Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!
Interview: Patrick Collison, co-founder and CEO of Stripe Noahpinion (reading time: 35 minutes)
I always thought that Patrick Collison, co-founder of Stripe, was a smart person and then I read this article and didn’t realize just how smart he is. This interview blew me away. Patrick talks about a subject he knows well, technological progress. There’s a ton of great insights into other fields such as science, R&D, politics and cultural progress.
Legacy of a “crazy” deal Drinking from the Firehose (reading time: 6 minutes)
I kinda remember the story of this funding found in 2009. Facebook raised $200M from an obscure russian investor at a $10B valuation. Yuri MIlner turned out to be right but also was a harbinger of large deals occurring in the private markets. Alex Taussig dives into how valuations have since been impacted. Saas is particularly interesting with valuations skyrocketing during the pandemic.
Chris Sacca Unretired: The Billionaire Investor On Biden, Crypto, NFTs And Why He’s Back Investing In Climate Startups Forbes (reading time: 20 minutes)
Chris Sacca is the most successful angel investor of his era and walked away from it all. The reason? Lack of passion. This year, he’s come out of retirement to work on something that is driving him, climate change.
I liked this line: We can’t count on everyone on the planet to be a treehugger. So, what gets them to be clean and green? Making stuff that is better, cheaper, faster, and just cooler.
It’s a great read and seems that Chris knows his stuff about climate change.
Finance as culture Luttig’s Learnings (reading time: 11 minutes)
This is a great read about the financialization of the world. It’s not just about Robinhood and bored retail investors, it has seeped into the entire tech culture. Employees join companies as a means of moving from labor to capital but expectations don’t always match reality. I love this post, it asks many good questions.
If we’re all sitting at our desks watching candlestick charts, who is going to build the future?
Understanding Coinbase The Diff (reading time: 15 minutes)
Beyond the nutty volatility of BTC, there are some real companies being built in the crypto space. Coinbase raised eyebrows with the numbers from its S1 filing. The company is currently valued at $100 billion(!). This post explains what exactly the company does. It’s not just the gateway for people to buy Bitcoin, it’s positioned to be at the center of the crypto economy.
