also -- we recently renamed the podcast to “Summation” (formerly World of DaaS). We dive in with the most interesting people discussing the non-obvious ideas. Summation Podcast has almost 100k subscribers. subscribe on Youtube or your fav podcast app.
here are five links worth reading in April…
Three Modes of Cognition by Kevin Kelley
There are three types of intelligence: knowledge reasoning, world sense, and continuous learning. Current AI has only conquered the first (thus far). AI will really take off when it cracks continuous learning.
Why Gen Z is flocking to SEC universities by Kyndall Cunningham
Northeastern enrollment at SEC schools jumped 91% from 2014 to 2023. Alabama, Tennessee, and Ole Miss saw 500%+ increases from the Northeast. The driver is Gen Z picking schools like they pick brands.
Make TVs Great Again by M.G. Siegler
As TVs became more important to daily life, the actual products got dramatically worse. M.G. makes the case for Apple to finally build a television.
The World Is Full of GPS Dead Zones. Here’s What Comes Next. by Christopher Mims
Everything from telecoms to banking to smart weapons depends on GPS and you can knock it out in a city block with a $500 device or across an entire city for $100k. Jamming is now widespread across Europe and the Middle East.
Tod Sacerdoti (Flex GP and Pipedream CEO) on seed at scale and SaaS mispricing on Summation
Tod sold BrightRoll to Yahoo for $640M, sold Pipedream to Workday, and has invested in 400+ companies. He explains why seed investing has the highest annualized returns of any venture asset class and why first-gen AI companies are the most vulnerable to AI disruption.
Bonus (SaaSpocalypse): Long Slides, Short APIs by Alex Campbell
A human generates a dozen API calls per hour. One AI agent generates hundreds per minute.
Bonus (promiscuous): We are in polyamorous relationships with AI models (and why that means Perplexity wins)
No one is monogamous with AI models anymore. This is a nightmare for enterprises and a massive opportunity for wrapper platforms (like Perplexity) that route to the best model automatically.
Bonus (useful): Summation: Rules for Life & Work by Sushant Bhardwaj
Being scammed a few times is a good sign. It means you trust people and stay open. My colleague Sush at Flex Capital read through my writing going back to 2003 and turned it into a short book you can open to any page.
More reading links at https://twitter.com/AurenReads
The Making of a Surgeon by William Nolen
Mosul on Netflix
AI moves in days. Policy moves in decades
Auren Hoffman is CEO of NQB8 and GP at Flex Capital. NQB8 starts 3 companies per year. Flex Capital is a seed-stage venture capital firm --- investing in 50+ start-ups a year. Engage on X: @auren
and please share Five Links with your friends and allies.
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