Happy Sunday.
I took the day off the blog yesterday. I drove to Coronado with my pal Jono for a few days of cycling.
Jono loves his Tesla. We stopped half way on the 400 mile drive so he could fill up at a Tesla supercharger in Yuma. That takes an extra 30 minutes.
Last night he plugged his Tesla into my wall in the house by snaking the Tesla cord through my mail box. That charge will get him 4 miles per hour so we will find a supercharger somehere in San Diego tomorrow.
Seems pretty convenient …
Anyways, Jono loves his Tesla and that might explain the stock price and why I am a putz for not owning the stock but not a superputz that would short the stock.
Onwards…
Sunday is about links and listens so I will share one of each before coming back again to ‘100 Foot Waves’ on HBO.
First off…the metaverse continues to dominate a lot of technology conversations so I thought I should link to Matthew Balls recent essay titled ‘Compute And The Metaverse‘. A must read.
For my drive to Coronado yesterday, Jono recommended I listen to ‘The Acquired’ podcast, specifically the one about Andreessen Horowitz. It is two parts and I did listen to part 1. I have not met Marc in person, but we have chatted. He and Chris Dixon, a partner at their firm, are LP’s in our funds. I have not met Ben. The podcast was really good and I learned a lot about their lives leading up to the start of the firm (part 2 for the rest).
The founder and venture capital stories got me thinking about surfing and specifically the ‘100 Foot Wave’ show on HBO that I have been watching. Before dinner, I finished episode 5 of the show and Jono was watching with me. Over dinner Jono was asking me about some of our fund investments (he is an LP) and how I see the world these days through the lens of investing in big trends and venture capital.
I have long tied my investing thoughts to surfing/riding big trends, but this ‘100 foot wave’ really has had me thinking hard about the connections. Most surfing is done on waves that is all about the surfer and the wave. No big teams.
It takes a full team of people to help a surfer ride the giant waves of Nazare, Portugal. The waves don’t come every day. They come in the winter and even the winter only offers up a few great days of big surf. When Garrett McNamara first came to surf the spot, he had it to himself. The locals had never thought of surfing it. Catching the big waves required Garrett to put together a team that would Jetski him out to the waves. It also was crucial having his wife with a walkie talkie spotting for waves and patterns up on the lighthouse cliff.
Long story short…the world of trying to spot trends/founders/products that might result in ‘decacorns’ has a lot of similarities to 100 foot waves. Today at Nazare there are 20-30 teams in the water on the few days of great surf…the rare waves that Garrett discovered have now become the center of the surfing world. The mayor of Nazare is the Paul Graham of Y Combinator by now.
Software ‘decacorns’ have attracted thousands of new investors to the venture world and to catch one (like giant waves) is not as rare as it was 10 years ago. The waves brought by the relentless pace of technology and capital are creating crowds and better systems for creating even bigger companies, faster. Of course with these crowds come huge mistakes and more spectacular crashes and accidents.
As I explained to Jono, my job is to be in/on the water (not actually surfing which is for the founders/entrepreneurs), up on the cliff and on the jetski, learning the patterns and spotting the waves and helping the surfers catch and ride these waves that will change their lives.
Much like big wave surfing, venture investing is about sitting and waiting and positioning and even passing (on deals) knowing that technology is relentless at bringing wave after wave. You only have to be right one time in the big wave/technology world we live in. Rest assured though that the crowds are only going to get bigger.
Have a great Sunday.