-airtable-and-the-building
2. "A career moat is a professional advantage that protects your long-term employment prospects from economic forces.
While rare and valuable skills were once seen as solid career fortification, automation and artificial intelligence seem poised to render many skills obsolete.
To defend your career prospects in the decades ahead, you need an advantage that will be hard for machines to replicate.
One domain where humans seem likely to retain our edge over machines is our ability to influence other people.
Put simply, building a large audience is a good strategy for anyone who wants to build a resilient career."
https://junglegym.substack.com/p/audience-as-a-career-moat
3. "With the perspective of a few weeks between the most acute phase of the crisis and the convening of this hearing, it became clear that the idea of GameStop and WallStreetBets serving as some kind of populist revolt against the moneyed elites was increasingly preposterous. And worse: the opposite of what happened. But the Fourth Law already told us this was the case."
https://mylesudland.substack.com/p/fourth-law-of-the-internet
4. "McCaskill realized that GameStop presented a rare opportunity.
After the stock buybacks, the bet was simple: You either believed GameStop would stay solvent or thought it would go out of business. If it went out of business, the shorts would make a killing. If it managed to stay afloat, the price had virtually nowhere to go but up. And now that there were even fewer shares on the market, the short interest raised to an eye-popping 110 percent.
McCaskill endlessly studied GameStop. He learned about its fundamentals. What he saw wasn’t a company trying to die. He saw a company with real fight in it to live. And he believed that there was a trade to make. A big one. “I knew that one day this would explode,” he says."
5. "The mainstream media typically portrays Bitcoin as a penny stock gone wild, or a new kind of digital tulip mania. But the reality is Bitcoin is a political project that threatens to fundamentally disrupt the Davos-led economic system, with everyone from Janet Yellen to Christine Lagarde expressing fear about its rise and demanding it be regulated.
Governments retain their power in part by issuing and controlling money. Bitcoin is a new model that mints and secures money without governments. So the big question is: Why haven’t governments or megacorps stopped it? And if they try to attack Bitcoin in the near future, what would that look like?"
https://quillette.com/2021/02/21/can-governments-stop-bitcoin/
6. This is sad & kind of observant view on the double edge that is the American Dream. Very binary outcomes in America. I'll have to check out Nomadland.
"Because, yes, she is part of an American tradition. She is proud of her self-sufficiency, her strength, the community that she is slowly building. But she is also wounded and grieving the loss of a dream, a community she once loved that disappeared because it was no longer profitable to a big company. That’s an American tradition, too.
So is working hard your whole life only to discover that there’s no more work for you, and that you can’t afford to live, either. That the American Dream isn’t for everyone."
https://www.vox.com/22289457/nomadland-review-zhao-mcdormand-streaming-hulu
7. This was written in 2004 by PG. Incredibly prescient and still relevant.
"Good ideas always tend to win eventually. The problem is, it can take a very long time. It took decades for relativity to be accepted, and the greater part of a century to establish that central planning didn't work. So even a small increase in the rate at which good ideas win would be a momentous change—big enough, probably, to justify a name like the "new economy."
http://www.paulgraham.com/bubble.html
8. "And to be crystal clear, I don’t disagree with all of the pro-Bitcoin arguments, just some of the more extreme ones. For example, I agree that the U.S. dollar is a terrible investment and that printing more money will make the U.S dollar worth less. However, worth less is not the same as worthless. It’s a slight nuance, but it makes a world of difference.
But without this nuance, we can end up in these extreme echo chambers that look nothing like the real world."
https://ofdollarsanddata.com/have-fun-staying-poor/
9. This is a very exciting future.
"The Creator Economy and NFTs are massive human potential unlocks. Even if certain assets are in a short-term bubble, we are on an inexorable march towards individuals mattering more than institutions.
We’re on the precipice of a creative explosion, fueled by putting power, and the ability to generate wealth, in the hands of the people. Armed with powerful technical and financial tools, individuals will be able to launch and scale increasingly complex projects and businesses. Within two decades, we will have multiple trillion-plus dollar publicly traded entities with just one full-time employee, the founder."
https://www.notboring.co/p/power-to-the-person
10. "All in all, new mobile game launches aren’t guaranteed successes, and revenue growth through live operations is all about slow and steady growth. Continued organic growth is important, but M&A is still Stillfront’s key driver going forward — the prime source of opportunity and risk."
https://www.masterthemeta.com/themetas/supercell-stillfront-artie
11. "Brees, the quarterback who won the 2010 Super Bowl with the New Orleans Saints, charges $750, with proceeds going to his foundation. Cameo offers wealthy stars the chance to interact with fans without the venom that permeates many social media platforms. For lesser lights, many in need of income and purpose after retiring by their mid-30s, it is a convenient tool to remain relevant and monetise the nostalgia inspired by their on-field feats.
Former players who previously had to travel to events to earn appearance fees, perhaps spending hours signing memorabilia, can sprinkle stardust from the comfort of their own homes using just their phones."
https://amp.theguardian.com/sport/2021/feb/23/cameo-video-message-sports-stars
12. "TL;DR: The economics of smaller funds is such as they are incentivized to help you become a $1bn company.
That’s also reflected in their involvement helping you secure a top notch Series A round (and beyond). If there’s one skill seed funds master, it is the Series A roadshow prep & sprint! Because that’s at the very core of their value proposition."
https://medium.com/cherryventures/the-art-of-cherry-picking-a-seed-investor-3f21cd28b876
13. Whoa, this war movie looks intense. The Eight Hundred!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jq3nkV6XLc
14. Go Laura, Simon & team Shippo (seriously Laura, where is
my hoodie?). Batch 8 represent.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/23/shippo-raises-45m-more-at-495m-valuation-as-ecommerce-booms/
15. "The early buzz for Dispo 2.0 is similar to the one that surrounded Clubhouse, which has seen millions of new users flock to the audio-only social app in recent months. Capitalizing on that growth, Clubhouse raised $100 million at a $1 billion valuation late last month. At the time of the deal, Clubhouse had roughly 2 million registered users and just 10 employees and no Android app. Dispo has only six employees.
Driven by the rapid success of Clubhouse, VC investors are actively seeking to invest in social media apps. The rush to back young consumer startups at high valuations follows a period when investors doubted many could gain much ground against Snapchat and Facebook’s family of apps, instead shifting their investing energies to sectors such as enterprise software. It’s a “renaissance” for social media startups, said Salamanca."
16. I'm not a Dubai fan, would never live in Dubai & believe I will always keep some foot in USA/Canada. But the main point & thesis of why he has moved there and left western world does make sense to me. Go where you are treated best.
"As I’ve talked about before, we’re entering an era where the big countries of the world (the U.S., Brazil, Russia, China, etc.) are becoming clusterfucks. They’re massively mismanaged, and they’re collapsing in many cases, but the smaller countries are far more maneuverable and better managed. The taxes are usually far lower since they don’t have the bloat and overhead of the larger countries, and it was important to me that I was moving to a smaller country (in terms of population; I don’t care about the square mileage of the place). That’s one of the reasons it works so well.
It doesn’t make any sense for me to move from a big, giant collapsing country to another big, giant collapsing country or an authoritarian country like China or Russia."
https://calebjones.com/2021/02/22/10-reasons-why-i-moved-to-dubai/
17. "In essence, that kind of ecosystem can only get better once founders manage to gain the upper hand and defuse the worst practices coming from the investing side of things."
https://thefamily.substack.com/p/train-your-investors-to-behave
18. "Fiat privilege is a concept that highlights the unfair societal advantages that people with proximity to the money printer have over people of savings."
https://allenfarrington.medium.com/fiat-privilege-3f5afae50083
19. "What sets Roblox apart: It provides tools to kids who then use them to make—and sell—their own games, turning its audience into an army of apple-cheeked capitalists. Roblox sells a virtual currency called Robux—100 for a dollar—that players can spend on games and digital trinkets, like avatars and in-game items. Creators earn a share of the Robux spent in their game worlds, at a rate of 35 cents per 100 Robux.
In aggregate, Roblox’s 1.25 million creators made $328 million in 2020. For the top creators, it’s real money: More than 1,200 earned $10,000 or more, and over 300 pocketed $100,000-plus. Roblox itself generated about $924 million in revenue those same months—nearly double the company’s $2019 revenue."
20. Longtime favorite podcast. Always learn stuff from Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose. Great episode here.
https://overcast.fm/+KebtNFiCE
21. Shaan is a very wise man.
"He doesn’t do all of this with a long list of goals, or a Notion setup that tracks his progress to achieving them, or a precisely cleaned todo list. In fact, he thinks goals are overrated and doesn’t use a todo list at all. He’s not trying to scrape productivity out of each minute of each day—he’s not calculusing his way to success. Instead, he’s focused on cultivating certain values, and characteristics. He’s trying to make himself into a certain kind of person. If he does that, he figures the score will take care of itself.
So he likes to ponder a question that he printed on a poster above his desk: “Who am I becoming?”
https://every.to/superorganizers/test-40d190c0-6e1e-44c3-aff9-12993fd16731
22. Learned this a long time ago but it is still an overwhelming pull sometimes.
What I've also learned is consensus is usually wrong, most people are wrong and or/are tools. Plus there is a big difference between a Fad versus a Trend.
"One of the best decisions we can make is to reject the cultural expectations that shift and change with the wind. And to accept the fact that we don’t need to run with the cool kids to be happy."
https://www.becomingminimalist.com/much-cooler/
23. Unintended consequence of Remote work. Growth of Bossware. Big Brother continues.
https://twitter.com/doctorow/status/1364613365327302659
24. Russians are so bad ass. This looks good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLq1-N5y78k
25. Another reason NOT to go to China.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/bvxk9a/china-anal-covid-tests-us-diplomats
26. "Then the blockchain came around and [it allowed us to] make digital collectibles immutable, with a record of who owns what that you can’t really copy. You can screenshot it, but you don’t really own the digital collectible, and you won’t be able to do anything with that screenshot. You won’t be able to to sell it or trade it. The proof is in the blockchain. So I was a believer that crypto-based collectibles could be really big and actually could be the thing that takes crypto mainstream and gets the normals into participating in crypto — and that’s exactly what’s happening now."
27. "One comparison that often struck me between the way China and Western democracies dealt with the threat was this: China seemed determined to do what was necessary to obtain results in the most direct and obvious way, while Western democracies stopped to ask a previous question: what is the proper or adequate way for a society such as ours to act in order to fight the virus?"
https://brunomacaes.substack.com/p/how-china-beat-the-virus
28. "So why are people buying digital art and other scarce assets online? In the long term, proof of ownership will go online. You cannot simply re-create the Mona Lisa with an AI robot and command the same price (even if it an exact replica). You cannot simply recreate a Richard Millie without proof of its authenticity. In fact, digital ownership is *better* than physical ownership. If you walk into a club with your Richard Millie, most will believe it is fake (yes many haters live life like this). In the digital realm, you’ve created verifiable undeniable proof of ownership. People can take screen caps of your NFTs, they can try to recreate your NBA moment (top shots) and they can try to make the exact same item.
The problem? The hash won’t match. In a single click everyone will know that you don’t really own it. You’re a liar and a fake with zero ability to prove that it is the original. It is time stamped and engraved."
https://wallstreetplayboys.com/the-future-is-bright-nfts-and-qa-announcement/
29. This is educational, grim but important to understand. The future of geopolitics.
Agriculture After Globalization - Dairy West's Feeding Your Mind Virtual Learning Series
30. "Every investor is making bets on the future. It’s only called speculation when you disagree with someone else’s bet.
Optimism is the best long-term mindset. And it requires a certain level of believing things that can’t be verified, either because you don’t have the technical skills to verify them – nobody knows everything – or because something hasn’t happened yet but you think it will happen in the future. Not enough speculation is just as dangerous as too much speculation."
https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/speculation/
31. Everyone is a prepper now. If the last year (and most recent Texas winter storms) did not wake you up, not sure what will.
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/emergency-preparedness-kit
32. "Big markets continually create new opportunities. Even with major incumbents that seem to do it all, new areas of opportunity emerge, and the bigger the market, the more opportunity a small slice represents."
https://davidcummings.org/2021/02/26/big-markets-continually-create-opportunities/
33. I am actually less worried about the upcoming generations who tend to be more entrepreneurial + all the new opportunities and platforms showing up to enable this. The Kids will be alright.
"Like millennials, Gen Z aren’t strangers to economic disruption. Still very young at the time of the 2008 financial crisis, they saw the impact it had on their parents. Dorie Clark, author of “Entrepreneurial You,” told me this might feed into the side hustling trend. “They've grown up in a context where disruption is the norm and so the idea of hedging your bets and trying a lot of different things is not so alien,” she said. In fact, for both generations, it may seem like the smart move."
34. The original big time influencer before social media. Martha Stewart.
"She popularized beautifully photographed cookbooks and manuals for living well, of which she’s written 98, and created a lifestyle magazine centered around a single person and philosophy (Martha Stewart Living,which celebrated its 30th anniversary last year), which she then tied to an Emmy-winning TV show. She brought luxurious homewares at affordable prices to big-box stores before anyone else did, and she figured out how to sell those goods through her magazine and TV show in a synergistic (“I love that word”), self-sustaining model of content and commerce she likens to a solar system.
“Martha’s not static,” says Kevin Sharkey, executive vice president of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, who’s been Stewart’s right-hand man for 26 years. “She taught me that legacy isn’t really a past-tense experience; it’s what she’s going to build tomorrow or in an hour or next week."
https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/features/a35496168/martha-stewart-legacy-interview/
35. "Chess.com has showcased how investing in a streaming community can provide immense returns over time. Building out from a core group of Chess.com-sponsored streamers, chess has taken Twitch by storm. Throughout February, for instance, Chess.com has been hosting the latest iteration of its signature PogChampstournament featuring Twitch megastars xQc, Rubius and Pokimane as well as rapper Logic and actor Rainn Wilson.
Altogether, Twitch users watched 18.3 million hours of chess in January 2021 — nearly as much as they consumed in the entirety of 2019. And for a brief period last week, chess surpassed League of Legends, Fortnite and Valorant to become the top gaming category on Twitch by viewers."
https://www.protocol.com/chess-streaming-twitch-hikaru-botez
36. "Alsin, now 63, threw away almost every investment principle he had once held. A forensic accountant by training who had formerly worked for Peat Marwick (just before it became part of KPMG), Alsin switched from being a classic Warren Buffett–style value investor who scoured balance sheets to being one who obsessively embraced the disruptive promises of Silicon Valley and the new economy.
He took big, and early, stakes in both Amazon and Tesla — in 2012 and 2016, respectively. At the same time, Alsin shorted auto companies like General Motors and railed against buybacks that had crippled companies like Sears and American Airlines, which he also shorted.
At last, in 2020, Alsin’s insights bore exceptional fruit: The small hedge fund with the quirky name, which launched in 2017, and the long-only fund, which got off the ground in 2012, turned in what appear to be the best performances in the industry for the year, according to Institutional Investor calculations."
https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b1qmbjmykxql3g/The-Man-Who-Abandoned-Value
37. We all need to read & heed this. 2020 was brutal and this year while slightly better, will be a test.
Mental toughness is something we all need to develop more. Amazing article here.
https://theprofile.substack.com/p/mental-toughness
38. "No one is coming to save you.
If you don’t bet on yourself, someone is going to take you and put you in play for their own schemes and dreams. When they’re done with you, they’ll discard you because you no longer serve their mission. If you doubt this, remember: nowadays, you’re actually less valuable the longer you stay with a company.
The people who hire you are betting on themselves.
Betting on yourself is the fastest way to success. Waiting for the world to give you permission to be great is the slowest way to mediocrity. Now it’s time for you to learn how and why you need to take to do this as well."
https://edlatimore.com/bet-on-yourself/
39. "Part of why Y Combinator has been so wildly successful is that they really understand the value of these Schelling Points. They’ve created three: SAFE notes, Hacker News, and Demo Day. (Not Demo Day as an investment forum, but Demo Day as the preeminent social event in the tech community, which is more important.) All three of those creations have become a default place where people meet. They are forms of organizational and social capital that meaningfully lower the cost of getting things done, and that everyone in the community gets to use."
