OP #245: Artist to Fan Interactions, Vision Pro, and More.

Another week, another Operating Partner update. Here is an excerpt from OP #245 . Below are some topics that resonated with me this week and of course, some reading links for you. If you want the full OP delivered to you for free, subscribe here .

Quick Bites

??My friend Jesse K writes a great music & culture newsletter called Beats & Bytes. He opined on some topics on the forefront of the music industry and I think they are spot on. One of the topics he talks about is the Super-Fan-to-Artist interaction which if you are a longtime reader of the OP, you’ll note that this has been an angel investment area for me re: athletes and fans.

I believe that artists and athletes will be selected by professional teams not only by their skills but also their fanbase. There’s a wide range of athletes coming up who have skills and tremendous fanbases that will enable professional teams to capitalize even more than before. Super fans want to interact with these athletes (Daps) and musicians (The Realest) and those two platforms are early manifestations of this.

??Speaking about music, I did enjoy the Grammy Awards. I liked the new format which was more experiential and music-forward. I was rooting for Noah Kahan as Best New Artist but that award went to Victoria Monet . Congrats Victoria. And wow, Jay-Z came out swinging …

??If you are wondering what else you can do with an investment banking background, Todd Speece gave a short but sweet rundown on his LinkedIn . I think this is highly relevant to many members of the OP community.

??If you build software or market a product, I urge you to have at least some knowledge about the Apple Vision Pro . First off, it launched last week and could be the evolution of TV + screen experiences. It may not.? But it also may. Apple is behind the platform and I bet they have lots of soon-to-announce content producers creating apps, or porting existing apps to the Vision ecosystem. Have you seen the videos of people watching basketball games on the Vision Pro?? A couple of places to start: this article in The Atlantic , this one in Wired , and this big piece in Vanity Fair .?

OP Links (aka Reading Links)

The Slow and Costly Process of Scaling User Acquisition (Eric Seufert)

Amazon Is Now Charging Prime Members Extra For Ad-Free Streaming. (WSJ)

Vertical Software 2.0 (Point Nine Land)

Cloudflare COO Michelle Zatlyn Shares Her Top Lessons for Founders (Bain Capital Ventures)

The Promises and Challenges of Crypto + AI Applications (Vitalik)

Why Tim Cook Is Going All In On Apple Vision Pro (Vanity Fair)

Universal Music Group Warns It Will Pull Songs from TikTok After Deal Expiration (Variety)

Quitting Time (Prof. Galloway)

The Indie Era of Startups (Bryce Roberts)

AI-Generated Content Is Raising The Value of Trust (Economist)

Microsoft, X, Throw Their Weight Behind KOSA (Techcrunch)

Why The Worst Users Come From Referral Programs, Free Trials, and Gamification (Andrew Chen)

Technical Stagnation (Jason Crawford)

Kleiner Perkins: More than 80% Of Pitches Now Involve AI (TechCrunch)