Ideas

Article

Breakthrough Science and the Future of Venture Capital

Sam Lessin’s recent article The End of Venture Capital as We Know It has received a lot of attention in the startup community. Lessin argues that a monumental shift in startup investing is coming to fruition as software has already eaten the world, and larger institutions continue to jump into the software venture capital market at an unprecedented rate. I think he is largely correct. I believe that today, the future of venture capital is breakthrough science transforming billions of lives in sectors like energy, transportation, infrastructure, manufacturing, agriculture and human augmentation.

Article

Startups Should Look For VC Firms With Unfair Advantages

I previously wrote about what venture capital firms look for in startups when looking to invest. This time, I want to turn the tables a little bit and share what startups should be looking for in their investors. I like to describe these traits as unfair advantages. What do I mean by an unfair advantage? Unfair advantages are characteristics that give a venture capital (VC) firm a leg up over the competition that enables them to find the most promising startups, support those founders and provide bigger returns for their investors time and time again.

Thought Paper

Orbital Debris

Some high-value areas in orbit around Earth are getting crowded. The number of spacecraft launched per year has increased ten-fold compared to a decade ago. Statistics vary as references are quickly obsolete with each new launch (which alone reinforces that orbital content is increasing rapidly). Regardless, the trend does not appear to be slowing. The latest Euroconsult Analysis predicts a four-fold increase in satellite launches in the next decade – or approximately 17,000 new satellites.

Article

How Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine Could Drive Advances in Energy Technology

No one would accuse Vladimir Putin of being a green energy advocate. However, by invading Ukraine, the Russian leader may inadvertently become one of the most critical actors in the world’s shift to new energy technology. And that’s not all. Other sectors like transportation, manufacturing, infrastructure, agriculture, and human augmentation are also going to see huge breakthroughs in the coming years because of Putin’s reprehensible actions in Ukraine.

Article

It’s Time for Startup Founders to Face Reality

Financial experts have been predicting that the tech bubble is on the verge of bursting. While those predictions have been wrong for nearly a decade, they may finally be right. The combination of high inflation, rising interest rates, broken supply chains, the war in Ukraine, and a host of other issues make this correction a little different. The tech-heavy NASDAQ is down almost 30% this year, IPOs will likely be down 70% by the end of the year, and the effects are just starting to be felt in the private markets. While this may seem like a scary time for startup founders, current market conditions actually provide a lot of opportunity. A recent conversation between my team and the CEOs and CFOs of our portfolio companies brought up some important points relevant to startup founders.

Article

Use Chronological Scenario Planning to Help Your Startup Get Through a Potential Recession

Over the past few months, investors from Sequoia to YC have sounded the clarion call to get their portfolio companies preparing for winter. At this stage, it does not matter if we agree or not: Enough momentum in the market has shifted that market behavior has become a self-fulfilling reality. Over the past 60 days, we have been working closely with our portfolio companies to help devise “winterization plans.” We have gone through this exercise enough that we have seen some patterns that might be helpful to others as they create their own plans.

Thought Paper

High-Speed Flight

Over the last decade, I have been delighted to see the end of the ‘Great Stagnation’ in the aerospace industry. The upswing in aerospace technology development has been driven by a combination of advancements in materials and computers, the public’s increased appetite for technical risk, and the rise of a new Great Power Competition. This thought paper will review the fundamental physics, history, enabling technologies and current market landscape underpinning today’s high-speed flight renaissance.

Thought Papers

Psychedelic Medicine

In modern translation, Renaissance means rebirth, revival, and recovery. And if you have been watching, even a little bit, the popular press coverage around the medicinal use of psychedelics, it is easy to see why that descriptor has been attached. After a long winter of being relegated to illegal, Schedule I drugs, nature’s pharmacy of psychedelic compounds is going through a rebirth of exploration and acceptance for the treatment of an increasingly wide range of mental health issues. It has been a long time coming.

Thought Paper

Fuel Cells

Currently there is a fairly sharp line between the worlds of electric power and the hydrocarbon fuels (oil and gas) we use for transportation and industrial heat. Hydrogen doesn’t play a big role in providing electricity or as a transportation fuel at the moment, but its role is set to expand, especially in Europe. Looking ahead, hydrogen could provide a solution for both sides of our energy needs: as a flexible form of energy storage to support the electric grid, and as a transportation fuel.

Thought Paper

Agricultural Automation and Food Processing

The advent of agriculture in ancient times may have been the fundamental enabler for all known civilizations to flourish. And ready access to food remains a cornerstone to society even today. We all need to eat, and there are more of us every day. Advances in farming technology have been enabling increased crop yields since time immemorial; and nowhere is this more visible than in the last hundred years with the widespread adoption and expansion of agricultural automation.

Thought Paper

Lithium Batteries

There is an ever-growing need for portable energy storage solutions ranging from cell-phone batteries to electric vehicle batteries, and from microbatteries for tiny disposable sensors to lightweight powerpacks for flying cars. This is an overview of the current state of the lithium battery industry. We explore the future of portable battery technology, and how to evaluate new battery technologies for applications ranging from electric aviation, autonomous vehicles, medical implants, to portable electronics.