Seth Page

https://lnkd.in/dDGfRVai "The amendments can be broken down into five core components, and while they don’t actively advance the fortunes of AI companies, they do make their lives easier. For example, one amendment will replace criminal penalties for perjury with civil ones, meaning the act now invokes no criminal charges for any violation and the legal repercussions of stepping out of line are significantly reduced.  The amended bill now also cuts the Attorney General’s ability to seek civil penalties “unless a harm has occurred or there is an imminent threat to public safety.” The amended bill makes the Attorney General’s office the main regulatory body for AI, rather than an originally proposed state regulatory body."

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On the surface, tech transfer operations (e.g. the process of transferring research and IP into commercialized opportunities) and early-stage startups may seem quite different. But when we at 9point8 Collective dug a little deeper, there was tons of overlap which speaks to the essence of zero-to-one development: 1️⃣ Innovation Focus: both tech transfer and early-stage startups aim to commercialize new technologies or solutions that can address real-world problems or create new opportunities. There is no blueprint to follow. 2️⃣ Intellectual Property: tech transfer ventures usually come with robust IP portfolios, including patents and trade secrets, and early-stage startups often focus on developing and protecting their IP to create a competitive advantage. Leverage IP as an asset is a key part of the strategy. 3️⃣ Market Potential: both tech transfer and early-stage startups target markets with high growth potential. They often aim to disrupt existing industries or create entirely new market segments, so targeting the right markets is essential. 4️⃣ Risk Profile: both types of ventures carry extreme risk and ambiguity due to the uncertainties associated with bringing new technologies or business models to market. With all this overlap, we innovated different versions of our diligence and assessment tool #VentureIQ to focus on tech transfer. Instead of a pitch deck as the raw inputs, we used patent filings instead. We wanted to see if our tech could generate credible insight on how raw technologies can be commercialized. The results have been pretty solid so far. From a single patent filing, we can extract technology readiness levels, target markets, competitors and benchmarks with similar technology, and even sources of public and private funding. From what our design partners have validated for us, these are monumental leaps in the development process -- saving thousands of dollars and weeks of time -- all done with #AI. Know of an interesting #techtransfer use case? Send me a DM so we can chat about it!

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Interesting piece from Marc Andreessen on how startups are not getting the regulatory support they need to sustain America's technological leadership. "Regulatory agencies have been green lit to use brute force investigations, prosecutions, intimidation, and threats to hobble new industries, such as Blockchain. Regulatory agencies are being green lit in real time to do the same to Artificial Intelligence." While many investors themselves (both in the US and Europe) are worried how AI will change our lives, our jobs and social interactions, the top VC opinion leader thinks regulation is already too restrictive. #techstartups #techleadership #strategicgrowth

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This analysis, at least anecdotally makes sense to me. In many situations, infringe and holdout is the least painful option for large infringers. The system enables it. - The plaintiff must allocate the time and $$ to assert, taking time and $$ away from selling and developing products. Even if they engage litigation financiers they are limiting their upside potential. - The infringer continues to infringe while employing stall tactics or simply relying on the painfully slow, overburdened legal system. - The cost benefit analysis for infringers - "infringe and pay lawyers" typically outweighs the cost of design around or license. - Enhanced damages and injunctions are rare. - Litigation insurance products reduce risk all around. "The Marcum report shows that there is indeed something wrong with the patent system in the United States but it’s not excessive litigation or patent trolls. The real problem is the inability of patent owners to enforce their rights against infringers. Given the difficulty of obtaining injunctive relief and the limited enhancement of damages, it is unsurprising that predatory infringement has become a standard business practice when, at worst, all an infringer can be expected to pay is a reasonable royalty and, at best, nothing at all."

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For anyone working in VC, I highly recommend taking a look at the Progress Map from Fifty Years. The map calculates a 'Competition Ratio' representing a market segment's relative level of saturation. This ratio is calculated by dividing a sector's TAM by the dollars invested in Series A startups from that sector over the last 10 years. In doing so, 50Y not only sheds light on the markets where there is outsized opportunity for disruption, but also the areas where outperformance is likely to be more challenged and the resulting impact on innovation & the economy comparatively small. Interestingly, what can be seen is that traditional software verticals like SaaS and CRM are among the most over concentrated markets, while industrial manufacturing segments like petrochem and paper are the most ripe for change. What's fascinating to me is that we as VCs are often focused on fostering growth within the same few areas. That's not to say that investing in software isn't critical. It certainly has streamlined how enterprises operate and changed how enterprises and customers interact. It also provides a certain scalability to VCs that make it attractive from a potential returns perspective. On the flip side, hard technologies and manufacturing processes are extremely hard to build, have much longer timelines to achieve revenue traction, and face stiff competition from legacy incumbents. But this makes me think that perhaps these areas are the most worth venturing into if progress is our ultimate objective. We are fortunate at Harpoon to be partners with companies like Solugen that are proving this day in and day out. They have fundamentally revolutionized the chemicals industry by proving that a traditionally carbon intensive industry can be decarbonized in a price competitive way. I hope we continue to see change and investment in every industry, but I think VCs should also not shy away from the challenge of investing in those technologies where rapid revenue expansion is not immediate.

