The fuck around and find out economy

Samo's Law of Funding: The more money an organization is supposed to give out, the less likely it is to fund unusual people.

The idea to split us all into mini-Medicis through platforms like Patreon, if anything, has only further diluted the actual value. It's not just about the fact that they financially support you (that's called a customer, or a customer who tips generously), but that they actually help grow your potential by using their status and name and resources ... See more

There should be Retroactive Public Goods Funding for those founders crazy enough to try something truly new that failed as a business but succeeded in creating useful mutations, maybe even ticker tape parades, and certainly not derision.

Venture capital actually does a pretty great job here (the beauty of the model is a subject for a future piece, ... See more

The second path is to create an idea, mechanism, feature, or whatever that is so novel and unique that it survives and eventually sifts down on the back of another product, even if the company that created it fails.

The best example of this alternative product is Indie.VC, run by Bryce Roberts. Over the course of 6 years, Indie invested in 40 companies. It held the two key components of limited fund size and gave equity optionality through redemption clauses or equity buybacks. The results are encouraging, with a 51% IRR and 4.3x TVPI, while 87% of the compani... See more

A capital allocator would need to have two things happening simultaneously.

1. Limited fund size: The fund would need to be $150M or less, or otherwise, you’ll be back to being wholly subject to the power law.


2. Equity optionality: Investors in a startup utilizing this product need to be able to get returns even if the outcome is smaller. That would req

... See more

This is never how it actually happens, but you get the idea. Startups should receive risk capital to literally derisk certain aspects of the business.

However, over the last decade or so, something shifted. Traditional venture funds that specialized in early-stage risk started to add buckets of “growth equity” that were supposed to be utilized for ... See more