GP @a16z โ Building American Dynamism ๐บ๐ธ โ Anthropologist โ Formerly Founder/CEO @OpenDNS โ Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu
Seat 2A
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Desiderata:
You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
๐
Make today a good one!
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My short take is that people who want to get married, get married. My longer take is:
Many of my single friends (mostly the women) have a hard time differentiating between filtering criteria and selection criteria. It's important to SELECT for values / goals / competency, etc. It's fine to FILTER for income / looks / etc. at the top of the funnel but SELECTING on those things is risky. If you aren't getting what you want, you can adjust and widen your filters but not compromise on selection. A lot of people don't understand the difference between filtering and selecting.
American women have never been this resigned to staying single. The challenges of finding a romantic partner have been made more complicated by a growing divide in education and career prospects between men and women.
๐ Read more: on.wsj.com/448WoC4
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Consider this my good deed of the day:
Back in 2008 two bodybuilders were arguing on the Internet about how many days are in a week.
It is one of the greatest Internet threads of all time.
If you haven't read it, stop what you are doing and read it: forum.bodybuilding.com/showtโฆ
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Look, all Parler has to do is get a datacenter, lay down miles of fiber, set up peering, buy a ton of servers, build an IaaS stack, add a PaaS layer, port their app, and they are up and online.
Easy.
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The Kumon math logo never fails to make me laugh. Itโs exactly the kind of face a kid would make who has to go to Kumon.
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100% of current hospitalized Covid patients in SF are unvaccinated. This is an incredible triumph of science, and a colossal failure of the media and politicians.
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We need nuclear. Now. A lot.
Large reactors.
Small reactors.
Micro reactors.
Announcing The Stargate Project
The Stargate Project is a new company which intends to invest $500 billion over the next four years building new AI infrastructure for OpenAI in the United States. We will begin deploying $100 billion immediately. This infrastructure will secure American leadership in AI, create hundreds of thousands of American jobs, and generate massive economic benefit for the entire world. This project will not only support the re-industrialization of the United States but also provide a strategic capability to protect the national security of America and its allies.
The initial equity funders in Stargate are SoftBank, OpenAI, Oracle, and MGX. SoftBank and OpenAI are the lead partners for Stargate, with SoftBank having financial responsibility and OpenAI having operational responsibility. Masayoshi Son will be the chairman.
Arm, Microsoft, NVIDIA, Oracle, and OpenAI are the key initial technology partners. The buildout is currently underway, starting in Texas, and we are evaluating potential sites across the country for more campuses as we finalize definitive agreements.
As part of Stargate, Oracle, NVIDIA, and OpenAI will closely collaborate to build and operate this computing system. This builds on a deep collaboration between OpenAI and NVIDIA going back to 2016 and a newer partnership between OpenAI and Oracle.
This also builds on the existing OpenAI partnership with Microsoft. OpenAI will continue to increase its consumption of Azure as OpenAI continues its work with Microsoft with this additional compute to train leading models and deliver great products and services.
All of us look forward to continuing to build and develop AIโand in particular AGIโfor the benefit of all of humanity. We believe that this new step is critical on the path, and will enable creative people to figure out how to use AI to elevate humanity.
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Can I put this in a job description without being destroyed? "You prefer a job where nobody cares if you need to leave for a dentist appointment in the middle of the day, but you also donโt blink when replying to an email at 9pm while watching Netflix on your couch."
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This remains one of my favorite investor notes of all time. Thanks @LeadEdgeCapital.
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When hiring your first employees at your seed-stage startup and the candidate says they *need* to make $350k/year, they are really saying they don't want to work at a startup and you should probably listen to them instead of trying to make it work.
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I find this video format incredibly compelling. I have no idea what you call it or what it is, but I like it.
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The funny thing about the Sriram hubbub, which is really a nothing burger except on X, is that he renounced his Indian citizenship to become a US citizen, which is a lot more of a commitment to America than most people make. ๐๐บ๐ธ๐ฏ
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Itโs dumb that washing machines donโt just turn into dryers when the washing is done. Iโm aware a small set of compact devices do this mediocrely, but it should be the norm.
