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Skating to Where the Puck Is Going, in the Age of AI

Skating to Where the Puck Is Going, in the Age of AI

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Image by 🤦‍♂️爪丨丂ㄒ乇尺 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️ 卩丨ㄒㄒ丨几Ꮆ乇尺🤦‍♀️ from Pixabay

We were reading some funding newsletters and noticed that AI-based startups were raising millions and tens of millions, even when they were barely out of the gate. It’s those AI pheromones.

Those are the FOMA investor (and founders) who succumb to their limbic brains – think impulse and addictive behavior, meaning that behavior, for example, that drives you to obsessively check your email or social media. Or launch an AI-based startup, start vibe-coding, and you’re off to the races! It’s that dopamine hit. You’ve learned a lot about AI, how it works. After all, you have been training it – to take your job.

In case you missed it: AMAZON PRIME VIDEO BLOODBATH, @Tech Layoff Tracker reports. “2,847 employees got the email at 6:47 AM PST “Your role has been eliminated effective immediately” Badges dead by 7:15 AM. Slack access revoked mid-sentence Senior engineers who built the entire streaming infrastructure. Gone The team that shipped 40% faster last quarter using Claude for code generation. Eliminated Read More...

The Tech Bros and Dick Moves

The Tech Bros and Dick Moves

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Illustration courtesy of Pixabay

“About once a month, on a Friday or Saturday night, the Silicon Valley Technorati gather for a drug-heavy, sex-heavy party… and the bacchanal will last an entire weekend. The places change, but many of the players and the purpose remain the same,” Jebmo posted some eight years ago in blog about Inside Silicon Valley’s Secretive, Orgiastic Dark Side.

The bacchanals for all we know are ongoing and still consensual.

“…they speak proudly about how they’re overturning traditions and paradigms in their private lives, just as they do in the technology world they rule. Read More...

The Roaring 2020s: A Throwback to the Past?

The Roaring 2020s: A Throwback to the Past?

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Image by Gill Eastwood from Pixabay

The passing of 2025 wasn’t just the end of another year: we wrapped up the a quarter century. Note that centuries tend not to define themselves until we’re roughly two or so decades in.

Looking back to the 1900s, Voices from History noted that “The 1920s…saw the birth of numerous inventions that transformed everyday life and laid the groundwork for future technological advancements… These innovations touched various aspects of society, from transportation to leisure activities.”

Kind of like, well, now, considering electric and self-driving cars, connected kitchen appliances and beds, et al. Read More...

AI and the Easy Answer/Quick Fix Era

AI and the Easy Answer/Quick Fix Era

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Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay

This week, a personal anecdote, with a lesson.

We were in LA last week for LA Tech Week, where we moderated our Investor Insights panel. Just before we left, we hurt the thumb of our dominant hand, and by ‘hurt,’ we mean broke the small bone at the tip of the digit. Which makes using a computer problematic and in attempting to maneuver everyday activities, we have a newfound empathy for those who are left-handed. Many tools are not made with them in mind.

Everyone we’d encountered dispensed advice: wrap it, splint it, take aspirin for the pain, ask AI. Or, see a doctor, which was the right advice and the way our life works, upon arrival at the hotel, our group assembled in the lobby. We were introduced to someone who was on the health panel that followed ours. We fist-bumped rather than shook hands, which roused his curiosity. We explained the issue. He asked if he could examine the finger and after identifying himself as being an orthopedic surgeon, yes, and what are the chances!!! He didn’t have an x-ray machine but had seen this injury often enough to know which bone was broken. He recommended naproxen over acetylsalicylic acid, and it would take about two months to fully heal. No splinting or wrapping it., as AI et al had recommended: that would inhibit the healing process and cause more damage than good. For the record, aspirin was counter-advised. It would take months to fully recover. Read More...

Does AI Have an Agenda?

Does AI Have an Agenda?

