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The 23 Memorable People & ‘Peccadillos’ of ’23 – Part One

The 23 Memorable People & ‘Peccadillos’ of ’23 – Part One

Image by Rosy / Bad Homburg / Germany from Pixabay

Remember all the dumb things you did when you were 23 and thought you knew everything? No, the year wasn’t all bad. Then again, when you were 23, you had your moments, too…

We’ve made our list and checked it twice, so without further ado, the people and peccadillos of the year that’s coming to an end, but the real question is, in many cases, when – and where – does it stop?

  1. Sam Bankman-Fried. He held our attention for quite a spell, as tales of his exploits were revealed: defrauding investors left and right and spending money like it grew on trees. Which it did for him: shake the tree and there were even more funds in the FTX coffers. The one-time crypto king believed that his true strength was in his hair and that those carefully unkempt locks made all the difference in his meteoric rise. Maybe they did for a spell, but speaking of locks, fraud is fraud and the former wunderkind is heading to prison for an even longer spell.
  2. The new cryminal class. SBF tops long list of crypto hot shots facing legal reckoning. “His case was far from the first — or last — time that crypto founders and executives found themselves in legal hot water related to their digital-asset activities,” the Toronto Sun pointed out. There was also Terraform Labs co-founder Do Kwon; Alex Mashinsky, the former chief executive of Celsius Network; Su Zhu, co-founder of the bankrupt Three Arrows Capital hedge fund and Thomas Smith, Kyle Nagy, and Braden Karony — the people behind the crypto token SafeMoon, who were accused by federal prosecutors of using millions in investors’ funds to buy luxury homes and McClaren sports cars. When you can live that large is so short an amount of time, chances are there’s a small cell in your future.

Biometrics collection is certainly growing. Read More...

Venture Winter & Other Storm Warnings

Venture Winter & Other Storm Warnings

Image by Stefan Keller from Pixabay

It’s that time of year. Holiday season and no matter how many tree lightings there are to see or gift lists to address, before we break out the eggnog, time for a reality check.

We know that ‘get funded’ is on every founder’s holiday wish list. It’s not impossible, but having worked in retail advertising, we will tell you that the holiday catalogs are compiled and put to bed in August.

Which is when you should have started, if you wanted to at least have had a shot at Santa checking that one off his list. Read More...

The Bad Boys of Tech, Part 2

The Bad Boys of Tech, Part 2

 Unless you’ve been cut off from all worldly communications, you’ve heard that co-founder and CEO Sam Altman was very unceremoniously booted from OpenAI – and was informed in a Google Meet, despite Microsoft being a major OpenAI investor and partner.

No one seems to know the precise reason why he was terminated. Malfeasance? Was it his reported lack of transparency with the board, which now consists of three independent directors holding no equity, and its Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever? A coup?

Or something quite different transpiring behind the curtain… Read More...

Tech’s Bad Hair Day

Tech’s Bad Hair Day

Photo by Birger Strahl on Unsplash

No one wants to say it out loud, but is the latest tech bubble bursting? While the Web 1.0 demise was a result of too much money chasing too much youth and inexperience, this time around it’s different: It’s a result of a different kind of huckster class which has woven itself into the fabric of tech.

And many investors were complicit.

WeWorked It

Yes, he did, ‘he’ being Adam Neumann, the company’s charismatic founder/showman who somehow convinced investors that WeWork was a tech company, and not just another real estate play. Tech startups were drawn to the space, but being able to rent office space using an online system doesn’t make you a tech company. There was WeWork Labs, but it was something of an accelerator by any other name and which other accelerator considers itself a tech company?  WeWork’s rapid expansion into new spaces and more cities did grab attention, as they’d almost instantly be 90+% full, it would be announced. Although the play was to rent ten floors, build out three, fill them, and as for the floors that hadn’t been converted? Details! Kick the can down the road and stick to the plan to show hockey stick growth. Read More...

CHARGE!

CHARGE!

Photo by Harri P on Unsplash

We recently hosted a very successful serial founder and sometime investor at our online Investor Insights, who just launched yet another company – his third. It was fascinating to listen to both his advice – and his history. His first company was quickly acquired by Google, which was ‘clearly’ a win, but careful there, founders: great to be ‘adopted,’ but not all ‘parent’ companies are the same. He served his time, celebrated the day the golden handcuffs came off, and quickly launched his next company, which pivoted a few times, as all companies do, but did find its footing and a sustainable revenue stream. Acquisition offers were proffered and rejected, perhaps since the entrepreneur had been there, done that.

