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Fall in Love with the Market, Not the Idea

by David Cummings

Last week I had the opportunity to share my startup story with a group of executives in town. During the Q&A portion at the end, one of the guests asked for entrepreneurial advice regarding idea selection knowing that pivoting is common. My recommendation: fall in love with the market, not the idea.

Think of a market as a big mountain with hints of gold flakes in the surrounding streams. Now, using those context clues, the goal is to mine it and find the best vein of gold. At first, you search for any vein of gold, talking to potential customers, listening to their stories, seeking insights. Then, you pick an idea and start digging. Sometimes it’s easier than expected and you find a vein of gold quickly. Often, that first, second, or third spot you dig in doesn’t work out. More context clues emerge with each attempt. You hear something from a local, you notice a new clue each shovel of dirt. Ideally with enough time, effort, and ingenuity, an incredible vein of gold is found, tapped, and harvested thereby building the foundation for a large business.

Too often, entrepreneurs fall in love with their idea. They believe it’s going to work exactly as imagined then build a product without continuous input from prospects. Rarely does the field of dreams approach work, and many failed startup post mortem cite this lesson learned. The key: embrace the market, go as deep as possible, and iterate to find the best ideas. Think (Read more...)

How to Build & Develop a Venture Capital Firm with Peter Hebert of Lux Capital

by MPD
This post is by MPD from @MPD - Medium

On this week’s episode we’re going back to our interview roots as we focus solely on a guest interview. For the chat, I sit down with Peter Hebert — Co-Founder & Managing General Partner of Lux Capital — to discuss strategies on how to build and develop a venture capital firm. Lux has been around for a long time and is one of the premier VCs out there so Peter — as usual — shares some great insights. Enjoy!

Links:

Listen via your preferred platform here.

*DISCLAIMER*

Interplay Family Office LLC (“Interplay”) is registered as an investment adviser with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Registration of an investment adviser does not imply any level of skill or training. Information about the qualifications and business practices of Interplay is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov._ Interplay only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Offering of asset management services through Interplay is pursuant to an investment advisory agreement. The views expressed in this podcast/vodcast are subject to change based on market and other conditions. The podcast/vodcast may contain certain statements that may be deemed forward looking statements. Please note that any such statements are not guarantees of any future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected. Any projections, market outlooks, or estimates are based upon certain assumptions and should not be (Read more...)

My eight years on the OpenAI board

by Reid Hoffman
This post is by Reid Hoffman from Reid Hoffman

AI, like most transformative technologies, grows gradually, then arrives suddenly. Headlines make AI feel abrupt and singular when it’s compared to a tidal wave, revolution or tectonic shift. In actuality, foundational work in AI has been going on since the 1950s. For more than a decade, Greylock has invested in AI startups, such as Cresta, Snorkel AI, Adept AI Labs, and Inflection AI, one that I personally co-founded. OpenAI started in 2015—the same year I invested and joined its board.

With all that’s been built over decades, the landscape has changed drastically over the last few years. Personally, I haven’t been this excited since I first started understanding the power of online social platforms. There’s so much afoot: The mainstream adoption of AI is happening now. Advancements like LLMs are amplifying the abilities and productivity of humans. There are future trillion-dollar companies being built and invested in right now, which will not only change markets, but launch new ones.

With all the possibilities ahead, it’s important to think beyond any one application, company, industry when it comes to AI, because I believe its impact will be on a much greater magnitude.

It’s with that in mind, that I’ve decided to step back from the OpenAI board. I made this decision after months of conversations with Sam, Greylock colleagues, and friends. There are a few reasons:

As OpenAI’s APIs become more important to the next wave of AI applications, Greylock and I will be investing in companies, like Tome and  (Read more...)

AI’s AHA Moment

by Reid Hoffman
This post is by Reid Hoffman from Reid Hoffman

We are all collectively experiencing an aha! moment—that flash of discovery, insight or understanding—with the recent developments in AI, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

Of course, an “aha” moment is a bit longer in the tooth than AI. According to the O.E.D, “aha” as we know it goes back at least to the 1390s, when English author Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in the fable “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale”: “They crieden, out! A ha the fox! and after him thay ran”

Today, it’s AI rather than a fox that has us exclaiming, but the aha feeling is there—and maybe even more powerful. It’s not just a passing moment of discovery, but possibly a peek into something more enduring: how this technology can augment our abilities in a lasting way.

With AI, our AHA moment stands for something bigger: it’s an Augmentation of Human Ability. These AI tool advancements make us more productive, creative, and efficient. They show us more deeply and swiftly who we are and can be.

What do you think about this AHA (Augmentation of Human Ability) term as capturing what AI can do for humans and humanity? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

The VC’s Customer

by Fred Wilson
This post is by Fred Wilson from AVC

I saw Dan Primack assert that the venture capitalist’s customer is their limited partners in this tweet about the Citizen app, the recap, and their VCs:

I DM’d Dan to let him know that is not the right way to think about the venture capital business.

