Five Links for March 2023
5 links (and a napkin graph) to make you think
Here are five links worth reading…
The Surprising Reason Europe Came Together Against Putin by Claire Berlinski
There’s an unsung hero behind Europe’s unusual unity on Ukraine: Google Translate. Thanks to the app (and Twitter’s decision to translate every tweet), everyone in Europe can understand one another for the first time in history.
Listen: Vivek Ramaswamy: Leadership, Innovation & Ideology
Just before announcing his run for president, entrepreneur and author Vivek Ramaswamy came on World of DaaS to talk about ESG, ideology and innovation. He pulls back the veil on proxy advisory services ISS and Glass Lewis, two companies with massive, often invisible power over the public markets.
We stand to save $7m over five years from our cloud exit by David Heinemeier Hansson
Hansson offers a breakdown of what Basecamp’s move away from the cloud will cost, and some nuanced thinking about the benefits and drawbacks of the cloud, especially for medium-sized businesses.
Our Deglobalized Future by Erik Torenberg
The US is breaking away from the post-Cold War order. What does that mean for the rest of the world? “Combine depopulation with deglobalization, and it breaks everything we know.”
Becoming strange in the Long Singularity by Ethan Mollick
While everyone else is worried about AI gaining unstoppable power, Mollick takes a wider lens to a different singularity— the one we’re living in right now.
Bonus: (Useful) How to Legalize Prediction Markets by Richard Hanania
Prediction markets are banned by the discretion of one regulatory agency, and there are several ways to bring them out of the legal shadows. (If you’re not sure why they should be legal, this piece is a great breakdown)
Bonus (Listen): Oren Etzioni: Unlocking AI’s Potential
There’s been so much AI progress in the last year that it feels like AGI might be right around the corner. On World of DaaS, Oren Etzioni explains where actually are on the road to AGI and what he expects to see before AGI emerges.
More reading links at https://twitter.com/AurenReads
Graph of the Month:
Books:
Chip War by Chris Miller
HT: Dmitri Alperovitch
Contagious by Jonah Berger
The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant
HT: Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Christopher Schroeder, Emmad Farooqi
Auren Hoffman is CEO of SafeGraph (geospatial data on physical places) and GP at Flex Capital ($200M Series A and B VC firm). Engage on Twitter:@auren