We’re halfway through the quarter and we’re revitalized with energy, creativity and ideas on the future of technology, society and VC! Here is a selection of who we talked to and what we read this week.
🤼 People
Chris Ahn - Partner at Haun Ventures
Haun ventures is the $1.5B web3 fund from former a16z GP and federal prosecutor Katie Haun. Chris is a partner there since 2022, before that he intersected with Alex at Index Ventures. With Chris we discussed the importance of reducing user friction in consumer applications, especially in crypto. Additionally, we talked about current developments in the crypto consumer markets with a focus on social media (check out our portfolio companies anytype & t2) and music (check out our portfolio catalog who just launched a 24/7 internet radio with micro-payment and collectible features). We also touched on developments in RWA and AI/ZKML - exciting times to be a VC.
Jarrod Scuglik - COO at Newlab
There is not a much cooler deep tech community concentrator than Newlab - with their NYC, Brooklyn location housing startups doing everything from rockets to biotech. They’ve been around for >7 years now and have expanded into new territories such as Detroit, Michigan and going far beyond in the future. Not going to reveal too much of early plans, but needless to say, we are huge fans of Newlab and Jarrod.
🚀 Companies - EthDenver edition
Meet our portfolio companies at EthDenver on Feb 23 - Mar 3. Here are some of the awesome events they’re putting up:
LabDAO, Modulus Labs and Fabric will all be speaking at the Convergence side event on the 26.2 on the intersection of crypto and AI
Fabric and Lita (not a portfolio, just friend) will be hosting a zkHackerhouse and if you want to see all the events where Michael and team will appear, check this out ****
The Flashbots team will be present, among other places at the DeFi Day side event
Arx will be coordinating FREE devkit’s for the hackathon, so make sure to grab those
This is most certainly not exhaustive, just the tip of the iceberg of what seems to be the most lovingly hated conference in crypto.
💡 Ideas & Science
A trillion here, a trillion there. Soon it’s real money by exponential view (AZEEM AZHAR)
Global installed compute has grown about 60 billion times since 1971 (estimated)! If it continues at a similar growth rate in the next 20-30 years, where will be we be?
Zero Knowledge Podcast - ep. 311 The launch of Celestia and Beyond
The ZK podcast has been our companion in crypto since it’s inception. This particular episode made clear to us the immense engineering required to do even a “tiny” thing better, from a macro perspective. Mostly unrelated to Celestia but the thought was sparked here: We’re building a world computer, the effort is akin to building the first physical computers. It took millennia from the first storage/data availability/clay tablets to a fully functional personal computer. Where are we in the innovation cycle? How much faster is it today?
Comparison of Quantum PUF models
One interesting application of quantum photonic compute might be that we can create ML-attack resistant PUFs - Physically Unclonable Functions. They are used as unique and untamperable device identifiers, for secure key generation and storage, and as a source of randomness. PUFs are implemented in integrated circuits, including FPGAs, and can be used in applications with high-security requirements
Acquired Pod - S14E1 Novo Nordisk
Acquired is maybe one of the best podcasts for digging deep into the most interesting (large) companies in the world. Novo Nordisk is now the 15th most valuable company in the world, and Europe’s no. 1. Their entire business model and history is based on insulin - and then they launch Ozempic and Wegovy… Well worth a listen!