From the Investors
Hans Swildens and Kathleen Collins of Industry Ventures write about the falling mutual and hedge fund VC-related investment activity and what that means for the venture ecosystem in “The Elephant in the Room: Hedge Funds and Mutual Funds”
Samir Kaji of First Republic walks through the reasons why most institutional investors have slammed on their handbrakes with respect to allocating to new micro-VC funds in “The Micro-VC Crunch?”
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures argues that although we should celebrate the incredible phase of permissionless innovation we are in, we need to understand that there will be many failures in “Experiment and Scandal”
Chris McCann of Greylock Partners shares some of his observations of the insurance startup ecosystem in “Insurance Startups – Market Ecosystem Map”
Alex Mittal and Christopher Steiner of FundersClub explain why startup investing, as a class, needs to be diversified in two distinct ways in “Startup Investor Guide: Diversification”
M.G. Siegler of GV looks at the small details that make the Echo a superior use case for vocal computing in “‘Siri Already Did It’”
From the Operators
Marco Arment of Overcast concludes that if the landscape shifts to prioritize big-data AI services, Apple will find itself in a similar position as Blackberry did almost a decade ago in “If Google’s Right About AI, That’s a Problem for Apple”
Rand Fishkin of Moz examines his mistakes, regrets, and the things he did right when building his company in “What I’d Change, Keep the Same, & Don’t Yet Know”
Jason Fried of Basecamp chats about maturing as a CEO, focusing on what’s important, and avoiding the cult of starting up in “Don’t Let It Get Out Of Control”
Matt Szymczyk of Zugara shows why, despite the advancements being made in VR and AR, the public continues to be disappointed with the real technology in “Virtual Reality Will Continue to Disappoint, Even When It’s Awesome”
Per Harald Borgen of Xeneta outlines how he created a functional prototype by using existing tools instead of coding in “Building Products Without Coding”
Min Zhang of Totum Wealth summarizes how marketplace lenders will need to develop new products that are simple, transparent, and work well with broader distribution channels in order to reach a larger investor base in “How Will Marketplace Lending Become a Mainstream Investment Asset Class?”
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