Short-selling giant Jim Chanos in a Twitter Spaces conversation, had some choice words for Silicon Valley investors when it comes to due-diligence failings, as demonstrated by the FTX blowup shows.
“Look at the texts that were released in conjunction with people wanting to invest in Elon’s Twitter deal. You know, ‘I’ll send you a couple billion dollars in effect, no due diligence necessary.’ This is the ultimate FOMO [fear of missing out] type market, and people are investing in personalities, not businesses.”
Silicon Valley does indeed do a poor job of diligence, and deal fever trumps everything.
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Will ChatGPT upend Google and the ad-based search model?
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If you can put the shiny new toy aspect of ChatGPT aside and take a bigger picture, the impact of these new prompts on software programming will be very profound, as Ankur and Alana Goyal outline.
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Seed Money: Michael Goguen (yes, that Michael Goguen), formerly a partner at Sequoia Capital, got conned by a wannabe mercenary and ended up in a whole lot of trouble as a result. This is a shocking story of a billionaire with a savior complex, voracious sexual appetites, and a con man who knew how to press the right buttons. Highly recommended.
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What happened to Columbia House? As a new immigrant, I got conned myself into signing up for the Columbia House program. It seemed like such a good deal. Oops. I am glad they are gone. No, I am not bitter at all.
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December 16, 2022. San Francisco