Organizing the Mind, Studying (Notes from Dec 9 to Dec 15, 2019)

As I try to stay organized overall, and especially in our current environment, it does seem that I have hit a snag in where/how to curate all information. I've attempted to settle on Roam to do notes since it keeps bi-directional links and essentially enables a personal wiki. However, this is awesome once we get to enough notes/details/lists. It's a pain in the ass until then because it's just not set up.Until I get to the point where I can export all of what I want and stylistically group it, it will be a very large work-in-progress. Why? Well, I started to list a few things of what I like to keep track of. Here's a few off the top of my head:

• Notes from Podcasts/Webinars that I usually keep in OneNote (top include 20min VC, FinTech Insider, a16z, Wharton Moneyball, The Indie Hackers podcast, among others)
• Book notes that are either in OneNote if they're older or, if in my Kindle, potentially on Readwise/Overdrive
• Daily/weekly updates including investment research via Crunchbase, lay of the land from a16z, Futurism interesting stories, StockTwits Daily Rip, Makerpad/Product Hunt updates, as well as Beta List products
• Newsletters and Trends - Morgan's Blogging, Nat Eliason's Medley and other notes, Justin Gage's Technicality, Trends report from The Hustle, Polina Marinova's The Profile
• Then there are the finance and investment articles that go to my RSS feed (OfDollarsandData, Ritholz, Datanami, Tomas Tungaz updates, plenty of others
• Last but not least - bookmarked websites, Twitter likes/bookmarks that I just don't get a chance to go back to, GitHub starred pages, anything shared in Slack or LinkedIn groups

How the hell do I organize all of that? Well, we're trying and I'll update you on where we land. All I know is that I should curate it down to my favorites or just try to learn less. Who wants to do that, though?

Week of December 9, 2019

• Yaron Kniajer, Jared Kash, Cofounders of Sababa Ventures (Wharton XM)

• Discussing how safe and nice Tel-Aviv is Rising of AI and tech in Israel ecosystem
• Bridging the gap between entrepreneurs and investors
• Talkspace - mental health app from Israeli creator
• 18 million in revenue to New York, knowing the market and opening doors
• Host, Randi, is a GP
• David Sinclair (@davidasinclair), Prof in Genetics and Aging at HMS (Kevin Rose Show, 10/30/19)
• Cofounder of 7 biotech co's, co-editor of Aging journal, boardmember and 25+ patents
• Book - Lifespan most recently Book link
• Genes in yeast cells for aging while 29 entering Harvard finding red wine part
• Media swinging from "wow we'll live forever" to the opposite
• Mice had a healthy longevity even if obese on wine part (caloric restriction without)
• Sirtris Pharma - 2004 started and focusing on activators of Sirtuins - GSK purchased in 2008 for $720mln
• 2010 people at Pfizer and Amgen published saying their research was wrong
• 1 amino acid and 1 protein in living mouse as not living longer for resveratrol
• Scientific debate limiting patients, potentially (needs to be taken with fat / drug-like molecules at GSK) Patent life is 20 years and he doesn't have the extra $20mln to get the clinical trials going again
• For his book, we age similarly to yeast cells aging - loss of information (1 is genetic and other is, fragile, analog) Backup copy of information for aging / cells came in 2018
• Claude Shannon as one of his heroes - backup copy, need an observer and the rest of backup (when he did computer science/internet)
• Remembering in 1999 that he woke up in middle of night to write out the theory of aging
• Gene therapy doesn't work in the eye - compared to a clock for memory of time, cog, removing hands or resetting
• Nanoworld and subatomic in DNA - if secret is there, Methane compared to subatomic
• Going as fast and safely to get it to humans - eye regeneration for a few cases Nerve crush (spinal damage), glycoma in mice and restore vision, 1 year old blind mice with gene therapy can see
• NAD and InsideTracker for genetic results and following the mixture / output
• Nuances to how CGM and monitors react to individual foods (brown rice vs others, for instance)
• NR, NMN and NAD checking for longevity and how to raise NAD
• All cells need NAD to grow - if you put them up to levels of younger, you likely won't cause cancer
• Guesses for couple hundred thousand people on NMN supplements and nobody has died, to date
• Pulsing and hormesis - what doesn't kill you makes you stronger Information on trees where older ones will send a notice to younger ones that a danger is coming
• His father as 80 and healthiest in a while - post-stroke, heart attack and had heart disease
• Taking metformin, NMN, resveratrol for a bit now
• 500mg metformin with resveratrol and yogurt (stomach gets upset a bit) in morning - may have some in evening
• 1g a day of resveratrol - 150mg typical (he mentioned knowing 14 years of research on animals, toxicity and human trials) Min dose from animals at 250mg typically - liver enzymes are fine
• Ryan Caldbeck (@ryan_caldbeck), founder & CEO of CircleUp (20min VC 2/11/16)

