Jon Steinberg

On note: Content provenance is a potent and emerging market.

4

Nearly half the world's population goes to the polls this year, including us in the UK. It's also the first big election season - Indian, Mexico, US, UK, EU - since generative AI tools have been really widely available. After years in which mis and disinformation has disrupted and reshaped our democracies, the stakes are now even higher. The team at Demos have been thinking about what could practically be done to help protect democracy. It's too late in the UK for meaningful legislation (the Online Safety Act took five years and ended up a shadow of what it originally promised), the tech companies are working on watermarking and tracking AI generated content but the technical solutions aren't good enough yet. What's left for immediate action? We're calling on the UK political parties to come together to agree how they will use generative AI at the election in order to model best practice and start to shape the norms of what's acceptable use. This is me talking about it on the radio yesterday with Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, who, along with a wide range of experts and leading voices are backing our call. Working with the brilliant Full Fact we have drafted an oven-ready agreement the parties should sign up to committing to: • Not using generative AI to create deepfakes designed to mislead • Labelling where they are using generative AI to improve transparency and trust • Not amplifying content they suspect could have been created using generative AI • Giving their campaigners guidance on how to use generative AI responsibly.... It won't solve the bigger problem of malicious actors and state interference, but it will start to show world class leadership in this area... Read the full agreement here: https://lnkd.in/eW7YEdeh Read our briefing paper by the brilliant Elizabeth Seger here: https://lnkd.in/eYH7HFzM

50

4 Comments

Eric Idle interview: ahead of an Australian tour, the Monty Python co-founding writer, performer and musician reflects on comedy, genius, libido and facing life’s final curtain with a bow. Q: Do you have any strategies for lifting yourself out of a funk, when you become sad? A: You have to face life as a privilege every day. It’s not going to last. George Harrison told me all about that: you can have the most money in the world, you can be the most famous person in the world, but you’re still gonna have to die. And that is, of course, the great equaliser for all of us. We spend a lot of our time in denial. I worked out you only have 30,000 sunsets if you live to be over 80. That’s a good thing to remember, I think. Because we tend to forget that we’re on a planet, and we’re going round, and we’re buzzing through space – and all of this is going on while we worry about whether the mail has arrived (laughs), or whether our TV’s working. We tend to forget where we are in the larger view of things. To remember (that) is to just consider how amazingly unlikely it is that we are here, and able to communicate and think, and actually see photographs of the beginning of the universe, which was about 13.5 billion years ago. I find all that very exciting. Q: I’m 36. Have you found an upside to growing older that might surprise me? A: Yes, I think so. I think your dick drops out of controlling you. That’s always a good idea – eventually, about 50 or 60 – you stop being led around by your dick. Men, in particular (laughs). There are very many consolations with age. It’s not the end of the world, quite – but it’s close (laughs). I mean, I’m 81 and I look forward to being 82. That becomes the big achievement. Read the full interview (~16 minute read) at The Australian: https://lnkd.in/gewngc54 #ericidle #alwayslookonthebrightsideoflife #montypython #montypythonsflyingcircus #theaustralian

3

His career started when someone said to him, “well, have you thought about venture capital? We don’t think that you’d be any good at it.” The rest is history. Today’s Alt Goes Mainstream episode features one of the legends of the venture capital industry. Peter Barris joined New Enterprise Associates (NEA) in 1992 after a storied operating career as President and COO at Legent Corporation and an executive at GE Information Services. He served as Managing General Partner and Chairman of NEA from 1999 to March 2024. Under Peter's leadership, NEA saw tremendous success, growing into one of the world's largest venture capital firms and raising the largest-ever venture capital fund a number of times. Today, NEA's AUM stands over $25B. Peter was responsible for investing in a number of foundational and industry-transforming technology companies, including Salesforce, UUNET, Groupon, WebMD, Workday, CareerBuilder, Tempus AI, and more. We had a fascinating discussion about the early days of venture capital and how the industry has evolved. We covered: * The inside story of how almost every other Partner said no but Peter's investment turned out to be a 75x return. * What's the “best characteristic and the death characteristic” of an entrepreneur? * In today's hypercompetitive market do VCs have enough time to make good decisions? * Why the world of venture capital is about influence. * What does it mean to earn an entrepreneur’s trust as a VC? * Why VCs with operating backgrounds can bring unique value to startups. * How NEA came up with the term "Venture Growth Equity." * How can a VC tell that a founder is good at experimentation and that they have the good judgment? * Why specialization and domain expertise are prerequisites in today’s venture industry. Thanks to Ultimus Fund Solutions for sponsoring this episode of the Alt Goes Mainstream podcast. Thanks Peter for coming on the show. It was an honor and a pleasure to hear your views on the evolution of an industry and for you to share your wisdom and experiences. https://lnkd.in/eEJGEFWe

