Weekly Recap August 16-20

Thanks for listening. Here's the weekly recap.

• Mark Suster, Upfront Ventures deep dives VC | E1268
• Next Unicorns: OpenGov CEO Zac Bookman | E1267
• Rapid fire news: OnlyFans bans sexual conduct + Boston Dynamics, Disney & Tesla bet big on robots | E1269
• Casey Newton’s Superhuman misfire, Apple’s backdoor, 5G crypto network, WhatsApp’s Taliban problem | E1266

Mark Suster deep dives VC | E1268

Mark Suster from Upfront Ventures joins to discuss venture metrics, community as a moat, why high valuations don't necessarily mean a bubble & more.

Top Quotes:

• "The most important defensible strategy on the internet is community.”
• "A lot of people are worried about inflation right now and I tend not to be one of them."

Mark's Key Metrics for VC

• MOIC (multiple on invested capital) aka gross returns
• TVPI (total value to paid in)
• DPI (distribution to paid-in) cash-in cash-out
• IRR (internal rate of return)

In the news segment, Jason breaks down the 2 metrics he uses to to assess Robinhood's Q2 earnings and Amazon entering Department Store retail.

Listen to Episode 1268

Next Unicorns: OpenGov CEO Zac Bookman | E1267

In our latest episode of our Next Unicorns series, Zac discusses what makes governments ineffective, preventing corruption, the challenges selling into governments, how some states like Idaho & West Virginia have made their detailed budgets public on the cloud and more!

In the news segment, Jason does a brief recap of "Noodlegate" and the end of cancel culture.?

Listen to Episode 1267

Rapid fire news: OnlyFans bans sexual conduct + Boston Dynamics, Disney & Tesla bet big on robots | E1269

Jason breaks down the OnlyFans pivot away from sexual conduct Then he covers all the robot highlights from this week, Boston Dynamics robots doing backflips, Disney creating AI characters, and Tesla's announcement of "TeslaBot" & more.

Listen to Episode 1269

Casey Newton’s Superhuman misfire, Apple’s backdoor, 5G crypto network, WhatsApp’s Taliban problem | E1266

Podcasting from Italy after a 2-week break of news, Jason covers Casey Newton's failed dunk on Superhuman's $75M raise, the privacy implications of Apple's approach to preventing child porn distribution, the Helium Networks decentralized internet program , possible crypto regulation, and how WhatsApp is handling Afghanistan.