“The Perfect Day” Exercise
This was one of the most impactful things I’ve done in my life. I learned about it when I was speaking at the Freedom Business Summit back in september 2019 (https://freedomsummit.net/#about). There were 10 other speakers, all of them highly successful entrepreneurs who had made their fortunes in wide ranging areas from Podcasting, Dropshipping, Instagram Influencer talent management & marketing, Amazon FBA to restaurants. So of course, I stuck around after my keynote to hear what these folks had to say.
Something that came up several times in many of their talks was how crucial doing the “Perfect Day” exercise was for them in altering their lives. So what is the Perfect Day exercise?
You take a blank piece of paper and literally write out what your perfect day looks like. Break it down to 30 minute increments, what you are doing, how do you feel, who are you with. For me, it was a day full of time to read, listen to podcasts and think, while having meals or coffee meetings where i could have good & intelligent conversations with family and friends.
It’s a very simple exercise but it’s incredibly powerful. After I did this initial exercise, I compared it to my calendar and saw the massive delta between what my normal day looked like versus my perfect day. I was literally on the phone or in meetings from 8 am through till late in evening. Fire fighting, fixing things, being pulled from one direction to another without having time to think or rest. It had gotten particularly bad for me in 2018 and 2019.
It explained why I was feeling so drained, unhappy and worn out. It was a wake up call that forced me to rethink my career and make some changes to my lifestyle in general. Many of these changes have finally come to pass thankfully, some through my own deliberate action and others inflicted or pushed on me by the world and events. Yet, I can genuinely say I am much happier based on the mood journal I’ve been keeping over this last year.
While I am still far away from this Perfect Day exercise, it’s something I do revisit and review. It’s a very powerful tool that helps you connect and think about all the key aspects of your life like relationships, money, health, family and work/business. It’s also an invaluable tool for planning your future. And it’s an exercise I have recommended to many others. I promise you it will change your life for the better.
If you are interested in learning more: here are some other articles to learn more on the Perfect Day exercise and will act as good guides to put your own together:
The Life Transforming Magic of the Perfect Day Exercise
How the "average perfect day" exercise can help you set goals
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Optimism versus Cynicism
Growing up in Canada, was overall a great experience. One that I am very grateful and thankful for. But the pull of Asia and then the United States was always there, which was why I left home the minute I graduated from university. First adventuring across Europe, then living in Taiwan for 2 years before finally landing in San Francisco.
I literally joke about being the luckiest man on earth on arriving in Silicon Valley during the near start of a 20+ year boom cycle. How often does a guy land in the nexus of where the world was going from a business and cultural perspective. One of the main reasons for this boom in the SF Bay Area was the high concentration of ambitious and optimistic people in one place. Growing up in Canada, ambition was something that was frowned on so you kept quiet and if you had success, it was begrudged by folks around you.
My view is that it is a leftover remnant from the now schlerotic British colonial culture. And you see something similar in Australia, New Zealand and other former British colonies. Ie. Tall Poppy Syndrome, if you stick out too much, you get your head cut off. It’s especially virulent in the United Kingdom. There are also versions of this in Japan, Germany, France, Ukraine or Russia. An intense skepticism, even cynicism steeped in conservatism. This is also one of the reasons I suspect those startup ecosystems have taken so long to get to critical mass. It takes a strong willed individual to build something when everyone around you is questioning and criticizing you. I have so much respect for founders in those countries.
Techcrunch journalist Danny Crichton wrote:
"Nothing got built by cynicism. “You can’t do it!” has never created a company, except perhaps to trigger a founder to start something in revolt at the fusillade of negativity.
It takes time though to build. It takes time to take an early product and grow it. It takes time to build a startup ecosystem and expand it into something self-sustaining. Perhaps most importantly, it takes extraordinary effort and hard work, and not just from singular individuals but a whole team and community of people to succeed. The future is malleable — and bets do pay off. So we all need to stop asking what’s the problem and pointing out flaws, and perhaps ask, what future are we building toward? What’s the bet I’m willing to back?"
(Source: https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/29/startup-cynicism)
I’ve written before on the importance of culture in a country, in an organization and in an ecosystem. I’m not saying this cynicism does not exist in the United States or in Silicon Valley but it exists in much smaller pockets. Because of my relatively long experience and large data sample from looking at so many deals, it’s very easy to become jaded. I’ve worked hard at having a more balanced view. You need to look at what could go wrong but also imagine what would happen if things go right. Ie. understanding both the downside and upside.
I’ve had to unlearn many negative thoughts that come to mind when I hear a startup idea or meet startup founders. Or even in how I interpret life situations. There is little downside to being more optimistic in life albeit I should note, this should NOT be a blind & naive optimism that ignores reality and data.
Having said that, a more positive attitude has served me well and I believe it does for most people. We can all do with more doses of optimism & positivity in our lives. You should give people energy, not take it away. You have a choice, so choose Optimism!
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads March 14th, 2021
“Whether You Think You Can Or Think You Can’t, You’re Right.” –Henry Ford
1. "NFTs have caught the attention of tech investors (Mark Cuban), the high-brow art world (Christie’s auction house), and major corporations (Nike) alike. And everyone from Lindsey Lohan to the rock band Kings of Leon is flooding the market with high-priced virtual creations of their own.
