Month: September 2022

What happens when the government believes its own propaganda?



This is Joseph.

Tax cuts cause dynamic growth is a common talking point that fails most of the tests of being a clear and universal principle. There are high tax nations (Germany, 48%) that have strong and robust economies (US$ 45.7K per capita). There are low tax nations that struggle (Greece, 35%) with US $17.6K GDP per capita. 

This is especially true with the idea that it is tax cuts on the wealthy that drive growth. The United States had it's highest income taxes on high earners in the 1950's -- hardly a period of sustained slow growth. Now this is not to say that taxes have no effect, but that it is a complex relationship with feedback that is not really subject to simplistic analysis. But there are simple examples which should make you question the unthinking conclusions of "taxes always lower growth" but it is also the case that the contrary isn't true. It is my suspicion that it is all about how the taxes are spent and the efficiency of government that is driving these factors. 

As we mentioned a few days ago, the UK did a serious of massive tax cuts. The consequence appeared to be the markets thinking that the government had lost its mind and a sudden massive increase in borrowing costs, requiring the central bank to intervene. Pension schemes faced serious risks of insolvency as they suddenly watched the value of their bond holdings plummet. Home (Read more...)

Visualizing the Range of Electric Cars vs. Gas-Powered Cars


This post is by Govind Bhutada from Visual Capitalist


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Visualizing the Range of Electric Cars vs. Gas-Powered Cars

The Range of Electric Cars vs. Gas-Powered Cars

This was originally posted on Elements. Sign up to the free mailing list to get beautiful visualizations on natural resource megatrends in your email every week.

EV adoption has grown rapidly in recent years, but many prospective buyers still have doubts about electric car ranges.

In fact, 33% of new car buyers chose range anxiety—the concern about how far an EV can drive on a full charge—as their top inhibitor to purchasing electric cars in a survey conducted by EY.

So, how far can the average electric car go on one charge, and how does that compare with the typical range of gas-powered cars?

The Rise in EV Ranges

Thanks to improvements in battery technology, the average range of electric cars has more than doubled over the last decade, according to data from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

YearAvg. EV RangeMaximum EV Range
201079 miles (127 km)N/A
201186 miles (138 km)94 miles (151 km)
201299 miles (159 km)265 miles (426 km)
2013117 miles (188 km)265 miles (426 km)
2014130 miles (209 km)265 miles (426 km)
2015131 miles (211 km)270 miles (435 km)
2016145 miles (233 km)315 miles (507 km)
2017151 miles (243 km)335 miles (539 km)
2018189 miles (304 km)335 miles (539 km)
2019209 miles (336 km) (Read more...)

Novelty vs action


This post is by Seth Godin from Seth's Blog


Nerds, geeks, early adopters: they do things because they’re fresh and new and might not work. They’re novel.

Most people, though, hesitate in the face of novelty. Because novelty is risky. Shoes with goldfish in the heels. The latest techno-ska-punk track. The new kind of phone…

The reason we haven’t taken systemic action is that it’s scary, not because it isn’t novel enough.

If you want more people to take more action, make it safe, don’t make it interesting.

[PS In a month, it’s Halloween. Please don’t buy cheap chocolate.]

Happy 5th birthday Hustle Fund!


This post is by dunkhippo33 from Elizabeth Yin


Wow, it’s hard to believe it’s been 5 years since we started Hustle Fund! In the last 5 years, we have: 

  • Raised and deployed ~$130m
  • Brought on 25 team members at Hustle Fund
  • Built a community of nearly ~1000 Angel Squad members
  • Funded ~400 portfolio companies
  • Worked with ~300 LPs
  • Grown to 100k+ followers on my Twitter acct

I’ll let you know how it’s going in about another 5 years! 😀

For all of this, I am so grateful. All that we have achieved has been a community team effort. Hustle Fund is so much more than a VC fund. It has become a movement.

I say this because movements are about values. Movements are about being mission-aligned. When we started Hustle Fund, we didn’t set out to build a VC fund per se. We set out to solve a problem that we personally understood well that we could work on solving over the rest of our careers of 30+ years. The mission that we are on is to democratize wealth via startups by helping startups with capital, knowledge, and networks.

In our first inning of Hustle Fund, we focused just on the capital problem. Specifically, how can we help more fantastic startups who may not have a rich uncle get capital at the pre-revenue stage? Without a warm intro and without needing to be in Silicon Valley. 

This is the hardest stage to raise money, and five years ago, there were only a handful of VCs addressing this (Read more...)