John Coogan (EIR at Founders Fund) argues that venture capitalists unfairly discourage young founders from building simple, profitable AI wrapper products.
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…”