How do you imagine the government working together with civilians to create the next big thing? Will there be new financial mechanisms or regulations? Curious to hear your thoughts on this.
Hi Praneet, there's a long history of collaboration between government and entrepreneurs. Take the Internet, for example. Or companies like Amazon and Tesla that took government subsidies to survive and thrive. I think in particular on a challenge like the climate crisis, it can't just take entrepreneurship to solve it. Changes have to be made at a societal level. The electrification of everything will take the replacement of a lot of infrastructure and government incentives can enable that.
Thanks for replying Nikhil! I see what you mean with government involvement also being needed. Do you think this is possible in a continuous fashion with competing government interests? For example, assume there's a period of 4 years where the House and Senate (in the U.S.) align for a government that wants to tackle these issues. We can assume progress will be made in those 4 years. But what if the next government ushered after the 4 years has an agenda to undo/stop that progress?
I am optimistic in the long term we would have enough high output periods of time where we eventually solve some big issues. However, if that long term period takes too long there might be irreversible repercussions (especially when it comes to climate change).
Do you see a way where once progress is started with the help of the government, entrepreneurs could continue that progress without the government (if their interests change)? Or do you see any flaws in what I am saying?
All worthwhile things to think through, Praneet. Certain forms of progress can be undone. If we take climate, for example, targets on emissions reductions that the next administration places could be rolled back by a subsequent administration. But others, such as broad infrastructure projects, projects that create sustainable jobs, will be very hard to undo once started, because they will have consequences such as the loss of jobs that a future administration couldn't stomach. It would be interesting to comb through the Biden climate plan (https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/#) and think about what measures could be undoable if enacted.
I spent a lot of time tackling disinfo via video, specifically AI-generated audio/video (deepfakes). The way you framed your question as "decrease" misinfo versus "eliminate" is the right approach (i.e. it's impossible to completely get rid of).
Our view to increase trust and decrease disinfo is encapsulated in a new video platform https://Maven.video that better aligns incentives between stakeholders.
You'll still get extremism but will people really pay en masse? Will creators really go down deeper in extremism with fewer and fewer payers? Extremism thrives on attention and this flips the model. The end result here is an increase in higher-quality content.
He did. (And separately the NYT released a story yesterday about how droves on conservatives were leaving FB bc of perceived censorship to conservative-leaning apps.)
Will it be less extremism if you remove virality/attention and incentivize other benefits?
Whatif.vc is a good place to check out mental health early stage investments. A friend of joined as a partner and when it got started last year and they are doing really well. It was interesting to see Calm sponsoring the voting results.
I believe if people get more engaged politically (volunteer at the voting booth), they would be able to trust more. We don't trust what we don't understand. We don't trust people we don't know. I am choosing to engage in conversations mostly privately. I found that people tend to get a bit unlike themselves online behind the keyboard.
How do you imagine the government working together with civilians to create the next big thing? Will there be new financial mechanisms or regulations? Curious to hear your thoughts on this.
Hi Praneet, there's a long history of collaboration between government and entrepreneurs. Take the Internet, for example. Or companies like Amazon and Tesla that took government subsidies to survive and thrive. I think in particular on a challenge like the climate crisis, it can't just take entrepreneurship to solve it. Changes have to be made at a societal level. The electrification of everything will take the replacement of a lot of infrastructure and government incentives can enable that.
Thanks for replying Nikhil! I see what you mean with government involvement also being needed. Do you think this is possible in a continuous fashion with competing government interests? For example, assume there's a period of 4 years where the House and Senate (in the U.S.) align for a government that wants to tackle these issues. We can assume progress will be made in those 4 years. But what if the next government ushered after the 4 years has an agenda to undo/stop that progress?
I am optimistic in the long term we would have enough high output periods of time where we eventually solve some big issues. However, if that long term period takes too long there might be irreversible repercussions (especially when it comes to climate change).
Do you see a way where once progress is started with the help of the government, entrepreneurs could continue that progress without the government (if their interests change)? Or do you see any flaws in what I am saying?
All worthwhile things to think through, Praneet. Certain forms of progress can be undone. If we take climate, for example, targets on emissions reductions that the next administration places could be rolled back by a subsequent administration. But others, such as broad infrastructure projects, projects that create sustainable jobs, will be very hard to undo once started, because they will have consequences such as the loss of jobs that a future administration couldn't stomach. It would be interesting to comb through the Biden climate plan (https://joebiden.com/climate-plan/#) and think about what measures could be undoable if enacted.
I will definitely look through it and see what I can find. Thanks again Nikhil!!
Thoughtful post and good questions.
I spent a lot of time tackling disinfo via video, specifically AI-generated audio/video (deepfakes). The way you framed your question as "decrease" misinfo versus "eliminate" is the right approach (i.e. it's impossible to completely get rid of).
Our view to increase trust and decrease disinfo is encapsulated in a new video platform https://Maven.video that better aligns incentives between stakeholders.
You'll still get extremism but will people really pay en masse? Will creators really go down deeper in extremism with fewer and fewer payers? Extremism thrives on attention and this flips the model. The end result here is an increase in higher-quality content.
Thanks for the thoughts, Shamir.
I worry a bit that extremism can still foster with paid business models, not just ad-supported models.
Sam Lessin wrote a piece that touched on this yesterday in The Information - https://www.theinformation.com/articles/the-societal-problem-of-only-needing-1-000-true-fans-to-be-successful-online#comment-8952.
He did. (And separately the NYT released a story yesterday about how droves on conservatives were leaving FB bc of perceived censorship to conservative-leaning apps.)
Will it be less extremism if you remove virality/attention and incentivize other benefits?
Back to what you said: "decrease".
Whatif.vc is a good place to check out mental health early stage investments. A friend of joined as a partner and when it got started last year and they are doing really well. It was interesting to see Calm sponsoring the voting results.
I believe if people get more engaged politically (volunteer at the voting booth), they would be able to trust more. We don't trust what we don't understand. We don't trust people we don't know. I am choosing to engage in conversations mostly privately. I found that people tend to get a bit unlike themselves online behind the keyboard.
All such great points, Kelly.