"I think it makes more sense to think of NFTs not as a product, or as a technology, but as a gathering point; like a part of the CBGBs floor plan. This current burst of speculative interest around owning LeBron dunks or whatever is really cool, don’t get me wrong. But it’ll conclude, at some point, in its current form. But something really important got created in the meantime, which is a shared understanding and a common gathering point for creatives and developers who want to creatively represent digital scarcity, for any use case now."
https://danco.substack.com/p/nfts-and-cbgbs-hows-that-for-a-clickbait
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Social Ingenuity ALWAYS Lags Technological Ingenuity: The Biggest Challenge Facing Society & Startups
When I was investing professionally , I used to see this at a micro level. You would meet a founder who created this amazing technology. But then you’d ask the question: who would use this? And how would this be used? Crickets…….timing matters. As the old investor wag goes, “Being early is the same as being wrong.”
But the point of this, is even if the technology is very useful, the use case almost always takes time to figure out. Basically humans naturally have a hard time adopting new technology due to deeply ingrained habits and literal “human nature” that is resistant to any major change. In fact, there is probably an extensive customer education process needed. Or for the new technology to really work well, there has to be some other corresponding technological developments that just are not there yet. Coupled with clear UX/UI (User Experience/User Interface) problems common to new technology, it is no surprise adoption will be low.
It just takes a long time for people to catch up. There is this thing called “Productivity J-Curve”
Quoting Noah Smith’s recap Erik Brynjolfsson, Daniel Rock & Chad Syverson’s paper:
“The productivity J-curve: How intangibles complement general purpose technologies”. That paper argues that big inventions with wide-ranging applications — electricity, the internal combustion engine, computers, the internet, and maybe A.I. — initially cause a productivity slowdown, because people are taking time out from production to figure out how to use the new stuff. Once they do, it’s off to the races, and productivity bounces back.”
At societal and macro-level, this is an immense challenge we have globally. This happened with the changes from Agrarian to Industrial age. And now from the Industrial age to Technology/Knowledge age.
We’re in for a ride going into the Roaring 20s as our societies try to cope with the deluge of technological innovations coming to the fore in robotics, AI, biotech among other things. This is the reason we should be optimistic about our future.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
The Barbell Principle
The business world is becoming more like a Barbell structure. You have a big dominant player (or even two) on one side. And on the other side of the Barbell you have a multitude of specialist players who own their niche.
Take a look at some key industries for example.
1. Media=Netflix vs. Youtube Influencers
2. Ecommerce=Amazon (The Empire) vs. Shopify (Arm the Rebels)
3. Venture Capital =Softbank Vision Fund/Sequoia/Founders Fund/A16Z (BIG) vs. Harry Stebbings & his 20MinVC Angel fund & the Angellist Rolling Funds (Small)
It reminds me of some old business strategy books I read. Strongly recommend “The Gorilla Game” by Moore & “The Rule of 3” by Sheth which shaped alot of my thinking here.
Net net: Don’t get stuck in the undifferentiated middle.
You don’t have the scale or the brand name to compete with the folks at the top. You have too much cost structure and not enough focus to compete to win the niches.
This is the kill zone in business. Definitely not a place you want to be. If you find yourself in this place, you either push hard and scale to become a top 3 player. Or you completely niche down and dominate this segment. This has been shown over and over in industry after industry.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads February 21th, 2021
“Never mistake activity for achievement.”--John Wooden
"The CEO and founder of Epic Games has had a knack for picking the right battles while also shoring up his company's independence. Fortnite, the company's blockbuster battle royale game, recently topped more than 15 million concurrent players and has spawned a universe of fandom. Epic challenged established platforms by launching its own digital video game storefront. And the multi-billion dollar company developed the Unreal Engine, a proprietary software for making its own video games that it licenses out to other developers and animators.
Now Sweeney, 50, is embarking on the biggest battle in his company's 30-year history: Epic is suing Apple and Google in a legal challenge that could remake the future of the digital economy."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/10/tech/tim-sweeney-epic-games-risk-takers/index.html
2. Whoops!
3. This is a great summary of Zeihan's work. It has informed alot of my perspective on geopolitics.
"Due to the intervening global breakdown, when the U.S. does again venture forth it should be far more powerful relative to the rest of the world than it currently is. That imbalance may well prompt it to impose some new order, but only after much economic, political, and security degradation, chaos and disorder.
Zeihan's conclusion: The U.S. is the most powerful country in history and will remain so until long after our grandchildren are gone.
Note: One critique of Zeihan is that he underestimates technology. If we have break throughs in cyber warfare, fusion or other cheap energy sources, or AGI, his model of the world doesn’t account for that. He’s likely correct, but he’s a bit too dismissive of these potential innovations in terms of how they’ll change the overall landscape he presents."
https://eriktorenberg.substack.com/p/the-world-according-to-peter-zeihan
4. "So the deeper issues in my mind are culture (which comprises of course politics) and geography (which includes diverse regional mindsets in one country). Canada does not have the market size and therefore it is - as compared to the USA - much harder to make quick and larger bets on a continuing basis. We just lack the scale.
And Canadians - at least that is what I think - have a somewhat different view of engaging with 24/7 capitalism and the need to achieve and that goes in particular for the West Coast. Balanced lifestyles with a supportive social network that includes free healthcare creates a very different work and achievement ethic. Immigration and competitive pressures are changing that, but it often seems to me that many here simply are comfortable with the pace of life and would freak out if a Bay Area work routine was imposed on them."
https://pieterdorsman.substack.com/p/canadian-tech-works-but-differently
5. Attack of the drones.
"What is more, experts say, is that the balance of power between drones and air defense systems is shaping up to be a key to global wars in the near future.
“Libya, Nagorno-Karabakh and also Syria have just showed us that if a fielded force cannot protect its airspace, then the large scale use of UAVs can make life extremely dangerous,”
6. Everyone's SaaS business decelerates at one point in time. This is a good guide on what to do when it happens.
https://www.saastr.com/what-to-do-if-your-business-decelerates/
7. "even the most successful products in a market had simple beginnings. No product arrives in the market fully fleshed out. The company behind a successful product has developed its internal capabilities and know-how about various tiny but important details over a long period of time.
On day 1, a startup simply cannot match such capabilities."
https://invertedpassion.com/all-sophisticated-solutions-start-extremely-simple/
8. Mass trauma is right but more from the incompetence & heavy handedness of most governments response to Covid than just the pandemic itself.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20210203-after-the-covid-19-pandemic-how-will-we-heal
9. Thankfully the giant of the USA is finally waking up.
"The COVID-vaccination drive provides some reassurance that America still operates on that general model — starting slow, fumbling around for a bit, falling behind, freaking out, but finally setting its shoulder to the wheel, and ultimately becoming an irresistible force. There is deep, fundamental strength remaining in this country and its institutions — we can still pull out some of the old magic when we need to."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-us-vaccine-rollout-is-world-beating
10. "The blockchain ensures that media is not owned by the platform. The artwork will live in a decentralized medium where the only source of power is defined by the original smart contract. For example, my own artwork specifies that I will get 15% of every future sale. If ten years from now “Geopolitics” is sold for $10 million, I will get $1.5 million. No one can do anything about that.
Art freed from market power, enabling creators and audiences to engage and transact on digital media directly. Imagine for a moment the social and economic revolution were the same principle to be applied to social media. Endless content, no platforms."
https://brunomacaes.substack.com/p/is-2021-the-year-of-nfts-a-question
11. "A typical early stage fund buys ~15% of ~15 assets. Each of those assets has an entry price of ~$10M, yet general partners know most of these assets are not worth $10M. After all, nobody would actually acquire the company at that price on the day the fundraising round closes.
And so each asset they hold is wrongly priced, and thus each reveals itself to be overpriced or underpriced over the long term. The winners cover the losses and the VCs’ portfolios thrive, with top funds like USV returning 30%+ IRRcash on cash on every fund."
https://thefamily.substack.com/p/the-great-divide
12. "I’m a big fan of successful long-term market investors. It’s similar in that the ones I’ve studied — Warren Buffett, Howard Marks — are big into buy and hold.
In real estate, if you find a good property, hold on to it. Same with stocks. If you find a good company, buy and hold. I’ve made mistakes in the past by selling way too early."
https://thehustle.co/keith-wasserman-q-and-a-trung-phan
13. No surprise as these are both very credible & well networked people in Silicon Valley.
14. Actually, who cares? Business school is almost completely useless these days. Unless you are a gullible tool.
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/and-the-best-business-school-is-5377130/
15. Great product here. Big fan.
16. I can't help but agree.
"The founding fathers of this nation had as their goal the establishment of a republic characterized by limited (which is to say, minimal) government and maximum personal responsibility and liberty.
Over time the concepts and institutions imagined by those great men of vision have been corrupted and bastardized almost beyond recognition. Even the most liberal politician of the late 18th century would be shocked at the nanny-state that has taken hold in this country.
A benign tyranny truly has emerged in this country, the Tyranny of Indifference. The prevailing view is that the system is what it is and little can be done to change it."
https://gentlemanmystic.com/2020/12/05/lamentation-for-a-dream/
17. "The woke left has been targeting liberals because they are the only targets remaining. Those of us on the right, by necessity, long ago made ourselves uncancelable by building or finding platforms that are not dependent on the kind of mainstream center-left liberal institutions that are now driving out the center-left liberals.
A wave of writers like Sullivan and Yglesias have begun their own newsletters on the Substack platform in search of more editorial freedom. I’m not because I already built my own equivalent, an independent, subscription-based online newsletter, all the way back in 2004."
https://www.persuasion.community/p/canceled-welcome-to-our-world
18. “We do not have full-fledged bubbles yet except in bonds, bonds everywhere are a full-fledged bubble. At the moment, if I will buy countries I would buy Japan, I would buy Russia; both are still down dramatically but lots of money is going to pour into both of them because they are cheap and likewise agriculture. I am not buying America, America is at an all time high. So, Japan, Russia, agriculture,” he said."
19. Fascinating thread on working with 2 of the greats in tech.
https://twitter.com/DanRose999/status/1362237400236257280
20. "The next wave of entrepreneurs will form and build their ideas from kitchen tables and home offices with spouses, family members or find co-founders entirely virtually. It’s hard to imagine that workers will ever resign themselves to “extreme commuting” again. Instead, we’re entering a new era where individuals have more power than institutions: the corporate era is over and anyone can start the business of their dreams.
The next decade will see new types of builders: couples who join forces, founders with an eye for good design, creative hackers who find distribution by building what's clever and niche, but not obvious for large companies."
https://wfh.substack.com/p/the-first-industrial-revolution-from
21. This is really cool. Go Jeremy.
https://www.farmers.com/learn/real-stories/rv-mobile-home-office-ideas/
22. "These three island nations have effectively defeated COVID-19 despite their urban population density, proximity to China, and robust international connectivity. Luck was clearly not on their side—but paranoia was. Robust contact tracing, strict lockdowns, enforced quarantines, isolation of vulnerable populations, and other measures were crucial to suppressing the virus in all three places."
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/17/taiwan-new-zealand-singapore-covid-islands-of-immunity
23. The Sovereign Individual is a life changing book. Some great lessons from it. Insightful thread on this.
https://twitter.com/AJA_Cortes/status/1362248973583458312
24. This is infuriating. All I can say is any racist A--hole or crook coming at me better be ready to dodge, run and hide.......
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/biz-reacts-to-asian-american-attacks-4322713/
25. "Meanwhile, crypto is unlocking a different path—what I call the Ownership Economy—a broader thesis that the next generation of internet platforms will be built, operated, and owned by users directly.
In media, NFTs—or Non-Fungible Tokens—make it possible for creators to retain ownership of their content, without limiting the propagation of their files across the internet. As a result, NFTs have the potential to invert the ownership model of media—offering creators, their audiences, and developers who build for them, a viable alternative to platform-driven monetization.
A simple way to think about NFTs are as files that live on the blockchain. This means they can't be copy-pasted, edited, deleted, or otherwise manipulated."
https://variant.mirror.xyz/T8kdtZRIgy_srXB5B06L8vBqFHYlEBcv6ae2zR6Y_eo
26. These are all top Gaming VCs for sure.
27. There is so much in here. Every startup person should read this who wants to get acquired by a big company. It's a must read. (Also describes the stupid PC-fascism that has taken hold in Silicon Valley.)
"I feel we ended up with the worst of both worlds - the challenges of a start-up (scale, access, distribution) with the constraints of a corporation (forced to use internal not-best-of-class systems, cost structure, politics, culture etc) all aggravated by the inability to quickly hire and fire."
28. "We have brainwashed entrepreneurs that raising VC money is the only way. A lot of entrepreneurs are convinced that they are fundable. Most are far from it. Entrepreneurs need to understand the startup potential. If the prospect is to become a multi-billion dollar startup, VCs are the right play. Only a large influx of money can create such values.
Now, most entrepreneurs need to realize that they are not designed to appeal to VCs investment. That is not shameful. Our economy relies on small companies."
https://pierregaubil.substack.com/p/venture-capital-is-for-the-elite
29. "But even if the product is similar today, the requirements of different segments will force you to perform the most epic of splits. Catering to large enterprises will force you to invest heavily in security, SLAs, on-premise... while catering to SMBs or B2C will push you towards slick design and easy on-boarding.
As a startup, you have limited resources: don't try to master two products at the same time! It's the story of Slack versus Discord, or Box versus Dropbox. And know what? All of those are great companies."
https://thefamily.substack.com/p/learn-to-love-your-niche
30. The man is a horrible investor. BUT, he is a great writer and this is a truly wonderful story. The importance of mentors and giving (and giving back)
https://www.profgalloway.com/cy-cordner-2
31. Clustering is a thing. Andorra becomes hotspot for European Youtubers.
32. Good observation here.
"COVID or no COVID, this blurring of boundaries will continue. More people will work from home and from places previously reserved for other activities. More offices will be located in formerly-residential areas. Home-like amenities — childcare, nap rooms, showers, gyms — will become standard in office buildings. And more people will work in more fragmented ways, within less hierarchical networks and organizations — "leveraging" their "authentic selves" to create "meaningful experiences" for a living.
We will have too many masks to wear, and we will have to switch between them much faster than before. The old physical divisions of home and office will not be able to protect us, to lighten the psychological load."
https://www.drorpoleg.com/the-future-of-work-is-unreal/
33. "Is Tanzania right, after all, to prioritize the economy? Or is Rwanda doing the right thing by putting health and safety first? Only time will tell.
But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter who’s right or who’s wrong.
So if there’s anything I can draw from this, that is we must not let this virus take control over our lives. Strict measures or not, the virus is clever enough to infiltrate the world where it wants to. And stopping everything to fight against it does not mean we’re winning, but in fact succumbing to it."
https://globalvaluehunter.com/2-african-countries-who-will-emerge-stronger/
34. "So creative entrepreneurs discovered and partnered with these trusted influencers, convinced them they had a good or service that could genuinely benefit their community. At first they hosted physical gatherings to show off a new app, or software, or mobile money platform and how it could help both individuals and their small businesses.
The sense of ownership was palpable. Such leaders weren’t “employees” of these companies, but were almost viewed in their communities as co-founders of them. Pay them a little bit but regularly, offer incentives to do more, always put the communities needs first and not only would customers join they themselves would share. And they would not switch.
So are these influencers early versions of Instagram stars? One founder told me “They are not Instagram influential, but GENUINE influential.” If they use a product or service themselves or in their own small business, others feel safe to do the same."
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/best-lessons-influencer-marketing-coming-from-africa-alert-schroeder/
35. "Today the debate is about the rise of China, the “dichotomous” impact of global value chains, and global uncertainty, which just means the explosion of new geopolitical tensions. EU trade policy — the document argues — has to take into account these global trends and challenges to reflect the political ambition of ‘a stronger Europe in the world.’"
https://brunomacaes.substack.com/p/the-european-union-has-a-new-trade
36. "As for Texas, I don’t want to see my home state become an economic backwater, shackled to the corpse of a dying fossil fuel age. Texas has several huge and highly productive cities, plenty of human resources, and weather that usually doesn’t remind people of Game of Thrones. It has succeeded in pushing its economy to diversify away from oil and gas in the past; all it needs to do is continue those efforts to their logical conclusion. The alternative — to keep trying to make hay out of unrelated disasters and leverage B.S. culture wars to try to throw up barricades in the path of new energy technologies — is a dead end. Texas can be the future, instead of fighting the future."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/texas-vs-the-future
37. San Francisco done in by local government arrogance, incompetence & apathy. Other cities like Miami, Austin & Madison more than willing to pick up the slack.
