The Exchanges

Q I'm super intrigued. Having had that experience, what were the big takeaways for you from, from being CTO of such an organization and seeing it operate?

A I think that, I mean, Time Warner is a big company. It's, it's, it's in essence a holding company. Most people don't realize that, but it's, it's, you know, the, the corporate entity is, is fairly thin, and it's mostly inhabited by lawyers and accountants, the corporate headquarters, and, and all of the sort of value in the, the product creation or the distribution creation lies in the individual divisions, and so it's really a holding company, but it was a fascinating period because I learned a ton about the media business, media distribution, Distribution, media creation, media marketing, and, you know, how they do what they do. They're extraordinarily good at doing what they do. They are, they are not a technology company, and they've really struggled, you know, over the years to understand how they interface with new forms of distribution, new technology, and, and how they integrate that both into their business to, to make their business run better, but also figure out how to use that to adapt their business, you know, for example, video business as it's changing and And evolving with technology, which I think that they've, they still haven't figured out.

AI assessment note: “I learned a ton about the media business... They are not a technology company”

Q And then Fred Wilson's consumer downturn, is it a fair assumption that it's an incumbency play now in the consumer market?

A Yeah, I don't think, I don't think you should read that. I disagree there with the headline, and I haven't read the post, so maybe Fred fleshed out differently in the post, but I don't see it as a consumer downturn. I think that there is a You know, the pace at which consumers or end users are adopting new services, hardware, software, anything in between, is only increasing, right? And so I think that the, your ability to be able to build something and put something in people's hands that they're gonna, that they're gonna touch and love every day, we're seeing more and more of that. I do think that there is the relative power, if you just view sort of as two big abstract blocks of power, right? Distribution and product, right? I think in the last five to eight years, because of many of the reasons we discussed earlier, is distribution has been available through the app store, and so a lot of power has moved to product. I think it is now moving back to distribution, and so I think distribution, there's another way to view distribution, which is marketing, and, and I think that when you have companies that are scaling, you know, the pace of an Uber, or even a very different company, but, you know, even the pace of a Giphy, Is that you would argue, you know, raise capital in order to scale and continue to grow market shares through marketing.

AI assessment note: “I don't see it as a consumer downturn.”

Q very early-stage market, would you agree with Charlie O'Donnell from Brooklyn Bridge who said to me the other day that actually a lot of investors are much later stage than they think, and they just have these small pools of capital at the seed stage, and it's really just an optionality play for the later stage where they follow in with reserve funds. Do you agree with that assessment then?

A I do. I mean, I think that there was somebody, I think, in Andreessen Horowitz who said a couple of years ago when it was a Wall Street Journal article, and they sort of, you know, referred to the early stage part of the market as being like, Fireflies, where there was just this incredibly rapid pace of change, and the speed at which these companies were pivoting and evolving was incredibly rapid at the early stage, so somehow the VCs need to be able to touch that, and then once they actually hit the ground and start running when these things actually get working, then the VCs have to scramble to get in there, and so, and, and the companies, you know, can reach remarkable scale remarkably quickly, so A consequence of the amount of infrastructure that we have today in place, and talk about everything from technical infrastructure, AWS, et cetera, et cetera, to capital infrastructure, to startup infrastructure, to startup hubs like in New York or in London, or obviously in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. The, all that infrastructure means that once you hit a nerve, once you find something, the growth is extraordinary, right? I mean, we've certainly seen, you know, the example that comes to mind first is obviously Giphy for us, Because last year, you know, we raised a lot of money for Givy, and Givy's tapping more than a hundred million people every day.

AI assessment note: “I do. I mean, I think that there was somebody, I think, in Andreessen Horowitz”

Q I'm intrigued. You said about balance sheet capital and its scaling. What are the inherent challenges of scaling balance sheet capital to the extent that you'd like?