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This article from The Rapacke Law Group, P.A. underscores the need for #Funds, #Investors, and #InvestorFounders to have the right tool to navigate the rapidly evolving #AI landscape. Experience the #EvalifyEffect and know in minutes whether your venture is headed for clear skies or potential infringement, whom you could be up against, the IP you could be up against, and more. Use this to get the IP legal counsel you need to pivot or drive full throttle. Internal or external M&A teams will quickly see the potential for using the insight from an Evalify report to enhance exit strategy with defined targets. Closing thoughts from the article: “Patent filing has surged, and from 2002 to 2018, annual AI patent applications increased by more than 100%, highlighting an influx of innovation, with companies seeking to safeguard this IP immediately. According to the resource “Inventing AI” from the Office of the Chief Economist, active AI inventor-patentees started at 1% in 1976 and skyrocketed to 25% by 2018. AI has effectively diffused through multiple technology classes, from machine learning to knowledge processing to speech and natural language processing, giving organizations a multitude of ways to patent their inventions and ideas.” #EvalifyEffect #IPProtection #IntellectualProperty #Funds #VentureCapital #IPLawyers #MergersAndAcquisitions #RenovatioInsights

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If you work in tech transfer this is a good read-in on how our diligence tech can assess and evaluate assets with minimal inputs. The best way to learn more is to see it live! Reach out to me directly to learn more!

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Executive summary of the Elon Musk handbook for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). “The two of us will advise DOGE at every step to pursue three major kinds of reform: regulatory rescissions, administrative reductions and cost savings.” It will be interesting to see what the team comes up with and whether any of the ideas could serve as inspiration to curtail inefficient government spending in Canada. Curious as to your views whether Canada should adopt a similar strategy to cut wasteful spending. And if you think so, anyone from the private sector you think would make for an effective champion for the maple syrup version? https://lnkd.in/gzxyVNc6

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Digital assets are meant to be used. Not hoarded. Not endlessly flipped in pursuit of speculative riches. They’re to be used—for the unique purposes for which they were designed. That’s why Ayre Group is the world’s largest venture capital investor in Metanet apps. What is Metanet? Metanet represents the vision of a better, more inclusive and dynamic internet, an economically integrated online system that enables cost-effective, instant micropayments. Metanet will restore the original promise of a peer-to-peer internet model. Silicon Valley giants hijacked the original internet model by forcing all traffic through their centralized (and proprietary) hubs. Metanet will undo this sabotage. Metanet will bring a global democratization of access to data and services. Creators will be able to engage in an economically feasible direct-to-consumer model—no middlemen—allowing them to succeed on their merits, unconstrained by bureaucracy. Metanet will upend cross-border transactions by eliminating intermediaries. Remittances will be cheaper and more secure, as Metanet’s decentralized nature will enhance trust in digital transactions and offer greater control over personal data. Metanet is the marriage of IPv6, AI and the BSV Blockchain. IPv6 is bringing an exponential rise in the number of IP addresses, with a similar rise in the number of unique devices connected to the internet, including an army of Internet of Things (IoT) devices. All of these devices are talking to each other, many of them autonomously. AI’s assistance will be required as a traffic cop, helping to ensure that all these digital messages arrive where and when they should. The final piece of Metanet’s puzzle is BSV. BSV can process a huge volume of transactions swiftly and securely, at a cost measured in fractions of a cent, allowing the monetization of every piece of online data. BSV is the base value transfer token of the future internet. Developers can build with confidence on BSV. BSV is legally-and regulatory-compliant, with a locked protocol that traces its unbroken lineage to Bitcoin’s Genesis block, so what’s built today won’t be undone by unnecessary protocol tinkering. Metanet’s potential is too great to ignore. Learn more about how AI, IPv6 and BSV—the only public proof-of-work enterprise blockchain that can scale to make Metanet a reality—are building the internet of the future. https://lnkd.in/gxFM_jrW

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Let’s assume that LLM GPT (n+1) variants do materially increase in reasoning and language skills which enable them to take on tasks with increasing complexity. Will the COGS of servicing those "more complicated" tasks create a market dynamic where older and less performant LLMs are good enough, especially if they are radically cheaper to operate? Maybe that implies some sort of distribution (bell curve?) where most tasks don't need state of the art LLMs, shifting usage and therefore dollars away from the highest performant LLMs. We might even get to a stage where open source models with near zero marginal cost to operate perform the vast majority of future task work. If that future comes to pass, maybe the business models of LLMs will reflect the very nature of current human labor. i.e. We pay interns a lot less than a PhD. Maybe an LLM that can solve a sophisticated analytical problem will need to have a very different pricing / compensation model than one that can only perform more rudimentary and repeatable work.

