TRW Issue#67
What Trump 2.0 Means for Tech / The Promise of Nuclear Fusion / Writing Skill Scarcity in AI Age / The AI Service Wave, lesson from Palantir
Hello there 👋
I'm Edo, and welcome to the 67th issue of Tech Readings of the Week!
Every Sunday, I curate a digest of tech insights for non-tech folks and aspiring founders. From data-driven trends to tech leaders' opinions, with a pinch of startup wisdom, I help you cut through the noise and stay ahead of the curve.
Ready to dive in? Let's go! 🚀
In Today's Issue 👇
What a Second Trump Presidency Means for Tech
The Radical Promise of Nuclear Fusion
Writing Skill Scarcity in the AI Age According to Graham
The AI Service Wave, a lesson from Palantir
Y Combinator application guide
👓 Essays & articles
Writes and Write-Nots - "in a couple decades there won't be many people who can write..." (Paul Graham)
The psychology of viral technologies - for more AI adoption, more intelligence isn’t the answer (Every)
The podcast election - new forms of media periodically reshape our culture and politics (Scott Galloway)
Why AI could eat quantum computing’s lunch - rapid advances in applying artificial intelligence to simulations in physics and chemistry have some people questioning whether we will even need quantum computers at all (MIT Technology Review)(€)
What a second Trump presidency means for tech - Donald Trump’s second term means significant changes for AI, crypto, and EV policy (The Verge)
The radical promise of nuclear fusion - after years hidden under top-secret status, fusion research is finally flourishing (Every)
From prediction markets to info finance - the two faces of Polymarket: a betting site for the participants, a news site for everyone else (Vitalik Buterin)
Once thought a fantasy, effort to sequence DNA of millions of species gains momentum - the project has read 3000 genomes but needs billions to finish the grand vision of sequencing all complex life (Science)
Semaglutide so effective at treating arthritis - the active ingredient in Ozempic was found to be so effective at treating arthritis that participants no longer needed treatment by the end of the experiment (Neoscope)
💸 VC & startups stuff
The future of venture: industrialization or back to basics? - justifying massive AUM aggregation with the power law is a fallacy; smaller, craft-driven funds actually outperform the mega AUM model (Avila)
The AI services wave - lessons from Palantir in the new age of AI (8VC)
New a16z investment thesis: AI x parenting (thread) - every parent needs support sometimes, but many can't access it because it's too inexpensive or inaccessible (Justine Moore)
Venture capital compensation in Europe - how much do European VCs make? 2024 Benchmark Analysis (Learning VC)
📊 Reports & Data
The long tail of AI - since the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, artificial intelligence startups have received an outsized proportion of investor capital and attention (Contrary Research)
M&A startup deal activity dips slightly in Q3 - even as more venture capitalists search for liquidity to show their limited partners real returns, M&A dealmaking involving startups dipped slightly (Crunchbase)
The state of global insurtech 2024 - 43% of insurtech VC funding has gone to B2B SaaS in 2024, by far the highest share ever (Dealroom)
📚 Founder's Toolkit
TRW's collection of free fundraising resources for founders!
Always be launching - because tbh no one gives a shit about your new product, anyway (Andrew Chen)
Y Combinator application guide - advices on the application from a YC alum (Yurii Rebryk)
Guide to selling your Company - things you MUST know if you want to sell your company. Understand the differences between selling to private equity versus a strategic (Only CFO)
📰 ICYMI
Regulators deliver successive blows to Amazon and Meta's nuclear power ambitions - (TechCrunch)
China's long-term lunar plans now depend on developing its own Starship - (Ars Technica)
For the first time ever, AMD outsells Intel in the datacenter space - (Tom's Hardware)
Mozilla Foundation lays off 30 staff, drops advocacy division - (TechCrunch)
Apple fined $1.77B for breaking EU antitrust rules - (The Verge)
World's first cloned ferret gives birth - (Interesting Engineering)
OpenAI's O1 model leaked on Friday and it is wild - (Tom's Guide)
SpaceX wants to test refueling Starships in space early next year - (TechCrunch)
Australian government to legislate social media age limit of 16 but can't say how platforms will enforce it - (The Guardian)
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy: 5-day office mandate isn't a backdoor layoff - (CNBC)
Canada orders TikTok Canada unit to dissolve operations on national security concerns - (Wall Street Journal)(€)
A new stronger Ozempic is coming. Here's what to know - (Quartz)
💎 Shitpost of the week:
Great job, you made it to the end!
High five 🙌
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Thanks for reading, and I'll see you next week.
Edo