Decision Making… The Power Law: Energizing Returns on Chance in Innovation and Investing 7 Jan 2026 The Power Law reminds us to think bigger. People systematically misperceive long tail risk, which creates arbitrage opportunities for those who manage uncertainty well. We discuss five strategies to identify…
Investing… Impact Investing: Socially Responsible Investing Reimagined 4 Jan 2026 IImpact Investing is a hot market. Long the domain of development finance institutions, impact investing has moved mainstream, with the likes of Bain Capital, Calvert, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Merrill…
Financial… Chess, Computers and the Time Value of Money 19 Oct 2025 Venture fund partners are rewarded for Return on Investment. Limited partners in venture funds focus on Internal Rate of Return. Interests are generally but not always aligned. Differences emerge when…
Investing… Seeking Alpha: Second Level Thinking in Venture Capital 9 Sep 2025 Contrarian thinking is required for investors to outperform the public markets. Innovation also relies on contrarian thinking. Yet the Gartner Hype Cycle shows that mimicry is prevalent in venture capital.…
Investing… Seeking Alpha: Thesis Driven v. Thematic Investing 28 Jul 2025 As noted last week, Investment Filters establish boundary conditions for investment. Investment Filters conserve energy both for investors and entrepreneurs by quickly eliminating over 90% of investment opportunities. But Investment…
Business Area… Seeking Alpha: How Investors Derive Signal from Noise 16 Jan 202519 Jan 2025 In recent months, the investment community observed the passing of Charlie Munger and Daniel Kahneman. Munger and Kahneman came from different disciplines but shared the same objective: improving judgment in…
Business Area… Superforecasting: Ten Investment Practices to Improve Performance 16 Jan 202523 Jan 2025 Investing requires good judgment, which is blurred by bounded rationality in an uncertain world. Early-stage venture investing is further complicated by scant information in highly competitive, rapidly changing markets. Even…
Business Area… The Checklist Manifesto: Three Practices to Improve Venture Capital Performance 16 Jan 202519 Jan 2025 Summit day on Mount McKinley! Tent bound at 18,000 feet for two days in blizzard conditions, we were eager for our summit bid on the highest mountain in North America.…
Business Area… Investing in Generative Artificial Intelligence & the Gartner Hype Cycle: Is the Hype Worth It? 15 Jan 202519 Jan 2025 “We simply attempt to be fearful when others are greedy and to be greedy only when others are fearful.” Warren Buffett, 1998 Berkshire Hathaway annual report Is now a good…
Business Area… Seeing Clearly: Three Startup Strategies to Survive & Thrive the Gartner Hype Cycle 15 Jan 202523 Jan 2025 Apple Vision Pro, released in February, presents a bold vision for augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR). AR/VR has promised for decades to supercharge gaming, enhance education, inform work, and enliven…
Business Area… Three Cardinal Sins of Investing: How Artificial Intelligence Can Help Identify Founder Fit 15 Jan 202519 Jan 2025 What do Amazon, Alibaba, AirBnB, Bentley Systems, Cisco, DataDog, PagerDuty, Peloton, Pinterest, Robinhood, SquareSpace, Uber, Udemy and UIPath have in common? In Secrets of Sand Hill Road, Scott Kupor described…
Startup Cairns 