Sunshine on a Cloudy Day
Silicon Valley is struggling to adjust to the post-2021 correction. Some signals are way up, like Snowflakes revenues and stock price. Others are down, like funding rounds. Venture is always a few steps behind on both the downside and the up. But today is sunny, and so is the near future.
Mad or Bad? What Are They Thinking?
$350m for @AdamWeWork. The world has not gone mad. Read why Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) did it. Plus @ReidHoffman on AI, Josh Nicholson on Science and AI, @BrianSolis on Web3 marketing @Alexoppenheimer on valuing companies, and much more. TOTW @matt_gray_
How Are Unicorns Born?
This week @bhorowitz and David Weiden of @KhoslaVentures talk about culture as a catalyst for a healthy company. @SamirKaji talks about the importance of emerging seed investors, and @HunterWalk discusses the importance of angels with operating experience to a CEO. @Om Malik and @BGurley talk about survival techniques during downturns. How is a Unicorn Born? That is the common theme.
The Future of the Newsletter
This week I contrast the views of Substack co-founder Hamish McKenzie and Vox’s Peter Kafka. And I couldn’t resist a few suggestions to Hamish. The Future of the Newsletter is the future of the network, whatever the outcome, so this is important.
Deep Minds Think Alike
Deep in the heart of summer and @Om links to the 200 best dance songs of all time. I’m passing it on as a gift. And DeepMind figured out the structure of 200m human proteins. Now that really is a gift. Data and Science are crucial to humanity’s future. Deep Minds think alike is this week’s theme.
Down, Down, Deeper and Down
In a week where the public markets rebounded, private market talked was all about downside. Content from @ttunguz @jasonlk @geneteare and @crunchbase is startup of the week.
Truth is Overrated
A @bgurley tweet pointed to an essay written by Isaac Saul (@Ike_Saul), founder of Tangle. His essay challenges the idea that misinformation is a problem. He argues that nothing we humans think we know is actually true. Rather it is our provisional understanding. Of course, he is right. Truth is overrated
Stop, Breathe, Think
So many points of view about the venture ecosystem. Some panic, some optimism, some ‘wait and see’. Modern media likes to take sides but all of these sentiments are appropriate because more than one thing is happening. All at the same time. And many of them are good.
Live Sports – The Next Streaming War
An average sports stadium can hold 50-100,000 fans. But teams have millions and sometimes billions of fans. What is the rue value of rights to stream games? This week Amazon bought UK Champions League rights. Can we expect more money to come for sports rights and who should own them?
Live Long and Prosper
Netflix announced 300 layoffs and Brex pulled the rug on its small business customers. But LocalGlobe raised $500m, InFarm announced to new farms and eBay bought NFT firm KnownOrigin. Making the right choices will help us all to live long and prosper. Web 3 seems to still be a good choice.