"A more dispersed tech industry seems like a net positive. Growth could be more distributed. Tech workers and founders could spend more time learning about problems in the real world. And real estate costs could keep falling in the Bay Area. So what Suarez, Adler, and Rhodes-Conway are doing is intriguing. Even if their efforts — along with those in New York, Boston, and Seattle — are imperfect. As these mayors speak directly to the tech industry’s feelings, the Bay Area seems content to let them shoot their shot. Out of the four mayors I contacted, only San Francisco Mayor London Breed declined to talk."
https://bigtechnology.substack.com/p/three-us-mayors-on-their-very-real
38. Something many governments still do not realize. But will soon.
"the point is, governments will have to compete for rich/entrepreneurial/highly productive citizens instead of the other way around.
Not everyone will be a sovereign individual, only the top few percentage points. Ultra-rich people, entrepreneurs, and knowledge workers. But these are the people creating all the wealth and who pay most of the taxes.
As a government, you now have to prove why you are worthy of humanity’s best to live in your region.
Do you have the best weather, the best regulations, the best tax structure, the most freedom, the best infrastructure – why should a free, sovereign individual live in your jurisdiction?"
https://lifemathmoney.com/there-is-no-getting-back-to-normal-a-fundamentally-different-world/
39. "I think in the future, the two combined—2008 and the pandemic—will shake people's confidence and they'll want another way out: "If things are going to get bad, I might as well enjoy my life while I can now." Living like a nomad prepares you for the worst. There's no jobs here, you can turn the key, drive away, and find a job. If the coast of Louisiana is getting hit by five hurricanes in a row or California is burning down, you can turn the key and drive away. That starts to be appealing in an extremely uncertain world."
https://www.gq.com/story/nomadland-bob-wells-interview
40. There is so much here.
" First, we are wholly unprepared for the societal implications of making most wealth and much capital entirely mobile. We have been edging in this direction for decades as software has eaten the world, as Marc Andreessen, professional baller, famously put it.
My preferred philosophical abstraction of Andreessen’s argument would be something like the following: software is productive capital for which the raw ingredients are coherent human thoughts. This has recreated the independent skilled-laborer-cum-entrepreneur as a class of economic agent whose capacity for capital creation is human, not financial."
https://allenfarrington.medium.com/bitcoin-is-venice-8414dda42070
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Why the Best & Most Accomplished People are Spikey
Success comes at the extremes. One of the lessons I’ve learned in my career is that the best individuals are spikey. They are so good at one or two things that these outweigh all their weaknesses. This was the lesson taught by the fine folks at Gallup and goes contrary to what is commonly taught in school or advice given to young adults and even in the workplace.
When I was growing up, we were taught to focus and remedy our weaknesses. So for example in school I was not particularly good (or interested) in French or chemistry but all my time was directed at trying to pass. Basically spending all our time on our shortcomings.
When I was at Yahoo!, one of my bosses Jon Schwartz made the entire team do the Gallup Clifton Strengthsfinder test which surfaced the top 5 traits you were strong in. (BTW: big recommendation to do this test if you have not.). The results were eye-opening and helped me understand why I was successful in some situations/roles, projects and companies. Also, maybe more importantly, why I was NOT so successful in others.
This completely changed my view and the trajectory of my career. Once you know what traits and skills you are strong in, you develop and double down on them. At the same time, manage your weaknesses. It’s a great filter to help you figure out which projects or roles to take on and which ones to pass on (or at least choose not to focus on if you can). Ones that play to your strengths so you can deliver amazing results every time.
This is exactly opposite to what we were taught. It could also be the reason why so many people just end up having mediocre results and average careers.
You can be a generalist of course but even the most successful generalists have one or two things that they are absolutely fantastic and top .0001% at. This is what differentiates the A players from the rest.
As the famous quote by Jerry Garcia goes:
“It's not enough to be the best at what you do. You must be perceived as the only one who does what you do.”
So Be Spikey people!
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Missionaries Versus Mercenaries
I learned this term from Randy Komisar’s classic book, “Monk & Riddle.” A tale that takes place after the first dotcom boom in the early 2000s. It’s about this MBA type guy who wants to start a business mainly for the reason that it looks lucrative. But ends up being guided by a successful entrepreneur to focus on another business opportunity that really calls to him.
“if you can't see yourself doing this business for the rest of your life, don't start it. In other words, he wants to see passion and purpose in business, not just spreadsheets and a by-the-numbers business model.”
When I read it early in my career, it was a nice story I enjoyed but did not think would be totally useful. Sort of like the “follow your passion” BS that gets thrown around for career advice. When I became an investor this actually turned out to be a great filter for investing at the early stage when selecting founders and their respective startups.
The mercenary types ended up doing startups for the sole purpose of getting rich. But when things get tough or they have the inevitable near death experience while being paid little to nothing, they quit. A very rational decision because they come to realize there are way easier ways to make money like on Wall Street, Management consulting or even a 9-5 job at Google/Facebook and its ilk. Basically they just don’t last long enough to make the startup a success.
The missionary types on the other hand, start the company because they had an itch to scratch or were deeply interested in the space or solving the problem. This propels them when times are tough and allows them to push through the inevitable challenges that come up in the life of a startup.
Enthusiasm cannot be faked. Most professional investors can see through this. Yes, business models and money are important. But if you look at most of the billionaires or super successful tech entrepreneurs, it’s their excitement and interest that carries them through the hard times. The mission itself, especially when it’s a big problem they are solving for many people. In many ways, it was the oblique approach to wealth.
As Viktor Frankl wrote:
“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”
Why does this matter? It is incredibly painful to will and work a startup into creation. Many near death experiences, the stress of making payroll, customers bailing last minute, key hires quitting. It takes 2-3 years at minimum for most startups to get to Product Market Fit. Then the extreme challenges of scaling your business.
We also know for most startups, any big exit either through going public or an acquisition takes a lot of time. About 9-12 years actually, looking at all the giant tech cos that have emerged. If you are only in this for the money, I just don’t think you will make it. Also that is just a painful existence in general and an almost total waste of your time.
So, for founders out there, make sure you are working on something that matters personally for you. Build a startup that is authentic to yourself and aligns with your mission. Then you might have a chance to raise VC money (assuming that is what you want! :)
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads February 14th, 2021
"Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence."--Helen Keller
This is a great description of what is happening in VC in Silicon Valley right now. Its cray cray to say the least.
https://twitter.com/semil/status/1357915903170551815/photo/1
2. "Slootman likes to say that he doesn’t have a formula, even after having pulled off similar magic at both Data Domain and ServiceNow. Talk to him at length, though, and watch the patterns, and you can see that’s not true. The former sailor runs pre-IPO companies like a tightly rigged high-performance watercraft, a captain with extreme confidence who will throw overboard anyone who shows the mildest mutinous inclination.
“When I was a younger man, I was more tolerant; I always thought I could coach people to a place where they would be great,” Slootman says. “And 99 times out of 100, you’re wrong on that, which is the reason I [now] pull triggers much faster. I still don’t think I’ve ever taken anybody out of a job too soon. It’s [always] been too late.
“I exercise executive prerogative,” he adds. “I don’t have to justify it, I don’t have to convince you. I just have to know that this is what I want to do. And the reason is, CEOs are only there for one reason, and that is they need to win. When you win, nobody can hurt you. And when you lose, nobody can help you.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2021/02/01/the-outsider/?sh=7dc89e2f702d
3. A very good primer on short selling. Or Short selling for dummies.
https://thehustle.co/what-does-it-mean-to-short-a-stock/
4. This is pretty damn funny!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/feb/09/texas-lawyer-zoom-cat-filter-kitten
5. For those still trying to understand DeFi like me.
"What is DeFi Again? Pretty simple, you put up a crypto currency as collateral (BTC or ETH for example) and take a loan against this collateral. That loan comes with an interest rate. The person giving the loan is protected by the assets you put up for collateral (BTC or ETH), so if the prices drop and the loan is not repaid the BTC/ETH is sent to your address. We’ve simplified this quite a bit but it is an easy way to think about it. It is similar to you giving a pawn shop $10,000 worth of gold and taking a loan out from them. If you don’t pay back the loan they keep the gold at a certain agreed upon threshold."
https://wallstreetplayboys.com/digital-scarcity-and-finance/
6. Food for thought here. To be clear, I hate this guys politics but sometimes a broken clock is right. I enjoy his commentary in the translation of the write up. Net Net: Lockdowns do not work.
https://didacticmind.com/2021/02/guest-post-living-with-covid-by-the-male-brain.html
7. "In general, all of these uses can be grouped under a single umbrella concept: System failure. The system of governments, banks, financial regulations, etc. etc. that currently runs the world is not infinitely robust. In the places and times and future conditions in which that system fails, peer-to-peer financial solutions like Bitcoin are inherently very valuable. That gives Bitcoin fundamental value."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/triumph-of-the-hodlers
8. Bullish on the African startup market. This VC fund makes sense.
9. Very observant view of San Francisco.
"This is a city that’s perpetually on edge. I lived in NYC for a year, and even though people didn’t say hi it was much friendlier. Maybe it’s the high rents weighing on San Franciscans’ minds, or the constant sights of homelessness and poverty. But I think it also has to do with the fact that SF is a strangely balkanized city.
San Francisco is functionally divided into a set of groups that, as far as I can tell, rarely talk to each other."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/nobody-says-hi-in-san-francisco
10. Cancel culture is getting out of hand. I don't agree with many of the alt-right but definitely do not agree with alt-left either. Woke Mob SJWs are a brainless cancer on society.
Whatever happened to freedom of speech? This is a dangerous path that western culture is moving down. (and away from what made it great).
https://mailchi.mp/40fae2d25e90/never-back-down?e=32cdd9e5ec
11. Good solid tips for sales growth.
"Be where your customers are - even if they don’t expect it
Even if you’re taking a bottom-up approach, you’ll need outbound sales when you reach a certain scale. In the early days, however, generating inbound leads increases velocity significantly & in sales, velocity is key."
https://thefamily.substack.com/p/scrappy-tactics-for-non-us-founders
12. "The missing ingredient in the purposeful work recipe is curiosity.
Let’s make learning for its own sake more important than passion. That’s how you fall in love with someone. There’s just something about the other person that makes you have to know more. That’s how it is with work. Let curiosity about the subject matter carry you."
https://edlatimore.com/do-what-makes-you-happy/
13. Interesting theory here. I guess we will see.
"In other words, the edifice of Reaganism, so robust and vigorous in the 80s, had become increasingly decrepit over the decades, and COVID gave it the push it finally needed to topple over. Now Biden is the one who has to come up with the next big thing, simply because that is what America requires right now. His own history of moderation may not even matter; he’s surrounded by advisors and allies who understand the need for a transformational push toward bigger and less conditional cash handouts, increased government investment, and a greater focus on the environment and racial equality. This new approach may come to be called Bidenism, but it was developed by a huge array of thinkers and leaders.
So Skowronek might be proven right after all. Biden may change America simply because it’s time."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/is-biden-the-reagan-of-the-left
14. This is actually a good Tweet thread & rundown of the Gamestop saga.
https://mobile.twitter.com/SahilBloom/status/1354436658129563650
15. The wonders of technology. How emerging fund managers can leverage tech to compete against the big VCs.
"How can emerging managers compete? They have limited budgets even for key professional services. They can’t delegate. So they must automate. By leveraging process automation and data strategy, emerging managers can claw back their time and cognitive space and earn the returns they deserve for themselves and their LPs."
https://automatter.substack.com/p/automating-the-andreessen-analyst
16. The emerging science & study of mycology. Mushrooms could actually be the savior of civilization from a biotech, medical and mental health perspective.
17. Important read as we are going into uncharted macroeconomic territory.
"Maybe the only way to find out where the invisible pit lies is to just keep walking down the corridor, so that future economists can dissect our experience and draw lessons from it.
But maybe not. If there is any helpful insight to be gleaned from the data — any scrap of information as to where the invisible pit lies — then macroeconomists should be scouring the records in search of it.
And in the meantime, if someone asks you “How much can the government borrow safely?”, just remember that the correct, canonical, scientific answer is “NO ONE KNOWS, HAHAHAHAHAHA”, followed by a strange, herky-jerky little dance representing the inherent chaos and ineffability of this mad world."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/no-one-knows-how-much-the-government
18. Miami definitely positioning itself as the most forward thinking American city (in painful contrast to San Francisco, talk about a squandered edge).
https://pomp.substack.com/p/miami-becomes-the-first-bitcoin-municipality
19. A good dissection on the phenomenon that is Clubhouse.
"If it feels like there’s a gold rush of sorts to be an early adopter, it’s because we’ve all been through this cycle and understand the advantages of being early to a new medium and amassing a sizable following. We’ve seen it with TikTok, where the D’Amelio family is wisely parlaying its short-form fame into lucrative multimedia deals.
We’ve seen it with Twitter, where folks who inexplicably have hundreds of thousands of followers get three likes and a retweet on most posts yet are able to command serious fees for sponsored content. And we’ve seen it on every other platform where the number of followers/subscribers/friends is used as cachet and a proxy for one’s influence"
https://sparrowone.substack.com/p/clubhouse-and-the-new-platform-generation
20. Forget sales at your own risk.
"Yet many entrepreneurs keep saying: “We’re focusing on the product first. We’ll hire a salesperson soon.” And that’s why they are raising funds: to pay marketing and sales. That’s also why they struggle to get good term sheets."
https://thefamily.substack.com/p/always-be-closing-on-zoom
21. "Quite literally, we are watching politicians and central bankers destroy the wealth of a large percentage of the population. They are forcing families into nearly impossible scenarios. Take middle income families as an example — their share of the aggregate US income has fallen nearly 33% in the last 50 years, while the richest Americans have increased their share by over 50%.
The rich are getting richer and the US government is helping them do it. Once you realize this, you have two choices. You can sit around and complain about how it is unfair, or you can decide to take personal responsibility and make sure you benefit from the structural trends that are at play. Remember, the system is working exactly as it is designed.
This means that you have to invest. You can’t sit with majority of your wealth in dollars anymore."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/the-dollar-supply-is-growing-fast
22. One of the most important yet misunderstood metrics. BTW: this is an iterative process you improve over time and with more data.
"The rule of thumb in ecommerce is that customers need to be unit profitable after a single purchase (this high bar is a driver behind the popularity of subscription ecommerce). If average order price is $100, average cost of goods sold is $60, then you have $40 of margin to play with for CAC."
https://alexoppenheimer.substack.com/p/unit-economics-fundamentals
23. This is incredibly useful for those new to sales management.
"Once an AE hits quota in a quarter, their commission rate should increase to 15% on incremental sales. This “accelerator” incentivizes the best AEs to keep pushing past their target, instead of slowing down at a perceived finish line.
For new AEs, the industry-standard time to hit productivity is 4 months, but this can be longer or shorter depending on how long it takes to learn the product and develop a pipeline. Most sales orgs set a ramping schedule, during which time new AEs have a lower quota and higher guaranteed comp (known as a “draw”) to make up for lack of commission."
https://sacks.substack.com/p/simple-math-to-set-up-a-sales-team
24. "Let’s talk about status in the technology world momentarily. You rarely see your boss with a Rolex like you would in investment banking or hedge funds. Angel investing is the tech industry’s status symbol.
But more than that, many of the people quoted in this article cited networking, education, growth, interest, and most importantly, they believed in the founder, as reasons they wrote their checks."
https://fintechtoday.substack.com/p/fttea-with-cokie-so-you-wanna-angel
25. "So, the economic incentive for increasing fund size is pretty astronomical. And if an investor has success with a smaller fund, it’s only natural that he or she will convince themselves that they’d be equally good investing a larger and larger fund. So it’s not surprising that quite a few of the seed funds that began in the first half of the past decade now raise funds that are hundreds of millions of dollars in size or more. They still claim to do seed, but really, they just moved upsteam because they believed they could be similarly successful and the economic incentive is great.