16

What do you do when a radical new technology puts your main product right in the crosshairs of disruption? Listen to David Okuniev — co-founder of Typeform | Ask awesomely — discuss the challenges of innovation within existing structures. David shared a game-changing insight: Radical innovation is really, really difficult to do inside your own product. He emphasized the need to break free from the constraints of familiarity and embrace change from outside the box. Henrik Werdelin and I have both seen our fair share of this in our respective careers. What struck us most was how David leveraged structure to overcome the innovator’s dilemma. By creating a culture of experimentation and providing space for bold ideas, he propelled Typeform beyond incremental improvements. What other hacks have you seen or employed to help your organization overcome the innovator’s dilemma? Share your stories below! 👇 And if you want to dive deeper into our conversation, click the link in the comments to catch the full podcast episode!

4

2 Comments

https://buff.ly/4cXCfSY SelSym, a pioneering startup, is addressing the challenge of platelet storage limitations. Due to their short lifespan, platelets cannot be stored for future use, despite a substantial number of donations. The innovative solution being developed by SelSym involves the utilization of soft artificial platelets to effectively control bleeding. This groundbreaking approach holds promise in revolutionizing the way bleeding is managed. #MedicalInnovation #BleedingControl

1

Random Sunday Thoughts #122 1. As many know, we are strategic investors and I am a Board Member in the most dynamic, innovative domain name and brand marketplace, Atom.com. We at Hilco Digital Assets manage the ultra-premium domain name marketplace on Atom, from what gets listed to all negotiations. We have had an amazing few weeks on Atom as it relates to brandable domains, another sign that the team and strategy at the company is cutting edge, especially considering my above post and the economy they are winning in. The marketing being done is working and reaching so many potential buyers of the best domains, buyers that are hard to find by outbound or any other way. On Friday, Darpan Munjal shared some of Atom's progress year to date, here https://lnkd.in/eBJFSjPN 2. It is such an interesting time from an investment perspective, with so many moving parts in the economy (interest rates, inflation, the election, the future of crypto, the Asian economy and markets, the crisis in the Middle East). In the most uncertain times is   unequivocally where the most opportunity always lies, and that includes the most valuable domain names, early stage investments, and more established companies. I have been posting in RST about two stocks and companies for over a year, JetBlue and DraftKings. When I first mentioned these, the stocks were at $3.95 and $12.25, respectively. JB has been as high as $7.58 and DK $49.57. Both companies just reported better than expected results. I have been lucky to trade them several times, which I only recommend if you follow them daily, but long term, I see JB having upside from its current level and being a takeover candidate, and DK having immense upside. Of course, the best investment is in acquiring your exact match or category domain name asset, which provides exponential enterprise value and strategic advantage across every facet of your company. 3. Speaking of the election, we at Hilco Digital Assets are overseeing the category defining domain name, Election*.com. This is such a powerful asset. All of our valuable, best on the Internet domain names are  at HilcoDigital.com/domains and some foundational CEO/Founder use cases at https://lnkd.in/eFS_NYXp 4. I struggle to love many aspects of the olympics. Basketball is not as exciting as the NCAA or NBA, and some of the events are just not my thing. However, golf is amazing. We have an absolute epic battle this morning, with a stacked leaderboard competing for the Gold medal and bragging rights for their country, all on the shoulders of one person. The final round today will be as good as it gets. 5. Good luck to all the amazing riders doing the PMC today. I have way too many friends I sponsor and need to thank for their efforts in one of the country's most important fundraising events but a few important to me; David Peress Andrew Cohen Elliot Silver. 🙏 for fighting the enemy. Until Next Week #domainnames #digitalassets #digitalmarketing

31

3 Comments

As we’ve begun building Oversubscribed Ventures, we’ve learned that the world of venture capital is way too mysterious and insular. We wanted to crack it wide open and make it accessible to everyone. So, we launched a new podcast, with Phil Schwarz. Some of you may already listen to our World’s First Podcast (and if you do, thank you!). The Oversubscribed Podcast takes a lot of what makes World’s First Podcast great and focuses on the business world. This is a business podcast for anyone and everyone who is curious about stories of success, failure, recovering from rejection, pivoting, and more. Why launch a new podcast? - The lessons that come out of talking to founders, executives, etc can apply to everyone, whether they’re starting a company or not; - We could add something to the (way too few but super impressive) female voices in the startup and venture world; and - We could inject our own personality and - admittedly - often inappropriate humor into the conversations (iykyk). We hope our Oversubscribed Podcast does all of this and more. Link below, and of course you can find it anywhere you can listen to podcasts. More to come! Link: https://lnkd.in/e2E6kynn

43

2 Comments

AI Viability Tracker - update This is an exciting time for all of us. The AI market continues to both fascinate and terrify most in equal measure. We've decided to fully embrace it. Our UK AI partners are building our viability tracker; this will simplify and streamline our process massively. How about you? Are you embracing it yet?