A Well, I mean, I think that the, you know, interesting, if you will, if you will, the clock back at the early VC funds is that they were actually LLCs that invest off a balance sheet, and then they, they reached some inherent, uh, sort of glass ceilings or knocked up against some, and so they restructured them and turned them into these entities that are limited partnerships, that have a time life cycle of capital, that have a fixed equity cut, so to speak, which is the carry, that have, you know, certain properties that are sort of, they've taken sort of the Some of the components from balance sheet, you know, corporate capital structure, and just standardized it in order to make an investment management entity. And so, I think that the inherent challenges with balance sheet capital, I would say the first thing is that once you have a set of assets, how, how do you value them, and how do you raise ongoing money into that entity, right? Because I think that the, so long as you're not raising money, it's all good. Once you want to actually raise new money, let's imagine that a fund wants to raise new money into that fund. So, you know, you're, you're, you're now working with the Tomco guys, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Let's say that they wanted to take that last fund instead of spinning up a new fund, they wanted to take the last fund and reopen it and raise more money into it. Well…

AI assessment note: “once you have a set of assets, how, how do you value them”

Q out there, and we spoke about the decreasing cost of starting companies, but we're also seeing a trend in, obviously, the extended time to exit for companies. Um, with the extended privatization period, et cetera. Do you think then fun cycles are too short with the current 10 to 12 years? Should they be longer? Matt Oko at Data Collective is certainly a protagonist for thinking they should be longer.

A I think that they have to be longer. I think so. I do. Because I think that the fundamental trends that we are working, you know, the, the transformation that technology is driving in our society is much longer than that. And I think that these, um, and I think that we get addicted to in our business. You know, we tend to get addicted to the sort of the Twinkie highs, to the short term, you know, rapid fire hits. And I think it's particularly dangerous today because we have, you know, as we, on the consumer internet, let's just focus in on that for a second. So being through this incredible five to eight years, it will be 10 years this year that the iPhone anniversary is. And, you know, the app store really has been in market for about eight years. It took about a year to get going, year after the iPhone. So we've had this credible five to eight years of app development and of businesses that have, you know, developed these incredible services, franchises, offerings on mobile, but we've had a distribution outlet through the app store that has been well formed and it's, it's got its issues. I think it's, you know, it's somewhat dysfunctional at times. The discovery method is not great. There's a bunch of things, but Apple has done in particular an incredible job of driving this distribution funnel into the market. Then you think about sort of, you know, next generation frontier …

AI assessment note: “I think that they have to be longer. I think so. I do.”

Q We saw the herd mentality with bots, didn't we, earlier this year?

A I think the bots went through bots. I, I'm fascinated by bots, obviously, because we've done a lot of work in the space. I think that they've been through sort of two or three hype cycles yet, And they've, their IQs are collectively sort of in the single digits, and so it's still very, very early days, and I would expect exactly that. But I wouldn't say a massive herd mentality. I mean, I think that there's, you know, if there's been 50 bar companies that were funded last year, maybe a hundred tops, you know, I would guess that the total amount of capital, if you take out sort of some of the things like Viv, you know, that are sort of, I think, are falling into a separate category of their own, because both it's the Siri guys, and it was very, that was very rich If you look at all the rest of the companies, you've probably got 20 to fifty million total capital that's been put into it, so it's still small.

AI assessment note: “But I wouldn't say a massive herd mentality.”

Q I'm super intrigued. Having had that experience, what were the big takeaways for you from, from being CTO of such an organization and seeing it operate?

A I think that, I mean, Time Warner is a big company. It's, it's, it's in essence a holding company. Most people don't realize that, but it's, it's, you know, the, the corporate entity is, is fairly thin, and it's mostly inhabited by lawyers and accountants, the corporate headquarters, and, and all of the sort of value in the, the product creation or the distribution creation lies in the individual divisions, and so it's really a holding company, but it was a fascinating period because I learned a ton about the media business, media distribution, Distribution, media creation, media marketing, and, you know, how they do what they do. They're extraordinarily good at doing what they do. They are, they are not a technology company, and they've really struggled, you know, over the years to understand how they interface with new forms of distribution, new technology, and, and how they integrate that both into their business to, to make their business run better, but also figure out how to use that to adapt their business, you know, for example, video business as it's changing and And evolving with technology, which I think that they've, they still haven't figured out.