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One of the most destructive and delusional things a CEO does is that when a fantastic employee quits, they try to then explain how that employee wasn't actually that good or it's not a loss. Don't do that. It's so weak. Just figure out where you went wrong and fix that. ๐คฏ๐คฏ๐คฏ
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In Silicon Valley almost nobody talks about quantum computing. In Washington DC it comes up all the time. What to make of this?
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Being anti-nuclear may be one of the greatest demonstrations of privilege and wealth in our go-forward lives. For the next working class, no nuclear means regular blackouts and expensive energy.
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Has anyone ever fact checked a McKinsey / BCG / etc. TAM prediction? Like they made a ton of TAM growth predictions over the last 20 years... has anyone ever done the work to see how accurate any were?
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๐๐๐ Talking to my parents about being careful Re: #COVID19 and my mom said โ โ โIf you really cared about your parents, you would have gone to medical school.โ ๐๐คฃ๐ฑ
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Went to @Columbia campus today to see the situation for myself. Itโs a total locked down unsafe quad with groupthink protesters and agitators. An absolute travesty for a once-great university. How difficult it must be to be a Jewish student there right now.
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If I was an incoming freshman for the fall semester of 2020 I would 100% take a gap year and find something productive to do instead. I've met a number of folks who did gap years going into college and I've never met one who regretted it and didn't believe it improved their life.
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Chicken Tikka Masala Pizza should be a thing. Iโm sure someoneโs made it, but Iโve never had it and I want it.
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After using Nespresso pods for years, I was sick of the waste I was generating (and cost) so I bought a coffee grinder and basic coffee brewer. You know what? It tastes better. Way better. It's much, much cheaper and has far less waste, too.
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So @Equifax has an account on my credit report that was opened 8 years before I was born. They have a technology stack that doesn't flag that as totally suspect. That's how stupid the credit bureaus are.
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๐ช๐ช๐ชEven in death, some people still RESIST.
Read this amazing obituary, found by my mom, who reads them all: legacy.com/obituaries/nytimeโฆ
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Founders, if youโre telling me you have product market fit, you probably donโt. If youโre telling me you canโt talk because the AWS bill is on fire, 3 employees are crying, and a customer just showed up at the office with a tramp stamp of your corporate logo, then you have it.
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An unbelievably sad moment in American history. A total failure of these schools. Disgraceful, humiliating, and frightening.
The presidents of @Harvard, @MIT, and @Penn were all asked the following question under oath at todayโs congressional hearing on antisemitism:
Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate [your universityโs] code of conduct or rules regarding bullying or harassment?
The answers they gave reflect the profound moral bankruptcy of Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth.
Representative @EliseStefanik was so shocked with the answers that she asked each of them the same question over and over again, and they gave the same answers over and over again.
In short, they said:
It โdepends on the contextโ and โwhether the speech turns into conduct,โ that is, actually killing Jews.
This could be the most extraordinary testimony ever elicited in the Congress, certainly on the topic of genocide, which to remind us all is:
โthe deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or groupโ
The presidentsโ answers reflect the profound educational, moral and ethical failures that pervade certain of our elite educational institutions due in large part to their failed leadership.
Donโt take my word for it.
You must watch the following three minutes. By the end, you will be where I am.
They must all resign in disgrace.
If a CEO of one of our companies gave a similar answer, he or she would be toast within the hour.
Why has antisemitism exploded on campus and around the world?
Because of leaders like Presidents Gay, Magill and Kornbluth who believe genocide depends on the context.
To think that these are the leaders of Ivy League institutions that are charged with the responsibility to educate our best and brightest.
On the bright side, our congressional leaders deserve accolades for showing tremendous leadership and moral clarity in their statements, by the questions they asked, and the respectfulness with which they conducted the hearing.
It was a masterclass of how our government and democracy should operate.
