So. WeWork, in whose co-working locations I’m sure many of you have spent time, is going public. It’s going for it at a time where – if you believe the news – the world economy is threatening to take a substantial dive. The business is valued like a tech company (in that it is hemorrhaging Softbank money for now) and the IPO prospectus is magnificently bold and vague about tech, mission, aggregation, community, and all sorts of scalable-sounding things. But it’s quite unlike a tech company in that it’s selling… Read more OuiWork? The quick case for WeWork as an actually disruptive business →
As a general rule, I try to read everything that Matthew Ball writes about media at REDEF. His work is high-quality, perceptive, and I always learn something. So I was surprised, but also intrigued, when I found myself objecting to his most recent post on gaming: The Mirage of Cloud Gaming: cloud gaming as the new “thing” in the media industry | Matthew Ball, REDEF The essence of the post is as follows: -The video game industry, which is big, profitable, and a perennial bellwether for what’s going on in… Read more The players are the artists; the game is the venue →
Please enjoy this interview with Casey Newton ! It originally came out in my weekly newsletter; you can subscribe here if you haven’t already. Casey is one of my favourite people to follow on Twitter, read from, and learn from – both in his position as a journalist and editor at The Verge and also just as a generally astute observer of Silicon Valley society. Casey has been writing at The Verge for the past six years, and in that time he has established himself as one of the most-read people covering… Read more An Interview with Casey Newton from The Verge →
Please enjoy this interview with Zachary Sun from Tierra Biosciences! It originally came out in my weekly newsletter; you can subscribe here if you haven’t already. Tierra is a phenomenally interesting company with whom I worked while I was at Social Capital and am lucky enough to get to stay in touch with. Tierra is blazing ground in a new field of biological manufacturing called Cell-Free Systems Biology, a really interesting new way to discover, test and engineer new molecules that do useful things for us in the world. In a nutshell, biomanufacturing generally means engineering living systems, like cells,… Read more An Interview with Zachary Sun of Tierra Biosciences →
Cast of characters: Alaina: Founder/CEO of Wirefly, a startup about to raise their Series A. Mia: Founder/CEO of Titanium, also a startup about to raise their Series A, and good friend of Alaina. Ed: VC at Northstar Ventures. Sander: VC at Symmetry Capital Partners Eugene: Seed investor in Titanium and friend of Ed. Quentin: Co-founder of Frisbee. Fanny: Co-founder of Frisbee. Will: Revered tech industry figure and husband-to-be of Renée. Renée: Revered tech industry figure and bride-to-be of Will. Scene 1: Wirefly office Wirefly all-hands meeting. It’s upbeat. Alaina, the… Read more A Midsummer Night’s Term Sheet →
Please enjoy this interview with Jonathan Hsu at Tribe Capital! It originally came out in my weekly newsletter; you can subscribe here if you haven’t already. Jonathan and I worked at Social Capital together for three years, where he was the head of Data Science and unofficial team sommelier. Over several years, Jonathan and his team built a really impressive and useful suite of data science tools for ingesting, analyzing and interpreting startup metrics called the Magic 8 Ball. This tool set is still (in my slightly biased opinion) by far the most… Read more An Interview with Jonathan Hsu from Tribe Capital →
Our beautiful baby daughter was born last Wednesday, and we couldn’t be happier. The newsletter will keep coming out on a weekly basis, with some special content over the next few weeks before we get back to the regular routine. Scarcity in the Software Century will see a short break, and my goal is to get back to the previous schedule next week, but who knows. I’ve been making good background progress on it though, albeit in a sleep-deprived state. See you soon, and wish us health and sleep!
What’s driving the Bitcoin bull run right now? Is it the prospect of Facebook’s Libra Coin offering a new on-ramp to retail investors? Is it institutions looking to hedge against… Read more All the other kids with their pumped up BTCs →