AI assessment note: “they've really struggled, you know, over the years to understand how they interface”

Q We saw the herd mentality with bots, didn't we, earlier this year?

A I think the bots went through bots. I, I'm fascinated by bots, obviously, because we've done a lot of work in the space. I think that they've been through sort of two or three hype cycles yet, And they've, their IQs are collectively sort of in the single digits, and so it's still very, very early days, and I would expect exactly that. But I wouldn't say a massive herd mentality. I mean, I think that there's, you know, if there's been 50 bar companies that were funded last year, maybe a hundred tops, you know, I would guess that the total amount of capital, if you take out sort of some of the things like Viv, you know, that are sort of, I think, are falling into a separate category of their own, because both it's the Siri guys, and it was very, that was very rich If you look at all the rest of the companies, you've probably got 20 to fifty million total capital that's been put into it, so it's still small.

AI assessment note: “But I wouldn't say a massive herd mentality.”

Q out there, and we spoke about the decreasing cost of starting companies, but we're also seeing a trend in, obviously, the extended time to exit for companies. Um, with the extended privatization period, et cetera. Do you think then fun cycles are too short with the current 10 to 12 years? Should they be longer? Matt Oko at Data Collective is certainly a protagonist for thinking they should be longer.

A I think that they have to be longer. I think so. I do. Because I think that the fundamental trends that we are working, you know, the, the transformation that technology is driving in our society is much longer than that. And I think that these, um, and I think that we get addicted to in our business. You know, we tend to get addicted to the sort of the Twinkie highs, to the short term, you know, rapid fire hits. And I think it's particularly dangerous today because we have, you know, as we, on the consumer internet, let's just focus in on that for a second. So being through this incredible five to eight years, it will be 10 years this year that the iPhone anniversary is. And, you know, the app store really has been in market for about eight years. It took about a year to get going, year after the iPhone. So we've had this credible five to eight years of app development and of businesses that have, you know, developed these incredible services, franchises, offerings on mobile, but we've had a distribution outlet through the app store that has been well formed and it's, it's got its issues. I think it's, you know, it's somewhat dysfunctional at times. The discovery method is not great. There's a bunch of things, but Apple has done in particular an incredible job of driving this distribution funnel into the market. Then you think about sort of, you know, next generation frontier …

AI assessment note: “I think that they have to be longer. I think so. I do.”

Q But then, going back to the hypothetical Betaworks fund there, and you said about the difficulties in plugging that gap at the very earliest stages of funding for companies, how would you then position, as we said, a completely hypothetical, but how would you position then a Betaworks fund, and how would it solve the inherent problems in the archaic structure that we presented there?

A I mean, I think that the, the way, the way that I think about, uh, Betaworks as a startup platform is that, you know, having a flexible source of capital to do later stage investing is sort of an important piece of that puzzle. And so our core capital base at Betaworks has been that we are a company and that we have built and invested off our balance sheet. That has afforded us a lot of flexibility. It's also afforded us a, I wouldn't call it a Permanent capital based because permanent's a big word, but a longer term sort of perspective on how we can, how we can think about some of the transformative shifts that are going on in the marketplace and about capital. That said is, is that it doesn't scale very effectively. And so balance sheet based capital because for a whole series of reasons I can dig into. So, um, funds are really good at that. And so I think that if you want to think generally about this startup platform concept, Who else do I put in this bucket? Well, clearly the startup schools, right? So Y Combinator is an accelerator, an awesome accelerator platform. They do good work at what they do. They interestingly have a fund now. So AngelList, um, different to Y Combinator, but an amazing platform for crowdfunding. They also have a VC fund. Techstars, again, another accelerator, they also have a fund.

AI assessment note: “having a flexible source of capital to do later stage investing is sort of an important piece”

Q And the reasons for it being good, for it being opaque are?