If you have time, please watch the entire hearing. Throughout the hearing, the three behaved like hostile witnesses, exhibiting a profound disdain for the Congress with their smiles and smirks, and their outright refusal to answer basic questions with a yes or no answer.
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Pro tip for winners: The rule of texting someone busy and asking if they are free for a call is to be free for the next 15-30 minutes immediately after you send the text, and indicate if you want that โnow works, should be a quick call.โ
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This guy wasnโt removed for not wearing a mask. He was removed because itโs a free country and his freedom to not wear one is the same as Americanโs freedom to remove inconsiderate people like this tool.
I was just removed from my flight for not wearing a mask. 1st time this has happened. Not a federal law. @AmericanAir staff standing over me telling me itโs THE LAW. So much for โplease respect those who can not wear a maskโ. When I pointed out this wasnโt a law I was removed.
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๐ง ๐ There are two loops of being a great CEO. The faster these loops run, the better:
1)
a) Hire the best people.
b) Reinforce the vision.
c) Don't run out of money.
2)
a) Do people know what they should be doing?
b) Do they know why?
c) Are they doing it?
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One day I will click a LinkedIn link on my phone and itโll open in the app. One day. ๐๐ผ๐๐ผ๐๐ผ
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The future is going to be amazing. This is a real bionic arm from @aannggeellll: instagram.com/p/zyLF9ZoTVM/ nitter.app/davidu/status/69149196โฆ
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๐๐ฆ๐ Time to redesign @a16zโs website to compete with y-n10.com/, the former president of Nintendoโs family officeโs website.
Aka the greatest website ever.
(h/t @craigmod)
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Thereโs a non-story out tonight that has the wrong headline. I wonโt link to it, but hereโs the corrected headline:
โAmazingly successful company promises fast-paced work environment and delivered on that promise. But itโs run by a woman, so weโre gonna shit all over it.โ
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First time CEOs often confuse empathy and compassion with being soft. People want to work for empathetic and compassionate leaders but they absolutely do not want to work for soft ones.
- Manage out poor performers
- Do not compromise all decisions
- Give people real feedback
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Founders having a tough time: Remember that every great startup was at one point or another (or more likely multiple times), a total and complete dumpster fire that looked and smelled like a turd. Success is never a straight line. ๐
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If you donโt list a Stanford and/or Harvard two week program as part of your education section on LinkedIn so you show up in candidate searches for those school, are you even growth hacking your career?
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This company and the people behind it are special. And deeply patriotic. People donโt understand that only America is organized in a way to wield absolute military superiority responsibly. We cannot allow our adversaries to have the upper hand.
Built by American defense technology startup Anduril, Fury operates almost entirely by itself, carrying out mission plans and adjusting its flight without human input.
"These fly out ahead of manned fighters, and they're able to find the enemy first, be able to engage the enemy well before a manned fighter has to be seen or is in range,โ explains CEO Brian Schimpf. cbsn.ws/43jnUx6
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People are overthinking the precedent or slippery slope issue. It went like this:
AMZN lawyer: โJeff, weโre providing service to a site that advocates murder and assassinations, and was used to coordinate the capital bldg attack. It violates our TOS.โ
Bezos: โKick them, thx.โ
Look, all Parler has to do is get a datacenter, lay down miles of fiber, set up peering, buy a ton of servers, build an IaaS stack, add a PaaS layer, port their app, and they are up and online.
Easy.
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A 12 year old asked me I do and I said I was an investor in early stage technology companies and he asked what I do all day and I said โI reply to emails, all dayโ and he said he said I should invest in a company to do that for me. And heโs not wrong.
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CEOs often forget that the inner loop of the job basically boils down to:
1) Does your team know what's important?
2) Do they know why it's important?
3) Do they know how they are performing against what is important?
If "no" on any of those, fix immediately. (con't)
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You know it's really bad when the Islamic Republic News Agency is celebrating @columbia. Scary for all of America and humiliating for the school.
