
A16z Monthly Newsletter: Good things come in threes - triplesec
https://mailchi.mp/a16z/trends-good-things-come-in-threes?e=ae2d556dd1
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lettergram
I have had several friends who built businesses in the crypto and finance
space in the past 12 months - people are just throwing money at them. Some
don't even have a product yet and are getting several million dollar buy out
offers...

One in particular is [https://taxtoken.io/](https://taxtoken.io/) which is
only a few months old and they've gotten way more investment that I would have
thought. Of course, they are easily the best business I've seen in the space -
making government & accountants happy.

Even my business: [https://projectpiglet.com/](https://projectpiglet.com/)

I realeased the first verison of the trading suggestion engine two weeks ago
and already people are signing up regularly. Personally, I'm not taking on
investment (yet), but even I've had people sending me emails. It's pretty
crazy in the space right now.

Honestly, it feels like a pretty big bubble.

One thing that is driving me nuts, is a lot of people in this space are
investing based on whitepapers. There's very little research being done, and
what is being done is often super faulty. I've spent years on developing and
testing my systems, then people come out and don't even do backtesting
properly[1] and will raise a ton of money. I often feel VCs are just chasing
the times, investing in everyone in the field, and praying. Which would be
fine, but it also will bring about the downfall because people will lose faith
in the products and / or will lead to much higher and stricter regulation in
the field.

This is especially the case of Bio & Fianance where I've spent most of my
time.

Also, why is this a mailchimp link? Seems odd.

[1] [https://blog.projectpiglet.com/2018/01/perils-of-
backtesting...](https://blog.projectpiglet.com/2018/01/perils-of-backtesting/)

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dannylandau
The taxtoken is a laughable idea! Made even more suspicious by the fact that
the founders are barely out of diapers.

I guess a nice landing page is good enough these days.

~~~
lucisferre
But it has blockchain and AI. Blockchain. And. A. I.

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skmurphy
Black Box: "The unseeable space between where data goes in and answers come
out is often referred to as a “black box” in artificial intelligence, and
there’s particular concern about this in health care. But these fears about
the implications of a black box are misplaced: AI is no less transparent than
the way in which doctors have always worked -- and in many cases it represents
an improvement, augmenting what hospitals can do for patients and the entire
health care system. After all, the black box in artificial intelligence isn’t
a new problem due to new tech: Human intelligence itself is, and always has
been, a black box."

From a liability perspective a doctor takes responsibility with a code of
ethics and a standard of care in a way that software developers have yet to.

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TrevorAustin
I’m sure I’m just missing something obvious, but what are the threes? The
article has five headings, and it doesn’t look like each is a list of three
things.

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anthonyleecook
AI discovery in cancer drugs is definitely a good trend as it is halving the
time to discover. However, the other four I fear are overblown. Old fintech is
no close to being unseated by any startups. Lots of new online banks have gone
and went in both US and Europe. The only reason wechat pay took off in China
is because the credit cards and payment networks Wasn’t there. Plus its a
singular entity mostly owned by the states that have no competition, and
Chinese consumers are now concerned a lot about their data. As for crypto,
Jason calacanis just sent out an email warning everyone about Bitcoin - That’s
the top angel investor in Silicon Valley. As for China, tariffs and fines are
now starting to hit China, with US, Europe, japan enacting barriers. China was
able to get around some of that by setting up factories in Malaysia, Taiwan
and other countries, but Europe and US have enacted tariffs around that.
China’s trade is going to suffer greatly. And protectionism is going to be the
theme going forward