A That the, the life cycle of these investments and holdings is long. Right. And if I was to, you know, one of the issues I have with VC is, is that it's often too short. You know, I have seen VCs and I, I was, you know, CEO of a company once where we were growing the company. We got the company to be cashflow positive. We got some acquisition interest. I went to the VCs and I said, okay, you know, as CEO, I thought it was my responsibility to say we have an offer. I went to them and we have an, we had an offer for this particular company. And I They said, no way, no how are we selling? We're in this for the long haul. The acquirer came back, upped the offer by 20%. They said, no way, no how, we're in here for the long haul. The acquirer came back and upped the offer by a further 20%. And they said, again, no way, no how. The acquirer came back and upped it by five percent. They said, sell now. And I was like, I was like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I thought that you had conviction here. And I think that the, the challenge is, is that There's a mixture of conviction, but there's also, you know, they have a business model, which they are trying to raise the next fund, and that if something, if you, as an entrepreneur, at some level, you're selling a spreadsheet, and if you get to the right number, then instead of maximizing the value, they're ready to, uh, to punch out.

AI assessment note: “That the, the life cycle of these investments and holdings is long.”

Q I'm intrigued. You said about balance sheet capital and its scaling. What are the inherent challenges of scaling balance sheet capital to the extent that you'd like?

A Well, I mean, I think that the, you know, interesting, if you will, if you will, the clock back at the early VC funds is that they were actually LLCs that invest off a balance sheet, and then they, they reached some inherent, uh, sort of glass ceilings or knocked up against some, and so they restructured them and turned them into these entities that are limited partnerships, that have a time life cycle of capital, that have a fixed equity cut, so to speak, which is the carry, that have, you know, certain properties that are sort of, they've taken sort of the Some of the components from balance sheet, you know, corporate capital structure, and just standardized it in order to make an investment management entity. And so, I think that the inherent challenges with balance sheet capital, I would say the first thing is that once you have a set of assets, how, how do you value them, and how do you raise ongoing money into that entity, right? Because I think that the, so long as you're not raising money, it's all good. Once you want to actually raise new money, let's imagine that a fund wants to raise new money into that fund. So, you know, you're, you're, you're now working with the Tomco guys, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Let's say that they wanted to take that last fund instead of spinning up a new fund, they wanted to take the last fund and reopen it and raise more money into it. Well…

AI assessment note: “how do you value them, and how do you raise ongoing money into that entity”

Q very early-stage market, would you agree with Charlie O'Donnell from Brooklyn Bridge who said to me the other day that actually a lot of investors are much later stage than they think, and they just have these small pools of capital at the seed stage, and it's really just an optionality play for the later stage where they follow in with reserve funds. Do you agree with that assessment then?

A I do. I mean, I think that there was somebody, I think, in Andreessen Horowitz who said a couple of years ago when it was a Wall Street Journal article, and they sort of, you know, referred to the early stage part of the market as being like, Fireflies, where there was just this incredibly rapid pace of change, and the speed at which these companies were pivoting and evolving was incredibly rapid at the early stage, so somehow the VCs need to be able to touch that, and then once they actually hit the ground and start running when these things actually get working, then the VCs have to scramble to get in there, and so, and, and the companies, you know, can reach remarkable scale remarkably quickly, so A consequence of the amount of infrastructure that we have today in place, and talk about everything from technical infrastructure, AWS, et cetera, et cetera, to capital infrastructure, to startup infrastructure, to startup hubs like in New York or in London, or obviously in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. The, all that infrastructure means that once you hit a nerve, once you find something, the growth is extraordinary, right? I mean, we've certainly seen, you know, the example that comes to mind first is obviously Giphy for us, Because last year, you know, we raised a lot of money for Givy, and Givy's tapping more than a hundred million people every day.

AI assessment note: “I do.”

Q And then Fred Wilson's consumer downturn, is it a fair assumption that it's an incumbency play now in the consumer market?