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🌟 Join Our Panel Discussion on Licensing vs. Manufacturing: Are you navigating the decision between licensing and manufacturing for your software, hardware, or physical product? I'll be speaking from the US Government Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) today at 11 AM virtually: 🔗 Event Link: https://lnkd.in/g3VTnCvq What you'll learn: - Pros and cons of licensing vs. manufacturing - What companies need to see to license your product - What can and cannot be licensed - What you need to know to manufacture Thank you Larry Udell for organizing this wonderful event! #Engineering #Entrepreneurship #Innovation #USPTO #IntellectualProperty

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Last week the FT ran a controversial piece that discussed the decline of venture backed startups in China. Critics say the report was misleading or the underlying data was incomplete. I actually think the discussion sparked by the report misses a more important point: looking at historical data is irrelevant, if not outright misleading, when faced with a coming platform disruption. The more important question facing countries now is how best to position themselves to take advantage of the opportunity in the coming age of generative AI. New technologies bring in new founders, and those founders have different needs. I wrote a post examining how the technology innovation shift is an opportunity to re-rank the global tech leaderboard. https://lnkd.in/g4yzc_39

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Science-fiction is inherently speculative. Author George #Orwell of ‘#1984’ predicted concepts such as doublethink, little earbuds and society’s obsession with the black mirror screens that dominate our lives — and according to the BBC, novelist and short story author JG Ballard, of “High-Rise” and “Crash” fame, has predicted the current tool and cultural fixation of #GenerativeAI in the modern society — only he didn’t just speculate them within a story, he is actually one of the first use-cases of a generative AI used in a creative context — Ballard was so fascinated with the growing technological advancement of computers that he used one to compose poems, essentially the precursor to what we have now with ChatGPT. Today, the debate about the creative use of generative AI and its value on creative industries is an extremely fraught and controversial topic, but if controlled in a space that doesn’t replace human labor or try to equate itself to traditional art forms, it is interesting to see what computers can do and how they are creatively limited in comparison. Ballard’s two poems, The Yellow Back Novels and Machine Gun City are generated, and both include notes on how Ballard achieved producing them. Regardless of quality (Ballard himself probably wouldn’t describe these two poems as his best work), it is interesting to see primitive versions of the technology that we utilize on the daily today, and how these moral conversations that concern them would continuously evolve.

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New post: The big stack game of LLM poker https://lnkd.in/d5mfqgwk I’m sure you read David Cahn’s excellent and provocative piece "AI's $600B Question", in which he argues that, given NVDIA’s projected Q4 2024 revenue run rate of $150B, the amount of AI revenue required to payback the enormous investment being made into NVDIA each year plus the electricity to power GPUs to train and run large language models is now $600B, and we are at least $500B in the hole on that payback. The numbers are certainly staggering… and are just going to get bigger. Unless the scaling hypothesis falters, this is a contest now of “not blinking first”. If you’re a big stack player like META, MSFT, GOOG, or any of the foundation model pure plays, you have no choice but to go all in — the prize and power of “winning” is too great. If you blink, you are left empty handed, watching someone else count your chips. It’s likely hundreds of billions will be destroyed, and trillions earned. For all of us in the startup ecosystem, among many things, it’s going to create a rolling thunder of AI opportunities. Read more here: https://lnkd.in/d5mfqgwk

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Interesting concept to rename rounds by milestones. But "Series Client Expansion Extension" just doesn't have the same ring to it 😋 . Maybe we can start incorporating it into a descriptor to add context, "Series Seed Extension: client expansion." #startups #venturecapital

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This is just incredible. Neal Ghosh's demonstration of how #VentureIQ takes deeply technical and complicated content across a range of industrial use cases and ages/stages through an AI-generated conversational podcast (a la #notebookLM) is really mind-blowing. Check out his post, below, and if you haven't seen VentureIQ, yet, let's get you set up to learn more. You can visit VentureIQ.ai or DM any of us over here to book a demo!

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