Weekend Reads and Listens & Self Awareness of Affirmation Seeking
Over the weekend, I engaged in a fascinating conversation with a group of guys about the human need for praise and affirmation. The topic really resonated with me since I admit to being an attention whore. Ironically, when I'm in the spotlight, I tend to shut down.
Despite my own personal insecurities I feel like this is also true with a great deal of VCs. I have actually written about it in the past here on the incessant need to show/prove value to founders which can also turn in to a liability.
I am working on being still and not trying to scratch my attention/affirmation itch - I will let you know how it goes. Until then though please enjoy these reads and listens - I learned a great deal this weekend.
Reads 🤓:
Tomasz Tunguz does an incredible job correlating the amount of venture funding with interest rates. The data tells us everything- more interest means less funding. The data tells a pretty clear story about what the venture market is going tot look like in 2023.
Nikhil Krishnan wrote a great piece on private equity in healthcare called Is Healthcare PE in Healthcare That Bad?
I am diving deeper into themes regarding up-skilling labor forces and the guys at Contrary did a great write up on Guild Education.
Melanie Evans of the WSJ did a great article on the Gig Economy in hospital systems.
Blake Madden did an incredible write-up in Hospitology on AI-enabled tech within the hospital setting.
Epic announces they are bringing ChatGPT into their EHR. Nikhil sums it up perfectly in his tweet below.
Listens🎙:
Lex interviews Max Tegmert who is an AI academic at MIT that was the catalyst for writing the well publicized letter for all companies to halt all LLM after GPT 4 for 6-months to allow ourselves as a species to reflect on incentives and truly understand what we are building. He does a great job referencing an essay that well describes what we are going through with this AI movement called Meditations on Moloch.
Meditations on Moloch is a thought-provoking essay by Scott Alexander that looks at societal systems from an evolutionary perspective, questioning what kind of world would result from humans acting purely in their own self-interest. In doing so, the essay hints at how relatively small decisions can have ripple effects on societies and cultures that may be difficult to predict or understand. Alexander uses Molloch (an ancient monster) as a personification of this compounding self interest that eventually leads to self destruction. Truly interesting stuff.
I hope everyone has a great weekend and I urge everyone to allow yourself to have fun. I am trying to learn how to do it myself.