Venture Gets Hoarded Which Might Be Great For Technology Advancement…Also Media Can Only Get Better Funding or Not….Sunday Reads And Listens
I was sitting on the couch the last few nights recovering from the flu.
I was clicking around Netflix and stumbled upon ‘American Primeval’ and wow…it was fantastic. It was a show about the American Western frontier in 1850’s specifically Utah. It was violent, but really captured the dangerous life with epic storytelling, incredible action and scenery and an incredible cast.
I headed West from Toronto to Arizona in the late 1980’s…and it was a piece of cake. I never had to shoot or axe anyone. I watch these shows always wondering how long I would have lasted and imagine about THREE seconds.
Meanwhile on Twitter, thousands of tech venture capitalists have become overnight wildfire and water experts. Of course, thousands moved to Los Angeles from Silicon Valley since 2018 despite knowing the impending crisis. Let’s hope many of these people find their way down to Mexico next to fix the cartel and border problems.
Despite all the technology ‘experts’ on Twitter (friends of Elon and A16z), and for all the misallocation of billions in web 2.0 which I have covered here for years, the cool Jetson’s like technology is coming fast and furious. I am thrilled. While I have no idea how anything works, I am all about trying and buying. The world needs idiots like me too.
My friend Riley who writes Trends With No Friends for with me , is fired up about new flying cars etc and started a new free newsletter called ‘Godspeed’. Here are his two first posts which are great – ‘Let’s Fly Away’ and ‘What is an ‘eVTOL’.
The business of Venture Capital is starting to look like Private Equity and the $QQQ’s ‘Nifty Nine’…top heavy. Of course people (smaller funds) in my industry are complaining, but I will take the other side for now. In a world of higher interest rates, angry neighbors and memecoins, money in venture has to be allocated much better. We need flying cars, better medicine, better defense, better transportation solutions, and better infrastructure. I am hoping that these behemoth funds will do their job and make those type of bets.
As a smaller seed stage fund at Social Leverage we have long recognized there are still great entrepreneurs that can execute on leaner/lighter cap tables to build industry changing businesses.
At the same time, for ‘liquid’ traders and investors hating on the top heavy indexes, there are new forms of capital formation, tokens, memecoins and blockchains to get your kicks.There is something for every type of trader and investor in 2025.
At the same time…something that won’t change with all the changes in capital distribution is ‘storytelling’. The other is building an actual business!
Storytelling and profitable business building may become even more important as media becomes more fragmented and customer acquisition more expensive.
As for media and content…this is a new era of opportunity.
As I have been writing here for months, investors are sensing this shift boosting the multiples of Netflix, Apple, Spotify and Reddit betting on streaming over cable and new media is showing up in everything from politics (The Free Press) to comedy with our own Punchup.live (Fund 4) which now helps sell as many tickets for comedians than Instagram. As for investing media and content, I am excited for our ‘Stocktwits Everywhere’ news, newswire and investing content strategy that is taking Stocktwits unique content, data and sentiment and distributing/plumbing it around the internet. In a ‘degenerate’ economy’ people want ideas and unique data and insights flowing 24/7/365, something we are very focused on at Stocktwits.
Ok…onward to some links
Michael Parekh had a great summary of the Nvidia CES presentation.
Judgement day is coming for Bytedance/TikTok…I don’t think it would be missed and if they do away with TikTok, they sure as hell should be stopping the poisonous Chinese vaping products and Fentanyl (I am not holding my breath).
The best of this weeks ‘Trends With Friends’ articles.
SEVEN big ideas for 2025 from crypto team at A16z.
Here are all the FREE Stocktwits newsletters in one place. Something for everyone.
Have a great Sunday.
