?TRW #39 | 04 Feb. 2024

Hello there??

Welcome back to the 39th issue of #TRW, your weekly tech insights digest.

This issue is a bit more concise as I've been on the move a lot over this week.

But rest assured, there's still plenty of intriguing content for our newcomers and regulars alike.

Make sure to hit that subscribe button to stay updated.

Let's dive in!??

In Today's Issue ??

1. Entrepreneurs need to learn how to quit
2. Tim Cook on Apple Vision Pro
3. Unlocking Innovation in Pharma
4. Tons of data on venture capital in 2023
5. Space Tech in Europe

???Essays & articles:

• Quitting Time - greatness is a function not just of grit, but of talent, luck, where and when you are born … and knowing when to quit (No Mercy / No Malice)
• What to know about Elon Musk's Neuralink, which put an implant into a human brain - the process involves using a robot to surgically insert the wires of the company's implant into a part of the brain related to movement (NPR)
• Why Tim Cook is going all in on the Apple Vision Pro - will your average iPhone user drop $3,500 on a headset? (Vanity Fair)
• Three ways we can fight deepfake porn - Taylor Swift was recently subject to a vicious nonconsensual deepfake porn campaign. These tools and policies could help us stop it happening again (MIT Technology Review)(€)
• Crypto’s prophet speaks - a16z’s Chris Dixon hasn’t abandoned the faith with his new book, 'Read Write Own' (Every)
• 'Within months you will be able to buy genomics data from 14 million Americans for +/- $200m?' - a thread on 23andMe decline (X)
• Unlocking Innovation in Pharma (Podcast)- the history of the pharmaceutical industry and what’s becoming possible in medicine in the coming years (Invest like the Best)

???VC & startups stuff

• The big book of venture capital 2023 - a strategic view on VCs and startups landscape (Rohit Yadav)
• UK launches ‘scaleup policy sprint’ as US increases its pull - UK tech chief wants VC investors to pump an additional ￡5bn per year into startups by 2030 (Sifted)(€)
• Gulf money is flooding into European startups - as investments from the Gulf grow in Europe, Sifted looks at the investors that are closing the most deals (Sifted)
• There's a whole lot of ugly out there when it comes to growth teams - resulting in the systematic failure of growth teams across the entire industry (Elena Verna)

???Reports & Data

• The state of startups in 7 charts - last year saw the lowest level of startup funding in five years, witnessed valuations fall drastically, and offered little hope for IPO contenders (Crunchbase)
• Space Tech: Europe 2023 - the global Space sector was worth over $469B in 2021, up 2.5x from $180B in 2005, and is projected to grow up to 11% per annum till 2030 (Dealroom)
• M&A dropped 31% For VC-backed startups In 2023 - the number is a 31% decline from the 2,507 deals in 2022 and a 21% drop from 2021 (Crunchbase)
• Big Ideas 2024 - the global equity market value associated with disruptive innovation could increase to 60% by 2030 (Ark Invest)

???ICYMI:

• Mark Zuckerberg calls Apple’s DMA rules ‘so onerous’ he doubts any developer will opt in - (TechCrunch)
• Mistral CEO confirms ‘leak’ of new open source AI model nearing GPT-4 performance - (Venture Beat)
• For the first time NASA has asked industry about private missions to Mars - (ARS Technica)
• Google is preparing to fully rename Bard to Gemini - (9to5)
• Add bacteria to the list of things that can run Doom - (The Register)

???Meme/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