But what exactly is an NFT? What makes them so valuable? And what might the future hold for these digital assets?"
https://thehustle.co/why-nfts-are-suddenly-selling-for-millions-of-dollars/
2. "I think [I’m] in a fortunate enough position — I’m probably the youngest public company CEO — to be able to have a time horizon and a vision more on the order of 50 years than five years. As we see this through, I don’t plan on, frankly, doing anything different. Now the scope of what Luminar will do, we will expand over time, but we have the time.
And I mean, certainly if there’s any industry that’s ripe for disruption, has the ability to enable this as a trillion-dollar space, and is evolving, it is autonomy, and that’s where absolutely we’re going to be continuing to drive towards."
https://www.theverge.com/22298001/luminar-austin-russel-ceo-interview-self-driving-cars
3. Taiwanese pineapples are actually amazingly delicious so this is great news! Also, F--k the genocidal CCP!
4. "If you want to become a Sovereign Individual, your goal should be to build multiple streams of location-independent income and accumulate distributed assets. In doing so, you cultivate freedom, security, and independence. All of which are essential components of the Sovereign Individual’s lifestyle.
Secondary income also provides an element of security. Whether an unexpected expense arises, a pay cut, or loss of the primary job. Accumulating multiple streams of income provides a safety net for the unexpected life events that are probable.
As everyone can attest to, life frequently throws us curveballs. By building a portfolio of incomes, you are better positioned to handle the unexpected challenges of life."
https://dougantin.com/sovereign-individuals-need-a-multiple-income-portfolio/
5. "And as remote workers realize they can reprioritize their personal needs, they will leverage this ability to conduct a tech-enabled exit. Through this “vote with your feet” practice of “tech enabled exit”, governments will begin to adapt their policy offerings to attract this class of people or be forced to adapt to their absence. In the end, the Sovereign Individual class will gain previously unavailable qualities of life.
This change will not be a smooth transition. It will be full of conflict, populism, and will change what people value. There will be bitterness, resentment, and attempts to publicly shame and extract value from this new group of people. Most importantly, in this transition, freedom of movement will become a luxury good."
https://dougantin.com/remote-work-the-tech-enabled-exit/
6. "Retail’s recent performance and the risks required to achieve as much also suggests smaller investors are trying to do one thing in the market — get rich quick.
We could go on and on about Top Shot and crypto and SPACs, but the actual evidence for why individuals are motivated to speculate is right there in the polling on stimulus checks. The kinds of behavior we’re seeing in the market enabled by services fighting for every ounce of consumer attention is being argued as preying on ignorance when the data suggests the fuel is actually desperation."
https://mylesudland.substack.com/p/financial-literacy
7. A very wide ranging interview here with the brilliant Patrick Collison. Hard not to be optimistic about the future. Biotech, Batteries & the Internet & so much more.
"In terms of what the world needs, improvements in medical technology are probably still #1. Climate change mitigation technology (cleaner energy generation and CO2 sequestration and so on) is also quite high up. More broadly, we need to make all of the things that you and I enjoy every day cheap and efficient enough for billions more people to afford (with safety/security high on that list). But "need" is a tough framing.
There's obviously so much stuff that would be fabulously valuable and it's hard to predict the magnitude of the impact upfront. Besides the obvious diseases, better cures for depression and mental illness and other psychiatric conditions would be hugely beneficial. $100 robotic surgeries. A machine for cheaply manufacturing arbitrary food -- a 3D printer for nourishment into which you just insert elemental "ink cartridges".
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/interview-patrick-collison-co-founder
8. "Printing more money will not solve this problem. It will actually exacerbate it. The mainstream media won’t call it out because they have become mouthpieces for the state. The Wall Street hedge fund managers won’t call it out because they get rich off this nonsense. Instead, the responsibility falls on the independent thinkers.
There are no contrarians left on Wall Street. There are no contrarians left in finance. They’re all sheep. They take the information that is force-fed to them by the propaganda machine and repeat it religiously. Showering money. Cutting poverty. No inflation. Government good. Bitcoin bad.
Each of you has the power to educate yourself and do what you think is best. Don’t wait around for anyone to save you. They’re not coming. You must do your own research. Think for yourself. And ensure that you aren’t exclusively exposed to any one way of thinking. Diversify your inputs to diversify your conclusions."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/the-stimulus-package-wont-cut-poverty
9. I really like these. We should all be striving to become Sovereign Individuals.
https://dougantin.com/10-elements-of-a-sovereign-individual/
10. Zapier is crushing it and doing it their own way, not the overhyped Silicon Valley way. Love it.
"But just because Zapier hasn’t played the game — raising just $1.3 million in funding, going fully remote long before the pandemic made it commonplace, and targeting a customer set left overlooked by many software companies — doesn’t mean it hasn’t built a big business. Last summer, Zapier reached $100 million in annualized recurring revenue; it’s passed $140 million by now. And in January, investors found a way into the business, just not through Foster. Sequoia and Steadfast Financial bought shares at a $5 billion valuation from some of Zapier’s original investors."
https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2021/03/08/zapier-bootstraps-to-5-billion-valuation/
11. Preply crushing it. Congrats to Kirill Bigai & the Preply team. I regret missing this deal. Ukraine represent!
12. Wow but this makes sense. Love what Pipe is doing. NASDAQ for Revenue!
13. I'm a sucker for a good samurai movie. Rurouni Kenshin is classic anime turned live action film.
RUROUNI KENSHIN: THE FINAL/THE BEGINNING (2021) Full Trailer - eng sub | Takeru Satoh
14. This is right on.
"At the end of the day, it comes down to:
Is it worth it to live like the average person?