A Yeah, I don't think, I don't think you should read that. I disagree there with the headline, and I haven't read the post, so maybe Fred fleshed out differently in the post, but I don't see it as a consumer downturn. I think that there is a You know, the pace at which consumers or end users are adopting new services, hardware, software, anything in between, is only increasing, right? And so I think that the, your ability to be able to build something and put something in people's hands that they're gonna, that they're gonna touch and love every day, we're seeing more and more of that. I do think that there is the relative power, if you just view sort of as two big abstract blocks of power, right? Distribution and product, right? I think in the last five to eight years, because of many of the reasons we discussed earlier, is distribution has been available through the app store, and so a lot of power has moved to product. I think it is now moving back to distribution, and so I think distribution, there's another way to view distribution, which is marketing, and, and I think that when you have companies that are scaling, you know, the pace of an Uber, or even a very different company, but, you know, even the pace of a Giphy, Is that you would argue, you know, raise capital in order to scale and continue to grow market shares through marketing.

AI assessment note: “I disagree there with the headline... I don't see it as a consumer downturn.”

Q a fund, which I'm sure you can deny or refuse, which is absolutely fine, because it's going to be a hypothetical fund for this interview. So this hypothetical fund, and I want to discuss then VC and the VC space with you. And, and I've heard you before say you're skeptical of the current model. So let's start on that. And why are you skeptical of the current VC model?

A I mean, so, you know, the three business lines that we have at Betaworks, we build things, we invest, and we accelerate. All of them require capital. And we partner with VCs, and there's, there was some press reports last year that there was a fund that we were putting into market. I can't comment on that specifically. But we have, we've certainly been investing for, you know, since the start of Betaworks for eight years. So, you know, my view of the VC model is that, you know, I've always been, always struggled a little bit personally with the VC model, but let me start, start out by saying is, is it, it is a, it's an incredibly effective tool at doing a few things, maybe one thing incredibly well. And so I think that what we have today is that the market is actually changing and I can talk about that in detail, but I think that generally the market is changing and has changed over the last five, 10 years. And I think the VC hasn't adapted to that because, or traditional VC hasn't adapted to it because, because it is inherently really good at doing only a small number of things very well.

AI assessment note: “traditional VC hasn't adapted to it because... it is inherently really good at doing only a small number”

Q a fund, which I'm sure you can deny or refuse, which is absolutely fine, because it's going to be a hypothetical fund for this interview. So this hypothetical fund, and I want to discuss then VC and the VC space with you. And, and I've heard you before say you're skeptical of the current model. So let's start on that. And why are you skeptical of the current VC model?

A I mean, so, you know, the three business lines that we have at Betaworks, we build things, we invest, and we accelerate. All of them require capital. And we partner with VCs, and there's, there was some press reports last year that there was a fund that we were putting into market. I can't comment on that specifically. But we have, we've certainly been investing for, you know, since the start of Betaworks for eight years. So, you know, my view of the VC model is that, you know, I've always been, always struggled a little bit personally with the VC model, but let me start, start out by saying is, is it, it is a, it's an incredibly effective tool at doing a few things, maybe one thing incredibly well. And so I think that what we have today is that the market is actually changing and I can talk about that in detail, but I think that generally the market is changing and has changed over the last five, 10 years. And I think the VC hasn't adapted to that because, or traditional VC hasn't adapted to it because, because it is inherently really good at doing only a small number of things very well.

AI assessment note: “traditional VC hasn't adapted to it because, because it is inherently really good at doing”

Q Okay. And then, who's been the biggest mentor to you, and how did that relationship come about?

A Um, biggest mentor, I mean, I've been lucky enough to have lots of people I consider, or a bunch of people I consider being mentors. I mean, I, you know, my family, my, my wife, my kids are, they're all people that I learn from, um, every day. You know, I try to keep an open, uh, an open mind where I try to make every interaction or something is I will say afterwards, or I'll write down afterwards, what did I learn from that? Because I think the mentorship is, is highly distributed if you view it as such. I have, you know, there are people in the industry who I have incredible respect for. I don't know him personally, but I would say that one person who's, you know, I've been truly inspired by in 2016 is Jeff Bezos. I think that, I think I misunderstood him as a, his, um, his aspirations and intentions, you know, because I always saw him You know, for many years, primarily as a merchant, as a, um, you know, shopping site, and then I've developed a lot of respect for what he built at AWS, and now, you know, looking forward to, you know, what he's doing with Alexa, and, you know, I think that they're a super interesting company.

