What’s importantly contextual is that you cite talking to many of the big, bloated incumbent names. Sure, the VCs have ideas of what the startups are up to, but that’s also heavy sales talk.
So what you’re mostly going to hear from that selection bias is top-down controlled - and not bottom-up disruptive - innovation. Inherent to that is a lot of unacknowledged moat building and defending, maintaining the status quo at the top of the market cap pyramid.
But life doesn’t always follow their plans. Point being that there is a lot of Carlota Perez’s late technological transition economics at play now (e.g.: https://www.driftsignal.com/p/late-cycle-investment-theory). “The Silicon Valley” of today is entering late middle age compared to its effervescent newly minted adulthood of just 10-15 years ago.
Of course, there are seeds of what’s to come already. But we also need to look at our current Apples and Googles more like AT&Ts and AOLs in our modern mirror, and less like they’re run by recent Harvard drop-outs like Gates, Zuckerberg, and Jobs.
What’s importantly contextual is that you cite talking to many of the big, bloated incumbent names. Sure, the VCs have ideas of what the startups are up to, but that’s also heavy sales talk.
So what you’re mostly going to hear from that selection bias is top-down controlled - and not bottom-up disruptive - innovation. Inherent to that is a lot of unacknowledged moat building and defending, maintaining the status quo at the top of the market cap pyramid.
But life doesn’t always follow their plans. Point being that there is a lot of Carlota Perez’s late technological transition economics at play now (e.g.: https://www.driftsignal.com/p/late-cycle-investment-theory). “The Silicon Valley” of today is entering late middle age compared to its effervescent newly minted adulthood of just 10-15 years ago.
Of course, there are seeds of what’s to come already. But we also need to look at our current Apples and Googles more like AT&Ts and AOLs in our modern mirror, and less like they’re run by recent Harvard drop-outs like Gates, Zuckerberg, and Jobs.
This dive was a helpful frame of all of the implications. Thank you for being generous with your field notes.
Excellent summary! Data LLMs will have on us particularly massive. But all good and powerful observations
Finally got to reading. Loving it. Thanks for the incredible peek into your notes 💥
Great update this week, Zoe!
Well said Zoe!
Take it seriously.
Be curious about everything.
Bet boldly—but build wisely.