That Was The Week

A very public fight between two Venture Capital titans over how a company should go to the public markets. Andreessen tells Gurley to SPAC Off!

We live in strange times. Apple's stock valued the company at over $2 Trillion this week. A reason to celebrate you might think. A company created, famously, in a garage by 2 young men, has grown to be a world leader. But in today's world it appears that big is bad.

Elizabeth Yin is a founder at Hustle VC. 2 years ago she and her partners closed the first fund for the firm. This week she pointed to the story of how they did it. Anybody raising funds - whether for a startup or to become an investor should read it.

Do we care where a consumer internet company was founded?

Let's start with the fact that I am British. Bear with me, it's relevant. I can still remember my middle school geography when the teacher told the class that the pink parts of the world map were "ours". There was a lot of pink. it was 1966 and I was 12.

The £ was no longer the currency of world trade and the empire had been in decline since about 1870 (its peak). The $ was triumphant ,and the US was the center of the world, but the map was still pink in lots of places. It took another 30 years for that to change.

So I am not suggesting that China (playing the role of the rising economy) is going to eclipse the USA (playing the role of Britain) any time soon. That said, the end game is already written. China will be an enormous global economy, just from its domestic buying power, and the US will not be able to retain the singular position it has had since before World War Two. Li Autos (one of several Chinese Tesla competitors) just completed a US IPO on the NASDAQ, raising $1.1 billion. I bought the stock for a long term hold, along with its competitor NIO.

Companies now internationalise very fast. FaceBook, LinkedIn, Google, Amazon and Netflix all benefit from that. There is no reason to believe that companies originating outside the USA will not benefit from the same tailwinds.

So, Tik Tok. Clearly it is a very successful company founded in China. And it spent a lot of money getting into its current position. Mainly cash from investors spent on Facebook ads. It now has a strong position and our President wants to ban it, or have Microsoft, or somebody else, buy it.

This is unlikely to be the last time a strong overseas company becomes strong in the US market. And asset seizures, bans or otherwise seem to be a bad precedent for a nation with many global companies to set. This week's discussion and newsletter focuses on China,Tik Tok and the future of global innovation.

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The big reads of the week focus on the positive elements of the current 'cancel culture' situation that point to a new enlightenment. Open discussion, free debate, tolerance for being offended combined with transformative innovation leading to widespread ability to deliver the needs of life, freely, to everybody.

This week, ‘That Was The Week’ leads with Ned Desmond leaving TechCrunch after eight years as the boss. On the surface perhaps not the biggest story, but Ned has been the hidden hand of logic and execution at TechCrunch for the past 8 years, in the same way Heather Harde was in the period before. Having been acquired by AOL, then Verizon, the odds on Techcrunch surviving, never mind prospering, seemed low back in 2012 following the sacking of Mike Arrington by Arianna Huffington. But under Ned’s stewardship it has retained and grown its brand, expanded itself globally, grown readers to 20 million a month whilst scaling revenue. The foundation built by Mike Arrington clearly created a surviving brand and impact. Ned cultivated, protected and grew it. He will be missed.

The big reads of this week include a lot on the controversy around how to make money. Filthy lucre has never been a Silicon valley obsession – at least not explicitly. but now Bill Gurley of Benchmark fame has been leading the charge accusing bankers of stealing money from companies by underpricing IPOs. The response is to suggest direct listings, not using Bankers. Or SPACs (Special Purpose Acquisition Companies). Lots to read and digest as the future is architected through these conversations.