Fires, Hurricanes & NBA Strikes
What I Learned at School this Week
Happy Friday Evening,
Another whirlwind of a week in America. Fires, hurricanes and NBA strikes (or “Boycott?”). I'm blown away by what we're seeing each day.
Neuralink
Elon did the 2020 update for Neuralink this afternoon. Hyperbole aside, I think this could be the biggest technological shift in our lifetime.
Here’s what Elon said at one point this afternoon during the live presentation:
Yes, I think in the future you'll be able to save and replay memories. I mean this is obviously increasingly sounding like a Black Mirror episode. Well, I guess pretty good predicting.
But yeah essentially if you have a whole brain interface, everything that's encoded in memory, you could upload. You could basically store your memories as a back-up. And restore the memories. And ultimately you could potentially download them into a new body, or a robot.
The future is going to be weird.
Will you sign up for a '“Fitbit in your brain?”
Winner-Take-All Dynamics
Stock market continues to hit all-time highs, primarily driven by the tech sector. So it’s relevant to look into the biggest market cap companies, and how much dominance they have, even within the tech category:
The biggest tech companies are so big. Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft each have higher market caps than ALL 488 private unicorn startups COMBINED. That includes the ones that have filed S-1s and Bytedance and Didi and and and...
It’s easy for me to quickly dismiss Apple, saying “their keyboard is garbage, they are past their prime.” However, I enjoyed reading Jessica E. Lesson’s, of The Information, piece this week, as it helped me put to words what I have been thinking the last couple years: The Mistake I Made About Apple’s and Google’s Businesses.
Rolling Funds
VC Twitter has been freaking out about “rolling funds” lately.
Recently, Angel List announced the ability to have a vehicle that allows you to do a fundraise on an on-going, aka “rolling”, basis. As opposed to raising a fund, investing out of it, showing returns, then raising on the success of that previous fund.
Anyway, if you’re into learning about that sort of thing, I’d recommend listening to this episode on Pomp’s Podcast.
Tangentially related, I came across this tweet thread. I’m super curious about angel investing. I’ve only done a few, and realize it’s a “terrible idea” (super risky). But, I would say the ones I’ve done are less for financial upside, and more for learning and access. Anyway, this tweet thread was a great response to who should, or shouldn’t, make angel investments, and why:
Action Over Motion
James Clear’s weekly email has been a fun, mostly aspirational, but sometimes actionable email in my inbox once a week.
Check out a quote from this weeks email:
The difference between motion and action.
Motion:
-talk to a personal trainer
-research your book idea
-explore different types of meditation
Action:
-do 10 squats
-write 1 sentence
-meditate for 1 minute
Motion feels like progress. Action is progress.
NBA Boycotts
I’m continuing to listen more. It seems we aren’t learning from our mistakes. And I can’t imagine how tired someone of color must feel at this point.
So disheartening. But I have to remind myself and be hopeful that with growth, there is pain first.
Two minutes into this video, Doc Rivers breaks down, given the event’s this week. It’s worth the watch.
I’ll leave you with a cheesy/happy video of a guy who kept getting his video camera activated by kids biking in his driveway. Instead of getting upset, he built a track for them in his driveway.
Alright, that’s it folks for this week.
Have a groovy weekend! (I’m trying to bring back “groovy”. Who’s with me?)
Cheers,
Brendan J Short