John Coogan, co-founder of nicotine brand Lucy and EIR at Founders Fund, explains why legacy tobacco conglomerates are vulnerable to new competitors.
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…”
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…”