Despite all of the speculation about how startups can now be located anywhere, Silicon Valley, New York City, and Boston received 66% of all VC 💰in the US in Q3, 2021. The exact same percentage as in 2017.

Austin & Miami each had less than 2% of VC 💰 (Philly beats them both!)
Also, just to show how geographically skewed VC funding remains: Boston startups alone raised about as much money in Q3, 2021 as EVERY venture-funded startup in France and Germany put together in the same period!

I love Boston, but France and Germany have even more smaht people.
This is not to suggest that places like Miami and Austin couldn't eventually rival established tech hubs (the world would be better with more thriving hubs) but the forces that keep Silicon Valley (& Boston & NYC) on top are powerful. Here are 7 of them 👇
Since people asked about leading indicators, in Q3, 57% of Silicon Valley deals were early stage, 55% of NYC deals… 56% of Austin deals & 49% of Miami deals. (And 60% of Philly Deals). Not seeing a huge difference there, either. All data from @CBinsights

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More from @emollick

18 Nov
Knowing true information can sometimes cause harm (think of the annoyance of seeing spoilers as a tiny example). This paper on information hazards is a preview to many of the issues we face today.

So, a 🧵 on some surprising hazards of knowledge... 1/ nickbostrom.com/information-ha…
Ideological hazards: Most people have only a little knowledge about what their ideological belief (whether religious or political) really encompasses. On the web, you can learn that your chosen belief system also includes hazardous elements that you feel you need to adopt. 2/
Evocation hazards: there may be particular information that, when people encounter it, triggers them. This is not just in the common sense of triggering past trauma, but that some conspiracy theories or memes might be unusually tempting to people in particular mental states. 3/
Read 8 tweets
8 Nov
Who needs NFTs in video games? In-game items are already doing everything they are supposed to do. In 2017, between $3-$5 billion a year was spent buying and trading decorative weapons (& opportunities to gamble on them) in the game Counterstrike. Almost all was money laundering.
Having built games & worked with the game industry a lot, I am confused about what NFT & blockchain-based ownership adds from a game developer’s perspective. The main issue is making games that people want to play for a long time; monetizing those games is a pretty solved problem
Also, item portability seems like a bad thing from a game dev perspective. I want to sell you new digital items, I don’t want you to import stuff you earned elsewhere. Again, games have experimented with this, you don’t need the blockchain, it is a business & not technical issue.
Read 6 tweets
21 Oct
Some people just don’t like being told what to do & if they feel restricted by rules, they do the opposite. Example: If you make people high in reactance sign an agreement not to cheat, they actually cheat more. This pre-COVID paper shows reactance also drives anti-vax behavior.
Incidentally, this summary of reactance research had the best possible title.
Read 4 tweets
19 Oct
Bad news: Leaded fuel reduced the IQ of everyone born before 1990 by ~4.25%. Millennials are the first to be born with unleaded gas.

Worse news: a new paper shows environmental lead levels from leaded gasoline are still around in cities today, and cause continued neurotoxicity.
Incidentally, everyone should know the story of Thomas Midgley, who oversaw the invention & spread of both leaded gas AND chlorofluorocarbons. He had, as J. R. McNeill wrote “more impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in earth’s history.” interestingengineering.com/thomas-midgley…
Well, I just learned from the comments that we inexplicably still allow leaded gas for small airplanes.

And the damages to kids from lead exposure among these most-travelled routes is in the billions of dollars a year, as outlined in this paper.
Read 5 tweets
14 Oct
Key set of findings about universities using 1.7M syllabi:
👨‍🔬Classes that teach more recent academic findings are linked with higher graduation rate & income
🧑‍🏫Researchers teach more recent findings
🎓Elite schools teach more recent stuff, students at less elite ones benefit more ImageImage
(For those reading the charts, a higher gap means that material being taught is less recent & cutting edge, so lower gaps are better)
Read 5 tweets
7 Oct
My semi-regular reminder: being good at work means being good at meetings.

We spend 15% of work in meetings and managers spend 50%. Plus, post-COVID meetings are up 14%. So, spend a few minutes reviewing this research on the science of good meetings (1/): researchgate.net/publication/32…
To pull out some findings. Things to do before the meeting:
✅only meet if needed
👯‍♀️make sure to only invite people who need to be there.
🎯set clear goals & outcomes
📄have an agenda that all review in advance
⏰make it short & relevant to all invited 2/
During the meeting...
⏱arrive on time
📋follow the agenda
🙋‍♀️🙋‍♂️everyone participates
💻📱never multitask
⚔️intervene if mood turns negative
🤪humor helps performance
🙅‍♀️leave time for objections
🗳Let everyone help decision-making. If a decision is made, tell everyone 3/
Read 6 tweets

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