Joey DeBruin
@joeydebruin
Helping communities build public knowledge online. Founder @withBackdrop. Past/current product/advisory roles @Benchling @ResearchGate @Forefront__ @SeedClub
Joey DeBruin
In this future, mainstream media no longer interprets scientific information. Instead, they draw directly from the source. In fact, all scientific communication and learning, including every textbook, lecture and online course draws from the same, original, primary artifacts accessible through the same interface. Expert scientists, lay readers and... See more
Oliver Hunt • Building a 21st century interface for science
Today, producers can launch products more easily. But so can their competitors. And ultimate success depends on the behavior of large groups of people. These people cannot be coaxed or threatened. But they can be bribed.
Dror Poleg • In Praise of Ponzis
In many cases, the reader might be able to provide valuable insight that was inaccessible to the author, simply because they have had a different set of experiences. They may be able to unlock something important by applying their own knowledge in the context of the paper. Despite being highly valuable, this kind of insight isn't recorded anywhere,... See more
Oliver Hunt • Building a 21st century interface for science
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... See more
Evan Armstrong • Venture Capital Is Ripe for Disruption
the real world is one place, and the online world many, but what I didn’t appreciate even as recently as two years ago was that the online world as I knew it then was subject to more constraints than I realized; it is only as those constraints disappear that the idea of the Internet as a place of refuge seems ever more dubious
Stratechery by Ben Thompson • Regretful Accelerationism
A capital allocator would need to have two things happening simultaneously.
- 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.
- Equity optionality: Investors in a startup utilizing this product need to be able to get returns even if the outcome is smaller. That would
Evan Armstrong • Venture Capital Is Ripe for Disruption
Software is expensive to create. You have to pay people to create it, maintain it, and distribute it. Because software is expensive to create, it has to make money. And we pay for it–software licenses, SaaS, per seat pricing, etc. Software margins have historically been an architectural envy–90+% margins and zero marginal cost of distribution.
Software is expensive because developers are expensive. They are skilled translators–they translate human language into computer language and vice-versa. LLMs have proven themselves to be remarkably efficient at this and will drive the cost of creating software to zero. What happens when software no longer has to make money? We will experience a Cambrian explosion of software, the same way we did with content.
The reality is that there have been successful ARPA programs all over the spectrum. JCR Licklider “just” spelled out an extraordinary vision, found people who were aligned with it, and gave them resources. Only a few years later, Lawrence Roberts ran the ARPAnet program almost like a CEO: giving different people and groups parts of a broader... See more