“The battle between every startup and incumbent comes down to whether the startup gets distribution before the incumbent gets innovation.” — Alex Rampell, a16z The only question, will you win that race? And for Fortune 500 companies with everything on the line, that’s a costly question indeed. Yet so often, incumbents fail to innovate and fall hard. Worse...
“There’s nothing new under the sun.” We’ve all heard it… but what then is creativity, what is inspiration? Is it the artist or entrepreneur creating something completely unique, or combining previously separate things in new and innovative ways? Does it matter? Whoever said creativity was the key to success? The starving artist is a trope for...
VCs Need to Stop Funding Nonsense We all only have so much time in this world — whether you live to 50, 80 or 153 (like I’m shooting for) — our time is limited, and so too is our impact. And like life expectancy, our impact is directly proportional to our beliefs. Said another way:
Profits accrue to people on top. That’s the way most markets work, especially those with strong network effects (for more on 5 types of network effects and how to hack them, see this post). As an angel investor, my job is to spot startups and trends looking to disrupt incumbents and create massive new markets...
Two days ago I had the privilege of moderating a roundtable with some of the smartest futurists and forward thinkers in the industry. Our panelists included Tim O’Reilly, James Allworth, Ben Gilbert and Jeff Morris Jr. It was an interesting experience. They say you are the average of the 5 people in your life and...