Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...
Intent-based Collaboration Environments
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Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
Philosophy Mondays: Human-AI Collaboration
Today's Philosophy Monday is an important interlude. I want to reveal that I have not been writing the posts in this series entirely by myself. Instead I have been working with Claude, not just for the graphic illustrations, but also for the text. My method has been to write a rough draft and then ask Claude for improvement suggestions. I will expand this collaboration to other intelligences going forward, including open source models such as Llama and DeepSeek. I will also explore other moda...
Intent-based Collaboration Environments
AI Native IDEs for Code, Engineering, Science
Web3/Crypto: Why Bother?
One thing that keeps surprising me is how quite a few people see absolutely nothing redeeming in web3 (née crypto). Maybe this is their genuine belief. Maybe it is a reaction to the extreme boosterism of some proponents who present web3 as bringing about a libertarian nirvana. From early on I have tried to provide a more rounded perspective, pointing to both the good and the bad that can come from it as in my talks at the Blockstack Summits. Today, however, I want to attempt to provide a coge...
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It is very rare that I find myself disagreeing with Chris Dixon, but the other day Chris tweeted
business plan contests are a terrible idea. investors care far more about founders’ bios. make it a bio pitch if you need to have contests.
I will be heading up to Boston tomorrow to judge MIT’s 100K competition and have a pretty different take on it. The purpose of a business plan competition is to get students excited about startups, which is – as Roger Ehrenberg points out today – critical to the overall startup ecosystem.
There is no cheaper way to get a lot of energy and excitement going than organizing a tournament. That is really what a business plan competition is. By offering a meaningful prize to the winner and having a big initial field it is possible to get a large number of students exposed to thinking about startups as an alternative to joining a large company (or worse yet Wall Street).
Now if these competitions were restricted to web companies, I could see changing the format to a “hackathon” or “startup weekend” style. But I believe that would be shortchanging the range of entrepreneurial activity. So the business plan and the pitch have to be stand-ins instead (at some point in the future I will post about my view of business plans for web businesses).
Incidentally, I have read the plans for the finalists of the $100K competition and am blown away by the breadth and depth of the endeavors and the apparent passion that jumps off the page! I very much look forward to experiencing the pitches tomorrow.
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It is very rare that I find myself disagreeing with Chris Dixon, but the other day Chris tweeted
business plan contests are a terrible idea. investors care far more about founders’ bios. make it a bio pitch if you need to have contests.
I will be heading up to Boston tomorrow to judge MIT’s 100K competition and have a pretty different take on it. The purpose of a business plan competition is to get students excited about startups, which is – as Roger Ehrenberg points out today – critical to the overall startup ecosystem.
There is no cheaper way to get a lot of energy and excitement going than organizing a tournament. That is really what a business plan competition is. By offering a meaningful prize to the winner and having a big initial field it is possible to get a large number of students exposed to thinking about startups as an alternative to joining a large company (or worse yet Wall Street).
Now if these competitions were restricted to web companies, I could see changing the format to a “hackathon” or “startup weekend” style. But I believe that would be shortchanging the range of entrepreneurial activity. So the business plan and the pitch have to be stand-ins instead (at some point in the future I will post about my view of business plans for web businesses).
Incidentally, I have read the plans for the finalists of the $100K competition and am blown away by the breadth and depth of the endeavors and the apparent passion that jumps off the page! I very much look forward to experiencing the pitches tomorrow.
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