The Most Contrarian Bet in Venture Capital
By definition, you will likely succeed a vanishingly-small percentage of the time, but—as the saying goes—that’s a feature, not a bug. The point is to venture—fistfuls of money in hand—at the furthest extremes of capitalism, hoping to stumble upon that rare, proper intersection of technology and commerciality.By design, most investments will miss t... See more
Tom White • This Time is Different
BILLIONS ARE UP FOR GRABS WITH THIS AI WAVE
When I was 23, I watched fortunes get minted in the App Store gold rush in Silicon Valley because a handful of founders locked themselves in a room, ignored every shiny distraction, and got absurdly good at one thing...ranking on a
The end of incrementalism: how AI will reward maximalist start-ups
Philip Clarkphilipjclark.substack.com
Are we back to the good old days of actual contrarian thinking? When a16 invested in Airbnb, market analysis suggested the short-term rental market was too niche and regulatory barriers too high. Their willingness to override consensus analysis—precisely the kind that research agents excel at producing—led to one of venture capital's greatest retur... See more