Back in 2005, in the early days of this blog, I wrote this post on the topic.

The entrepreneur is the customer and the LP is the shareholder. That’s the only way to think about the venture capital business that makes sense to me.

https://avc.com/2005/11/the_vcs_custome/

I encourage everyone to read that post. It is one of the most important things I’ve written about the VC/founder relationship and I would not change a single word in it almost twenty years later.


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Amplified Intelligence

by Reid Hoffman
This post is by Reid Hoffman from Reid Hoffman

The magic on display in the growing family tree of LLMs—before and beyond OpenAI’s ChatGPT—is astonishing. In these early stages, we’ll continue to collectively find our footing with AI, but the path is there to reconfigure how we work and live.

That term itself—AI—has also been on my mind. As I’ve been so focused in recent years on AI projects, I’ve found myself questioning whether using that moniker—”Artificial Intelligence”—may actually be holding us back in some ways.

To start: has anything been celebrated—or preferred—for being artificial? Artificial food coloring. Artificial flowers. Artificial respiration. If so, it feels like a rare exception.

I believe the current language of Artificial Intelligence has somewhat misled us and, in the wider culture, painted an ominous view of an AI that develops sinister intent at odds with our natural intelligence and natural interests. 

To me, there’s a more fitting descriptor of what’s taking shape that better captures these tools’ impact on humanity: Amplified Intelligence.

Same acronym, but more accurate. Advancements like LLMs are amplifying the abilities and productivity of humans. And, yes, it will amplify our mistakes and misunderstandings as much as our achievements and insights, but that just reflects and accelerates our growth as humans.  

What do you think about Amplified Intelligence (AI) as a term? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

Ask the Customer to Describe the Value

by David Cummings

Last week I was talking to an entrepreneur and I had a hard time understanding the pitch. After a few rounds back and forth, I worked to simplify and repeat the pitch back to him. It was OK but not great. Then, I realized the problem: he was stating the idea based on what he thought I wanted to hear. AI this, cloud that, etc. I wanted to hear the problem being solved, the value derived by the customer, and the prospects for becoming a large business.

My advice to the entrepreneur: go talk to 10 customers. Ask how they describe the solution. Ask what value they receive from the product. Do this in a way that doesn’t lead the witness. Be patient and quiet as they think through their answers. The point of the exercise isn’t to change the vision or mission of the company. Rather, the point is to refine the messaging and pitch to more accurately reflect the market. The market always decides no matter how hard you want it to be a certain way. 

Ultimately, the clearer the message, the better people will understand it and the faster they’ll be able to know if they need it. Messaging and positioning are harder than they appear. Entrepreneurs would do well to lean on customers and better understand the value from their perspective. 

VC pace is picking up, messy earnings results, and Startup Tip of the Week: How startups land…

by MPD
This post is by MPD from @MPD - Medium

VC pace is picking up, messy earnings results, and Startup Tip of the Week: How startups land partnerships Part 2

Here’s what’s covered on this week’s pod:

  • Startup Tip of the Week: How startups land partnerships Part 2
  • Messy corporate earnings results
  • Is the January bump in the economy the start of a trend?
  • A lack of mega rounds
  • The aftermath of January’s job data

Links:

Listen via your preferred platform here.

*DISCLAIMER*

Interplay Family Office LLC (“Interplay”) is registered as an investment adviser with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”). Registration of an investment adviser does not imply any level of skill or training. Information about the qualifications and business practices of Interplay is available on the SEC’s website at www.adviserinfo.sec.gov._ Interplay only transacts business in states where it is properly registered or is excluded or exempted from registration requirements. Offering of asset management services through Interplay is pursuant to an investment advisory agreement. The views expressed in this podcast/vodcast are subject to change based on market and other conditions. The podcast/vodcast may contain certain statements that may be deemed forward looking statements. Please note that any such statements are not guarantees of any future performance and actual results or developments may differ materially from those projected. Any projections, market outlooks, or estimates are based upon certain assumptions and should not be construed as indicative of actual events (Read more...)

What Does “Native” Mean

by Fred Wilson
This post is by Fred Wilson from AVC

When a new technology comes to market, we often look for “native” applications of that technology.

What is a “native” AI application?

What is a “native” Web3 application?

I have not seen a better articulation of “native” than my partner Albert’s post from 2009 on native mobile applications.

He started out by laying out the new primitives that mobile smartphones made available to developers. In the case of mobile, he cited:

  • Location
  • Proximity
  • Touch
  • Audio Input
  • Video Input

He then went on to say that it would be the combination of these primitives, more than any individual one, that would make for native mobile applications.

And then he went on to lay out some of the applications he was seeing that were native.

If you want to figure out what the native AI applications or the native Web3 applications will be, or the native AI/Web3 applications, start by laying out the new primitives and going from there.


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Albert Wenger — Feb 16, 2023
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