Is it worth it to pursue vanity, enjoyment, and immediate pleasure and gratification, at the cost of your wider goals, dreams, aspirations, and potential?"
https://lifemathmoney.com/are-all-the-sacrifices-worth-it/
15. This is a pretty neat & timely startup.
"Capsule‘s plan to launch a super simple decentralized social media platform which is safe from censorship by Big Tech has advanced another stage: The nascent startup has closed a seed round of funding ($1.5M) led by Beacon Fund, a dedicated crypto fund by Polychain Capital — which is itself focused on startups building on Dfinity’s decentralized network for next-gen ‘open’ apps (aka, the Internet Computer)."
16. This is incredibly catty and clever writing. Bravo. I am not a fan of either the Monarchy or Hollywood but....this is really good.
"Having a monarchy next door is a little like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and has daubed their house with clown murals, displays clown dolls in each window and has an insatiable desire to hear about and discuss clown-related news stories. More specifically, for the Irish, it’s like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns and, also, your grandfather was murdered by a clown.
Harry and Meghan are ultimately going to win. Despite the tabloid frenzy, this was never the story of an ungrateful pauper being elevated by the monarchy. This was about the potential union of two great houses, the Windsors and Californian Celebrity. Only one of those things has a future, and it’s the one with the Netflix deal."
17. Yes, the culture wars in the USA are getting pretty stupid even by 2020 standards. This is a good recap.
As Naval famously said, "The Left has won the culture wars, now they are just driving around shooting the survivors"
https://www.piratewires.com/p/green-eggs-and-stfu
18. Big fan of Sahil Bloom, he is a must follow on Twitter.
https://www.theproofwellness.com/sahil-bloom-on-leverage-and-living-online
19. Twitter is starting to innovate again. Glad to see as its such an influential platform.
"One of the things that [Twitter CEO] Jack [Dorsey] really emphasized when he came back to the company, was morphing our product development process to respect the “jobs to be done” framework a lot more. I don’t know how much you’ve heard about “jobs to be done,” but fundamentally, it just comes down to imbuing customer understanding into the product development process.
And so for us, all of the work we do starts from the standpoint of: what are our customers trying to hire us for? What are they firing us for? And how do we build product solutions that have those dimensions in mind?"
https://www.theverge.com/22319527/twitter-kayvon-beykpour-interview-consumer-product-decoder
20. This seems promising.
"If MobileCoin becomes a de facto way to transact over Signal — Goldbard and Marlinspike told Wired they envisioned it first as an integration in chat apps like Signal or WhatsApp — its reach could potentially be massive."
21. Bullish on Roblox.
"In short, Roblox isn’t a game at all: it is world in which one of the things you can do is play games, with a persistent identity, persistent set of friends, persistent money, all disconnected from the device that you use to access the world. That is the transformational change.
Roblox, though, isn’t simply the same game everywhere, it’s the same persistent world everywhere, from PC to console (Xbox, not PlayStation) to smartphone, in which games happen to exist. It’s a metaverse…kind of."
https://stratechery.com/2021/the-roblox-microverse/
22. 3Lau is one of the most forward thinking & business savvy musicians around. I'd say most EDM DJs are pretty omnivorous and business savvy though.
"Young artists will realize that if they have traction, they'll be able to raise money from their early fans. This applies to visual artists too: Beeple only started issuing NFTs three months ago. The first pieces that sold for dollars are going for tens of thousands now.
The future is fans investing in artists and being able to share in their success. It’s a technological renaissance where artists have the power. It’s the first time it’s happened in centuries. It will enable artists to recapture all of the emotional value that has been stolen by social media platforms and advertised upon."
https://www.morningbrew.com/emerging-tech/stories/2021/03/01/conversation-3lau
23. It is definitely a brand new exciting world for artists. Now I know who Beeple is.
"Beeple has 1.8 million Instagram followers. His work has been shown at two Super Bowl halftime shows and at least one Justin Bieber concert, but he has no gallery representation or foothold in the traditional art world.
And yet in December the first extensive auction of his art grossed $3.5 million in a single weekend."
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/a35500985/who-is-beeple-mike-winkelmann-nft-interview/
24. This is a funny story. Something lighthearted for once in the media it feels like. Last of the lost tourists.
https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/lost-tourist-who-thought-Bangor-was-San-Francisco-15940512.php
25. It really pays to have friends who start companies in Silicon Valley.
"More than three decades later that idea has made Baszucki extremely rich — his Roblox stake is worth $4.6 billion after the company’s stock market debut on Wednesday. Rimer’s investment firm, Index Ventures, is benefiting handsomely too. Its shares are valued at $3.7 billion.
Baszucki and Rimer are two of the biggest winners in Roblox’s direct listing, the latest tech company to go public at a massive valuation and generate hefty paper returns for its founders and venture backers."