This is why I’m so impressed by GPs that have had amazing success, but have kept their fund sizes at a fraction of what they could raise."
26. The history of Venture capital goes back longer than people think. To the barbaric Whaling industry. Also good discussion on the emerging startup & VC scene in Africa & other developing markets.
"Like whaling, technology entrepreneurship ordinarily shouldn’t work. Founders shouldn’t forgo stable incomes at large corporations for the uncertainty of a new/risky venture; developers and other team members shouldn’t stake their most productive years working for companies that may not exist in less than a decade. But people start or join startups for the same reason crews go on whaling expeditions - a little madness, some excitement, and a tiny chance at a massive return[1].
Crucially, in startups, like in whaling, most ventures do not actually deliver these expected profits. Venture Capitalists famously say that their returns follow a “power law distribution” i.e., that the vast majority of returns are generated by a small number of firms, and that the majority of each firm’s returns are generated by a small number of companies."
https://www.thesubtext.io/the-chicken-or-the-exit
27."We continue to believe the Bay Area will be an important ecosystem for venture capital and technology. But, echoing Fred Wilson’s argument, the pandemic has clearly catalyzed a growing comfort in making investments remotely, leading to a widening in geographic scope for many venture investors."
"Across Sapphire Partners’ entire portfolio of over 2,000 underlying companies, the top five companies represent 15% of our total value and the top two companies represent 11%."
28. Way more true than ever.
"If you look, I think you’ll find that wherever information is exchanged – wherever there are products, companies, careers, politics, knowledge, education, and culture – you will find that the best story wins. Great ideas explained poorly can go nowhere while old or wrong ideas told compellingly can ignite a revolution. Morgan Freeman can narrate a grocery list and bring people to tears, while an inarticulate scientist might cure disease and go unnoticed."
https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/story/
29. Go Taiwan! The place to be in 2021!
https://focustaiwan.tw/business/202102120001
30. Rebuttal to the recent hit piece on Silicon Valley from NY Times.
Title says it all as SF Bay is hardcore left leaning. NY Times gets it wrong....again.
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/silicon-valley-isnt-full-of-fascists
31. One of the most important scientific discoveries ever. Huge ramifications for human civilization.
"The ability to code messenger RNA to do our bidding will transform medicine. As with the COVID vaccines, we can instruct mRNA to cause our cells to make antigens—molecules that stimulate our immune system—that could protect us against many viruses, bacteria, or other pathogens that cause infectious disease. In addition, mRNA could in the future be used, as BioNTech and Moderna are pioneering, to fight cancer. Harnessing a process called immunotherapy, the mRNA can be coded to produce molecules that will cause the body’s immune system to identify and kill cancer cells."
https://time-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/time.com/5927342/mrna-covid-vaccine/
32. Good rundown and commentary on EU tech scene!
"One year later and 400 SPAC IPOs already executed in the US since last summer, Europe finally wakes up and smells the coffee. Because that is what innovators do. :D
Idly wondering when the EU heads will chime in saying that it is anti-something and needs regulation."
https://sundaycet.substack.com/p/smell-the-coffee
33. "Those names, viewed as top-tier public market investors, are becoming familiar to SPACs, with at least one of them showing up in the PIPE for SoFi, Matterport, Opendoor and consumer genetics company 23andMe.
For companies that can attract investors of that caliber, and have sponsors they trust to stick with them through the ups and downs of the journey, a SPAC can be the most efficient way to raise money. Large private rounds typically require hefty dilution, while IPOs often come with a discount of 50% to 100% for new investors."
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/13/spacs-long-shunned-in-silicon-valley-going-mainstream-in-tech.html
34. Pretty inspirational to say the least.
"As she grew up, Qasim began to understand that there would be biases, judgements, and taboos that would come with all that she wanted to accomplish. Even though she understood, she refused to passively comply with a system designed to keep her trapped."
https://theprofile.substack.com/p/sidra-qasim
35. Bitcoin mining for dummies. Timely now that a BTC has hit 49k usd!
https://thehustle.co/how-are-bitcoin-created/
36. "Cryptocurrency offered a means of circumventing the volatility of the local economy, and the members of Voltaire House were early adopters. They believed that Bitcoin would enable them to build a future that didn’t depend on decaying institutions. Two decades later, with the value of the peso plummeting and Bitcoin trading in Argentina soaring to historic highs, this kind of thinking has emerged again.
Blockchain evangelists have long touted its revolutionary power to disrupt global economic models and supplant central authorities. While this seems unlikely in countries with stable monetary institutions like the United States, Argentina is in certain respects an ideal test case. Ultimately, however, Voltaire House offered a very different lesson about the cryptocurrency’s transformative power."
https://restofworld.org/2021/rise-and-fall-of-the-house-of-bitcoin/
37. "The 2010s saw the rise of the aggregators, who profited by creating bottlenecks on consumer access.
The 2020s will see the rise of the infrastructures - the as-a-service ‘shovels’ that capture most of the profits while the rest of the economy scrambles for gold."
https://platforms.substack.com/p/from-shopify-to-unity-the-picks-and
38. This man is living his dream! He made enough $$ to go to space!
“One of the best times at a start-up is when you’ve got the eight people in the basement eating Chinese food and everybody kind of shares knowledge, and you share in your successes and failures together, and you learn together,” he says."
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/07/billionaire-high-school-dropout-is-leading-spacex-mission.html
39. Lessons from Chef Jose Andres World Central Kitchen.
"Success comes not from depending on a particular innovative solution that worked in the past but rather from depending on the spirit of situational awareness and timely responsiveness that generated the solution in the first place. And even greater success comes from designing for the success of others in the ecosystem, knowing that the greater the resilience of the ecosystem the greater the resilience of the individual members of it."
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Laid, Made or Paid: The Drivers of Consumer Product Adoption
Yes, the title might seem crass but I find that most successful technology startups echo, enable or enhance what we do in the real world. So for one example as stated by one of the best observers of the consumer tech market, Turner Novak, the best social networks enable in the digital world, behavior that happens offline. Every major successful consumer product follows this.
To further explain these terms, these products help people
get access to sexual partners (or the chance of it) ie. Laid
look good/prestigious ie. Made
make them money ie. Paid.
Here are some live examples. Dating (Tinder:Laid), tracking and updating friends (Facebook: Made), showing off (Instagram: Made & Paid), changes in work & professional life (Linkedin: Made & Paid), showing off wit and knowledge (Twitter: Made).
They basically tap into the deep and core evolutionary biology drivers of most human beings. The more it is enabled by your product, the more sticky and successful your product will be. This is why investors care so much about usage and retention numbers. Basically, how often people are coming back, using and staying on your product.
Once you have good usage and retention numbers at a fairly large scale, it becomes much easier to figure out monetization. Assuming you have done a good job understanding your customers and tracking their usage and behavior, you can figure out the business model that aligns with the core behavior. So for example is it through advertising like with most social media? Do you charge a subscription for general access or premium access. Do you charge for extra features? Or charge for leads? Or perhaps a percentage of the transaction that may be enabled? So many different options to explore and this is the fun part.
So for all consumer startup founders, ask yourself: how is your product helping your customers get laid, paid or made??
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Engineering Outcomes: How Silicon Valley is becoming more like Wall Street (in a good way)
Quoting the brilliant Silicon Valley operator David Sacks: Activist Funds & Hedge funds, especially the short sellers are the “apex predators of Wall Street, they hire PR people, they hire Private investigators, they go on message boards. They try to destroy companies to engineer outcomes.” These outcomes are immense profits, literally in the billions of dollars. For a taste of this, just watch one of my favorite shows also called “Billions”, it’s vicious yet fascinating stuff.
Activist Hedge funds & short sellers on Wall Street have been doing this for a long time with public companies because it’s become so competitive with multitudes of equally skilled financial operators running against each other. This really started happening in the 1990s.
There is now wider recognition in the world about the importance of Innovation and Technology. It’s very clear this is where the action and the future is. The result is that Silicon Valley’s landscape is now becoming more like Wall Street with the immense amounts of money coming in from hedge funds, private equity firms and Family offices as well as an explosion of new emerging fund managers. It is getting crazy competitive to get into the best deals. The reason is the supply of money is in excess of top founders, who now have their pick of who they let into their round.
The result is the game has changed for venture capital funds. Venture firms have to differentiate themselves from the pack and as normal, I see Andressen Horowitz (A16Z) leading the charge here.
Example Number 1 is their investment into Clubhouse.
A16z was instrumental in helping the team take it to now over 5M users in less than a year's time. Clubhouse only launched in April of 2020. The top leaders of the firm literally do shows on Clubhouse and leverage their network of celebrities and top Silicon Valley icons to use the product. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg for instance the week of February 1st in 2021 alone. This drove considerable interest from people across the globe.
Supporting points here:
https://mobile.twitter.com/dflieb/status/1356291258159820800
Here:
https://mobile.twitter.com/petergyang/status/1357452412647137283
Here:
https://twitter.com/austin_rief/status/1356431170154754055
And here:
https://twitter.com/sarthakgh/status/1359319400168517642
Example Number 2, A16Z is building out of their media arm. They literally are becoming a major media player as detailed out by Eric Newcomer:
The Unauthorized Story of Andreessen Horowitz
“While there’s a lot of loose talk on Twitter about cutting out the media and “going direct” – publishing your own story to the world without the press as an intermediary – Andreessen Horowitz is really doing it, consciously and methodically. The firm’s strategy has dramatic implications for the future of media and the venture capital industry.”
No surprise that when the media has turned very anti-tech (Although i also understand why due to the sometimes naivety, the blinding arrogance and insularity of Silicon Valley but that is another post), it does make sense to be able to tell your own story directly without it being twisted against you. But beyond this, I see this as a new way to add value to their portfolio companies. In other words, providing the distribution per se that startups really need to get their products in the hands of customers. The ranks of the General Partnership are filled with distribution experts like my friend Andrew Chen most notably on the consumer side. This very smart strategy is just an extension of this as per Newcomers write up:
“Today, roughly 10% of the 200-person firm works on its marketing team. The company is expanding its editorial operation.
Talk to anyone around the firm and Chokshi’s in-house media strategy is the future of the firm. One communications person remarked to me, “They've become a media company basically.”
The future of VC differentiation is you are either a personal Brand (Elad Gil, Lachey Groom & other noted Solo Capitalists) or Distribution (A16Z) or even better be BOTH.
Chamath is doing the same thing with later stage growth companies and his SPACs.
Besides financing the companies like OpenDoor, Metromile, Clover Health or Virgin Galactic He uses his extensive Twitter following to share his one page write ups on his investment and goes on CNBC to talk about his companies.
This is in stark difference compared to traditional Venture Capitalists approach of advising, introductions & influence and the taking board seats as steering mechanisms. I’m not saying this isn’t helpful as I do think that it is. But I also think if founders have a choice, it’s very clear who they will go with. Someone who will help them achieve their goals with real distribution and active true hands on help. Look at the early results of Clubhouse. I don’t know any VC firm right now in Silicon Valley that has the capabilities, the network + the will to do as much as A16Z is doing to help build their portfolio founder’s business.
Activist VCs are the future. While the top tier VC players like Benchmark, Sequoia and Founders Fund, 8VC & Emergence Capital will be fine, I suspect that many of the other more traditional Venture firms will not be able to compete. They will fall by the wayside in the increasing frenzy of Silicon Valley.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads February 7th, 2021
“Character, in the long run, is the decisive factor in the life of an individual and of nations alike”--Theodore Roosevelt
This is quite the inspiring story.
"This act landed the teen a potential life sentence — and he eventually served 8 years in a Virginia state prison.
During that time, Bullock decided to turn his life around.
Today, he is the founder and CEO of Flikshop, an app that allows anyone to send a personalized postcard photo or message to any incarcerated person in the United States."
2. "Tyler Blevins — Ninja, to video-game fans — is the closest thing gaming has to a crossover mainstream star. Largely on the back of his skills playing Fortnite, as well as his puckish commentary while he plays, the 29-year-old has amassed 16.5 million followers on Twitch, 14.4 million on Instagram, 6.5 million on Twitter, 24 million subscribers on YouTube and gobs of money. (He has said he makes $500,000 a month from streaming...) All that, and Blevins is wondering what’s next, or least how to achieve more while spending less time at his desk."
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/01/25/magazine/ninja-interview.html
3. A great explanation of the ongoing GameStop saga. I hope this is the new paradigm. Power to the people I say.
"It is clear that there is a sect of WallStreetBets who either previously or currently work in the financial sector who are fed up with increasing inequality, are tired of watching giant corporations repeatedly fuck over ordinary people, and are explaining how it all works to huge groups of people."
"WallStreetBets says this is a new paradigm where the masses have the power and hedge funds are scared."
4. Impressive lady.
"That thick skin, that ability to let the tough times roll off her and move on, is a skill she’s been developing since childhood. It’s a lesson her father taught her. “Adapting was something I learned very early on because my parents moved so much. Every two years, we were in a different city,” she says."
https://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity/a35227478/priyanka-chopra-jonas-interview-2021/
5. This looks really trippy and intriguing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCv8Wd0PLZI
6. "Gill, who until recently had a day job for a life insurance company, is the force that fueled the GameStop roller coaster that thrust hedge funds billions of dollars into the red and bloated a flailing video game company, destined for Blockbuster infamy, well beyond its actual value."
https://nypost.com/2021/01/29/meet-the-redditor-who-led-the-gamestop-stock-market-frenzy/
7. Great observation on the GameStop situation. I suspect he is right. People are just tired of being "up in arms." GameStop is Revolution lite.
"But the really interesting thing here is the spectacle of a bunch of people rushing to try to lift the banner of the GameStoppers as a populist cause. After seven years of protest, unrest, Trump, terrorism, Nazis, pandemic, and insurrection, it gives me a profound feeling of relief to see people getting riled up over something so utterly, hilariously inconsequential to the future of the nation.
Which makes me wonder. If America’s populists are running around trying to feed off the energy of anything that smells vaguely like revolution, does that mean that their usual food supply is shrinking? After those seven long years, is a growing chunk of the American populace simply tired of being up in arms about things?"
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/gamestopulism
8. This is immensely frightening. How Covid multiplies & the issues "Weak States" are facing: leading to major political destabilization.
https://www.epsilontheory.com/the-zimbabwe-event-2/
9. The Visa deal falling apart is going to be a godsend to Plaid.
"After news of the Visa deal's breakdown emerged, I noted that I believed Plaid was a "minimum $20B business in today's market, with a shot to become a +$100B one." Given the company has countenanced private financing valuing the company at $15 billion, and investors have waved off secondary sales at 4x the Visa price, it seems others may agree.
Plaid's success doesn't hinge on its ability to make this end run. Even without touching payments, Perret can steward the business to an outcome an order of magnitude larger than that offered by Visa. But the blueprint is there. By expanding geographically, Plaid grows its network of banks, further insinuating itself into the financial system's heart."
https://www.readthegeneralist.com/briefing/plaid
10. This thread is gold for startup founders. Thank u Hiten!
https://twitter.com/hnshah/status/1322952634454568960
11. Madeira: this place looks magical. Putting it on list.
https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/madeira-portugal-digital-nomads/index.html
12. It's sad that this all needs to be said. While the woke movement started with good intentions, it has gone too far toward cancel culture. This is a good call to action to stand against this stupidity and garbage happening online and offline.
https://nypost.com/2021/01/31/10-ways-to-fight-back-against-woke-culture/
13. "I put my faith in WallStreetBets. I put my faith in Bitcoin. I put my faith in Elon Musk and Dave Portnoy, and in all Americans who understand that what was wrong with Donald Trump is the same thing that is wrong with Joe Biden, except seen through the other end of the lens. What will make change possible are the same technologies that led us into this mess—this time, putting privacy and freedom first. The New Americans will build the New America.
The American creed is as true as it always was: The system is rotten, because the foundations on which it was built are rotten. Let’s build something new."
14. Big news today at Amazon. Of note: 4 out of big 5 tech cos run by successors.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/02/jeff-bezos-will-no-longer-be-ceo-of-amazon-as-of-later-this-year/
15. This is why immigration is critical to the USA & why the anti-immigrant of recent years is so short sighted and STUPID.
