Tech’s Other 99%

Show notes: Five counterintuitive strategies from my first trip to Romania: don't be born global (yet), don't pitch a small outcome, lead with the money machine, raise to bridge Silicon Valley and local capital, and invest in connectivity. Read the full essay, with all the links: [essay URL when live]. Narrated with my AI voice. New essays weekly at 99tech.alexlazarow.com.

Five models we have backed in health, one we are graduating, and one we are hunting: AI primary care (Prosper, Jutro), the preventative and D2C convergence (&you), the decentralized hospital (Isa Saúde), the AI back office (Prax Health, Flychain), insurance (Alan, Sidecar Health), and the aging stack we are looking for founders in.

Read the full essay, with all the links: https://99tech.alexlazarow.com/p/what-we-are-backing-in-health

Narrated with my AI voice. New essays weekly at 99tech.alexlazarow.com.

Peter Thiel said competition is for losers. Here’s where the escape hatch is: the two structural advantages of building fintech outside the SF-NY axis that the AI rebuild moment amplifies, the hundred-versus-three math, and why compound startups are the natural shape of the opportunity outside the US.

Read the full essay, with links and sources here.

This piece first ran in my Forbes column. Narrated with my AI voice.

[99%tech] · Tech’s other 99%. From Silicon Valley to the other 99% of the world. And back.

Three lessons from my 2023 conversation with Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates: what the changing role of reserve currencies means for fintech, why diversification maps to the horizontal and vertical stacks of emerging market startups, and how radical transparency translates to building startups and venture firms. From the [99%tech] archive, September 2023.

Read the original essay: https://99tech.alexlazarow.com/p/3-lessons-ray-dalio-founder-of-the

Narrated with my AI voice.

[99%tech] · Tech’s other 99%. From Silicon Valley to the other 99% of the world. And back.

Two weeks across South Summit in Madrid and SuperReturn in Berlin, one sharpened conclusion: talent, adoption, and cheap compute have all gone global, and capital is the last input behaving as if geography were destiny. On Europe’s $5.6 trillion startup ecosystem, the liquidity drought and the secondaries plumbing built around it, the trophy-name exit window, and why the AI roll-up wave may work better outside the US.

Read the full essay, with links and sources: https://99tech.alexlazarow.com/p/tech-is-globalizing-the-money-is

Narrated with my AI voice.

In 2013, four cities had ever created a unicorn. Today, more than 300 have, across more than 50 countries.

[99%tech] covers that world: how it builds, what it teaches, and what flows back to Silicon Valley. I’m Alex Lazarow, a global venture capitalist, entrepreneur, and author of Out-Innovate.

Every week, one essay. Read it, watch it, or listen to it here in my voice.

Full essays, with links and sources: