1. If those space-cities aren't self-sufficient, they're a terrible pain to maintain from the surface; and if they are, well - they don't really need us gravity-well people all that much.
2. The universe doesn't need Trillions of people exploring it, thank you very much. (Unless you subscribe to Leto II Atreides' Golden Path, that is.)
Agreed on most points. I’d add that some investors such as a16z or YC add way more value by acting as partners so there is such a thing as more ‘valuable’ capital.
Prominent VCs like to spread this message. I'd take it with a healthy pinch of "remember who's bringing the news". Obviously the people offering less money are trying to sell the idea that less money is somehow more valuable.
Honestly, as a founder...it is. Dumb money is, in effect, pretty useless, whereas 'smart money' comes with additional benefits (provided you and the partner get along, etc.). It isn't guaranteed, but we leaned heavily on our investors for advice and help, especially in those times when we were either at a crossroads or dealing with a situation we had never seen before (b2b enterprise contracts when all our customers were SMB, etc.).
Some of them were also helpful just as the equivalent of 'executive coaches.' Being in the weeds constantly means it's hard to be objective sometimes. Good VCs and good angels are usually experienced and helpful, even if the incentives aren't perfectly aligned. They mostly are though; growth helps both the VC and the founder, so in that sense they're aligned.
But when deciding how big your option pool should be, your incentives are no longer directly aligned. :)
Nobody cares if payroll came out of dumb money or smart money. Same for AWS bills, office rent, etc. Having started a few companies, I'd much rather take a long runway than more coaches.
You seem to be equating "smart money" with "less money" which isn't true. It may be equivalent, or even more money, possibly with less favorable terms, due to the outsized advantage they provide in other ways.
It's nice that you'd prefer a longer runway to more coaches. I prefer a longer runway and more coaches I trust to help me execute; they are not mutually exclusive and you've presented a false choice, particularly in this market which is so founder-driven.
Isn't that the case for most reputable VCs? Marketing your product, identifying synergies in portfolio companies, recruiting opportunities and so forth? Or are a16z & YC in a class of their own in that regard?
Not these ones, though. They're certainly going to reduce emissions in the local area, but their solution inherently cannot scale up. Their planes are tiny, and their flights are super short. It's basically as different from regular commercial flights as you can get, while still working with airplanes.
But not a "major" impact. The vastly bigger problem where Harbour Air operates is "real" flights (because it's the YVR area) and cargo shipping (because it's also the port of Vancouver).
And for this area specifically, it'd be nice if we stopped having a giant, uncovered piles of sulphur pellets, full of sulphur powder from being dumped in piles, literally getting dispersed every second there's even the faintest amount of wind. Which, given that it's the pacific north west, is "every second of every day".
Unfortunately we don't really have the battery technology for this to work for long range flights, like the commercial flights that make up the bulk of air traffic carbon emissions.
I expect the best near-term solution is just to find a way to synthesize jet fuel (or something that works equivalently) on a large scale from something other than fossil fuels. I don't know what the state-of-the-art is in synthetic fuels.
Another option would be to find a way to transfer electricity to a moving aircraft so it could recharge in the air, but I have difficulty imagining how that could be made to work (microwaves? high-power lasers and solar panels? wires held aloft by zeppelins?), especially within the constraints of modern technology.
I have heard it said, that if you understand yourself you understand the universe. Some say there are levels to go through in order to get to this "universal understanding". There's this one Youtuber who filmed himself on 5-MeO-DMT - his gateway drug to universal understanding. Well he was more blunt, in that he became God.
I'm pretty firmly in the naturalist camp. I've had numerous psychedelic experiences. I can see how one could think such things. But I don't think we have solid reasons to start making strong claims about the supernatural.
Here's one piece of evidence out of thousands more. Consider that the psychedelic effects of LSD can be prevented simply by blocking 5-HT2A receptors in the brain [1]. This is what you would expect if a psychedelic experience is a biochemical phenomenon occurring in the brain, like that sparked by caffeine. A more powerful and much more interesting one, yes, but not something that requires talking of "god" or "universal understanding".
Even though neuroscience intimidates me, I'm smart enough to regurgitate the summary: "The 5-HT2A receptor is central to the effects of many psychedelics, but it may not be the only receptor involved." Also I know enough about myself that I don't kknow any of these topics enough to evaluate Barbara E. Bauer, or https://psychedelicreview.com. I can keep Googling though ...
I am not sure what do you mean by 'part' and 'whole', but if by 'part' you mean a situation for example, and by 'whole' you mean the universe, well, the situation is very subjective, and you can't really know the whole.
If you are an empiricist you can't be sure about anything, you can't be even sure that your theories are describing what 'is' the world, they are just a way to look at it.
If you are rationalist, you would believe that there are some kind of innate features of your brain, now where those features came from?
You would lose information in the process of constructing any abstraction.
You can't compute the next tick of the entire universe using a process that is contained within it. That would be like saying a single page of a book can contain the entirety of the book (without changing the size of the letters, obviously). It doesn't fit.
hey there, writing from FN. Would you be willing to share the reference ID on the WAF blocked access page so we can troubleshoot your issue? You can email it to support(at)foundersnetwork(dot)com.
Not OP, but I am interested in this community and I am also getting an error when I try to sign up:
Access Denied
foundersnetwork.com is using a security service for protection against online attacks. An action has triggered the service and blocked your request. Please try again in a few minutes. If the issue persist, please contact the site owner for further assistance.
I have a personal website but am not comfortable sharing here - is there a way to message you?
hey there, writing from FN. Would you be willing to share the reference ID on the WAF blocked access page so we can troubleshoot your issue? You can email it to support(at)foundersnetwork(dot)com.
