Where’re software (mostly) & deep tech VC headed [2]?

Just some additional thoughts in addition to a recent post:

• The cost of developing an MVP/PoC is declining rapidly (vibe coding much?); besides the hype and despite some IMO poisonous practices (how does ‘Start over, often’, ‘Don’t think about architecture’ sound?) advised, it’s changing the landscape with baby steps

  • in addition to the last link author’s thoughts, I’d add that some visual-code primitive frameworks are likely to emerge → i.e. an adaptive page/app that is generated in markdown-like blocks that are rendered on-the-fly. The bottleneck here is essentially tokens/s output, and that paradigm would supplant it.

  • Yeah, definitely testing and security/hacks. It could be a vibey TDD, e.g., a ‘define outcome → get tests → code is built around them’.

• By Jevon’s paradox (and as majority will adopt the ‘Start, prompt, re-do’ approach), we’d need:

  • more energy to support this (e.g. the bid on nuclear; but let’s not count hydrogen/alt energy out!), along with

  • more efficient means of computation (mentioned different emerging paradigms in a recent post)

  • efficient algorithms and architectures, and some safe haven of good code

  • efficient infrastructure (data transfer, storage, etc.), so - the usual ‘boring’ areas: apart from something that works, it has to be computed, stored, produced

• VCs are definitely going to reflect that - one most likely wouldn’t need 200K-1M to build a PoC soon. So,

  • 

    less funded software products/micro-products (i.e. one doesn’t need inflated valuations)

  • more deep tech/complex products → bigger average rounds

  • cycles getting shorter for even traditionally ‘slow’ fields like healthcare and material science (pushing *a-lot more iterations in the same time + faster testing/simulation/adoption processes)

  • outreach and events/networking becoming more important than funding for software

  • VCs specialising in e.g. scouting, GTM and scaling, network effects and collabs, advocacy/outreach/media + founders looking for a ‘portfolio’ of funds

  • smaller teams overall?

• Deep tech needs expertise + as I’ve mentioned before → more VC funds point to dwindling returns and the need to spot projects/teams early on.

  • So, even more hackathons/events to nurture and push the little starlets?

  • Prediction/consensus/fact-checking markets?

Bottom line

It’s all going to become more and more interesting, faster.

Palchinskii’s principles

(Even adopted at the US military! Wooo)

I can recount Marcus Guest giving a lecture at my university a long time ago, which was telling ‘the experiments should be safe to fail, and one should cross the river by feeling the stones’. So, Palchinski’s principles lay the foundation with iterative experimentation, maximizing risk:reward ratio, kaizen-style improvement. It also

Experiment with a variety of ideas

to increase the chances of success.

Accept that some failure is inevitable,

so keep projects small enough that failure is survivable.

Develop effective feedback loops

between decision-makers and those closest to the action to quickly identify and select what works in the local context.

Fun news

Minority report is scary? How about 17 months in jail over an AI mistake…

So, Chris Gatlin didn’t have a lucky day, or week, for sure; he was misidentified by a facial recognition algorithm and was in jail for 17 months before the court realized there was no hard evidence.

A slightly better news - someone’s won 81T in a bank error lottery 🤗

Instead of $280, a client was ‘sent’ $81T, which is 500+ times more than Citibank’s market cap ❣️

The fun thing is that the error was caught by a third employee checking, 90 minutes after the initial error. Raises some questions about the financial system and the banks’ risk management practices <3

All I can remember is PayPal erroneously sending a client $92 quadrillion in 2013…