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🏠 a16z thinks this will be huge in 2023

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AuthorAuthor

Jason Levin & Stephen Flanders
December 16, 2022

Gm. If a16z doesn't predict it and it still happens, does it even count as happening?

FRESH POWDER

Looking at three funds that recently topped up their coffers.

TWITTER

@ElonJet Banned

@ElonJet, an automated account by 20-year-old Jack Sweeney that posted real-time updates on Elon's jet, was banned from Twitter along with Sweeney's personal account.

It looks like the straw that broke the camel's back was a car carrying Elon's kid X in LA was followed by a stalker (who thought it was Elon). The stalker blocked the car and climbed onto the hood.

Musk posted a video of the stalker that included his face and license plate. The stalker knew where and when Elon's jet was landing due to the @ElonJet tracking; hence Musk is taking legal action against Sweeney and other organizations.

Twitter Guidelines Change

"Any account doxxing real-time location info of anyone will be suspended, as it is a physical safety violation. This includes posting links to sites with real-time location info," Musk tweeted. "Posting locations someone traveled to on a slightly delayed basis isn't a safety problem, so is ok."

What exactly "slightly delayed basis" means, no one is entirely sure of. Meme account @greg16676935420 replied that he was "at the gym right now". @growing_daniel aka Daniel Johnson replied that he was "at home looking at Twitter".

Because of the weird guidelines, this is still a developing story. No one is entirely sure what is allowed regarding location-adjacent posts anymore. Hopefully, the Twitter team clarifies this in the future.

— Jason Levin (@iamjasonlevin) from a plane heading to Costa Rica

TECH

a16z Predicts 2023

There are three types of people in this world:

1. Those who release year recaps.

2. Those who release next year predictions.

3. Those who do both.

Software-eating VC firm a16z is firmly in camp two, and as such, they released their “a16z Omnibus”, a collection of predictions and big ideas for 2023 from dozens of a16z’s partners.

The Big Ideas

Now, the actual report contains 40+ ideas and takes an estimated 39 minutes to read, and we ain’t got space for that. So, we’ll only be covering the highlights, but we definitely recommend you check out the whole thing on your own time.

The report gives predictions for 7 different fields:

Consumer Tech

  • Labor marketplaces become specialized

  • AI goes mainstream

  • Tech reveals new sources of inventory

Bio + Health

  • Bio software boom

  • A breakthrough in precision medicine delivery

  • Uber bullish on consumer health tech

FinTech

  • Bullish compliance tools

  • More digitally native lenders to pursue bank charters

  • Big payment infrastructure opportunity in Latin America

Games

  • Bullish web3 games

  • Bullish mobile gaming

  • Bullish generative AI

American Dynamism

  • Bullish space infrastructure

  • Nuclear energy renaissance

  • Industrial robots scale vertically

Enterprise

  • Industrial economy goes digital

  • AI advances to complex workflows, driving a 10-100x improvement in productivity

  • Rise of next-gen SaaS

Crypto

  • Bullish mobile crypto

  • Bullish zero knowledge technology

  • Bullish fully on-chain games and Autonomous Worlds

Again, check out the full report for the fully fleshed-out ideas. It’s well worth a read.

What does ChatGPT Think?

A16z is full of smart people, but are they smarter than an all-knowing robot?

I want to find out, so I asked chatGPT what it thinks is coming for tech in 2023. This is what it told me:

RemindMe! to check back here in a year.

— Stephen Flanders (@SteveFlanders22) from his bed in Philly

QUICK HITS

Seed Round

Stat: $100 million: The amount of “fraudelent profits” the SEC alleges that a group of 8 influencers swindled in a pump-and-dump. Those are rookie numbers for SBF.

Story we're watching: Paypal and MetaMask are teaming up so that users can buy crypto through their PayPal account. Onboarding has been a huge hurdle for crypto, so this could be big.

Rabbit hole: The Fifth Estate (Pirate Wires)

WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON

  • Elon sold another $3.5 billion of Tesla stock.

  • Text-to-image AI is so last month. With Riffusion, we now have text-to-music AI.

  • Trump’s big announcement was….NFTs.

  • Americans might soon be saying cya later to TikTok.

GUESSTIMATE

Sunday is the World Cup final between Argentina and France. It is also Messi’s final World Cup game. How many goals has Messi scored in his World Cup career?

FUNDRAISING FRIDAY

Check out Pirque's VC 101 Reading List. Insane alpha in this library.

LAYOFFS TRACKER

Notable Layoffs This Week:

Viant: 46 people (13%)

Komodo Health: 78 people (9%)

Thumbtack: 160 people (14%)

FOUNDERS CORNER

The best resources we came across this week that will help you become a better founder, builder, or investor.

🐦 I'm such a Twitter savage that I use an app called Tweet Hunter to schedule all my tweets and find inspiration for new ones. Highly recommend for founders.

💻 Jesse Li wrote a brilliant piece called Where Did Software Go Wrong? that was trending on Hacker News. Focused primarily on human-computer interaction.

🐦 Kinda funny. Someone made a database of all the dead apps and services that Twitter has shut down. RIP Vine, Revue, and Periscope.

GUESSTIMATE ANSWER

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