9

The state of venture capital is wild right now. We are witnessing a surge of innovation across the spectrum: - Funds merging - VC doing PE - PE doing VC - Secondary funds - Buyout funds - Spin-out funds - Debt funds - Continuation funds - Infrastructure funds - GP turnover - Hard Tech surging - Family Office uptick

60

8 Comments

Lotan Levkowitz of Grove Ventures is a rising star in the VC landscape! He is super intelligent, kind, and very articulate with his words. I really enjoyed talking to him about Deep tech investing, Grove Ventures, and the US elections, among other shenanigans and rhymes. Check out the interview and subscribe to the channel! It is a command, I mean, a request, I mean, do what you bloody want. https://lnkd.in/d6gjSvdQ

227

10 Comments

Stability AI, a startup that rode the boom in generative artificial intelligence to a $1 billion valuation before experiencing financial trouble and employee defections, has a new CEO. Prem Akkaraju, former CEO of visual effects company Weta Digital, will step into the role. The 51-year-old Akkaraju is part of a group of investors including former Facebook President Sean Parker that has stepped in to save Stability with a cash infusion that could result in a lower valuation for the firm, which develops products that use Stable Diffusion, an open-source AI image generator. The new funding will likely shrink the stakes of some existing investors, who have collectively contributed more than $100 million. https://lnkd.in/egevkxv3 #artificialintelligence #ai #stabilityai #venturecapital #fundraising #startups #stablediffusion

3

1 Comment

Striking: Zenobē, a UK climate tech startup, raised £600m from KKR and £270m from Infracapital, bypassing VC entirely. Zenobe captures excess energy from wind farms to stabilize the grid and reduce gas power reliance. This means: Zenobe secured one of 2023's biggest startup fundraises — without any venture capital. #battery #fundraising #venturecapital #energystorage #infrastructure #growthinflection Sifted: https://lnkd.in/g8wF-xA5

5

Coming soon on Aug 1: "Transformation to a Fresh Tomorrow." This is theme of our 3rd Annual Web3 Investor Day, as we welcome the innovators and investors convening in Chicago for these discussions around the next generation Internet. Our theme reflects the optimism, determination and commitment investors and innovators have solidified off the depths of the bear markets to drive success in the bull markets. Broader investor optimism suggests that fresh institutional funds into Web3 across both tokens and equity may endure.  Across adoption metrics, customer interest and developer activity, Web3 seems to have normalized. It’s refreshing to see the transformation and next evolution of Web3 and it’s refreshing to meet many of you on August 1.  And yet, even with the improved optimism from last year, there still remain open questions in the development and adoption of our next generation Internet:  1. the balance of speculative versus productive investor capital in this current cycle 2. the productive role of liquid trading capital in fostering Web3 innovation 3. the attractiveness of venture investments in follow on financings 4. the role of policy and regulation that may enhance innovation 5. the continued developer activity to improve the underlying infrastructure 6. other Web3 recovery characteristics in target customer use cases. We remain committed to navigating regulatory shifts, fostering investor optimism, and building the customer use cases for Web3.  Physical spaces enhance our innovation conversations.  In person relationships foster our collaboration.  Relationships drive breakthrough innovations.  Reach out to Rizza Torres at Decasonic if you would like to join us! #web3investorday #web3 #venturecapital

20

6 Comments

What do I do for work? @influence.vc is an angel investor syndicate, where each angel investor gets to decide which startups or ventures to back. Traditional vc funds gather capital capital from investors and go invest on their behalf. I’m personally an investor in a handful of funds myself. What we do at Influence.vc: ✅ We bring many deals to the table and each investor gets to select investments that align with their passion and expertise. They pick which deals they want to do or not. This is perfect for individuals, Entrepreneurs, & influencers who are Accredited Investors. Go to http://influence.vc to apply to join the syndicate and gain access to view our deal flow. Influence.vc - Venture Capital Syndicate with Exclusive Deal Flow & Influencer Expertise #InvestWithChoice #SyndicateInvesting #StartupFunding #VentureCapital #influenceVC

12

2 Comments