The company is still alive and well and turning a profit to the tune of hundreds of millions a year.

Nice revenue stream. Read More...

Scary Tales of Tech

Scary Tales of Tech

Photo by Mark Bishop on Unsplash

According to the Farmer’s Almanac, “The origin of Halloween … can be traced to Samhain, an ancient pagan Celtic festival that is Gaelic for “summer’s end,” a day to bid good-bye to warmth and light. It marks the end of the harvest season and the start of winter (the darker “half” of the year).

“The ancient Celts believed that the veil between the living and the dead was at its thinnest during Samhain, making it the ideal time to communicate with the deceased and divine the future.”

When the Romans arrived, they combined the old traditions with their own, and Samhain evolved into All Hallows’ Day, “hallow” meaning “to sanctify.” Read More...

What If Elected Officials Were Scrutinized the Way Startups Are?

What If Elected Officials Were Scrutinized the Way Startups Are?

Given recent world events, we decided that wouldn’t it be interesting to examine what the results would be if elected officials and their policies were put under the same scrutiny as are startups – using an investor lens.

We use the following simply as an example.

There have been several mandates/regulations coming from the current administration and state and local governments that are pushing the population to reduce the amount of fossil fuels burned for residential purposes and pushing us increasingly onto the power grid. Read More...

Speaking of Terrorism, Let’s Talk About Tech

Speaking of Terrorism, Let’s Talk About Tech

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Given the present situation in the Middle East, it’s not easy to write about something like, say, the FEMA emergency broadcasting system test alert that we all experienced October 4, like it or not, and attention does need to be paid there – coming!

The invasion by Hamas into Israel and the attacks and wholesale murder and/or kidnappings of innocent civilians was amoral, to put it mildly. The world is gobsmacked, no matter which side you’re on, and since we opine on tech rather than politics, there is very much a lesson here for us all in tech overreach.

Huh? Read More...

He’s Baa-aack!

He’s Baa-aack!

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

Meta – the company formerly known as Facebook – has gone all in on the metaverse and judging from this past week’s press conference where Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg showcased his latest and greatest, it looks like this time, it might just have legs. Pun intended, of course, for those of us who remember his past iteration of the space and the legless floating torsos.

Now he’s back, like a bad penny, and in case you missed it, here is Everything Revealed in 10 Minutes, including “the launch of 28 chatbots (conversational agents), which supposedly have their own personalities and have been specially designed for younger users. These include Victor, a so-called triathlete who can motivate “you to be your best self”, and Sally, the “free-spirited friend who’ll tell you when to take a deep breath,” France24 reported.

“Meta sees these as “fun” artificial intelligence,” the piece continues. “Others…feel that this latest technological development could mark the first step towards creating “the most dangerous artefacts in human history”, to quote from American philosopher Daniel C. Dennett’s essay about “counterfeit people.” Read More...

Who Doesn’t Enjoy a Good Tech Bro Pissing Match?

Who Doesn’t Enjoy a Good Tech Bro Pissing Match?

Image by 849356 from Pixabay

There was a recent, er, exchange of words between that grandaddy of accelerators, Y Combinator, or rather CEO Garry Tan, and Ari Partovi, founder and CEO of relative upstart accelerator, Neo. During a keynote he gave at HackMIT, in “his 15-minute speech, Partovi says he mentioned YC once, saying: “The mentor ratio: we have as many mentors as Y Combinator, except they’re serving 20 startups rather than 250 startup,” TechCrunch reported.

“The comment seemingly infuriated (Tan), who took to X… to write: “Competition is good. What isn’t OK is when competitors like Neo slander Y Combinator by saying ‘YC does not offer personalized advice’… YC has 12 group partners including me: When we fund you you get 1:1 advice for the life of your startup.”

Boys, boys, boys!

Tan’s are fightin’ words – and Partovi’s, from Tan’s point of view, possibly tortuous, in the legal sense. Or, as the TechCrunch headline put it, Why is Y Combinator so defensive lately? Read More...