Divisionary (Do The Right Thing)
w.255 | Bureaucracy, VC Market Dynamics, AI Tutors, Your Baby Can Learn, Science Fiction, & Paul Mango
Dear Friends,
I hope you are having a nice long weekend and able to enjoy the multiple festivities with Davos, Inauguration, and MLK Day; so many things to celebrate, so little time.
I spent last week on the Bay Area's demo day and social circuit while the city was inundated with the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference. It felt like many people were building AI-powered technology products without much thought about who the customer was or how this would be a real company.
Given events of the week, there was a ton of innovation featured in life sciences, but it’s a capital-expensive proposition and will take a long time. And the constraints familiar to healthcare remain the same (e.g., regulation, bad customers, Epic, change management at-scale with clinicians). LLM diagnostics-as-doctor when?
Finally, the sad news of the week was the unexpected passing of former McKinsey Senior Partner Paul Mango, who had been supporting the transition and was set to take a senior role in HHS in the new administration. He was instrumental in delivering Operation Warp Speed, which distributed the COVID-19 vaccine in less than ten months. He would also write these amazing health trend memos after listening to earning calls each quarter that I admired and hope to emulate someday.
Here is a nice write-up on his accomplishments and integrity to do the right thing.
Today's Contents:
Sensible Investing
Things You Should Know
Books and Commentary
Song of the Week: Divisionary (Do The Right Thing)
Sensible Investing
On Bubble Watch - Howard Marks’ memo from last week with the correct link.
People Are Waiting for Exits in VC Land: While this is not "new news, it is an interesting chart. Talking to people this week, it seems like right now is an excellent time for founders to fundraise for in-crowd seed-stage companies and well-performing As and Bs. VCs feel optimistic and want to deploy. This profile/stage is in the sweet spot for all of them, and competition is increasing. The existing Tier 1s still have capital, the spin-outs have capital, AND the newish-big firms (that on paper look good enough for new institutions to allocate to but are mainly desperate to get into deals) also have capital. Hence, people are again valuation/term-insensitive or moving quicker without metrics.
It does not seem to be a good time to raise a new venture fund unless you are in one of three categories: (1) a long-track record Tier 1 legacy firm, (2) hot GP spinout of a Tier 1 firm, or (3) a newish firm with a decent enough track record and GP pedigree that you can justify a $500-$1Bn fund size and convince a pension-type investor who is desirous enough of alternatives allocation to commit >$100M checks to multiple funds.
How do you win if you aren’t one of these categories? You stay small, focus on what you know better than everyone else, and work for your earned access and terms. You have to know the game you are playing and not play someone else’s game.
Things You Should Know
Bureaucratics is a comparative photographic study of state civil administrations' culture, rituals, and symbols. It features fun pictures to browse.
Bureaucracy isn't Measured in Bureaucrats—Good article from Astral Codex Ten about why just firing civil servants won’t work.
From Chalkboards to Chatbots: Transforming Learning in Nigeria, One Prompt at a Time
The tweet above went viral this week, with 3M viewing the click-baity, overstated credibility of “6 weeks of after-school AI tutoring = 2 years of typical learning gains.” Only 65K people read the details with SIGNIFICANT caveats (below). Also, they didn’t share the working paper, so no one knew about the study design.
Also, I bet the control was terrible—like, really low base. This is probably because the base comparison is kids being unsupervised in a classroom or getting terrible rote instruction.
You should treat these studies with the skepticism associated with ones that might ask “What if every American did 45 min of cardio and only ate a diet of non-processed food of 2,000 calories and had a coach that monitored their progress?” It’s more about just implementing what we know works.
Kids can learn to read at 18 months.
Scientific Rationale of Your Baby Can Learn and How to Talk to Babies. This is one of the best research-based, pedagogically sound early learning products I’ve encountered.
Using this method, my friend has been teaching his kids to read at 18 months old. The product is mainly flashcards. It takes a lot of work. He and his wife are very diligent.
Books and Commentary
At the end of the year, everyone online had a list of all the books they had read all year. I want to call bullshit on many of them, but what I assume they mean is they read part of the book, which I can certainly understand. The only helpful thing is to find the few that are actually worth your time. Let me posit a few interesting ones.
The MANIAC: A Novel. Or is it? This book is about John von Neumann, a genius pioneer in computing. The book's writing is amazing; I’m humbled that English is the author’s second language. But what’s crazy is that it reads like a biography but has no source notes. You presume it’s based on something, but who knows? That’s why it’s classified as a novel.
I think this book ignited the recent debate online over who the bigger genius was: Einstein or von Neumann. I don’t think it matters.
Penguin Galaxy Series 6 Books Set - 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dune, Neuromancer, The Once and Future King, The Left Hand of Darkness, Stranger in a Strange Land.
I got this set last year when I re-read Dune and have been going through the six sci-fi classics. What’s impressive is how much some of these works hold up. Particularly, the two I recently read: 2001: A Space Odyssey and Neuromancer. I recommend both because they have certainly considered the implications of human interaction with AI. I won’t rehash the plot here because we all have the internet at our fingertips.
I would recommend the commentary on the movies by Damien Walter, who runs the world’s largest Science Fiction club. That’s what’s linked above.
These books were written on a typewriter. With all the internet distractions, I wonder if humans can ever write books this visionary.
Song of the Week: Divisionary (Do The Right Thing)
Here on YouTube. The band did this live recording version in their house in Portland.
I like the message, although everyone has a different definition of ‘the right thing.’
The song "Divisionary (Do The Right Thing)" encourages listeners to prioritize doing the right thing and resist being self-centered and indifferent to others' suffering. The repetition of "do the right thing" emphasizes the importance of consistently making ethical and compassionate choices in all aspects of life.
The line, "They can be the walk, we can, we can be the pavement," suggests being proactive and taking action to create positive change. It encourages listeners not just passively to observe the world's problems but to actively contribute to building a better society.
“Divisionary (Do The Right Thing)“ by Ages and Ages
Do the right thing, do the right thing
Do it all the time, do it all the time
Make yourself right, never mind them
Don't you know you're not the only one sufferingSelfie of the Week
I ran into this Irishman on the streets of San Francisco this week. It was William McQuillen, a founder and GP at Frontline. Frontline is based in London (although it has Irish roots) and supports early-stage founders in Europe and later-stage founders in the U.S. to capture the critical transatlantic market. He was in town for the annual pilgrimage of the healthcare industry.
Look carefully at the picture. Yes, he’s wearing glasses with one lens a circle and the other a square. He does this on purpose. It’s very distracting. You must pay attention, and your brain always double-thinks. Will also owns.
One of the things that I like about William is that everything he does is deliberate and thoughtful to make you, his friend, feel appreciated. Ever since I’ve known him (circa 2016), he’s worn a watch that looks like the one below. It’s designed for the visually impaired, but William wears it to be on time and not appear rude by looking at his watch or the phone to tell the time. Clever!
Thanks for reading, friends. Please always be in touch.
As always,
Katelyn