• Online investing platform that allows to invest in consumer companies
• Previously, worked in consumer product and retail-focused p/e at TSG Consumer Partners and Encore Consumer Capital
• Hundreds of investment firms that love consumer retail and its returns, love cash-flow characteristics, only after $10-15mln revenue
• 3.5x average in ~4 years for younger companies - not enough money in that space
• Crowdfunding as group of people coming together to fund something (debt, equity, product, donations) Separate as an investing platform so the investors should thrive
• Title 3 of JOBS Act - if company raises capital there from non-accredited investors, the hoops you have to go through aren't worth it
• Less cost to going with accredited investors without benefit - Title 3 will require the yearly book opening Majority of companies don't need the significant amount of users 100-200 to make a dent in what they're looking for
• Would have to prove to a company before taking on the cost - more likely that companies will fail at accredited investors and go to unaccredited Maybe a tech raises up for the inefficiencies to solve this, but not so far
• Lack of institutional capital in the sector of crowdfunding - for Ryan, explosion of institutional on the platform Average in 2012 was $12k individual accredited to 2015 where the check was $100k into one deal and half is institutional Similar to LendingClub growth as individuals to ind, then family offices, small funds and larger funds
• Seed round was with Maveron and Clayton Christenson after ~60 some investors that passed (hard to get them excited)
• Union Square had said they would never invest in online equity investing platform and changed view for Series A - marketplaces solve need
• Series B was 30 days from start to invest and series C was easier
• When someone else doesn't believe in him, he further believes in himself - energizes him (when teammates believe in him and opponents don't - at his best) Very small details for most meetings that are still vivid for him - uses as fuel
• Arielle Zuckerberg (@ariellezuck), Partner at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers (20min VC 2/14/16)

• Joined in 2015 and focuses on early stage investment in digital practice
• Started as PM after CS and Philosophy at Claremont McKenna
• Wildfire Interactive acquired by Google in 2012 where she then worked on social ads
• then went to small startup called Humin for 2 years and started angel investing
• A lot of investments since you chase after 1 company that likely returns the portfolio How to evaluate the team, market, differentiated product, terms of valuation
• Being a great listener - give them feedback and they would come back every time with a better pitch
• First few months of venture - personal challenge for thinking of people based on their intellectual capital
• How can they be helpful? Will this person be helpful toward portfolio? Will this person be a potential founder?
• Struggles with this as she's becoming more transactional. Didn't experience it as an angel investor.
• While interviewing for firms, many people offered to give her introductions (warm, mostly)
• Small handful of interviews - conversational in nature, questions on background - what motivates her and how she'd fit
• Taking Tyler's class gave her energy for VC
• Google, AI and CV - AI as a service - ubiquitous as in the cloud Many industries being productized for first time - likes blockchain and smart contracts
• Goals: Source a deal for Kleiner within a year that will have invested where world is better place/impactful Inspire more women to be in VC and female founders - although talked about finding and talking with many women in VC
• NYE: blog more for 2016, had concrete resolutions for doing a pull-up and moonwalk - did at firm holiday event
• Favorite book: The Symposium by Plato
• Respecting founders who have a belief that others don't really have - ex: Evan Spiegel as phones being more a camera than anything else John Doerr and Mary Meeker
• Best part of VC - talking to amazing people and hearing other opinions (as youngest of 4 siblings) Introduction of creative conflict, vision for where future is going
• Firm's recent investment - team execution is crazy, tons of time with customers, great listeners, improved deck 20% each time
• Barry McCarthy, CFO of Spotify (former CFO of Netflix), Stacey Cunningham, Pres of NYSE (a16z 12/10/19)

• Direct Listings, Myths and Facts - architecting the direct listing as it currently stands and how they talked to the SEC
• The Street interpreting compared to guidance and what to expect - analysts wanted to BEAT guidance instead of get something close
• Pricing inequities - price discovery in direct listings compared to offerings
• Large portfolio (AUM) has IPO immaterial - first day pop is meaningless and they have limited ownership in IPO but not direct listing
• Institutional investors can dump the truck for direct listings for how they want
• Lock-ups are artificial constraints
• DMMs and financial advisors exist anyhow - still need s1 and filing/investor days involve same people
• Michael Salfino, Ben Baldwin (Wharton Moneyball 12/11/19)