26. This is really awesome, especially considering how corrupt and broken the healthcare system is in USA. Many friends who use this & rave about them. Will have to sign up too. Forward Health!
27. The only positive thing to come out of pandemic. Here comes the "Great Acceleration!"
"Many psychological obstacles to technological development are crumbling at the same time. I group them in two areas, both related to our state of emergency. First, we have realised that time is actually scarce. Moving fast is the responsible choice, now that we understand deadly threats can arrive suddenly and catch us unprepared. Second, societies have a collective responsibility to address common problems, and consent cannot become a veto power by each individual on our ability to act.
Peter Thiel, a card-carrying member of the Great Stagnation society, sees an epochal change, telling Forbes magazine: ‘I keep thinking the other side of it is that one should think of Covid and the crisis of this year as this giant watershed moment, where this is the first year of the 21st century. This is the year in which the new economy is actually replacing the old economy."
https://brunomacaes.substack.com/p/the-great-acceleration
28. This is a pretty useful framework for life.
https://sahilbloom.substack.com/p/the-bezos-regret-minimization-framework
29. This is a funny show. I need to check it out again.
".....the world of Kim’s Convenience was Canada’s dream of its better self. Which is a different dream than America’s. And sometimes when your own dream has been shattered, at least temporarily, it’s nice to be able to live in someone else’s, and to believe that it might still be alive and intact."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/kims-convenience-the-end-of-the-dream
30. Learn something new all the time. "Regenerative Agriculture" is very interesting.
31. This is so awesome for EU tech scene. Taavet and Sten are great founders and investors (and good guys to boot). Operator-Investor movement coming to Europe.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/11/fund-with-no-name/
32. This sounds about right.....rough time in most of the locked down world. But there is light at end of the tunnel.
"Why might rudeness, meanness, and pettiness be guiding our actions right now? According to therapist Ashley McHan, the answer is simple: we’re tired, and as Kosoff wrote, we’re tired because of forces outside our control. “Over time we get fatigued,” McHan told VICE. “If there hasn't been change happening around us or there hasn't been improvement of situations, our ability to tolerate them is going to decrease… Our ability to cope might eventually piddle out.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/g5b7nj/heres-why-everyone-is-acting-like-an-asshole-lately
33. This is a promising edtech startup focusing on massive corporate executive education market. Prof Galloway is not so good investor but solid entrepreneur with a large audience. So this totally makes sense to me.
34. Finally some Decency in the White House after an awful 2016-2020.
"The president’s speech echoes the message of an executive action he took in January, when he denounced anti-Asian racism, called for better data collection of these incidents, and urged federal agencies to remove any racist language still being used in government documents.
His remarks send a powerful message, directly counter to the one sent by former President Donald Trump, who disregarded World Health Organization guidelines and used racist terms for the coronavirus. By strongly opposing anti-Asian actions in his remarks, Biden made it clear that such racism is unacceptable and won’t be amplified by this White House."
https://www.vox.com/2021/3/11/22326462/joe-biden-anti-asian-racism
35. Not sure I agree with China or Hong Kong being on this list anymore
(at least for foreigners). The rest of list I think is right. Go Taiwan, Georgia, Macedonia, Lithuania & Armenia!
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2016/08/24/strongest-free-market-economies/
36. "Which wouldn’t be the first time someone in a boring business has spent a lot of money to sidle up to an entertainment business. In fact, that dynamic is a core feature for Hollywood.
And while $300 million is a lot to you, a normal person, it is not much for Square: The company has $3 billion in cash on hand and likely paid for most of the deal with its stock, which, like many tech stocks, has been on a crazy tear and currently values the company at more than $100 billion.
So the real Square argument will be: Why not? If associating ourselves with Jay-Z, who we’ve also put on our board of directors, helps us convince people to buy and sell stuff on Square and talk about creating new paradigms for art and ownership, then great. And if not, it still sounds pretty cool."
https://www.vox.com/recode/22313268/tidal-square-jay-z-jack-dorsey-nft-explainer
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Proximity is Power & Other Nuggets of Insight from Shaan Puri
I think everyone needs to watch this interview between Jack Butcher & Shaan Puri. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaqu_YrfXuQ
I’ve known Shaan for a few years and I always learn things from him. He is one of the sharpest thinkers around in Silicon Valley. He is a startup founder and operator. He used to run Monkey Inferno, the venture studio of Michael Birch of Bebo fame. He sold a company to Twitch and runs product, mobile gaming and emerging markets there. He is also the founder & co-host of “My First Million” a top 10 business podcast & is an investor through his Rolling Fund (over 2M usd a year to invest). A pretty accomplished guy.
Some key ideas that came out from this interview.
1. “Proximity is Power” quotation from Tony Robbins as HT to Shaan Puri.
Another way to say who you hang out with matters. If you hang out with super successful people, you will become more successful. Being around them you almost absorb things through osmosis. You Learn how they got there, what they learned along the way. Usually real talk not revisionist stories. Become good examples & help break mental barriers.
