There may be good reason to be optimistic about non-'scientists' taking part in science....Innocentive creates prizes to incentivise a distributed global network to solve specific problems for organisations who can't solve those problems in-house. Problems can be highly technical (see image below), and span across many domains. I will reuse... See more
The brokerage model is what we employed at Fundera. There are several distinctions between brokerages and marketplaces, but a key one is automation versus people-intensive. Marketplaces are fully automated. You can complete a purchase as a buyer without ever speaking with a person. Everything is magically taken care of for you by software. But in... See more
1/ Why AI is not going to replace programmers:
When I was in college studying Computer Science in 2005, I was told that out-sourcing to India will remove the demand for programmers. It was a real fear!
AI replacing coders, I think, it’s based on a similar... See more
By the mid-20th century, foundations had reached the height of their power and influence, triggering a congressional investigation into whether foundations were manipulating public opinion and thought. The lawyer Rene Wormser, who wrote the final report, described foundations as a “cartel” that threatened to direct our entire intellectual and... See more
Why is Twitter—our global public square where tastes are made, people canceled, and heads of state threaten each other with nuclear hellfire—worth so little a billionaire can scrape together the cash to outright buy it? How is it possible that the upstream media source to everything bought or voted on is worth a pittance compared to Google or... 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.
DAOs are an example of idea machines that can be initialized by a community. It may require more work to raise the funds and awareness to capitalize an idea machine without a major funder, but once they are initialized, DAOs must adopt similar tactics – develop an agenda, spin up and fund support organizations, invest into scene building, attract... See more
This is one of the fundamental errors of tech thinking.
For a certain class of problems caused by technology (e.g., climate change, traffic accidents, electrical fires), yes, the solution is more technology.
But for tech-induced human problems like loneliness, anxiety, depression,... See more
One of our theories is to seek out opportunities where there’s a major change. Major dislocation in the way things are. Wherever there’s turmoil, there's indecision. And wherever there’s indecision, there’s opportunity. So we look for the confusion when the big companies are confused. When the other venture groups are confused. That’s the time to... See more