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

It certainly seems to, although it is a technology created by humans.* But given, say, Meta’s manipulation of people’s emotions that was revealed by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen (and which we reported on), the proverbial men behind the curtain do appear to have one, and the question is, given the past behavior of the tech bros, will AI be used for good instead of evil during this next iteration of tech?

Ah, it’s that old “Those Who Cannot Remember the Past Are Condemned To Repeat It” George Santayana thing again and if there’s one thing we cannot shrink from doing, it’s connecting dots.

First up, “A lawyer representing Anthropic admitted to using an erroneous citation created by the company’s Claude AI chatbot in its ongoing legal battle with music publishers, according to a filing made in a Northern California court,” TechCrunch reported. Read More...

A Much-Needed Perspective on Investors

A Much-Needed Perspective on Investors

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Image by Stefan Schweihofer from Pixabay

We were in an online webinar recently, with a young investor as the guest speaker on the virtual dais. He is a former founder with several failures and one success under his belt. Given the fact that he has sat on both sides of the table, we were particularly curious about his investment approach, especially since he is a partner in a quite large fund.

While he is new to the investment side of the table, he has already developed his philosophy: if he is predisposed to investing in a company, he advises the founder to get some traction – meaning paying customers – and check back with him in a few months, whether the founder had achieved this or not. After said time, provided the founder is in the same position monetarily, he advises a pivot.

He does position himself as a very early-stage investor. Maybe not back-of-the-napkin, but fairly close. Read More...

Is It Time to Pivot?

Is It Time to Pivot?

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Image by Marcin from Pixabay

Almost all startups pivot at some point. This we know. Since many people consider a new year a new/clean slate as well and a good time to reflect on where you’ve been/where you’re going, we decided it’s a good time to talk about the pivot.

We recently hosted an investor at one of our Online Insights who mentioned a unicorn exit from one of their portfolio companies. We  knew the founder. Very sharp guy who had majorly pivoted not long after said investor’s fund had invested in them. One of the partners had spoken at our Insights not long after the pivot and was livid: this was not what he had invested in.

Well, how often do investors mention that the ‘team’ is one of their top considerations when it comes to deciding to whom to write the check? Just a few short years following the pivot, the company had a serious unicorn exit. The founder also happened to be something of a subject matter expert, rethought the approach, did a major change of direction – and did we mention the company had a serious unicorn exit? Apologies, but we have learned from experience that one of the major always unnamed problems when it comes to why startups fail is that founders don’t listen. Read More...

Venture Winter & Other Storm Warnings

Venture Winter & Other Storm Warnings

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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 Fine Line Between Deck and Dreck

The Fine Line Between Deck and Dreck

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Image by Tumisu from Pixabay

There was an interesting Twitter thread from @thedanigrant, CEO of jam.dev. We suggest you read the entire thread, but she begins, “When you start a startup, so many people tell you to ship fast and ship messy. They tell you: you’ll know you have product market fit when people are willing to jump through hoops to use your broken product. This was great advice in 2013. But not in 2023.”

Grant said that Jam.dev first released a buggy product, and while users might have been willing to put up with bugs in those earlier days of tech, meaning long before 2013, these days, not so much. And MVP is a good way to start – providing that the ‘M’ is sufficiently engaging to users, and case in point is the meteoric rise and cataclysmic disengagement of Meta’s Threads, which we mentioned just last week.

Oh, once the bugs were out, jam.dev relaunched and found its userbase. Read More...

Summer: The Midway Point, Part 1

Summer: The Midway Point, Part 1

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

Things have certainly changed in the startup landscape. Investors haven’t completely unplugged for the summer, as they had previously. Their offices might have moved to non-sanctuary cities or they may no longer have offices at all. And investment into female founded companies is down.

Okay, so not everything changes, fair enough.

While none of us have any control over investor behavior, and as someone who is hired to ‘fix’ pitch decks all the time and make introductions to investors where and when appropriate, we can tell you that founders can control their own behavior, and give themselves a leg up, by presenting their offering clearly and concisely and grabbing the attention of investors, provided that they’re truly on to something – some of whom might actually write a check. Read More...