Month: February 2024
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I’ve usually been a SaaS or marketplace guy. But then something interesting happened at Duolingo… A year ago, I looked at the consumer subscription market and I didn’t see a lot of big winners. What I did see were crowded markets, high advertising costs, and scary churn. But Duolingo’s rise…
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+ Duolingo, Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, Silicon Valley, Startups, Stock Market, Tech, Venture Capital+
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Coinbase is the world’s 2nd largest crypto exchange. But in 2012, the company was barely getting off the ground. Let’s dig into the deck they used to pitch investors at YC Demo Day… Explaining What Coinbase Does Right on slide #1, founder Brian Armstrong makes clear what Coinbase does: it…
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+ Bitcoin, Coinbase, Crypto, Entrepreneur, Finance, Investing, Silicon Valley, Stocks, Tech, Venture Capital, YC+
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One company, TSMC, makes almost all advanced semiconductors. The US wants in on this game — but TSMC founder Morris Chang says it won’t be easy. In a fascinating talk this past fall at MIT, Chang tells the story of why so much chip manufacturing wound up in one little…
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+ AI, Artificial Intelligence, GPU, Mexico, Semiconductors, Stocks, Taiwan, Tech, TSMC, Venture Capital+
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Warren Buffett started out buying businesses at the lowest possible price. One day in 1965, a young man named Charlie Munger told him he was doing it all wrong. Buffett had just bought Berkshire Hathaway. At that time, Berkshire was a struggling textile mill, not the conglomerate we know today.…
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+ Berkshire, Buffett, Finance, Investing, Money, Munger, Stock Market, Stocks, Tech, Venture Capital+
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The best founders in the world have their choice of investors. So I’m not waiting for them to contact me — I’m going to them. When I started as an angel in 2021, I let the deals come to me. These days, I’m doing a lot more outbound. Here’s how…
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Deel is one of the most successful startups today, valued at $12 billion. So when I found their pre-seed deck this week, I was really intrigued. Deel’s deck from 2019 is simple and effective. Let’s dig in… Framing the Problem Founders Alex and Shuo do a great job of framing…
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If you trade on inside information in the public markets, you go to prison. If you don’t have inside info in the private markets, you’re not doing your job. Private tech startups release little or no information to the public. Everything is confidential between the founder and investors. But some…
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I found myself in the kitchen last night, cracking an egg into a frying pan. This wasn’t a normal dinner — this was research. Decks and deal memos are great. But to really understand what a startup does, you have to use the product. So when I had the chance…
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When I have meetings in New York, I know where I’m going: Angelina Paris. Angelina has existed in France for over a century. It has only one sit-down location in the United States — and this is it. I plopped into a soft chair at a sleek marble table. A…
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+ Cafe, Coffee, Croissants, Desserts, Dining, Eating out, France, French, Manhattan, New York, Pastry, Restaurants+
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A cute little robot trundles up to the construction site, carrying the next set of bricks. On goes a thick layer of mortar that looks kind of like icing. Slowly but surely, the wall rises a little higher. This is the new brick laying robot from a startup called Monumental.…
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+ AI, Artificial Intelligence, Construction, Finance, Investing, Money, Netherlands, Robot, Robotics, Startups, Venture Capital+
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Tremendous 