Tag: Social Capital

Categories
Preparedness Startups

Day 1419 and Know A Guy

Running a startup, for all its supposed glamour, is mostly an exercise in learning how little you know.

Sure there are playbooks for some of what you will do. As the technology industry has grown and startups have become an appealing career choice we’ve filled out how-to guides for everything from fundraising to operations.

Alas all advice is specific to the giver’s experience and untangling biases to make advice relevant to your specific needs is quite hard. That’s where it helps to have more experienced operators on hand to call bullshit.

At chaotic.capital we pride ourselves on being investors who “have a guy” for even the most esoteric possible requests. Playbooks can only you so far when you need an expert.

Just in the last two days we’ve worked through how one hires a chief of staff, what to do when letting go of counsel who made a mistake, installing appropriate security procedures for digital footprints, and the resale brokers for a rare commodity.

We like to problem solve and the weirder the problem the more fun it can be. Removing obstacles and clearing bottlenecks is satisfying work. And knowing guy who knows a guy is a heck of a fun game of social geography.

Categories
Media Politics

Day 1415 and Sliding Off The Board

It’s fun watching an entire nation realize none of our citizens functionally have opinions of their own as all of the tribalism of the American system slides off the board into the swamp of personal animus.

– @almostmedia

The great realignment is in full swing. And no one is sure where they stand. The worst thing you believe about your enemy is surely true just as only the very best things about yourself count.

Ego versus ego blunders against each other. The slow glugging of inertia and bureaucracy and nihilism begins to tug. First time?

It’d worth reading Riva Tez’s essay “no matter who wins you lose”

“We are so much worse off than the Athenians during their similar stages of decline. Thucydides once wrote, “The Athenians, who were the most democratic of all the Greeks, were also the most prone to make mistakes, for they were always in a hurry to decide, and were swayed by the emotions of the moment.”

The political satire of the poets in Athenian theaters heavily influenced the city’s political decisions, just as TikTok and the Guardiansway millions of malleable minds now.”

What do we believe as RFK Jr discusses previously quite left wing coded hippie truisms about industrial agriculture and pharmaceutical company incentives.

The institutionalists are the left now and oddly they like Monsanto. But now Bari Weiss is arguing for the value of institutionalists against Peter Thiel. Are we really in for a new era of anti-institutionalism? Do we know where the board even is anymore? Don’t slip and slide into the swamp because you don’t like someone.

Categories
Media Reading

Day 1410 and Luxury Content

Institutional trust in the media has reached a new low point for Americans. The news exists in a strange place for many of us as we must stay informed but it is no longer has quite the same halo of necessity when it comes to life and culture beyond the headlines.

Many of us read significant amounts of “need to know” publications for our professional lives. I myself read Bloomberg, the Financial Times, and The Wall Street Journal every day along with more specialized media like Axios Pro-Rata and various venture and startup specific media.

Culture is different. Wanting to be in touch with the ideas that shape a nation is a luxury you don’t need to be wealthy to enjoy. To engage in ideas is to have the means to enjoy a life of the mind. You must choose to spend your precious time on it. Time is the only luxury which can’t be bought.

Media is changing as news and cultural content diverge. We used to be awash in a sea of periodicals. As a child I’d bike to the Boulder library and read it all. Thats how I became a fan of the Economist. I loved culture magazines just as much. Some still retain their pride of place through institutional nostalgia like Vanity Fair and Vogue. But can the New York Times hold a grasp on culture like it used to do?

As we face down an election with clear cultural and political bifurcations, what does it mean to be a consumer of not simply news but the culture of the moment?

Dirt editor Daisy Alioto bitingly called it luxury content and sent the LinkedIn striving aspirants scattering.

Someone told me they don’t always open Dirt because it’s not framed as “need to know.” Yeah, that’s why it’s luxury content, because you don’t NEED it. Take your ass back to Axios

To want a cultural publication like Dirt, and enjoy its view of the world, is to appreciate the premium we place on taste.

To be au courant means deciding where our time goes when it’s not an obligation. And I’m sorry to say to Condé Nast that their grip on culture looks more tenuous than ever.

Oliver Hsu tweeted this spread of new print periodicals dedicated to the culture of technology and economy.

Telescope, Arena, and Palladium are all pointing to new appetites. We want the luxury of futurism. To be caught only in the moment is to reveal a perhaps embarrassingly high time preference for algorithmically forced immediacy. “I want it now!”

Doom scrolling the news may be fun. Many billionaires spend time on Twitter because of its close proximity to sentiment. We all need to know the narratives catching attention.

But want do we want? Well who rather enjoy an essay from a writer who shows you the culture beyond your feed? Giving your attention to those who respect it will always be a luxury.

Categories
Culture Politics

Day 1407 and Winners

Everyone loves an underdog because we can all see ourselves in them. But far fewer people can honestly love a winner.