The video shows the strike of a large number of professors and faculty members of #ColumbiaUniversity, in solidarity with the pro-Palestine students of this university.
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It blows my mind that thereโs still not a single Personal FP&A / forecasting tool out there. Nothing that supports multiple account types, loans (home, auto, etc.), various equities and assets (stocks, bonds, tokens, etc.) and does forecasting, scenarios, and simulations.
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Reading about @Polkadot parachains this morning. Exciting to read the various ideas people are building against and seeing development here โ Plus @kusamanetwork is eponymously enjoyable. ๐
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Oof. Iโve been an entrepreneur a lot longer than Iโve been a VC, and I never understand VCs who shit on founders. Whatโs the upside? A few โlikes?โ I believe in the future, the misfits, the bold. Those who get in the arena. Iโd never take money from a VC who dunks on a founder.
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I get 3 absentee ballots from 3 different states and the system assumes I will only return one (I will only return one) but my god what a stupid system.
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Someone on my flight is listening to music without headphones.
Thatโs not socially acceptable right?
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This is very untrue. Wealth buys access to the best care, best doctors, jumping the line, treatment exceptions, paying out of pocket, etc.
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Thankfully I was able to be both vain and thoughtful in marrying my wife: a brilliant, highly competent, entrepreneur who is also a smoke show and great mom. โฅ๏ธ
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Some personal news: I'm joining the fantastic team @a16z to invest in and support great entrepreneurs. a16z.com/2018/10/02/david-ulโฆ
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1/ There was another mass shooting in your neighborhood today. Because thatโs what Highland Park is. Itโs a neighborhood where youโd want to be from or one youโd want to live in. Same with Sandy Hook. And Columbine. Itโs not mental illness mowing people down, itโs assault rifles.
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Iโm not a fan of everything Ben says, but this entire 40 minutes (not just this 4 min clip) was exceptional. And yes, he destroys the fake talking points with the clincher at the end (as he does to others in the full exchange).
This was a pretty epic exchange with @benshapiro at the Oxford Union.
"If Israel put down its guns tomorrow there would be second holocaust. If the Palestinians put down their guns tomorrow there would be a Palestinian state"
I thought he made his points well. Worth a watch.
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I have an alarming number of friends with very senior executives roles at large tech companies who arenโt using a password manager and arenโt using 2FA for work or personal accounts. How is this possible in 2021? Do I need to write the how-to?
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Right now people in California are thinking about โvaccine tourism.โ
The rollout is that bad.
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Itโs important that leaders on all sides of the aisle, both government and private sector, condemn what the president said today. Thereโs zero (0!) evidence of a multi-state fraud. His words are dangerous and people will get hurt. Democracy requires affirmation, not silence.
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Pro-tip: As of today, 100% of people you are scheduled to meet with over the coming weeks are very understanding and supportive of moving it to a virtual meeting. You are not offending them or upsetting them by asking them to take it virtually. In most cases, they appreciate it.
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Mom, you need to learn how to hang up the iPhone after we finish a call... โค๏ธ
...before you start debriefing / opining on my life to dad. ๐
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There needs to be a real reckoning inside the Dem party about their foreign policy w/r/t Iran. Obama's JCPOA has been a disaster, followed by Biden's repeated attempts to lift sanctions (2/22, 7/23, 8/23, 4/24). These policies have funded and emboldened Iran leading to today.
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New axiom:
If you have 10 customers paying $10k/year, there is a new one willing to pay $100k/year.
If you have 10 customers paying $100k/year, there is a new one willing to pay $1m/year.
If you have 10 customers paying $1m/year, there is a new one willing to pay $10m/year.
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We saw the first memetic, social-media fueled bank run in history Thursday and Friday. As my partners and I spend the weekend working to help our portfolio companies, you can be sure our foreign adversaries are ramping up social media disinfo campaigns to fuel further bank runs.
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This is outrageous. SF is a total lawless and violent city, especially around Market Street.