AI assessment note: “I don't know him personally, but I would say that one person who's”

Q But then, going back to the hypothetical Betaworks fund there, and you said about the difficulties in plugging that gap at the very earliest stages of funding for companies, how would you then position, as we said, a completely hypothetical, but how would you position then a Betaworks fund, and how would it solve the inherent problems in the archaic structure that we presented there?

A I mean, I think that the, the way, the way that I think about, uh, Betaworks as a startup platform is that, you know, having a flexible source of capital to do later stage investing is sort of an important piece of that puzzle. And so our core capital base at Betaworks has been that we are a company and that we have built and invested off our balance sheet. That has afforded us a lot of flexibility. It's also afforded us a, I wouldn't call it a Permanent capital based because permanent's a big word, but a longer term sort of perspective on how we can, how we can think about some of the transformative shifts that are going on in the marketplace and about capital. That said is, is that it doesn't scale very effectively. And so balance sheet based capital because for a whole series of reasons I can dig into. So, um, funds are really good at that. And so I think that if you want to think generally about this startup platform concept, Who else do I put in this bucket? Well, clearly the startup schools, right? So Y Combinator is an accelerator, an awesome accelerator platform. They do good work at what they do. They interestingly have a fund now. So AngelList, um, different to Y Combinator, but an amazing platform for crowdfunding. They also have a VC fund. Techstars, again, another accelerator, they also have a fund.

AI assessment note: “balance sheet based capital because... doesn't scale very effectively. And so funds are really good at that.”

Q What does it do well, do you think?

A Well, I mean, I think that as companies, let me talk about the change that I see, and then let me talk about what VC does well. So I think that, you know, one of the most significant changes, and this is a change that we constructed Betaworks around, is that over the last five, 10 years is that we've seen A radical drop in the cost of company creation or of taking an idea into beta, of testing an idea. And that's the reason why I call it Betaworks. That's what reason why we have, you know, developed a fair amount of process here to be able to put things in market, test them very quickly, and then see if they achieve scale. So you used to be able to, if I could, like, let me just try and plot a graph for you and see if you could do this in your head. Um, we'll see if listeners can see this in their head. Um, but, but if you have on, uh, the y-axis capital needs, and then you have x-axis, you have stage of company, you know, so from on the x-axis, you have inception, so the idea on napkin, to a beta, to a public beta, to an idea that's actually scaling, to monetization of that particular ideal business, that's become a business, to, um, to scale and growth. Right, so that's along your x-axis, and then on the y-axis, you have just relative needs of capital. So what there was is that 10 years ago is there was pretty much a linear relationship between these two things. As you move t…

AI assessment note: “let me talk about the change that I see, and then let me talk”

Q And the reasons for it being good, for it being opaque are?

A That the, the life cycle of these investments and holdings is long. Right. And if I was to, you know, one of the issues I have with VC is, is that it's often too short. You know, I have seen VCs and I, I was, you know, CEO of a company once where we were growing the company. We got the company to be cashflow positive. We got some acquisition interest. I went to the VCs and I said, okay, you know, as CEO, I thought it was my responsibility to say we have an offer. I went to them and we have an, we had an offer for this particular company. And I They said, no way, no how are we selling? We're in this for the long haul. The acquirer came back, upped the offer by 20%. They said, no way, no how, we're in here for the long haul. The acquirer came back and upped the offer by a further 20%. And they said, again, no way, no how. The acquirer came back and upped it by five percent. They said, sell now. And I was like, I was like, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I thought that you had conviction here. And I think that the, the challenge is, is that There's a mixture of conviction, but there's also, you know, they have a business model, which they are trying to raise the next fund, and that if something, if you, as an entrepreneur, at some level, you're selling a spreadsheet, and if you get to the right number, then instead of maximizing the value, they're ready to, uh, to punch out.

AI assessment note: “That the, the life cycle of these investments and holdings is long.”

Q I'm intrigued. What will be the catalyst to that transition into mainstream? Is it kind of compute power? Is it technical ability? Or is it consumer educations?