Love expects nothing in return. Once someone is a winner people expecting things. And that’s not love, it’s an obligation. You see it in every arena from sports and business to politics.

Instead of seeing the humanity in winners for aspirations and possibilities we begin to love them for their achievements. When they stumble we shame them. We find fault. We want them to become losers. And then we hate them for losing.

The world is going through a significant power realignment and America has a new set of winners we are about to expect a lot from.

People who didn’t believe they could (or even should) be winners will throw themselves into the task of hating them. Others will throw themselves into loving the winners only because they are winners.

People come out of the woodwork when a team makes it to the championship. Sure, it would have been nice to have them when victory seemed impossible but that’s not how it works.

Don’t give into the temptation to expect too much from winners. People are people. Don’t give into the temptation to hate winners either. And absolutely do not hate the people who love winning. We’ve not found a way to override human nature..

Categories
Community Politics

Day 1405 and America is Speaking

I spent several hours with my ballot last night. My husband and I engaged in scenario planning with every race and ballot initiative though we’ve been following them all closely through the year.

We have done our best to get engaged in the civic life of Montana because that is our obligation as people with time and resources.. There are many excellent non-partisan groups dedicated to a range of everyday issues from housing policy and education to more abstract policy like the right to compute. I recommend the Frontier Institute if you are inclined towards libertarian and growth policies.

We’d been lucky enough to meet many of the candidates who were running for a range of offices from federal, state and judicial. It’s a privilege to be a part of the process and every candidate makes a huge sacrifice to run for office. They make themselves accountable to us.

Nothing feels quite as good as voting for your neighbor. John Lamb the libertarian candidate for our Secretary of State is a good neighbor with a wonderful family. I believe in the value of voting for your neighbors. He and I align on many issues and where we do not I remind myself that it need not divide us. I know he raised wonderful children. Which means more than any individual policy.

Now, of course, many of my preferred candidates won’t be elected. It’s possible the ballot initiatives I support do not have the support of the majority. I did what I could to have my voice heard through the election season and today with my ballot.

A line at of rougly hundred deep to vote on Main Street in Bozeman Montana at 4:30pm Mountain Time. It is below freezing and snowing

Montana allows any voter to request a ballot by mail. You can also vote in person. Montana offers early voting. I’ve voted in three elections since we’ve moved here and I’ve never seen a presidential year turnout. Even with so many options to vote ahead and avoid the lines we still had hundreds of people lined up to vote.

We dropped our ballot and drove home. American is speaking now.

Categories
Culture

Day 1399 and Mimetic Competition

Opting into someone else’s personal metrics is a misery. When you dump a group of powerful or influential groups with adjacent but not aligned values you find status competition with in-group and inter-group.

I find this to be a little bit of a breach of decorum. People who pursue different goals don’t want other people’s rules applied to them.

So you find fearful politeness if you are unsure of inter-group norms. Everyone is interesting but not everyone has the same incentive sets or motivation.

The harder it is to feel safe within your in-group the less openness you will have with outsiders. Finding a way to ease the competitions for status only improves relationships between the allied groups. Find what you value and value the people who share those values.

Categories
Emotional Work Startups

Day 1398 and Overstimulated Nerds

Introverts don’t do well with social overstimulation. Any time I attend a gathering where the majority demographic is nerdy, weird, and autistic I find myself feeling the collective vibes of the overstimulated. And it’s not always good vibes for many of them.

I am doing everything I can to take care of myself, be kind to others and still be gently socializing. But it’s not easy.

I’m exhausted from the effort, even with my attempts to practice productive habits like nervous system exercises and getting adequate sleep. No amount of supplements can fend off a collective sense of fear.

I always notice what a rude demographic we introverts can be in these circumstances. Everyone is doing their best to be present and do delicate dances of parasociality where you know each other from the internet but do not wish to intrude or interrupt someone doing business.

In the cases where you are socializing with friends in real life and the rest of a group “knows of” but doesn’t know actually someone you find yourself surrounded by defensive social postures. Plus-ones with little contribute make it even worse.

And I’m not even going to touch the social dynamics of status. Insecurity seems to run rampant in all human groups, but nerds who have known social precariousness are the worst offenders in these situations.

Fear over one’s place within a group that has a wide variance in status can be intense. I don’t like seeing anyone feel left out. I like to be welcoming to everyone I encounter. Even when I’m an overstimulated introvert.

It’s especially important to me to be nice when it’s a group where the capital that provides status (social, literal) rises to celebrity or billionaire.

It can feel paralyzing to interact with anyone who has some degree of status if you don’t want to make someone uncomfortable. The awareness of social graces isn’t always enough.

It’s just as likely that someone will put on airs and over estimate their status as they are to offend the actually important guests.

I dislike watching people police their own social status but it’s even worse when someone polices the status of their friends. It creates cliques and ostracism in the best cases. Cutting off access can help when someone is just an overstimulated introvert but in practice makes the entire environment more fearful.

