I’ve spent some time deliberately not building companies (although some companies where I’m on the board or advising may question that). Primarily I’ve been investing into Discord and UGC places with Max through LFG Holdings and then less themed, occasionally more esoteric places personally.
This is a fairly normal post-exit motion for me as I search for an interesting problem to take a run at. The criteria for ‘interesting’ has evolved over time but broadly speaking it needs to be a) much larger in the future than it is today while b) also holding the probability of credible unit economics. It’s surprising how much that last filter reduces list sizes.
We’ve found something which we feel quite strongly corresponds to this. I promise I’m writing a whole other post to talk about what exactly that is (and indeed who ‘we’ are) but suffice it to say the challenge of last-mile AI adoption creates the scope to build some extremely interesting companies. Both the product-building and capital-delivering functions of AI have largely been crafted with a technology-first orientation yet it seems increasingly clear that AI adoption needs a much more human-centric approach. Given the complexity of how even small companies work, maybe the world also needs Forward-Deployed Empaths.
In many respects this is an extension of our learnings from LFG Holdings (which will continue to exist and invest) about leveraging our weirdness of being a little bit PE and a little bit VC. The new vehicle is called 10xHumans and we’re hiring for a couple of very specific roles, which you are absolutely welcome to speculate on.
Btw, I suspect the frequency of these posts will drop a little but they certainly won’t stop, the feedback and replies I get from writing is informative, occasionally funny and always deeply appreciated.
Reading
Speaking of AI, I was reading OpenAI’s recently released paper on how people use ChatGPT and I was stunned to discover that there are twice the number of people using it for recipes than games and role-playing. Where are my DMs at?
Also speaking of AI, something that resonated deeply was Jerry Neuman (renowned and recently retired investor) writing on how most investors won’t make money from AI. Things can be both extremely successful and also uninvestable.
Ahead of a rumoured IPO, Discord is quietly starting to open to more brand and ad engagement. I think there is a massive upside case here.
A very good interview with Russell Napier about the slow unwinding of the EU
I’ve just finished reading Dan Wang’s excellent Breakneck which came a couple of books after I finished Patrick McGee’s equally excellent Apple in China. I recommend both to massively improve the context of understanding China’s relationship to the world right now. For maximum enjoyment, read in the opposite order to me.
I’d always thought of Roblox as copying YouTube’s ad model (from hands-on to format) but maybe that’s too simplistic. YouTube is now sort of getting into brand engagement (like Roblox).