2. The How takes care of itself. Get the Why & What right.
ABZ framework. A is the first step, B is the next step and Z is the end goal. You don’t need to know every single one of the steps, you will figure things out along the way. Keep taking action and don’t fall into “Analysis paralysis”
3. How to Find your Edge: Has to feel like Play to you, but feel like Work for others.
This is the only way for you to figure out your special niche. If you enjoy doing this, you should become really good at it. It also makes it harder for your competition, hard to be good at something if you don’t enjoy it.
4. The importance of controlling time. Not trading time for money.
Shaan shares how he scrapped a newsletter business that made him $50,000 usd a month because it got in the way of his lifestyle and took up far more time that it was worth.
5. Building an Audience and then building leverage.
The Influencer business model has changed. Early models like Tim Ferriss and GaryVee did well. But now you see a new generation like Shaan, Pomp and heck MrBeast take this to a new level & via leverage. Making & selling courses instead of writing a book. Raising a rolling fund from others to invest, instead of just investing your own money.
6. Importance of choosing the right project.
It’s the most critical decision. You are going to spend a lot of time working on it. So make sure it’s the right one.
7. Lessons from UFC superstar Conor Macgregor
Always being in a top state of mind. 2015 “Every year is going to be my year!” Your Mindset becomes your reality.
“You gotta feel some way. Why not feel good, why not feel confident, Why not feel unstoppable?” you get to choose how you feel. Why not choose these phenomenal states? Basically control your emotions and state of mind. Training your brain. Train yourself how to think. These small things are the big things in life.
8. Personal Ownership
Biggest thing is taking ownership of your decisions and your life. In my opinion, the philosophy of “Radical Self Reliance” that he preaches will become more prevalent in the post covid world. This is the only way forward if you want to build a fulfilling, accomplished and happy life.
Net net: watch the video and hope you learned as much as i did from this. Shaan is a superstar so please do follow him on Twitter @shaanVP and listen to his podcast. https://thehustle.co/my-first-million-podcast/
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Are you on a Bridge or A Pier?
There is that inevitable time in every startup’s life when what you are doing is just not working. Either customers are not buying, or churning out quickly. Users aren’t staying. Or it is one of the countless indications that you are going nowhere fast. So you pivot the business either by taking your product and targeting a new customer/market. Or you continue to focus on the present customer base but you rebuild your product and offering?
But then the question is where are you going and where does this path lead to? Are building a Pier or Bridge.
A Pier goes straight into the ocean, in other words a dead end.
A Bridge connects two pieces of land. It is a clear path you use to go to a new destination. The analogy is apt for startups trying to get to their next milestone or stage of development.
Much of this is as my friend Mike Maples Jr. says, tied into the “Insight” they had which kicked off the idea of the business. Does the insight still hold or has the market changed. Or maybe you were right on the insight but the customer development process was flawed or the execution either on product or Go To Market was poor.
This is an important discussion and something all founders need to be honest with themselves, their team and their investors & advisors about. It will help them clarify the new hypothesis of the business and whether there is even a market for it. Markets & the competitive landscape change very quickly these days. Constantly.
These conversations give you some certainty on whether the business has legs and how to move forward. Otherwise you are just wasting your precious time. Ultimately time is the most valuable and non renewable resource in all of our lives. So in this light, make sure you do your homework, have the hard conversations to make sure you are working on something that is worthy of your time. Or at least gives you more than 50% certainty that this is the case.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Marvin’s Best Weekly Reads March 7th, 2021
“The Best Way To Get Started Is To Quit Talking And Begin Doing.” – Walt Disney
"It was, according to many industry analysts, one of the most successful promotions in the history of American cuisine.
But the deal wasn’t so hot for Subway’s franchisees.
Eager to grow at all costs, Subway refused to let the promotion die. As inflation drove up the cost of doing business, the $5 footlong became financially unsustainable for many of the independent entrepreneurs who owned the company’s eateries.
This is the story of a promotion gone very right, and then very wrong. But it’s also a parable about the oft-conflicting goals of small business owners and large corporations."
https://thehustle.co/the-rise-and-demise-of-subways-5-footlong-promotion/
2. "There was a lot that he got right: Armstrong had been running fraud prevention at Airbnb. “This is someone who was entrusted with this billion-dollar marketplace,” Tan remembers. On top of that, Tan had tried to buy Bitcoin from Dwolla and Mt. Gox and concluded that “it was not legit.” Tan had also worked on software for Peter Thiel’s hedge fund as an early Palantir employee. During that time, Tan was told to read the book The Dollar Crisis. So, he understood how the dollar’s decoupling from the gold standard had changed the world. And, of course, by then he’d bought into Marc Andreessen’s assertion that software was eating the world.
And Tan was convinced that Bitcoin would be an amazing medium of exchange — not a store of value. “I didn’t want to believe in store of value back then because I was worried about investing in something that was digital gold,” he said.
“But I was wrong,” he says. Most of the value from Bitcoin today is as an investment or as a hedge against the financial system."
https://www.newcomer.co/p/what-i-got-wrong-about-coinbase
3. "He tells The Verge that Spotify will incorporate a hybrid business model with three distinct parts. One will involve the typical user subscription revenue, another is advertising dollars through its podcast ad marketplace and music streaming ads, and the third is a la carte options, like helping musicians and podcasters sell merch, tour tickets, or even subscriptions to their own content.