These social fears can really gum up the works when it’s nerds concerned over their own place within an event let alone in society.

I feel pity in the most awkward of cases but it’s really born of sadness. Cool is a bit like grace. We do little to deserve its bounty, grasping at it only shows our hubris and it doesn’t work in any case. I wonder if that’s a heretical opinion.

Categories
Community Culture

Day 1384 and Long Lunch

No offense to Stephen Sondheim’s Company, but I think ladies who lunch have been unfairly maligned culturally.

We are so quick to dismiss socializing as some superficial ritual. But social bonds are the way we maintain our civilization.

If you can make time to enjoy a long lunch with pleasant and diverting company, you possess a degree of richness that has little to do with personal wealth. It’s a richness of spirit.

Everything can acquire the social capital required to have a little lunch with friends. Being present and kind to one’s dining companions is a joy to be cherished.

Cherish those that would take time to share their company (and a meal) with you. Whether it’s a swanky restaurant, at someone’s home, or on at the office. Take a long lunch with someone who interests you.

The ladies who lunch understand the value of these social bonds to their community. Elaine Stritch would drink to that. And so should you and I.

Categories
Aesthetics

Day 1383 and Counter Elite

Culture is always responding to power. Power seeks cultural approval in order to cement its status as power. It’s more of a give and take than you’d assume though. Unwritten rules are meant to be broken.

“Knowing Too Much” about how institutions wield power has a tendency to spin out people who want to change the balance of power. Nothing is ever as static as it may seem and America is a fine place to be ambitious about claiming a little power.

Being in New York I hope to be seeing where the bits of tension around culture, cool, and capital should be producing frisson.

Seeking out aesthetic chills that grip your nervous system is an expensive pastime though. Youth and wealth satisfy psychogenic thrills in very different ways but everyone understands power. It’s quite a moment in America for seeing how elites and their counters square off.

Categories
Finance Startups

Day 1376 and Q3 2024 Investor Update & Market Analysis for Chaotic Capital

Welcome to the Q3 2024 update for chaotic.capital LPs. I’m choosing to post a selection of our reporting publicly so prospective founders and LPs can see our thinking.

You may be invested in chaotic.capital because we invest in ideas that adapt humanity to our new chaotic era.

Enabling resilience in the face of unexpected & rapid change is our lodestar. It’s a simple heuristic that yields a complex thesis: that technology is a tool for increasing leverage. 

In addition to these investor letters, you can always visit jfredrickson.com, where I write every single day about whatever I’m thinking about. You are also welcome to DM me on Twitter @AlmostMedia or text me on Signal any time.

Q3 was another strong quarter for chaotic.capital. Our ability to identify and back founders early remains core to our success and we’re seeing it both with the inbound flow from founders (as seen in the two new deals we did this quarter) as well as the progress from our existing portfolio, with four new markups this quarter and substantial business progress on those and others.

The markets are increasingly focused on power and compute. What was once a contrarian focus on energy, infrastructure, crypto, and artificial intelligence has now become a core narrative among informed investors.

We believe the future of compute—particularly in relation to crypto and AI—will increasingly be viewed as a basic right, not a privilege, as these technologies scale to mass adoption. 

As governments grow more cautious about debt and monetary risk, individuals and organizations will turn to trustless systems to ensure secure transactions and autonomy.

This is why we focus our investments in the space on foundational layers that will power the next generation of applications.

With portfolio companies like Squads providing on-chain economy tooling, Kuzco reducing reliance on intermediaries while creating an open market, SFCompute pricing compute and creating spot markets, and Chroma becoming the go-to choice for open source vector databases, we see the intersection of crypto and AI creating secure, scalable systems for individuals and organizations alike.

Access to compute is quickly becoming synonymous with freedom of speech and, ultimately, the freedom to transact. 

These open trustless systems enable efficient transactions and verification, a crucial development as geopolitical multipolarity continues to rise, and more people need to ensure their interactions are secure without reliance on the state.

While Americans might not yet fully appreciate this, we’re seeing growing demand for these alternative systems and open models from those who are navigating increasing regulatory pressures and instability.

Europeans, whose governments are deploying strict limits on AI models are beginning to understand, those from countries facing geopolitical uncertainty (e.g., Israel, Ukraine), live it already, and those in countries with unreliable currencies and legal systems have been navigating anarcho-tyranny for decades.

But it can be precarious in the US as well, in California it was only the intervention of a veto from Gavin Newsom that prevented SB-1047 from restricting compute and hobbling the development of open source models.

Looking forward, this ability to access compute at scale may well parallel the right to transact. As nations confront their own risks, network state behaviors will become more prevalent, driven by the need for secure, decentralized systems that ensure autonomy in an increasingly unpredictable world.

We’re excited about the future of chaotic.capital and the opportunities ahead. As always, I’d love to talk about any of this with your discussions with you, so feel free to reach out. We’re just getting started, and there’s much more to come.