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If you recently raised a round and then a 4-8 weeks later a bunch of VCs start asking you to meet it's because they are evaluating your competitor. Just FYI.
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Why do venture firms offer term sheets in terms of pre-money instead of post-money valuation? When ownership details matter to everyone (founders, investors, etc.), isn't it in everyone's best interest to just talk about things in the post-money form?
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Free small app idea โ Shared alarm clock app. Be able to add alarms and reminders for someone else and have it alert you both or just the other person. Iโd pay $2.99 per device for that. (I couldnโt find this existing)
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I'm not a lawyer but here's a VC PSA: If you're working with another VC to drive down the price of a deal, that's illegal, and incredibly shitty. Don't do that and definitely don't let me hear about you doing that. I've been a founder longer than I've been a VC and I will ๐ฅ you.
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The best founders treat everything as a funnel. Sales, marketing, recruiting, fundraising, product, support, customer success, employee development, etc. Some obvious, some not obvious. All aspects are best run when thought of as funnels (or for CS nerds, as FSMs).
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A lot of product-oriented founders think they can build their way to growth. That almost never works. Better to just put on the GTM hat and figure out why people aren't buying what's already on the truck.
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If this drug works in the fight against COVID-19, and my dad ends up ranking higher than me in google results for "Ulevitch," it'll totally be worth it. So proud of you dad! And I love you!
sandiegouniontribune.com/newโฆ
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I had no idea that I had so many friends and colleagues who were constitutional law scholars. You never shared your expertise before today. So impressed, you humble polymaths!
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This is not an aberration. My car was broken into in September when I parked on a busy street in SF for 45 minutes. SF is hitting peak 1980's Gotham City.
Are car break-ins on the decline in #SanFrancisco? I think not. This morning on Corbett Avenue, Twin Peaks/Upper Market. I stopped counting at 5. @SFPDPark @SFPD @SFDAOffice
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Another day, another nonsensical take / takedown of a wildly accomplished female CEO of a category-defining company.
(NYT, naturally)
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We're not running a process, but we are talking to a select number of firms (5 to 10) and here's our deck, data room, and timeline for the raise.
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Howโs GDP growth working out for you in the EU?
With great audience comes greater responsibility #DSA
As there is a risk of amplification of potentially harmful content in ๐ช๐บ in connection with events with major audience around the world, I sent this letter to @elonmusk
๐งโคต๏ธ
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A lot of technical b2b founders hear this and think itโs wrong, but for a lot of SMB / Midmarket sales categories, itโs exactly right. I had a bunch of yappers and they did great (but I did stick them far from people trying to get work done). ๐ฐ๐ฐ๐
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Someone asked me what an amusing thing about becoming a VC has been, and it's been this, twice:
Me: "Hey long-time-friend, want to grab drinks on Tuesday?"
Him: "Oh, we're not out fundraising."
Me: "Umm, we're friends, I just wanna hang out."
Him: "Oh, sorry. Yeah, sure."
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Some people have things, but what about the people who don't have things? Should we even allow anything that isn't full-on socialist behavior in venture capital, @techcrunch wonders?
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๐จ Warning: If you watch this video from @descript, your brain may explode at 1:25 when you see how Overdub works. The future is incredible, and it's here today. piped.video/watch?v=Bl9wqNe5โฆ
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Piecing together headlines it seems like:
Nobody is working but everyone has money and is spending wildly buying nothing.
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โ๏ธโก๐ฏ I'm thrilled to announce our investment in @RadiantNuclear โ a company producing portable 1-megawatt nuclear reactors to make long-term clean energy accessible quickly and globally. a16z.com/2023/04/24/investinโฆ
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I am pretty sure Travis Kalanick was the #1 Wii Tennis player in the world for a period of time when people played Wii Tennis. Seriously. @travisk right?
Elon starts his surprise Joe Rogan appearance by mentioning that he's one of the top 20 Diablo 4 players in the world, and there are only TWO Americans in the top 20.
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