radical candour from a deep generalist
You may or may not have heard the podcast but I have been reading this one to glean some more info.
Really awesome stuff in here and I like some of the reveals for how Spark works as a VC firm as well.
Enjoy!
Full transcript: Spark Capital partner Megan Quinn on Recode Decode – Recode
Such a great video – check it out first:
I think a lot of what he says is terribly true and I wonder if most of the world’s governments have simply bowed down to Big Tech assuming that it will always do the right thing for everyone. Sure – these companies are doing amazing things but some of their success feels like it is coming at the cost of meaningful things.
I don’t have the answers but I think government and the people must remain vigilant and not always assume Big Tech has all the answers or always means well.
This is also why I feel conflicted about bitcoin or crypto – on the surface the ideas are amazing but at the same time it is for the moment creating another way to generate wealth that is concentrated mostly with the tech elite and creating a sense of moving away from central management of capital. This could be good or it could be bad, all depends on how you see it or benefit from it.
I think this post is slightly sensationalist but does make some meaningful points :: https://hackernoon.com/ten-years-in-nobody-has-come-up-with-a-use-case-for-blockchain-ee98c180100
All in all I am pro-tech and crypto is here to stay but the world still feels like it continues to bifurcate into the have’s and have not’s and I am sure that is a bad thing.
So winter never really came to startup land but I think VC’s care more about fundamentals, especially in SEA region, are more sensitive to valuations and I think due to the bigger companies getting bigger rounds – there is less seed money available in some instances.
I am really excited about 2018, the SEA region and what SeedPlus will bring to the party!
Not saying these guys have done anything but it is good to see some trepidation on behalf of VC’s where there is alleged bad actors.
We need more of this.
Ray has been doing the podcast circuit with the book being out but this was one of my favorite ones.
I don’t love Forbes but this article captures some of the salient points I am trying to grok and put into my work practice.
First is to have an “idea meritocracy” that spans across meaningful work and meaningful relationships.
I like this – may the best idea win and of course we all want rewarding work with good people.
I also like his framework for putting this into place with serious meeting rigour and a culture that supports radical transparency and radical candor. (This is why I am super excited that the next book up is Radical Candor by Kim Scott.)
Within these concepts there are rules for open disagreement, discourse for challenging ideas (not the people) and some protocol for making sure that when a decision is made – everyone falls in line to support it, regardless of where you personally stand on the issue.
I need to get the book and dig in.
Also excited to try and implement better goal and learning this year with another notebook..
Will be interesting to see where this all goes. Payments is a mostly a low margin business so this isn’t about making money but more about making it easier to pay for things.
Things being not just rides but I am still wondering if this is the playbook for domination or not.
I am still more interested in them getting into other countries and seeing if they can take all this stuff across countries or not.
Go-Jek buys three startups to advance its mobile payment business | TechCrunch:
Will always have a special place in my heart for NSI as I was an advisor to them in the beginning and have many dear friends working there.
As a fellow VC I know fund-raising is hard but this is a great milestone for NSI and the Singapore ecosystem at large.
Congrats!
NSI Ventures Targets $125 Million Second Fund for Consumer Apps – Bloomberg
Great read from Mark on a troubling subject.
Zero tolerance – FTW.
Why We Must Have Zero Tolerance for Sexual Misconduct (Venture Capital Edition)
I need to drill into this more but it’s good:
This is pretty cool :: Abra now supports Ether, Bitcoin and over 50 Fiat Currencies – Abra
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