“I think you’re going to see platforms making a distinction of not a one-size-fits-all, not just in terms of the creators or how they think about their audience, but really about how you can grow your audience, engage with them, turn them into fans, and then create new and important ways to monetize that fan base,” he says."
https://www.theverge.com/2021/2/23/22295315/spotify-ceo-interview-podcast-daniel-ek-music-stream-on
4. Anyone who cares about your career: this is an important video worth watching.
How to Build a Personal Monopoly with Jack Butcher
5. This is a damn good Netflix series if u like Japanese samurai military history.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RYcKCtbFpE
6. “Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, has an alter ego,” O’Keefe wrote: “Farmer Bill, the guy who owns more farmland than anyone else in America.”
https://nypost.com/2021/02/27/why-bill-gates-is-now-the-us-biggest-farmland-owner/
7. "The federal debt of the United States is increasing by over $1 trillion per year, and any amount of this new debt that isn't purchased by foreign and private investors would need to be monetized by the Federal Reserve, meaning a greater supply of dollars.
This of course is an argument for hard assets. Bitcoin, Gold, etc—these commodities are products that derive their value from not changing."
https://eriktorenberg.substack.com/p/the-devaluing-of-the-us-dollar
8. Great basics on fundraising.
https://foundermusings.substack.com/p/part-1-fundraising-without-yc-the
9. "And though Asia’s growth boom is still going strong, it can’t last forever, and Africa’s day as the workshop of the world may come soon.
But economists, leaders, policymakers, businesspeople, and international organizations need to be focusing on this challenge more than they are. The fate of humanity in the 21st century and beyond hinges on whether African countries can figure out the riddle of industrialization."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/all-futurism-is-afrofuturism
10. Turkey turning into a Gaming center.
11. "it’s important to realize that not all acquisitions are created equal. When the opportunity to sell your company comes along, you will be eager to move forward; but make sure to take a beat, think twice and assess the situation. To help do that, remember that there are at least four types of acquisitions."
https://thefamily.substack.com/p/not-all-acquisitions-are-created
12. "One way to think about Lambda is like fintech: You have all these transactions that are moving all over the place, but what makes it all work is a clearinghouse that moves all the money to where it needs to go. I think of Lambda as kind of an economic clearinghouse: Here's all of the untapped human potential, here's all the would-be labor, and over here’s all the jobs that need to be done. There's nothing connecting the two right now other than sheer happenstance and going to university, or maybe you hear that there's a good job over here somewhere."
https://www.thepullrequest.com/p/the-american-dream-as-a-service
13. "We need to be great at managing risk — at identifying it, articulating it, allocating it appropriately, and discharging it systematically and efficiently. Because if you’re great at managing risk, you can take bigger ones. And if you take bigger risks you can accomplish greater feats. So, am I saying that risk management needs to be our core competency as an industry, as if we were actuaries at an insurance company? Damn right — that’s exactly what I’m saying."
https://lifescivc.com/2014/03/the-awesome-power-of-risk/
14. "Whether it was Russia and Venezuela explicitly talking about getting off the US dollar standard or Argentina settling an export deal with Paraguay in Bitcoin, countries have been looking for a new solution for awhile.
We aren’t going to see this occur overnight, but we are definitely starting to see early signs of potential. Bitcoin is widely viewed as a financial asset that investors can hold, but Bitcoin is also a payment network that has proven to be superior to every other payment network in the world. That technology story is rarely covered in the mainstream media, yet it remains one of the most interesting aspects of the Bitcoin network."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/the-currency-of-choice-for-international
15. I'm down with Portugal and Mexico!
https://nomadcapitalist.com/2021/02/24/easiest-countries-to-move-to-from-usa/
16. Sadly anti-Asian violence is increasing in USA/Canada & Europe. Ignorant morons as many of these us are very anti-CCP/China.
"So my theory of anti-Asian violence is that misplaced anger over COVID kicked it off (perhaps aided by Trumpian rhetoric), but it became a self-sustaining meme. Violent people looking for someone to attack — whether because of pandemic stress, natural aggression, a desire to rob someone, a yearning to find someone to hate and exclude, or whatever — zeroed in on Asians as potential victims instead of looking elsewhere."
https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/is-conflict-with-china-fueling-anti
17. Not surprised. These folks are investing in some super interesting stuff and their close ties to Thiel help too.
https://techcrunch.com/2021/03/03/presight-fund-two/
18. This is a real shame. There is a real need for funding mechanism like this. Too bad many of traditional LPs either don't understand it or just too conservative.
Congrats to Bryce Roberts for trying this even if it did not continue. Amazing initiative for sure.
19. "While we have a very long path to the final stage, it is inevitable in my mind that bitcoin will become the global reserve currency. Any human with an internet connection will be able to plug into the decentralized, open protocol and send or receive value instantaneously and nearly for free. This is going to fundamentally change the way that resources are organized and used.
As this occurs, entrepreneurs and technologists are going to see the power of decentralized, open protocols. They will start to apply them to various aspects of the legacy system. They will decentralize individual products like collateralized lending or exchanges, but they will also decentralize more complex aspects of society like insurance, corporate governance, and ultimately the law itself.
