Dylan Collins

Content versus technology investment levels in the kids space

I had an investor call me up recently (I’m completely blanking on who it was but hi if you’re reading) lamenting that her thesis about the Kidtech and Safetytech spaces were being spoiled by a lack of investable opportunities. This kicked me into solving a data blindspot I’ve had for years: how much investment is actually going into the broad Kidtech space relative to the much more established kids content (streaming and linear) sector?

Trying to stay sane

This post could much more accurately be titled as ‘The exquisite agony of being faced with possibly the greatest technology shift we’ve ever known just as a bear market starts to open up some value-investing opportunities’.

AI needs better metaphors

Thinking in metaphors is perhaps one of the most powerful cognitive features that Homo Sapiens has. Quite when our species developed the capability to pattern-match real situations into fictional abstracts is unclear. The word itself comes from ancient Greek but the presence of metaphor stretches back well before any written language.

Rise of the operators (Part 2: the investors)

While it warms the cockles of my heart to see VC investors talking about selling companies, assessing them on the basis of their last 3-5yrs investing is currently near impossible. But the flip-side of this crash is that by the end of ~2025 we’ll have some useful datapoints on who the best new tech investors are (and which of the previous generation are more good than lucky).

Rise of the operators (Part 1: the builders)

The palaeontologist Stephen Jay Gould was a well-known proponent of a slightly modified theory of evolution called punctuated equilibrium. Briefly, his view was that ‘normal’ incremental evolution was occasionally interrupted by radical change (meteor, volcano or another cataclysm) which in turn re-set the environment for the next period of incrementality. The end of bull markets always remind me of a version of this. Less dramatic but no less impactful in terms of re-setting the environment.

The best things I read in 2022 which were also useful

A short list of the books (and one newsletter) I read this year which were both good and had a practical impact on my life:

Deluxe Paint 2 and new creator creation

Deluxe Paint 2 probably won’t mean anything to the majority of people reading this. It was a graphics and (very) basic animation program published by EA (yes the same EA!) which was bundled with my Amiga 500. Wowing* friends with my 10-frame animations, it was my gateway to almost everything I did professionally after. But, unlike John Carmack’s experience, my early Deluxe Paint animation career hit a wall of capability, creativity and 512k of RAM.

The Fermi Paradox of Venture Capital

Once again another capital cycle rotates. As with the passing of every civilisation, certain durable (or lucky) relics and memories survive into the new age. This is why we have giant myths, pyramids, 20% management carry structures and limits on bank CEO salaries. And I guess this is why crypto will hang around as an asset class. Amidst this turmoil and post Great Bull Market (GBM) contemplation I’ve been wondering why VC hasn’t been truly disrupted yet. It seems ironic (or maybe just weird, I so often get these concepts confused) that the capital delivery ecosystem designed for those pioneering disruption is itself remarkably stuck in time.

Crypto, networks, MTV and future teen wallets

This post is an attempt to connect some dots floating around that I feel have some relationship to each other (or might in the future).

The best things I read or listened to in March

Continue reading “The best things I read or listened to in March”