The most fundamental question to understand, IMO, is the existential one...What the heck is all this?! Why and how are we here? What are we supposed to do? Elon Musk is an incredibly smart guy - he has a track record of making things happen - both in the physical world (batteries, cars, rockets) and within human society (leading businesses, making money, acquiring a following). He's also a clear, first principles thinker and shares a lot about how he thinks about the world. So I think he can play a part in helping us understand life and the world*. So what is Elon's answer to the foundational question? Elon has two answers - one explicit and another implicit. Elon recalls that at the age of 11 or 12, he had an existential crisis because he didn't understand why or how we are here. He concluded that we may never know but we may be able to find out if we expand the scope and scale of civilization and consciousness , and that's what he wants to do. I like Elon's fra...
Supabase announced today that they raised $200M at a $2B valuation. They offer “Backend as a Service” or BaaS. Essentially, building blocks like auth, database, push notifications, etc. so that you can focus on developing the unique aspects of your app instead of all the standard and annoying scaffolding. I used their competitor, Firebase, about 10 years ago to build a couple of side projects. I really needed what they offered, but it was painful to use because they only offered a document DB queryably with a clunky graphql. That’s a perfect startup opportunity - a product that you really want to use and are willing to invest weeks of effort and money into, but has a major and fundamental flaw, that can be easily fixed by starting afresh. Somehow incumbents get stuck to their path and can't backtrack to solve the issue. I clearly didn’t recognize or pursue that opportunity, but Supabase did and launched in 2020. Their pitch was literally “Firebase but with Postgres dat...
I recently had an unpleasant experience on a deal with an organization that had an unscrupulous track record. In retrospect, I realize that's exactly what I should expect when doing a deal with the devil! I had entered the deal despite knowing and having an uneasy gut feeling about the devil's unsavory past. This is classic. Well-meaning people make deals with the devil because of a few possible reasons: (1) they don't know or assume good intent, (2) feel they don't have a choice, (3) they are tempted by the upside, (4) they think the devil's changed or they can transform the devil, (5) they think they can out-devil the devil. Almost always, they end up regretting making the deal. Devils are cunning masters of psychology. They can appear grand, altruistic, powerful, and charming. They know how to make you feel special with sweet talks and gestures. They can character shift like chameleons. If cornered about their past, they defend, deflect, create moral ambiguity, ...