"Instead of squeezing out home-grown science heroes, skilled immigrants complement them. Because innovation takes a village, the more foreign innovators we get, the more innovating our home-grown folks are able to get done.
Also, the more they will be inspired to become innovators in the first place."
"So basically, everything we know about innovation suggests that it takes a village. And the United States has two choices: Either be that village, or don’t be that village.
I want us to be that village."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/innovation-it-takes-a-village
16. There is a lot here. Travel space, a solo capitalist who literally wrote the book on high growth startups leading a big round, investing where others do not dare.
“I thought it was wise to invest while things still looked tough for travel, because it would be much more expensive to invest when things come rushing back,” said Gil, who lives in San Francisco. “Business travel is not going to go away.”
17. "Another macrotrend at play is that of the increasing distribution of talent beyond traditional metropolitan strongholds like San Francisco and New York. Entrepreneurs, technologists and operational talent are lifestyle-seeking at a time in history when life feels all the more precious. Moving to cities like Nashville, Austin, Atlanta, Denver, Durham, Miami, et. al. means proximity to aging family members, affordable childcare and outdoor activities.
These simple pleasures were the tradeoffs people made when “pursuing their dreams” in coastal cities, picking up to move in pursuit of money (sometimes better weather). Seemingly overnight, capital abounds in the private markets just as talent becomes increasingly scarce and therefore valuable."
https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/02/vc-meets-the-land-of-opportunity/
18. This was a great interview done by Patrick and Chamath is insightful as always.
https://joincolossus.com/episodes/33654465/palihapitiya-the-major-problems-facing-the-world
19. Yah! Congrats Joanne Chen.
"Asked how she deals with competition for many of these deals, Chen says she moves fast when there’s a decision to be made. She engages with VPs of engineering and technical founders who share ideas through Slack communities and elsewhere. She also notes that Foundation provides capital to roughly 30 operators who write angel checks and help steer the firm’s attention to interesting deals.
Mostly, suggests Chen, she focuses on whatever is not landing in her inbox — a lesson learned in part from Gould years ago.
It’s easy to believe. As Gould once told this editor of the advice she gives to other VCs: “It not the calls you take. It’s the calls you make. Everyone is calling you with dumb startup ideas, and you can stay hugely busy sorting through that crap. My advice instead is to figure out who are the 10 to 20 smartest people you know and call them. One of them is always starting a company.”
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/26/joanne-chen/
20. "Jeff Bezos isn’t going anywhere.
Just because he’s no longer going to be the CEO of Amazon doesn’t mean he will fade as a protagonist in American life. That’s because, unlike many leaders in Corporate America, Bezos’s public profile far outstrips his role as leader of Amazon. Even if he isn’t the CEO — or maybe because he isn’t the CEO — Bezos will remain one of America’s most famous business leaders, wielding power in politics, philanthropy, and media."
https://www.vox.com/recode/22263248/jeff-bezos-second-act-philanthropy-blue-origin-washington-post
21. "Squinting back through the years, it’s hard to see the dorky guy who started Amazon in the ’90s. It’s almost as though that guy retreated into an office in Seattle sometime around Y2K and emerged a decade later with a chiseled physique, a network of mansions presumably filled with Hollywood stars, and a plan to fly tourists to the moon. And he was still running Amazon!"
https://www.vox.com/recode/22263141/jeff-bezos-steps-down-ceo-amazon-history
22. A great call to action for the tech and startup industry.
"Our world of technology can, should, and must play a major role in shaping a better and more equal future. And while some ideas will require government and policy to implement, there are others that we can get going on today, and are best suited to entrepreneurship."
https://nbt.substack.com/p/a-widening-gap
23. Neat new VC Fund started by some solid experienced operators. Scribble Ventures.
24. This is a very exciting development. Carta is one of my top picks as the next major Decacorn.
25. Quite the thread on how Clubhouse is growing like a weed. The power of FOMO.
https://mobile.twitter.com/petergyang/status/1357452412647137283
26. This is a worthwhile read to understand the coming conflict between the government and the crypto world.
"This is a tale of new money versus old, financial whiz kids upstaging banking’s old guard, and American authorities attempting to apply 20th-century laws to 21st-century innovation. Prosecutors allege that Hayes and his business partners violated the Bank Secrecy Act by failing to implement and maintain an adequate anti-money-laundering program—to weed out bad actors and dirty money.
Meanwhile, Hayes’s colleagues in the cryptocurrency world believe he is being punished for building an ingenious product that has baffled lawmakers, bedeviled regulators, and—once it became wildly popular—posed a threat to some of the markets’ biggest players. Adding to the chorus of voices are some high-powered legal experts who consider the case United States of America v. Arthur Hayes to be largely unprecedented."
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/02/the-rise-and-fall-of-bitcoin-billionaire-arthur-hayes
27. This is a strong case for Crypto India. A long but worthwhile read. Hope Indian leadership pays attention.
"This is true for India as well. Unlike the dollar or yuan, the digital rupee is not a candidate to become the reserve currency of the world. Thus, while India can be in charge of the digital rupee domestically, internationally it would prefer that no one be in charge – least of all the increasingly unpredictable US orChina.
And that equates to a preference for the use of cryptocurrency in international finance. Indeed, every sovereign that isn't the US or China will likely eventually align behind crypto for international trade because it's an acceptable second choice, a platform where you can't be deplatformed."
https://balajis.com/why-india-should-buy-bitcoin/
28. Normally not a fan of these celebrity lead investment funds, but this one seems to make sense.
29. Interesting discussion on happiness.
https://www.gq.com/story/the-happiness-project
30. "This shift is really where community capitalism starts to take off. The investors, founders, employees, workers and users are now going to be owners. These kinds of things were simply not possible before Ethereum. A blockchain is a really great accounting mechanism for the Internet. Ethereum’s ERC-20 token standard has become the default way to express value in new kinds of systems. With this digital backbone, we are now able to include communities of people in the creation and distribution of digital capital.
Every month, a bunch of new ways to earn tokens pops up: mining, staking, liquidating, curating, slashing, contributing, securing, managing. Protocols are rewarding the participants with a share of the capital—communities of people are owning crypto-equity alongside the founders, investors, and team."
https://ricburton.substack.com/p/community-capitalism
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
There are many different paths to building a business (aka startup)
Unfortunately there is way too much hype about VC-funding and Unicorns. It’s complete crap.
I also have issues with DHH & the Basecamp view that bootstrapping businesses is the only way. Both are extremist views which seem TOO prevalent these days.
I have this conversation all the time with founders. Everything depends on what their life goals are and what type of business model they are building (see Post on 4 VC Fundable Biz Models Venture Fundable Businesses). You don’t have to create a multi billion dollar Unicorn company if you don’t want to. There is nothing wrong with building a business that churns out cash flow and provides a good living for yourself and your family. (Aka “Launchpad Biz” The “Launchpad” Business Concept).
There is such a tremendous amount of context and every founder’s situation is really different. Yet it’s so easy to get caught up in the media hype and celebration of unicorn/decacorn wins.
As I wrote before, founders should remember why they started. I think if they do, they will remember that most of the time it was either through curiosity or an intense itch to fix something. For others, it was an intense need for autonomy and freedom in being one's own boss. Or in some cases “lack of options” as my friend Steli Efti would say.
In fact, i think one of the main lessons of 2020 is that everyone needs to build out some kind of business on the side. One of my favorite Gurus Ed Latimore wrote:
Covid has exposed, more so in the United States than many other parts of the world, how much your value is based on the utility you provide.
I don't expect everyone to become a digital entrepreneur, but basic knowledge of how to monetize your skills and abilities, both online and in person, will go a long way in preparation for the future. Colleges and universities won't help. In fact, this year they have taken in millions of dollars from people who still think the old world is coming back and then--at the last minute--pulled a bait and switch and put all the classes online. This change, in effect, is no different than you paying $50k a year to learn from YouTube.
No one is coming to save you. If you doubted that before this year, I bet you don't anymore.
You only have one life and as time is fleeting, why would you build a business that is not authentic to yourself. Building a business is not always fun, and heck of alot of work. But the whole point of it is, that at least you should enjoy (most of) the process of building your startup. It’s the best game on the planet if you do so.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
How Do I Recruit Great Talent for my Startup: When I can’t pay the same as (Insert “Big Rich Tech Giant”) here
I hear this question all the time from my founders. My answer is you can’t beat them on salary or with your “at present somewhat worthless” equity. Especially when the big tech cos or well funded later stage startups can beat you 3-10X whatever u can offer pay & benefits package wise.
But what you can beat them on is the offer of ownership, responsibility and mission. Your job as founder is to sell the adventure & excitement that your startup represents. You are giving them the opportunity to join you on a “Grand Expedition.”
You are also selling learning. The ability to touch different parts of the business and have influence on where the company goes. Everything that happens at an early stage startup really matters. Contrast this with a big company. I remember when i was at Yahoo!, making the company an extra few million dollars a quarter. As awesome as it is, really did not really matter to a company making over $1 Billion dollars a quarter.
You are ultimately selling IMPACT.
And if you do a great job, the opportunity to maybe make some money. It is that simple.
If they are not interested and prefer to take the money and relative safety of a Big Tech Co job, then your startup (or any startup frankly) probably is not a fit for them. Better to find out NOW than 3 or 6 months down the road. Move on to the next candidate who has the appropriate risk profile and more into you!
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads January 31st, 2021
“There is no “I” in Team, but there is in “Win”-- Michael Jordan
This is very crazy and I kind of really want one now! Or at least to learn more.
"An endangered species in the wild, the Asian arowana is illegal to import, sell, and, in most cases, own in the US.
Every now and again, tales like Lee’s will surface in the news, shedding light on a bizarro black market.
But elsewhere in the world, the fish is a highly coveted (and perfectly legal) luxury good. They’re prized by Yakuza gang members in Japan, business magnates in China, and superfish collectors in Europe — and a single prime specimen can cost more than a Ferrari."
https://thehustle.co/2021/01/23/asian-arowana-most-expensive-fish/
2. What a story on Stoned Pizza. The Pot infused pizza pusher. So worth a read.
https://www.grubstreet.com/article/pizza-pusha-chris-barrett-pot-legalization.html
3. Romania is definitely one of the standouts in the Central & Eastern Europe tech scene. Very big fan of the startups coming from there. Also VERY maximum bullish here and can't wait to return there in person when we can.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/23/8-investors-tell-us-the-story-behind-the-romanian-startup-boom/
4. This seems like a great description of the Silicon Valley bubble or really any cultural bubble. Lots of good insight here.
"Language is the fundamental reinforcement mechanism of why arbitrarily constructed environments eventually turn you into Michael Scott. The more you have committed to being seen as interesting within your particular area, the more you detach from reality and move into a construct of your own creation. As this evolution takes place, more of your and your peers’ language will become Posturetalk, and more of the language that gets spoken to you by outsiders will become Babytalk.
As more of the language surrounding you becomes Posturetalk and Babytalk, the more conclusively you will double down on being “serious” about whatever you’re pursuing, as both a defence mechanism and in pursuit of real praise. This drives the cycle forward again, as your values and environment become increasingly defined by doing Triathlons or whatever."
https://alexdanco.com/2021/01/22/the-michael-scott-theory-of-social-class/
5. This is an interesting SPAC. Chamath is on a roll.
6. This is very timely and a good reminder to start getting a little bit more control over your privacy.
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/five-ways-to-loosen-big-techs-grip-on-your-life-30556/
7. Great write up on the powerful pull of Superstar cities, even in the time of a pandemic.
"Superstar cities have become a one-stop shop for so many different things that people want out of society — productive work, job opportunities, friends, romance, fun. We’re definitely not going to go to a workforce of hermits living in cabins in Kamchatka.
The real question is whether distributed work will allow second-tier cities like Tulsa to take enough knowledge workers to bring them some of that superstar energy, thus relieving the pressure on places like San Francisco. Even that is a tall order, since the top cities exert many different kinds of gravitational pulls all at once. Escaping these cities isn’t like building a rocket — it’s like building five different rockets and riding them all at once."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/can-knowledge-industries-escape-superstar
8. I think this is a really smart play by Forbes. The Newsletter wars continue.
https://www.axios.com/forbes-paid-newsletter-subscriptions-ab423ae1-0b90-4863-acad-40a373adce80.html
9. This guy is becoming one of my new favorite reads & really dig his off the beaten track investment philosophy.
10. "Running a biotech company is capital intensive, and this can make it intimidating to get started. Founders sometimes face a chicken and egg problem: how do you make progress without millions of dollars in funding, and how do you raise millions of dollars in funding without having made progress?"
https://blog.ycombinator.com/how-to-start-a-biotech-company-on-a-budget/
11. Audience Building 101 is right. From one of the masters.
https://mobile.twitter.com/businessbarista/status/1352277955460915200
12. Great conversation here on what's happening at the earliest stages of startups. Soil stage not even Pre-seed. Two very interesting & different new platforms for developing startups.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuWkNQvkbcg
13. "One of the biggest risks is having all your eggs in the basket of one country. If you are trying to protect against what may be coming up, you should consider that some of these things are only going to impact certain countries. If you’re hedging against your own country, don’t dig deeper into your own country. Going to a global level gives you different systems to protect you.
Throughout the coronavirus, even for months after the peak, certain countries would not allow you to enter if you were a citizen of one of the other countries they deemed to be a problem – like the US, France, or Italy. A lot of people were being turned away. That wasn’t a global pandemic issue, it was a country-specific issue.
Have different jurisdictions where you can arbitrage risk. This means you should go where you’re treated best so that you have the assurance of knowing that even if the ATMs are shut off in the US, even if they want to bail out the banks in Cyprus, you have different homes, you have different bank accounts, you have different citizenships that welcome you in different places and access to good hospitals and medical care around the world."
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2020/10/28/apocalypse-insurance-prepare-crisis/
14. Man has a point.
https://patwalls.com/twitter-industry-bullshit
15. "This new type of market mirrors the meritocracy of the internet. It doesn’t matter where the idea, or the capital, comes from. It just matters if they’re right."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/have-you-robbed-your-billionaire
16. Health is wealth.
https://wallstreetplayboys.com/annual-health-ideas-update-and-qa-announcement/
17. Good news here! Go Donny!
18. SO many people have posted on this. Absolutely fascinating what is happening. "Unwashed Crowds" crushing the Professionals.
19. This is why I'm still so bullish on the tech industry & Silicon Valley.
"we think the rise of no code is a sub-theme in an even larger movement: tools that give knowledge workers superpowers."
https://medium.com/@vedikajain1/the-rise-of-superpower-tech-225759dc86d0
20. This is absolutely spot on. Scale ups need a good Chief of Staff: will make all the difference.
"What’s needed is an experienced generalist who can support the CEO and leadership team, complement and deputise for them, roll up their sleeves and lead on short-term projects across the business as and when required.
The role we’re talking about is a Chief of Staff, and it’s one that I think will become both necessary and foundational, as scaleups struggle to solve the inevitable pain that occurs when ever-increasing expectations collide with finite bandwidth."
21. As a collector of frameworks, this is invaluable and insightful when looking at business or governmental organizations. (ahem, Apple=Dead player)
"We defined a dead player as a person or a group of people that is working off a script, incapable of doing new things.
What can cause a player to die? A player will die if their tradition of knowledge dies and they are unable to replace their thinkers or theorists. Perhaps an individual live player simply runs out of ideas. Even if tight coordination remains, the player is dead. They will compete in old areas, but have a hard time expanding into new areas.
A player will also die if their tight coordination is replaced by formal structures, which can happen as members of an organization change. If you’re constrained by formal structures, it becomes harder to go off script, and this won’t be adaptive enough. Remember, however, that tight coordination can be achieved by just one exceptional person."
https://samoburja.com/live-versus-dead-players/
22. Poland represent!
23. Army of Davids is right!
https://twitter.com/tferriss/status/1354618338429820931
24. Human competition at its worst.
"With the arrival of the vaccines, state competition took a new form, but not a milder one: an ugly global race for enough vaccine doses where the losers are denied a path out of the pandemic."
https://brunomacaes.substack.com/p/vaccine-wars
25. Such a fan of Calendly and also glad for Atlanta scene + a new example of bootstrapping monster company.
"The company last year made about $70 million annually in subscription revenues from its SaaS-based business model and seems confident that its aggregated revenues will not long from now get to $1 billion."
