Tag: VC
-
Making Energy Programmable
(crossposted from the USV blog) We’ve previously written about the storage gap. The proliferation of solar has led to an abundance of energy when the sun is out and a dearth of energy when it’s not. Batteries help address this gap by storing excess energy in times of plenty and…
-
Decoding the AI Debate: A Philosophical Perspective
I had a great time speaking last night on a panel with Brendan McCord of the Cosmos Institute and Zoe Weinberg of ex/ante about venture capital, AI, and philosophy. I was really impressed with the group that convened. People were urgently excited to discuss philosophy of mind and language, technical…
-
Towards a Theory of Decentralization
One force that drives centralization is comparative advantage. If I’m sufficiently good at making clothes, it might be mutually advantageous for me to focus on making clothes all day and to free up the person who’s good at making food to do that and the person who’s good at building…
-
Friday Links
“You must never lose gratitude for this privileged position that you put each other in.”
-
The Economics of Whaling Excursions
I recently picked up Moby-Dick for the first time and have been enjoying learning about the economics of whaling excursions. For example, apparently retired ship captains would provide financing for a portfolio of ships, getting a stake for annuitants who weren’t involved with the day-to-day of investing, and would add…
-
The Generalist on A24
A24 has been a saving grace for keeping cool weird stuff in moving pictures for the last decade. They absolutely dominated the Oscars this year, which nicely marked how significant they’ve become in the non-Marvel section of the movie world. The Generalist recently put out a great piece on their…
-
Climate Tech Policy And The Inflation Reduction Act
This week is Climate Week in New York. There’s been an awesome density of interesting founders, policy people, and other investors in the city, and I’ve had an absolute blast meeting everyone. Today we hosted an event at USV on the impact of the IRA on climate tech startups. Sophie…
-
Is Deep Tech More Capital Intensive?
Something exciting about investing in deep tech startups is that the playbooks are still unwritten. It’s still a fairly small world with people trying a diversity of strategies that will be tested by the market and refined in the coming years. One thing I’ve found basically every investor agrees on,…
-
That was then, this is now
I mentioned before that I’ve been reading a ton of old blogs since I started this blog. It’s actually a very fun activity – regular blogs from decades ago are really fascinating artifacts. Anyway, I was recently reading 2005 AVC posts: Howard’s list of problems with the venture business is…
Matthew Mandel 