This innovation and progress is going to take decades."
https://pomp.substack.com/p/a-new-era-is-upon-us
20. This movie looks really good.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtGjZp3MWrI
21. "The internet accelerated the shareability of memes, but the creation of memes remained full of friction. It took a fair amount of work to make a meme and, as a result, few people were meme creators. But the internet is becoming more participatory—with new tools democratizing creation and unlocking creativity—and meme culture will be no different. The building blocks for this future will be “cultural legos” and “software legos”
Culture and memes are now indistinguishable: memes reflect culture, magnify culture, and create culture. And the future of memes is, like much of the consumer internet, about creation—more people remixing and sharing."
https://digitalnative.substack.com/p/memes-and-the-atomic-units-of-culture
22. This is a must read for anyone who is thinking about their career and their future.
"The Future of YOU
#1 Audience = Future Currency.
Cash may not be king in the future, your audience will be.
#2 Audience is an Annuity.
It is a cash-flowing asset. It continues to pay and unlike an annuity, as they only have one revenue stream, your audience has numerous.
#3 You-Corps.
The next wave of companies is and will be creators. We increasingly do not trust institutions so we increasingly may move towards trusting individuals. With the tech onslaught why can’t the next group of Unicorns all be You-Corps. Aka You!"
https://contrarianthinking.substack.com/p/i-messed-up-the-you-corp-nfts-and
23. "Gamers are already spending over $100 billion a year on virtual currencies and assets, which amounts to five times the size of the global music industry. And now with blockchain, gamers can actually own items in the games they’re playing. Investors see the value in this, and are striking while the iron is hot."
24. "Deep science investor Lindy Fishburne cofounded the seed- and early-stage venture firm Breakout Ventures several years ago, after cofounding Breakout Labs within the Thiel Foundation back in 2011, and she has amassed a wide array of stakes in the process. Among her firm’s portfolio companies is Cortexyme, a company that aims to treat Alzheimer’s disease; the sustainable materials maker Modern Meadow; and Strateos, a company whose robotic cloud platform is remaking how lab work gets done."
25. Long overdue in Europe. There needs to be other financing options available to startups than VCs.
https://sifted.eu/articles/funding-alternatives-startups-europe/
26. These are some very cool gaming studios. Shout out & congrats to my friend Emily at Double Loop Games!
27. Long one but worth the read. Lots of great insights in general.
"Various memes and trends pass around on networks like Instagram and Twitter. But there, you still have to create your own version of a meme from scratch, even if, on Twitter, it's as simple as copying and pasting.
But TikTok has a strong form of this type of network effect. They explicitly lower the barrier to the literal remixing of everyone else's content. In their app, they have a wealth of features that make it dead simple to grab any element from another TikTok and incorporate it into a new TikTok.
The barrier to entry in editing video is really high as anyone who has used a non-linear editor like Premiere or compositing software like After Effects can attest. TikTok abstracted a lot of formerly complex video editing processes into effects and filters that even an amateur can use."
https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2021/2/15/american-idle
28. Good to know.
"Despite the recent focus on efficacy rates without context, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine is not an inferior shot. Its authorization in the US is an exciting development that will help us get to our two goals of Covid-19 control: reducing hospitalizations to an acceptable level and achieving herd immunity. The most important thing is that everyone takes whatever vaccine they can get—both for their own safety, as well as the safety of those around them."
https://www.wired.com/story/covid-19-vaccines-equally-worthy-of-your-arm/
29. Like it or not, China's CCP is the main enemy to the west.
"Democracies are, of course, far from perfect. They suffer from inequality and injustice. But Xi’s vision for “a community with a shared future,” as he calls it, is like a neighborhood where a man beats his wife every night, but anyone who tries to help her is “intervening in his internal affairs.” In order to show you are not “prejudiced,” you invite the guy over for pool parties, and smile as if nothing’s wrong. Maybe he’ll bring you a few beers. That’s how Xi defines “mutual respect.”
I don’t want to live in that neighborhood. For the West to full-on decouple from China is impractical. But we do have to think hard about how we choose to engage with Beijing. Fueling Xi’s rise by sharing our best technology is not a good idea. Imposing costs on China for its human rights abuses, in the form of sanctions, is a must.
Pro-Beijing advocates will say that we in the West are being hypocritical and that our real agenda is to “keep China down.” Still, we’re under no obligation to share our technology and capital with a regime that is increasingly contemptuous of what we hold dear."
https://www.politico.eu/article/xi-jinping-turned-me-into-a-china-hawk/
30. This is a worthwhile read.
"We see the influence of this survivalist mindset in our economic systems, ranging from Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” or Hobbes tying “self-preservation” to “self-interest.” In turn, scarcity reinforces zero-sum thinking, the destructive “I win, you lose” that masquerades as meritocratic competition."
https://radreads.co/how-to-overcome-the-scarcity-mindset/
31. "It’s important to recognize that board members are not there to sit in judgment of you but rather to collaboratively problem-solve with you. If you’re not able to discuss the company’s biggest problems with them, you’re much less likely to make meaningful progress. You should choose your board members accordingly. "
https://sacks.substack.com/p/the-saas-board-meeting
32. "The creator economy served as a catalyst to disrupt legacy structures by introducing platforms & products that enable individuals to build a business around themselves. There are many reasons why individuals want to go independent which I explain in detail here (Media Companies as Record Labels) and here (Rise of the Renaissance Creator), which introduce a variety of opportunities for both the talent and existing media institutions.