26. "I still believe that Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 true fans theory is at the core of what the Internet is about from a making-a-living perspective. Add the maker perspective to this and you have what I believe is the future of work: personal, hands-on, creative, passionate, purposeful, decentralized, and network-based work.
I believe the future belongs to the maker as we are now becoming our own managers by working from home and becoming more independent from larger hierarchies and organizations. That is not to say that the large corporations are not needed, just that they will become much more automatized through digital technologies like artificial intelligence and need fewer human employees."
https://futureswells.substack.com/p/letter-from-future-swells-no-65
27. "Millions of people learned how this game is played and it’s going to come back at some point. Maybe it dies down for a day, a month, a year… But the playbook is now out there. If a hedge fund is foolish enough to put themselves in that type of position, they will get burned again and again and again. This is great as firms should not be levering up 5-10x with customer money to short every single share of a single stock without any repercussions.
On that note this was a huge day for decentralization. Several people on our twitter commentary actually understand it. They will be rich. Filthy rich. The ones that do not, might get lucky and time the next pump. And. The real money goes to the same old people. The visionaries who understand the long-term consequences and invest in the right disruptive technologies/industries."
https://wallstreetplayboys.com/amc-gamestop-and-nokia-why-it-is-a-huge-deal/
28. "The new hedge fund is the Robinhood army self organizing on Reddit. They can move a stock more easily than the largest hedge fund.
There will be calls to regulate this “madness.” But it is the same madness we have always had. It is just a different crowd in charge."
https://avc.com/2021/01/the-revenge-of-retail/
29. This is way timely.
"The brutal paradox in a marathon is that right when you can sniff the finish line, usually between mile 20 and mile 22, the race invariably feels the longest. The same is likely to be true with COVID-19. Cases are rising and fatigue from far-reaching lifestyle modifications is building. We may be done with most of the race, but there is a good chance the final stretch will feel like forever. Here are six principles to help you get through it."
https://www.outsideonline.com/2420136/covid-19-coping-skills-winter
30. A plausible explanation for the super mysterious Dyatlov Pass incident.
31. This is such a great show with two of the folks I admire: The Random Show. This episode is worth watching.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZC81QSdVIk&t=3890s
32. "Regardless of your political affinity, bans are a kind of public persecution that can be troubling because they undermine freedom of speech, the rule of law and democracy. Cancel culture is on the rise, and social media giants are its main enforcers.
In the increasingly digital world, coordinated efforts carried out by corporations, not by governments, result in what amounts to a digital execution. This corporate overreach, because it’s politicized, won’t diminish overnight. It will likely become greater and more oppressive.
Apart from bans and deplatforming, privacy is more important than ever. Reducing the amount of information that can be used against you is something everyone should consider."
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-to-be-truly-anonymous-in-the-digital-world-11611954937
33. Social momentum goes both ways.
"The idea that people like (or hate) what other people like (or hate) is important, because it lets small ideas grow bigger than you’d guess if you assume everything is ranked by quality alone. Social momentum is hard to model on a spreadsheet, so it’s hard to predict or think about in terms that seem rational. But it’s so powerful.
Once you look for feedback loops you see them everywhere. And once you realize how powerful they can be you start to answer some of the most frequent questions in business and investing."
https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/crazy/
34. I am a fan and supporter of Charity Water. This is a good write up of the innovation they have brought to non-profit world. If u are looking for a charity to donate to, please consider them.
https://www.profgalloway.com/innovation-recasting-your-life
35. "People have been screwed from a system structure that is built to reward investors and punish savers. All this market manipulation and intervention inflates asset prices and devalues savings.
So you have millions of people who are psychologically scarred from the past combined with a continued feeling of being left behind. But the internet steps in and creates a lifeline — the access to information, communication tools, and financial markets has suddenly increased significantly in the last decade.
When you arm the everyday person with information, communication tools, and access to markets, you create a scenario where the crowd can face-off against these institutions that have played a rigged game for so long. Except there is one problem — the second that the tide starts to turn, the game is being shut off."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/the-game-has-changed-2f5
36. I am biased but this is a good perspective on the importance of Taiwan to the free world. Also Taiwan is one of the most underrated places in the world. Its just a really cool place full of smart, kind people and amazing food and culture.
"This means that there is a nonzero chance that the U.S. might find itself embroiled in a superpower conflict on Taiwan’s behalf sometime in the next decade. Which is a good reason for Americans to learn more about Taiwan.
But an even better reason is just that Taiwan is a very interesting and unique place. People can argue all day about whether it’s really a country, but what’s more important is that Taiwan is a civilization."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/taiwan-is-a-civilization
37. This actually encapsulates my worries of the podcasting space. I think it will get wrecked by all the VC $$ streaming in (just like in eSports and Adtech and many other spaces),
"When investors pour $1 billion+ into a podcast ecosystem that didn’t have $1 billion in total revenue last year, that's a problem. They're hoping their money will add fuel to the fire, and supercharge podcasting's slow and steady growth.
But what happens if the growth, and the potential financial returns, don't materialize?
Overcapitalization occurs when the real value of an asset (or in this case, an ecosystem) is far less than what's been invested. It's when investors realize there's no possibility for a decent return, and they jump ship."
https://justinjackson.ca/podcasts-and-capital
38. This is pretty horrible and frightening. A Weaponized Internet by a crazy nut.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/30/technology/change-my-google-results.html
39. “It’s cheaper to trade these meme stocks and easier for retail investors to get leverage via options. In short, for investors looking to have a good time or shoot the moon, meme stocks are a more fun place to be than crypto is."
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/27/could-meme-stocks-like-gamestop-kill-bitcoins-rise/
40. Quite a great thread on some really good startup investment themes.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RomeenSheth/status/1345836588585123846
41. This is very helpful for the emerging VC Fund manager. Useful Techstack. What a great time to be an investor (and startup)
https://www.weekend.fund/our-stack-at-a-10m-fund
42. "Diarte was being brought in to set up a corporate venture fund for the French power management company, and he wanted to make sure it was done right. He had seen too many CVC venture funds set up the wrong way — set up to fail right from the start — and he didn’t want to fall into the same trap."
https://sifted.eu/articles/schneider-electric-heriberto-diarte/
43. There is a lot here. I like the idea of "Clockspeed." Worth a read.
"We are on the precipice of an era of extreme competition — which means that the amount and pace of competition will accelerate 4x in the next 20 years.
If you don’t prepare now, you will be more and more overworked and overwhelmed and risk being further outcompeted by the best global talents in your field."
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-hour-rule-antidote-exploding-pace-modern-life-michael-simmons/
44. This thread is a great rundown on the Gamestop saga.
https://mobile.twitter.com/SahilBloom/status/1354436658129563650
45. "Zooming out: great communities, in the traditional sense, required limited options so people would remain dependent: no specialists or external trade (to ensure we all collectively worked together), and no diversity or weird ideas (to ensure a homogenous group with a focus on tradition). We had far worse medical treatment, underwent excruciating manual labor, and didn’t necessarily share the same interests with others, but because we were dependent on each other, the bonds were strong. Now the options are virtually limitless, and we’re seeing our social bonds decay as a result."
https://eriktorenberg.substack.com/p/markets-and-communities
46. This is good news for Venture capital! Of course, this is not widely distributed gains but concentrated in top few funds. But still.....good for asset class as a whole.
47. "Nineteen months into taking the job, Docter is ushering in a new, more diverse generation of filmmakers at the studio, developing a pipeline of projects to feed Disney's 13-month-old streaming service, Disney+, and grappling with taking the place of the complicated, larger-than-life figure that Lasseter represented at Pixar. More than any studio executive since Walt Disney, Lasseter was personally associated with the movies his company made, projecting a public persona of a friendly genius in a Hawaiian shirt responsible for Pixar's unbroken string of critical and commercial successes.
Lasseter's departure during the heat of the #MeToo movement punctured that myth and left Pixar employees anxious and adrift. Since taking the job, Docter has been trying to evolve the company while holding on to the principles of creative risk-taking that enabled him to direct some of the studio's most inventive movies — Inside Out; Up; Monsters, Inc. and Soul, which premiered on Disney+ over Christmas."
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Direct Line to Revenue is What Matters for your Startup (and your Career)
One of the main lessons I learned early from my startup & big tech co experience is the importance of being a producer. What do i mean by this?
I would joke back then from my experience with Alibris, when a startup is not doing well the first people to go are marketing and customer service. But who would be the last ones to be cut? engineers who build stuff, and i would argue more importantly, sales which sell stuff. At the core of any business, these are the two things that really matter.
I saw this dynamic play out while I was at Yahoo!. My initial work there was in marketing and I carried around the ignorant view that Sales was grubby (thank you Glengarry Glenross). But a few years in, I quickly realized how central sales was to everything. I saw how valued sales people were in the organization. Money is the lifeblood of every business and a great sales person literally brought in 50-100X what they cost.
Running a sales organization and then a larger P&L (Profit & Loss statement) is the best way to learn business. And it makes sense, whatever theories you have, you either hit the number or you don’t at the end of the quarter. You can’t argue against how simple and pure this is. I also saw that as long as you deliver on the numbers and don’t do anything illegal you could pretty much do whatever you want. I kind of did and that was the reason I stayed at Yahoo! for so long. Because I directly touched, affected and grew revenue, the company provided me with a great and lucrative environment to work in.
Don’t get me wrong that it was not stressful. It definitely was. But something about aiming and trying to hit an ever growing target is fun and educational. Also valuable was the clarity it provides for you and the focus for your team. It’s what i see in the best startups who use and fully focus on the “One Metric that Matters.” I should note that for some early stage startups revenue may not be the best metric to focus on, as it “always depends” in the startup world (and life). But on the other hand, the ultimate validation is that a customer is willing to pay for what you are making.
So to reiterate my main point here: the acme of business and business people is learning how to drive revenue. Ie. Sales. If you do not have a direct line to revenue, you are eventually going to be big trouble. Driving revenue is what makes you valuable to an organization both as a boss and as an employee. So it behooves you to get good at this. Have direct line of sight to revenue!
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Galapagos Island Effect in Technology: Japan, China & South Korea
The first time I went to Japan in 1989, I was completely blown away and started a long love affair with the country. Walking around Akihabara, aka “electronic town” district in Tokyo where every and any kind of consumer electronic product was available. These were the days of Sony Walkman. Going back again as young adult in 1997/1998, Japan was a leader in smartphones where the Docomo I-mode was the precursor to Apple iPhone and its rich ecosystem.
I saw similar advanced consumer technology developments in South Korea between 2003 and 2009, where Video Games, Mobile payments, Social Networking was literally 5 years ahead of where the rest of the world was due to their crazy high BB and Smartphone penetration.
I also don’t need to spend much time talking about the advanced tech ecosystem of China where ecommerce is far more dominant than in the USA or Western Europe. Advanced smartphone penetration and over 1.2 billion users on 4G is leading to a massive online population with its own separate online world and services.
Take Wechat for example as described in Wikipedia:
China's "app for everything" and a "super app" because of its wide range of functions. WeChat provides text messaging, hold-to-talk voice messaging, broadcast (one-to-many) messaging, video conferencing, video games, sharing of photographs and videos, and location sharing.
Think Facebook + WhatsApp + Venmo + Tinder + Instagram + Skype among other services in One app. So many people use WePay and Alipay that young kids do not know what paper cash is.
Yet why have we not seen these developments or big players from these countries in the rest of the world. I think the reason is due to the Galapagos Island syndrome. For naturalist fans out there, the Galapagos Islands situated 906 kilometers off the coast of Ecuador where the most unique flora and fauna exist due to its isolation from the rest of the world. Basically it’s an ecosystem that is so different from any other that the lifeforms on the island can only exist there.
This is exactly the case in China, Japan and South Korea. Highly advanced technological countries with unique and homogenous cultural characteristics, top notch infrastructure like high speed Mobile broadband, protective regulatory regimes leading each country to develop and evolve unique services & products. The homogenous cultures in each country leads to fast diffusion and adoption of products and services. But this homogeneity also leads these same technologies and services to become stranded in their home markets. That is why products and services like Kakaotalk, Wechat have not done well outside their respective countries of South Korea and China.
Line may be an exception as it is originally from Korea but has become dominant in Japan, Taiwan and Thailand. Another counterpoint is the dominance of Apple iPhone in Japan in recent years which holds a 60% market share compared to 50% in the USA & Canada. I should note, it is one of the only three markets in the world where Android is not the dominant mobile operating system. This does show that it is possible for foreign companies to crack these markets.
For technology folks whether investor or operator, there is much to learn from these countries when it comes to technology innovations and business models. But we need to understand the X-factor of what makes each place unique. And more importantly what the gap that needs to be bridged, if these products can be adopted for use in the rest of the world.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
PS: Check out my new friend Trevor McKendrick’s newsletter, “How it Actually Works”
It’s a great way to get smart fast. https://www.trevormckendrick.com/newsletter
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads January 24th, 2021
“Measure victories over years, not minutes.”-- Chris Cantino
1. Tencent is crushing it.
"It’s no secret that Tencent, the Chinese tech giant behind WeChat and a handful of blockbuster video games, is an aggressive investor. Even during 2020 when the pandemic slowed down economic activity in many parts of the world, Tencent was charging ahead with its investment ambitions.
During the year, the company participated in more than 170 funding rounds that amounted to a total of 249.5 million yuan ($38 million), according to the Chinese startup database ITJuzi. That made 2020 the most active year to date for Tencent’s investment team, which had been delivering superior results in the last decade.
By January 2020, more than 70 of Tencent’s 800 portfolio companies had gone public and more than 160 of them surpassed $100 million in valuation, Martin Lau, Tencent’s president, told a room of investees at the time. The achievement could well place Tencent side by side with some of the world’s top venture funds."
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/07/tencent-investment-2020/
2. Not sure what to think of this one.
"Fab’s rise and fall is a case study in the perils of over-funding. But it’s also a story about a serial entrepreneur who has refused to give up in the wake of failure."
https://thehustle.co/how-one-of-the-worlds-fastest-growing-startups-burned-through-300m
3. Travel Hacking at its best.
"Schlappig owes his small slice of fame to his blog “One Mile at a Time,” a diary of a young man living the life of the world’s most implausible airline ad. Posting as often as six times a day, he metes out meticulous counsel on the art of travel hacking — known in this world as the Hobby. It’s not simply how-to tips that draw his fans, it’s the vicarious thrill of Schlappig’s nonstop-luxury life.... But his fans aren’t just travel readers — they’re gamers, and Schlappig is teaching them how to win.
Immediately he became one of the Hobby’s biggest stars and, according to his friends, a millionaire. His revenue comes from three sources: impression-based ads on the blog; the PointsPros consultancy; & “affiliate marketing,” which means collecting a commission from credit-card companies each time a card sign-up originates from his blog.
Schlappig admits that affiliate marketing gives him a vested interest in the very companies that many Hobbyists game. A garden-variety Hobbyist owns at least a dozen credit cards; many have more than 40."
4. Five flag strategy. This is an old article but still really relevant in this day and age.
World is definitely becoming less free so this is one way to diversify (and believe this is not always about lowering taxes).
https://calebjones.com/2018/11/25/overview-of-how-five-flags-works/
5. So fascinating to watch someone actually try to implement the 5 Flag strategy. It's complicated.
https://calebjones.com/2020/03/12/five-flags-update-february-2020/
6. "In other words, smart money has been looking for an alternative to China for a while. And given that business supply lines are often already optimized to have a certain flow, it makes sense to look for neighboring countries.
That way, you can build factories in several nations, like Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia, etc., and pick up your shipments in the exact same spot you used to.
This is why frontier economies, and more specifically Asian frontier markets, are set to outperform just about any benchmark. At least over the long-term."
"The frontier economies of Asia are in the perfect economic and demographic position to take advantage of this global shift in commerce. Every world power has a vested interest in the development of this area of the world.
