Opinion
VC disdain for ChatGPT wrappers is a psyop by oversized funds
“The whole like chat GPT rapper Meme is like a total psyop by VCs who have scaled up their funds too much to like ruin fun for young entrepreneurs.”
Assertion Supported
Soylent hit $60M revenue before bad hires ruined the company
“Grew to, like, sixty million dollars in, like, a few years in revenue and then just, like, over-raised and, you know, brought in bad team, and it was just, like, a disaster, and then everyone just laughed, and then the company sold for, like, not a great outco…”
Assertion Supported
EVALI lung injuries were caused by illicit cannabis vapes, not Juul
“There was this thing called EVALI, the e-cigarette and vapor acute lung injury, like fiasco. It was identified by the CDC. And I mean, people died, like there were multiple people that, that, that actually died. And everyone thought it was because of Juul. It …”
Assertion Supported
Nicotine itself does not cause lung cancer despite common public perception
“The biggest, you know, cognitive dissonance publicly still remains just the idea that like nicotine is what gives you lung cancer, which is just not true. And the government's, you know, acknowledged this, everyone's acknowledged this, but it just, Hasn't, it …”
Opinion
Coogan: Regulators should double taxes and age limits on cigarettes
“We should have a tilted playing field and everything that you do for like to that continuum risk, like everything that you, every reg, every new regulation that you put on the industry, you should just double it and put that on cigarettes. Like cigarettes shou…”
Opinion
Coogan: Big Tobacco quality has degraded as top talent chooses tech
“They are not well run. They are not hiring the best people, really, really sharp people. They go to work at SpaceX and Meta. They are not going to big tobacco anymore. And so the quality of the companies has really, really degraded.”
Insight
Coogan: Category-specific VC funds launch too late after power law winners emerge
“Trey Stevens partner at Founders Fund and co-founder Vanderell just posted this good essay in Pirate Wires about how, like by the time that there's a market trend that you can like build a VC fund around, like it might be too late because the power law company…”
Opinion
Coogan: The Rabbit R1 is well suited for kids
“I have a hot take about that rabbit R one. I really think that would be good for kids.”
Insight
Coogan: Founders too easily get 'VC pilled' chasing large funding rounds
“It's too easy to get VC pilled and be like, oh, well, like if I change my story a little bit, I could raise a bunch of money.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Coogan: FDA nicotine regulatory pathway takes five years and millions
“Creating new products that would go through the regulatory pathway and we wouldn't start selling them to from for five years or something. But we haven't really moved the needle on that. Cause it's a big investment. It's like millions and millions of dollars. …”
Assertion Partly supported
Altria bought 30 percent of Juul for $13B at a $60B valuation
“At their peak, I think they were valued in like 60 ish billion dollars and Altria bought 30% of the company for like thirteen billion dollars. And so the majority of that went to pay a dividend to the investors and employees.”
Assertion Supported
Coogan: FDA Authorized Swedish Match to Label Snus as Less Harmful
“And so since then the FDA has actually approved one of those moist snuff products, which was actual tobacco leaves that has carcinogens in it and nitrosamines in it. They approved it as what's called a modified risk tobacco product, which allows The company th…”
Insight
Daily nicotine use builds tolerance rather than offering cognitive superpowers
“Nicotine builds up like a really, really quick tolerance. And so if you're using it every day, it's very much like, don't talk to me until I've had my coffee. Like you're really not getting some incredible benefit from just like having a, you know, a nicotine …”
Assertion Supported
Coogan: Smoking caused more US deaths than COVID during peak pandemic
“More people died of cigarettes and smoking related, you know, diseases during COVID than from COVID. Like, I think the peak COVID deaths were 430 430,000 that year and smoking killed 460 that year.”
Assertion Supported
Coogan: All direct market competitors above Lucy are owned by Big Tobacco
“Literally all of our, all of the competitors that are directly above us are owned by big tobacco.”
Insight
Niche retail magazines drive more CPG sales than TechCrunch features
“So yeah, now, now we just focus on, on like effectively like storytelling to like retailers. So more than like a TechCrunch article, like we were, I saw we were on the cover of some like retail distribution magazine that no one outside the industry has ever se…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Coogan: Online backlash over Apple's iPad ad will not affect sales
“Like the stock didn't move, you know, it's like, it's not, it is, isn't like a real thing. Like, I don't think it'll affect sales.”
Assertion Partly supported
Coogan: Coinbase gave users a full Bitcoin for signing up during YC
“Actually Coinbase was in our batch. At YC and was giving anyone who signed up a full Bitcoin, which is insane. It was like five dollars back then. So it was like their signup reward.”
Assertion Contradicted
Coogan: Nicotine Replacement Therapy Category Generates Under $1B in Revenue
“And it wasn't really like a growing category, like the overall NRT spaces is called nicotine replacement therapy. That whole space, Is, you know, under a billion dollars revenue.”
Disclosure
Coogan: Nicotine pouches became Lucy's primary growth driver against ZYN
“We like almost immediately started working on on pouches and products that could kind of directly compete against Zen. And so that's been like the major, major driver of growth.”
Disclosure
Coogan: Lucy intentionally avoids TikTok and aggressively age-gates products
“So from day one, we were just like, okay, how can we like age gate more aggressively, like advertise to even older people?... So like we've never advertised on Tik Tok, any of that stuff.”
Assertion Supported
US states securitized Big Tobacco settlement payments into tradable bonds
“Like states have actually, like every state got a payment because they have the local hospital systems. And so these states were able to take these revenue streams and then create derivatives against them and like sell those as bonds and then like pull all tha…”
Opinion
Coogan: Algorithmic content optimization poisons creators over time
“Content the algorithms, it just like, it kind of poisons you after a while. Like it's very, very disheartening.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Founders Fund operates autonomously with few people running their own companies
“It's a really, really tight knit firm. It was like 30, 40 people and everyone's kind of off doing whatever they want. A lot of people run companies.”