A I think it's all of the above and a few more. And then I think it is just the, and this is, you know, why you need to engage in this frontier tech, is that there are going to be left field implementations that take people by surprise, right? I would say that the single biggest step forward for mixed reality in, in Face tracking. And yet those words, most people would not, people would have said one's a social, social media network thingy, and the other one is a, is a game. And so most people would not have thought about those as being mixed reality slash virtual reality, augmented reality based things, uh, necessarily. So I think that there's, there's a lot of work that needs to take place on the technology. There's capital that needs to be applied to that. I'm actually grateful the skepticism that you see around these categories. I love it Because I think it drives a more efficient market for capital and for, um, for entrepreneurship. Then you, you see this herd mentality that tends to happen in VC, and once, once this stuff gets unlocked, believe you me, there's going to be a lot of money which will flow into it.

AI assessment note: “I think it's all of the above and a few more.”

Q Okay. And then, who's been the biggest mentor to you, and how did that relationship come about?

A Um, biggest mentor, I mean, I've been lucky enough to have lots of people I consider, or a bunch of people I consider being mentors. I mean, I, you know, my family, my, my wife, my kids are, they're all people that I learn from, um, every day. You know, I try to keep an open, uh, an open mind where I try to make every interaction or something is I will say afterwards, or I'll write down afterwards, what did I learn from that? Because I think the mentorship is, is highly distributed if you view it as such. I have, you know, there are people in the industry who I have incredible respect for. I don't know him personally, but I would say that one person who's, you know, I've been truly inspired by in 2016 is Jeff Bezos. I think that, I think I misunderstood him as a, his, um, his aspirations and intentions, you know, because I always saw him You know, for many years, primarily as a merchant, as a, um, you know, shopping site, and then I've developed a lot of respect for what he built at AWS, and now, you know, looking forward to, you know, what he's doing with Alexa, and, you know, I think that they're a super interesting company.

AI assessment note: “I don't know him personally, but I would say that one person who's... is Jeff Bezos.”

Q What does it do well, do you think?

A Well, I mean, I think that as companies, let me talk about the change that I see, and then let me talk about what VC does well. So I think that, you know, one of the most significant changes, and this is a change that we constructed Betaworks around, is that over the last five, 10 years is that we've seen A radical drop in the cost of company creation or of taking an idea into beta, of testing an idea. And that's the reason why I call it Betaworks. That's what reason why we have, you know, developed a fair amount of process here to be able to put things in market, test them very quickly, and then see if they achieve scale. So you used to be able to, if I could, like, let me just try and plot a graph for you and see if you could do this in your head. Um, we'll see if listeners can see this in their head. Um, but, but if you have on, uh, the y-axis capital needs, and then you have x-axis, you have stage of company, you know, so from on the x-axis, you have inception, so the idea on napkin, to a beta, to a public beta, to an idea that's actually scaling, to monetization of that particular ideal business, that's become a business, to, um, to scale and growth. Right, so that's along your x-axis, and then on the y-axis, you have just relative needs of capital. So what there was is that 10 years ago is there was pretty much a linear relationship between these two things. As you move t…

AI assessment note: “let me talk about the change that I see, and then let me talk about”

Q I'm intrigued. What will be the catalyst to that transition into mainstream? Is it kind of compute power? Is it technical ability? Or is it consumer educations?

A I think it's all of the above and a few more. And then I think it is just the, and this is, you know, why you need to engage in this frontier tech, is that there are going to be left field implementations that take people by surprise, right? I would say that the single biggest step forward for mixed reality in, in Face tracking. And yet those words, most people would not, people would have said one's a social, social media network thingy, and the other one is a, is a game. And so most people would not have thought about those as being mixed reality slash virtual reality, augmented reality based things, uh, necessarily. So I think that there's, there's a lot of work that needs to take place on the technology. There's capital that needs to be applied to that. I'm actually grateful the skepticism that you see around these categories. I love it Because I think it drives a more efficient market for capital and for, um, for entrepreneurship. Then you, you see this herd mentality that tends to happen in VC, and once, once this stuff gets unlocked, believe you me, there's going to be a lot of money which will flow into it.

AI assessment note: “I think it's all of the above and a few more.”