Additionally, growth in developed countries, weak as it is, will be difficult to maintain."
https://www.investasian.com/2021/01/12/frontier-economies-2020s/
7. Well this is an extreme way to save money. A for effort.
8. Long one but interesting.
"The point of including this is to put us all in the mindset of...me, or anyone working in finance & tech, probably living in a mental future that far outpaces the physical present. The pandemic partially seemed like an opportunity to corroborate the promises we’d been hearing for years (or at least, I’d been hearing for 2 years, and started attending “Future of Retail”-themed conferences hosted by investment banks).
Target added 10 million digital customers in the first half of the year and Walmart doubled their eCommerce sales. Still, despite all of this, online sales were just 16.1% of the overall total at their peak in the second quarter of the year.
I also wonder whether this understanding is influenced by the fact that a lot of people who work in tech, finance, and media also happen to live in New York and California -- where retail has arguably fared the worst."
https://virtualelena.substack.com/p/bit-structures
9. "The new economy needs to learn how to operate in an entirely virtual manner. This means the following items are needed: 1) warehouses, 2) virtual assistants, 3) delivery services, 4) smaller private schools dedicated to skills, 5) copywriting copywriting copywriting, 6) graphic design, 7) software updates – living breathing code, 8) digital training schools – think esports camps similar to a regular sports camp and 9) individualized video education and entertainment ."
"Many say that investing in drug companies or degenerative platforms like Only Fans is bad. The reality? This is likely where a lot of money will be made. A. Lot."
"In the future, call it 2040 or so, the answer will be a bit different: small internet business and technology. Those two areas are the future and there is no reason to fight the trend. While you’ll always find exceptions to the rule, the trend is clear as day at this point.
The second major item here is that taxes and individual autonomy will increase."
https://wallstreetplayboys.com/avoiding-big-mistakes-in-the-new-economy/
10. This has held up well I think.
"Frontier markets are a step below emerging markets in terms of development. However, they tend to avoid recession since they’re less exposed to the international market and its whims."
https://www.investasian.com/2017/10/26/avoid-recession-markets/
11. Damn. This really hit me. I really miss seeing my parents in person. DAMN pandemic.
"look around you, all these people will be gone one day, especially the ones who spent their whole lives looking after you, yes you. Think about that once in a while. Spend your time, love, energy, and emotion accordingly. Know this: inside every 80 year old is an 18 year old wondering what the fuck just happened. We’ll all get there."
https://destraynor.com/writing/2019/02/13/she-would-be-80-today/
12. This is an old one but does it still seem even more relevant now. China's dystopian future.
https://www.youtube.com/wah?v=ydPqKhgh9Mgtc
13. This is worth a read.
"A hard thing to wrap your head around in economics is the idea that two opposite things can be true at once.
Consumers are in the best shape they’ve been in, ever.
A huge portion of consumers think that’s bogus because they’re in the worst shape they’ve been in, ever.
Both are true.
Two different worlds."
https://www.collaborativefund.com/blog/two-worlds/
14. I've always been attracted to frontier investing. Never heard of Lundin but he is Indiana Jones of investing.
"Lundin's investment approach?
He focussed on buying the riskiest investments in the most exotic corners of the world, which allowed him to accumulate assets for the proverbial pennies on the dollar."
"If he were still alive, Adolf Lundin may have reminded investors of his favourite motto: "When the going gets tough, the tough get going." The founder of the Lundin group had a lifelong knack for topping up his holdings during tough times. Provided, of course, the data backed up his belief that a turnaround was going to come. E.g., his investments in Russia got absolutely clobbered during Russia's 1998 debt default. Nine years later, Russia was back on top of things and the Lundin holdings had risen to be worth billions of dollars."
15. "As often in these cases, the company came around for another round of speculation and hope. Few such companies truly die and vanish. Instead, they usually simply go dormant for a while before the next generation of hopeful entrepreneurs and investors have another go at it. Entrepreneurial dreams tend to have seven lives."
16. Let’s hope so. I'm quite excited for this. New roaring 20s!
https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/the-new-roaring-twenties-maybe-4302321/
17. “A16Z is a media company that monetizes through VC.”
That observation becomes truer by the day.
While there’s a lot of loose talk on Twitter about cutting out the media and “going direct” – publishing your own story to the world without the press as an intermediary – Andreessen Horowitz is really doing it, consciously and methodically. The firm’s strategy has dramatic implications for the future of media and the venture capital industry.
This is the story of how Andreessen Horowitz disrupted the world of venture capital by cozying up to the media and then, how they purposefully threw that relationship away."
https://www.newcomer.co/p/the-unauthorized-story-of-andreessen
18. This is pretty much the game in an extremely competitive Silicon Valley.
"At the time, it looked like Sequoia was doubling down on a losing investment. In retrospect, it was a genius move. Sequoia had the advantage of being an early investor in Chinese delivery company Meituan. The firm’s partners knew that if someone could make the food delivery model work in the United States, there was a lot of money to be made, so it invested when everyone else was getting nervous.
The round certainly established that Sequoia is not a cuddly investor. Here you have the company’s main partner investing on the cheap when a young founder wants to solidify his unicorn status.
Of course, it would have been better for Sequoia if DoorDash didn’t need the money at all. And this is an essential point: these costly fundraising rounds dilute early investors and the company’s founders."
https://www.newcomer.co/p/the-story-of-a-cap-table-doordash
19. This is why I read so much Science Fiction.
"The cyberpunks anticipated the future of technology to an almost eerie degree. Other than the prediction of industrial technologies by the likes of H.G. Wells and Jules Verne, it’s hard to think of when sci-fi authors have been more on the money."
"Cyberpunk is no longer sci-fi, it’s just the world we live in. Turn on the news, and there’s cyberpunk. Not even just the technology, but the social predictions too. People in San Francisco are living in shipping containers while billionaires are trying to colonize Mars with private space fleets. You can carry a sword and be a street samurai in the state of Texas. Online media megacorporations are able to shut down the President of the United States. As William Gibson wrote, the defining characteristic of living in The Future is that it’s not evenly distributed."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/cyberpunk-came-true-so-whats-next
20. Crypto is the future so this is worth paying attention to.
"According to Sonnenshein, the six themes that investors should look for in 2021 are:
-Decreased career risk associated with digital-asset investing
-Growing interest among financial advisers
-The growth of North American and clean-energy crypto mining
-Increased stablecoin integration
-Nation-state adoption of digital assets
-New regulatory developments"
https://cointelegraph.com/news/grayscale-ceo-outlines-6-themes-that-will-shape-crypto-market-in-2021
21. Good for him. Also appreciate the honesty here for other founders. Not everyone has to take a startup from early stage to IPO.
“I stopped enjoying my role probably about two years ago… as we grew from a scrappy startup that was iterating and building stuff people really love, into a really important U.K. bank. I’m not saying that one is better than the other, just that the things I enjoy in life is working with small groups of passionate people to start and grow stuff from scratch, and create something customers love.
And I think that’s a really valuable skill but also taking on a bank that’s three, four, five million customers and turning it into a 10 or 20 million customer bank and getting to profitability and IPOing it, I think those are huge exciting challenges, just honestly not ones that I found that I was interested in or particularly good at”.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/20/enjoying-life-again/
22. This is where the Silicon Valley hype and groupthink will be valuable.
Miami is literally becoming a new major tech center overnight due to an impressive biz friendly & Twitter saavy mayor, great weather (for now) & a critical mass of major tech players escaping from the lockdowns, high tax regimes and incompetent city governments in SF & NYC.
https://news.crunchbase.com/news/why-miami-is-the-next-hot-tech-hub/
23. "Buying Bitcoin could be considered a form of gambling. Indeed, many middle-class hobbyist traders accrued life-changing amounts of wealth over the past year, usually by experimenting with risky software. For people like Paul and Saeed, who generally avoid experimental trades and lack alternative investment options, Bitcoin’s price appreciation is helping them get through a period of abysmal job markets and intermittent lockdowns.
People don’t need to live in a dictatorship or a country suffering from high inflation to benefit from Bitcoin."
https://techcrunch.com/2021/01/21/how-bitcoin-is-helping-middle-class-users-survive-the-pandemic/
24. Lots of nuggets of wisdom here for personal development.
"Early on when I would hit a plateau in personal development I would wrongly think I was “done.” That mentality meant when the next period of evolution came it was extra painful. Today I recognize the work is never done. That allows me to enjoy the periods of relative stability while also knowing I will be called to grow and change again. It might be going too far to say I’m looking forward to it, but I no longer fear it which is real progress."
https://boz.com/articles/the-process
25. A long but really fascinating read. Taiwan as case study, German and USA as ones NOT to follow on how to manage a pandemic.
"In highly ideological or religious or culture war driven nations this is all but impossible because those forces blind leaders to parts of the population they think of as evil.
But if you can’t deal with reality as it actually is, rather than how you imagine it to be, you can’t deal with a pandemic."
"Beyond big data and contact tracing, the Taiwan government understood incentives really well. You get paid to stay in quarantine but if you break quarantine you get fined 1000x what they paid you so it pays to stay inside until you’ve proven you’re not carrying the virus.
Don’t underestimate how hard it is to get incentives right.
Incentives are tricky. Pick the wrong incentives and people game the system.
You can’t fight human nature. If you try, it only backfires. If anything characterizes the Taiwanese approach it’s realistic approach to human nature balanced with sane policies that work."
https://medium.com/@dan.jeffries/coronavirus-a-tale-of-three-nations-88fa1681810c
26. I'm pretty bullish on Poland and much of Central Eastern Europe in general.
27. Rise of the Emerging Markets.....been happening for a while now.
"Emerging markets have been growing at a rapid pace for years and it is because they are getting access to the same technology that the Western world has had for awhile. Additionally, they have a young population that is highly productive and continues to push these countries further and faster than the developed nations....
emerging markets are worth continuing to pay attention to over the coming years. Not only are they growing at a fast pace, but they dealt with the pandemic relatively well, and now we are going to see them start to benefit from decentralization, Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, and the larger digitization trend that is already underway."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/emerging-markets-are-catching-up
28. "I think retirement is stupid. Men are objective-seeking missiles, and there are exceptions to this, but once men retire, that’s usually when they die. I never plan on retiring. I think it’s a mistake to look forward to retirement.
Instead, as you get older, focus more on aspects of the work you enjoy doing. That way, you can work because you want to work, and you can work the hours you choose instead of the hours you have to work."
https://calebjones.com/2020/11/09/how-much-money-do-you-need-to-retire/
29. I like all these places. Taiwan, Georgia, Serbia, Ukraine, Portugal, Mexico & Hungary are tops for me.
"You can find the cheapest countries in the world. You can find the safest countries to live in. But if you want both, Eastern Europe (Georgia, Serbia, Belarus, Armenia) is a great place to start.
If you know what you’re doing in Asia, places like Taiwan and Malaysia are also very safe and reasonably affordable. There may be some purse snatching, but there isn’t a lot of violent crime.
Latin America may be a bit more dangerous but there are plenty of safe and cheap places if you buy in the right neighborhood.
The point is, you can have a lifestyle where you’re getting a lot of value from your money in a safe place."
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2020/11/18/cheapest-safest-countries-to-live-in
30. Go Taiwan. Arguably the safest place right now outside of New Zealand. BTW: I'm actually super bullish on the USA right now, so I'd consider splitting the year between Taiwan, somewhere in Europe and the USA.
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2021/01/18/taiwanese-visas-citizenship-guide/
31. Hmmm.......interesting thoughts here. Basically take ownership of your life.
https://calebjones.com/2018/07/05/every-man-should-be-worth-1-million-by-age-50/
32. This should make us all optimistic about the future.
"So the two reasons solar and batteries haven’t yet produced higher aggregate productivity growth are that they haven’t been installed in large volumes yet, and they haven’t gotten so cheap that they dramatically lower the price of energy yet. But current trends give us every reason to believe that both of these things will happen.
But in addition to measured productivity growth, green energy has another benefit: Sustainability. They help prevent catastrophic climate change, for one thing. And also, because the supply of sunlight is not limited, solar frees us from the need to constantly invent new and better extraction technologies just to hold energy costs constant.
Neither of these things adds to current productivity, but they both add to expected future productivity."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/answering-the-techno-pessimists-part-a3b
33. Health and wellness has always been important. Even more so going into 2021 and the ongoing pandemic.
https://www.outsideonline.com/2420164/wellness-resilience-strategies
34. For Crypto but also relevant for Stocks and most other investments.
"If you’re in it for the long run, act like it.
Constantly checking prices is how you end up falling into FOMO (fear of missing out), making stupid decisions, believing shills, not sticking to your original strategy, etc.
Seeing your investments grow (or fall) so quickly can be very exciting. For this precise reason you should avoid it.
Remember that it is always best to make investing decisions with the least emotions involved."
https://benjamingeorge.substack.com/p/timeless-crypto-advice
35. "Brown needs a different sort of fitness now, because his days are so intense. “Before, it was about being competitive athletically,” Brown explains. “Once I got into graduate school, I started to realize how important exercise was both for mental acuity and also mental endurance. I multitask all the time. I realized I have to work out to be as productive as I want to be.”
https://www.menshealth.com/fitness/a35142369/ethan-brown-workout-beyond-meat-ceo/
36. This makes you appreciate that your life can be very much worse. We should all be valuing the basics of living and freedom and making the best of things.....always.
https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/lessons-learned-from-inside-the-worlds-toughest-prisons/
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Startups Die of Suicide, Not Murder
It’s a great saying in Silicon Valley. “Startups Die of Suicide, Not Murder.” I tell this to my startup founders who pay too much attention to what competitors are doing. Most startups i’ve seen end up dying due to their own bad decisions or actions (or inaction), not from something a competitor did.
Don’t get me wrong, you should be aware of what competitors are doing as you differentiate by counter-positioning against them. But i would argue you are better off spending your time disproportionately on what your customers are doing or saying. Then you build your business around serving them versus following what your competition is doing.
I also think that most markets end up being so much bigger than people think. This is because of how fast technology is infiltrating every single aspect of life. In a massive growing market, there will be 3-4 dominant companies in this sector. There are very few “winner take all” markets these days. I believe Zero-Sum competitions do exist but mainly in the old industrial world. Technology in theory is more about abundance. It is also just healthier to think this way in life anyways.
I will use an example from big Company land as per an interview with Simon Sinek and his experience consulting at both Microsoft during the Ballmer years vs. Apple under Steve Jobs. Microsoft focused on the competition while Apple focused on where they were going & the long game. You could even argue that this attitude is one big reason that Zune lost badly versus the Apple iPod despite being a slightly better made product. Definitely helped that Apple lined up an ecosystem of music labels around them and became a better value proposition to customers versus the limited song catalogue at MSFT Zune.
During my time at 500 Startups, I would always get pinged or pulled aside by anxious portfolio company founders freaking out over a competitor, launching a new product, or raising a lot of money from some top tier investor. I’d just tell them to relax and focus on talking with customers and focusing on the team and building the product. Actually in the majority of the cases, the competitors actions were easily neutralized or ended up going nowhere.
My main point here is that obsessing about competitors is almost always a waste of time and energy. And frankly, is a losing proposition in life generally. Focus on what you have control over: Yourself, your team, and the actions you are taking for the customers in the business you are building.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
What are the Traits of the Best Startup Founders
There is a continual debate among early stage investors on what is more important: Team/Founders or Market. In my view, both are important. But putting aside the market which i think is really hard to get right and not always that obvious. So then a big part of the equation leads to the founder. Figuring heuristics around how to select the top ones is important for all early stage investors. Also controversial because every investor looks for different things. And I might add, every investor has different experiences and skills to boot.
Michael Siebel of YCombinator says it’s:
1) Ability to Execute
2) Formidability
3) Great Communications
4) Strong Internal Motivation
Source: What Makes The Top 10% Of Founders Different? - Michael Seibel
I think those are excellent. Of course, I have a slightly different take. After 6 years of running a top tier accelerator and fund, where i was looking at thousands of startups a year. Literally thousands. From this experience and 414 investments later, I see that my top 10% of founders tend to have certain traits.
1) Learning machines:
Important to take in data and lessons from all their contacts with customers, users, team, partners and investors. A top founder is able to weigh and incorporate all of this into their plan & business.
2) Thoughtfulness & Deliberate:
About the BIG strategic decisions that literally are life and death for your biz.
