HN user

g10r

149 karma

I'm the Founder and CEO of Sphere (sphereinsight.com). We're working on applied machine intelligence to help people make more informed decisions.

Twitter: @grahamgarner Email: grahamgarner1 [at] gmail

Posts2
Comments47
View on HN

It's not bad per se, it's just how it works. Like pretty much everything in life the outcome is dependent on the people involved. You're not getting the potential for more upside without the introduction of more risk.

Chamath is currently leading four biotech SPACS: DNAA, DNAB, DNAC and DNAD, each with a stated target, neurology, oncology, organs & immunology. Anyone looking to invest in the SPAC today should consider the likelihood of this happening, the potential targets, and the sponsors history.

Or you can wait for an announcement around a proposed merger, even up to the day the official stock starts being traded.

Again, just depends on risk tolerance. It's nice to least have the option to take part in these deals.

Agreed. Many smaller, yet successful Hedge Funds limit the capital they manage for this very reason. Some strategies just don't work at certain scale.

For the most part, the government shouldn't get to tell people what they can or can not do with their money. We don't currently stop people from going to vegas, buying lotto tickets, buying expensive cars, clothes, buying education, etc.

Said another way, 'anyone' can invest 'any' amount in a public stock today and lose it all tomorrow. Heck people were even suckered into mortgages they couldn't afford by our trusty banks.

Funny enough I've been obsessing over this concept of "aligning vectors" / measuring the impact of personal KPIs against the total progress of a business.

“Every person in your company is a vector. Your progress is determined by the sum of all vectors.” — Elon Musk

options: 1. start over and don't work with the current cofounder. 2. keep going with current product, structure co-founders financial contribution as an investment (use a SAFE or something) and remove the person from day to day operations in the company.

AI Playbook 8 years ago

Well, one reason to "keep up with trends" is because if your direct competitor does use ML to unveil some market/product/business opportunity or optimization, and you (executive/CIO/CEO) weren't at the least looking into the technology, heads are going to roll.

AI Playbook 8 years ago

Yes, similar to what CAA did for the entertainment agency world. You may find it interesting to read, Who is Michael Ovitz?

Connections certainly help but aren't required. You need grit and a solution (or an idea of a solution) that's solving a pain point worth paying to alleviate. Ideally 10x better and cheaper than what's currently in the market. At first, you will be the salesperson and you have to realize that comes with a lot of rejection.

- conviction around ideas that are right, but not consensus. Rebel thinking.

- update your mental model with data.

- conversations around what's working, not working.

- one thing about a founder to decide to invest: shadow a founder for a day. Real life better demonstrates true nature of people vs meetings/stories/emails/interviews.

- always think about what can go wrong with your product, strategy, competitive landscape. Extreme alertness.

- if you have a good product, you can fix sales, customer success, marketing, etc. If you have a bad product, even doing everything else write doesn't help.

- Concerned about excess capital in seed markets. Bad companies shouldn't be raising money. Bad for the ecosystem as a whole.

why?

The question my three-year-old son asks over and over each day. It's exhausting, and I love it. I do my best to provide the answer instead of simply stating "because" or "just do it" as one of my greatest fears is to suppress his natural desire to understand as much as possible about the world. Also, as a child I hated memorization, yet loved delving into a subject that intrigued me.