October 2021 Roundup: What I am Reading, Watching and Listening To
What I Am Reading
Meet Altos Labs, Silicon Valley’s latest wild bet on living forever
“Altos hasn’t made an official announcement yet, but it was incorporated in Delaware this year and a securities disclosure filed in California in June indicates the company has raised at least $270 million, according to Will Gornall, a business school professor at the University of British Columbia who reviewed the document. In addition to Bezos and Milner, the company may have additional wealthy tech figures and venture capitalists as investors.”
George Eastman: The Greatest Technology Entrepreneur in U.S. History?
“Eastman was the “total entrepreneur”—marketing genius, financial wizard, great employer, both a visionary and a hands-on inventor and designer. Over the years, he became one of the most important philanthropists in American history, perhaps foreshadowing Bill Gates’s diverse interests. Above all else, George Eastman was “his own man”—a unique personality of independent mind. “
The Startup Failed
“The truth and reality is that most startups fail — even and especially venture-funded ones — and yet we believe, when we first start them, that ours will be statistically-different! If we didn’t think this way then we’d never make the actual attempt!”
What I am Watching
Keyhole Imaging
“Non-line-of-sight (NLOS) imaging and tracking is an emerging technology that allows the shape or position of objects around corners or behind diffusers to be recovered from transient, time-of-flight measurements. However, existing NLOS approaches require the imaging system to scan a large area on a visible surface, where the indirect light paths of hidden objects are sampled. In many applications, such as robotic vision or autonomous driving, optical access to a large scanning area may not be available, which severely limits the practicality of existing NLOS techniques. Here, we propose a new approach, dubbed keyhole imaging, that captures a sequence of transient measurements along a single optical path, for example, through a keyhole.”
Chamath: Stop Chasing the Wrong Happiness
“Maybe happiness for you is being able to eat out without worrying about money, or being able to pay for your kids college education. Whatever it is, it's important to define your own happiness.”
What Sharks Can Teach Us About Survivorship Bias
“It’s common to think the Great White Shark is the most dangerous shark for humans to encounter. Thanks to classic movies and news reports, The Great White has become a fear for many surfers, swimmers, and other ocean dwellers. But when you look at the actual data, there are many other sharks that are far more dangerous to humans than Great Whites.
In this video, we dive deeper into some shark attack stats to understand survivorship bias and learn how detrimental survivorship bias can be to our decision-making in every area of our life.”
What I am Listening To
Naval Ravikant - The Joe Rogan Experience
“Naval Ravikant is an entrepreneur and angel investor, a co-author of Venture Hacks, and a co-maintainer of AngelList.”