A good founder understands “Risk & Reward” and where to spend their time & resources. They also learn how to think through all the data points coming at them.
3) Crazy and insane work ethic:
It takes a lot of energy and effort to get a company to critical mass. Especially true in the pre-seed and seed stage. The only way they can get there is just plain hard work, assuming you are aiming in the general and right direction. Sometimes you just have to overcome your own ignorance with hard work.
4) Decisive & Take Tough Decisions Quickly:
Startups are always short of time and money, so the ability to cut projects, features or people that are not working out is critical.
For all new investors, you have to figure out your own heuristics. As you invest in more and more startups you will be able to fine-tune your radar. Over time, this radar will become a more effective filter for you as you invest.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads January 17th, 2021
“It’s never too late to become who you want to be. I hope you live a life that you’re proud of, and if you find that you’re not, I hope you have the strength to start over.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
This whole thing is worth reading. Surprise 5 is good news if it plays out.
"The economy develops momentum on its own because of pent-up demand, and depressed hospitality and airline stocks become strong performers. Fiscal and monetary policy remain historically accommodative. Nominal economic growth for the full year exceeds 6% and the unemployment rate falls to 5%. We begin the longest economic cycle in history, surpassing the cycle that lasted from 2010 to 2020."
https://www.blackstone.com/insights/article/blackstone-quarterly-webcast-the-ten-surprises-of-2021/
2. I love this! Lots to learn here.
"Richards describes her and her husband’s financial situation as“Fat FIRE” – a financially independent lifestyle that doesn’t include the sort of bare-bones living that characterizes the FIRE movement."
https://grow.acorns.com/passive-income-lessons-from-early-retiree/
3. This is really useful for SaaS company investors.
https://medium.com/point-nine-news/persistence-and-predictability-of-saas-growth-bd7b90ee20d3
4. Fun interview. Was supposed to go to Iceland in 2020. Oh well, maybe 2022. Still seems like a fun place to hang out for a few months.
"Everybody is on Zoom anyway. It used to matter where you were physically. Right now, we are in this café where you bump into someone and something interesting comes out of that chance encounter. If you do it all on Zoom, your physical location doesn’t matter anymore. So I started looking at places that are remote but highly educated and entrepreneurial. Then I crossed that with how each place was handling Covid, since if the pandemic is bad they’ll be shut down too. That got me down to New Zealand, Taiwan and Iceland. And of those, two of them were solving the problem by not letting anybody in.
Only Iceland was solving the problem in a way that allowed visitors, because deCode Genetics is here, there is a good healthcare system, and everyone is tested at the border. That reduced the options from 195 countries to one, which is how I decided Iceland would be a good place to work during the pandemic."
5. This is probably more relevant to us than ever.
"Instead of listening to doom and gloom, what might happen if you were to listen to positive and constructive media? Might the infectious positivity begin to influence your mood? You will find yourself often repeating ideas and themes that you hear. Subconsciously, you absorb what you see and hear. Focusing on self-improvement podcasts or blogs could incentivize you to better yourself. They may even convince yourself that you are worthy of caring about.
And once you start caring about yourself, you begin to take care of yourself. You begin stacking little wins. Something as simple as cleaning your room or making your bed can be the nudge you need to get started. Next you might start spending less time online and more time at the gym or going for runs. This all creates a positive feedback loop. You work out. You get endorphins. You feel better about yourself. You decide to get up early. You clean up more of your living space. You keep working out and get back in shape. Then you buy nicer clothes because you’re proud."
https://pathtomanliness.medium.com/how-to-go-from-doomer-to-bloomer-path-to-manliness-d3f7653505e5
6. "Decentralization doesn’t just impact money, it impacts every single industry with a middle man. Since the middle man can control the flow of content: facebook, twitter, etc. They will now have to face competition from decentralized servers that run with censorship resistant platforms. This is admittedly several years away, but the changes we saw over the past week have accelerated the move in this direction by a minimum of five years."
"Acceleration of the Digital World: The one benefit here is that a smart individual can now scale a business into the millions and even billions of dollars without a single hire. Think we’re kidding? We’re not. In the future with software scaling at the rate it is today, you’re going to watch as all processes become automated. This leaves the following for work: creativity/becoming a producer. If you cannot produce or create, the world is going to speed past you."
https://wallstreetplayboys.com/the-end-of-centralization/
7. Net net: take vitamin D. Can't hurt.
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/jan/10/does-vitamin-d-combat-covid
8. This seems really spot on these days whatever side of the political spectrum you are.
https://mobile.twitter.com/jackmurphylive/status/1343613092958261250
9. This is not going to win Mr Danco any popularity contests in Canada cuz most of this is true. Not sure I agree with the point on milestones but get the point of mindless milestones over growth.
"My hope is that people in Canada reading this will realize that the problem facing us isn’t a lack of anything. The problem with our startup scene isn’t a lack of money, startups, investors, hustle, great Universities, technical talent, or creativity. Our problem is actually the presence of actively bad things: all of our non-dilutive (but extremely expensive!) innovation credits, the presence of incubators & entrepreneurship programs, & the accidental costs of milestone thinking. If we want to build a real startup community in Canada, we need to let go of those crutches, & choose the Infinite Game.
That’s part of why I think that if any city in Canada has the potential to actually develop a Bay Area grade startup scene (smaller, sure, but actually the real thing), it’s clearly Montreal. Of the major cities in Canada, Montreal is the only one that naturally has an infinite game mindset. (But it really, really does. Montreal is a special place.) If Montreal weren’t in Quebec, it would be an unstoppable startup scene."
https://alexdanco.com/2021/01/11/why-the-canadian-tech-scene-doesnt-work/
10. "If comparing yourself to a different set of peers is going to motivate you or give you peace of mind, by all means, switch. It’s up to each of us, isn’t it?"
https://seths.blog/2021/01/choose-your-jones-wisely/
11. For all the guys out there.
"Our environments and lifestyles do affect our bodies. And many men are slowly castrating themselves through their lifestyles.
Increasing your testosterone levels, and thus your general vitality, should be of paramount focus for all men.
High testosterone levels are a representation of overall good health."
https://cortes.site/50-ways-to-naturally-increase-testosterone/
12. "We will see decentralized websites, decentralized mobile apps, decentralized social networks, and much more. The risk of a centralized organization imposing their will, regardless of the validity of that decision, has become too great to ignore now. It was previously believed that decentralization was only a fascination of those who were paranoid, but now we are seeing that it is becoming a business imperative at a breakneck speed.
This transition won’t happen overnight. It also won’t only be about decentralization. We are likely to see a significant rise in privacy technologies, along with decentralization. These renewed focuses will leverage technology to equalize power on the internet. The days of large centralized companies overseeing their dictatorships without fear of being held accountable are over. The people can’t change the status quo, but they can vote with their feet and start using new technology stacks."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/decentralization-is-a-necessity-now
13. Good case for Digital Nomad-ism.
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/amp/articles/best-reasons-to-be-a-digital-nomad
14. This is pretty crazy to say the least. I'm still processing everything that happened last week.
https://www.gq.com/story/man-predicted-capitol-coup-interview
15. Man has a point.
"Under some f*ked up version of wokeness, we have decided that stupid people are a special interest group who warrant empathy and latitude re the damage they levy. We excuse Trump’s mob, as they are the ones America left behind or who didn’t have access to higher education. No, they’re just stupid — even the ones with “Senator” before their name. The President and his mob registered a deep blow to our democracy and global standing … with no commensurate benefit.....
We need to recognize that stupid is a thing and, per Professor Cipolla, encourage our youth to discern how not to be stupid and to aspire to be “intelligent,” which also is a thing … and a noble thing, and not derived from a place of privilege that demands apology and self flogging. The right has become so weird, the left so weak, that we should see something resembling a third option (e.g., Independent) accrue momentum and elected leaders."
https://www.profgalloway.com/stupid
16. "The new coronavirus achieved in days what both progressives and nationalists had long been fighting for. Powerful economic interests were sidelined, whole industries had to temporarily close down, oil consumption plummeted, national borders were closed and export bans imposed. It was a humbling experience, as the ripples of politics paled by comparison to the giant natural wave of the pandemic, but also a conversion moment, where one could finally see the social and economic system for what it is. The great pause reveals a hidden truth and, once revealed, it cannot be forgotten.
What has come to an end is not capitalism but the idea of capitalism as a system standing above economic agents."
https://brunomacaes.substack.com/p/covid-and-capitalism
17. Man, so interesting. Bitcoin mining in the arctic of Russia.
18. Actually I really like that Toast allowed laid off ex-employees to sell vested shares in secondaries. Good for the company that they were able to turnaround the company in the pandemic.
"At the time, the company gave ex-employees 10 years to exercise their options, though many of the people laid off had only been employed at Toast for a few months, according to a LinkedIn search."
19. I'm fascinated by the African market. Been tracking Tim Staermorse's investment work for a while.
"In a world where financial valuations have reached new heights, it is hard to find investments with sound fundamentals. Sometimes, you need to look a little farther afield. This is why investing in the stock market in Africa is an interesting option for more adventurous investors."
20. I really like this kid. One of the stars of Cobra Kai.
https://www.gq.com/story/real-life-diet-xolo-mariduena-cobra-kai
21. Fitness tips from Laird who has definitely aged well.
https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/lifestyle/article/laird-hamilton-fitness
22. I totally get why this is flourishing in America.
"As we head into an era that seems destined to be marked by escalating vigilantism and political violence—or, if we’re very lucky, just the fear of them—it’s time to reckon with the whole of American tactical culture. For all its power to shape this moment, that culture has roots that long precede it. The tactical world is a byproduct of years of rampant mass shootings and of our nation’s longest wars, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.
It’s a space where paramilitary ideas thrive and where ordinary gun owners learn to see themselves as potential heroes; but it's also where many Americans have simply gone looking for a way to negotiate living in a country where there are more firearms than people."
https://www.wired.com/story/america-civilian-tactical-training-industry/
23. "Rededicating Harry's to building its own family of brands has also allowed the founders to rally the team around the promise of an even bigger payoff in the future. The new vision for Harry's, in fact, might promise an even greater rush than getting acquired ever could have. If joining Edgewell was going to push the Harry's team straight into the big leagues--well, not joining it did so anyway."
24. This is a bit of a damning comment on European rich.
"Most of the European successful entrepreneurs are in their 40s or 50s, a few generations later than the digital natives, and with a lower risk appetite to challenge the establishment.
Compare this to the US where old companies like HP, IBM or Oracle, are being constantly challenged, or being replaced by the FAANG, which are also now being replaced by kids in their 20s building a new tech startup in the their parents bedroom.
Related - in Europe, the newcomers, as many as they are, are usually eating the lunch of the rich people family businesses - if they decide that it is worth keeping their startup company in Europe and not flying over to the better US environment."
https://sundaycet.substack.com/p/crazy-european-rich
25. Profile on the The Points Guy and the fascinating business of airline miles.
"Since 2010, The Points Guy has published over 30,000 blog posts: hotel, airline and cruise-ship reviews, next to wonkish analyses of rewards-program fine print. (Some typical headlines: “Why the Amex Gold Is the Perfect ‘In Between’ Credit Card”; “How to Get to Puerto Rico on Miles and Points”; “Why I Canceled Bora Bora Again.”)
Kelly is only the face of the site; the “guy” is now voiced by a 30-person team of credit-card experts, aviation reporters and expats from legacy travel media. Older travel publications sell a daydream: crisp ocean vistas, street side cafes, European hamlets with more steeples than people. The Points Guy sells that daydream as a promise, upholding a sworn oath to help you “maximize your travel.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/magazine/points-guy-travel-rewards.html
26. "If you think about this, we may see the repeat of the 1990s equivalent. In the 1990s, you made a lot of money if you took existing businesses in the analog world and brought them online. In the 2020s, you are probably going to make a lot of money if you take existing businesses and figure out how to build decentralized versions.
You obviously need to pick the right teams. You need to pick the right markets to go after. And you need great execution to ensure that it gets global scalability.
But the blueprint is right in front of us. Decentralization is going to be the future of the technology industry. I can’t wait to see what entrepreneurs build next."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/the-decentralization-investment-thesis
27. This is something I know many people, including myself, struggle with: Trading time for money.
We should be thinking about how to leverage our time through productization.
https://radreads.co/why-i-turned-down-20000-of-guaranteed-revenue/
28. Video games are now front and center to dominate the entertainment industry.
"The shift was corroborated last spring, when Adweek reported that the gaming industry’s revenue (at $139bn a year) had outstripped the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL combined. By this December, lockdown life further fattened the industry. The global gaming industry is set to take in $180bn for 2020 – a 20% increase in revenue, and more than sports and movies worldwide."
We’re in the midst of a cultural shift. As Trevor McFedries, the co-founder of Brud (the studio behind the world’s most famous CGI influencer, Lil Miquela), tweeted last month: “Gaming is replacing music as the lynchpin of emergent social scenes and it makes everyone 30+ I talk to really uncomfortable.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jan/11/video-games-music-youth-culture
29. Learned a new term: "Genericiding"
https://www.8ball.report/p/hype-house-genericide
30. A strong case for Lisbon as digital nomad center. I will be spending more time in Lisbon after this Covid mess is over. Definitely considering it to be one of my bases in future.
https://www.lonelyplanet.com/amp/articles/digital-nomads-remote-working-lisbon
31. So many parallels in America to Roman Empire. Recommend reading "The Storm before the Storm" by Duncan and "Rubicon" by Holland.
"Yet the history of the Roman Republic, even as it provided inspiration, also served as a warning. For many centuries, the great ideal of shared citizenship had encouraged the Romans to temper their competitive instincts for the common good. To place personal honour above the interests of the entire community was seen as the behaviour of a barbarian — or worse yet, a king.
Gradually, however, over the course of the centuries, this taboo began to lose its hold. The more of a superpower the Roman Republic became, and the richer the potential pickings on offer to its most powerful men, so the more it began to totter under the weight of its own greatness. The bonds of shared citizenship stretched, then frayed, then snapped. Rome imploded into civil war. The venerable edifice of her republican system of government was reduced to rubble. And in its place an autocracy emerged: the rule of the Caesars. The lesson offered was a sombre one, and weighed heavily on the minds of the Founding Fathers."
https://unherd.com/2021/01/is-this-americas-decline-and-fall/
32. Uh oh.
"China’s relentless push to build a state backed digital currency, the economic disaster the global pandemic wreaked upon the world, and the incredible rise of decentralized cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum has accelerated the timeline to kill off cash.
The only real question now is what will replace it?
Will it be decentralized, borderless, open source, privacy preserving money like Monero, or will it be nation state driven digital surveillance money?
More and more it looks like nation states have the advantage."
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Revenue Forecasts & Projections for Seed Stage Startups ????
The difference in thinking came up at a big tech conference panel that I spoke on. I was a new Venture Capitalist on stage with two prominent NYC based VCs in 2014. The question came up: what do you think of revenue/user forecasts when evaluating early stage startups? (Note: when i say early stage, i mean pre-seed and seed stage startups)
I said I did not care, my fellow panelists vehemently disagreed. This showed the difference in the tech VC scenes and attitudes of the east coast and west coast at large. But it did give me something to consider. Since then I have actually come around somewhat to their view. Not because these forecasts & projections are anything you can count on. Actually these forecasts are either lies or fantasies and any investor who invests based on projections is an idiot or amateur who needs to go back to later stage investing. No experienced or decent investor is going to hold you to these. (I stress the words “experienced” or “decent” investors).
But where the revenue projections are helpful is that it is a guide to better understanding how the founders think. Are they too aggressive or too conservative? Do they understand what the drivers of the business are? Are they detail oriented or not?
Also the financial projects help you understand the potential size of the business and key factors that could hold the business back. Like what the possible organization looks like, sales cycles, how many engineers you would need to hire to hit this growth.
So founders, make sure you spend some quality time on putting together a good basic revenue & financial forecast, usually 2-3 years out is my recommendation. If you have never done one before, go to a local top MBA program and rent a former I-Banker or Management Consultant who have extensive experience putting these together. The exercise itself is helpful for you to understand your business but it’s also a valuable tool for investors to understand you and what you are trying to build.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/