How a Venture Capitalist approaches the future

This is part of an on-going series at Farnam Street that I've really been enjoying called The Knowledge Project. It's focused on how smart thinking can be thought of in a structured way. This week's podcast features an interview with one of the founders of VC Firm Lux Capital. https://fs.blog/josh-wolfe/

Key Takeaway

The future is about people. Relationships with people, and continuing to meet interesting ones that are shaping the future. Taking that one step further - it's not about the tech per se, but the voices behind it, and their purpose.

The McKinsey Horizon's model is obsolete now due to the rapid pace of technology

What were once five year plans, which then became three year plans, have popularly become Horizon models over the last two decades. If you're unfamiliar - it's a great model for determining how to focus a business into three areas: The core of the current business, new adjacents to the business and net new business concepts. It's worth a read here: http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/strategy-and-corporate-finance/our-insights/enduring-ideas-the-three-horizons-of-growth

Now that you've read that - you can throw it all away. Fundamental to the idea of the three horizons is the notion of how long it will take to achieve them, but thanks to massive advances in technology - the old five or three year plan are completely out of date.

One of the best examples being Uber and their ability to rapidly create new businesses through prototyping and testing. Check out the full article here: https://hbr.org/2019/02/mckinseys-three-horizons-model-defined-innovation-for-years-heres-why-it-no-longer-applies

Key Takeaway

The future / immediate here and now is all about speed to market, and you don't need to set up a factory or full company to do it anymore. Prototyping has replaced business planning - which may mean a new breed of management consultants who need to have a massive focus on tech over traditional management thinking.

Jerry Media gets called out over their theft of content - promises to change their ways

Jerry Media - known for the world famous Instagram account - "fuckjerry" - has been called out for consistently "curating" content from others and posting it as their own. Those who have recently watched the Fyre documentary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fyre_(film)) may recognize them as the media agency that was responsible for promoting the festival that never happened.

In recent weeks - comedians have banded together to promote Jerry Media's theft of ideas from Twitter, Instagram and other channels, created by comedians with less popularity.

In a response, the owner has stated that they will assign credit where its due from here on in. https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/2/18208446/fuckjerry-elliot-tebele-meme-joke-aggregator-repost-new-policy-change

Key Takeaway

It's surprising that this behaviour hasn't been stopped or called out before - especially in a medium where everything is easily trackable, but at the end of the day - maybe we turn a blind eye to who we get our content from - so long as we see it before our friends do.

This is hopefully a trend toward more authentic influencer relationships with their audiences as it becomes easier to call out those who have built up their empires through less than genuine means.