The rapid development of platforms and services that empower individuals to build a business around themselves is a major one. Top talent wants more control and ownership over their work, having options to transcend their reputation and financial success from a parent brand."
https://medium.com/digital-diplomacy/a-new-media-structure-the-ownership-economy-517131568ced
33. "NFT creators in the future will have two paths: independent or collective. As an independent, creators can realize the full upside of their NFT creations, and earn their built-in royalties. But the collective model is an entirely new way to build distribution. By fractionalizing the royalties of an NFT, creators gain more distribution. These fractional royalties can be represented in the form of tokens, which are inherently programmable like NFTs. Creators will strategically distribute these tokens to users who can help them sell the NFT, potentially at a higher price than if they were to do it alone."
https://jammsession.mirror.xyz/-xYcfFRlhDdLDSUgRMTYJAaRJBs2VG4LP34DnOV84mI
34. "This is what I’m calling the age of the Renaissance Creator — the hybridization of the individual as both a creator and an entrepreneur. This development and definition of ‘creativity’ is one of the more interesting things happening today because it is contrary to the supposed logic for a creator to go independent. We like to say independence (see: passion economy) is valuable because it lets a creator focus on what they do best; create. But actually it’s the opposite.
By going independent, the creator is aspiring to not only create, but willingly assume the management and business of their entire self. This acceptance of responsibility as a formula for success will dictate a creator’s desire to go independent and develop a micro-label or decide to limit duties and create within a larger media organization.
I want to be a creator. I want to be a business. I want to be a brand."
https://jarroddicker.medium.com/media-2020-rise-of-the-renaissance-creator-459daec4bc6b
35. Salesforce VC is one of the few CVCs that are doing it right & effective. The numbers are impressive.
"In a boom time for large tech IPOs and software consolidation, Salesforce’s name is showing up everywhere. CEO Marc Benioff has proven that he’s not only a mega-dealmaker when it comes to buying high-priced cloud companies like Slack and Tableau, but has also turned Salesforce, with its hefty balance sheet, into a major force in Silicon Valley venture capital."
36. "The sneaker boom has created opportunities for a new generation of speculator. Hebert and other young resellers are the first to treat footwear as a bona fide asset class, products as worthy of informed valuation and investment as any other commodity. The sneaker market, for them, is a lot like playing the market. In the hours after siphoning up stock from retailers, they essentially sell short-term futures based on street sentiment."
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2021-sneaker-investment/
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
Safe is Unsafe, Unsafe is Safe: Managing Risk
One of my favorite episodes of Star Trek Next Generation was Season 6: Tapestry of Life.
When Captain Picard's artificial heart fails, he is offered the rare opportunity to go back in time and fix the mistake that led to his demise. Yet by changing this, it completely altered his life and career in a direction that he did not expect. He became a low level functionary with little responsibility instead of captain of a starship. So what is the point here besides sharing that I am a Star Trek Fan (For the record, I also like Star Wars and most Science Fiction in general). I think there is a great lesson for many of us.
As stated in the episode:
“Because he never came face to face with his own mortality. It never taught him that life was too precious to squander by playing it safe. His life never came into focus, he drifted with no plan and no agenda. Never seizing the opportunity that presented themselves…..He learned to play it safe & he never, ever got noticed by anyone.“
I speak a lot about differentiation and standing out. Taking risks is important, in fact crucial to move forward. I don’t mean senseless & stupid risk: which are ones that endanger yours or someone else’s life (ie. jumping out of an airplane without a parachute or riding a motorcycle without a helmet, or driving drunk). But you should take calculated risks. The worst thing you can do in life is playing it safe and following what society and what others around you are doing. Then you end up just like everyone else.
More often according to noted psychologists Daniel Kahneman the reality is we tend to overestimate the size of the risks and underestimate our own ability to handle and overcome it. We also miss the cost of not taking action. How many guys regret not asking out the girl or trying for that promotion? To sum it up: No Risk, means No Reward.
This is relevant to investing, to career moves, dating/marriage and life at large. Better to try and have it not work out. At least then, you won’t be wondering what life would have been like if you did not take action.
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
The 5 Phases of Countries & Companies
This came from Ray Dalio. (#Hattip to Chamath for surfacing this.)
Poor Countries Acting Poor
A Poor Country Who Becomes Rich but Acting Poor
Rich Country Acting Rich
A Rich Country that has become poor but does not realize it & still acting rich
A Rich Country Becomes Poor again
Using this matrix, you can easily slot countries into each phase. So many things to mention here. Hunger/ dissatisfaction versus complacency. Saving versus spending. Frugal versus extravagance. Humility versus arrogance (ahem, USA & UK).
This is also incredibly relevant to people & our lives. Also quite relevant to companies as well. It’s the “Rags to Riches to Rags” cycle. Assuming you have some level of self awareness and honesty, you can use this to plot where you are in your life stage and mentality. The key is build good habits and keep the right attitude to prevent complacency and arrogance.
And hopefully use it to slow down any fall coming.
As my Ukrainian friends say, “The best wolf is always a little bit hungry.”
Listen to this Newsletter: https://listencat.com/the-hard-fork-by-marvin-liao-podcast/
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/